Congressional and Administration officials are drawing up battle lines tonight over a planned reopening of the US Embassy in Cuba, with several Congressional leaders from both parties vowing to block any such reopening.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D – NJ) says the move is not in the US “national interest,” while Sen. Tom Cotton (R – AR) is blasting the effort as “appeasement of dictators.” House Speaker John Boehner (R – OH) said that US-Cuba relations shouldn’t be revised at all, let alone normalized.
Congress has issued some resolutions opposing ending the Cuba travel ban, though the White House insists it believes there is “strong support” within Congress for ending the economic embargo against the island.
Several Republicans seeking the White House nomination are insisting they will do everything possible to block improvements of US-Cuba ties, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) insisted he would make re-closing the embassy a top priority if elected. Other hawkish candidates are likely to make similar pledges.
As America moves closer and closer to Albania circa 1970…… The rest of the world gave up on the Cuba embargo decades ago… and they gave up "Creation Science" . The "historic" gay marriage decision was no news at all in Canada and western Europe.
The remaining human population of Earth (95%) is growing weary of American political nut jobs. The "choices" for the next American president are saddening.
The end of America as the sole superpower can't come soon enough.
If these politicians would read the constitution they might find that they can regulate commerce with foreign powers and declare war on them but that is it other than holding the purse strings. Since the president is empowered to nominate ambassadors any sane person would understand that an ambassador without an embassy is nonsense hence that the president is also empowered to open an embassy in any country. Ergo they can forbid the president to have an economic attache in Havana and that is it.
The Republican criticism of Cuba as a "human rights violator" needs further clarification – a tremendous amount of clarification, as Cuba seems to be free of racial, economic or class discrimination. Should the GOP view Israel with the same critical lens, their heads would explode.
I bet not one of the Senators actually KNOW why there was an embargo in the first place! I bet that not one knows that the perceived slight that caused the embargo was suffered by both Britain and France to a Much greater degree and was basically ignored by them! The embargo was because CUBA demanded and took all major foreign land holders land from them and anything that was on that land! US Sugar demanded full restitution which Cuba denied! How often do we see US Courts deny foreigners restitution in US Courts? It was NEVER about "Human rights violations" seriously if the Western World was to make the same comparison to the US even China would have a right to sanction the US! It wasn't about the Cuban Missile Crisis either that too was caused by the US Bay of Pigs fiasco and putting Nuclear missiles on the Turkish Soviet border aimed at Moscow! The Bay of Pigs was another one of Kermit's CIA fiascos which has had long running consequences the other was the overthrow of a democratic Government in Iran and instillation of a Dictator both Authorised and planned under IKE! By the way the reason that Iran was treated as it was because they too took away a Major Companies access at cheap prices to OIL, Anglo Iran Oil as it was then known were told they would have to pay a proper royalty to the Iranian Government when they refused they lost the ability to export oil at all! Anglo Iranian oil is known today as BP!
What the Republicans are seriously worried about is that if Cuba opens up they will in fact be the country of choice for Americans to have Medical procedures done! There by taking the Profits from one of their supporter bases!