Category: Barack Obama

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Barack Obama Politics

Here Are The Basics of the American/Cuban Agreement

Another historic achievement for the Obama administration. Detailed below are the basics of an agreement that will in essence, end the 50 years of hostility between America and Cuba.

What the US will give Cuba

  • Diplomatic opening:

    • The U.S. will take steps toward restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba, severed since 1961. The travel ban will still be in place, as will the embargo, but the embargo’s impact will be eased and some forms of travel will be made easier.

  • Embassy in Havana:

    • This will include the goal of reopening a US embassy in Havana in the coming months. The embassy has been closed for over half a century.

  • Release alleged Cuban spies:

    • The US will release three Cubans who were convicted of espionage and imprisoned in the US: Gerardo Hernandez, Luis Medina, and Antonio Guerrero. All three prisoners were members of the “Wasp Network,” a group that spied on prominent members of the Cuban-American community. CNN reports that Hernandez, the group’s leader, was also linked to the downing of two two civilian planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a U.S.-based dissident group.

  • Easing business and travel restrictions:

    • The U.S. will make it easier for Americans to obtain licenses to do business in Cuba, and to travel to the island. CNN reports that the new rules still won’t permit American tourism, but will make it easier to visit for other purposes.

  • Easing banking restrictions:

    • Americans will be able to use credit and debit cards while in Cuba.

  • Higher remittance limits:

    • Americans will be able to send up to $2000 per year to family members in Cuba. Cuban-American remittances are a major source of income for many Cuban families.

  • Small-scale imports of Cuban cigars and alcohol:

    • US travelers will be able to import up to $400 in goods from Cuba, including $100 in alcohol and tobacco products.

  • Review of basis for sanctions:

    • Secretary of State John Kerry has been ordered to review Cuba’s status as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” If his review determines that Cuba no longer deserves that status, that will be a first step towards lifting at least some US sanctions.

    What Cuba will give the US

  • Release Alan Gross:

    • US contractor Alan Gross had been imprisoned in Cuba for the last five years on charges of attempting to undermine the Cuban government. His detention has been a major issue for the US and the Obama administration. He has been released and is on his way back to the United States.

  • Release political prisoners:

    • Cuba will release 53 political prisoners from a list provided by the United States. CNN also reports that Cuba is releasing a US intelligence source who has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than 20 years, but it is not clear whether that individual was one of the 53 included on the list.

  • Increased internet access:

    • Cuba will allow its citizens increased access to the internet. The US has long sought this as a means of increasing pressure within Cuba for democratic reform.
    Access by the UN: Cuba will allow officials from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to return to its territory.

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    Barack Obama chuck todd Politics

    President Obama Calls MSNBC’s Chuck Todd “Sad”

    The host of MSNBC’s Meet The Press, Chuck Todd, has written a book slamming Obama for not kissing up to Republicans enough. Todd’s book, called The Stranger in The White House hit newsstands just in time for Mr . Obama’s regular book shopping spree and needless to say, it caught the eye of the president.

    “Oh, Chuck Todd!” Obama exclaimed. “Let’s see what Chuck has to say here!”
    “How is he writing a book already? asked his 16-year-old daughter, Malia. “Sad.”

    “He’s just sad,” the president joked in response.

    Obama’s off-the-cuff pan was no surprise, considering what Todd thinks of the president.

    The book, titled “The Stranger,” blasts Obama as a flip-flopping policymaker whose detached temperament has prevented him from implementing his ideas.

    It includes what one reviewer called a “stinging indictment” of Obama’s time in the White House and slams the president as unable to fulfill his potential or work with those across the aisle.

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    Barack Obama executive orders Immigration Politics

    John Boehner Says Obama Has Authority to Use Executive Orders

    Now pay close attention.

    The day after President Obama decided to act on immigration, Republicans went ahead and announced that they have filed a lawsuit against the president. The lawsuit does not deal with the president’s immigration order, but  deals exclusively with healthcare and and the so-called “abuse of power” claim made against the president by Republicans.

    In announcing the filing of the lawsuit, Republican House Speaker John Boehner inadvertently explained that President Obama has the authority to make the decisions he has made theough Executive orders. Speaking to Reporters, Boehner said;

    “Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and rewrite federal law on his own without a vote of Congress. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well. The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution, and that is exactly why we are pursuing this course of action.”

    John Boehner has been in politics for a long time and he is well aware that past presidents have taken the same executive measures to attempt to fix the immigration problem.

    When both Reagan and George Bush used their executive authority for immigration reform, Republicans stayed quiet. No Republican, including the Speaker of the House, saw anything wrong and accepted the precedent set by these previous presidents, and understood that this precedent would be followed by future presidents. To quote Boehner, “future presidents will have the ability to as well.”

    Well if it was accepted back then that future presidents would “have the ability” to follow set precedent, then clearly Obama, being a president, has that ability and is working within his constitutionally allowed boundaries. And John Boehner and his Republican block party have expected and accepted it as the norm.

