Tag Archives: Barack Obama

International news

How to respond to cyber attacks?

Let me stipulate that I love living in a relatively free and open society.

However, there are some things I don’t need to know.

I don’t need to know where we’ve deployed all our nuclear weapons and which nations are targeted by them. I don’t need to know where our spies are operating overseas.

And I don’t need to know how we’re going to respond to the cyber attack launched — admittedly — by North Korea in response to that film that depicts an attempt to kill Kim Jong-Un.

President Obama said today at a news conference that the United States is planning a “proportional” response to the cyber attack.

Fine.

Go ahead and plan away. I don’t need to know what we’re going to do to retaliate.

I do have confidence that our highly trained American cyber spooks are going to deliver some serious grief to the North Koreans when the time is right and when they’ve decided how to get back at them for what they did to us on this end.

Let’s face facts. North Korea is a half-starving Third World dictatorship that has squandered its money on a military machine at the expense of feeding its people or providing them with infrastructure. Its Internet technology is third- or maybe fourth-rate as well. Yet the reclusive Stalinist state has managed to hack into American businesses using some skill its cyber geeks have acquired.

How much damage can our geeks do to the North Koreans? Plenty.

I just don’t feel the need to know the nitty-gritty details of what they’re going to do.

 

entertainment news, International news

Sony's bigger mistake was in making film

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President Obama said today Sony Pictures made a mistake when it pulled a film depicting an attempted assassination of North Korean dictator/goofball Kim Jong-Un.

Well, Mr. President, from my vantage point, Sony’s bigger mistake was making the film in the first place.

http://politicslive.cnn.com/Event/President_Obama_Press_Conference?hpt=hp_t1

The film and the reaction from North Korea has been the talk of, well, the world. “The Interview” was supposed to be released. It stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and it’s about a plot to kill Kim Jong-Un.

Sony pulled the picture, cancelling its release after North Korea launched a cyber attack in response to the film. Yes, the crazy Stalinists in North Korea were angry.

Why in the world would anyone be surprised? And why would anyone doubt North Korea would respond with a cyber attack that has done considerable damage around the world?

Why, also, wouldn’t Sony have anticipated this kind of unpredictability from the leader of a reclusive state known to do just about anything to make a point?

Obama said American filmmakers shouldn’t be pushed around by nations angry over their work.

That’ a fair point.

But don’t filmmakers have a responsibility to exercise some judgment in choosing the topics — and individuals — they seek to portray?

They made a “comedy” about an attempt to kill a living, breathing leader of a nation that has acted rather dangerously before.

Therein lies Sony’s mistake.

 

national news

Racism, or mistaken identity?

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Take a look at the picture of first lady Michelle Obama attached to this blog post.

It shows her shopping at Target in 2011. She’s dressed casually, with a ball cap and sunglasses. The first lady said during a “highly publicized” shopping excursion, the only person who talked to her was a woman who asked her to take something off a shelf.

The first lady used that encounter as an example of the racism she and her husband, the president, have experienced over many years.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/12/17/michelle-obama-i-was-asked-to-get-something-off-the-shelf-at-target/

I guess my confusion is rooted in a single question: Would I have recognized this woman as the first lady of the United States had I seen her pushing a shopping cart through a mid-level department store?

I’m not so sure.

The only giveaway that she is a very important person would be the presence of security personnel wearing ear pieces, dark suits and perhaps handguns bulging from the side of their jackets.

Yeah, that would tip me off that she’s the first lady.

There can be zero doubt that President and Mrs. Obama have felt slights — large and small — growing up in the United States. They are laying some of that experience out in a lengthy People magazine interview. It is wrong for it to have happened in any context … ever!

However, I am a bit puzzled by the example cited by the first lady.

The only thing I can figure is that the Secret Service agents were keeping a considerable distance away when the woman asked the first lady for some help.

Am I wrong to think this?

 

International news

U.S. need not continue pointless embargo

The United States embargo against Cuba did not work.

It won’t work in the future.

So, the president of the United States made a calculation: If the sanctions are being enforced by just one nation in the world, ours, what is precisely the point of continuing a policy that the entire rest of the world is ignoring?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/12/50-years-is-long-enough-to-prove-that-cuba-sanctions-werent-working.html/

Let’s put it another, harsher, way: One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

OK, our Cuba policy wasn’t exactly insane. It just nutty.

The Cuban people deserve to be free. President Obama has declared his intention to keep applying the pressure on Cuba’s leaders to give Cubans basic human rights that others in civilized nations ought to enjoy. The best way for the United States to apply that pressure is to engage the Cubans directly through diplomatic missions. So, let’s start that project.

Our non-relationship has lasted 50 years. It began when the Cold War was going full bore. That “war” has ended. Cuba is a Third World country that does business with Canada and Mexico, North America’s other two giant nations. It also does business with virtually the entire world.

Only the United States enforces this so-called “embargo.”

It is good that we end it. The sooner the better.

As the president noted, if we can engage nations such as China and Vietnam — two nations we have fought on the battlefield — surely we ought to do the same with Cuba.

