[ Indian shaves hair and pretends to be black, all of a sudden he's wanted all over the place. ]
Fifteen years ago, Vijay Chokal-Ingam shaved off his straight black hair, trimmed what he calls his “long Indian eyelashes” and started checking off the “black” box for race on his med-school applications.
Before long, the Asian Indian-American was interviewing at Harvard and Columbia, and found himself on wait lists at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University and Mt. Sinai — despite his relatively mediocre 3.1 GPA and his family’s considerable wealth.
Fifteen years ago, Vijay Chokal-Ingam shaved off his straight black hair, trimmed what he calls his “long Indian eyelashes” and started checking off the “black” box for race on his med-school applications.
Before long, the Asian Indian-American was interviewing at Harvard and Columbia, and found himself on wait lists at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University and Mt. Sinai — despite his relatively mediocre 3.1 GPA and his family’s considerable wealth.
[ Indian shaves hair and pretends to be black, all of a sudden he's wanted all over the place. ]
Fifteen years ago, Vijay Chokal-Ingam shaved off his straight black hair, trimmed what he calls his “long Indian eyelashes” and started checking off the “black” box for race on his med-school applications.
Before long, the Asian Indian-American was interviewing at Harvard and Columbia, and found himself on wait lists at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University and Mt. Sinai — despite his relatively mediocre 3.1 GPA and his family’s considerable wealth.
How do you suppose the village idiot from Kenyan made it through school? Nobody remembers the fraud and all his records remain sealed.
[ While scumfuck Obama plays patty-cakes with the Iranians, they are funneling money to terrorists (Hamas), so Hamas can rebuild their tunnels into Israel ]
[h=1]Politics: While Obama and Kerry work on their nuclear 'deal,' Iran ramps up financial support of Hamas[/h]
[h=3]Published by: Robert Laurie on Monday April 6th, 2015[/h]
State sponsor of terrorism.
While President Obama and his surrogates were busy working on their "historic" deal with Iran, the totally peaceful terrorist nation in question was busy with plans of its own. Iran, as you're no doubt aware, has no interest in a nuclear weapon because having one would be "against their religion." Because of this, you should have no concerns about the United States lifting sanctions in exchange for...um...helping them get that bomb they don't want.
Unfortunately, there are a few things that aren't against their religion. Chief among these is "working to destroy Israel by funding terrorist organizations."
As the Telegraph reported this weekend, at the same time America's "leaders" were helping Iran achieve their nuclear dreams, Iran was busy helping Hamas rebuild their tunnels into Israel.
Fortunately, President Obama has promised that - despite all evidence to the contrary - our deal with the Iranians doesn't "place them on the path to a nuclear weapon." If it did, they might be tempted to smuggle one into Israel via those tunnels they're funding.
It's great to know that we can count on their pious nature to ensure that such a terrible scenario never comes to pass.
[h=1]Politics: While Obama and Kerry work on their nuclear 'deal,' Iran ramps up financial support of Hamas[/h]
[h=3]Published by: Robert Laurie on Monday April 6th, 2015[/h]
State sponsor of terrorism.
While President Obama and his surrogates were busy working on their "historic" deal with Iran, the totally peaceful terrorist nation in question was busy with plans of its own. Iran, as you're no doubt aware, has no interest in a nuclear weapon because having one would be "against their religion." Because of this, you should have no concerns about the United States lifting sanctions in exchange for...um...helping them get that bomb they don't want.
Unfortunately, there are a few things that aren't against their religion. Chief among these is "working to destroy Israel by funding terrorist organizations."
As the Telegraph reported this weekend, at the same time America's "leaders" were helping Iran achieve their nuclear dreams, Iran was busy helping Hamas rebuild their tunnels into Israel.
Iran has sent Hamas’s military wing tens of millions of dollars to help it rebuild the network of tunnels in Gaza destroyed by Israel’s invasion last summer, intelligence sources have told The Sunday Telegraph.
