--- Department of Government at Georgetown
(3/2/2007, Dr. Andrew J. Loomis is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, “Leveraging legitimacy in the crafting of U.S. foreign policy,” pg 35-36, http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/9/4/8/pages179487/p179487-36.php)
Declining political authority encourages defection. American political analyst Norman
Ornstein writes
of the domestic context,
In a system where a President has limited formal power, perception matters. The reputation for success
—the belief by other political actors that even when he looks down, a president will find a way to pull out a victory— is the most valuable resource a chief executive can have
.
Conversely, the widespread belief that the Oval Office occupant is on the defensive, on the wane or without the ability to win under adversity can lead to disaster, as individual
lawmakers calculate who will be on the winning side and negotiate accordingly.
In simple terms, winners win and
losers lose more often than not.
Failure begets failure. In short, a president experiencing declining amounts of political capital has diminished capacity to advance his goals.
As a result, political allies perceive a decreasing benefit in publicly tying themselves to the president
, and an increasing benefit in allying with rising centers of authority. A president’s incapacity and his record of success are interlocked and reinforce each other.
Incapacity leads to political failure, which reinforces perceptions of incapacity. This feedback loop accelerates decay both in leadership capacity and defection by key allies.
The central point of this review of the presidential literature is that the sources of presidential influence—and thus their prospects for enjoying success in pursuing preferred foreign policies—go beyond the structural factors imbued by the
Constitution
. Presidential authority is affected by ideational resources in the form of public perceptions of legitimacy. The public offers and rescinds its support in accordance with normative trends and historical patterns, non-material sources of power that affects the character of U.S. policy, foreign and domestic.
This brief review of the literature suggests how legitimacy norms enhance presidential influence in ways that structural powers cannot explain
. Correspondingly, increased executive power improves the prospects for policy success
. As a variety of cases indicate—from Woodrow Wilson’s failure to generate domestic support for the League of Nations to public pressure that is changing the current course of U.S. involvement in Iraq—the effective execution of foreign policy depends on public support. Public support turns on perceptions of policy legitimacy. As a result, policymakers—starting with the president—pay close attention to the receptivity that U.S. policy has with the domestic public. In this way, normative influences infiltrate policy-making processes and affect the character of policy decisions.

--- School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University (Spring 2012, Megan, Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal, “Executive Legislation and the Expansion of Presidential Power,” http://ejournals.library.vanderbuilt.edu)
In actuality, however, Congress is generally unwilling or unable to respond to the president’s use of executive legislation.
Congress can override a presidential veto
but does not do it very often; of 2,564 presidential vetoes in our nation’s history, only 110 have ever been overridden. 44 The 2/3 vote of both houses needed to override a veto basically means that unless the president’s executive order is grossly unconstitutional – and thus capable of earning bipartisan opposition - one party needs to have a supermajority of both houses. Even passing legislation to nullify an executive order can be difficult to accomplish, especially with Congress as polarized and bitterly divided along party lines as it is today.
Congress could pass legislation designed to limit the power of the president, but such a bill would be difficult to pass and any veto on it – which would be guaranteed – would be hard to override.
In addition, if such legislation was passed over a veto, there is no guarantee that the bill would successfully limit the president’s actions; the War Powers Act does little to restrain the president’s ability to wage war.
45 Impeachment is always an option, but the gravity of such a charge would prevent many from supporting it unless the president was very unpopular and truly abused his power. 46
--- Center for the Study of the Presidency Fellow 2006-2007 at UCLA and MA in Security Studies at Georgetown (Nicole L., “The Presidential Veto: A
Strategic Asset” https://host.genesis4100.net/thepresidency/pubs/fellows2007/Slezak.pdf)
Although the veto offers the president a significant advantage in dealing with a sometimes combative and divisive Congress, James Gattuso discusses four “caveats” that should be considered by presidents when devising a veto strategy. First, presidents should not veto without care, for if Congress overrides it is politically damaging to the president
.8 This means that if the president does not garner the required one-third plus one in either house of Congress and his veto is overridden, he will not only lose face, but lose political capital that gives him leverage in dealing with Congress
.
If the president loses political capital he can put himself at a disadvantage for
future interactions with Congress; hence, when vetoing he must consider his support in Congress and the potential ramifications of an override.
However, Gattuso adds that worse than having a veto overridden is a president who threatens to veto and does not follow through once Congress has passed legislation.9 This is even more damaging than an override because the president is caught making “empty threats.” Therefore,
Congress will continue to produce legislation to their liking rather than revising it because Congress is inclined to believe the president is no longer serious about his veto threats.
--- *Professor of Law at U Chicago, AND **Professor of Law at Harvard (April 2008, Eric A. and Adrian, University of
Pennsylvania Law Review, “CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWNS,” 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. 991))
On the other hand, if the President's claim that he benefits from the testimony is obviously false, then his authority will be accordingly diminished. This is why ambiguous acquiescence is not a credible strategy when the President and Congress disagree about the policy outcome.
If the President thinks the war should continue, Congress thinks the war should end, and the President acquiesces to a statute that terminates the war, then he can hardly argue that he is acting out of comity. He could only be acting because he lacks
power.
But an agent can lack authority in more complicated settings where no serious [*1017] policy conflict exists. If the President makes officials available for testimony every time Congress asks for such testimony, and if the testimony usually or always damages the President, then his claim to be acting out of comity rather than

lack of authority eventually loses its credibility. Repeated ambiguous acquiescence to repeated claims over time will eventually be taken as unambiguous acquiescence and hence a loss of authority. For this reason, a President who cares about maintaining his constitutional powers will need to refuse to allow people to testify even when testimony would be in his short-term interest.

(MICHAEL D. SHEAR, “In Pushing for Revised Surveillance Program, Obama Strikes His Own Balance”, New York Times, 6/3/2015, http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/winning-surveillance-limits-obama-makes-program-own.html?_r=1)//MBB
WASHINGTON —
For more than six years
, President
Obama has directed his national security team to
chase terrorists around the globe by scoop ing up vast amounts of telephone records with a program that was conceived and put in place by his predecessor after
the
Sept. 11
, 2001, attacks.
Now, after successfully badgering Congress into reauthorizing the program
, with new safeguards the president says will protect privacy, Mr.
Obama has left little question that he owns it
.
The new surveillance program created by the USA Freedom Act will end more than a decade of bulk collection of telephone records by the National Security Agency. But it will make records already held by telephone companies available for broad searches by government officials with a court order.
“The reforms that have now been enacted are exactly the reforms the president called for over a year and a half ago,” said Lisa Monaco, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser.
She called the bill the product of a “robust public debate” and said the White House was “gratified that the Senate finally passed it.”
The president is trying to balance national security and civil liberties
to put into practice the kind of equilibrium he has talked about since he was in the Senate, when he expressed support for surveillance programs but also vowed to rein in what he called government overreach.
Mr. Obama entered the Oval Office with what he called “a healthy skepticism” about the system of surveillance at his command. But Ms. Monaco said that, in part because of his often grim daily intelligence briefing, the president was also “very, very focused on the threats” to Americans.
“He weighs the balance every day,” she said.
The compromise on collections of telephone records may end up being too restrictive for the president’s counterterrorism professionals, as some Republicans predict. Or, as others vehemently insisted in congressional debate during the past week, it may leave in place too much surveillance that can intrude on the lives of innocent Americans.
Either way, Mr.
Obama
’s signature on the law late Tuesday night ensures that he will deliver to the next president a method of hunting for terrorist threats despite widespread privacy concerns that emerged after Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, revealed the existence of the telephone program.
“He owned it in 2009,” said Michael V. Hayden, a former N.S.A. director under President George W. Bush, who oversaw the surveillance programs for years. “He just didn’t want anyone to know he owned it.”
Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the USA Freedom Act “a step forward in some respects,” but “a very small step forward.” He said his organization would continue to demand that the president and Congress scale back other government surveillance programs.
“Obama has been presented with this choice: Are you going to defend these programs or are you going to change them?”
Mr. Jaffer said.
In the case of the telephone program, Mr. Obama’s preferred compromise was originally the brainchild of his N.S.A. officials, who embraced it as a way to satisfy the public’s privacy concerns without losing the agency’s ability to conduct surveillance more broadly.
In the lead-up to last week’s congressional showdown, Mr.
Obama and his national security team insisted that broad surveillance powers were vital to tracking terrorist threats
, while admitting that the new approach to data collection would not harm that effort.
White House officials said Mr. Obama was comfortable that history would show that he struck the right balance.
“To the extent that we’re talking about the president’s legacy, I would suspect that that would be a logical conclusion from some historians,” said Josh Earnest, the president’s press secretary. Mr. Earnest said the compromise addressed anxiety about privacy but still gave the government access to needed records.
“This is the kind of rigorous oversight and, essentially, a rules architecture that the president does believe is important,” Mr. Earnest said. “And that is materially different than the program that he inherited.”

Mr.
Obama’s advocacy put him at the center of a fierce congressional debate over the surveillance program
, which officially expired early Monday morning before lawmakers approved changes on Tuesday.
In the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, railed against the president’s compromise proposal, saying, “We shouldn’t be disarming unilaterally as our enemies grow more sophisticated and aggressive.”
At the same time, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, excoriated Mr. Obama, saying, “The president continues to conduct an illegal program,” a reference to a recent ruling by a federal appeals court that the original N.S.A. telephone data collection program was not authorized by federal law.
What emerged from that debate was a rare bipartisan victory for the president, whose approach was met with approval by Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. Even some of the president’s most ardent critics in the Republican Party endorsed the approach.
“This is a good day for the American people, whose rights will be protected,” Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, told CNN last week — a rare example of Mr. Lee, a
Tea Party lawmaker, agreeing with Mr. Obama.
The compromise on the telephone collection program is part of a broader tug-and-pull for Mr. Obama, who inherited a vast national security infrastructure from Mr. Bush.
As a candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama was harshly critical of some of that infrastructure, pledging at the time to review every executive order by Mr. Bush “to determine which of those have undermined civil liberties, which are unconstitutional, and I will reverse them with the stroke of a pen.”
Once in office, Mr. Obama did roll back some of Mr. Bush’s decisions — in one of his first acts as president, he signed an executive order banning torture. But his national security team has
also embraced some of Mr. Bush’s methods, arguing that they are necessary to protect Americans against attacks and to fight threats abroad
.
Mr. Obama talked about “putting careful constraints” on surveillance even before Mr. Snowden revealed the existence of the telephone program. Later that year, Mr.
Obama explained how his thinking had evolved.
“I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs,”
Mr. Obama said. “My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly.
We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks. And the modest encroachments on the privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration without a name attached and not looking at content, that on net, it was worth us doing.”
With the passage of the USA Freedom Act nearly two years later, Mr. Obama must make his new approach work by maintaining a focus on security while doing more to respect privacy.
“Certainly,” Ms. Monaco said, “we are going to be focused on that.”

– (Steve Straehley, “Obama Asks for 6 more Months of NSA Bulk Surveillance Collection”, AlGov, 6/15/2015, http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/obama-asks-for-6-more-months-of-nsa-bulk-surveillance-collection-150615?news=856724)//MBB
It’s the oldest trick in the book—when Dad tells you no, ask Mom if you can do it. Now
President Barack
Obama is playing that game with
the surveillance
of Americans’ phone records
The
Obama administration
, on the same day the USA Freedom Act became law on June 2, went to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISA court
) with a request
(pdf) to continue sweeping up phone
records during a six-month “transition” period before the Freedom Act provisions take effect.
The USA Freedom Act specifies that call records be maintained by the phone companies, and the government may access them only with a warrant from the FISA court. That’s evidently not good enough for the Obama administration.
(Abdus Sattar Ghazali, “Obama’s cosmetic changes for NSA surveillance”, American Muslim Perspective, 1/18/2014, http://www.amperspective.com/obamas-cosmetic-changes-for-nsa-surveillance/)//MBB
President
Obama’s
Friday, January 17, 2014 speech on NSA surveillance was a calculated endeavor to calm a furor at home and abroad over the US dragnet surveillance.
However, the proposed changes do not provide any fundamental changes in the intelligence gathering activities.
The president called for an end to the government’s current storage of “metadata,” information about many millions of calls made by ordinary Americans. He emphasized that the capacity to search metadata is one that must be preserved, but without government itself holding it. The president directed the U.S. attorney general and the intelligence community to report on the best way to transfer the metadata out of government hands, before the program comes up for reauthorization on March 28. He said during this transition period, the government shouldn’t have access to metadata without judicial approval.
The president endorsed the proposal to appoint a public advocate to represent privacy and civil liberties interests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The president called for more transparency with respect to National Security letters, which allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation, without court approval, to obtain access to people’s records (such as their bank and credit card information).
In his 43 minutes speech President
Obama aggressively defended the NSA surveillance programs as important tools to combat terrorism
.
(Fox News, “Obama signs bill to resume, overhaul NSA surveillance”, Fox News, 6/2/2015, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/02/legislation-to-resume-overhaul-nsa-surveillance-clears-key-senate-hurdle/)//MBB
President
Obama
Tuesday night signed legislation
that passed Congress only hours earlier, restarting -- but also overhauling -- controversial government surveillance programs that went dark over the weekend after lawmakers missed a key deadline.
The White House confirmed in a statement that Obama signed the measure Tuesday night.
Obama previously said he would sign the bill as soon as it reached his desk.
"After a needless delay and inexcusable lapse in important national security authorities, my Administration will work expeditiously to ensure our national security professionals again have the full set of vital tools they need to continue
protecting the country," Obama said.

In a 67-32 vote, the Senate approved the so-called USA Freedom Act. The legislation had already won approval in the House.
(JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, “Obama Warns the Senate to Pass Surveillance Law”, New York Times, 5/29/2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/obama-warns-the-senate-to-pass-surveillance-law.html)
WASHINGTON — President
Obama suggested ominously
on Friday that allowing domestic surveillance programs to expire
at a Sunday deadline
could lead to a terrorist attack on the United States.
Pushing the Senate to break a logjam on legislation, Mr.
Obama warned
in the Oval Office that, “I don’t want us to be in a situation in which, for a certain period of time, those authorities go away and suddenly we’re dark.”
“Heaven forbid we’ve got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity, but we didn’t do so simply because of inaction
in the Senate,” Mr.
Obama added.
The comments were the most explicit warning to date from
the
Obama
administration about the consequences of allowing the surveillance powers to lapse
. Administration officials have been pressing lawmakers for weeks to pass the legislation, called the USA
Freedom Act, and in recent days have stepped up their efforts to portray it as a national security imperative.
The measure, passed overwhelmingly by the House this month, would extend the government’s authority to obtain business and other records pertaining to a specific investigative subject, to secure so-called roving wiretaps to track potential terrorists or spies who switch telephones to avoid detection, and to wiretap a terrorism suspect who is not part of a particular group.
But the controversy has centered on the National Security Agency program that collects bulk telephone records, which the bill would eliminate. Instead, under a bipartisan compromise backed by the Obama administration, telephone companies would retain the data, and the N.S.A. could gain access to it by obtaining an order from the secret
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
That provision has been strongly opposed by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, who wants to maintain the current program, and some libertarians, including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican candidate for president, who want more substantial restrictions.
The president singled out Mr. McConnell on Friday, saying he had conveyed to him and other senators that “I expect them to take action, and take action swiftly.”
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, noted that Mr. McConnell had scheduled a rare Sunday session of the Senate “to make every effort to provide the intelligence community with the tools it needs to combat terror.”
For the last week, Senate Republicans have been furiously trying to come up with legislation that can win the support of 60 senators, pass muster in the House — which is reluctant to change the measure it passed — and keep Mr. Paul at bay.
Mr.
Obama has kept up pressure
on the Senate to pass the legislation by arguing that the
surveillance it authorizes is vital to thwarting a terrorist attack
, despite a lack of evidence that it has ever done so.
In a statement issued shortly before Mr. Obama spoke, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said that intelligence professionals “will lose important capabilities” if the authorities expire.
Senior administration officials say that even if the programs cannot be shown to have foiled any attacks, they provide essential “building blocks” on which terrorism investigations are built
, akin to grand juries, which are an integral part of criminal cases even if they never themselves stop a crime.

– national security editor for Guardian (Spencer Ackerman, “Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying”,
The Guardian, 6/9/2015/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records)//MBB
The
Obama
administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk
surveillance illegal and to once again grant the N ational
S ecurity
A gency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months.
The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.
US officials confirmed last week that they would ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court
– better known as the
Fisa court, a panel that meets in secret as a step in the surveillance process and thus far has only ever had the government argue before it – to turn the domestic bulk collection spigot back on.
– Washington correspondent for The New York Times (CHARLIE SAVAGE, JULIA ANGWIN, JEFF LARSON and HENRIK
MOLTKE, “Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border”, The New York Times, 6/4/2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/hunting-for-hackers-nsa-secretly-expands-internet-spying-at-usborder.html?emc=edit_na_20150604&nlid=63233355&_r=1)//MBB
WASHINGTON — Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the N ational
S ecurity
A gency
‘s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents.
In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad — including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show.
The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and “cybersignatures” — patterns associated with computer intrusions — that it could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the N.S.A. sought permission to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers.
The disclosures, based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, and shared with The New York Times and ProPublica, come at a time of unprecedented cyberattacks on American financial institutions, businesses and government agencies, but also of greater scrutiny of secret legal justifications for broader government surveillance.
While the Senate passed legislation this week limiting some of the N.S.A.’s authority, the measure involved provisions in the U.S.A. Patriot Act and did not apply to the warrantless wiretapping program.
Government officials defended the N.S.A.’s monitoring of suspected hackers as necessary to shield
Americans from the increasingly aggressive activities of foreign governments.
But critics say it raises difficult trade-offs that should be subject to public debate.
The N.S.A.’s activities run “smack into law enforcement land,” said Jonathan Mayer, a cybersecurity scholar at Stanford Law School who has researched privacy issues and who reviewed several of the documents. “That’s a major policy decision about how to structure cybersecurity in the U.S. and not a conversation that has been had in public.”
It is not clear what standards the agency is using to select targets. It can be hard to know for sure who is behind a particular intrusion — a foreign government or a criminal gang — and the N.S.A. is supposed to focus on foreign intelligence, not law enforcement.

The government can also gather significant volumes of Americans’ information
— anything from private emails to trade secrets and business dealings — through Internet surveillance because monitoring the data flowing to a hacker involves copying that information as the hacker steals it.
One internal N.S.A. document notes that agency surveillance activities through “hacker signatures pull in a lot.”
Brian Hale, the spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said, “It should come as no surprise that the U.S. government gathers intelligence on foreign powers that attempt to penetrate U.S. networks and steal the private information of U.S. citizens and companies.” He added that “targeting overseas individuals engaging in hostile cyberactivities on behalf of a foreign power is a lawful foreign intelligence purpose.”

(Kim Zetter, “Obama: NSA Must Reveal Bugs Like Heartbleed, Unless They Help the NSA”, WIRED, 4/15/2014, http://www.wired.com/2014/04/obama-zero-day/)//MBB
AFTER YEARS OF studied silence on the government’s secret and controversial use of security vulnerabilities, the White House has finally acknowledged that the NSA and other agencies exploit some of the software holes they uncover, rather than disclose them to vendors to be fixed.
The acknowledgement comes in a news report indicating that President Obama decided in January that from now on any time the NSA discovers a major flaw in software, it must disclose the vulnerability to vendors and others so that it can be patched, according to the New York Times.
But
Obama included a major loophole in his decision, which falls far short of recommendations made by a presidential review board last December: According to Obama, any flaws that have “a clear national security or law enforcement” use can be kept secret and exploited.
This, of course, gives the government wide latitude to remain silent on critical flaws like the recent Heartbleed vulnerability if the NSA, FBI, or other government agencies can justify their exploitation.
A so-called zero-day vulnerability is one that’s unknown to the software vendor and for which no patch therefore exists. The U.S. has long wielded zero-day exploits for espionage and sabotage purposes, but has never publicly stated its policy on their use.
Stuxnet, a digital weapon used by the U.S. and Israel to attack Iran’s uranium enrichment program, used five zero-day exploits to spread.
Last December, the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies declared that only in rare instances should the U.S. government authorize the use of zero-day exploits for “high priority intelligence collection.” The review board, which was convened in response to reports of widespread NSA surveillance revealed in the Edward Snowden documents, also said that decisions about the use of zero-day attacks should only be made “following senior, interagency review involving all appropriate departments.”
– (Swati Khandelwal, The Hacker News, 4/13/2014, http://thehackernews.com/2014/04/Obama-NSA-Review-policy-Zero-day-
Exploit.html)//MBB
On Saturday, the Senior Administration Officials cast light on the subject of Internet Security and said President
Obama has clearly decided that whenever the U.S. Intelligence agency like NSA discovers major vulnerabilities, in most of the situations the agency should reveal them rather than exploiting for national purpose
, according to The New York Times.
OBAMA's POLICY WITH LOOPHOLE FOR NSA
Yet, there is an exception to the above statement, as
Mr.
President carved a detailed exception to the policy
“Unless there is a clear national security or law enforcement need,” which means that the policy creates a loophole for the spying agencies like NSA to sustain their surveillance programs by exploiting security vulnerabilities to create Cyber Weapons.
After three-month review of recommendations [PDF-file], the Final Report of the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies was submitted to Mr.
Obama on last December, out of which one of the recommendation on page no. 37 states that, “In rare instances,
US policy may
briefly authorize using a
Zero Day for high priority intelligence collection
, following senior, interagency review involving all appropriate departments.”
Obama took this new decision in January this year, but the elements of decision disclosed just one day after the story of HeartBleed OpenSSL Security Bug broke last week and Bloomberg reported that the NSA may have known about the flaw for last two years and using it continuously to gain information instead of disclosing it.

