OBAMA-CASTRO MEETING OVERSHADOWS ANTI-US LINE AT SUMMIT
BY JOSHUA GOODMAN AND PETER ORSI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PANAMA CITY (AP) — As usual when Latin America’s leftist leaders get together with U.S. officials, there were plenty of swipes at the U.S. during the seventh Summit of the Americas.
From 19th century territorial raids on Mexico to U.S. support for the overthrow of Chile’s socialist government in 1973 and the 1989 invasion of Panama that removed Gen. Manuel Noriega, Washington’s interventions in Latin America were targets of rebuke during long speeches by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his allies. That prompted President Barack Obama to retort, “I always enjoy the history lessons that I receive when I’m here.”
But the historic meeting between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday before the summit closed provides the U.S. and Latin America with an opportunity to move beyond a history of grievances and mistrust and set a course of closer cooperation.
There were concerns in the run-up that recent U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan officials could undermine the goodwill generated by Obama’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba, but they proved unfounded.
The conciliatory tone was set by Castro, who joked that since Cuba had been barred from the previous summits he was entitled to speak well beyond the eight minutes allotted to each of the 30-plus heads of state in attendance.
Liberal Democrats have mounted a furious offensive to convince Senate Democrats to oppose legislation the White House warns could kill a nuclear deal with Iran.
In moves that appeared coordinated, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced her opposition to a bill that would give Congress a vote on the emerging deal. Minutes later, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone a planned vote next week.
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“Diplomacy has taken us to a framework agreement founded on vigilance and enforcement, and these negotiations must be allowed to proceed unencumbered,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Senator Corker’s legislation undermines these international negotiations and represents an unnecessary hurdle to achieving a strong, final agreement.”
Earlier on Wednesday, a coalition of liberal groups including MoveOn.org Political Action and Democracy for America threatened to retaliate against Democrats who support the review legislation championed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (D-Tenn.).
The moves appeared to shift calculations on the politics of supporting Corker’s bill.
The measure appeared close to gaining veto-proof support on Monday night after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) reiterated his support for the bill.
Monday, 06 Apr 2015 01:44 PM
By Jennifer G. Hickey
As a consequence of President Barack Obama’s decision to chart a new course in U.S.-Cuban relations, Cuban dictator Raul Castro will attend this week’s Summit of the Americas with the upper hand and an opportunity to set the regional agenda, says Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady.
“Repression is on the march in the Americas, and U.S. ambivalence is part of the problem. In the White House’s lack of moral clarity, the region’s bullies smell weakness. One result is that a Caribbean backwater run by gangster brothers now has the upper hand in setting the regional agenda,” writes O’Grady.
For the first time, Cuba was invited and chose not to boycott the event, which O’Grady says is a sign of how much damage the Obama administration has done to the cause of democracy in the region.
“Being outcasts made Raúl and Fidel Castro feel disrespected. So they pressured much of the rest of the region to say that if Cuba were again left out, they would boycott the event. In December Mr. Obama folded. It was a sign of how bad things are in the Americas. Authoritarian governments now rule in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador,
Evidence of Cuba’s anti-democratic actions was seen on Sunday when dissident Rosa Maria Paya was arrested on Sunday night at the airport in Panama, according to The London Telegraph.
Menendez to Obama: You must be kidding on Iran
By Jennifer Rubin March 27
Thursday afternoon, following a slew of news reports about substantial concessions by the U.S. negotiators in the Iran nuclear talks, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) released a statement, which read:
If today’s news report from Lausanne is true, we are not inching closer to Iran’s negotiating position, but leaping toward it with both feet. We have pivoted away from demanding the closure of Fordow when the negotiations began, to considering its conversion into a research facility, to now allowing hundreds of centrifuges to spin at this underground bunker site where centrifuges could be quickly repurposed for illicit nuclear enrichment purposes. My fear is that we are no longer guided by the principle that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” but instead we are negotiating “any deal for a deal’s sake.”
An undue amount of trust and faith is being placed in a negotiating partner that has spent decades deceiving the international community; denying the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its facilities; refusing to answer questions about its nuclear-related military activities; and all the while, actively destabilizing the region from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen. A good deal must meet our primary negotiating objective – curtailing Iran’s current and future ability to achieve nuclear weapons capability. If the best deal Iran will give us does not achieve this goal, it is not a good deal for the United States or its partners. A good deal won’t leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state.