International news, political news

No surprise at GOP balking over Cuba proposal

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Imagine my huge surprise that two leading Florida politicians, both Republicans, would be critical of President Obama’s decision to begin normalizing relations with Cuba.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, whose parent fled Cuba to the United States, and former Gov. Jeb Bush, a probable candidate for president in 2016, both have come out against the president’s plan.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/alan-gross-released-113635.html?hp=c2_3

I get it. Really, I do.

They’re appealing to their home state political base, which includes a seriously anti-communist Cuban-American community that cannot stomach the thought of their communist former homeland getting any kind of overture from the United States.

OK, I’m just kidding about the surprise.

Obama is going to hear more angst from other Republicans. Some of them are going to openly oppose any effort to end the economic embargo because they, too, are afraid of the party’s base.

The effort got kick started when Cuba released Alan Gross from five years of wrongful imprisonment. In return, the United States sent three Cuban prisoners back to the island nation.

Given that Cuba poses zero threat militarily to the United States and that regular, run-of-the-mill Cubans deserve a chance to see their country improve its economic standing when the U.S. embargo is lifted, the decision seemed prudent and compassionate.

Yet some in Congress only heard part of the president’s remarks today. He said he intends to keep pressuring the Cubans to improve human rights and that the Havana government must allow people to express themselves freely. Did I hear the president correctly on that? I believe so.

Why didn’t Rubio and Bush hear it? Oh, that’s right. One is a probable candidate for president and the other, Rubio, might jump in, too.

An upcoming political campaign appears to be hard on politicians’ hearing.

 

International news

Yes, we won the Cold War

Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States will begin normalizing relations with its long time enemy Cuba brings to mind a truism that plays into this development.

It is that the Cold War is over. We won! The communists lost it.

Indeed, long before the Cold War was declared over — with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 — we had relations with communist countries. China and the Soviet Union are the two examples.

The president noted today that we even restored relations with Vietnam, a nation with which we fought a long and bloody war that cost more than 58,000 American lives.

Cuba? Until today, it remained on our list of nations non grata.

And why? Well, it didn’t pose a military threat. Its economy is in shambles. Its people still are suffering from lack of freedom and the depravity brought on it by the repressive economic policies of the Marxists who run the island nation.

We’ve made our point. Our system is better than their system.

We outlasted the communists by forcing the Soviet Union to spend money on its military while its people suffered. Then came its restructuring and its newfound openness policies.

All the while, we maintained an embassy in Moscow and they had one in Washington.

The Cubans? We continued to punish them.

President Obama has done what should have been done — could have been done — many years ago.

It’s no doubt going to anger many members of the Cuban-American community who hate the communists who govern the nation of their birth. Will it matter in the grand scheme to the president? Not one bit. He’s a lame duck. He’ll be out of office in two years. The Cuban-American voting bloc supports Republicans overwhelmingly as it is.

The normalization should proceed quickly nonetheless. We won the Cold War. It’s time to move on.

 

International news

Common sense returns to U.S.-Cuba relations

It didn’t work. The United States sought for five decades to punish Cuba because it went from being an old-fashioned autocratic dictatorship to a Marxist tyranny.

The aim was to bring Cuba to its knees and to send a message to its major benefactor — the Soviet Union — that we just wouldn’t tolerate a communist dictatorship at our doorstep.

Well, five-plus decades later, that idiotic non-relationship took a huge step toward its end. President Obama today announced that the United States is going to begin “normalizing” relations with the island nation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-us-re-establishing-relations-with-cuba/ar-BBgUJV0

It … is … about … damn … time!

An American aide worker, Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned for five years in Cuba was released today. In exchange, we sent three Cubans back to their homeland. They all had been accused of spying. Gross’s release apparently removed the final impediment to the normalization of relations.

Obama made sense on virtually every point he made this morning in a brief televised announcement.

Cuba poses zero military threat to the United States. The Soviet Union has vanished. Russia’s economy is imploding. The Cuban people remain shackled by the tyranny that governs them, but Obama today insisted today that the Cuban government start loosening the binding that keeps Cubans from expressing themselves freely.

The president noted that the United States is virtually the only nation on Earth that honors the embargo slapped on Cuba in the early 1960s. Yes, Cuba trades with the rest of the world, but its totalitarian government has impeded prosperity from flowing to the people. That, too, should change, Obama said.

The president noted today that Cuba is still governed by someone named “Castro,” but it’s Raul, not Fidel.

He said he called Raul Castro today to tell him of the impending change in the U.S.-Cuba relationship. I’ll presume Fidel’s brother agreed to it.

The question now is whether Congress will agree to legislate an end to the economic embargo. The president can establish diplomatic ties with another nation all by himself, but Congress has to agree to end the embargo, as its enactment was done legislatively.

Here’s hoping the common sense caucus of Congress will agree to what is a profoundly sensible course of action.

Continuing to do the same thing repeatedly while hoping for a different result means it’s time to change what you’re doing. We can continue to have ideological competition between the two countries, but we ought to do so face to face.