(Cory Bennet, 3/22/15, “Silicon Valley spars with Obama over ‘backdoor’ surveillance”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/236512silicon-valley-spars-with-obama-over-backdoor-surveillance)//Jmoney
Silicon Valley and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are lining up against the Obama administration, criticizing what they see as a lack of support for total online privacy
.
The steady rise of sophisticated privacy techniques such as encryption and anonymity software has put the government in a difficult position
— trying to support the right to privacy while figuring out how to prevent people from evading law enforcement.
“The technologies are evolving in ways that potentially make this trickier
,” President Obama said during a January news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The conundrum has led to a heated debate in Washington: Should law enforcement have guaranteed access to data?
“I think there’s a
little bit of a tug of war happening in the government
,” said Jay Kaplan, co-founder of the security firm Synack and a former
National Security Agency (NSA) cyber analyst.
The Obama administration
— from officials with FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) to the president himself — has come out in favor of some form of guaranteed access
while still endorsing strong encryption.
“If we get into a situation in which the technologies do not allow us at all to track somebody that we're confident is a terrorist,” Obama said, “that's a problem.”
What shape that access takes, however, is unclear.
“The dialogue that we're engaged in is designed to make sure that all of us feel confident that if there is an actual threat out there, our law enforcement and our intelligence officers can identify that threat and track that threat at the same time that our governments are not going around phishing into whatever text you might be sending on your smartphone,” Obama said. “And I think that's something that can be achieved.”
Privacy hawks on Capitol Hill aren’t buying it.
“I don’t think much of that,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), co-founder of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, told The Hill. “We have a huge homeland security apparatus with almost unlimited authority to — with some sort of a reasonable suspicion — check almost any type of communication, whether it’s voice, Internet, telephonic, electronic, you name it.”
“Those were positions that did not receive rave reviews here in Silicon Valley,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose district includes parts of tech-heavy San Jose.
Many believe the administration’s stance is inherently at odds with robust digital protection.
“In order to fully implement what he's suggesting, you would need
one of two things,” Lofgren said.
One would be installing so-called “backdoors” in encryption — an access point known only to law enforcement agencies
. Security experts find this concept abhorrent, since cyber crooks or foreign intelligence agencies would likely exploit it.
“There’s no safe way to do that,” Kaplan said. “It’s just an impossible task. Just a bad idea all together.”
The second would be to have a third-party company hold all user data, with some sort of agreement to disclose information to the government, Lofgren said.
“I think actually the trend line is in a different direction, which is encryption that is not accessible to the companies that provide it, either,” she added.
(5/19/15, “MASSIVE COALITION OF SECURITY EXPERTS, TECH COMPANIES AND PRIVACY
ADVOCATES PRESSES OBAMA TO OPPOSE SURVEILLANCE BACKDOORS”, Open Technology Institute, https://www.newamerica.org/oti/massive-coalitionof-security-experts-tech-companies-and-privacy-advocates-presses-obama-to-oppose-surveillance-backdoors/)//Jmoney

Washington, DC - This morning,
New America’s Open Technology Institute sent a joint letter to the White House which was signed by nearly 150 privacy and human rights organizations, technology companies and trade associations, and individual security and policy experts. The letter defends Americans’ right to use strong encryption to protect their data and opposes the idea of mandatory “backdoors” to enable government access to encrypted data.
The letter, signers of which include technology industry giants such as Apple and Google, is the latest round in the ongoing debate over encryption first sparked by Apple’s announcement last fall that new iPhones would be encrypted by default. Responding to statements by law enforcement and intelligence officials such as FBI Director James
Comey, who have criticized companies’ deployment of encryption and suggested that Congress should legislate to prevent access to encryption that the government can’t break, the letter explains:
Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security. Encryption protects billions of people every day against countless threats—be they street criminals trying to steal our phones and laptops, computer criminals trying to defraud us, corporate spies trying to obtain our companies’ most valuable trade secrets, repressive governments trying to stifle dissent, or foreign intelligence agencies trying to compromise our and our allies’ most sensitive national security secrets.
Therefore, says the letter to the President,
We urge you to reject any proposal that U.S. companies deliberately weaken the security of their products. We request that the White House instead focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology. Such policies will in turn help to promote and protect cybersecurity, economic growth, and human rights, both here and abroad.
The letter, in addition to being signed by leading Internet, software, and hardware companies such as Adobe, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, and Microsoft, is also signed by a range of trade associations such as the Internet Association and the Consumer Electronics Association, and dozens of civil society organizations devoted to civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It also is signed by nearly sixty individual computer security and policy experts including Whitfield Diffie, one of the inventors of modern public key cryptography, and former
White House anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke. The Center for Democracy & Technology, one of the signing civil society organizations, also played a critical role in recruiting and organizing the many computer security experts that lent their voices to the effort.
The following can be attributed to Kevin Bankston, Policy Director of New America’s Open Technology Institute and Co-Director of New America’s Cybersecurity
Initiative:
Knowing that the White House is currently weighing the issue, we thought it important to ensure that President Obama heard now a clear and unified message from the
Internet community: encryption backdoors are bad for privacy, bad for security, bad for human rights, and bad for business. They're just bad policy, period, which is exactly the same answer that policymakers arrived at during the Crypto Wars of the 90s after many years of informed debate, and the same answer the the House of Representatives arrived at just last year when it voted to stop the NSA from mandating or even requesting that companies weaken the security of their products for surveillance’s sake.
Since last fall, the President has been letting his top intelligence and law enforcement officials criticize companies for making their devices more secure, and letting them suggest that Congress should pass anti-encryption, pro-backdoor legislation. That's despite unanimous consensus in the technical community that backdoors are bad for security, and despite lawmakers clearly signaling that they think it's a bad idea--most recently in a
House oversight hearing where every lawmaker in attendance was critical of the government's position, one of them going so far as to call the idea of backdoors "technologically stupid".
We decided it was time for the Internet community--industry, advocates, and experts--to draw a line in the sand. We're calling on Obama to put an end to these dangerous suggestions that we should deliberately weaken the cybersecurity of American products and services. We’re asking the White House to instead throw its weight behind the recommendation of the President's own hand-picked NSA review group, several of whom signed today’s letter: it should be the policy of the US government to support rather than undermine the availability and use of strongly encrypted products.
Put simply, it's time for the White House to come out strong in support of strong encryption, here in the U.S. and around the globe. Securing cyberspace is hard enough without shooting ourselves in the foot with government-mandated vulnerabilities. It's time for America to help lead the world toward a more secure future, rather than toward a digital ecosystem riddled with vulnerabilities of our own making."
--- Slate’s senior technology writer (Will Oremus, 1/19/15, “Obama wants tech companies to install backdoors for government spying”, Slate, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/01/19/obama_wants_backdoors_in_encrypted_messaging_to_allow_government_spying.html)//Jmoney
Last week
,
British Prime Minister
David
Cameron incensed the Internet by proposing to ban secure messaging applications
, like WhatsApp and Snapchat, unless they install backdoors to allow government spying
. Plenty of other services, including Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime, might also run afoul of such a law, the Independent pointed out.
Cameron’s call for mandatory backdoors offended online privacy advocates
, but it couldn’t have shocked them. This is the same leader who ignored censorship cries and installed porn filters on the country’s Internet services, with some rather predictable unintended consequences.

In a press conference with Cameron on Friday, however, President
Obama agreed with his British counterpart that the absence of backdoors is “a problem.”
As reported by The Hill, he said:
Social media and the Internet is the primary way in which these terrorist organizations are communicating.
That’s not different from anybody else, but they’re good at it. And when we have the ability to track that in a way that is legal, conforms with due process, rule of law and presents oversight, then that’s a capability that we have to preserve.
More specifically, he added, according to the Wall Street Journal:
If we find evidence of a terrorist plot
… and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem
.
Obama stopped short of joining Cameron in an explicit call for legislation that would ban services that don’t build in a way for the government to spy on their users. Instead he said:
The laws that might have been designed for the traditional wiretap have to be updated. How we do that needs to be debated both here in the United States and in the U.K.
On its face, it’s not absurd that the government should have a way to intercept electronic communications in rare cases to stop suspected terrorists. As the
Economist points out in an editorial supporting backdoors, “every previous form of communication—from the conversation to the letter to the phone—has been open to some form of eavesdropping.”
On the other hand, privacy and security experts argue that backdoors are bound to be exploited for nefarious purposes. That could happen through government abuse of its surveillance powers. Or the backdoors might inadvertently make it easier for nongovernment hackers to compromise people’s privacy. “There’s no back door that only lets good guys go through it,” Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow argues. As Brian Duggan explained in Slate in 2013:
Creating a back door in software is like creating a lock to which multiple people hold the keys. The more people who have a key, the higher the likelihood that one will get lost.
Legislation like what Cameron has proposed would undermine encryption at just the time when the tech industry is beginning to embrace it.
In September,
Apple and Google announced plans to strengthen encryption of data
stored on smartphones that use their operating systems. The move was cheered by a public shaken by the recent iCloud celebrity photo hack.
But it was harshly criticized by FBI director James Comey. Now
, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, it seems
Obama is in
Comey’s camp.
The president says he understands the need to balance security with privacy. The problem is that, as we’ve seen with the Snowden leaks, the government officials, intelligence officers, and contractors entrusted with finding that balance tend to be far more concerned with one than the other.
--- Staff Correspondent for Technology for the National Journal (Dustin Volz, 1/16/15, “Obama: If we can’t read terrorist suspect emails, ‘That’s a problem’”, National Journal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-announces-new-cyber-war-games-partnership-with-great-britain-20150116)//Jmoney
President
Obama opened the door
Friday to adopting a tougher position against strong encryption technology, warning that too-tough-to-crack protections could threaten national security
.
"If we get into a situation which the technologies do not allow us at all to track somebody we're confident is a terrorist
… and despite knowing that information, despite having a phone number or a social-media address or email address, that we can't penetrate that, that's a problem
," Obama said during a press conference held with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Obama's comment came at the tail end of the White House conference, in which the two jointly announced a new partnership that seeks to bolster cyberdefense cooperation
between the two allies and deepen collaboration among each country's intelligence agencies.
Cameron is at the White House
on a two-day trip that has reportedly included heavy lobbying for cooperation with the U.S. to work together to halt the expansion of strongly encrypted messaging platforms in order to better respond to terrorist threats
.
When asked specifically about encryption, Obama neither directly endorsed nor condemned Cameron's position, acknowledging that Europe faces "particular challenges" due in part to the lack of assimilation of certain Muslim populations.

"Our Muslim populations, they feel themselves to be Americans," Obama said. "There are parts of Europe in which that's not the case."
But Obama admitted that the struggle to balance privacy and security is ongoing, and twice mentioned former NSA contractor Edward Snowden by name.
"This is a challenge that we have been working on since I've been president," Obama said. "Obviously, it was amplified when Mr. Snowden did what he did. It's gone off the front pages of the news, but we haven't stopped working on it. And we've been in dialogue with companies and have systematically worked through ways in which we can meet legitimate privacy concerns."
Cameron also largely avoided specifics, saying, "I don't think either of us are trying to enunciate some new doctrine" on surveillance.
Privacy advocates and security analysts have taken umbrage with the suggestion that too-tough-to-crack technology poses insurmountable hurdles for law -enforcement agencies and could undermine national security.
A secret 2009 U.S. cybersecurity report—released publicly Thursday by The Guardian, which obtained the document from fugitive leaker Snowden—warned that government and private computers are vulnerable to hacks from Russia, China, and criminals if better encryption technologies were not implemented.
But senior officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director James Comey, criticized moves by Apple and Google
last year to tighten encryption on their mobile devices, warning that such protections could impede criminal investigations.
But U.S. officials have not gone as far as Cameron, who earlier this week called for banning certain encryption techniques that he believes hamper government snooping.
The British leader also suggested that certain messaging services, including Snapchat and WhatsApp, could be outlawed.
"Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn't possible to read?" Cameron said in a speech Monday. "My answer to that question is: 'No, we must not.' "
The announcement of the new bilateral cyberdefense partnership caps a week that saw the
White House mount an aggressive policy push on cybersecurity in advance of President Obama's State of the Union next week, during which the president is expected to call on Congress to pass his legislative proposals on information-sharing and data security
. It also follows terrorist attacks in France earlier this year that killed 17 and have much of Europe clamoring for more-robust counterterrorism measures.
As part of the agreement, the U.S. and the United Kingdom will conduct a series of cyber war games later this year to test and improve each nation's ability to defend and respond to cyberattacks.
The program calls for increased information-sharing and "joint cybersecurity and network defense exercises," with the first such rehearsals focusing on the financial sector.
As part of the new initiative, intelligence agencies—including the National Security Agency and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters—will establish a "joint cyber cell" to have an operating presence in each country to allow for more rapid sharing of cyber defense data.
"With regard to security, American-British unity is enabling us to meet challenges in Europe and beyond," Obama said.
--- Executive Editor for News and Features for PCMag (Chloe Albanesius, 1/16/15, “Obama: Tech That prevents us from stopping an attack is a problem”, pcmag, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475343,00.asp)//Jmoney
President
Obama
today stopped short of calling for a ban on encryption, but said that technology that prevents law enforcement officials from halting terrorist activity is a "problem
."
"If we get into a situation where the technology does not allow us at all to track somebody that's a terrorist, if we find evidence of a terrorist plot somewhere in the Middle
East that traces directly back to London or New York, [and] we can't penetrate that, that's a problem," Obama said during a joint press conference with
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House.
His comments come shortly after Cameron suggested that the U.K. might, in fact,ban encryption technology that prevents officials from tracking criminals via their phones,
PCs, or other gadgets. That would likely be rather difficult given that iOS 8 and Android 5.0 Lollipop are encrypted by default, and the majority of U.K. citizens use either iOS or Android devices. Not to mention the fact that popular apps like WhatsApp are also encrypted.
Today, Cameron said that his objective is to "avoid the safe havens that could otherwise be created for terrorists to talk to each other."
Obama acknowledged that the evolution of technology makes it "trickier" to balance security and privacy.
"The laws that might have been designed for the traditional wiretap have to be updated," Obama said today.
"How we do that needs to be debated, here in the U.S. and in the U.K.," he continued. "I think we're getting better at it."
Tech companies recognize that they have a responsibility to the public but also want to protect their customers' privacy, the president said.
"The dialogue we're engaged in is designed to make sure that all of us feel confident that if there is an actual threat out there, our law enforcement and our intelligence officers can identify that threat and track that threat
[without the

government] fishing into whatever text you might be sending on your smartphone," Obama said. "I think that's something that can achieved, [though there are] going to be hard cases."
The FBI has echoed Obama's concerns about encryption technology.
To that end, the White House and U.K. today announced several steps they will take to enhance coordination on cyber-security issues.
That includes increased threat information sharing and joint cyber-security and network defense exercises, the first of which will focus on the financial sector.
Meanwhile, the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Security Service (MI5) will team with the NSA and FBI on a joint cyber cell, which will allow staff from each agency to be co-located for easier information sharing.
Finally, the U.S. and U.K. will fund a new Fulbright Cyber Security Award for up to six months of research. Applications will be accepted later this year for a 2016-17 session.
MIT has also invited the University of Cambridge to participate in a "Cambridge vs. Cambridge" cyber-security contest.

(Ben Wolfgang, “Obama: I’ve fought against activists who believe there should be open borders”, The Washington Times, 12/9/2014, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/9/obama-ive-fought-against-activists-open-borders/)//MBB s/o to faith
Critics say President Obama went too far with his executive action granting amnesty to more than 4 million illegal immigrants — but behind the scenes, the president
said he’s pushed back against those who believe the U.S. should have an open border with
Mexico
.
At a town-hall meeting in Nashville on Tuesday, Mr
. Obama defended the idea of a strong U.S-Mexico border and said he’s had heated debates with activists who want that border to disappear.
“There have been times, honestly, I’ve had arguments with immigration rights activists who say, effectively, ‘There shouldn’t be any rules. These are good people. Why should we have any enforcement like this?’ My response is, ‘In the eyes of God, everybody is equal … I don’t make any claims my child is superior to anybody else’s child.
But I’m the president of the United States, and nation states have borders,’” the president said. “If we had no system of enforcing our borders and our laws, I promise you, everybody would try to come here.”
Mr.
Obama added that it would be fundamentally unfair to erase the nation’s southern border.
“Sometimes it’s just an accident that one person lives in a country that has a border with the U.S. and another person — in Somalia, it’s a lot harder to get here,” he said.

(Julia Preston, “Obama Signs Border Bill to Increase Surveillance”, The New York Times, 7/13/2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/us/politics/14immig.html?_r=0)//MBB
President
Obama signed into law a $600 million bill
on Friday to pay for 1,500 new border agents, additional unmanned surveillance drones and new Border Patrol stations along the southwest border.
The measure sailed through Congress in little more than a week with broad bipartisan support, demonstrating the pressure on politicians to look strong on border enforcement. Introduced on Aug. 5, the bill was approved the same day by the Senate by unanimous consent, and passed again by the Senate on Thursday in a special session during the Congressional recess. The House had passed the bill in a special session on Tuesday.
Mr.
Obama requested the funds in June, after he announced he would send 1,200 National Guard troops to support agents along the border.
The administration has been under pressure to strengthen border enforcement since Arizona adopted a tough law in April to crack down on illegal immigration, saying the federal government was failing to do its job. After the administration sued Arizona, a federal court stayed important parts of that law.
(Dietrich Knauth, “Obama Seeks $39M In Drone Funding For Border Surveillance”, Law360, 7/9/2014, http://www.law360.com/articles/555799/obama-seeks-39m-in-drone-funding-for-border-surveillance)//MBB
Law360, New York (July 9, 2014, 5:08 PM ET) -- The
Obama administration on Tuesday requested $39 million for aerial surveillance, including unmanned aircraft operations, as part of an effort to stop an influx of refugee children from crossing the U.S.'s southern
border.
The administration has called on Congress to provide $3.7 billion in
emergency funding
, spread out among the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Health and Human Services and State, to combat what it called a “humanitarian crisis.”
The White House said that children
, both accompanied and on their own, a re fleeing Central America in alarming numbers and that as a result, it needs more border surveillance and security, as well as a surge in enforcement personnel, from immigration judges to asylum officers.
The DHS would get a significant portion of the president's request, with $1.1 billion going to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $433 million going to Customs and Border Protection. The CBP's share includes $39.4 million to increase air surveillance capabilities that would support 16,526 additional flight hours for border surveillance and 16 additional crews for unmanned aerial systems to improve detection and interdiction of illegal activity, according to a White House fact sheet.
– (The Economist, “The border is not the problem”, The Economist, 11/21/2014, http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/11/barack-obama-and-immigration)//MBB s/o to Faith
BARACK OBAMA gives a good speech: that much is clear. For your British correspondent, inured to the lazy xenophobic rhetoric of his country’s politicians, it is hard not to be uplifted by the president’s appeal to Americans to accept immigrants as equals. Giving the example of a brilliant young girl from Nevada, he asked Americans: “Are we a nation that kicks out a striving, hopeful immigrant…or are we a nation that finds a way to welcome her in?” A British politician would never ask such a question, for fear that the answer would be “nope, kick her out.”
But, for all of the inspiring rhetoric
Mr
Obama produces, his speech underlined the way all politicians seem to approach immigration in broadly the same way
, regardless of where they are from. For example, take the obsession with borders.
The very first thing
that Mr
Obama said that he has done is tighten border security
:
“Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history.”
This supports the common idea— reinforced by Republican complaints—that most illegal immigrants smuggle themselves over the border.
In America nearly any time immigration is discussed, so too is border security.
Yet this connection is not as obvious as it sounds.

Blumenthal 14 – (Max Blumenthal, “Obama Humiliates Muslim Guests at White House Ramadan Event, Endorses Israel’s Gaza Assault and NSA Surveillance”, Alternet,
7/17/2014, http://www.alternet.org/world/obama-humiliates-muslim-white-house-guests-endorsing-israels-gaza-assault-defending-nsa)//MBB
At the annual White House Iftar dinner commemorating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, President Barack
Obama endorsed Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip and defended government spying on Muslim-Americans
. Alongside dozens of Muslim-American community activists and Muslim diplomats, the White House welcomed Israeli Ambassador
to the US Ron Dermer, an outspoken advocate of Israel's settlement enterprise who has claimed Muslim and Arab culture is endemically violent
.
In the past, the annual Iftar dinner passed without much notice. Last year, President Barack Obama delivered a boilerplate speech to the assembled crowd of Muslim-
American community activists and Middle Eastern ambassadors about his efforts to spur entrepreneurship. But this time, amidst a one-sided Israeli assault on the Gaza
Strip that was about to claim its 200th death in just a week, and which the US had backed to the hilt, the heat was on.
While Obama prepared his remarks, calls rang out with unprecedented intensity for invitees to boycott the July 14 ceremony. Among those who urged a boycott in protest of the Gaza assault and ongoing government spying on Muslim-Americans was the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an established presence in
Washington representing the country’s largest Arab-American advocacy group.
Joining the boycott call was Mariam Abu-Ali, the sister of Ahmed Abu Ali, a US citizen renditioned to Saudi Arabia for torture before being sentenced to life in prison on dubious charges of threatening to kill George W. Bush.
“The White House Iftar is a slap in the face to those in the Muslim community who have been victims of U.S. civil-rights and human-rights abuses,”
Abu Ali wrote.
“It is an attempt by administration after administration to whitewash the crimes of the U.S. government against Muslims by painting a less-than-accurate picture of their relationship with the American Muslim community.”
As established Muslim-American leaders like Laila Al-Marayati lined up to boycott (Al-Marayati rejected an invitation to the State Department’s Iftar), others defended their presence at the ceremony. Most vocal among them was Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of the two Muslim members of Congress. “I disagree with the tactic,” Ellison remarked in a statement released by his office. “It will not close Guantanamo Bay, guarantee a cease-fire between Israel and Palestine or undo the NSA’s targeting of
Muslims.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) echoed Ellison, insisting that the event would “allow [them] to engage with senior White House officials for a decent amount of time on substantive issues.”
While Muslim-American civil rights groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations have assumed a more confrontational posture towards the White House and boycotted a prayer breakfast with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in protest of his support for NYPD surveillance of Muslims, MPAC has taken an altogether different tack. Its role as a paid consultant on the cable TV series, “Tyrant,” was perhaps the best example of its accommodationist stance.
Produced by Howard Gordon, the creator of “24” and “Homeland,” the show starred a white actor playing a pathological Arab dictator who ruled over the deeply dysfunctional fictional nation of Abuddin. Even mainstream TV critics derided the series as unbearably Orientalist, with the Washington Post’s Hank Stuever describing it as a “stultifyingly acted TV drama stocked with tired and terribly broad notions of Muslim culture in a make-believe nation on the brink.” Leading up to the White House
Iftar, a leader of a major Muslim advocacy organization told me on background that MPAC was bleeding support, especially from younger activists.
At the Iftar dinner, Obama launched into a defense of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, declaring, “I will say very clearly, no country can accept rockets fired indiscriminately at citizens. And so, we’ve been very clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against what I consider to be inexcusable attacks from Hamas.”
He went on to claim against all evidence that his administration had “worked long and hard to alleviate” the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and that it had “emphasized the need to protect civilians, regardless of who they are or where they live.”
Ali Kurnaz, the central regional director for the Florida-based Emerge USA, was in the audience. He told me that
Obama’s remarks provoked deep discomfort, with attendees exchanging disturbed looks and rolling their eyes in astonishment
. No one walked out in protest, however.
“After the dinner, I overheard at least three different exchanges attendees pointing out that Palestinians should have a right to defend themselves too,” Kurnaz recalled.
Like many others who joined the dinner, Kurnaz was not aware that Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer had been invited. Dermer was a longtime confidant of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the son of the Republican former Mayor of Miami Beach. This year, Dermer broke diplomatic protocol by appearing at a fundraiser for the Republican Jewish Committee, helping to raise money for a partisan organization dedicated to undermining Obama’s agenda.
Perhaps the most startling aspect of Dermer’s presence at the Iftar dinner was his stated belief that “a cultural tendency towards belligerency” is “deeply embedded in the culture of the Arab world and its foremost religion.”
According to Kurnaz, Dermer spent the evening isolated in the White House’s Green Room adjacent to the main reception area, where he milled around mostly without company. None of the activists invited to the dinner approached him.