It is also funding new missile supplies to replenish stocks used to bombard residential neighbourhoods in Israel during the war, code-named Operation Protective Edge by Israel.
The renewed funding is a sign that the two old allies are putting behind them a rift caused by the conflict in Syria, where Shia Iran is backing President Bashar al-Assad against Hamas’s mainly Sunni allies.
Iran has sponsored Hamas’s military operations for years, despite the contradiction that Hamas is part of the worldwide, Sunni-supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, while Iran is Shia.
Isn't that nice of Iran? Despite the grueling sanctions under which their nation toils, their supreme leaders have still found a way to supply and rebuild Israel's enemies to the tune of tens of millions of dollars!It is also funding new missile supplies to replenish stocks used to bombard residential neighbourhoods in Israel during the war, code-named Operation Protective Edge by Israel.
The renewed funding is a sign that the two old allies are putting behind them a rift caused by the conflict in Syria, where Shia Iran is backing President Bashar al-Assad against Hamas’s mainly Sunni allies.
Iran has sponsored Hamas’s military operations for years, despite the contradiction that Hamas is part of the worldwide, Sunni-supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, while Iran is Shia.
Fortunately, President Obama has promised that - despite all evidence to the contrary - our deal with the Iranians doesn't "place them on the path to a nuclear weapon." If it did, they might be tempted to smuggle one into Israel via those tunnels they're funding.
It's great to know that we can count on their pious nature to ensure that such a terrible scenario never comes to pass.
[h=1]Mindy Kaling’s Brother Claims He Posed as a Black Man to Get Into Medical School[/h]The older brother of The Mindy Project star has also apparently started a campaign called “Almost Black” that is anti-affirmative action. He also sang Jeb Bush’s praises.
“I got into medical school because I said I was black. The funny thing is I’m not.”
That’s the sentence that greets you at AlmostBlack.com, a website listed on the Twitter page of Vijay Chokalingam. Chokalingam is the older brother of sitcom star Mindy Kaling (birth name: Vera Mindy Chokalingam), and he’s made waves this week after claiming that, in 1998, he got into medical school by posing as a black man. Pitching a book about his experiences over the last month, Chokalingam has shared his bizarre tale: he changed his appearance and even joined black student organizations in an effort to get accepted into medical school and is now intent on beating the drum for doing away with affirmative action on the grounds that it is discriminatory.
“I was determined to become a doctor and I knew that admission standards for certain minorities under affirmative action were, let’s say… less stringent?” he writes. “So, I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man. My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first. I even joined the Organization of Black Students and started using my embarrassing middle name that I had hidden from all of my friends since I was a 9 years old.”
“Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American affirmative action applicant to medical school.”
As for his med school performance, he reportedly washed out within two years.
But Chokalingam, in his effort to “expose” truths through his twisted approach, inadvertently came into contact with a little bit of what it means to be black in a world that sees black people as different, threatening, or something to be fetishized. “Not everything worked out as planned,” he wrote on his website. “Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or couldn’t keep their hands off me. What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into a twisted social experiment.”
Chokalingam’s admitted experience as “a black man” revealed the inherent cultural bigotries that feed systematic racism, but he chooses to sidestep, downplay, or flat-out ignore how the same racism that led to him being harassed by cops and store clerks keeps black applicants on the fringes of elite educational institutions for generations. It’s easier for him to tap dance for the right wing as the brown man who “gets it,” while conveniently missing how ongoing racism makes affirmative action absolutely necessary.
“I became a serious contender at some of the greatest medical schools in America, including Harvard, Wash U, UPenn, Case Western, and Columbia. In all, I interviewed at eleven prestigious medical schools in 9 major cities across America, while posing a black man,” he writes. But he doesn’t specify whether or not he’d applied to all of the same schools before undergoing his little identity switch and gotten rejections. Chokalingam seems to have assumed that he would’ve gotten nowhere as an Indian American applicant and dived head first into this poorly-conceived “experiment” before determining otherwise.