Congratulations and thanks, Mr. President, for restoring some sense to our nation’s foreign policy.

 

International news

Did the U.S. destroy the Russian economy?

A question is being bandied about in the international press while the world watches the Russian economy implode.

Have the U.S.-led sanctions against Russia brought about the collapse?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/barack-obama-vladimir-putin-russian-economy-113626.html?hp=t2_r

You remember when President Obama announced the sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and sent troops into the neighboring country because Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t like all that anti-Russia rhetoric coming out of Kiev.

Some hardliners on the right wanted the United States to do more, to bring military pressure to bear — perhaps by arming the Ukrainians who were fighting the advance of Russian armor and infantry into their country. The sanctions, they reckoned, wouldn’t have much of an impact.

Interesting that the sanctions all by themselves might have helped bring the Russian economy to its knees. The value of the ruble is plummeting, along with the price of oil, a major source of Russian income. The sanctions have tied up Russian investments abroad and have made it quite difficult for Russian businessman to function.

Russia remains a major military power. Its economic standing, though, has been reduced to second- or perhaps third-tier status.

According to Politico: “’It’s hard to disaggregate out the independent effects of the sanctions from the bigger story. Obviously the driver is oil prices,’ said Obama’s former ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul.

“’That said, there is no doubt that sanctions raise uncertainty about the Russian economy. Their own minister of economic development said today that the ruble is falling faster than the macroeconomic indicators would suggest it should be,’ McFaul added.”

The sanctions are punishing the one-time super power.

It remains to been, of course, whether Putin’s future adventurism will end. My guess is that he’ll have to think twice, maybe more, about getting involved in other countries’ internal affairs.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Senate approves surgeon general … finally!

For the first time in I don’t know how long, the United States has a top doctor.

He is Vivek Murthy, who today was approved by the U.S. Senate to become the nation’s next surgeon general.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-approves-obama-pick-for-surgeon-general/ar-BBgQAMd

Despite his sparkling medical credentials and the work he has done to combat HIV/AIDS, senators had held up his nomination because he has spoken out against gun violence, calling it a public health issue.

Imagine that. A physician wanting to control gun violence because bullets injure and kill people.

His confirmation vote today was 51-43, with Republicans overwhelmingly opposing him because he is no friend of gun-rights advocates. Some Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in opposing Dr. Murthy.

One of them was Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who issued a statement opposing the doctor because, according to Manchin, his political views muddled his medical policy. I understand why Manchin joined other senators in opposing Murthy. It’s because he’s scared of gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association and the potent political power they possess.

That doesn’t make it right.

Vivek Murthy is perfectly qualified to serve as surgeon general. His views on gun control are well-known, but they do not infringe on his ability to help set medical policy or recommend measures to promote good health on behalf of the Obama administration.

Indeed, had their been a surgeon general on board during the recent Ebola mini-scare, there might not have been a need for the president to appoint an “Ebola czar” to coordinate the administration’s response to the disease’s arrival in the United States.

OK, so that task is done. We have a surgeon general. It’s good to know that at least 51 senators had the guts to vote in favor of hiring a chief medical officer to advise the nation on how to take better care of its health.

 

political news

It's getting even messier on Capitol Hill

Winston Churchill had it exactly right when he sought to describe a democratic form of government.

He lamented its messiness and inefficiency when he said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

I wish he was here today to see what’s transpiring on Capitol Hill. Republicans are fighting among themselves in a TEA party vs. establishment conflict. Now the Democrats have begun cannibalizing each other in a progressive vs. centrist fight.

At the center of it all is a $1.1 trillion spending bill that extremists in either party don’t like, for differing reasons, obviously.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-budget-cromnibus-2016-elections-113561.html?hp=t4_r

Just as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has become the face of the TEA party insurgency within the Republican Party, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has assumed the Democratic mantle of gadfly in chief.

They both have at least one thing in common. They’re freshmen legislators. Neither of them has much Capitol Hill seasoning under the belts. Cruz is more of a loudmouth. Warren doesn’t bellow her dislike of Democratic comprises, but she’s becoming a tiger in the Senate.

Warren has become the liberals’ latest best hope for a possible challenge to prohibitive Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton. They see Warren as a spokeswoman for the common man and woman who distrusts the power brokers who are lining up behind Clinton’s still-unannounced presidential candidacy.

Cruz, meanwhile, has become the darling of the conservative movement within his own party. Will he challenge, say, Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination?

Let’s think about this for a moment: Cruz and Warren both catch fire enough to snatch their parties’ nomination from the favorites. Clinton lost in 2008 to a young senator with zero name ID nationally. Barack Obama went on to win the presidency in a near-landslide and then score a decisive re-election victory four years later. Will history repeat itself? I doubt it — for now.

As for Cruz, the GOP establishment will fight him tooth and nail if he keeps roiling the waters, demanding government shutdowns and insisting on outcomes that won’t occur.

Our form of representative democracy, Sir Winston, is about to get a whole lot messier.