It is extraordinary on many levels — that so many giveaways would be tossed at the Iranians’ feet, that it should be publicly revealed (many speculate, by the French, who object to the collapse), that a Democratic senator would tell the president his deal is going nowhere and that things have gotten this far out of whack without a vote from the Senate. In reality, no Republican and a great many Democrats will refuse to assent to a deal that, for example, leaves 6,000 centrifuges in Iran’s hands, allows Fordow to continue operations, does not provide for snap inspections, does not require revelation of past activities, does not continue in a meaningful way beyond 10 years and does nothing to address the catastrophe throughout the region, caused in large part by Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. Oh, and there may be no written document. As former ambassador Eric Edelman, tells me, “I think it is axiomatic that any deal that cannot be put down on paper is not a deal at all.” Considering all we are giving up, that may be the good news.
Indeed, with Iranian surrogates and allies destabilizing the entire Middle East, why are we lifting any sanctions or talking about a deal at all? Unless the deal is far different than has been reported, look for an overwhelming vote in April to inject the Senate into the process or to increase sanctions.
Jindal: Obama ‘Unfit to be Commander in Chief,’ More Intent on Warning About the Crusades
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said President Obama “seems more intent on telling us warnings about the Crusades, criticizing America” than fighting terrorism.
Jindal, the 2016 hopeful playing the most hardball lately, emerged from a governors’ meeting with Obama at the White House yesterday to declare the president “unfit to be commander in chief.”
“I take no joy in saying that,” said Jindal, in town for the National Governors Association meeting, to reporters. “I don’t say so for partisan or ideological reasons.”
Jindal elaborated on Fox this morning, saying Obama “disqualified” himself from being fit to lead the country and its military as he “refuses to identify one of the main military threats we face by name: radical Islamic fundamentalism.”
“You listen to those quotes from his own administration. Eric Holder says, ‘We’re not at a state of war.’ You’ve got the State Department saying, ‘We’re not going to kill our way to victory,’ at a time when these barbarians, they’re beheading Christians, they’re torturing, prosecuting Christians, Muslims, Jews, other religious minorities, they are — they killed over 100 schoolchildren, they’re actually killing editorials, because they don’t like their cartoons,” he said.
The governor also cited two “fundamental mistakes” Obama makes in his authorization of military force request to Congress.
“One, he puts an arbitrary timeline, a three-year deadline in there. We know we’ll be done when we’ve hunted down and killed these terrorists, not some political deadline. And then secondly, he bars the use of ground troops,” Jindal said.
“We need to enlist our military commanders. We need to go to them and say, ‘Give us a plan to hunt down, to kill, to eradicate these terrorists.’ We don’t need a president who’s trying to appease (inaudible), trying to be politically correct. He won’t even name the enemy we face, and now he’s refusing to give our military the tools — all the tools they need to go and win this war.”
Obama, Netanyahu on Collision Course 6 Years in the Making
WASHINGTON — Feb 28, 2015, 12:41 PM ET
By JULIE PACE and MATTHEW LEE Associated Press
For six years, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been on a collision course over how to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a high-stakes endeavor both men see as a centerpiece of their legacies.
The coming weeks will put the relationship between their countries, which otherwise remain stalwart allies, to one of its toughest tests.
Netanyahu is bound for Washington for an address to Congress on Tuesday aimed squarely at derailing Obama’s cherished bid for a diplomatic deal with Tehran. At the same time, Secretary of State John Kerry and other international negotiators will be in Switzerland for talks with the Iranians, trying for a framework agreement before a late March deadline.
In between are Israel’s elections March 17, which have heightened the political overtones of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.
The prime minister is speaking to Congress at the request of Republicans. His visit was coordinated without the Obama administration’s knowledge, deepening tensions between two leaders who have never shown much affection for each other.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Jewish advocacy group J Street, said Netanyahu was “crossing some lines that haven’t been crossed before and is putting Israel into the partisan crossfire in a way it has not been before.”
But the largest pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has tried to play down the partisanship.
“AIPAC welcomes the prime minister’s speech to Congress and we believe that this is a very important address,” spokesman Marshall Wittmann said. “We have been actively encouraging senators and representatives to attend and we have received an overwhelmingly positive response from both sides of the aisle.”
Posted by Dan Cirucci On February 23, 2015 0 Comment
By Dan Cirucci | Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
It’s no accident that George Washington was called “the father of our country.”
From the very beginning, American presidents have been somewhat patriarchal — not in the sense of a monarch, of course but more like a strong, caring, reliable dad who sees the best in us, inspires us, rallies us and above all, defends and protects our national family.