In the affirmative action debate, if one believes that affirmative action opens the floodgates for less qualified individuals to be accepted into schools they wouldn’t be accepted into otherwise, that person must ask themselves why they believe that only lesser-qualified minorities benefit? Is it because that individual believes that minorities—specifically, black people—are generally less qualified than whites? One shouldn’t operate under the assumption that all whites who are accepted into prestigious education programs are the absolute cream of the crop, and one also shouldn’t think that the only reason non-whites get accepted is because they aren’t white. These students have to meet qualifications and standards, and it stands to reason that Chokalingam would’ve gotten a similar response from most of those schools had he not committed fraud to prove a racist point.
For generations, the struggles of black people in America have been dismissed or diminished by some individuals in various immigrant communities, as uncomfortable as that can be for people of color to admit. Chokalingam’s parents immigrated to America in the 1970s, and there can be a “If we made it, why can’t you?” attitude as it pertains to black people’s hardships in this country when compared to Asians and Africans who come to America and seem to achieve at a high level more consistently. It’s not unusual to downplay the institutional obstacles blacks face by comparing their struggles to the individual exceptionalism of first- or second-generation American immigrants. Those who think this way rarely compare the struggles of black people in America to the persecution that many brown people face in their homelands that have fallen into the grips of structural oppression born of economic exploitation and ongoing colonialism. From his approach, it’s obvious that Chokalingam believes that black people are uniquely entitled. He tweeted a link to an anti-affirmative action essay from Russell K. Neili, proclaiming: “Great discussion of Affirmative Action why aa racism survives: simple explanation—blacks are as racist as whites.”
Vijay Chokalingam’s “experiment”—whether real or an elaborate troll—is insulting to what black people endure in this country, both institutionally and culturally. And as a person of color, it’s irresponsible for him to be so invested in the idea of individual exceptionalism that he ignores structural inadequacies. Black people can’t be as “racist” as whites societally, Mr. Chokalingam. You didn’t spend your time applying to black colleges in the hopes of finding work as a doctor in black-owned and -operated hospitals. And a major reason why you were in a position to be considered for entry into any white institution is because black people generations before you made that possible through sacrifice and hard work. The attempt to undermine their work for the sake of promoting false “equality” is truly regrettable. But when you conduct social “experiments” that cite C. Thomas Howell’s Soul Man as an inspiration, it’s obvious that you don’t take these issues all that seriously. This entire enterprise was a joke.
Leave the comedy to your sister Mindy. At least she’s intentionally funny.
“I got into medical school because I said I was black. The funny thing is I’m not.”
That’s the sentence that greets you at AlmostBlack.com, a website listed on the Twitter page of Vijay Chokalingam. Chokalingam is the older brother of sitcom star Mindy Kaling (birth name: Vera Mindy Chokalingam), and he’s made waves this week after claiming that, in 1998, he got into medical school by posing as a black man. Pitching a book about his experiences over the last month, Chokalingam has shared his bizarre tale: he changed his appearance and even joined black student organizations in an effort to get accepted into medical school and is now intent on beating the drum for doing away with affirmative action on the grounds that it is discriminatory.
“I was determined to become a doctor and I knew that admission standards for certain minorities under affirmative action were, let’s say… less stringent?” he writes. “So, I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man. My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first. I even joined the Organization of Black Students and started using my embarrassing middle name that I had hidden from all of my friends since I was a 9 years old.”
“Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American affirmative action applicant to medical school.”
It stands to reason that Chokalingam would’ve gotten a similar response from most of those schools had he not committed fraud to prove a racist point.
He was eventually accepted to a school—the St. Louis University School of Medicine, not exactly a stellar, renowned institution—and used that acceptance as fodder for his claims that he only got accepted because he was black and this is what’s “wrong” with affirmative action. On his site, he claims that he “became a serious contender” for schools like Case Western and Columbia, but after posting screenshots on his Facebook page, it appears that Chokalingam was only invited to apply. His screenshots are only of empty invitation letters—the kind they send to students after standardized tests or college fairs—and his one acceptance letter to the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
As for his med school performance, he reportedly washed out within two years.
