‘Outrageous’: Cuban-Americans Voice Anger After Daughter of Cuban President Is Granted a U.S. Visa
[caption id="attachment_316232" align="alignleft" width="254" caption="Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, holds a sign demanding President Barack Obama release five Cuban intelligence agents imprisoned in U.S., popularly known as the "Cuban Five." (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)"]
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Mariela Castro, 50, is a gay rights advocate. Coincidentally, she's also the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro. The first daughter raised some eyebrows today after news broke that she is being granted a U.S. visa to attend an academic conference in San Francisco, California.
The outspoken advocate is, of course, the niece of former president Fidel Castro -- a factor that is creating a bit of angst among Cuban-Americans who stand opposed to her family's rule.
Mariela received a visa from the U.S. State Department and will chair a panel on the politics of sexual diversity at a gathering in San Francisco next week organized by the Latin American Studies Association, an official at her institute told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter. The Web site of the New York Public Library says Castro is also scheduled to talk there on May 29.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying rules prohibit discussion of individual visa applications. A diplomat at the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba also had no comment.
Reaction among the Cuban-American community to the news has been strong. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, derided the government's choice to allow Mariela into the U.S. He characterized her as someone who opposes democracy and advocates for Cuba's repressive regime.
Menendez isn't alone. Other prominent Cuban-Americans agree with his stance. In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and David Rivera (all from Florida) and Albio Sires (New Jersey) called the decision "appalling."
"The administration’s appalling decision to allow regime agents into the U.S. directly contradicts Congressional intent and longstanding U.S. foreign policy," they wrote. "While the Cuban people struggle for freedom against increasing brutality at the hands of Castro’s thugs, the Obama administration is greeting high-level agents of that murderous dictatorship with open arms."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio ethoed this sentiment in a video released earlier today, calling it "shameful" that the Obama administration would grant Mariela a visa.
"I think the U.S. government’s decision to grant the daughter of Raul Castro a visa to come to the United States and spread the propaganda of her father’s regime is outrageous and an enormous mistake," Rubio said. "Not only that, it sends a terrible message to the democratic movement in Cuba, to those brave people in Cuba who every single day resist and speak out against the tyranny of the Castro brothers."
Watch his commentary, below:
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An aide to Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, said the proposal to draw the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the presidential campaign -- and the issue of race, by extension -- went too far.
(
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The blueprint, titled "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending For Good," was devised by a group of Republican strategists, one of whom confirmed its contents for The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private working sessions.
The document also suggested hiring a spokesperson who is an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who would be able to argue that Obama presented himself as a "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln," 
Brian Baker, president of the super PAC, said Ricketts was not the author of the 54-page plan (see it 
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Romney had urged the independent group, which favors his candidacy, to abandon the Wright strategy and to focus instead on his bedrock issue, the economy.
"I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they've described," Romney told the conservative website Townhall.com. "I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity - particularly for those in the middle class of America."
Listen to Romney's statement, below:
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina criticized the plan as a "campaign of character assassination" and accused Romney "reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party."
Messina noted that Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama's opponent in the 2008 presidential race, had rejected using Wright and Wright's sermons against Obama.
Messina commented before Romney's interview with Townhall.com, and issued no comment after Romney urged Ricketts' group to abandon the effort.
McCain made clear four years ago that he wanted to challenge Obama on his record, not on the words or deeds of those around him, and forbade adviser Fred Davis from incorporating Wright into their advertising plans.
[caption id="attachment_316253" align="aligncenter" width="618" caption="A screen shot from the "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" plan"]
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But Davis, a colorful Hollywood consultant, clearly wanted another chance to go use the strategy against Obama.
Davis' firm said in a statement Thursday that the document -- which called for "hitting Barack right between the eyes" -- was only a proposal and did not win Ricketts' approval.
Wright became a problem for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign when videos of the pastor's sermons surfaced. In a 2003 sermon, Wright said black people should condemn the United States.
[caption id="attachment_316252" align="aligncenter" width="618" caption="A screen shot from the "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" plan"]
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"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing `God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," Wright said at the time. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
Wright, who preached at the Chicago church Obama once attended, became such a distraction for Obama that he ended up delivering a major speech on race relations to try to quell the controversy. He also severed his ties to Wright.
