Why Cuba move will help America

(CNN) -- In opposing President Barack Obama's opening to Cuba, Florida's Republican senator, Marco Rubio, explained, "This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people." Rubio has correctly touched on the core issue. But theory, logic and history suggest that he's wrong in his conclusions.
I would recommend to Rubio one of the classics of conservative thought, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." He doesn't have to spend too much time on it. The first chapter outlines the "relation between economic freedom and political freedom."
The point Friedman makes in the book is one that America's founding fathers well understood. Drawing on the political philosopher John Locke, they believed that the freedom to buy, sell, own and trade were core elements of human freedom and individual autonomy. As they expand, liberty expands.
fareed zakaria in studio
fareed zakaria in studio
Behind the Cuba policy deal Obama discusses Cuba relations Many Cubans welcome closer ties with U.S.
This is not just theory, of course. Over the last two centuries, the countries that embraced "more commerce and access to money and goods" in Rubio's phrase -- Britain, America, then Western Europe and East Asia -- have moved toward greater prosperity, but also political freedom. If you exclude oil-rich countries, where money is not earned but dug from the ground, almost every country that has used free markets and free trade to grow is also a democracy.
Yes there are a few exceptions: Singapore and China (though the latter is still not quite a developed economy.) But on the whole, there has been a remarkably strong connection between economic freedom and political freedom.
In Latin America itself, the line has been clear. Augusto Pinochet's regime opened up its economy in the 1970s. Chile began to grow, but that growth then produced a stronger civil society that over time clamored for the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. (The same pattern could be seen in Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and Portugal.) In Latin America today, democracy and markets have acted to reinforce each other, transforming the continent, which 30 years ago was almost entirely ruled by dictatorships to one that is today almost entirely ruled by democracies.
Cuba is an outlier, one of the last regimes in Latin America that has embraced neither markets nor ballots. The Obama administration is acting on the theory that more commerce, capitalism, contact, travel and trade will empower the people of Cuba and thus give them a greater voice in their political future. And so the first point to make is that it will help Cubans economically -- it will raise their incomes, their standard of living, and boost access to technology. These are all good things in and of themselves.

But easing the embargo will also help Americans, who will benefit from being able to trade with a neighbor. This is the reason that conservatives have long understood that free trade is not a gift bestowed on someone. It helps both countries and in particular, helps the United States.
That's why the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- bastion of conservative thought -- has been an advocate on lifting the trade embargo against Cuba, which is a far larger step than Obama's normalization.
So, did it support Obama's opening? Of course not. It turns out that he has done it in the wrong way. It is difficult not to think that the problem here is not the policy, but who the president is. Had George W. Bush announced this initiative, I have a feeling that the Wall Street Journal would be hailing it -- and Rubio would be quoting Milton Friedman to us all.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com

Malala Yousafzai: Obama Should Visit Syrian Border to See Suffering Up Close

When Malala Yousafzai met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office last October, she boldly told him that drone strikes are “fueling terrorism” in her home country of Pakistan. Today, during a live appearance via satellite from the Jordanian-Syrian border on CNN, the 16-year-old activist had another message for the president: Come here and see the Syrian refugees’ “suffering” for yourself.

“I would request that the president go to the Jordinian-Syrian border, or go to the border of Lebanon and Syria, and see how these people are suffering,” Yousafzai said when Wolf Blitzer asked her what more she thinks Obama should do about the civil war in Syria. “When he will look at it, he will feel it. And then he will understand what it happening here.”

Yousafzai advocated for peace in Syria, not only when it comes to the Syrian government but also from the various opposition groups fighting against them. “Put your guns down, talk through peace,” she said, adding that she believes it’s always better to choose peace over war.

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President Obama Apologizes for Dissing Art History Degrees

If you got a degree in art history, your eye might have twitched a bit when President Obama said a few weeks ago that Americans would be more well off in the manufacturing industry as opposed to, say, having an art history degree. Well, there is literally nothing these days that doesn’t warrant an apology, and now Obama has apologized for that remark.

Art historian and University of Texas at Austin professor Ann Collins Johns sent a message on the White House website taking offense at Obama’s remarks, explaining the importance of art history and how art historians can help enrich the culture.