When dinner began, Kurnaz said Obama was unusually candid with those seated at his table.
They confronted him on the issue of domestic spying, an issue that took on renewed immediacy after revelations by the Intercept that the NSA and FBI has spied on leading Muslim-American civil rights activists. Obama attempted to remind them that the spying had begun under his predecessor, Bush, but defended the practice nonetheless, denying that the NSA had violated any laws.
– (Spencer Ackerman, “White House Iftar dinner guests press Obama on surveillance of Muslims”, The Guardian, 7/16/2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/white-house-iftar-obama-surveillance-muslims)//MBB
Attendees of a White House dinner
this week celebrating a Muslim holiday attempted to leverage their direct interaction with
Barack
Obama into a presidential commitment to discuss widespread and controversial surveillance of their communities.
They left feeling they had Obama's interest, but not much more.
Less than a week after the Intercept, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, showed US Muslim activists and attorneys had been targeted for surveillance, Obama gathered legislators, diplomats and US Muslim community leaders to the White House on Monday night for an Iftar dinner, the sunset meal during Ramadan. In remarks released by the White House,
Obama stressed the value of pluralism, sidestepping the surveillance controversy.
Not everyone was satisfied with the omission.
Some of the people who attended were signatories of a letter sent to the White House in the wake of the Intercept story urgently requesting a meeting with Obama. Without that commitment yet in hand, took the opportunity to raise the issue with Obama personally at the Monday dinner.
"I specifically asked the president if he would meet with us to discuss NSA spying on the American Muslim community. The president seemed to perk up and proceeded to discuss the issue, saying that he takes it very seriously," said Junaid Sulahry, the outreach manager for Muslim Advocates, a legal and civil rights group.
Obama was non-committal, Sulahry said, but displayed "a clear willingness to discuss the issue."
Hoda Elshishtawy, the national policy analyst for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said that she brought it up as part of a "table-wide discussion" on post-9/11 surveillance of US Muslims.
"Our communities can't be seen as suspects and partners at the same time," Elshishtawy said.
That tension has plagued the Obama administration's domestic counterterrorism – or, as it prefers,
"countering violent extremism" – for its entire tenure
. The departments of justice and homeland security lead outreach efforts in Muslim and other local communities, stressing vigilance against radicalizing influences and dialogue with law enforcement.
Yet Muslim communities labor under widespread suspicion of incubating terrorism. Surveillance from law enforcement and US intelligence is robust, from the harvesting of digital communications to the recruitment of informants inside mosques.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles maps of Muslim businesses and religious institutions, without suspicion of specific crimes.
The mixed message comes amidst the freight of a foreign policy featuring drone strikes in Muslim countries, a reluctance to foreclose on indefinite detention that functionally is only aimed at Muslims, and difficulty concluding the war in Afghanistan – all of which have strained relations with American-Muslim communities.
Some of those community leaders have already come under fire for attending the White House dinner. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee urged a boycott over the surveillance and administration support for Israel during the current Gaza offensive, rejecting what it called "normalization of the continuous breach of our fundamental rights."
Representatives of organizations that rejected the boycott argued that they can exercise greater influence through access than through rejection.
"Our strategy is to worth through the system," said Farhana Khera, Muslim Advocates' executive director.
The White House declined comment on what it called "private conversations at a closed press event."

--- (Luis Miranda, October 13, 2013, “
Obama Encourages Spying on world leaders agenda.com/obama-encourages-spying-on-world-leaders/)//Jmoney
”, real-agenda.com, http://real-
US government spies with the complicity of its European partners
He lied claiming otherwise. He’s a serial liar. He’s a moral coward. He’s a war criminal multiple times over.
He did what supporters thought impossible.
He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He plans lots more ways to prove it through 2016. Humanity may not survive the ordeal.
On October 27, Deutche Welle (DW) headlined “Media reports suggest
Obama knew NSA spied on Merkel.”
Der Spiegel said NSA’s Special Collection Service (SCS) monitored her cell phone conversations since 2002.
Obama lied telling Merkel he knew nothing about it.
He encourages global spying. He wants world leaders monitored. He wants stepped up surveillance doing
it.
According to DW, “a report in Bild am Sonntag published Sunday cites an unnamed NSA official who said (Obama) ordered the program be escalated.”
NSA chief Keith Alexander told Obama about monitoring Merkel’s phone calls. It hacked into her “supposedly secure phone”
“Only a special, secure landline phone in her office was reportedly not accessible to electronic tapping.”
Hacked information was reported directly to the White House. Evidence suggests monitoring Merkel continued at least through the “immediate past.”
Despite official disclaimers, most likely it continues. A previous article discussing spying on 35 world leaders.
They weren’t named. It’s not hard imagining likely targets.
Perhaps lots more than 35 are monitored. NSA may add others to its list.
Global spying is official US policy. No one’s safe from intrusion.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “it’s very, very difficult to defend yourself.” At most, you can make it tougher, more time consuming and expensive to do it. More on that below.
On October 27, Der Spiegel headlined “Embassy Espionage: The NSA’s Secret Spy Hub in Berlin,” saying:
Its research shows “United States intelligence agencies have not only targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, but they have also used the
American Embassy in Berlin as a listening station.”
(RT News, “NSA spying on foreign embassies helped US 'develop' strategy”, RT News, 5/13/2014, http://rt.com/usa/158608-nsa-greenwald-unsnowden/)//MBB
The National Security Agency in 2010 provided the US ambassador to the United Nations with background information on several governments and their embassies that were undecided on the question of Iranian sanctions.
In May 2010, as the UN Security Council was attempting to win support for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear-energy program, which some say is a front for a nuclear weapons program, several members were undecided as to how they would vote. At this point, the US ambassador to the world body, Susan Rice, asked the NSA for assistance in her efforts to “develop a strategy,” leaked NSA documents reveal.

The NSA swung into action, aiming their powerful surveillance apparatus at the personal communications of diplomats
from four non-permanent Security Council members — Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and Uganda. This gave Rice an apparent upper-hand in the course of the negotiations.
In June, 12 of the 15-member Security Council voted in favor of new sanctions.
Later, Rice extended her gratitude to the US spy agency, saying its surveillance
had helped
her to know when diplomats from the other permanent representatives
— China, England, France and Russia —
“were telling the truth ... revealed their real position on sanctions ... gave us an upper hand in negotiations ... and provided information on various countries’ ‘red lines’.”
The information comes from a new book by journalist Glenn Greenwald, ‘No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State’, the New York
Times reported.
Rice’s request for assistance was discovered in an internal report by the security agency’s Special Source Operations division, which cooperates with US telecommunications companies in the event a request for information is deemed necessary.
Greenwald’s book goes on sale Tuesday.
The book also provides a list of embassies around the world that had been infiltrated by the US spy agency, includ ing those of
Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, the European Union, France, Georgia, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico,
Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela and Vietnam.
News of the NSA’s vast surveillance network, which targets friends and enemies of the United States with equanimity, were revealed in June when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided Greenwald with thousands of files on the program.
Despite promises by
President
Obama for greater safeguards on the invasive system, which has infuriated people around the world, the NSA seems determined not to let international public opinion block its spying efforts.
“While our intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments — as opposed to ordinary citizens — around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation do, we will not apologize because our services may be more effective,” according to a White
House statement.
The latest revelations detailing how the NSA gives American diplomats an unfair advantage raises the question as to how such orders passed legal muster in the first place.
According to the documents, a legal team went to work on May 22 building the case to electronically eavesdrop on diplomats and envoys from Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and
Uganda whose embassies were apparently not yet covered by the NSA.
A judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved the request on May 26.
The Obama administration has faced fierce criticism following revelations of the global surveillance program, which was used not simply to identify potential terrorists, but to eavesdrop on the communications of world leaders.
Following revelations that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private cell phone communications were being hacked by the NSA,
Germany pushed for a
‘no-spy’ agreement with the United States to restore the trust
.
The
Obama
administration, however, rejected the offer
.
Now Europe has announced plans to construct a new Internet network that bypasses the United States and the NSA, a move the US Trade Representative labeled
“draconian.”

- Daniel Haqiqatjou was born in Houston, Texas. He attended Harvard University where he majored in Physics and minored in Philosophy.
He completed a Masters degree in Philosophy at Tufts University. Haqiqatjou also studies traditional Islamic sciences part-time. He writes and lectures on contemporary issues surrounding Muslims and Modernity. (Daniel, “CONGRESS DOESN’T APPLAUD MUSLIM TOLERANCE – ARE WE SURPRISED?”, Muslim Matters, January
22, 2015, http://muslimmatters.org/2015/01/22/congress-doesnt-applaud-muslim-tolerance-are-we-surprised//DM)
Trust me, Congress. The feeling is mutual.
By now, we have all seen it
.
During the State of the Union, President Obama called for a rejection of offensive Muslim stereotypes
. Instead of applauding approval, the crowd went dead silent
. As far as we can tell,
Congress and the other government officials who were in attendance are perfectly fine with offensively stereotyping Muslims.
My question is, are we really surprised? Let's take a look at a brief list of facts in order to gauge how Muslim-friendly
Congress and the US government at large have been over the years. 1.
This is the same Congress and the same President that have initiated and continued the “War on Terror,” backing military operations in seven different Muslim nations over the past fourteen years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, North West Pakistan. In the few Muslim nations that have not been subjected to direct assault, the US has supported brutal dictators (Egypt, the Gulf) or perpetuated punitive sanctions (Iran, pre-invasion Iraq). The loss of innocent life in these parts of the Muslim world is beyond tallying. To add insult to injury, the instability caused by the “War on Terror” has directly led to the rise of brutal warlords and radical groups, like ISIS, which predominantly kill Muslims. 2. Did you know that as of 2014, there are eight US states that ban Shariah law? Did you know that 34 states have considered banning
Shariah just in the past five years? 3. Some Muslims have praised President Obama for speaking against offensive Muslim stereotypes in the State of the Union address. But, let's not overlook the fact that right before the Muslim stereotypes line, Obama said, “As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened, which is why I've prohibited torture and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained.
” Is it not interesting that he references two programs that have disproportionately affected Muslims?
Many will argue that Obama's drone program is anything but “constrained,” considering the hundreds of civilians killed to date, as well as the brutal tactic of “double tapping” strike targets. Also, it is inaccurate for Obama to claim that he has “prohibited torture.” Torture was prohibited by President Reagan in 1988 when he signed the UN General Assembly's Conventions Against Torture. In light of the CIA Torture Report, Obama is violating international law by not prosecuting those in the Bush Administration who authorized torture. 4. On that point, let's not forget the recent CIA
Torture Report and how the victims of CIA torture were, again, predominantly Muslim
, many of whom were not even suspected of any wrongdoing
. So far, neither President Obama nor Congress has felt the need to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity. Again, failing to prosecute torturers is itself a crime according to international law. 5. Also mentioned in the State of the Union was good ol'
Guantanamo. Obama promised to shut it down. We can only wonder if this latest promise will be as hollow as the promise he made as a presidential candidate in 2008. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the majority of Gitmo prisoners are Muslims who have not been charged with any crime, yet have had to endure torture and all manner of barbarity.
6.
The 2011 Congressional hearing on “domestic Islamic terrorism” is a great example of how many key members of Congress have viewed the American Muslim community and Muslims at large
.
The House Committee on Homeland Security
, which orchestrated this farce, was accused of “Muslim McCarthyism” by implying that all Muslims are loosely responsible for terrorism.
Rep. Peter King went so far as to question the legitimacy of CAIR, i.e., the most important legal advocacy group the American
Muslim community has. Of course, we were all left wondering, what is the grave “domestic Islamic terrorism” threat Congress is so concerned about, since the vast majority of domestic terrorism in the US is not conducted by Muslims. The FBI itself reports that, between 1980 and 2005, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the
United States than Muslim (7% vs. 6%). In light of this fact and others, multiple university studies have concluded that the threat of American Muslim terrorism is greatly exaggerated. Hmm, who could possibly benefit from this overt stigmatization of Muslims?
7.
How about NYPD illegal surveillance of Muslims? Just your everyday racial profiling run amok, putting hundreds of thousands of innocent American Muslims under the pressure of unfounded suspicion. But what did the federal government have to say? Well, John Brennan, Obama's
Homeland Security adviser at the time praised the program. Obama himself praised Ray Kelly, the NYPD commissioner who oversaw Muslim surveillance, and in 2013 strongly considered appointing him as Secretary of Homeland Security.
8. Another major federal agency is the FBI. Perhaps you have heard of the FBI's entrapment program, known best for foiling terror plots of its own making. According to a report published by Project SALAM, nearly 95% of terror related arrests post 9/11 have been the result of the FBI foiling terror plots of its own making. As the report describes: “The government uses agents provocateur to target individuals who express dissident ideologies and then provides those provocateurs with fake (harmless) missiles, bombs, guns, money, encouragement, friendship, and the technical and strategic planning necessary to see if the targeted individual can be manipulated into planning violent or criminal action.” I highly encourage people to peruse all the different cases of Muslim entrapment over the years as the details are often unbelievable. Some have even reported on how the FBI and other agencies use “outreach” programs to spy on the Muslim community.
As far as the Obama Administration is concerned, Attorney General Eric Holder of the DOJ has expressed support for the FBI's tactics with respect to the Muslim community.
9. It hardly requires mention, but surely we

cannot overlook President Obama demanding, in an address to the UN last year, that Muslims denounce ISIS and radical Islamic ideologies.
As myself and many other commentators have repeatedly explained, requiring
Muslims as a collective to apologize for and denounce the crimes of a deranged few to which we have no connection is nothing other than racist stereotyping.
Even comedian Aziz Ansari made this simple point on Twitter, but apparently our
President and much of Congress are too dense to understand this. If Obama wants us to reject offensive Muslim stereotypes, he should start with himself. 10. Remember the “Ground Zero Mosque”? How many members of Congress actively condemned it back in 2010? Quite a few, actually. Obama did make some tepid comments in support of Park51 initially but quickly backtracked and stated: “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there.” So much for offensive Muslim stereotypes. 11.
So, we have covered the CIA, the FBI, the DOJ, the Department of
Homeland Security. How about the NSA? Do they have a disproportionate interest in Muslims?
Why, yes indeed! As the Snowden leaks detail, the NSA has been datamining the communications of
Muslim leaders and activists for years.
12. We would be remiss not to mention the Israeli Lobby and the US government's undying support for every crime and act of genocide that that nation commits, despite the fact that Israel has more spies in the US than any other country. The fact that Palestinians are majority
Muslim I'm sure has no impact on influencing how congressmen view Muslims in general, given that those same congressmen grovel at the feet of their Zionist handlers.
Let's be real. Anyway, this brief list merely scratches the surface. An entire five volume set could be written cataloging the depth and breadth of US policy disproportionately and negatively impacting Muslims in America and abroad, causing all manner of death, destruction, detention, bullying, and violence in the past 14 years alone.
And it is no secret that Islamophobia and riling people up with anti-Muslim fervor is quite lucrative for everyone involved.
So, no, it is not a surprise that Congress withheld applause for Muslims
. At least they were consistent, unlike President Obama, who, as always, waxes poetic about tolerance, acceptance, mutual understanding, etc., while his policies, in effect if not intent, are diametrically opposed to those ideals. In any case, as American Muslims, we should keep in mind that elected politicians do not necessarily represent the sentiments of the American people. That is why Congress' approval ratings are at historical lows. We, as a society, apparently don't care about these corrupt politicians and Washington's sick, perverted political culture. And even when we look at Gallup polls on non-Muslim American sentiments toward Muslims and Islam, there is a lot to be positive about. As a community, let's continue to work toward the positive in whatever ways we can, working with our neighbors, always embodying our religious ideals, never, ever selling out for cheap political gain, and looking forward to a more just, peaceful future. Until then, Congress can go wallow in its own crapulence.

– (Greg Ritcher, 2/18/2015, “Obama Warns Against Profiling, Surveillance in Anti-Terror Speech”, NewsMax, http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/barack-obama-war-terror-speech/2015/02/18/id/625593/)//MBB
President Barack
Obama used his speech
on the second day of a three-day White House summit on extremism to warn against profiling people or conducting surveillance simply because of their religious beliefs.
The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism came under fire from critics for failing to state that the focus is on radical Islamic terrorists, including groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaida, who are targeting the West in what they describe as a holy war.
Obama admitted that such groups are the reason behind the summit, but he reiterated that his administration will not label the groups
"Muslim" or "Islamic" because he said they are misusing passages of the Koran to justify their violence.
Obama said it is important not to stigmatize entire communities.
"Nobody should be profiled or put under a cloud of suspicion simply because of their faith," he said.
Obama pointed toward more cooperation with Muslim communities in finding people early in the radicalization process, but, he said, "Engagement with communities can't be a cover for surveillance."
Some in the Muslim community and on the left have been critical of efforts to infiltrate mosques to find imams preaching radicalism or to find members who have a radical ideology.
In the United States, he said, local and federal authorities must make sure that Muslims aren’t isolated and that they are welcomed and integrated into society.
"Muslim Americans feel they have been unfairly targeted," he said. "We have to be sure that abuses stop, are not repeated, that we don’t profile entire communities."
Obama said the terror groups are trying to expand their reach by portraying the U.S. and other Western nations as being at war with Islam.
"We must never accept the premise they put forward, because it is a lie," Obama said Wednesday. "They are not religious leaders, they’re terrorists."

(Ben and Dave; Obama calls for rules on federal drones to prevent spying on citizens; Feb 15; www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/15/obama-calls-for-rules-on-federal-drones-to-prevent/?page=all; kdf)
The
Obama
administration on Sunday released a long-awaited set of guidelines to govern drones in American skies, setting the stage for widespread use of the craft across a variety of industries.
President
Obama also issued a separate directive creating the first set of concrete rules for the federal government’s own use of drones
— also known as unmanned aerial systems or UAS — designed to ensure the craft don’t violate Americans’ privacy.
Taken together, the two steps mark a major step forward in the White House’s effort to regulate the rapidly expanding drone industry.
“The federal government will take steps to ensure that the integration [of drones] takes into account not only our economic competitiveness and public safety, but also the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties concerns these systems may raise,” Mr. Obama said in a memorandum to federal agencies. The Federal Aviation Administration’s drone proposal, which is in draft form and will be open to public comment for the next 60 days, applies to UAS weighing less than 55 pounds and being used for nonrecreational purposes, such as commercial use by private companies.
(Candice [assistant editor/reporter with Truthout]; The Coming Domestic Drone Wars; Sep 19; www.truth-out.org/news/item/18951-the-comingdomestic-drone-wars#; kdf)
States Push to Regulate Domestic Drones as Industry Pushes Back The Texas law is just one of many pieces of legislation placing restrictions on the use of domestic drones to be introduced in 43 states this year, passing in eight.
Many of these state-level bills seek to require search warrants for surveillance drones used by local police departments,
and at least six states have required warrants. In 2013, Virginia put in place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement to develop more stringent guidelines. Legislation restricting civilian drone use has passed in states such as Florida,
Tennessee, Idaho, Montana and Oregon, but other states such as North Dakota have tried to pass laws that would ban weapons from domestic drones and have failed. But the industry is pushing back against privacy restrictions and regulations on civilian drones, saying the restrictions will hinder job creation.
In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage backed up the claim by vetoing a bill that would have required police to obtain a warrant before deploying a drone, citing concerns it would kill new aerospace jobs.
"We don't support rewriting existing search warrant
requirements under the guise of privacy
," Mario Mairena told the AP. Mairena is a government relations manager for the Virginia-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group. The group's website boasts hundreds of corporate members, many of which are defense contractors. The group also has ties to the Unmanned Systems Caucus in Congress.
Whether or not requiring a warrant in law enforcement drone operations would kill jobs remains to be seen, but the integration of civilian drones into the NAS would create a considerable economic impact, to be sure.
An AUVSI report estimates that that the integration of unmanned systems in the U.S. will generate more than $13.6 billion and create 74,000 jobs within the first three years. But strong regulations of domestic drones in the states may prove especially important depending on what guidelines the FAA puts in place to integrate the technology into the national airspace by 2015, as some experts fear the susceptibility to co-option of unmanned systems by third-party operators could pose serious risks to domestic security.
(Conor; Why Police Don't Need Warrants to Snoop With Drones; Aug 28; www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/californialawmakers-back-a-restraining-order-on-police-drones/379267/; kdf)
If Governor Jerry Brown signs this law when it crosses his desk, the Golden State will have struck the right balance: permitting drone surveillance in cases where police obtain an individualized warrant
, while insisting on privacy rights consistent with the original understanding of the Fourth
Amendment, not the diminished version that War on Drugs jurisprudence has given us. Reuters reports there is opposition to the bill from the public-employee unions that represent law enforcement
, as well as the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, which calls the law
"an inappropriate attempt to impose search and seizure requirements on California law enforcement agencies beyond what is required by the 4th Amendment."
Without conceding that this law goes beyond the Fourth Amendment, the district attorney's argument is notably at odds with the notion that the Bill of Rights was a partial, incomplete articulation of the minimum rights owed a free people, not an upper bound on protecting liberty. Privacy-loving residents of other states should urge their legislators to follow suit.

(Jordain, “Obama heads for showdown over Cuba embassy,” http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/246817-obama-heads-forshowdown-over-cuba-embassy/, JMP)
President
Obama is heading for a showdown with Congress after announcing plans to reopen the U.S. embassy in Cuba
.
The administration's move is part of a months-long discussion between the two countries to normalize relations that could hand Obama a needed foreign policy win, but only if he can get lawmakers on board.
But that could be an impossible task. While the administration
can reopen the embassy without Congress signing off, they’ll need lawmakers to help approve an ambassador, fund the embassy, and lift a decades-old embargo
.
Congressional Republicans, and some Democrats, are already plotting to block the administration’s efforts, suggesting that Obama is going easy on a dictatorial regime.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called the decision to reopen the embassy the latest example of Obama’s “appeasement of dictators.”
The Arkansas Republican is planning to work with his Senate colleagues to block funding for an embassy and vote against a potential ambassador “until there is real, fundamental change that gives hope to the oppressed people of Cuba.”
He could find an ally across the aisle in Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who has been a vocal critic of Obama’s policy. The Cuban-American senator said Obama’s decision
“is not in our national interest.”
“An already one-sided deal that benefits the Cuban regime is becoming all the more lopsided,” he added. "The message is democracy and human rights take a back seat to a legacy initiative.”
Across the Capitol, Republican leadership also opposes Obama’s Cuba moves, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying that “relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until Cubans enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner.”
The congressional opposition is hardly new. House lawmakers agreed in a 247-176 vote last month to keep the current restrictions on Americans wanting to travel to Cuba in place, effectively blocking rules issued earlier this year to make traveling easier."
The House is
also using its spending bills to try to torpedo Obama’s efforts
. A bill to fund the State Department would prohibit funds from being used to build a new embassy.
The administration has requested approximately $6 million to improve its current building there and convert it to a working embassy.
A senior State Department official said that a decision by lawmakers to fight the president’s policy would be counterproductive.
“It would be a shame if Congress impeded implementation of some of the very things that we think they – we all agree we want to do, such as better outreach to the Cuban people all over the island or additional,” the official said.
“These are the kinds of things that we can do as we move forward in this relationship with a more robust embassy. And I would assume that most on the Hill agree those are a good thing to do.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that while he hasn’t “done any whip counts
, but
And the administration isn’t without allies across the aisle as it prepares to sell lawmakers.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has said “it’s long past time” to change the country’s policy on Cuba.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) called Obama’s announcement “a step in the right direction,” but added that “fundamental issues must be addressed by its government before our two nations can establish the bilateral relationship they are capable of achieving.”
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, offered a more measured response, saying that he will "continue to carefully evaluate the most appropriate way forward for the U.S.-Cuba relationship."
The Tennessee Republican suggested late last year that the Cuban embargo hasn’t been effective, but said in a statement provided to The Hill that “we still have yet to see any significant actions by the Castro regime that will benefit the United States or enhance freedoms and circumstances for the Cuban people.”
As Foreign Relations Chairman, Corker has wide sway over whether or not a nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Cuba gets a confirmation hearing or a vote.
The administration could also have an unlikely ally in Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) who has been silent on Cuba since Obama’s announcement.
The 2016 presidential candidate got in a Twitter skirmish late last year with Sen. Marco Rubio, who is also running for president, over the Florida Republican’s support for the embargo.
(Jordan, “Obama defies second-term slump,” http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/246750-obama-defies-second-term-slump,
JMP)
President Obama is seeking to finalize a nuclear agreement with Iran next week, an achievement that would add to a big year that is defying predictions of a second-term slump.
At a time when most presidents worry about losing clout, Obama is coming off what some have called his best week ever
: favorable Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage and ObamaCare and passage of his trade agenda in Congress.
The president is looking to seize on the momentum.
In addition to the Iran deal,
Obama wants to move ahead with his plan to open up Cuba
, and he is working to complete the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries that is key to Obama’s foreign policy pivot to Asia.
“We are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make as long as I have the privilege of holding this office,” Obama said
at a press conference Tuesday, in which he spoke of a long list of business that he wants to complete.
A strong 2015 for Obama followed two difficult years at the beginning of his second term.
His pushes for gun control and immigration reform fizzled out in Congress. Revelations of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance practices, the Internal Revenue
Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups and an Ebola outbreak blunted the president’s momentum. The rollout of HealthCare.Gov was disastrous.
After Republicans won control of the Senate, pundits predicted Obama would fade into the background of the 2016 presidential race.
He was compared to President George W. Bush, who had a disastrous 2005 after winning reelection and never recovered.
When a poll released last June showed Obama’s approval ratings plunging, NBC’s Chuck Todd declared “essentially, the public is saying your presidency is over.”
Instead,
Obama has enjoyed a series of victories over the last year culminating in his signing of fast-track authority last week
.
The second-year rollout of ObamaCare went much more smoothly than the first, and the law’s approval with the public has ticked up marginally. The Supreme Court’s decision last week means the law is almost certainly safe in the courts, and with millions getting benefits the White House believes it will be more difficult for Republicans to repeal it if they are able to take the White House.

