Tag Archives: Barack Obama

entertainment news, national news

Rethinking this Sony film matter

Mea culpa time, kind of.

I’ve been getting beaten up over a blog I posted about whether Sony erred in making a comedy about an attempted assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. I said Sony Pictures’ biggest mistake was in making the film at all.

The chastening I’ve taken has forced me to reconsider what I wrote. Here it is:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/12/19/sonys-bigger-mistake-was-in-making-film/

President Obama said this week that Sony “made a mistake” in pulling the film from its scheduled release. He said the filmmaker should not be intimidated by a two-bit dictator. Others have noted that the United States, the strongest nation on Earth, shouldn’t be cowed by a tinhorn despot.

My friends on the left and the right have slung barbs at me for suggesting that Kim Jong-Un had a legitimate beef with the filmmakers and the film, “The Interview,” which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco.

No one likes admitting they were mistaken, but I think I’m about to go there.

Maybe I got caught up in the heat of the moment and didn’t think through the implications — all of them — in suggesting Sony had messed up.

Perhaps if I were running Sony, I would have been reluctant to depict the killing of an actual sovereign leader. Here’s the thing, though: I am not running Sony. That was someone else’s call. They had the right to make that decision.

Kim Jong-Un, therefore, didn’t have the right to bully Sony into pulling back the release of its film.

There. I actually feel better now.

 

national news, political news

Bring on the State of the Union

House Speaker John Boehner has put an end to one of the more idiotic notions to come from the TEA party wing of the GOP in, oh, maybe ever.

The speaker officially invited President Obama on Friday to deliver the State of the Union speech on Jan. 20. It’s in keeping with congressional custom, which says the speaker invites the president into the House chamber to speak to a joint session of Congress — and the nation — about (yep!) the State of the Union.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/john-boehner-obama-state-of-the-union_n_6354448.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

A minor tempest popped up a few weeks ago when some TEA party advocates in Congress actually suggested — apparently in all seriousness — that Boehner ban the president from making his speech. Don’t extend the invitation, Mr. Speaker, they said, because we want to punish the president for issuing that executive order that saves 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

That’ll teach him, isn’t that right, Mr. Speaker?

Well, Boehner didn’t listen. Good for him.

The president will deliver the State of the Union speech. He’ll lay out his agenda for the next two years. Democrats will clap; Republicans will (mostly) sit on their hands. That’s the way it goes at these events, no matter the party to which the president belongs.

 

national news

Vacation for first family; POTUS will need the rest

President Obama has jetted off to his home state of Hawaii for some R&R with his family.

I’ll be interested now for the next several days whether we’re going to hear any carping about the golf being played, or whether the first lady is spending a lot of money on shopping excursions, or whether the first daughters are behaving themselves.

This kind of carping goes with the territory, I guess, and I am hoping that now — six years into the job — that the president and his family have grown used to it.

Social media being what they are, criticism hits cyberspace in swarms. It’s immediate, quite often mistaken and misplaced and also quite cruel.

I recall a couple of other notable presidents who’d take lengthy vacations.

* President Ronald Reagan would get holed up in his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., uttering hardly a peep in public. He’d come back down from his Rancho del Cielo refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of the day. You’d hear the occasional gripes from the media about the president’s lengthy hiatus, but hardly none of the nitpicking one hears today.

* President George W. Bush liked to “clear brush” at his own ranch in Central Texas, near Crawford — which is near Waco. Again, the media would gripe about that time off, although my hunch is that they disliked hanging out in rural Texas, which I’m guessing lacks some of the creature comforts to which those big-city media hounds had grown accustomed.

In both instances — and regarding vacations other presidents have taken — such criticism is unfounded and ridiculous.

Barack Obama doesn’t have any planned public events while he’s enjoying Christmas with his clan in Hawaii. He’ll get his usual daily national security briefings and updates on other matters way back east in Washington.