That’s what the best dads do. That’s what we’ve come to expect from them.
But what if we had a dad who always noticed our faults? What if he was repeatedly critical? What if he kept pointing it out to others whenever he thought we did something wrong?
Instead of challenging us to aspire to our highest goals, what if he constantly warned us and attempted to lower our aspirations? What if he pushed us to pull back instead of leaping forward?
What would it be like if we had a father who at times appeared to be arrogant and occasionally disdainful toward us?
Obama refuses to acknowledge ‘Muslim terrorists’ at summit
By Geoff Earle
February 18, 2015 | 10:37pm
WASHINGTON — They’re burning and beheading victims in the name of Islam, but President Obama delivered a major speech Wednesday on combating violent extremism — while refusing to use the words “Muslim terrorists.”
“No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism,” Obama told a crowd that included Muslim community leaders at the White House.
Following months of unrelenting atrocities by ISIS killers who released videos of themselves beheading US journalists and, most recently, 21 Coptic Christians, and burning a man alive, the president kowtowed to the audience by proclaiming that “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.”
“Generations of Muslim immigrants came here and went to work as farmers and merchants and factory workers, helped to lay railroads and build up America,” he said.
“The first Islamic center in New York City was founded in the 1890s. America’s first mosque — this was an interesting fact — was in North Dakota.”
Before His Election, WashPost Never Probed Candidate Obama’s College Years Like Scott Walker’s
By Tim Graham | February 12, 2015 | 5:02 PM EST
The Washington Post published a 2,223-word story on Thursday’s front page on the college career of Scott Walker — it ended abruptly without a graduation. One obvious question: when did the Post publish a long story on candidate Barack Obama’s undergraduate college years before he was elected in 2008? The answer: They didn’t.
Obama attended Occidental College in California for two years and earned his degree in the Ivy League at Columbia University in New York City. But that apparently wasn’t considered newsworthy.
A Nexis search of Obama and “Occidental” found one mention in a Sunday Outlook piece in 2007 and one mention in 2008. On February 11, 2007, it came up in a Sunday Outlook section piece titled “A Rusty Toyota, a Mean Jump Shot, Good Ears.” Occidental’s basketball coach Mike Zinn was quoted as saying “Barry was the same in victory or defeat — even-tempered. You could sense that the sport and competition were important, but once the season was over, it was time to focus again on academic issues.”
In 2008, it was a gushy story by Post reporter Kevin Merida on August 25, the first day of the Democratic convention. The headline was “A Place in Between; In a Nation Where Race Has Long Carried Polarizing Implications, the Mixed Parentage Of Barack Obama Opens a Bridge to Changes in Our Language — and Thinking.”
But Merida – now the paper’s managing editor – didn’t do any reporting on Obama’s college years. He merely quoted from Obama’s memoir.
In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama poses the question that would hover over his post-adolescent life: “Where did I belong?” He was two years from graduation at Columbia University and felt “like a drunk coming out of a long, painful binge,” he writes, with no idea what he was going to do with his future or even where he would live. He had put Hawaii in the rear-view mirror and could no longer imagine settling there. Africa? It was too late to claim his father’s native land as his own.
“And if I had come to understand myself as a black American, and was understood as such, that understanding remained unanchored to place,” Obama writes. “What I needed was a community, I realized, a community that cut deeper than the common despair that black friends and I shared when reading the latest crime statistics, or the high fives I might exchange on the a basketball court. A place where I could put down stakes and test my commitments.”
In searching for a place to anchor, Obama transferred from Occidental College in Los Angeles to Columbia in New York, a period of his life that has not been well-examined. “I figured that if there weren’t any more black students at Columbia than there were at Oxy, I’d at least be in the heart of a true city, with black neighborhoods in close proximity.”
Obama writes that he was more like black students who had grown up in the suburbs, “kids whose parents had already paid the price of escape.” Except he had not grown up in Compton or Watts, he points out, and had nothing to escape “except my own inner doubt.”
The same thing happens when you search for Obama within 20 words of “Columbia University.”
On December 27, 2007, Merida glossed over it in a Jesse Jackson passage: “Obama was a recent graduate of Columbia University when Jackson launched his first campaign, and once told Jackson that he was inspired watching him on television debating Walter Mondale and Gary Hart. Now, Obama is trying to carve out a legacy of his own.”