But Chokalingam, in his effort to “expose” truths through his twisted approach, inadvertently came into contact with a little bit of what it means to be black in a world that sees black people as different, threatening, or something to be fetishized. “Not everything worked out as planned,” he wrote on his website. “Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or couldn’t keep their hands off me. What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into a twisted social experiment.”
Chokalingam’s admitted experience as “a black man” revealed the inherent cultural bigotries that feed systematic racism, but he chooses to sidestep, downplay, or flat-out ignore how the same racism that led to him being harassed by cops and store clerks keeps black applicants on the fringes of elite educational institutions for generations. It’s easier for him to tap dance for the right wing as the brown man who “gets it,” while conveniently missing how ongoing racism makes affirmative action absolutely necessary.
“I became a serious contender at some of the greatest medical schools in America, including Harvard, Wash U, UPenn, Case Western, and Columbia. In all, I interviewed at eleven prestigious medical schools in 9 major cities across America, while posing a black man,” he writes. But he doesn’t specify whether or not he’d applied to all of the same schools before undergoing his little identity switch and gotten rejections. Chokalingam seems to have assumed that he would’ve gotten nowhere as an Indian American applicant and dived head first into this poorly-conceived “experiment” before determining otherwise.
In the affirmative action debate, if one believes that affirmative action opens the floodgates for less qualified individuals to be accepted into schools they wouldn’t be accepted into otherwise, that person must ask themselves why they believe that only lesser-qualified minorities benefit? Is it because that individual believes that minorities—specifically, black people—are generally less qualified than whites? One shouldn’t operate under the assumption that all whites who are accepted into prestigious education programs are the absolute cream of the crop, and one also shouldn’t think that the only reason non-whites get accepted is because they aren’t white. These students have to meet qualifications and standards, and it stands to reason that Chokalingam would’ve gotten a similar response from most of those schools had he not committed fraud to prove a racist point.
For generations, the struggles of black people in America have been dismissed or diminished by some individuals in various immigrant communities, as uncomfortable as that can be for people of color to admit. Chokalingam’s parents immigrated to America in the 1970s, and there can be a “If we made it, why can’t you?” attitude as it pertains to black people’s hardships in this country when compared to Asians and Africans who come to America and seem to achieve at a high level more consistently. It’s not unusual to downplay the institutional obstacles blacks face by comparing their struggles to the individual exceptionalism of first- or second-generation American immigrants. Those who think this way rarely compare the struggles of black people in America to the persecution that many brown people face in their homelands that have fallen into the grips of structural oppression born of economic exploitation and ongoing colonialism. From his approach, it’s obvious that Chokalingam believes that black people are uniquely entitled. He tweeted a link to an anti-affirmative action essay from Russell K. Neili, proclaiming: “Great discussion of Affirmative Action why aa racism survives: simple explanation—blacks are as racist as whites.”
Vijay Chokalingam’s “experiment”—whether real or an elaborate troll—is insulting to what black people endure in this country, both institutionally and culturally. And as a person of color, it’s irresponsible for him to be so invested in the idea of individual exceptionalism that he ignores structural inadequacies. Black people can’t be as “racist” as whites societally, Mr. Chokalingam. You didn’t spend your time applying to black colleges in the hopes of finding work as a doctor in black-owned and -operated hospitals. And a major reason why you were in a position to be considered for entry into any white institution is because black people generations before you made that possible through sacrifice and hard work. The attempt to undermine their work for the sake of promoting false “equality” is truly regrettable. But when you conduct social “experiments” that cite C. Thomas Howell’s Soul Man as an inspiration, it’s obvious that you don’t take these issues all that seriously. This entire enterprise was a joke.
Leave the comedy to your sister Mindy. At least she’s intentionally funny.
This is what a liar looks like.
First she said she didn't want to use the government email service because she didn't want to carry too many devices around. Turns out she used several devices to check her personal email server.
