{"id":18187,"date":"2016-11-26T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-26T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18187"},"modified":"2016-11-26T21:04:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T21:04:00","slug":"dont-go-to-castros-funeral-mr-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18187","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t go to Castro&#8217;s funeral, Mr. President"},"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\/11\/11262016_014338_fidel_8col.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-18188\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/11262016_014338_fidel_8col-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"11262016_014338_fidel_8col\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/11262016_014338_fidel_8col-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/11262016_014338_fidel_8col.jpg 746w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t spend a lot of time and space making my point here, so I&#8217;ll get right to it.<\/p>\n<p>President Obama shouldn&#8217;t attend Fidel Castro&#8217;s funeral in Cuba. Stay away, Mr. President. Now I&#8217;ll offer a brief explainer as to why.<\/p>\n<p>When the president announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, he did so apparently over Fidel&#8217;s expressed displeasure.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, when the president visited Cuba in 2015, the then-former Cuban strongman didn&#8217;t see the president. Instead, he issued a statement that was quite critical of the effort to end the economic embargo the United States slapped on Cuba shortly after Castro seized power in 1959.<\/p>\n<p>I get that the president wants to express sympathy to Castro&#8217;s family. Fine. Send them a letter. Place a private phone call.<\/p>\n<p><em>El Comandante<\/em> wasn&#8217;t too keen on improving U.S.-Cuba relations. He had his reasons, I suppose. Whatever they were, they don&#8217;t matter any longer.<\/p>\n<p>Just stay home, Mr. President. Send an emissary. Maybe two or three of them. Our head of state, though, need not take part in the commemorating the death of a despot.<\/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>I won&#8217;t spend a lot of time and space making my point here, so I&#8217;ll get right to it. President Obama shouldn&#8217;t attend Fidel Castro&#8217;s funeral in Cuba. Stay away, Mr. President. Now I&#8217;ll offer a brief explainer as to why. When the president announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, he did so apparently &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18187\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Don&#8217;t go to Castro&#8217;s funeral, Mr. President<\/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":[540,1723],"class_list":["post-18187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-fidel-castro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18187","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=18187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18189,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18187\/revisions\/18189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}