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The Daily Signal

She Was Imprisoned in Her Native Cuba. Here's How She Describes Life Under Communism.

The Daily Signal

The Daily Signal

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

4.81.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lala Mooney, born in communist Cuba, was imprisoned there at age 19. As protests erupt in the Caribbean nation, Mooney, mother of Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about what life there is like. "At the economic level, we lost everything," Mooney says. "My mother's family owned a sugar mill and they put a gun on my uncle's desk and say, 'Sign it over.' We lost everything." Mooney says her father was dean of engineering at St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in Havana, which the communist regime of Fidel Castro confiscated in 1961, expelling American and European Anglicans who administered it. "Once we were in prison, my father said, 'There's no sense for me to stay here if they put me in prison.'" "Engineering was a very important topic in Cuba," Mooney adds, "because Cuba was [one of the biggest] producers of sugar in the whole world, and engineering is how you run the sugar mills." We also cover these stories: In a speech, President Joe Biden criticizes election reforms passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Democratic state lawmakers from Texas, fleeing a vote on an election bill there, hold a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in support of congressional Democrats' legislation to impose election requirements on states. So far, no Democrat has signed on to a resolution from Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla., to support the protests in Cuba. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the Daily Signal Podcast for Wednesday, July 14th.

0:09.9

I'm Doug Blair.

0:11.1

And I'm Rachel Dildjous.

0:12.6

Lala Mooney was born in Communist Cuba and was imprisoned there at the young age of

0:16.8

19.

0:17.8

Mooney, who is also the mother of Congressman Alex Mooney, who represents West Virginia's

0:21.9

second congressional district, joins me today on the Daily Signal Podcast to talk about

0:26.2

what life under the Communist regime of Cuba is like.

0:29.8

And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or

0:33.3

a five-star rating on Apple podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

0:37.8

And now on to today's top news.

0:49.0

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden gave his speech on voting, criticizing conservative state

0:53.5

election bills.

0:55.0

Here's what he had to say about the right to vote via CNN.

0:58.9

But some things in America should be simple and straightforward.

1:03.8

Perhaps the most important of those things, the most fundamental of those things, is the

1:09.0

right to vote.

1:11.3

The right to vote freely.

1:12.6

The right to vote freely.

1:20.7

The right to vote fairly.

1:23.5

The right to have your vote counted.

1:27.8

The democratic threshold is liberty, within anything's possible, without it, nothing, nothing.

...

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