Well, apparently, they actually do read those website messages, because Johns received a response from the president personally apologizing for the remark. Here it is in full:

Ann,

Let me apologize for my off-the-cuff remarks. I was making a point about the jobs market, not the value of art history. As it so happens, art history was one of my favorite subjects in high school, and it has helped me take in a great deal of joy in my life that I might otherwise have missed.
So please pass on my apology for the glib remark to the entire department, and understand that I was trying to encourage young people who may not be predisposed to a four year college experience to be open to technical training that can lead them to an honorable career.
Sincerely,

Barack Obama

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Gingrich Blasts Blitzer for Remarkably Selective Outrage over Nugent's Obama Remarks

The host of CNN’s Crossfire, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, took a swipe at the “remarkably selective” outrage on his own network over rock star Ted Nugent’s offensive comments about President Barack Obama.

Nugent recently sparked controversy when he called Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” On Tuesday, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer spent several segments dissecting Nugent’s comments on Obama and their origins in Nazi Germany. Gingrich later joined Blitzer and tore into what he said was the network’s failure to call out Democrats for similarly offensive remarks about their political opponents.

“The outrage isn’t so much, from my perspective, Ted Nugent says a lot of crazy, vile slurs over the years,” Blitzer said. “The outrage really is that the Republican candidate for governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is willing to embrace him, invite him to go out on the campaign trail after he calls the President of the United States a subhuman mongrel. Would you do that if you were running for office?”

“No, but I always love selective media outrage,” Gingrich replied.

RELATED: Blitzer Gets Super-Detailed on Nazi Origins of Nugent’s ‘Subhuman Mongrel’ Obama Remark

“The Saturday before the 2000 election, Al Gore went to a black church and charged that George W. Bush would appoint judges to return blacks to be counted as three-fifths of a person,” the speaker continued. “In 2012 Vice President [Joe] Biden went to a black audience and said if the Republicans win within 100 days, they will put you back in chains.”

“Now why isn’t there some accountability for tremendously outrageous, vicious, and racist statements by Democratic elected officials, not just entertainers?” Gingrich asked.

Blitzer challenged the Crossfire host on the Nazi origins of Nugent’s attack on Obama, which resulted in a tense back and forth over whether CNN has appropriately called out Democrats and their allies when they issued similarly excessive rhetorical attacks on their opponents.

“I would love to have the media condemn a major Democrat for some of the vicious things they have said,” Gingrich said. “I have never seen it done. I don’t expect to see it done in my lifetime.”

“I think this is entirely selective outrage,” he concluded. “I think what he said was wrong and he shouldn’t have said it. But I also think that the outrage is remarkably selective.”

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Wallace Grills Dem Rep over Whether Obama has Authority to Delay Obamacare

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sat down with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for a debate over where President Barack Obama derives the authority to delay key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Wallace grilled Becerra over why Congress is allowing Obama to do this and Lee over why Republicans do not take the president to court over these delays.

“If this were against the Constitution, someone would have sued by now,” Becerra said of the series of delays. “The reality is, the president has used his executive powers less often than almost every president before him.”

Wallace asked why Becerra, “as a congressman,” seems content to allow the president this broad authority. “The president has never said I’m going to go it alone,” Becerra said. He added that Congress has refused to perform and it is incumbent on Obama to act where Congress won’t.

Wallace interrupted Becerra and insisted that the Constitution says that the president does not have the authority to reinterpret law as broadly as he appears to be. “I would hope that we would never have a chief executive who would twiddle his thumbs because Congress can’t get its act together,” Becerra replied.

RELATED: The Media’s Outrageous Enabling of Obama’s Lawlessness

Wallace turned to Lee and noted that Obama has used executive orders less than the last four two-term presidents. He asked why the president cannot be taken to court.

Lee replied by noting that “it’s difficult” to identify a plaintiff who could assert standing before a court in order to bring a case against the president.

Wallace asked why a legislator cannot demonstrate standing by insisting that Obama is ignoring existing law. Lee did not disagree with this assertion. He added that it was “wrong” for the president to be reinterpreting the law.

Source: Mediaite
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Stephanopoulos Asks Kevin Spacey if Obama Envies His Ruthlessly Efficient Character

Kevin Spacey, the lead actor in Netflix’s drama about politics in the nation’s capital, House of Cards, appeared on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday to discuss the show and Hollywood’s discovery of the dramas unfolding in Washington D.C. During that interview, the host asked Spacey if President Barack Obama admires the “ruthlessly efficient” character he plays in that television show.

“Is Washington more exciting than Hollywood?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“For me, it’s like performance art,” Spacey said. He added the storylines on his program are not “that crazy” when compared to the average story broadcast on the evening news.

“It does seem that even President Obama has a little bit of Frank Underwood envy the ruthlessly efficient Frank Underwood,” the host observed.