Then she said she would deliver all of her emails to congress for review from her personal server. Turns out she's now destroyed the server, along with all backup tapes.
What do you suppose she's hiding?
First she said she didn't want to use the government email service because she didn't want to carry too many devices around. Turns out she used several devices to check her personal email server.
Then she said she would deliver all of her emails to congress for review from her personal server. Turns out she's now destroyed the server, along with all backup tapes.
What do you suppose she's hiding?
[ Who's the bigger liar, Harry Reid, Obama, Biden or Hillary? ]
[h=1]Harry Reid: ‘Of Course’ Romney Paid Taxes, ‘I Have No Repentance’[/h] 190
174
AP Photo/John Locher
by John Sexton7 Apr 2015556
[h=2]Senator Harry Reid gave an interview to Fusion’s Jorge Ramos in which he once again refused to apologize for lying about Mitt Romney’s taxes.[/h] In the midst of defending himself, Reid admits the claims he made on the Senate floor had nothing to do with any genuine belief Romney never paid taxes. On the contrary, Reid now admits, “Of course he paid taxes.”
“On August 2012 you said on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes in ten years but there was no evidence of that. Did you purposefully lie?” Ramos asks. Reid replies:
“Of course,” Senator Reid? Since when was the fact you called into question a given?
At this point, Sen. Reid slips back into his 2012 talking points claiming sources at Bain Capital told him Romney hadn’t paid taxes. Reid then says Romney should “give us his tax returns” and “let the American people judge that.” It’s not clear why anyone in 2015 would need to judge Mitt Romney’s tax returns.
Asked who his sources for the claims about Romney were, Reid refuses to answer, saying, “I’m just like you; I don’t have to give up my sources.” Ramos then points to Reid’s recent interview with CNN, saying, “you sounded unrepentant.” “I have no repentance because it was an issue that was important,” Reid replied.
When Ramos presses the point that there “was no evidence,” Reid seems momentarily at a loss for words. After a hesitation, he leans in and says, “Listen, there’s an easy way to resolve this. Let him give us his tax returns.”
“So no apologies to Mitt Romney?” Ramos asks. “Oh, none whatsoever. Zero. None,” Reid says. And with that, the interview moves on to other topics.
[h=1]Harry Reid: ‘Of Course’ Romney Paid Taxes, ‘I Have No Repentance’[/h] 190
174
by John Sexton7 Apr 2015556
[h=2]Senator Harry Reid gave an interview to Fusion’s Jorge Ramos in which he once again refused to apologize for lying about Mitt Romney’s taxes.[/h] In the midst of defending himself, Reid admits the claims he made on the Senate floor had nothing to do with any genuine belief Romney never paid taxes. On the contrary, Reid now admits, “Of course he paid taxes.”
“On August 2012 you said on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes in ten years but there was no evidence of that. Did you purposefully lie?” Ramos asks. Reid replies:
I’m really happy to respond to this because it has been blown way out of proportion, but blown my way. Mitt Romney, during the time he was running for President, refused to give us his tax returns. When I ran for the Senate in 1974 that was an issue, tax returns. This has been an issue of mine for a long time. He never… he’ll come someplace, he’ll say, “I always paid taxes.” He refused to show the American people his tax returns.
Ramos interjects to point out that Romney has stated he “paid taxes every year,” and Reid replies, “But that’s a phony answer! Of course he paid taxes, what he didn’t do is let us see his tax returns.”
“Of course,” Senator Reid? Since when was the fact you called into question a given?
At this point, Sen. Reid slips back into his 2012 talking points claiming sources at Bain Capital told him Romney hadn’t paid taxes. Reid then says Romney should “give us his tax returns” and “let the American people judge that.” It’s not clear why anyone in 2015 would need to judge Mitt Romney’s tax returns.