--- Professor of Political Science at Carleton College (December 2011, Steven E., Presidential Studies Quarterly, “The Contemporary Presidency: The
Presidential Authority Problem and the Political Power Trap,” vol. 41, no. 4, Wiley Online Library
The concept of political capital captures many of the aspects of a president's political authority. Paul
Light defines several components of political capital: party support of the president in Congress, public approval of the president's conduct of his job, the president's electoral margin, and patronage appointments
(Light 1999, 15).
Light derived this list from the observations of 126 White House staff members he interviewed
(1999, 14). His indicators have two central uses. First,
Light's research reveals that they are central to the “players' perspective” in Washington.
That is, those “in the
game” view these items as crucial for presidential effectiveness
. Second, they relate to many central aspects of political authority as defined by Skowronek. So on both theoretical and practical levels, the components of political capital are central to the fate of presidencies
. The data here will reveal that presidents over the last 70 years have suffered from a trend of declining levels of political capital, a trend that is at the heart of their political authority problem
.
Many scholars have examined particular aspects of presidential political capital, from congressional support (for example, Bond and Fleisher 1992, 2000; Mayhew 2005;
Peterson 1993) to job approval (Brace and Hinckley 1991; Kernell 1978; Nicholson Segura and Woods 2002). From these, we know that presidential job approval is influenced by economic performance, tends to drop over time, and that divided government can boost job approval. Also, job approval and control of Congress by fellow partisans boosts presidential success in floor votes but does not produce more important legislation than does periods of divided government. These “micro” findings, however, comport with a “macro trend” of declining presidential political capital over time. This analysis explores that macro trend and relates it to previous micro findings.

--- professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Daniel W., “What can Obama really do in his fourth quarter? He had a good week last week. What does that mean for his presidency going forward?” http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/30/what-can-obama-really-do-in-his-fourth-quarter/, JMP)
So the consensus among the political cognoscenti was that last week was the best week of Barack Obama’s presidency. I guess that includes me. Last week I tweeted:
[image omitted]
And this was all before the Supreme Court eliminated all restrictions on same-sex marriage and Obama gave the speech of his presidency in eulogizing the Rev. Clementa
Pinckney:
So, naturally, the Sunday morning shows were all about Obama reborn and the political press was writing all about
“After momentous week, Obama’s presidency is reborn,” and I think it’s time to just take a step back and think real hard about this meme a bit.
This kind of analysis is akin to sports-writing about momentum: The notion that a player is on a hot streak implies that he will continue to go on his hot streak
, when in point of fact, regression to the mean is the far more likely outcome. To be fair, in politics, there’s the “political capital” argument that prior successes burnishes a president’s popularity, which in turn gives him some form of political capital to seek out even more successes
. And Obama’s popularity is rising in some (but not all) polls.
Still, a dose of realism seems useful here
. A president can advance his agenda through a number of means: acts of legislation, executive actions in domestic policy, foreign affairs accomplishments and burnishing his political legacy. Let’s think about these in turn.
The president could reel off 10 consecutive speeches like he did in Charleston, but that’s not going to make this Congress any more amenable to his policies.
The
GOP leadership has just cooperated with Obama on the one policy initiative that they agree on — there isn’t
anything left in the hopper.
And buried within Politico’s “Obama reborn!” story is this little nugget:
Meanwhile, progressives on the Hill, especially those still burning over how hard he steamrolled them on trade, are rolling their eyes at the lionizing. Remember, they point out, that many of the big things Obama gets the credit for didn’t originate with him — people like Nancy Pelosi were pushing him further on health care than the
White House wanted to go, or out in favor of a gay marriage plank in the 2012 convention platform when he was still deciding what to say.
So the congressional route is pretty much stymied.
Then there’s executive action, a route that this administration has been super-keen on since last year, particularly with respect to climate change (see also: new overtime rules). But lost among all the “huzzahs!” and “WTFs!!” about King vs. Burwell was the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts’s ruling actually constricted the executive branch’s ability to do that very thing. Roberts’s opinion placed significant limits on the “Chevron deference” that the courts have bestowed to the executive branch in the past, as Chris Walker explains:
[T]he Chief went the extra step of reasserting the judiciary’s primary role of interpreting statutes that raise questions of “deep economic and political significance.” This is a major blow to a bright-line rule-based approach to Chevron deference….
One could say that King v. Burwell—while a critical win for the Obama Administration—is a judicial power grab over the Executive in the modern administrative state….
It will also be interesting to see how this amplified major questions doctrine affects other judicial challenges to executive action. Especially in light of the King Court’s citation to UARG, one context that immediately comes to mind is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
So while the health-care ruling was a substantive victory for the Obama administration, it was a process loss, and could make it difficult for the president to implement parts of his agenda through executive action.
Then there’s foreign policy, his most promising avenue. Obama has the ability to rack up some significant accomplishments over the next 18 months: the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, an opening to Cuba, an Iran nuclear deal and a climate change deal in Paris at the end of this year.
I think it says something, however, that of the five things listed above, the Cuba opening is likely the least controversial. TPP and T-TIP are important but will not build him political capital since his own domestic allies hate it. The Iran deal and climate change negotiations are significant but will run into considerable opposition. And, connected with the point above, political polarization will make it harder for Obama to make credible commitments in Paris. More significantly, I think foreign policy is an area where the president has lost the broader debate about how the United States should approach the world.
Finally, there’s his political legacy. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016, then Obama can legitimately compare himself to Ronald Reagan as the only postwar presidents who managed to bequeath his party the presidency after his two terms were up. But as Jonathan Martin noted over the weekend in the New York Times, the paradoxical effect of last week is that it clears the deck for GOP candidates:

[E]ven as conservatives appear under siege, some Republicans predict that this moment will be remembered as an effective wiping of the slate before the nation begins focusing in earnest on the presidential race.
As important as some of these issues may be to the most conservative elements of the party’s base and in the primaries ahead, few Republican leaders want to contest the
2016 elections on social or cultural grounds, where polls suggest that they are sharply out of step with the American public.
“Every once in a while, we bring down the curtain on the politics of a prior era,” said David Frum, the conservative writer. “The stage is now cleared for the next generation of issues. And Republicans can say, ‘Whether you’re gay, black or a recent migrant to our country, we are going to welcome you as a fully cherished member of our coalition.’ ”
So will Obama be able to build on his great week to have a successful fourth quarter? Color me somewhat skeptical. On the domestic policy front, the president is likely to find his political options more
restricted rather than less restricted after last week.
There are significant but polarizing opportunities on foreign policy. And his political legacy rests on Clinton’s ability to fend off Bernie Sanders and a Republican who will be battle-tested from the most competitive party primary I’ve ever seen.
He’s got decent chances on the latter two fronts — but let’s put last week into perspective. It was a great week for the president. It does not mean that his presidency is reborn.
--- Washington Bureau Chief for RealClearPolitics (Carl M., “How Obama Can Build on His Winning Streak,” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/07/05/how_obama_can_build_on_his_winning_streak_127225.html, JMP)
With apologies to Judith Viorst, the nearly two weeks leading up to the July 4 weekend might be called
President
Obama’s wonderful, remarkable
, not at all bad, very good fortnight
.
It started in Congress on Wednesday, June 24, when enough Democrats joined Republican proponents to give the president sweeping “fast-track” authority to negotiate pacts with America’s Pacific Basin trading partners.
The next day, just across the street from the Capitol, the Supreme Court dispensed with the last serious constitutional challenge to Obamacare. The day after that, the court affirmed the administration’s legal position in a 5-4 decision establishing gay marriage as the law of the land.
When the marriage decision was announced, the president was in Charleston, S.C., at Emanuel A.M.E. Church where he gave an impassioned eulogy for nine murdered
African-American parishioners before leading the congregation in a rendition of “Amazing Grace,” which he began a cappella.
It was an extraordinary scene, and reminded millions of Americans of the Barack Obama they voted for in 2008. Although one snarky former White House aide issued a snide tweet criticizing South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for previously supporting the Confederate flag, Obama himself sat beside Haley in church and praised her from the pulpit for her leadership on the issue.
Obama returned home Friday night to see the White House bathed—per his orders—in the rainbow colors of the gay pride movement.
Asked days later about his winning streak at an East Room press conference, Obama merely acknowledged his “gratifying” week
, but mentioned other blessed weeks in his life, including the one in which he’d married Michelle—and the times when his daughters were born. Obama also playfully mentioned scoring 27 points in a high school basketball game, although he may have been poking fun at himself. Or not. But there was no denying his string of successes
.
The American people noticed. Obama’s job approval rating in CNN’s poll topped 50 percent for the first time in a while. So why didn’t he spike the ball and do an end-zone dance?
Several reasons, it seems to me.
First, if I may mix my sports metaphors, the president was heeding the advice of Crash Davis in “Bull Durham.”
He didn’t mess with a winning streak.
Republicans in Congress
and the Supreme Court and in South Carolina had helped him, so why antagonize them?
(Well, then came Thursday in Wisconsin, when he delivered a weirdly partisan -- even for him -- speech mocking the 2016 GOP field and the entire Republican Party.)
Second, it became clear that Obama had no intention of resting on his laurels. Last Monday, he announced plans to unilaterally give an estimated 5 million Americans a pay raise by tweaking Labor Department rules about overtime pay. On Tuesday, he announced plans to open a U.S. Embassy in Cuba—and allow the Cubans to open one here.
On Wednesday, he went to Nashville where he publicly lobbied Tennesseans to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. No less a local Republican personage than former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed support for Obama’s approach.
But there was another factor mitigating against presidential victory dances. In the middle of this run of success—on the same fateful Friday he spoke in Charleston and the high court upheld gay marriage—a frightful series of terrorist attacks rocked the world.
Islamic terrorists struck in France, Kuwait, and Tunisia on the same day. In France, an Islamic radical drove a delivery van into a U.S.-owned chemical plant while attempting to blow it up. He failed, but did decapitate the manager of a transportation company and unfurl two Islamic banners. A little while later, a suicide bomber in
Kuwait blew up a Shiite mosque, killing 25 worshipers and wounding many more. In Tunisia, a gunman pulled an assault rifle from a beach umbrella and began shooting sunbathers indiscriminately. Thirty-eight people died, most of them from Great Britain.

Three attacks on three continents in a matter of hours. ISIS took credit for Tunisia and Kuwait; France appears to be a “lone wolf” attack, but this is becoming a distinction without a difference: If ISIS exhorts extremists around the world to launch such attacks—and these calls are heeded—it’s irrelevant to the victims whether the killers received direct operational support from ISIS. This was a lesson Americans learned in Charleston: Armed lunatics inspired by hate can be just as dangerous as organized terrorist groups.
ISIS punctuated its June 26 orgy of bloodletting by throwing four gay men in Iraq off a five-story rooftop to their deaths, perhaps in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.
Barack Obama ran for president wanting to reduce America’s military footprint in the world. He continues to believe that the original sin was George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, a view shared by a majority of Americans. It also seems obvious that Obama’s decision to withdraw from that country was premature and that his dithering in
Syria made things worse. But those mistakes are in the past. The only steps Obama can take now are ones that try to shape the future.
Even as administration officials worried about possible terrorist attacks against Americans on July 4, the Royal Air Force was flying home the bodies of the 30 Britons murdered in Tunisia. In the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron termed the killings an act of war against the U.K. He’s right, but they were also an act of war against the civilized world.
Long before the latest atrocities, ISIS released videos boasting about machine-gunning Iraqi prisoners of war, beheading Western journalists and international aid workers, burning a Jordanian military pilot alive, executing dozens of Egyptian Christians working in Libya, and auctioning off ethnic Yazidi women as sex slaves.
This is a regime no government on earth wants to see survive. And Barack Obama is the only international leader with the cred and the military muscle to go to the United
Nations and serve notice that his country will lead a global effort to rid the world of this scourge.
Last week, New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie
formally declared his presidential candidacy. One of 15 Republicans who would like to succeed Obama as commanderin-chief, Christie was asked by a reporter why his job approval rating in New Jersey is so low. In reply, Christie said his popularity had taken a hit because he’s made some tough decisions in Trenton, that he’d used his political capital to get things
done. That’s
not the whole answer, but it’s partially true—and instructive. It’s time for
President
Obama to do the same
.

(Julian, “Senators back off plan to block Cuban Embassy,” http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/247094-senate-bill-backs-off-planto-block-cuban-embassy, JMP)
Senate Republicans appear unlikely to use the funding process to block
President
Obama’s plan to open a U.S.
Embassy in Cuba
this month, despite initial vows to prevent the landmark policy change.
A $49 billion funding bill for the State Department and foreign operations that passed through a Senate Appropriations subcommittee was silent on the plan.
Efforts to amend it to block the embassy appear politically impossible, subcommittee Chairman
Lindsey
Graham
(R-S.C.) acknowledged
, though he opposes the new embassy as much as ever.
“On the Senate side, I’m not so sure we have all Republicans where I’m at in terms of not establishing an embassy,” Graham
, who is running for president, told reporters after the brief subcommittee markup.
“I don’t know if the votes are there on our side, quite frankly.”
Despite the heated opposition to Obama’s plans from Graham and other prominent Republicans such as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), another presidential hopeful, many conservatives have been more receptive of the change in posture.
Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), White House candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and others have welcomed the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations.
The GOP opposition appeared to be in trouble last week when the White House announced it planned to open the embassy in Cuba.
The Cuban government said a U.S. Embassy in Havana and Cuban Embassy in Washington would both open their doors on July
20.
He is going to seek to add an amendment when the bill reaches the full committee later this week
, he told reporters, though it is unclear whether he has the support for it to stick.
“The one thing I’ve anticipated all my career is make sure I’ve got the votes,” he said. “So I’m going to offer it tomorrow and whether or not we vote on it will be dependent on how the vote count goes.”
Unlike the Senate, House legislation to fund the State Department would block the creation of the embassy, which could be a stumbling block for the administration.
A new ambassador to Cuba would also need to be confirmed by the Senate, which could be another hurdle.
“It’s just a matter of where the votes are at, and the House has good language, which I support,” Graham said. “So this thing is not over yet.”
The Senate appropriations bill provides $49 billion in emergency and discretionary funding for the State Department and other foreign programs — a $2.8 billion cut from last year and nearly $5 billion below the White House’s request.
(Dana, “
Obama spending his windfall of political capital on Cuba
,” http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20150705/OPINION04/150709675, JMP)
The good tidings of the past week have been arguably more luck than achievement for
Obama
, but he deserves credit for his effort to use the momentum of his victories to revive what had been a moribund presidency
.
When you earn political capital
, as George W. Bush liked to say, you spend it
.
This is why it was shrewd of the surging Obama to demand new action from Congress on Cuba.

“Americans and Cubans alike are ready to move forward; I believe it's time for Congress to do the same,” he said, renewing his call to lift the travel and trade embargo.
“Yes, there are those who want to turn back the clock and double down on a policy of isolation, but it's long past time for us to realize that this approach doesn't work. It hasn't worked for 50 years. ... So I'd ask Congress to listen to the Cuban people, listen to the American people, listen to the words of a proud Cuban American, [former
Bush commerce secretary] Carlos Gutierrez, who recently came out against the policy of the past.”
Fifteen minutes later, Obama lifted off from the South Lawn in Marine One on his way to Nashville, where he tried to use the momentum generated by the Supreme Court
Obamacare victory to spread the program to states where Republican governors have resisted.
“What I'm hoping is that with the Supreme Court case now behind us, what we can do is ... now focus on how we can make it even better,” he said, adding, “My hope is that on a bipartisan basis, in places like Tennessee but all across the country, we can now focus on ... what have we learned? What's working? What's not working?”
He said that “because of politics, not all states have taken advantage of the options that are out there. Our hope is, is that more of them do.” He urged people to “think about this in a practical American way instead of a partisan, political way.”
This probably won't happen, but it's refreshing to see Obama
, too often passive, regaining vigor as he approaches the final 18 months of his presidency. The energy had, at least for the moment, returned to the White House
, where no fewer than six network correspondents were doing live stand-ups before Obama's appearance Wednesday morning. There was a spring in the president's step, if not a swagger, as he emerged from the Oval Office trailed by Vice President Biden.
Republican presidential candidates were nearly unanimous in denouncing the plan to open a U.S. embassy in
Havana. But Obama
, squinting in the sunlight as he read from his teleprompters, welcomed the fight
.
“The progress that we mark today is yet another demonstration that we don't have to be imprisoned by the past,” he said. Quoting a Cuban-American's view that “you can't hold the future of Cuba hostage to what happened in the past,” Obama added, “That's what this is about: a choice between the future and the past.”
Obama turned to go back inside, ignoring the question shouted by Bloomberg's
Margaret
Talev: “How will you get an ambassador confirmed?”
That will indeed be tricky. But momentum is everything in politics — and for the moment, Obama has
it again.
--- Department of Government at Georgetown
(3/2/2007, Dr. Andrew J. Loomis is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, “Leveraging legitimacy in the crafting of U.S. foreign policy,” pg 35-36, http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/9/4/8/pages179487/p179487-36.php)
Declining political authority encourages defection. American political analyst Norman
Ornstein writes
of the domestic context,
In a system where a President has limited formal power, perception matters. The reputation for success
—the belief by other political actors that even when he looks down, a president will find a way to pull out a victory— is the most valuable resource a chief executive can have
.
Conversely, the widespread belief that the Oval Office occupant is on the defensive, on the wane or without the ability to win under adversity can lead to disaster, as individual
lawmakers calculate who will be on the winning side and negotiate accordingly.
In simple terms, winners win and
losers lose more often than not.
Failure begets failure. In short, a president experiencing declining amounts of political capital has diminished capacity to advance his goals.
As a result, political allies perceive a decreasing benefit in publicly tying themselves to the president
, and an increasing benefit in allying with rising centers of authority. A president’s incapacity and his record of success are interlocked and reinforce each other.
Incapacity leads to political failure, which reinforces perceptions of incapacity. This feedback loop accelerates decay both in leadership capacity and defection by key allies.
The central point of this review of the presidential literature is that the sources of presidential influence—and thus their prospects for enjoying success in pursuing preferred foreign policies—go beyond the structural factors imbued by the

Constitution
. Presidential authority is affected by ideational resources in the form of public perceptions of legitimacy. The public offers and rescinds its support in accordance with normative trends and historical patterns, non-material sources of power that affects the character of U.S. policy, foreign and domestic.
This brief review of the literature suggests how legitimacy norms enhance presidential influence in ways that structural powers cannot explain
. Correspondingly, increased executive power improves the prospects for policy success
. As a variety of cases indicate—from Woodrow Wilson’s failure to generate domestic support for the League of Nations to public pressure that is changing the current course of U.S. involvement in Iraq—the effective execution of foreign policy depends on public support. Public support turns on perceptions of policy legitimacy. As a result, policymakers—starting with the president—pay close attention to the receptivity that U.S. policy has with the domestic public. In this way, normative influences infiltrate policy-making processes and affect the character of policy decisions.
Inter-American Dialogue, the center for policy analysis and communication on Western Hemisphere Affairs, “Remaking the Relationship The United States and Latin
America,” April, 2012, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf/NV
Cuba, too, poses a significant challenge for relations between the U nited
S tates and Latin America. The
50-year-old US embargo against Cuba is rightly criticized throughout the hemisphere as a failed and punitive instrument. It has long been a strain on US-Latin American relations
. Although the United States has recently moved in the right direction and taken steps to relax restrictions on travel to Cuba,
Washington needs to do far more to dismantle its severe, outdated constraints on normalized relations with Cuba. Cuba
is one of the residual issues that most obstructs more effective US-Latin American engagement
.
At the same time,
Cuba’s authoritarian regime should be of utmost concern
to all countries in the Americas. At present, it is the only country without free, multi-party elections, and its government fully controls the press. Latin American and Caribbean nations could be instrumental in supporting Cuba’s eventual transition to democratic rule.
An end to the US policy of isolating Cuba, without setting aside US concern about human rights violations, would be an important first step.
Many of the issues on the hemispheric agenda carry critical global dimensions. Because of this, the United States should seek greater cooperation and consultation with
Brazil, Mexico, and other countries of the region in world forums addressing shared interests.
Brazil has the broadest international presence and influence of any Latin American nation. In recent years it has become far more active on global issues of concern to the
United States. The United States and Brazil have clashed over such issues as Iran’s nuclear program, non-proliferation, and the Middle East uprisings, but they have cooperated when their interests converged, such as in the World Trade Organization and the G-20 (Mexico, Argentina, and Canada also participate in the G-20), and in efforts to rebuild and provide security for Haiti. Washington has worked with Brazil and other Latin American countries to raise the profile of emerging economies in various international financial agencies, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In addition to economic and financial matters, Brazil and other Latin American nations are assuming enhanced roles on an array of global political, environmental, and security issues. Several for which US and Latin American cooperation could become incr
As the world’s lone nuclear-weapons-free region, Latin America has the opportunity to participate more actively in non-proliferation efforts. Although US and Latin American interests do not always converge on non-proliferation questions, they align on some related goals
. For example, the main proliferation challenges today are found in developing and unstable parts of the world
, as well as in the leakage— or transfer of nuclear materials—to terrorists. In that context, south-south connections are crucial.
Brazil could play a pivotal role.
Many countries in the region give priority to climate change challenges. This may position them as a voice in international debates on this topic. The importance of the Amazon basin to worldwide climate concerns gives
Brazil and five other South American nations a special role to play. Mexico already has assumed a prominent position on climate change and is active in global policy debates
. Brazil organized the first-ever global environmental meeting in 1992 and, this year, will host Rio+20. Mexico hosted the second international meeting on climate change in Cancún in 2010.
The United States is handicapped by its inability to devise a climate change policy. Still, it should support coordination on the presumption of shared interests on a critical policy challenge
.