For his part, Arizona Sen. McCain said he had no regrets over his handling of the Wright issue.
"I remain proud of our campaign and proud of what we were able to accomplish, and I would do it over again," McCain told reporters Thursday at the Capitol. He said the matter seemed dead after Romney repudiated the proposal.
[caption id="attachment_316254" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="A screen shot from the "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" plan"]
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He shrugged when asked whether independent groups should take up matters such as Wright's remarks.
"It's a way for political operatives to continue to make money," McCain said.
Another top Republican, House Speaker John Boehner, of Ohio, declined to be drawn into the debate.
"This election is going to be about the economy," he said when reporters asked him to react to the proposed ad campaign. "I don't know what these other people do or why they do it."
Ricketts is the founder of Nebraska-based TD Ameritrade Securities and owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He has been active in conservative politics for years, most recently in Republican Deb Fischer's upset win this week in the Republican Senate primary in Nebraska. 
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Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.
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Jay Acton, who no longer represents Obama, told Breitbart News "almost nobody" wrote their own biography for the booklet, though said the non-athletes whom "the agents deal[t] with on a daily basis" were "probably" approached to approve the text.
Acton's former partner Jane Dystel still 
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Jimmy Kimmel's White House Correspondents' Dinner routine last month was 
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SAN FRANCISCO (The Blaze/AP) -- It's a difficult legal situation. A person has an infectious disease. Taking medication is not only beneficial to them, but it can help stop the spread of said disease. When it's found the patient is not taking these medications, the authorities arrest them and institute a measure that will ensure the patient is at a certain place where administration of the medication can be monitored.
This exact situation is what has happened with Armando Rodriguez who has tuberculosis, but some public health officials think the authorities went too far.
Rodriguez was warned several times to continue taking his tuberculosis medicine. At one point, authorities said, he told his case officer he stopped the treatment out of concern for his liver while binging on alcohol and methamphetamine.
On Tuesday, authorities arresting Rodriguez and charged him with refusing to comply with a tuberculosis order to be at home at certain times and make appointments to take his medication.
It's a move that divides public health officials.
"I think it's an error to confine someone in the criminal justice system for a public health crime," said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who drafted a model law adopted by several states struggling with the issue. "The whole intention is to protect the public's health. It's not to lay blame on someone."
Health officials say Rodriguez, 34, of Stockton has active pulmonary tuberculosis, which can include coughing up blood or phlegm and can spread through the air.
Rodriguez has been noncompliant with his treatment and could become contagious as a result, Ginger Wick, nursing director for San Joaquin County, said in a letter requesting a warrant for Rodriguez's arrest.
After failing one time to give himself the drugs, Rodriguez told a nurse he had gone on an alcohol binge and taken methamphetamine and didn't want to hurt his liver, Wick said in her letter.
Rodriguez was arrested Tuesday and is expected to be arraigned Thursday on two misdemeanor counts. Each charge against Rodriguez carries a maximum penalty of a year behind bars.
He will likely be appointed a public defender.
[caption id="attachment_316117" align="alignleft" width="216" caption="Scanning electron micrograph of the tuberculosis bacterium. (Image; Wikimedia)"]
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Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that usually attacks the lungs. Many people have a latent form, and the active form usually only affects adults whose immune systems are compromised, which can happen from drug use.
Public health experts are divided on the issue of mandatory treatment and criminal charges for patients who don't comply with treatment orders.
Many of those who do support criminal prosecution in the rarest of cases when public health is in jeopardy oppose the jailing of patients.
Implementing mandatory treatment should be a last resort, and prosecuting someone for disobeying a public health order is unhelpful and sends the wrong message if protecting public health is the intent, Georgetown's Gostin said.
Instead, the afflicted should be given assistance such as transportation to and from treatments rather than punishment as an incentive to take their medicine, he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said laws to control the spread of tuberculosis have been in use for more than a century, though regulations differ in each state. Here's an excerpt from the CDC's 
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A New York medical examiner said Thursday Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s estranged wife died of asphyxiation due to hanging, the Associated Press reported.
Mary Richardson Kennedy was