Asked who his sources for the claims about Romney were, Reid refuses to answer, saying, “I’m just like you; I don’t have to give up my sources.” Ramos then points to Reid’s recent interview with CNN, saying, “you sounded unrepentant.” “I have no repentance because it was an issue that was important,” Reid replied.
When Ramos presses the point that there “was no evidence,” Reid seems momentarily at a loss for words. After a hesitation, he leans in and says, “Listen, there’s an easy way to resolve this. Let him give us his tax returns.”
“So no apologies to Mitt Romney?” Ramos asks. “Oh, none whatsoever. Zero. None,” Reid says. And with that, the interview moves on to other topics.
[h=1]10 Least Tax-Friendly States for Retirees -- 2013 Rankings[/h] image: http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/...riendly-states-for-retirees/images/closer.jpg
Thinkstock
1. Rhode Island
2. Vermont
3. Connecticut
4. Minnesota
5. Montana
6. Oregon
7. Nebraska
8. California
9. New Jersey
10. New York
Kiplinger updates these rankings annually. Above is our 2013 list of the ten least tax-friendly states for retirees. The list is based on Kiplinger's analysis of state tax laws; information is gathered from state tax department Web sites, CCH and the Tax Foundation.
Read more at http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/...s-for-retirees/index.html#DILl2idsFpEfFqi7.99
1. Rhode Island
2. Vermont
3. Connecticut
4. Minnesota
5. Montana
6. Oregon
7. Nebraska
8. California
9. New Jersey
10. New York
Kiplinger updates these rankings annually. Above is our 2013 list of the ten least tax-friendly states for retirees. The list is based on Kiplinger's analysis of state tax laws; information is gathered from state tax department Web sites, CCH and the Tax Foundation.
Read more at http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/...s-for-retirees/index.html#DILl2idsFpEfFqi7.99
The ultimate hypocrite…
Hillary’s presidential announcement was followed by a campaign video in which the former Secretary of State decried the fact that, “The deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”
By “those at the top,” Hillary is presumably referring to the 1% – Wall Street cronies, transnational banks and huge corporations – in other words the very entities that bankrolled Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Out of the top 20 contributors to Hillary in 2008, six were banks – JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and crucially Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs – two of the institutions directly implicated in the 2008 financial crash which left millions of Americans financially destitute.
Making up the rest of the top 20 were law firms as well as monolithic corporations like Time Warner, Microsoft and General Electric. Almost all of these entities will again contribute to Hillary for her 2016 campaign.
While vowing to protect ordinary Americans from the fallout of corporate and Wall Street cronyism, Hillary is being funded by corporate and Wall Street cronies.
Hillary’s presidential announcement was followed by a campaign video in which the former Secretary of State decried the fact that, “The deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”
By “those at the top,” Hillary is presumably referring to the 1% – Wall Street cronies, transnational banks and huge corporations – in other words the very entities that bankrolled Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Out of the top 20 contributors to Hillary in 2008, six were banks – JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and crucially Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs – two of the institutions directly implicated in the 2008 financial crash which left millions of Americans financially destitute.
Making up the rest of the top 20 were law firms as well as monolithic corporations like Time Warner, Microsoft and General Electric. Almost all of these entities will again contribute to Hillary for her 2016 campaign.
While vowing to protect ordinary Americans from the fallout of corporate and Wall Street cronyism, Hillary is being funded by corporate and Wall Street cronies.
[h=2]Time Mag: ‘Postmenopausal’ Hillary ‘Perfect Age To Be President’[/h]
After decades spent undermining Republican presidential candidates by raising questions about their health and age, Time Magazine just published a reassurance that Hillary Clinton (who is overweight and will be 69 when the next president is sworn in) is not
After decades spent undermining Republican presidential candidates by raising questions about their health and age, Time Magazine just published a reassurance that Hillary Clinton (who is overweight and will be 69 when the next president is sworn in) is not
Says his parents "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover" of Cuba.
— Marco Rubio on Friday, October 21st, 2011 in a biography on his U.S. Senate website
[h=1]Sen. Marco Rubio said his parents 'came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover' of Cuba[/h] By Becky Bowers on Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 6:11 p.m.
