{"id":13660,"date":"2016-03-23T16:39:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T16:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13660"},"modified":"2016-03-23T16:39:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T16:39:49","slug":"meanwhile-obama-meets-with-dissidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13660","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, Obama meets with dissidents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13661\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13661\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"obama\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1-768x416.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/obama-1.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In other news &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>President Barack Obama took time during his visit to Havana, Cuba to meet with Cubans opposed to their government&#8217;s oppression of its citizenry.<\/p>\n<p>How about that, folks?<\/p>\n<p>Critics of the president&#8217;s visit to Cuba took him to task for failing to schedule a meeting with Cuban dissidents. Yes, I was one who said the president should do so as well.<\/p>\n<p>What did the president do?<\/p>\n<p>He met with several folks at the U.S. Embassy in Havana &#8212; how strange it is to make such a reference &#8212; and praised them for exhibiting &#8220;extraordinary courage&#8221; in the face of the communist government&#8217;s ham-handed approach to dealing with political dissent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/03\/obama-meets-cuban-dissidents-221095\">Can a U.S. president <\/a>force the leaders of another sovereign nation to change its policies? Of course not. It&#8217;s not our call, or anyone else&#8217;s call, for that matter.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still wholly appropriate for a visiting head of state &#8212; particularly if that head of state leads the world&#8217;s premier nation &#8212; to call attention to the courage of those who speak out against tyranny.<\/p>\n<p>For doing so, Barack Obama should earn high praise from those who criticized his trip in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Will he get it? Something tells me the president isn&#8217;t exactly holding his breath.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In other news &#8230; President Barack Obama took time during his visit to Havana, Cuba to meet with Cubans opposed to their government&#8217;s oppression of its citizenry. How about that, folks? Critics of the president&#8217;s visit to Cuba took him to task for failing to schedule a meeting with Cuban dissidents. Yes, I was one &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13660\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meanwhile, Obama meets with dissidents<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[540,6079,1941,2214],"class_list":["post-13660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-cuban-dissidents","tag-gop","tag-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13662,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13660\/revisions\/13662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}