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    Barack Obama executive actions Immigration Immigration Reform

    Bill Clinton – President Obama is “on pretty firm legal ground” On Immigration Issue

    While Republicans cry and complain about how “unlawful” the President’s use of Executive Action is, totally ignoring the fact that other presidents have done the exact same thing, former President Bill Clinton is standing by Obama’s side, saying that Mr. Obama is legally allowed to take actions on immigration.

    “As far as I can tell, every president in the modern era has issued some executive action on immigration, so I imagine he’ll be on pretty firm legal ground,” Clinton said at a gala for The New Republic magazine’s centennial celebration.

    Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush extended amnesty to family members excluded from the last overhaul of U.S. immigration policy in 1986, according to The Associated Press.

    Clinton’s remarks come on the eve of Obama’s prime-time address Thursday evening, where he’s expected to shield about 5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

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    Barack Obama Immigration Immigration Reform

    President Will Lay Out Immigration Plan to Nation on Thursday

    CNN reports that the President’s prime-time Thursday night address will be followed Friday by an event in Las Vegas, sources tell CNN. While exact details of his announcement aren’t yet public, the basic outline of the plan, as relayed by people familiar with its planning, includes deferring deportation for the parents of U.S. citizens, a move that would affect up to 3.5 million people.

    “Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken. Unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem to fester for far too long,” Obama said in a video posted on his Facebook page Wednesday. “And so what I’m going to be laying out is the things that I can do with my lawful authority as President to make the system work better, even as I continue to work with Congress to encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem.”

    Obama invited congressional Democratic leaders to the White House for a dinner Wednesday night to discuss his plans for an executive order, a source told CNN.

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    Barack Obama Elections Politics

    President Obama Takes the Blame for Democrats’ Midterm Losses

    Just days after his party was routed in the midterm elections, President Obama said that he and his White House team had not succeeded in effectively selling the benefits of his policies to the American people, calling it a “failure of politics” that he must change in the final two years of his presidency.

    “It’s not enough just to build a better mousetrap,” Mr. Obama said in an interview that was taped Friday at the White House and broadcast Sunday on the 60th anniversary of CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “People don’t automatically come beating to your door. We’ve got to sell it. We’ve got to reach out to the other side and, where possible, persuade.”

    Mr. Obama acknowledged bluntly that “we got beat” in the elections on Tuesday and said that the Democratic losses prompted him to have a “gut check” about what he needed to do differently. But as he has in the past, the president defended the merits of his administration’s policies, blaming the election results on a poor communications effort in the White House.

    “There are times, there’s no doubt about it, where, you know I think we have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” Mr. Obama said.

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    Barack Obama Canada Politics

    From Canada – “You Americans Have No Idea Just How Good You Have it With Obama”

    A commentary from Canada.

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    Barack Obama Racism

    CSPAN Republican Caller Refers to Obama as “that nigger Obama” On Air – Video

    CSPAN got an earful of racism on Thursday when a Republican caller called the network to advise Republicans on their next move in Congress.

    “I would just like to say, that the Republicans — and I’m a Republican — please do not overreach,” the caller began. “I know they’re going to overreach but I’m telling you, if you advocate for the repeal of Obamacare and you get too extreme, then Hillary Clinton will be elected President in 2016.”

    “This is about race,” he added. “The Republicans hate that nigger Obama.”

    Host Steve Scully quickly cut off the caller after he dropped the racial slur.

    “Okay, I’m gonna stop you there,” Scully said. “We’re not gonna use that kind of language.”

    “You can certainly make your point, but you cross the line when you use language like that,” he added. “And so to our viewers and listeners, I want to apologize.”

    So yea, if you thought racism had something to do with the votes for Republicans on Tuesday, you might be right.

    Video

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    Barack Obama Politics weekly address

    President’s Weekly Address – Our Economy Has Improved, We Are Heading In The Right Direction

    The economy has improved tremendously since President Obama took office. If you don’t believe me just turn off the doom and gloom from Fox News and the rest of the media, and go outside.

    There are over 10 million more Americans working today as opposed to when 700.000 Americans were losing their jobs every month when Obama took over from Bush. Unemployment rate is below 6% and with a record 55 straight months of jobs growth, it is expected that the unemployment rate will continue to drop.

    And ask Wall Street. It seems like every day the DOW has closed in record territory! Our GDP is improving, businesses are making money again and the deficit is decreasing.

    Things are better and the economy is finally heading in the right direction. So the President used this week’s address to talk about some of these improvements and ways to keep the progress going.

    Video

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    Barack Obama Politics

    Paranoid Republican Say Obama is Using Ebola to Control the World

    He almost went to jail for violating campaign finance rules, so conservative talker Dinesh D’Souza is the man Republicans run to for information.