A screen grab of Marco Rubio's Senate website. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio sold his American success story as he stumped across Florida two years ago.
His parents left Havana in 1959, he told a Panhandle audience, in search of a better life.
He told a Tampa Bay TV station, a Fox Business host and Sean Hannity on Fox News that his parents came from Cuba at the end of the 1950s — when dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Fidel Castro's revolution. "In 1959," he told Fox 13 and Fox Business. "In '58, '59," he told Fox News.
By Oct. 21, 2011, the biography on his U.S. Senate website still declared his parents "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover."
But interviews, documents and news articles in September and October raised doubts.
PolitiFact Florida wanted to know: Did Rubio's parents come to America "following Fidel Castro's takeover"?
Doubt
An Oct. 19, 2011, story by the St. Petersburg Times said naturalization records showed Rubio's parents, Mario and Oriales, became U.S. residents in May 1956.
At that time, Castro lived in Mexico after a failed 1953 attack on army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Cubans lived under the dictatorship of Batista, who had seized power as he ran for re-election in 1952. The nation, which enjoyed high literacy, a strong educational system — even the world's fifth-highest number of TVs per capita — found itself ruled by decree.
In May 1956, the Rubio family would fly to the United States. Castro returned to mount his revolution in December. More than two years would pass before Batista fled on Jan. 1, 1959.
In 2006, Rubio, the young soon-to-be speaker of the Florida House, would recount the takeover: "In January of 1959, a thug named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and countless Cubans were forced to flee."
To many, he seemed to count his own family among them.
And in 2009 and 2010, he told reporters dates that made that possible. News stories called the lawmaker, himself born in the United States in 1971, the son of "exiles from Castro's Cuba." Some used a specific date: 1959.
Story shift
In September 2011, Rubio chatted with Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo for a story about his upcoming autobiography. They talked about Rubio's parents' immigration from Cuba. Caputo, later recounting his notes, said Rubio "struggled to recall the year ... and said it was in ' '57 or '58 or '59.' "
"When asked pointedly: Was it before the revolution? Rubio said it was before the revolution," Caputo wrote in an Oct. 20 blog post.
Caputo included the detail in his September story, saying Rubio was, "the son of Cuban immigrants who left Cuba just before the 1959 revolution."
When we searched for news references to Rubio's parents, we found the new account differed from dozens of articles about Rubio's past, his own TV interviews, and his official campaign and Senate bios.
And Rubio's bio didn't change.
After the Times and the Washington Post wrote about the discrepancy, Rubio released a statement.
"The dates I have given regarding my family’s history have always been based on my parents’ recollections of events that occurred over 55 years ago and which were relayed to me by them more than two decades after they happened," he wrote on Oct. 20. "I was not made aware of the exact dates until very recently."
Asked about Rubio's official bio the next day, spokesman Alex Conant confirmed, "the dates were wrong."
"We just recently became aware of it, and it just hadn't been updated," he said. (The site updated the evening of Oct. 21, 2011 to say: "Marco was born in Miami in 1971 to Cuban exiles who first arrived in the United States in 1956.")
Rubio learned the full story talking with his mom, Conant said, and looking at his parents' passports. (His father died in September 2010.)
Instead of fleeing Castro's Cuba, the Rubios came to the United States for "economic opportunity," Conant said.
Our ruling
Several times during his race for U.S. Senate, Rubio told reporters and voters his parents left Cuba in 1959, suggesting they had fled Castro's rule. In his campaign bio, and later in his official Senate biography, he said his parents "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover."
Even after he stumbled over dates with a Miami Herald reporter and acknowledged his parents left before the revolution, his official Web bio stayed the same. After two news organizations reported his parents moved to the United States in 1956, his spokesman acknowledged that the bio was wrong. It was updated to say, "Marco was born in Miami in 1971 to Cuban exiles who first arrived in the United States in 1956." That puts everyone in agreement: The original statement is False.
