By Steve Clemons

This is a guest note from Richard Vague’s Delancey Place which ran on 16 November 2009.

Recently, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went at it during a session when 187 Members of the United Nations were about to vote against the United States and two allies on the issue of the US embargo against Cuba.

Some diplomacy data points I have picked up during my trip to Havana in the last couple of days: ~ There are 65% more non-immigrant visas processed by the US State Department for Cubans wanting to travel into the United States this year than last year.

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw “Radek” Sikorski, husband of Washington Post editorial writer (and Polish cuisine expert) Anne Applebaum, is a compelling, brilliant, eclectic political intellectual who I admire a great deal.

The comments on my blog have grown increasingly vile — and are not in any way constructive, civil, fair-minded, or policy-oriented. I am turning them off. The primary violators of my policy know who they are. There are rampant ad hominem attacks on TWN now, comments about the personal lives and relations of other commenters….

Just ran into Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas and some of her groupies on the way to Miami where Stephens is meeting up with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and then flying off to Honduras. I’m flying to Havana.

Richard Wolffe wrote in his Obama campaign memoir that the President sees most of his challenges in basketball metaphors and that he’s turned on by nail-biting contests when he, Barack Obama, can switch things up in the contest and come in to make the key decisions and plays that achieve a win.

Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com Former AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery outlines in this seven minute Fox Business clip the severity of America’s jobs crisis and throws some ideas on to the table on what the country could do — particularly when it comes to US government procurement and US domestic investment incentives….

I haven’t seen songwriter and culture diva Allee Willis in about 15 years, though we remain Facebook friends.

It’s just one hurdle overcome. 39 Democratic defections — too many in my book. But the bill passed. Now the Senate, and then reconciliation and more.