For now, enjoy your time in the sunshine, Mr. President. A new Congress controlled by the “other party” awaits you when you return for the home stretch of your time in office. You’ll need all the rest you can get.

 

national news

Boys kept out of White House queries

President Obama’s final press conference of 2014 made news in an unexpected manner.

Eight reporters asked him questions in the White House Press Room. All of them were women. Obama said at the outset he had checked his “naughty or nice” list when developing his list of questioners.

I guess the men among the White House press corps had been naughty.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-answers-female-reporters–questions-only-at-year-end-press-conference-212200355.html

What’s the statement here? I haven’t a clue.

One of the other interesting elements of the roster of questioners was that most of them rarely, if ever, get a chance to ask the president something at one of these events. They were “unknowns.”

The “big hitters” among the White House press cadre — the men and women who get the front-row seats — comprise the major broadcast and cable news networks, along with The Associated Press, the pre-eminent print news outlet. They sat there stone-faced while Obama called out names of people sitting in the back of the room.

Actually, I thought it was rather cool for the president to call on those who don’t usually participate in these televised news conferences. It gives others whose job is to report on presidential events a chance to put their own questions on the record with the Leader of the Free World.

Enough of the major-media echo chamber, thank you very much.

***

A memory came to mind just as I was typing this post about “no-name journalists.” Here goes.

Back in the 1980s, NASA announced a plan to send a working journalist into space aboard a space shuttle mission. It then put the word out for any journalist who was interested to apply.

I applied for a spot on a shuttle mission. What an amazing opportunity to report first hand, up close, in real time the immense thrill of orbiting Earth from outer space. Hey, I could do this.

As it turned out, NASA scrubbed its “civilian in space” after the Challenger disaster in January 1986, when school teacher Christa McAuliffe died along with her crewmates.

But after I submitted my application to NASA, I was sharing my desire to fly in space with a colleague of mine at the Beaumont Enterprise, where I was working at the time. I mentioned to my friend, Rosemary Harty, that NASA likely would go with some big-name network TV news celebrity — someone like Walter Cronkite.

“Oh, no they won’t, John,” Rosey said. “They’re going to pick a nobody, just like you.”

 

International news, political news

Cuba policy change provokes GOP fight

President Obama is picking a fight — between two Republicans who might want to succeed him in the White House.

I love this infighting.

Obama has announced a dramatic change in our nation’s policy toward Cuba. We’re moving toward normalization of relations, you know, with embassies in both countries and ambassadors representing their nation’s interests.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky supports the change; GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida opposes it.

So, what does Paul do? He calls Rubio an “isolationist.” He mentions his colleague by name. He takes direct aim at the young Floridian’s opposition to what Paul thinks is a reasonable and long overdue change.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rand-paul-tears-isolationist-marco-rubio-over-cuba

I happen to agree with Sen. Paul on this one.

He wrote an essay for Time magazine in which he lays out his argument. “The supporters of the embargo against Cuba speak with heated passion but fall strangely silent when asked how trade with Cuba is so different than trade with Russia or China or Vietnam,” Paul wrote. “It is an inconsistent and incoherent position to support trade with other communist countries, but not communist Cuba.”

Rubio is among those “strangely silent” lawmakers who cannot grasp the need for change in the U.S.-Cuba relationship.

Rubio actually baited Paul with a statement he made on Fox News: “Like many people who have been opining, [Paul] has no idea what he’s talking about,” Rubio said. Paul’s op-ed essay in Time was in response largely to what Rubio said.

So the intra-GOP fight has commenced.

Rubio’s own Cuban heritage gives him some credibility on this issue. However, like a lot of politicians who blind when the subject of Cuba comes up, Rubio needs to look at the big picture and understand what Barack Obama and Rand Paul both get: If a 50-year policy doesn’t produce any positive change, then it’s time to change the policy.

 

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

3 Comments

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?

1 Comment

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

2 Comments

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.