“I can imagine why he would,” Spacey said. The actor added that he thinks it must be interesting for the American public to view what a “very effective Congress” looks like. “I can imagine he must feel, gosh, I wish we could move that quickly,” Spacey observed.

The actor made Stephanopoulos laugh when he said that he hears from viewers that they believe most of the show is accurate, with the possible exception that “you could never get an education bill passed that fast.”

Source: Mediaite
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GOP Sen. Mike Lee: Obamacare Delays a Shameless Power Grab by Obama

During an extended discussion on Fox News Sunday about where President Barack Obama derives the authority to unilaterally delay provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told Fox anchor Chris Wallace that he believed the president’s delays amount to a “shameless power grab.”

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) told Wallace that Obama altering aspects of the law are within his discretion and they are designed to help Americans to more effectively comply with the law.

Lee disagreed. “This is a shameless act, a shameless power grab that is designed to help the president and his political party achieve a particular outcome in a partisan election,” the senator asserted. “The Constitution doesn’t give the president that power.”

RELATED: Wallace Grills Dem Rep over Whether Obama has Authority to Delay Obamacare

“The solution is for the president to come to Congress and make the case to Congress on the policy merits of this question that Congress needs to act,” Lee continued. “It is not the president’s prerogative to simply make this the law by the stroke of the executive pen.”

Source: Mediaite
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Krauthammer: Obama Now Just ‘Decides What the Law Is Going to Be’ Every Morning

The latest Obamacare delay has renewed cries on the right of lawlessness and arbitrary enforcement of the law from the White House. On Special Report Wednesday, Charles Krauthammer quipped it’s as simple as the president waking up in the morning and deciding what the law will be that day.

Krauthammer remarked on the “crazy paradox” that the point of Obamacare was to take care of the 30 million uninsured, but a new report says the number of uninsured under Obamacare will hit 31 million in just a few years. He said the administration has been “fudging” and “inflating” the numbers ad infinitum, and it’s at the point now, he argued, that the law is whatever President Obama wants it to be.

“Remember how Democrats were complaining that Republicans were trying to overturn Obamacare, it was somehow unpatriotic, because it was an attack on the law of the land. This law of the land doesn’t even exist. It exists in Obama’s head. It’s whatever he thinks. He wakes up in the morning and decides what the law is gonna be.”

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GOP Rep. Hits Obama on Faith: He Doesn't Really Believe in Religious Freedom

President Obama spoke at the annual National Prayer Breakfast recently defending religious freedom, but at least one member of Congress wasn’t too pleased with it. Republican Steve Southerland recently expressed outrage about it on Washington Watch with Christian conservative Tony Perkins, saying he was “stunned by the hypocrisy” of what Obama said, for, as he argued, the president has never really cared about upholding people’s religious freedoms.

Republicans have taken issue with Obama over religious freedom when it comes to things like the contraception mandate, and Southerland was no doubt referring to that, among other things, when he said, “To insult those who really believe those words we just don’t believe the messenger of those words and to trivialize our deeply held beliefs by making statements that are so contrary to his actions and those of his administration is the ultimate disrespect.”

He added, “When a child is robbed of life, they are robbed of that very dignity,” concluding that Obama’s words just “stunned” and “shocked” him.

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Geraldo Attacks O'Reilly over Contentious Obama Interview: You Minimized the President!

Geraldo Rivera took on Bill O’Reilly Friday night over whether O’Reilly was disrespectful to President Obama in their big Super Bowl interview. Rivera gave O’Reilly some benefit of the doubt, but other than that thought O’Reilly was a bit too confrontational and didn’t give Obama the kind of respect a president normally deserves.
Rivera argued it was less like an interview and more like a meeting of the minds with the “President of Most of the White Guys of America” (O’Reilly) against the president of the rest of the country, and told O’Reilly that it was out of line for him to refer to Obama as a “community organizer.”
He said it was “unsettling to watch,” and the president deserves “all the respect and dignity” of the office. O’Reilly fired back that his job is not to please, it’s to “get information” and ask “the tough questions,” and believed that he gave enough deference and respect to the office of the presidency.
Rivera concluded that the larger point O’Reilly made about inner-city families was “obscured” by how he “minimized” the president.