Latin Americans are taking more active leadership on drug policy in the hemisphere and could become increasingly influential in global discussions of drug strategies
. Although the United States and Latin America are often at odds on drug policy, they have mutual interests and goals that should allow consultation and collaboration on a new, more effective approach to the problem.
Anthony Barnosky, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, curator at the Museum of Paleontology and a paleoecologist at the Museum of Vertebrae Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, “Preventing the Sixth Mass Extinction Requires Dealing With Climate Change,” November 11, 2014, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-barnosky/preventing-the-sixth-mass_b_6161284.html/NV
Last week the United States and China signed a landmark agreement to combat climate change. This is an important step in guarding against even more damage from rising seas that threaten major cities, increasingly common and severe storms that devastate lives and property, wildfires, drought, and the huge economic costs that already are mounting from climate catastrophes.
However, from my perspective as a paleontologist who has spent decades studying the impacts of climate change
, both before and after people got into the act, there is an even bigger reason to forge global climate agreements.
Allowing the climate change we're now causing to continue would virtually guarantee that human beings will be the first species in the planet's history bring on a mass extinction of life on Earth
.
Mass extinction means that at least three out every four species you are familiar with die out. Forever.
Extinction of that magnitude has happened only five times in the past 540 million years
, most recently 66 million years ago, when the last big dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid strike.
Today, even without human-caused climate change thrown into the mix, most scientists agree that we -- Homo sapiens -- have been pushing the world towards the sixth mass extinction
from such long-recognized human pressures as habitat destruction (for instance from deforestation or pollution), poaching, and overfishing.
The magnitude of those pressures is overwhelming when you start to think on the global scale. We've completely plowed, paved, or otherwise transformed 50 percent of Earth's lands
, taking all those places out of play for the species that used to live there.
With 7 billion of us (and more added every day) on the planet, the human race now takes more than a third of all the energy produced by plant photosynthesis
-- so-called net primary productivity -- just to support itself. That means a third less energy is available to sustain life for all the other species on the planet
.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has determined that,
as a result of such pressures
, at last count, well over 20,000 species are now threatened with extinction. That is more than a quarter of all evaluated species. Of course, the actual number of species hanging on by a thread is likely much higher,
given that many species have not even been evaluated yet.
Adding today's human-caused climate change
-- and especially the accelerated changes projected under business-as-usual scenarios -- into the milieu of extinction drivers is like adding a match to gasoline.
One reason is that the planet is rapidly heating up to a temperature that most species on Earth today have never experienced
. For example, never in the 160,000-year history of the human species have we seen an Earth as hot as it will be by mid-century.
Keep that warming going until the year 2100 and Earth would be hotter than it has been in the past 14 million years; that is the trajectory we are now on
. Most species alive today, however, have only evolved to cope with climatic conditions that have existed over the past 2 million years.
The rapidity of human-caused climate change is the second big problem causing extinctions. Today, climate is changing at least 10 times more quickly
than living species have ever experienced in their evolutionary history.
That means that evolving to cope with the newly emerging climatic conditions is not an option for most species, because evolution has a speed limit
usually reckoned in thousands to millions of years. Evolving to meet such a severe climate challenge over a hundred years or so simply exceeds most species' adaptive capacity, ultimately because genetic mutation rates are so slow. The exceptions -- the adaptive winners in the climate change game, if you will -- are species that reproduce quickly and in prodigious numbers, like flies, mosquitoes, rats, and mice.
Easier than adapting, of course, is simply up and moving, which species have been known to do during past times of climate change, though none of those past climate changes was as rapid as what is happening today. But even in cases where species could theoretically run quickly enough, on today's landscape, and especially given the shifting climatic regimes of the coming decades, there is nowhere

to run to
. Not only are the few remaining patches of habitat that contain diverse species separated by impenetrable human-modified and human-dominated landscapes and seascapes, but ongoing climate change promises to steal the very habitats that now support most species on the planet
. On land, as much as two thirds of all species live in tropical and subtropical forests, yet climate models indicate that by the time babies today are middle-aged, the climate required to support those tropical and subtropical species will disappear over large swaths of the lands where they currently live and will be found nowhere on Earth.
In the oceans, it looks every bit as grim if we do nothing to slow climate change. Both experimental and modeling research indicates that warming waters and the other byproduct of elevated greenhouse gases, rising acidity in the oceans, would likely cause coral reefs to disappear almost entirely by 2070. These "rainforests of the sea" support 25 percent of all the ocean's species -- and 10 percent of the world's fisheries,
which provide the principal protein for hundreds of millions of people and inject billions of dollars per year into the world economy.
Avoiding such dire scenarios requires a multi-pronged effort to address all known extinction drivers
-- including protecting remaining habitats, halting poaching, cleaning up pollution, slowing and stabilizing human population growth, and ascribing economic value to biodiversity in general and to keeping species like elephants and tigers alive rather than selling their bodies for parts.
And indeed, efforts focused in those directions have proven successful in bringing some species back from the brink
.
But human-caused climate change has fundamentally changed the extinction game to one we are destined to lose if we simply continue business as usual. The only way to prevent the extinction of thousands of species will be to slow greenhouse warming dramatically, which requires rapidly shifting from a fossil-fuel economy to one dominated by carbon-neutral energy
. Numerous analyses have shown the technology and expertise exists to make this possible. All that's standing in the way is deciding it's the right thing to do.
It is still unclear whether the world is ready to do anything about climate change. The follow-up to last week's historic climate agreement between the United States and
China will be telling.
And while it's appropriate that world leaders are weighing the immediate human impacts against the costs of climate action, it's also essential that they, and the rest of us, see the bigger picture. The most critical accounting needs to be reckoned in lives, not only of individuals but of entire species
. That accounting under a business-as-usual scenario rapidly adds up to the sixth mass extinction. And, while many impacts of climate change may come and go and vary from place to place, extinction is forever.

(Editorial, “Obama a lame duck? Think again,” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/07/06/editorials/obama-a-lameduck-think-again/#.VZqgavmGPD9, JMP)
The power of the president of the United States weakens considerably from the beginning of his second term. The mandate gained by re-election quickly dissipates as
Washington begins to focus on the process of selecting his successor.
The second mid-term election
, which typically rewards the party that does not occupy the White House, deepens the slide to irrelevance. In the case of
Barack
Obama, the conventional wisdom is that he is biding his time until he leaves
, fighting a rear guard battle against a determined opposition, desperate to consolidate and protect his legacy.
The conventional wisdom is wrong.
, able to move the levers of government as he desires and to rouse public passions. He remains a force to be reckoned with. His presidency is by no means over.
Obama made clear at the beginning of 2014 that he would not be sidelined. He reminded Congress that he “had a pen and a phone” and he was ready to use both to push his agenda. The most prominent actions he has taken include an executive order to defer the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, opening negotiations to normalize relations with Cuba and vetoing the first bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress that would force the commencement of construction of the controversial
Keystone pipeline.
Each move triggered outrage, protests and countermeasures by his opponents. Undaunted, Obama pressed on, and last month he won some of his biggest victories yet.
In a key decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Obama’s most important legacy, his health care reforms. That ruling has two important implications. First, it means that the law will stay on the books for another two years, during which more Americans will benefit from the reforms and will make it virtually impossible to repeal should a GOP candidate claim the White House in the 2016 election.
Second, the legal basis of the ruling was such that it will require a congressional vote to repeal the law; it cannot be “reinterpreted” by a future administration in ways that gut its intent.
The Supreme Court gave the president a second victory days later when it recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. The president has been a staunch supporter of LGBT rights and this decision gives him a big domestic boost. Equally significantly, it puts opponents on the defensive; Obama can use their rejection of this decision to discredit their opposition on other issues.
A
third important victory came with congressional approval of
Trade Promotion Authority (
TPA
), the vital prerequisite to conclude negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the key economic initiative of his foreign policy toward Asia, as well as the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) that is also under negotiation and likely to conclude during Obama’s term. This was a bitter fight, primarily against members of his own party, and the president’s readiness to take on fellow Democrats is a sign that he is still focused on his agenda
, not merely that of his party.
On the foreign policy front, the announcement that the U.S and Cuba are ready to resume diplomatic ties and reopen embassies in each country is a long overdue development and another bold stroke.
If the Iranian nuclear negotiations proceed to an agreement that both sides can accept, then Obama will have transformed relations with two long-standing adversaries and, potentially, permanently altered dynamics in two vitally important regions.
The announcement that
Russian President Vladimir
Putin has twice reached out to Obama in the past week is an indication that

In Beijing, Chinese officials are now preparing for the September visit of President Xi Jinping to the U.S.
Their determination to ensure that meeting is a success, coupled with growing discontent in Asia over assertive Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, gives Obama additional leverage in that relationship.
There is a
final critical factor that cannot be estimated, nor
can it be overlooked: the Obama image and his rhetorical gifts
. For all the pomp and circumstance, the power of the U.S. president both at home and abroad is limited
. The president, no matter who he is, cannot direct the economy nor bring peace to the Middle East.
He does, however, occupy a bully pulpit, and from that post he can bring his moral stature to bear on problems, domestic and foreign
. As has been made repeatedly clear in recent weeks — speaking in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the march there and again in Charleston, South Carolina at the funeral of the slain pastor Clementa Pinckney — Obama has a singular gift to rise above the noise, raise his nation and focus its attention. That alone is reason why Obama remains a powerful leader, even as his term winds to a close.
(Jordain, “Obama heads for showdown over Cuba embassy,” http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/246817-obama-heads-forshowdown-over-cuba-embassy/, JMP)
President
Obama is heading for a showdown with Congress after announcing plans to reopen the U.S. embassy in Cuba
.
The administration's move is part of a months-long discussion between the two countries to normalize relations that could hand Obama a needed foreign policy win, but only if he can get lawmakers on board.
But that could be an impossible task. While the administration
can reopen the embassy without Congress signing off, they’ll need lawmakers to help approve an ambassador, fund the embassy, and lift a decades-old embargo
.
Congressional Republicans, and some Democrats, are already plotting to block the administration’s efforts, suggesting that Obama is going easy on a dictatorial regime.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called the decision to reopen the embassy the latest example of Obama’s “appeasement of dictators.”
The Arkansas Republican is planning to work with his Senate colleagues to block funding for an embassy and vote against a potential ambassador “until there is real, fundamental change that gives hope to the oppressed people of Cuba.”
He could find an ally across the aisle in Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who has been a vocal critic of Obama’s policy. The Cuban-American senator said Obama’s decision
“is not in our national interest.”
“An already one-sided deal that benefits the Cuban regime is becoming all the more lopsided,” he added. "The message is democracy and human rights take a back seat to a legacy initiative.”
Across the Capitol, Republican leadership also opposes Obama’s Cuba moves, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying that “relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until Cubans enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner.”
The congressional opposition is hardly new. House lawmakers agreed in a 247-176 vote last month to keep the current restrictions on Americans wanting to travel to Cuba in place, effectively blocking rules issued earlier this year to make traveling easier."
The House is
also using its spending bills to try to torpedo Obama’s efforts
. A bill to fund the State Department would prohibit funds from being used to build a new embassy.
The administration has requested approximately $6 million to improve its current building there and convert it to a working embassy.

A senior State Department official said that a decision by lawmakers to fight the president’s policy would be counterproductive.
“It would be a shame if Congress impeded implementation of some of the very things that we think they – we all agree we want to do, such as better outreach to the Cuban people all over the island or additional,” the official said.
“These are the kinds of things that we can do as we move forward in this relationship with a more robust embassy. And I would assume that most on the Hill agree those are a good thing to do.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that while he hasn’t “done any whip counts
, but
And the administration isn’t without allies across the aisle as it prepares to sell lawmakers.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has said “it’s long past time” to change the country’s policy on Cuba.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) called Obama’s announcement “a step in the right direction,” but added that “fundamental issues must be addressed by its government before our two nations can establish the bilateral relationship they are capable of achieving.”
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, offered a more measured response, saying that he will "continue to carefully evaluate the most appropriate way forward for the U.S.-Cuba relationship."
The Tennessee Republican suggested late last year that the Cuban embargo hasn’t been effective, but said in a statement provided to The Hill that “we still have yet to see any significant actions by the Castro regime that will benefit the United States or enhance freedoms and circumstances for the Cuban people.”
As Foreign Relations Chairman, Corker has wide sway over whether or not a nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Cuba gets a confirmation hearing or a vote.
The administration could also have an unlikely ally in Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) who has been silent on Cuba since Obama’s announcement.
The 2016 presidential candidate got in a Twitter skirmish late last year with Sen. Marco Rubio, who is also running for president, over the Florida Republican’s support for the embargo.
(Jordan, “Obama defies second-term slump,” http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/246750-obama-defies-second-term-slump,
JMP)
President Obama is seeking to finalize a nuclear agreement with Iran next week, an achievement that would add to a big year that is defying predictions of a second-term slump.
At a time when most presidents worry about losing clout, Obama is coming off what some have called his best week ever
: favorable Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage and ObamaCare and passage of his trade agenda in Congress.
The president is looking to seize on the momentum.
In addition to the Iran deal,
Obama wants to move ahead with his plan to open up Cuba
, and he is working to complete the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries that is key to Obama’s foreign policy pivot to Asia.
“We are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make as long as I have the privilege of holding this office,” Obama said
at a press conference Tuesday, in which he spoke of a long list of business that he wants to complete.
A strong 2015 for Obama followed two difficult years at the beginning of his second term.
His pushes for gun control and immigration reform fizzled out in Congress. Revelations of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance practices, the Internal Revenue
Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups and an Ebola outbreak blunted the president’s momentum. The rollout of HealthCare.Gov was disastrous.
After Republicans won control of the Senate, pundits predicted Obama would fade into the background of the 2016 presidential race.
He was compared to President George W. Bush, who had a disastrous 2005 after winning reelection and never recovered.
When a poll released last June showed Obama’s approval ratings plunging, NBC’s Chuck Todd declared “essentially, the public is saying your presidency is over.”

Instead,
Obama has enjoyed a series of victories over the last year culminating in his signing of fast-track authority last week
.
The second-year rollout of ObamaCare went much more smoothly than the first, and the law’s approval with the public has ticked up marginally. The Supreme Court’s decision last week means the law is almost certainly safe in the courts, and with millions getting benefits the White House believes it will be more difficult for Republicans to repeal it if they are able to take the White House.

Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, “GOP searches for strategy to counter Obama winning streak,” July 10, 2015, Lamar News, http://www.lamarledger.com/lamar-news/ci_28416019/gop-searches-strategy-counter-obama-winning-streak/NV
Republicans have tried to pin the lame duck label on
President
Obama for quite a while now. But for a lame duck, Obama is doing pretty well
.
He won on Obamacare. He won on gay marriage. He won on trade. His party was even able to leverage a horrendous crime
— the killings in Charleston — to put Republicans on the defensive over the Confederate flag.
A president's approval rating, and his general image of success or failure, affect the candidate of his party seeking to succeed him. From that perspective, Obama's victories are a gift to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, Clinton was quick to embrace the Supreme Court Affordable Care Act decision. "Yes!" she tweeted just minutes after the news broke. "SCOTUS affirms what we know is true in our hearts & under the law: Health insurance should be affordable & available to all."
A short time after Clinton's statement, I sent notes to several Republican operatives, some working on presidential campaigns and some unaffiliated. How do GOP candidates deal with a president on a winning streak? How does it affect the campaign? Does it give Clinton a stronger hand? The answers that came back showed a party struggling to figure out exactly how to deal with the Democrats' recent run.
Some stressed that the president's wins aren't really his, pointing especially to the trade deal, in which Obama succeeded almost entirely because of Republican help.
"Yes, he can claim some victories, but few of his own making and mostly due to other actors, for their own reasons, making things happen," said Dave Carney, the New
Hampshire-based strategist who advised Rick Perry in the last election. "He has become the Forrest Gump of presidents."
Others laid blame on GOP lawmakers in Congress, arguing they must do more to stop the president's agenda. "Republicans in Washington need to act and put pressure on
Obama to veto conservative legislation or come to the table," said Tim Miller of the Jeb Bush campaign. "There has been a lot of talking, but Republicans need to start getting results."
Still others argued that Obama's wins don't say much about the merits of his agenda. "He won the (Obamacare) case, but just having the Court say it was legal doesn't make it good policy, popular with the American people, or good healthcare," noted Curt Anderson, a top adviser to the Bobby Jindal campaign.
Some saw Obama's wins as tangential to the issues that matter most with voters
, explaining that Obama is still a loser when it comes to the big stuff.
"When the voters start giving the president credit for a booming economy and a globe-spanning string of foreign policy successes, then the Republicans will have to worry," said Vin Weber, a longtime GOP strategist who is an outside adviser to the Bush campaign.
Finally, others saw Obama's wins as mainly the work of a Washington establishment out of touch with economic suffering going on beyond the Beltway.
"President
Obama and America's elites are winning, winning, winning," said Alex Castellanos, a longtime
GOP strategist who is not affiliated with any campaign this time around. "Let the peasants eat cake,
Obamacare, and unemployment. A lot of steam is building up in the populist pressure cooker.
In 2016, some very angry peasants are going to storm Washington with torches and pitchforks."
One could spend a long time searching those statements for a single, fully coherent strategy to counter the president and neutralize the benefit his victories might confer on
Hillary Clinton. That's not really a surprise, given that there are currently 13 declared candidates, with three more likely to come, in the race for the Republican nomination.
But whichever course they choose, Republicans will have to connect with the people who lose when Obama wins.
After the Supreme Court decision, the GOP candidates themselves issued mostly boilerplate statements. They pledged to keep fighting. They vowed, as Texas Sen. Ted
Cruz said, to make the 2016 election "a national referendum on repealing Obamacare." They promised to replace Obamacare with something better.
But what's going on now is bigger than simply Obamacare. The president is on a roll at the moment, and the Democrat who hopes to follow him to the White House is looking to roll along. Republicans
need a focused strategy to stop that momentum. So far, the GOP is still looking.

Jesse L. Jackson Sr., a civil rights activist and a shadow US senator from 1991 to 1997, “President Obama is on a winning streak,” July 9, 2015, Pittsburg Courier, http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/07/09/president-obama-is-on-a-winning-streak/NV
(NNPA)—
The presidency is a bit like a baseball season. Players go through streaks and slumps
, good days and bad days.
Teams rack up wins and losses.
It is only over the course of the long season that champions emerge, their record of accomplishment finally coming clear
.
As President
Obama’s eight years heads into its final stretch, his accomplishments are becoming clear, rising above the daily skirmishes
, wins and losses. As the first African American president, Obama was always going to be an historic figure. But increasingly, it is becoming clear that he will be remembered as a significant president not simply for winning office, but for what he accomplished while holding it. The first inklings of the results are reflected in recent polls showing that
50 percent of Americans now think the Obama presidency has been a success—an impressive number given the bitter partisan divides
of our politics.
Economically
, the president inherited an economy that was in free fall, losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. Now he presides over an economy that has created 12 million jobs, witnessed the fastest economic growth in a decade, and sets a record each month for the longest consecutive months of jobs growth. And the
U.S. recovery has far outstripped that of Europe. And this was accomplished despite the unrelenting obstruction of the Republican opposition
that committed itself from day one
to opposing everything Obama attempted.
Health care reform
—with the Affordable Care Act reaffirmed once more in the Supreme Court—has provided a big step forward. Some 15 million Americans have gained insurance, even as health care costs have risen at the lowest levels this century. And that despite the fact that partisan opposition led about half of the states to oppose expansion of Medicaid, denying millions from protection.
On the environment, the president is the most important leader since…well, since Nixon
. His stimulus plan provided a major boost to renewable energy.
He used regulation and executive order
—particularly the gas mileage standards and the soon to come carbon emission standards— to boost energy conservation
and limit carbon emissions. He will carry a strong hand into the round of climate negotiations in Paris.
On immigration, the Congress has stymied comprehensive reform. But
by executive order, the president has provided some hope for the millions left in the margins
.
On social issues, the president has been more observer than actor. Yet on his watch, the Supreme Court has ratified gay marriage. After the publicity about police shootings garnered attention, a bipartisan turn against mass incarceration has gained momentum with the Justice Department weighing in.
On economic inequality, President Obama used his bully pulpit to put the issue in the front of the American people. In the budgetary wars, he has succeeded in raising taxes on the rich. He sought, with little success, to increase investment in the most vulnerable. Inequality has grown more extreme on his watch, but any hopes of redressing it were blocked by Republican opposition to any and all efforts to take on the rigged rules that feed the inequality.
On foreign policy, the president’s effort to extricate us from the sectarian wars in the Persian Gulf have been largely frustrated. Troops are going back into Iraq, now to take on the threat posed by ISIS. He has emerged as a defender of presidential prerogatives in national security. His administration has continued to police the world, while deploying drones across the Middle East. By opening relations with Cuba, the president has created the basis for a new start with our neighbors in this hemisphere.
Much, of course, remains to be done. The president remains wedded to the failed trade policies of the past decades
. There has been no clear policy for urban development or for targeting the most vulnerable communities.
Government has grown more corrupted, not less. Big money dominates our politics
more than ever before. The president’s education policy with its emphasis on high stakes testing has been a disappointment.
But this president has faced unprecedented obstruction,
insult and venomous hatreds.
He has more than survived; he has a record of accomplishment
to be proud of.
And has forged a potential majority political
coalition that could insure—if its members show up at the voting booth—that reform accelerates rather than retreats
.

Daniel Trotta, reporter for Daily Mail.com, “US senator says support growing in Congress to end Cuba travel ban,” May 27, 2015, Daily Mail.com, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3100189/US-senator-says-support-growing-Congress-end-Cuba-travel-ban.html/NV
HAVANA, May 27 (Reuters) -
A U.S. senator visiting Cuba said bipartisan support was gaining in Congress to lift a
ban on travel to Cuba and possibly also to end the long economic embargo
against the Communist-led island.
A four-person Democratic delegation led by Senator Tom Udall came to Cuba while Washington and Havana work toward restoring diplomatic relations
. Negotiators for both sides met in Washington last week, saying progress had been made toward the reopening of embassies after 54 years.
Since President Barack
Obama in December reversed the Cold War-era policy of isolating Cuba, U.S. legislators have proposed a host of Cuba-related bills that would end the travel ban and promote agricultural sales
and Internet cooperation.
"There's growing bipartisan support in the Senate for all of these bills," Udall, a Democrat of New Mexico, told reporters in Havana.
"Today in the Foreign Relations Committee a majority of Democrats and Republicans support dropping the travel ban. We're at a point where the bipartisan support is building,"
Udall said.
Obama has allowed Americans to more easily make authorized visits but tourism remains banned.
The Democratic president has also proposed eliminating the comprehensive U.S. economic embargo of
Cuba.
A bill to that effect has been presented but needs the Republican leadership in both houses to accede to a vote, so far a remote possibility.
Asked specifically about prospects for a congressional vote to lift the embargo, Udall said, "There are many avenues for changing the law" besides bringing an individual bill to a vote, such as an omnibus package that joins multiple bills, typically cobbled together at the end of the year.
"It may well be that the president's able to negotiate some of those things in the bills,"
Udall said.
Opponents of the embargo also see lifting the travel ban as a way to weaken the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, the legislation that codifies the embargo.
Udall and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota both cited public opinion polls showing growing majorities in support of engaging with Cuba. They were joined by
Representatives Raul Grijalva of Arizona and John Larson of Connecticut in meeting Cuban officials and private citizens. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
Margaret Talev and Indira Lakshmanan, a board member for the White House Correspondents’ Association and the Washington Press Foundation/ a senior correspondent for Bloomberg News, “Obama Urges Congress to Take Next Step, Lift Cuba Embargo,” July 1, 2015, Bloomberg Politics, http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-01/obama-urges-congress-to-lift-cuba-embargo-after-embassy-opened/NV
President Barack
Obama urged Congress to follow his decision to reopen the American embassy in Havana by lifting the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba
.