There’s Merida in August of 2008, and then on October 17, 2008, there was a fleeting mention of Columbia, in an Eli Saslow story on Obama’s taste for solitude: “He had always guarded his space, once living in such seclusion as a student at Columbia University that when his mother visited his barren New York apartment, she chastised him for being ‘monklike.’”
After the election, there was more of the same on the editorial page on December 14, 2008 in a David Ignatius column:
Barack Obama wrote in “Dreams From My Father” of his days as a student at Occidental College, groping for his political identity: “We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Frantz Fanon, Eurocentrism and patriarchy.”
Don’t you think the voters would have liked to know if young Obama was into terrorist-inspiring thinkers like Frantz Fanon and had a radical anti-Western problem with “Eurocentrism and patriarchy?” Ignatius thought exploring that passage is “silly.” No one needs to know what Obama thought in 1981! (But the Post thinks you need to know Romney cut a kid’s hair on the quad in 1965.)
PS: The Post had a little more interest in the “Harvard Law School” part of his resume, mostly as a sign of Obama’s belonging in the elite. Post political reporter Chris Cillizza explained an ad on June 26, 2007:
The longer ad is more strictly biographical, detailing Obama’s work as a community organizer, his standout years at Harvard Law School and his eventual return to community organizing. Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, says in the ad that Obama’s decision to bypass wealth on Wall Street for a job organizing at the community level was “absolutely inspiring.”
Can Israel Survive?
Traditional pillars of the tiny democracy’s security have begun to erode.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Eight million Israelis are surrounded by some 400 million Muslims in more than 20 states. Almost all of Israel’s neighbors are anti-Israeli dictatorships, monarchies, or theocracies — a number of them reduced to a state of terrorist chaos.
Given the rise of radical Islam, the huge petrodollar wealth of the Middle East, and lopsided demography, how has Israel so far survived?
The Jewish state has always depended on three unspoken assumptions for its tenuous existence.
First, a democratic, nuclear Israel can deter larger enemies. In the Cold War, Soviet-backed Arab enemies understood that Israel’s nuclear arsenal prevented them from destroying Tel Aviv.
40 World Leaders in France Stand Up for Freedom Against the Terrorists. One Major Figure Was Missing.
Dear French Citizens,
This is a personal note from me but I suspect it represents the sentiments of many Americans.
I am sorry that our President didn’t go to France today and stand with your President and other world leaders against terrorism. It was an important statement to send to France, to the world and to terrorists and frankly he blew it. It was a big missed opportunity for my President and thus for all Americans. He should have gone. It was a mistake that he did not. Sometimes mistakes like that are made.
I stand with you and I think all Americans do stand with you. I had wanted the President to go to Paris today to represent how I feel and how most Americans feel after Paris was terrorized but that did not happen. President Obama didn’t just disappoint you — he disappointed many Americans today. Maybe there is a reason for his absence that I just don’t know but right now the White House has released no explanation.
Despite today’s absence, I know our President wants to stop world terrorism but his bad manners today – or maybe just dropping the ball – is not something we should harbor but rather drop and move on. It may be easier for you to drop than many Americans. As already noted, I am not happy with him tonight, but I will get over it. But, in the mean time, I do want the citizens of France to know we Americans stand with you and that we need each other to fight terrorism.
I also want everyone in France to know – and this is very important 0 that we have not forgotten that it was the French President who was the first national leader to show up at the White House after 9/11. You don’t forget things like that. (Nor have we forgotten LaFayette who fought for us in the Revolutionary War but that’s a bit farther back!)
I love your nation and have spent a lot of time there over the years – from college onward. Your citizens have been friendly to Americans and to me (although many have looked askance at me when I speak my very fractured French. You could be a tad bit nicer about my French.) Our nations have had their difference over the years but always I know fundamentally we are friends even when we might have some disagreements. We have the same goals and the same dreams.
So….I apologize for my President’s absence. Tonight I am mad at him but I will get over it and I hope you do, too. We have a bigger fight to fight than bad manners. We need to fight terrorism.
High-Ranking Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez Blasts Obama’s ‘Secret Diplomacy’ With Cuba
Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / January 05, 2015
President Obama will have trouble appointing an ambassador to Cuba following his decision to normalize relations with the Communist government, predicts the outgoing Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Sunday, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told CNN that past actions on the part of the Obama administration would make it “very difficult to get an ambassador confirmed.”
The senior Democratic lawmaker blasted the White House for independently restarting diplomatic ties with Communist Cuba while keeping Senate leaders in the dark.
Asked if he was ever consulted about negotiations with Cuba, Menendez replied, “Absolutely not. I knew nothing about them.”