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Obama to Senate Dems: I’ll stay away from your re-election campaigns

Three weeks ago, Barack Obama paid a visit to North Carolina for a speech at which incumbent Democrat Senator Kay Hagan, who faces a tough re-election bid in November, was curiously absent. Obama name-checked her anyway, which was interpreted as a slap at Hagan for attempting to distance herself from her party’s leader. Last week, Hagan refused to answer when asked whether her ties to Obama would hurt her re-election bid.
Now, suddenly, even Obama seems to understand that he’s an anchor on incumbents in the next election. He’s offering to stay out of their states now, according to the Washington Post:
President Obama, struggling with low approval ratings after a dispiriting year of setbacks, conceded in private remarks Wednesday that some fellow Democrats might not want his help in this fall’s elections.
The candid self-appraisal came during a policy retreat with the Senate Democratic caucus at the Washington Nationals’ stadium, part of a flurry of outreach efforts with congressional Democrats this week focused on crafting strategies for the midterms.

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CNN poll: More Americans still blame Bush for poor economy than blame Obama

I’ve written a good half-dozen posts on this topic over the years but I’ll never stop finding it interesting.
We’re getting there, guys. At the rate perceptions of blame are shifting, I think we’ve got an outside chance of Obama finally passing Bush by, say, summer 2016. Just in time.
Thirty-six percent of those questioned rate the current economic conditions as good. That’s up four percentage points from December and it is the highest level since January 2008, a year before Obama entered the White House. Sixty-four percent continue to say the economy is in poor shape…
Five years into Obama’s presidency, only a third of the public believes that Obama and the Democrats are primarily responsible for the country’s current economic problems.
More Americans continue to blame former President Bush and the Republicans. But the number who say the GOP is more responsible – now at 44% – has dipped below the 50% mark for the first time since Bush left the White House. Fourteen percent blame both parties equally
The last media outlet to poll this was, I believe, ABC/WaPo, which posed the question in December. Their result: Fifty percent blamed Bush versus 38 percent who blamed Obama, virtually the same margin as in the new CNN numbers. What’s significant about CNN, though, is the movement in Dubya’s column. The big takeaway from ABC/WaPo was that, no matter what’s happening in America politically or economically, the blame numbers almost never change. Remember?

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Another great moment in nominating Obama donors as ambassadors

HomeArchivesGreen RoomEd Morrissey Show posted at 9:01 pm on February 6, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham
Granted, it’s not as if this is a new practice or solely the practice of Democratic administrations, not by a long shot. But I don’t recall seeing so many grossly ignorant nominees put their gross ignorance on display so readily.
First, there was Norway.
Then Sen. Max Baucus, who is not a donor per se, but certainly benefits from a sort of chummy patronage in his nomination to the China ambassadorship (and should know better than to drop the ball in a Senate hearing).
Now, Argentina. This is nothing a backpacking trip or a perusal of Wikipedia, at the very least, couldn’t solve. These guys are super-rich! Take an educational tour before you take questions in front of the Senate:
But, really, who’s going to stop them? What price is there to pay? The Secretary of Defense gave one of the most woeful confirmation performances in the history of confirmation performances and the entire press corps decided it was the height of obstructionism to suggest that meant anything about whether he was fit for the position and took to the fainting couch when he had to wait a week to be confirmed.
So, who’s worrying about an ambassador to a Latin American country of emerging importance? I hope the ambassador enjoys his first visit.
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Woman Derails GOP Town Hall Going Off on Why Obama Needs to Be Executed

A recent Republican town hall got thrown a little off-course with something rather outlandish proposed by a member of the crowd; this time a woman who used her opportunity to talk at Congressman Jim Bridenstine‘s town hall about why President Obama “should be executed as an enemy combatant.”
The woman called Obama “moron” and a “criminal” who is acting wholly without authority and “nobody’s doing anything” to reign him in. There was some awkward laughter as she brought up the execution of the president, and Bridenstine brushed past it to keep going after Obama on his lawlessness in bypassing Congress.
He took another question from a woman who said that the Senate needs to change hands so “we can impeach the SOB.”

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Matthews: Anything That's Nasty About Obama Becomes Amen Chorus of the GOP

Recently a participant at a Republican town hall floated the idea of executing President Obama, and on Wednesday night Chris Matthews used that as a jumping point to go after the universally “nasty” treatment the right wing gives Obama. He argued, “The continual statement that gets you where you want to go in right-wing Republican politics… is simply being against the president.”
He brought up the execution line to say the GOP just loves piling on however they can, because “anything that’s nasty about this guy has become the amen chorus of the Republican party!”
Matthews ended up being wistful for the days when John McCain was scolding supporters for going after the president; an example, he said, of Republican fair mindedness.