“We don’t have to be imprisoned by the past,” Obama said on Wednesday at the White House. “Americans and Cubans alike are looking to move forward. I believe it’s time for Congress to do the same.”
The embassy will reopen on July 20, when Cuba also will reopen its embassy in Washington
. Secretary of State John
Kerry intends to go to Havana to “proudly raise the American flag over our embassy once more,” Obama said.
Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who heads the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and would be the initial envoy heading the reopened embassy, delivered a letter from Obama confirming the plans addressed to Cuba President Raul Castro, according to Cuba’s Foreign Ministry.
The question for Obama is whether he has the political momentum coming off a series of highprofile victories to accomplish the next steps in what he said would be a long process of
normalization: getting the embargo lifted and a U.S. ambassador to Cuba confirmed by the Republicancontrolled Senate.
Obama hasn’t decided whether to nominate an ambassador in the immediate future or keep it operating under DeLaurentis as charge d’affaires, according to an administration official.
--- assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
Sun Chenghao, “U.S.-Cuba relations: What should we expect next?” July 7, 2015, CCTV.com, http://english.cntv.cn/2015/07/06/ARTI1436162187226651.shtml/NV
U.S. President Barack
Obama announced on July 1 that Cuba and the United States plan reopen their embassies with each other
. Last December, Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro's speeches had kicked off the normalization of bilateral ties.
This April, the two leaders met at the Summit of Americas. Later in May, the U.S. dropped Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorists. The two countries held four rounds of normalization talks
and the U.S. sent several highlevel delegations to Cuba.
Obama is pushing forward on the thaw of U.S.-Cuba relationship.
Before entering the White House in 2009, he penned an article, "Our main goal: Freedom in Cuba" published in the Miami Herald, arguing that "if a post-Fidel government begins to open Cuba up to democratic change, the US is prepared to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades."
Soon afterwards, President
Obama has moved ahead on a so-called transformational foreign policy, which advocates engagement with "hostile countries"
. In March 2009, he signed a Senate appropriations bill that made it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives in Cuba and paved the way for more business travelers to visit the island.
Yet the clock is ticking before Obama leaves the White House. When the new president assumes power in 2017 and if the president is a member of the Republican Party, then normalization of relations between the two countries may likely come to a halt.
Most Republican presidential candidates have denounced the Obama administration's agreements with Cuba. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, criticized Obama for making too many concessions and supporting an agreement that was "outrageous and counterproductive". Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker expressed concerns that Obama hopes to open a US embassy in Iran as well.
Accordingly. Cuba should quicken its pace. Cuba's economic reforms have entered the "bottleneck" phase and in urgent need of more foreign capital and expertise. Its economic growth rate in 2013 was 2.7%, lower than government's anticipated growth rate of 3.6%. The Cuban economy is expected to slow down even further in 2014.
Cuba's reforms have yet to translate into real sustainable economic growth.
The U.S. with its huge amount of capital and technologic strength, could become a major capital exporter and trading partner for Cuba. Improving relations with the U.S. has been a long-held wish for the elder generation of Cuba's revolutionaries. Upon taking office in 2013, Raúl disclosed that he would resign after 2018. The new generation of Cuban leadership supports a smooth power transition.
Meanwhile there are still deep seated differences between both nations. The economic blockade that the U.S. imposes on Cuba stands as the biggest obstacle. There are multiple legislative acts that impose sanctions on Cuba, including the Helms-Burton Act, passed in Congress and signed by then President Bill Clinton in 1996, which strictly limits U.S. companies from trading with Cuba.
The act states that unless a transition towards free and fair elections are held in Cuba, the economic blockade would never be abolished. The Cuban government has long called for elimination of the blockade.
The Cuban foreign minister said that if the U.S. still imposes full-range economic, trade and financial sanctions, the Cuba-U.S. relationship will not be normalized.
However, only Congress can change such legislation
, but the Republican Party controls Congress and Republican U.S. Representatives support a continuation of such sanctions.

Congress can also deny funding for embassies and ambassador appointments.
Republican senators and presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz support this strategy, unless Cuba lift its restrictions on U.S. diplomats and promises more political freedoms.
Additionally, the Cuban government and its citizens remain suspicious of the U.S. The two countries haven't reached a consensus on immigration, human rights, free passage of diplomatic personnel, the issue of returning Guantánamo, and compensation of sanction loss, and hence the normalization process will be long and complicated.
Cuba harbors doubts that the U.S. "approach is in good will" but an attempt to export western values or to seek regime change.
Nonetheless, the way forward is long, but the prospects still appear bright
. As revealed in a survey conducted by the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs during May 25-June 17, two in three Americans (67%) support the US ending the trade embargo with Cuba. This appearance of solid popular support from the American public could act as a major impetus to boost U.S.-Cuba relations.
CNN Wire, “U.S.-Cuba relations: 10 questions on the embargo, embassies and cigars,” July 1, 2015, WTVR.com, http://wtvr.com/2015/07/01/us-cuba-relations/NV
WASHINGTON —
Havana is getting its first U.S. embassy in more than half a century
— but don’t pack your bags just yet.
President Barack
Obama announced Wednesday that the two countries are formally reestablishing diplomatic ties with the opening of embassies in each other’s capitals, marking the most momentous step in the diplomatic thaw Obama initiated with Cuba in December.
It puts the U.S. on a path of access to the island that many Americans tourists might like to enjoy, but stops just shy of open travel.
The agreement does, though, mark the most sweeping change in U.S. policy toward the nation that lies just 100 miles off the U.S. coast since the U.S. embargo on Cuba started in the early 1960s.
There’s a lot at play though. Here are 10 things you need to know:
When did the U.S. and Cuba agree to reopen embassies?
A public dialogue between the two countries resumed in December, when Obama and
Cuban President Raul
Castro announced that they would begin working to normalize relations. That came at the same time as Cuba agreed to release Alan
Gross
, an American aid worker imprisoned in Cuba since 2009 — an apparent show of good faith from the Cuban government.
Since December, U.S. and Cuban officials began negotiations to reestablish diplomatic ties and normalize relations between the two countries, including putting an embassy in each country’s capital.
Obama then took a big step in April that led to the removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba had sat on that list since 1982.
All of that, though, has yet to fully lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a move that would allow Americans and Cubans to freely travel between the two countries and engage in any trade.
Why did the embargo start in the first place?
The U.S. began imposing sanctions against Cuba after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and soon after he nationalized more than $1 billion in American assets on the island. That’s two years before Obama was even born.
The U.S. ratcheted up sanctions on Cuba in 1960 and 1961 with President John F. Kennedy making the embargo official in 1962.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba broke off in 1961, with tensions increasing after Cuba signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union. Relations remained mostly frozen throughout the Cold War.
Today, Cuba remains an autocratic regime — Fidel Castro’s brother Raul is president — with a poor record on human rights and a track record of silencing dissent and restricting the rights of its citizens.
What kind of restrictions does the embargo currently impose?
The embargo not only keeps American companies from doing business in Cuba, but it also prohibits most Americans from traveling directly there or spending money as tourists.
American citizens can face up to a $65,000 fine for spending money in Cuba, according to the U.S. Treasury. The embargo also limits the amount of individuals can send to family living in Cuba.
So what’s changed now?
In addition to reopening embassies in each country, the U.S. will ease travel restrictions, so it will be easier for Americans to travel to Cuba and do business there. Though the embargo officially blocks such activities, the White House has discretion about the application of certain measures, and several presidents have found ways to ease the restrictions even as the overall embargo remains in place.

U.S. and Cuban banks will be allowed to start building relationships and that means American travelers will be able to use their credit and debit cards when visiting.
Americans returning from a trip to Cuba can now return with up to $400 in Cuban goods, a quarter of which can be spent on alcohol and tobacco.
Think Cuban cigars.
And in return, Cuba freed 53 political prisoners and relaxed its restrictions on Internet access. Gross had been arrested after delivering satellite phones and other communications equipment to Cuba’s small Jewish population.
So why doesn’t Obama just end the embargo altogether?
He can’t.
Only Congress can end a trade embargo, which is enshrined into law.
But according to White House officials, the President can ease certain restrictions under his executive authority.
This is the third time Obama has acted to ease the embargo. But policy changes in 2009 and 2011, which eased travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans and later for academics and religious groups, didn’t come close to the scope of Wednesday’s landmark agreement.
Does the U.S. have international backing to keep the embargo in place?
Barely. Over the last two decades, the United Nations General Assembly has voted each year against the embargo, calling on the U.S. to reverse its policy.
Only Israel has joined the U.S. in voting against the resolution.
What’s the political climate like in the U.S.?
It’s shifting and more political leaders and Cuban-Americans have been calling for changes in the
U.S. policy toward Cuba in recent years.
Cuban refugees in America and their descendants have historically been the most vocal group in calling for a tough U.S. policy against Cuba. But nearly 7 in 10 Cubans now favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and about half want the U.S. to end the embargo, according to a Florida International University poll this summer.
That has changed the climate of politics in the Miami area and throughout Florida, where most Cuban Americans reside, a shift that is sending ripples throughout the country.
What have politicians been saying about Cuba recently and what’s the Pope got to do with it?
Former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for an end to the embargo, calling it “Fidel Castro’s best friend.”
Many Republican presidential candidates, however, have slammed the move.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said this year the ban should actually be strengthened, not lifted.
And Sen. Marco Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba after Fidel Castro’s takeover, has called the embargo “the last tool we have remaining to ensure that democracy returns to
Cuba one day.”
Obama, though, has said normalization will increase American influence on Cuba and help efforts to improve its record on human rights.
He shook hands with Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa in a moment that played on TV screens around the world. Since then, negotiations have continued and even the Pope weighed in. He wrote letters to both Obama and Castro earlier this year encouraging compromise.
How did Gross’s detention impacted the debate?
Gross’s imprisonment in 2009 set off a series of diplomatic exchanges between the two countries that involved prominent U.S. politicians.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led congressional delegations to Cuba in 2012 and 2013 to secure Gross’s release. The delegation in 2013 included three Democratic Senators, a Republican Senator and two Democratic congressmen.
That same year, 66 senators wrote to Obama urging him to “act expeditiously to take whatever steps are in the national interest to obtain [Gross’s] release.”
And in November, Sens. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Tom Udall, a Democrat, traveled to Cuba in another attempt to negotiate Gross’s release.
In 2011, former President Jimmy Carter also made an attempt as did former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, both of whose efforts were backed by the State
Department.
Sounds like a lot of political capital has been poured into this effort
. How much has Cuba been impacted by the embargo?
Cuba said in 2011 that the economic damage of the U.S. embargo has topped $1 trillion in its five-decade history.
The embargo’s crippling effects on the Cuban economy prompted Raul Castro to beef up efforts to end the embargo once he took the helm in 2008.
While Cuba was sustained by a serious trading relationship with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, the Cuban economy took a hard hit with the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

Khaleej Times, “No lame duck, Obama shows he’s still got what it takes,” July 1, 2015, Khaleej Times, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-
1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2015/July/opinion_July2.xml&section=opinion/NV
Years from now, as he thinks back over his presidency, Barack
Obama is likely to remember this as one of his best weeks. Maybe the best week. A trade bill passed in a Republican-led Congress. Massively important Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage. A healing eulogy for slain black church members, toward the end of which – astonishingly, to many of the thousands who listened at the Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston
, South Carolina, and the millions who watched on live TV or later on YouTube – the president led those assembled in the singing of “Amazing Grace.”
Much of
Obama’s presidency has been a grind, during which he’s been criticized from both political directions.
The right never liked him in the first place, and as
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell famously said during
Obama’s first term, Republicans’ main priority was – not cooperating to fix a damaged economy the new president had inherited from a Republican administration – but working to see that Obama was not reelected.
The left – enamored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other liberals – thought he hewed too much to the political center. The tea party (especially its racist element), the powerful National Rifle Association, “birthers,” and others mocked and reviled him.
But by Friday night, at least, the impression – or at least the imagery – had changed as the White House was bathed in rainbow lighting, a celebration of Obama’s recent political wins as well as the US Supreme Court’s legalising same-sex marriage for all Americans no matter where they lived.
In his daily wrap-up Saturday morning, Politico’s Mike Allen called it “one of the most momentous news days and weeks you – or even your children – will ever see.”
“Obama aides and former aides, who have been with him from the beginning, tell us this is the biggest week of the eight years,” Allen wrote.
After noting the two big court cases (Obamacare and gay marriage) and Obama’s powerful eulogy in Charleston “where he spoke as freely, and as emotionally, as he ever has about race during his Presidency,” David Remnick, The New Yorker’s editor, wrote:
“In recent months Obama has also, through executive action, made solid gains on immigration, wage discrimination, climate change, and foreign-policy issues, including an opening, after more than a half century of Cold War and embargo, to Cuba
.”
“These accomplishments – and potential accomplishments, like a rigorous, well-regulated nuclear arrangement with Iran – will help shape the coming election,” Remnick wrote. “In no small measure, Obama, and what he has achieved, will determine the parameters of the debate.”
Presidential legacies must be left to historians, as they have been in recent years regarding Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. And the current reading of Obama’s accomplishments and political strength at this moment may be ephemeral.
But to journalists who write “the first rough draft of history,” it’s been a remarkable week for the nation’s first African-American president, who’s had some major political setbacks – including the last two congressional elections.
Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza wrote that Obama’s leading a congregation in Amazing Grace “served as the coda to Obama’s single best week as president
– a week filled with developments, both practical and symbolic, that will reverberate well beyond not only this week or month but his entire presidency.”
NPR’s Ron Elving said Obama’s “Amazing Grace” eulogy in South Carolina, where Gov. Nikki Haley joined other Republicans (including the state’s two US senators) in calling for removal of the Confederate battle flag from Capitol grounds, “concluded the most shining week of his second term.”
Ken Walsh at US News & World report said, “It was one of the best weeks of President Obama’s second term, putting to rest,
at least for now, serious talk that he is becoming a lame duck as his presidency enters its final phase
.”
“Just eight months ago, people were hanging crepe on the White House, saying ‘The Obama era is over,
’” former
Obama senior advisor David Axelrod told The Wall Street Journal.
The last several months have been one of the most productive periods at the White House, he said, as Obama has resolved to “make every day count.”

In his weekend radio address on Saturday, Obama took a victory lap on what is seen as his signature legislative accomplishment, Obamacare.
“This week, after more than fifty votes in Congress to repeal or weaken this law; after a Presidential election based in part on preserving or repealing this law; after multiple challenges to this law before the Supreme Court, we can now say this for certain: the Affordable Care Act still stands, it is working, and it is here to stay,” Obama said.
No doubt there will be bumps and ruts in Obama’s political road toward retirement.
“One can just as easily point to issues that remain of tremendous concern – the consequences of painting (and revising) ‘red lines’ with Syria and the early underestimation of Daesh, among others,” The New Yorker’s Remnick writes. “But the idea that Obama would play out his Presidency, after the political defeat of the midterm elections, as a professorial lame duck turns out to be without basis.”
Matt Wilstein, writer for Media ITE, “Obama: No, Last Week Was Not My ‘Best Week’ Ever,” June 30, 2015, Media ITE, http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-no-lastweek-was-not-my-best-week-ever/NV
From the two major Supreme Court decisions that went his way to the soaring eulogy he delivered for the
Charleston victims
— culminating in “Amazing Grace” — there is a general consensus that last week was most likely the pinnacle
Barack
Obama’s presidency
. As of Monday morning, his approval rating was back above 50% for the first time in two years
. But was it really his “best week” ever?
The president chuckled a bit when a reporter asked him that question during a joint press conference with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Tuesday afternoon. “In terms of my best week, now my best week, I will tell you, was marrying Michelle. That was a really good week,” Obama said. “Malia and Sasha being born, excellent weeks.” He even referenced one memorable week when he scored 27 points in a basketball game.
“I’ve had some pretty good weeks in my life, I will tell you, and I’m blessed to have had those,”
Obama said. “I think last week was gratifying,” he continued, perhaps trying to take some of the focus off of himself personally. He cited the passage of trade legislation and the strengthening of the Affordable Care Act as important milestones
, but notably did not attempt to take any credit for the same-sex marriage victory.
“In many ways, last week was simply a culmination of a lot of work we’ve been doing since I came into office,” Obama said. With the political capital he has built up, the president vowed to “squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make as long as I have the privilege of holding this office
.”

Matt Laslo, has covered Congress, the courts and the White House for wlrn since 2006, “South Florida Lawmakers In Summer Push To Block Obama's Cuba
Normalization,” WLRN, http://wlrn.org/post/south-florida-lawmakers-summer-push-block-obamas-cuba-normalization/NV
President
Obama
’s announcement last week that the U.S. will restore diplomatic relations with
communist
Cuba on July 20 – and will open an embassy there
a few days after – is angering South Florida lawmakers.
Their options to stop the Administration are limited. But
they’re moving against Obama’s new engagement policy nonetheless, and it’s shaping up as one of the summer’s big political battles
.
The rhetoric from the Cuban-American congressional caucus is rising with the humid temperature in Washington, D.C.
“It is very clear that President
Obama, for him it’s a personal goal to normalize relations with Cuba, no matter what,”
says Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo of Miami.
Re-establishing diplomatic ties, which were severed in 1961, is the first big part of Obama’s plan to normalize relations with Cuba
, which he announced last December.
Before the agreement was reached to open mutual embassies
this month, the U.S. took Cuba off the State
Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism
– and that infuriated the caucus. Veteran South Florida Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-
Balart accuses the Administration of caving to demands from Cuba’s Castro regime, while getting nothing in exchange.

PressTV 4/15 – (PressTV, “Iran bill passage not defeat, senior White House official says”, PressTV, 4/15/2015, http://presstv.ir/Detail/2015/04/15/406453/Iran-billpassage-not-defeat-for-Obama)//MBB
A senior White House official says the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s approval of bipartisan legislation to allow Congress to review a nuclear agreement with Iran is not a defeat for
the
Obama administration.
US President Barack
Obama had threatened to veto an initial version of the legislation, but changed his mind after some changes were made to the controversial bill.
White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told MSNBC network on Tuesday night it was not a loss for the administration.
She did not acknowledge that Secretary of State John Kerry had been lobbying against the bill that was originally drafted by Democrat Senator Robert Menendez and Bob
Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez stepped down early this month as ranking Democrat on the Senate panel in the wake of his indictment on corruption charges.
“Secretary Kerry was doing what he has been doing consistently,” she said, “which is briefing the [Capitol] Hill, giving them classified briefings, touching as many of the members as possible because it’s important that they understand what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
The bill was unanimously approved on Tuesday after its text was changed following negotiations between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, who introduced it, and the committee's new ranking member, Democrat Senator Ben Cardin.
According to the bill, Obama should submit the final nuclear deal for congressional review and he would not lift Congress-mandated sanctions against Iran during the review period.
The only significant change of the new bill, dubbed the Iran Nuclear Amendment Review Act of 2015, is the review period that is shortened from 60 days to 52 days.
There is an initial review period of 30 days and 12 more days would be added if Congress passes a bill to disapprove the deal with 60 votes and sends it to Obama.
If the president vetoes the bill, there would be an additional 10 days added to allow Congress an opportunity to override the veto.
The revised version also eases some other objections the Obama administration had raised.

- Greg Sargent writes The Plum Line blog, a reported opinion blog with a liberal slant -- what you might call “opinionated reporting” from the left. He joined the Post in early 2009, after stints at Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine and the New York Observer. (Greg, “Breaking: Congress starts thinking about maybe funding our infrastructure”, The Washington Post, July 8, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/07/08/breaking-congressstarts-thinking-about-maybe-funding-our-infrastructure///DM)
Don’t look now, but there are new signs today that Congress might finally be thinking seriously about funding our infrastructure.
Even more startling, lawmakers in both parties are considering ways to do this
that involve — gasp! — raising new revenues, which, let’s face it, is really an outlandish thing to ask for in exchange for upgrading our infrastructure into the 21st century. In approximately four weeks, the Highway Trust Fund is set to run out of money. The Obama administration has warned that if this happens, the Department of Transportation will have to stop making payments to state governments around the country for infrastructure projects, potentially hurting the recovery, and advocates for more such investments have warned that states are already putting construction projects on hold. The obvious long term solution to this problem — and a long-term fix is what we need — is to raise the gas tax. But lawmakers in both parties are refusing to do this, even though it hasn’t happened for over two decades.
GOP leaders have signaled that they do want to figure out how to keep highway funding going
. But with conservative groups that want to devolve infrastructure to the states raising a fuss, it has been unclear whether GOP leaders are willing to support any form of new revenues to pay for it.
Today Senators
Rob Portman and Chuck Schumer rolled out a new bipartisan plan to refund the HTF
, albeit only in the short term, via corporate tax reform: Two top tax writers on the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday released a bipartisan tax proposal that includes an option to use revenue generated by overhauling parts of the corporate tax code to help pay for transportation projects despite warnings from Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch that he does not want to raise taxes to pay for a highway bill… The proposal is now likely to become part of the debate over how Congress should pay for a six-year reauthorization of the federal highway program, an issue that will be at the top of the congressional agenda this month. While Republican leaders have earlier objected to the idea of using one-time funds raised when companies bring their money back into the country as part of an overhaul of corporate tax rules, the bipartisan nature of the proposal from Schumer and
Portman could give the idea some life. The new proposal builds on previous ones released by both Congressional Republicans and the White House that would overhaul tax rules for international corporations and bring in a one-time burst in revenues that could be used to temporarily replenish the HTF.
The idea picked up some encouraging words today from the White House and from Paul Ryan
, the chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee. The proposal could “potentially unlock a solution to our highway trust fund shortfall
,” Ryan said.
Obviously there are reasons for extreme pessimism that Congress could finish something like this in four short weeks, particularly since a whole lot of lobbyists are likely to get very worked up about it. But still: right now, it’s unclear whether there is any other idea out there to replenish the fund that has the support of both
Republicans and Democrats, Obama and Paul Ryan included.
Meanwhile, another glimmer of optimism from the
Senate Finance Committee could be spotted in the series of bipartisan reports from the committee’s working groups on how the tax system might be overhauled. One particularly interesting nugget: In the report from the Finance Committee’s infrastructure working group, lawmakers concede that corporate repatriation — of the sort that we would get from tax reform
— just isn’t a long term solution. Instead, the report suggests a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax, which generally taxes users based on how many miles they travel, might be a long term solution to the infrastructure spending problem. “A VMT has the potential to improve the efficiency of highway financing because the tax can be calibrated closely to the costs that vehicles impose in terms of road damage and congestion,” the report says. Michael
O’Brien, a spokesman for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which is lobbying for more infrastructure spending, tells me he’s “particularly encouraged” by the inclusion of a VMT, because it suggests growing “bipartisan and bicameral interest” in funding infrastructure. “It’s time for our elected leaders to step up and finally develop a long-term solution to our infrastructure needs, not another stopgap measure that saps our economy of certainty and further delays our ability to build a 21st Century infrastructure,” O’Brien says. What’s particularly striking about all of this is that for months, we were told that funding our infrastructure was one of the very few areas where compromise between the White House and the new GOP Congress would be
possible. After all, infrastructure funding should constitute some of the lowest-hanging fruit, politically and ideologically speaking, that one can imagine. Many lawmakers in both parties, and a large range of outside groups on both sides, want it to happen for the long term good of the country. Yet the idea that this could actually happen seems borderline hallucinatory.