A Cuban-American himself, Menendez argues the Obama administration played into the hands of the Castro government without achieving any lasting reforms for the Cuban people.
“We exchanged one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies, including one that was convicted for conspiracy to commit murder against U.S. citizens.”
“If you’re going to make a deal with the regime,” Menendez complained, “then get something for it.”
The senator argues that “10 million people in Cuba got a bad deal” while the United States exchanged “one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies” and received “nothing in terms of democracy and human rights.”
Indicative of a greater problem, Menendez said the Obama administration’s “secret diplomacy” has kept Senate leaders from getting “straight answers” not only about Cuban but also Iranian negotiations.
He explained that these methods will make things “problematic for the administration when it appears before the committee again.”
Budget war looms for Obama, GOP
February 2: Obama’s budget deadline
The president is required under the law to submit his budget proposal to Congress by the first Monday of February, which in 2015 falls on the second day of the month.
Obama has repeatedly missed the deadline during his presidency. Last year’s budget came a month late, in March, while the previous year’s was unveiled two months late in early April.
The president’s budget proposal for fiscal 2016, which begins in October, is likely to include more spending for the Pentagon than originally expected because of the new battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Obama administration officials have hinted that the proposed spending level for defense will bust the cap set by the Budget Control Act of 2011. If Congress doesn’t raise or remove the cap before next October, across-the-board spending cuts could take effect.
February 27: DHS funding runs out
GOP leaders will have two months to decide how to handle funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the rest of the fiscal year. The $1.1 trillion spending bill Congress passed at the end of the lame-duck session only extended DHS funding through February and did not allow for any spending increases.
Republican leaders chose the short-term solution to satisfy conservatives who demanded action to defund Obama’s immigration actions.
Their campaign to block funding might ultimately fail. A Congressional Research Service report from the October 2013 government shutdown found that even if the government closes, immigration-related services would continue to operate.
Democrats have argued that maintaining an outdated funding level for DHS prevents the administration from implementing new programs on cybersecurity and counterterrorism
Christie to Obama: Demand Cuba return cop killer Joanne Chesimard
DECEMBER 21, 2014, 1:03 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2014, 11:16 PM
BY CARLA BARANAUCKAS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Governor Christie is urging President Obama to delay reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba until a convicted cop-killer who has been granted asylum by the Cuban government is returned to New Jersey.
On Wednesday, Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced the thaw between the two countries.
In a letter dated Friday, Christie said, “The Cuban government has been providing safe haven to convicted murderer Joanne Chesimard, a woman designated by the [FBI] as a domestic terrorist and the first woman ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List.”
In 1977, Chesimard was convicted of murder in the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. She was sentenced to life in prison, escaped in 1979 and made her way to Cuba.
Al Sharpton will attend Monday White House civil rights meeting as White House proposes $263 million plan that puts body-worn cameras in police departments and reviews police ‘militarization’
Slain 18-year-old Michael Brown’s parents have demanded the use of more body-cams by police forces to document violent encounters with suspects
President will meet with ‘young … civil rights leaders’ and law enforcement officials after he holds a cabinet meeting about the Ferguson unrest
Civil rights meeting will focus on challenges posed by ‘mistrust between law enforcement and communities of color’
Speculation ran rampant that Al Sharpton would be in the White House Monday, and his representatives confirmed it before lunch
Cabinet meeting will concern the militarization of local law enforcement with equipment provided by the federal government
Task force will have four months to make recommendations to Obama about how to change the program that has moved $5.1 billion in ge
President Barack Obama will meet with controversial black pastor and MSNBC host Al Sharpton on Monday at the White House, and plans to demand 263 million from Congress to put 50,000 body-worn cameras in U.S. police departments in response to the August police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Brown’s parents have pushed the cameras as one solution to the distrust between police and criminal suspects following physical encounters. The White House said in August that it agreed with the idea in principle.
‘We support the use of cameras and video technology by law enforcement officers, and the Department of Justice continues to research best practices for implementation,’ the administration wrote in response to a public petition that attracted more than 154,000 supporters on the White House website.
The new initiative will provide 50 per cent of the funding for cameras, but will not pay for them entirely, at a cost of $75 million.
It will also provide new training resources and funds to study how to reform police practices.
It’s unclear why Officer Darren Wilson didn’t wear a camera during his fateful encounter with Brown. Members of the Ferguson Police Department were photographed wearing body cameras later that month during an August 30 rally.
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