    Invited to share his wisdom with his fellow conservatives, D’Souza was asked his opinion on President Obama and his handling of the so-called “Ebola Outbreak.” Note: Republicans love calling it an “outbreak” because the fear you feel is more potent… and the election is on November 4th.

    Newsmax host Steve Malzberg invited D’Souza on his program today to discuss President Obama’s response to the Ebola epidemic, specifically the president’s comments criticizing the widely-panned decisions in several states to quarantine asymptomatic healthcare providers returning from West Africa.

    D’Souza said that while he senses that “there’s something very strange that’s kind of going on here,” he thinks that Obama “probably” isn’t trying to exact “anti-colonial revenge” by starting an Ebola epidemic in America, despite reports to that effect that he had seen on the internet.

    “On the other hand,” D’Souza said, “I would be willing to say that here’s a guy that seeks to view things from the global point of view and he doesn’t seem to recognize his special responsibility to American citizens.”

    “We elected him, he took an oath to protect and defend our interests. So, enough of this ‘President of the World’ nonsense, it’s time to start protecting American interests, Mr. President!”

    Note: In this nation of 315 million, 2 people contracted Ebola here and they’re both alive and well… and Ebola-free! But Obama is not trying to protect Americans, he is apparently trying to control the world!

    Jeeze!

    Categories
    Barack Obama Politics

    Once Upon A Time, Republicans Even Filed A Lawsuit Against The President

    Americans first learned back on June 24, more than four months ago, about the House Republican plan to file a lawsuit against President Obama. Two weeks later, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced the basis for the case: the GOP would sue to implement an obscure provision of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans don’t actually want to see implemented.
     
    When the case was announced, congressional Republicans made it seem as if they were headed to court as part of a bold move to preserve our constitutional system of government against the tyrannical moves of a lawless presidency. But four months later, it looks as if Boehner & Co. got lost on the way to the courthouse.
     
    Josh Gerstein reports that the case hasn’t even been filed yet.
    It takes about 10 minutes to walk from the Capitol to the federal courthouse just down the hill, but House Republicans haven’t managed to make that trip in the four months since they announced they’d be suing the president.
     
    House Speaker John Boehner came out swinging hard last June when he announced that his chamber would take President Barack Obama to court. The suit, charging that the president grossly exceeded his constitutional authority by failing to implement portions of the Obamacare law, was billed as an election-season rallying point for aggrieved Republicans. But days before the midterms, the House’s legal guns seem to have fallen silent.
     
    Lawyers close to the process said they originally expected the legal challenge to be filed in September, but now they don’t expect any action before the elections.
    Republicans not only won’t file the case, they also refuse to say why they won’t file the case – party officials refused to explain the delay when asked by Politico for comment.
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    Barack Obama Donald Trump Donald Trump Ebola Featured New York

    Donald Trump Wants Obama’s Resignation Because One Doctor Has Ebola in NYC

    PHOTO by: Sara Jaye Weiss

    What else can I say about the idiot named Donald Trump that would convey to you how much of an idiot he really is? Well how about this: Donald Trump is now asking for the President’s resignation because a doctor traveled from West Africa to New York, then developed the Ebola virus days later.

    Trump, in the vastness of his cranium, took to Twitter moments after it was revealed that a doctor may be infected with the virus and demanded that president’s resignation. Said trump, “If this doctor, who so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa, has Ebola, then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!”

    First of all, the doctor who Trump said “recklessly flew into New York” was not piloting the plane. And, said plane did not hit any of Trump’s buildings during this “reckless” flight. There might have been some turbulence but nothing to classify the flight as “reckless.” Actually, turbulence during a flight is common and quite frankly, expected. His plane did not almost hit the World Financial Center nor did the plane land anywhere near Wall Street. In fact, it was a rather non-eventful flight as nothing out of the ordinary was reported to traffic control. I know, I checked.

    Putting the “recklessly flew into New York” claim aside, Trump wants Obama to resign because in a city that has 8.4 million people, one doctor contracted Ebola in another country while he was there helping the less fortunate. In case you forgot, Trump is the same one that said anyone traveling to West Africa to help these victims should “suffer the consequences” of their decision.

    The doctor Trump hates so much is currently in isolation in one of the best hospitals in the nation! After he arrived in New York on October 17th, he checked his own temperature twice a day until the first symptoms of Ebola began manifesting on October 23rd. When he saw the signs, the doctor immediately reported his condition and was transported to Bellevue.

    But that’s not good enough for the hateful old man named Trump! He apparently wants the doctor to suffer the consequences of his decision and die because he chose to help others. And he wants the doctor to die somewhere in West Africa! And then, he want’s Obama out!

    Why stop at resignation Trump, why not call for Obama’s impeachment and possible imprisonment and, AND, maybe you can have him deported after he serves his prison term. Sidenote, you should lock him up for life and then deport him back to Kenya after he serves his life sentence! That’ll teach that Obama!

    Trump, you are an idiot, just in case it wasn’t said earlier in this post!

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