--- Collins has represented Georgia’s 9th Congressional District since 2013. He sits on the Judiciary and the Rules committees. Richmond has represented Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District since 2011. He sits on the Homeland Security and the Judiciary committees (Doug Collins and Cedric Richmond, 7/13/15, “Criminal justice system needs to change”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/247564-criminal-justice-systemneeds-to-change)//Jmoney
Republicans and Democrats don’t always see eye to eye, but there is clear common ground when it comes
to the need for criminal justice reform.
For too long, when it comes to public safety and criminal justice, we have attributed success to the number of people we place behind bars. While this approach has not necessarily made our neighborhoods and communities safer, it has led to an explosion in both the prison population and associated costs. Research shows that we have crossed a point of diminishing returns, where new prison cells have caused a reduction in public safety
. For many low-risk, non-violent offenders, incarceration actually increases the likelihood of re-offending upon their release. The current policy has led to families being torn apart, state and federal budgets being stretched thin, and a generation of able-bodied and potentially productive citizens being lost in the system.
Locking up as many people as possible for as long as possible is neither the most effective means of ensuring public safety nor a fiscally responsible strategy. Our criminal justice system has shifted its focus from one that metes out rational punishment to those who threaten public safety, to one that seeks to criminalize every offense. The federal government has added over 2,000 federal offenses in the past 25 years alone. Between 1980 and 2013, the federal imprisonment rate jumped 518%. During the same period, prison spending rose 595 percent. Taxpayers now spend nearly as much on federal prisons as they spent on the entire Justice Department in 1980 – a whopping $6.9 billion. Justice has no price tag, but emptying our wallets to incarcerate for the sake of incarceration is a disservice to the American taxpayer and society at large.
Paying these rising prison costs means shortchanging other public safety priorities, like funding federal prosecutors and public defenders. In 1980, the Bureau of Prisons consumed just 14 percent of the Justice Department budget. Since then, that proportion has nearly doubled, to 23 percent, and that number continues to rise. Unless we address this issue, continued growth in prison spending will further erode support for law enforcement, state and local justice grants, and services aimed at minimizing recidivism rates.
Fortunately, the need for reform has been widely recognized across the country. Since 2007, two dozen states – from Georgia and South Carolina to California and Oregon– have adopted comprehensive, evidence-driven reforms that protect public safety while holding offenders accountable and reigning in prison costs. Their successful formulas focus limited prison space on violent and repeat offenders while strengthening alternative sanctions for lower-level offenders.
The result has been a decrease in both crime and incarceration rates. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as research has shown that simply tacking on years in prison does not lead to increased public safety.
We believe
Congress can take the lessons learned at the state level and write a similar success story on a national scale.
That’s why we’re proud to stand behind Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) to introduce the
SAFE Justice Act – unique, bipartisan legislation that puts lessons learned in the states to work at the federal level.
This represents Congress’s first attempt at system-wide, comprehensive reform
, addressing how we sentence, how we determine prison release, and how we supervise offenders upon their return to the community. Federal sentencing and corrections is a sprawling system; without attacking all facets at the same time, we can’t be assured of results.
--- political reporter for CBSNews (Rebecca Kaplan, 7/13/15, “Obama commutes sentences for 46 nonviolent drug offenders”, CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-commutes-sentences-for-46-nonviolent-drug-offenders/)//Jmoney
Criminal justice reform has emerged as a rare issue uniting politicians on the right and left
. The
Corrections Act, introduced by
Sens. John
Cornyn
, R-Texas, and
Sheldon
Whitehouse
, D-Rhode Island, aims to shorten sentences for low-risk federal inmates while also reducing their chances of returning to prison.
A handful of liberals and conservatives
-- including Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Cory Booker of New Jersey -- have introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act.
Two 2016 Republican candidates, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have also signed on to the bill, which would give judges more discretion in sentencing those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.

Paul and Booker have also introduced a bill crafted to complement other sentencing reform efforts, called the Redeem Act
(the "Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment" Act) to reduce recidivism.
At the federal level, the Obama administration has attempted to reform the criminal justice system without the help of Congress. In 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a change in Justice Department policy to avoid draconian mandatory minimum sentencing rules. The department now charges low-level, non-violent drug offenders with offenses that don't impose mandatory minimum sentences.
--- (Russell Berman, 7/10/15, “Is this Obama’s moment for criminal justice reform?”, Government executive, http://www.govexec.com/management/2015/07/obamas-moment-criminal-justice-reform/117481/)//Jmoney
The question House and Senate lawmakers are now wrestling with is the scope of legislation.
Proposals in the Senate have tended to focus on narrow aspects of criminal-justice reform.
The Smarter Sentencing Act
, introduced by Lee and Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking
Democrat, would reduce mandatory minimum sentencing
for nonviolent drug crimes while increasing penalties for drug offenses linked to sexual abuse or terrorism.
Another bill
from Senators John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat of Rhode Island, would tackle socalled re-entry reform
. Based on successful programs in their home states, the proposal would allow inmates to earn time off their sentences by participating in programs, such as prison jobs, designed to reduce recidivism
.
In the House
, criminal-justice reform advocates
(including Koch Industries and the ACLU) have rallied around the broader bill authored by Sensenbrenner and Representative Bobby Scott
, a Virginia Democrat. The SAFE Justice Act addresses both mandatory minimums and recidivism programs, but it also includes a raft of other changes aimed at beefing up probation programs, preventing wrongful convictions by offering more protections for poor defendants, and making it easier for elderly inmates to secure early release. The bill also addresses what advocates call the “over-federalization” of crime, in which offenses that could be prosecuted in state court are often transferred to federal jurisdiction, where the penalties are stiffer. Sensenbrenner said the proposal emerged out a task force that he and Scott led that held 10 hearings over the last two years and studied many reform efforts that have worked at the state level.
For Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, the sheer breadth of the proposal is something of a watershed moment in the 20-year effort to roll back tough-on-crime laws that many Republicans and Democrats now concede went too far. “We just have not seen this level of bipartisanship in a long time, if ever
,” Sloan told me. “
People are now looking back at those bills and saying, ‘It doesn’t matter what party you were from: We made mistakes.
We went in the direction of toughness and finality rather than fairness and reliability and getting it right.’”
In Congress, not even consensus is a guarantee of success. After Obama’s reelection in 2012, advocates for comprehensive immigration reform were never more confident that their moment had come, and despite the passage of legislation in the Senate, the effort stalled out in the House. Neither Speaker John Boehner nor Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell have said much either way about criminal-justice reform, but the congressional middle men—Judiciary Committee Chairmen Charles Grassley in the Senate or Bob Goodlatte in the House—are more traditional law-and-order Republicans who have been resistant to the issue in the past.
There are indications, however, that at least
Grassley may be shifting. In March, he delivered a lengthy speech denouncing efforts to reduce mandatory minimums
, mocking supporters for promoting the idea “that poor, innocent, mere drug possessors are crowding our prisons.”
In recent days, his office has confirmed reports by Politico and BuzzFeed that he is working with Democrats on legislation that could include changes to mandatory minimum sentences
. In the House, Goodlatte has set up a separate, “step-bystep” process for considering the issue over the next several months. That’s ominous news for advocates, since it’s the same process Goodlatte used to effectively slow-walk immigration reform to death in 2013. Sensenbrenner, for example, criticized the chairman’s intention to split up his bill into multiple pieces. “This is a way to make sure all of this fails,” he told me.
If the failure of immigration reform is a cautionary tale for advocates of criminal-justice reform, then the more recent success of legislation reining in the NSA could be a roadmap.
The coalition of Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans is similar, and it is lead in part by
Sensenbrenner
, a 36-year veteran of the House, it kept gathering support until it became impossible for the resistant party leadership to ignore.
That effort took more than a year, however, and with the presidential campaign threatening to interrupt the bipartisan comity that’s broken out on Capitol Hill, there’s a reason President Obama needs lawmakers to move quickly.
If he wants to notch one more lasting victory for his domestic legacy, he might only have a few more months to get it done.
PEB 7-11
(Post editorial board for the NY Post; “Obama is facing the prison facts”; 7/11/2015; http://nypost.com/2015/07/11/obama-is-facing-the-prison-facts/)
//Jmoney

President Obama this week will join the bipartisan push to reform the US criminal-justice system, calling for lower federal sentences for nonviolent crimes. It’s an issue dear to his heart, in part because about 60 percent of the 2.2 million
Americans now incarcerated are black or Hispanic
. We’ll see the president — and raise.
Because the size of the prison population is indeed a national scandal — but while there are changes to be made in the prisons and the courts, the necessary work goes much, much further.
Obama knows this — but it’s his own party
, and the special interests who control it, that stand in the way of seeing that fewer Americans wind up primed for prison
. Yes, it’s mainly
Republicans who resist sentencing reform. But that’s been changing, big time
. Just last month, the president remarked,
“We’ve seen some really interesting leadership from some unlikely Republican legislators very sincerely concerned about making progress.”
That’s why there’s bipartisan legislation for him to get ­behind. It’s a live topic in the GOP presidential race, too — a top issue for Sen. Rand
Paul and others. And Texas ex-Gov. Rick Perry, in his first big policy speech last week, noted, “Nobody gets Texans confused as being soft on crime. I believe in consequences for criminal behavior. But I also believe in second chances and human redemption.” He had facts to back him up: “In 2014, Texas had its lowest crime rate since 1968. At the same time, we closed three prisons and reformed our sentencing laws. “
Too many Texans were going to prison for nonviolent drug offenses. And once they got out of prison, many found they couldn’t get a job ­because they had a criminal record.”
These pages have a long record of being as tough on crime as any Texan, but “tough” works better when it’s also “smart.”
Everyone’s a winner when crime and prison time both fall.
In that context, note that the NYPD’s “Broken Windows” policing hasn’t just made New York far safer. It has also drastically cut how many New Yorkers get sent to prison — by 69 percent from 1992 to 2013.

Julia Pace, White House Correspondent for Associated Press, “AP source: US, Cuba to announce plan to open embassies,” July 7, 2015, Fox Carolina, http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/29446037/ap-source-us-cuba-to-announce-plan-to-open-embassies/NV
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack
Obama will announce
Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba have finalized an agreement to reopen embassies in each other's capitals, a major step in ending hostilities between the Cold War foes
, a senior administration official said.
The U.S. and Cuba have been negotiating the reestablishment of embassies following the historic December announcement
that they would move to restore ties after a half-century of animosity. The U.S. embassy in Havana is expected to open in July.
For Obama, ending the U.S. freeze with Cuba is central to his foreign policy legacy
as he nears the end of his presidency. Obama has long touted the value of direct engagement with global foes and has argued that the U.S. embargo on the communist island just 90 miles south of
Florida was ineffective.
The official insisted on anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter ahead of the president.
The White House said Obama will deliver a statement on Cuba from the Rose Garden on Wednesday morning. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in Vienna for nuclear negotiations with Iran, is also expected to speak about the embassy openings.
Kerry has said previously that he would travel to Cuba for an embassy opening.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday evening that it would meet with U.S. Interests Section chief Jeffrey DeLaurentis on Wednesday morning to receive a message from
President Obama about reopening embassies.
The U.S. cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 after
Fidel
Castro's revolution
. The U.S. spent decades trying to either actively overthrow the Cuban government or isolate the island, including toughening the economic embargo first imposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Since the late 1970s, the United States and Cuba have operated diplomatic missions called interests sections in each other's capitals. The missions are technically under the protection of Switzerland, and do not enjoy the same status as full embassies.
While the opening of embassies marks a major milestone in the thaw between the U.S. and Cuba, significant issues remain as the countries look to normalize relations.
Among them: talks on human rights; demands for compensation for confiscated American properties in Havana and damages to Cuba from the embargo; and possible cooperation on law enforcement, including the touchy topic of U.S. fugitives sheltering in Havana.
Obama also wants Congress to repeal the economic embargo on Cuba, though he faces resistance from
Republicans and some Democrats.
Those opposed to normalizing relations with Cuba say Obama is prematurely rewarding a regime that engages in serious human rights abuses.
The president also will face strong opposition in Congress to spending any taxpayer dollars on building or refurbishing an embassy in Havana. Congress would have to approve any administration request to spend money on an embassy.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said in a statement that opening a U.S. embassy in Cuba "will do nothing to help the Cuban people and is just another trivial attempt for
President Obama to go legacy shopping."
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the opening of embassies was part of the administration's "common sense approach to Cuba." However, he called for Cuba to recognize that it is out of step with the international community on human rights.
"Arrests and detentions of dissidents must cease and genuine political pluralism is long overdue," Cardin said in a statement.
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro met in April during a regional summit, marking the first time U.S. and Cuban leaders have met in person since 1958.

For Obama, the embassy announcements come amid what the White House sees as one of the strongest stretches of his second term. He scored major legislative and legal victories last week
, with
Congress giving him fast-track authority for an Asia-Pacific free trade deal and the Supreme Court upholding a key provision of his health care law.
The court also ruled in favor of gay marriage nationwide, an outcome Obama supported.

--- Lecturer and Doctoral Candidate, University of Denver (Arturo Lopez, “Embassies in Havana and Washington: A Victory of Diplomacy and
Democracy,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arturo-lopez-levy/embassies-in-havana-and-washington-a-victory-of-diplomacy-and-democracy_b_7708898.html, JMP)
On July 1st, the governments of the U nited
S tates and Cuba announced an agreement to open diplomatic relations and embassies in Washington and Havana. This is a major watershed in the road to full normalization of
relations between the two states and the two societies. This is also a major win for democracy because the steps taken by
Presidents
Obama and Castro gives voice to overwhelming majorities in both societies in
favor of peaceful and constructive U.S.-Cuba relations.
Let's get history straight. The U.S.-Cuba opening of December 17 was not the product of a few "Johnny come lately" businessmen and lobbyists who recently joined the anti-embargo cause. It was the victory of the Cuban people's nationalist resistance against five decades of an embargo that still is counterproductive, immoral and illegal according to international law. In 1996, the lawyers of the State Department warned Secretary Warren Christopher that the Helms-Burton law would be damaging to U.S relations with its allies, its standing in international law and the promotion of democracy in Cuba.
Together with the Cuban nationalists, there were multiple constituencies in the United States winning the grassroots battle for a change of policy since the 1990s. Particular mention deserves the religious groups of the National Council of Churches, the Black Congressional Caucus, the American left and the Cuban American moderates and progressives who took their cause into the heart of misinformed constituencies indoctrinated in the vision of Cuba as a U.S. national security threat. Cuban-Americans like
Carlos Muniz and Luciano Nieves paid for their devotion to good relations between the two countries with their life. After the end of the Clinton Administration, the proembargo position went on retreat among libertarians, farmers and business groups in general. The processes of economic reform and political liberalization launched by
Raul Castro's government since 2009 opened the appetites of the American business community. By 2014 politics began to align with a long overdue policy change serving
U.S. national interest.
Normalcy is a destiny but normalization is a journey. After restoring diplomatic relations, Cuba and the United States need to address important claims about the damages caused by the embargo-blockade to Cuba and the nationalization of American properties without compensation by Fidel Castro's government in the early sixties. It is important to have a conscience with regard to these issues but not allow them to paralyze the agenda of normalization.
Flag raising acts and new diplomatic missions are more than symbolic. They open the gates for substantive relations of respect between the two nations.
Peter Baker, White House Correspondent for the New York Times, Julie Hirschfield Davis, writer for the New York Times, " U.S. and Cuba Agree to Reopen Embassies,
Officials Say,” June 30, 2015, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/americas/us-and-cuba-to-announce-plan-to-reopenembassies.html?_r=1/NV
WASHINGTON —
The United States and Cuba will announce an agreement on Wednesday to reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, formally restoring diplomatic relations
more than a half-century after they were ruptured, according to administration officials.
The agreement represents the most tangible outcome to date of
President
Obama’s decision to reach out to the island nation and end its decades of isolation
. Mr. Obama declared in December that he wanted to resume ties with Havana, and the two
sides have spent the last six months in painstaking negotiations to work out details of the new embassies
.
Mr. Obama will announce plans to reopen the embassies in the Rose Garden on Wednesday morning. Secretary of State John Kerry will also discuss the plans in Vienna, where he is negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity in advance of the formal announcement. Mr. Kerry plans to travel to Havana for the actual opening of the embassy on July 22.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961 just before leaving office in response to increased tensions with the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. A trade embargo imposed by Mr. Eisenhower was then toughened by his successors, and the two neighbors have spent more than 50 years at odds.
The United States already has a limited diplomatic outpost in Havana, called an interests section, in the same seven-story building on the Malecón waterfront that served as the embassy until 1961. After so many years as a small presence in a hostile country, the building is worn down. The State Department has said it needs $6.6 million to retrofit it to make it suitable as an embassy.
But some Republicans who oppose the outreach to Cuba, calling it the appeasement of a dictatorial government, have been working to bar any financing for such work.
Critics may also try to block the confirmation of a new ambassador once Mr. Obama makes a nomination.

The United States has a career diplomat running the interests section, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who could serve as the acting ambassador pending a permanent appointment.
Mr. DeLaurentis, who holds the rank of ambassador, has served at the United Nations, as a deputy assistant secretary of state and in Havana as the political-economic section chief.
Cuba has an interests section in a stately manor in the Adams Morgan section of Washington that could be upgraded. In May, Cuba announced that its banking services for that office had been restored, a precondition to reopening a full embassy.
In recent weeks,
Cuba also repaved the driveway, repainted the fence and erected a large flagpole on the front lawn to await the formal raising of its flag
.
The reopening of embassies would remove Cuba from a dwindling list of countries completely
ostracized by the United States. The only other nations with which Washington has no diplomatic relations
are Bhutan, Iran and North Korea, although there are other countries with which it has relations but no embassies.
Mr. Obama has made the détente with Cuba a central foreign policy goal of his final two years in office, along with the deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program. While campaigning for president in 2008, he asserted that the United States needed to reach out to its enemies, and those two agreements would represent the culmination of that philosophy.
Critics argue that Mr. Obama is too eager to accommodate countries that do not share American interests or values. By reopening diplomatic relations with Havana, they say, Mr. Obama will be empowering the government still run by Mr. Castro’s brother, President Raúl Castro, without obtaining any assurances of democratic reforms or improvements to human rights.
In a letter to Mr. Kerry in June, after the administration removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror, Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American Republican from
Florida and a candidate for president, vowed to oppose the confirmation of any ambassador until issues like human rights, fugitive terrorists and billions of dollars of outstanding claims were resolved.
It is “important that pro-democracy activities not be sacrificed in the name of ‘diplomacy’ just so that we can change the name of a building from ‘Interest Section’ to
‘Embassy,’ ” Mr. Rubio wrote.
Cuban and American officials have been negotiating for six months over the diplomatic implications of opening embassies. United States negotiators demanded assurances that American diplomats at an embassy in Havana would be able to move freely around the country and speak with anyone, including opponents of the government. Cuban officials, who have frequently accused the United States of working to undermine the government by aiding dissidents, had resisted the request.
Proponents called the establishment of embassies a vital phase in the thaw, one that should be followed by
Congress easing travel and commercial restrictions against Havana.
“Opening embassies in Washington and Havana is an important step toward the day when
Americans can make their own decisions on where they travel, and our businesses can compete with the rest of the world,”
said James Williams, the president of Engage Cuba, a nonprofit advocacy group pressing for an end to the embargo.

(Editorial, “Obama a lame duck? Think again,” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/07/06/editorials/obama-a-lameduck-think-again/#.VZqgavmGPD9, JMP)
The power of the president of the United States weakens considerably from the beginning of his second term. The mandate gained by re-election quickly dissipates as
Washington begins to focus on the process of selecting his successor.
The second mid-term election
, which typically rewards the party that does not occupy the White House, deepens the slide to irrelevance. In the case of
Barack
Obama, the conventional wisdom is that he is biding his time until he leaves
, fighting a rear guard battle against a determined opposition, desperate to consolidate and protect his legacy.
The conventional wisdom is wrong.
, able to move the levers of government as he desires and to rouse public passions. He remains a force to be reckoned with. His presidency is by no means over.
Obama made clear at the beginning of 2014 that he would not be sidelined. He reminded Congress that he “had a pen and a phone” and he was ready to use both to push his agenda. The most prominent actions he has taken include an executive order to defer the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, opening negotiations to normalize relations with Cuba and vetoing the first bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress that would force the commencement of construction of the controversial
Keystone pipeline.
Each move triggered outrage, protests and countermeasures by his opponents. Undaunted, Obama pressed on, and last month he won some of his biggest victories yet
. In a key decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Obama’s most important legacy, his health care reforms. That ruling has two important implications. First, it means that the law will stay on the books for another two years, during which more Americans will benefit from the reforms and will make it virtually impossible to repeal should a GOP candidate claim the White House in the 2016 election. Second, the legal basis of the ruling was such that it will require a congressional vote to repeal the law; it cannot be “reinterpreted” by a future administration in ways that gut its intent.
The Supreme Court gave the president a second victory days later when it recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. The president has been a staunch supporter of LGBT rights and this decision gives him a big domestic boost. Equally significantly, it puts opponents on the defensive; Obama can use their rejection of this decision to discredit their opposition on other issues.
A
third important victory came with congressional approval of
Trade Promotion Authority (
TPA
), the vital prerequisite to conclude negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the key economic initiative of his foreign policy toward Asia, as well as the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) that is also under negotiation and likely to conclude during Obama’s term. This was a bitter fight, primarily against members of his own party, and the president’s readiness to take on fellow Democrats is a sign that he is still focused on his agenda
, not merely that of his party.
On the foreign policy front, the announcement that the U.S and Cuba are ready to resume diplomatic ties and reopen embassies in each country is a long overdue development and another bold stroke.
If the Iranian nuclear negotiations proceed to an agreement that both sides can accept, then Obama will have transformed relations with two long-standing adversaries and, potentially, permanently altered dynamics in two vitally important regions.
The announcement that Russian President Vladimir
In Beijing, Chinese officials are now preparing for the September visit of President Xi Jinping to the U.S.
Their determination to ensure that meeting is a success, coupled with growing discontent in Asia over assertive Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, gives Obama additional leverage in that relationship.