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Muslim Brotherhood Leader Meets Obama in White House

What’s the big deal? A couple of allies, a couple of people of like mind meet it happens all the time. “,” by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, February 5 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood was recently hosted at the White House for a meeting with President Barack Obama, prompting an outcry from critics of the global Islamist organization.
Anas Altikriti, a top British lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood whose father heads Iraq’s Muslim Brotherhood party, recently met with the president and Vice President Joe Biden as part of a delegation discussing problems in Iraq.
Altikriti, whose work has also been tied to Hamas, can be seen smiling in photos published by the White House as he stands next to Iraqi Parliament Speaker Usama al-Nujaifi, who is pictured shaking hands with President Obama in the White House’s Roosevelt Room. The meeting was first highlighted by the blog Harry’s Place.
The Obama administration has been criticized its outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, the international Islamist organization whose members’ brief reign in Egypt was supported by the White House.
Nujaifi, Altikriti, and other members of the Iraqi delegation were in town late January to discuss al Qaeda’s growing presence in Iraq. Nujaifi himself was reported to have met twice with President Obama, though it remains unclear if Altikriti accompanied him on both occasions.

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Monday Cable Ratings: O'Reilly Tops 4.2M Viewers with Obama Interview

The continuation of Bill O’Reilly’s pre-Super Bowl interview with President Barack Obama drew a strong 626K viewers in the 25-54 demo and 4.204M total viewers to Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, making it the most-watched show on cable news Monday night.
The strong lead-in did not help Fox’s The Kelly File as much as one would have expected, especially in the demo. The Rachel Maddow Show was #1 in the demo at 9pm with 472K, ahead of Megyn Kelly with 372K. Kelly did come out ahead in total viewers with 2.686M to Maddow’s 1.367M.

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Matthews Uses O'Reilly Interview to Go After Obama Derangement Syndrome on Benghazi

During his Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Obama continued to downplay the idea there was any “scandal” surrounding the Benghazi attacks. Republicans, of course, reacted very negatively, even going so far as to, in some cases, calling Obama a liar. Chris Matthews took on the GOP responses on Tuesday and used them to go after the conservative “Obama Derangement Syndrome.”
Matthews said that Benghazi has “become a code for something,” and while he didn’t get more specific about what that is, Eugene Robinson noted it’s simply code for how much people hate Obama.
Dana Milbank claimed that the crux of the Benghazi argument is about what Obama called it, mockingly saying “it doesn’t matter if he called it a ham sandwich!” He added, “To have a cover-up there has to be something you’re covering up.”
Matthews brought up his past clashes with Republicans and said Obama Derangement Syndrome has just gone off the rails; so much, so, Robinson said, it’s morphed into this weird “denial of the fact that the American people voted for him twice.”


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Megyn Kelly Clashes with Carville over Obama's Shots at Fox: Bush Never Did This About MSNBC!

Megyn Kelly squared off with James Carville on Tuesday about President Obama taking multiple snipes at Fox News during his big Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, with Kelly telling Carville that George W. Bush never complained this much about MSNBC when he was in office.
The segment kicked off with Carville brushing off Hillary Clinton‘s Super Bowl Sunday tweet about seeing someone else “getting blitzed and sacked,” dismissing it as a joke that people really shouldn’t be reading int.
But things got more heated when Kelly brought up Obama’s comments, finding it a little silly for the president to be taking such broad shots at a cable network.
“Is it embarrassing enough for the President of the United States to be complaining about a cable channel? I mean, President Bush never did this about MSNBC!”
Carville shot back that the Bush team was always complaining about the liberal media, and told Kelly that Fox News needs to stop being so defensive every time he says Fox is a right-wing network and just embrace their identity. Kelly just thought it was silly for Obama to be “complaining about his coverage when he’s got most of the mainstream media in his pocket.”

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Stewart Tears into Obama Scandal Obsession at Spite-Driven Anger Machine Fox News

Jon Stewart thinks Fox News is maybe a little too sensitive about President Obama taking a few swipes at them during his Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, and mocked the idea that the leader of the free world went out of his way to deflect from the major scandals plaguing his administration by doing an interview in which naught but those scandals were addressed on the same day and on the same network as the most watched television event of all time.
Stewart said, “You know the president doesn’t work for Fox, right? He can deviate from your script!” He showed clip after clip of Fox personalities citing a number of different events, speeches, and policy announcements that could easily be distractions from either the economy or a scandal.
Stewart could only conclude that Fox News is a “spite-driven anger machine” in which there is a perpetual vortex that nothing except the Obama scandal of the day can exist independently in.