There is a
final critical factor that cannot be estimated, nor
can it be overlooked: the Obama image and his rhetorical gifts
. For all the pomp and circumstance, the power of the U.S. president both at home and abroad is limited
. The president, no matter who he is, cannot direct the economy nor bring peace to the Middle East.
He does, however, occupy a bully pulpit, and from that post he can bring his moral stature to bear on problems, domestic and foreign
. As has been made repeatedly clear in recent weeks — speaking in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the march there and again in Charleston, South Carolina at the funeral of the slain pastor Clementa Pinckney — Obama has a singular gift to rise above the noise, raise his nation and focus its attention. That alone is reason why Obama remains a powerful leader, even as his term winds to a close.
Michael Auslin, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, “Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine? Because The West Is Weak,” March 3, 2014, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/03/03/why-did-russia-invade-ukraine-because-the-west-is-weak/NV
This is the lesson the liberal world needs to relearn, a quarter-century after the fall of the Berlin Wall: none of its choices, be it military cuts, inaction, or diplomatic posturing, happens in a vacuum. While perceptions of Western irresolve or weakness
don’t necessarily create conditions of instability by themselves, their real danger is that they make aggressive opportunism seem a more attractive path for revanchists like Putin or revisionist powers like Beijing
.
The toxic brew of negative perceptions of Western/liberal military capability and political will is rapidly undermining the post-1945 order around the world. Reduced military budgets, global perceptions of
American
and European weakness
, the outright dismissal of presidential redlines, and memories of total inaction like during the 2008 Georgian invasion or Syrian civil war have set the stage for future opportunism. More than one commentator has noted the similarities between Hitler in 1938 and Putin in 2014. Like Hitler did, Putin is playing a weak hand, though it is relatively stronger than the object of his aggression
, and even token opposition by the West could cause him to fold. We now know that Hitler would have pulled his troops out of the Sudetenland in the face of any British or French opposition. Thus,
A world in which dissatisfied powers seek to redraw old maps
or restore national “honor” will be immeasurably more dangerous when they correctly gauge that the West can offer only moral outrage and little else. Neither China nor Russia may be so reckless as to act aggressively without any cause, but there are myriad “causes” out there, many of which we dismiss because they don’t fit our definition of rationality
or national interest, and onto which
Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and others can latch.
Policymakers and analysts too little take account of the poisonous connection between perceptions of Western credibility and the festering disputes that can be used as a casus belli for those seeking advantage.
Crimea has been a sore spot for Russia
(in recent history) since Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in 1954. It is hard to imagine a scenario whereby
Vladimir
Putin would be able to get away with fomenting a crisis out of whole cloth. But, as he showed in Georgia, he will respond with military alacrity when given the opportunity
. Western capitals, for their part, chose not to believe that he would be so reckless as to press his advantage in Ukraine as forcefully as he has, in no small part because they have few options for opposing him.
One can only assume that China, Iran, and North Korea are watching Crimea just as closely as Putin watched Washington’s reactions to East and South China Sea territorial disputes, Pyongyang’s nuclear provocations, and Syria’s civil war. Putin knows that fewer than 70,000
U.S. military personnel are currently stationed in Europe
, and many of those are support positions. Western European countries, meanwhile, have shrunk their militaries to the point where they are essentially home defense forces.
The question the Western and liberal world must face is whether it is willing to surrender the coming decades to increasing uncertainty
and insecurity. How much will it accommodate and accept changes to the global order? Ongoing weakness will only abet more and drastic change.
Putin will not re-form the Soviet Union overnight, but history is a long-run thing, and taking
Crimea today and maybe eastern Ukraine next week is just the opening act
. Beijing may not be driven by ideology, but successfully controlling disputed islets throughout Asia could be the precursor to larger changes to regional power patterns. How many decades before the West (and by extension its liberal allies in Asia) feel truly threatened?

Maybe the bottom line for future Western governments is a paraphrase of Trotsky: you may not be interested in the world, but the world is interested in you.
Ira Helfand, Co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, John Pastore, previously the President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, “Dr.
Ira Helfand & Dr. John O. Pastore: Nuclear doom lurks in U.S. faceoff with Russia over Ukraine,” August 6, 2014, GazetteNet.com, http://www.gazettenet.com/home/13038993-95/dr-ira-helfand-dr-john-o-pastore-nuclear-doom-lurks-in-us-faceoff/NV
NORTHAMPTON —
As we mark the anniversary of the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events in
Europe, both current and historical, underline how great a danger nuclear weapons still pose to our national security
.
One hundred years ago this month, Europe stumbled into World War I, a conflict that no one wanted but which no one was able to stop. Before it was over 16 million were dead, the world had learned the horrors of chemical warfare and the old order in Europe had been destroyed. The events of August 1914 serve as frightening cautionary tale of how conflict can spin out of control.
Today we are witness to another unexpected war in Europe. We all hope that the fighting in Ukraine will not lead to a broader war, but the conflict there between the U.S.-backed government in Kiev and separatists backed by Russia is fraught with danger
. For 25 years we have been assured that we no longer had to worry about war between the nuclear super powers. The current crisis puts the lie to these assurances:
War between the U.S. and Russia remains a real possibility, and as long as both sides possess large nuclear arsenals — nearly 15,000 nuclear warheads between them — the use of nuclear weapons remains a real possibility
as well.
A large-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would be a disaster beyond imagining.
A 2002 study by
Physicians for Social Responsibility showed that if only 300 Russian warheads got through to targets in U.S. cities, 75 to 100 million people would die in the first half hour
. In addition, the entire economic infrastructure of the country would be destroyed, and it is likely that the vast majority of the U.S. population would die in the months following
the attack from starvation, epidemic disease, exposure and radiation sickness.
The U.S. counterattack would cause similar destruction in Russia.
But these local effects are only part of the story. The firestorms generated by these nuclear explosions would loft enormous amounts of soot into the upper atmosphere causing catastrophic global climate disruption
. If all of the 3,100 weapons allowed to the U.S. and Russia when the New START treaty is fully implemented in 2017 were used, temperatures around the world would drop an average of 8 degrees Celsius to levels not seen since the last ice age; food production would plummet and the vast majority of the human race would starve
. Recent studies have shown that even a very limited nuclear war, one involving just 100 small, Hiroshima-sized bombs, less than 0.03 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals, would cause enough climate disruption to trigger a worldwide famine that would put more than 2 billion people at risk.
The use of a small portion of our nuclear arsenal against targets far away from the U.S. would trigger this global catastrophe even if our adversaries failed to drop a single warhead on us
.
These weapons must truly be seen as suicide bombs
and those who possess them as suicide bombers.
Given this extraordinary danger it is essential we seek to defuse the crisis in Ukraine and bring about a negotiated settlement. It is even more urgent we move as quickly as possible to eliminate the nuclear arsenals of the world, so that future crises — and there will be future crises — do not pose a similar existential threat to human civilization.
Some might argue that precisely because of the danger of future conflict, the U.S. and other nuclear powers need to retain their nuclear arsenals to “deter” their adversaries
. But the history of the Cold War has shown that we have avoided nuclear war not because “deterrence” worked but because we have been extraordinarily lucky. Hoping for continued good luck is not an acceptable national security policy.
In December most of the governments of the world will meet in Vienna for the third in a series of international conferences on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. The U.S. boycotted the first two meetings out of a fear that they would lead to a treaty banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons. We should not be afraid of such a treaty. Rather, the U.S. should embrace such a dramatic initiative designed to pressure the nuclear weapons states to negotiate an agreement which will provide for the verifiable, enforceable elimination of their nuclear arsenals. And we should start by indicating that we will attend the Vienna meeting and renew our commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.

Agustino Fontevecchia, Staff Writer for Forbes, “Obama Is Using Cuba To Counter Russia, Iran, And China's Growing Influence In Latin America,” April 16, 2015,
Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2015/04/16/obama-is-using-cuba-to-counter-russia-iran-and-chinas-growing-influence-in-latin-america/NV
The most eagerly expected moment of the VII Summit of the Americas in Panama last week was the symbolic handshake between Barack Obama and Raul Castro, leaders of two countries separated by decades of confrontation.
While Cuba was on the top of the “to-do” list for the US in Panama, it was actually part of a wider and more ambitious agenda: reestablishing US presence in South America and containing China´s growing influence over the region
.
After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, US foreign policy shifted and gave little to no priority to the Americas
with the exception of countries like Mexico and Canada, and neighboring sub regions such as Central America and the Caribbean.
Since then, South America saw the fast rise of left-leaning governments, anti-American rhetoric and integration initiatives that emphasized the exclusion of the US from regional policymaking. Almost a decade and a half later, we see how US withdrawal from the region allowed for the growing presence of other international actors such as
Russia,
China
, and even Iran. Russia positioned itself closely with the countries with the most radicalized anti-imperialist discourse, becoming an investor in the energy sector and a military equipment provider.
China
on the other hand went further: It focused on commercial ties with the region, actively investing in
South-American countries, selling manufactured goods of all sorts, purchasing commodities, selling weapons systems, and even becoming the de facto banker of governments with which it developed close relationships such as Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador.
Overall, Latin-American countries received $22 billion in Chinese loans in 2014 alone, taking the total since 2005 to $119 billion.
Cuban President Raul Castro gave an historic joint conference with Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Panama – AFP PHOTO/MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
In regards to commerce,
Argentina provides a prime example of increasing Chinese influence.
In 2014, 16.5% of Argentine imports came from China, in sharp contrast to the 3.4% it bought in 1994. Since 2010,
China has been the second largest exporter to Latin
America behind the US, but ahead of the European Union. This rising presence and influence of China in what the US has historically considered its own “back-yard” worried the Obama Administration
’s decision makers, leading them to seek a new strategy to reengage with countries in South America as part of a broader global strategy that applied “smart power.”
The ideological and symbolic leader of anti-American resistance in the region,
Cuba, became the key to accessing a now diplomatically distant region as the embargo on the island had not only taken its toll on bilateral relations, but had become a key issue of dispute between the US and Latin American countries
. For years the region has taken a strong stance and demanded
Cuba´s reincorporation in the Inter-American system, therefore any initiatives to create ties with Castro´s regime would also be favorable to creating dialogue conditions with the rest of the region, including antagonistic countries like Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.
In Venezuela,
Maduro´s government
(based on the legacy of the late Hugo Chávez), has continued the policies of
the previous administration by strengthening ties with
Russia,
China
, and Iran, in opposition to US influence. An example of this has been
Venezuela´s growing oil exports to the Asian giant, going from 50,000 barrels per day in 2006 to roughly
600,000 barrels per day
sent to China in 2014. These growing exports have been part of a wider strategy aimed at reducing dependency on exports to the
United States, as well as being used to back loans provided by China that now exceed $56 billion. China has also expanded its investments in Venezuela by acquiring and developing a plethora of companies, along with the signing of large military contracts to provide Venezuelan armed forces with aircraft, radars, armored vehicles, and helicopters.
China´s influence has also extended to more moderate governments in the region as in the cases of Ecuador and Argentina
. In the case of the latter, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner´s administration signed a treaty that included the establishing of a “space exploration site” in the Argentine Patagonia with very few public details on the purpose and functioning of these installations, which will be under complete control of Chinese government.
Many security experts agree on the fact that not only is the agreement absolutely opaque on the intention of the site, but also that the presence of dual-purpose technologies allow the station to operate as an intelligence gathering platform. Argentina has also become a recipient of Chinese loans, and an important provider of commodities.

Returning to the Panama Summit, it becomes clear it has been successful for Obama´s foreign policy intentions because it achieved not only the “must-have” picture with
Castro and the joint press conference, but also because it unveiled a new beginning in US relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Also because at this juncture of the process it managed to avoid confrontation with Venezuela´s Maduro, just as his Bolivarian government begins to lose regional support.
In a series of events previous to the summit, Venezuelan Chavismo took a hard hit when Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff gave a prime time interview to CNN where she expressed the “absolute interest” of
UNASUR
(Union of South American Nations) in seeing the liberation of political prisoners in Venezuela. Another blow came from Uruguay, when in the lead up to the Summit, its Foreign Affairs Minister made strong declarations condemning Venezuela for holding political prisoners and allowing for the use of firearms against protestors, as well as differentiating themselves by stating that such actions would be unimaginable in their own country. Ahead of the Summit, leaders presented the
Declaration of Panama, which demanded “negotiated solutions” to the “severe democratic crisis” in Venezuela. Since, it’s been signed by 31 former presidents, amounting to even greater pressure on the Venezuelan government. In a much less discussed aspect of Obama´s strategy before his visit to Panama, Thomas Shannon went to
Venezuela to hold discussions with the Venezuelan government as well as to host a meeting in the US Embassy in Caracas with opposition leaders.
Overall, “Bolivarian” hard liners in the region where only seen in the background of the main snapshots of the Summit. Presidents Obama and Castro´s conciliatory speeches opened the door to a new phase in hemispheric relations, while Maduro, Morales, Kirchner and Correa transmitted nothing but dated speeches and empty rhetoric.
However, and most importantly, the US has taken steps to deal with the biggest underlying protagonist of the Summit, China, which although not formally present has taken a huge role in the hemispheric agenda.
The region now finds itself in an important position when it comes to the US’ new continental strategy, aimed at strengthening alliances that will support the
Trans-Atlantic Partnership (
TPP) as a counterweight to the
Free Trade
Area of Asia Pacific (
FTAAP) that was launched by China at the APEC Summit in Beijing last November
. While the TPP includes only 12 APEC member countries,
FTAAP aspires to include 22 APEC countries, after a two-year study that will prepare the technical ground for the agreement. Beijing´s response is uncertain, but Latin-America´s growing strategic value is becoming inarguable, and therefore we are witnessing the initial stages of an escalating competition between the US, China
and other superpowers to gain ground in this part of the world.
Michael Cerna, a graduate student in International Policy Management at Kennesaw State University, “China’s Growing Presence in Latin America: Implications for U.S. and Chinese Presence in the Region,” April 15, 2011, China Research Center, http://www.chinacenter.net/author/michael-cerna/NV
Future Implications
With both the U.S. and China making gains in the region in different sectors, there is seemingly room for each side to grow; which implies that, in fact, trade with Latin
America is not a zero-sum game. China presents an alternative to the United States, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The U.S. is much more diversified than China at the moment and therefore does not need to enter into direct competition. However, as China responds to calls from Brazil and diversifies its investments, there is increasing worry that China is going to outmatch U.S. trade in the region. These fears may be economically based, but there are potentially harmful political consequences – primarily, providing
Latin America with a quasi-world power as an alternative to the U.
S. Since the Monroe Doctrine, Latin America has been considered a secure sphere of influence for the U.S. The fact that China presents a less democratic alternative to U.S. influence presents a major problem.
The third BRICS summit
in April provided more insight into the potential consequences of China’s growing place in Latin America via its relations with Brazil.
One proposal to emerge from the summit of the five nations (Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa) was a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty.
The idea was to set up a new exchange rate mechanism that would bypass the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world. In addition, banks of the five BRICS nations agreed to establish mutual credit lines in their local currencies, not in U.S. currency
.
While the chances of such a proposal gaining support are debatable, it sets a clear example of a possible shift in power away from the U.S. and toward a more global organization, one that is arguably anchored by China.
If China becomes a preferred partner in Latin America, it will show that
U.S. dominance around the globe also is at risk
.
Conclusion
So what does China’s growing place in the region mean for the future? Depending on whom this question is posed to, there are two probable answers. The first is that
China’s intensifying relations with Latin America offer a clear sign of the end of U.S. dominance in the region, and in a greater sense, the entire world. There is enough evidence to show that the tides have changed in favor of China
. The other answer is that it means nothing. The U.S. is obviously still the more dominant power in the region, and Chinese presence will eventually subside, again leaving the United States as the region’s premier partner. The real answer probably falls somewhere in the middle.

Is China the preferred partner for Latin America? At this point, the definitive answer is no. However
, the United
States should not take its place in the region for granted.
There is clear evidence of an increasingly symbiotic relationship with
China throughout Latin America. While the U.S. is the most dominant trade partner to the region as a whole, it is losing ground in key countries
, namely Brazil, which is blossoming on the world stage and is emerging as the clear leader in the region. Increasing trade and investment can be beneficial for all, but the power that China can derive from its growing economic influence could bring increased political and ideological influence that the U.S. might find unnerving. China already has replaced the U.S. as the largest trading partner for Brazil and Chile, and is on pace to do the same in Peru and
Venezuela.
At the very least, this should cause the U.S. to pay more attention to its southern neighbors and take steps to make sure that China only benefits economically and not politically at the expense of the U.S. The world will be watching.
As it stands, the Chinese are not broadening their relations with the region in a way that directly competes with the United States. China is strictly concerned with commodities, including oil. U.S. President Barack Obama recently signed an agreement with Brazil’s Petrobras that will allow the oil company to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.
This symbolic move could cause tensions to increase as the world’s two largest oil consumers battle over rights to Brazilian oil. In that regard, the competition may go beyond a race to Latin commodities and move into the realm of fighting for political influence.
It is odd to think that the United States would need to compete for hemispheric dominance with a country on the other side of the globe, but China’s actions and increasing integration into the region tell us that such a scenario may one day arise. Given the proximity and importance of Latin America to the United States, this region could be the symbolic battle that best measures the continued hegemony of the U.S
. versus China.
With both the U.S. and China jockeying for influence in a world where political power relations are changing,
Latin America has the most to gain
. The primary concern for the region is that it does not become a battle ground for a neo-Cold War between China and the U.S. Brazil already has clearly stated its concerns regarding Chinese influence. Yet, despite this tension,
Brazil is now too reliant on China to turn away from the path on which Lula set the country. Agricultural exports to China are crucial to Brazil’s economy. Lula’s Brazil supported China politically and made clear moves away from the United States
. Now
Rouseff’s administration has welcomed Barack Obama with open arms. With all three major actors going through stages that could influence the global economic and political landscape – China implementing its 12th five-year plan, Brazil cementing itself as a prominent world player and the U.S. still recovering from a terrible financial crisis – this dynamic relationship is one that deserves close attention from all those concerned with the future of China-U.S. relations.
Where Brazil and the rest of Latin America were once looking for an alternative to U.S. influence and found China, the region may now be looking to the U.S. to strike a balance with growing Chinese influence. With the global ambitions of Latin America, namely Brazil, it is essential to maintain close ties with both the United States and China. The world will be watching.
Lawrence Wittner, received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, a former president on the Council on Peace Research in History and currently a professor at
Emeritus University, “Is a Nuclear War With China Possible?” November 30, 2011, the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/nuclear-warchina_b_1116556.html/NV
While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for centuries international conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example
of this phenomenon.
The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by China's growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China's claims
in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United
States was "asserting our own position as a Pacific power."
But need this lead to nuclear war?
Not necessarily. And yet, there are signs that it could. After all, both the United States and China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government threatened to attack China with nuclear weapons during the Korean War and, later
, during their conflict over the future of China's offshore islands, Quemoy and Matsu. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would "be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else."

Of course, China didn't have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear saber-rattling persists.
Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nuclear-armed nations; and, admittedly, there haven't been very many -- at least not yet. But the Kargil War of 1999, between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars can occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war
. Pakistan's foreign secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use "any weapon" in its arsenal.
During the conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons toward its border,
while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan.
At the least, though, don't nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didn't feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO's strategy was to respond to a Soviet conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union
.
Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing "Star Wars" and its modern variant, national missile defense
. Why are these vastly expensive -- and probably unworkable -- military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might?
Of course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over 5,000 nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total inventory of roughly 300. Moreover, only about 40 of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would "win" any nuclear war with China.
But what would that "victory" entail?
An attack with these Chinese nuclear weapons would immediately slaughter at least
10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher. Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands.
Also, radioactive debris
sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a "nuclear winter" around the globe -- destroying agriculture, creating worldwide famine, and generating chaos and destruction.
Moreover, in another decade the extent of this catastrophe would be far worse.
The Chinese government is currently expanding its nuclear arsenal, and by the year 2020 it is expected to more than double its number of nuclear weapons that can hit the United States. The U.S. government, in turn, has plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
"modernizing" its nuclear weapons
and nuclear production facilities over the next decade.
To avert the enormous disaster of a U.S.-China nuclear war, there are two obvious actions that can be taken. The first is to get rid of nuclear weapons, as the nuclear powers have agreed to do but thus far have resisted doing. The second, conducted while the nuclear disarmament process is occurring, is to improve U.S.-China relations. If the
American and Chinese people are interested in ensuring their survival and that of the world, they should be working to encourage these policies.

Teresa Welsh, a foreign affairs reporter at U.S. News & World Report, “Renewed U.S.-Cuba Ties Will Benefit Larger Relations With Latin America,” December 18, 2014,
US News, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/18/renewed-us-cuba-ties-will-benefit-relations-with-latin-america
U.S. policy toward Cuba has long been a roadblock to productive relationships with other Latin American countries, but Wednesday’s announcement that the two nations are renewing diplomatic ties will benefit the region as a whole
. New U.S. measures are expected to increase travel and economic cooperation with Cuba, although a formal trade embargo cannot be lifted without congressional approval.
[READ: Obama Botched Timing for U.S.-Cuba Relations, Ex-State Department Official Says]
The U.S. was the only remaining country in the region that isolated Cuba, with other nations regularly raising the issue of the economic embargo in diplomatic meetings with U.S. officials
. The world as a whole also has eschewed the decades-old embargo, with the U.N. voting 23 years in a row to condemn it. Only two countries of 188 – the U.S. and Israel – voted against a resolution against the restrictions in October.
“Countries across the region really see this policy in Cuba as being completely counterproductive to our overall engagement with the hemisphere,”
says Jason Marczak, deputy director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council.
He says the policy has isolated the U.S. from important areas of engagement in Latin America and prevented it from progress
on more pressing issues.
“We believe that this is going to be a very important issue in terms of increasing our engagement in Latin America, and it positions the United States to advance our interests and our values more effectively without us being the issue, without our Cuba policy consistently being the issue
,” a senior administration official told reporters Wednesday. “[N]ow we can focus on discussing issues we care about, and that includes human rights.”
Critics of the new policy say the U.S. is rewarding a regime with a track record of human rights abuses and suppressing free speech, but the administration contends it will continue to raise those issues with the Cubans.
“[W]here we disagree, we will raise those differences directly – as we will continue to do on issues related to democracy and human rights in Cuba,” President Barack
Obama said Wednesday. “But I believe that we can do more to support the Cuban people and promote our values through engagement.”
Marczak says a powerful Cuban lobby in the U.S. was able to prevent the country from previously opening ties with Cuba, but that the younger generation of Cuban-
Americans is not as opposed as their parents were to renewing ties.
Marc Hanson, a senior associate with the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights and democracy nonprofit, says Obama will be received with good will at next spring’s Summit of the Americas in Panama as a result of his actions on Cuba. Cuba also will be attending the meeting of regional leaders for the first time, and now discussions won’t have to center around U.S. isolation of the island.
“The most challenging policies for the U.S. to defend have been our drug policy and most importantly, U.S.-Cuba policy. Everything’s transformed in those respects right now,” Hanson says. “[I]t will no longer be a discussion on whether U.S. policy on drugs and Cuba are good or bad. We’re going to get to discuss real regional priorities.”
Obama will participate in the summit, his third in office, as long as civil society groups – such as nongovernmental organizations that advocate for human rights – are also allowed to participate, said the White House.
Latin American leaders were meeting in Argentina when the restoration of ties was announced, and many appeared taken off guard by the new U.S. policy. But even Venezuelan President Nicolaus Maduro, a vocal critic of the U.S., said he supported the move.
"It's a courageous and historically necessary step
. It's possibly the most important step of [Obama's] presidency,"
Maduro said
.
[READ: Renewed Diplomacy Between U.S., Cuba Follows Enigmatic Relationship]
Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday also spoke to the presidents of Colombia and Mexico, two of the strongest U.S. allies in the region. Both leaders were supportive of the new U.S. policy,
according to the White House.

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino additionally expressed support for the U.S. announcement, telling Reuters that “President Obama’s decision delights us.”
Venezuela and Cuba historically have been close, with former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez viewing former Cuban President Fidel Castro as somewhat of a mentor.
Both leaders opposed U.S. dominance in the region and united in condemnation of what they considered U.S. imperialism.
Cuba also relies heavily on Venezuela for economic and energy support, though those ties may be endangered by Venezuela’s struggling economy. Low oil prices and extremely high inflation have slowed growth and put the country's economy at risk of collapse.
Maduro’s support of the U.S.-Cuba move, however, doesn’t mean ties between the U.S. and Venezuela will automatically improve as well, says Harold Trinukanas, director of the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He says the triangulated nature of the relationship makes it impossible to predict the impact of the new U.S. policy on the three countries.
Maduro also opposes a recent sanctions bill passed by Congress that will punish Venezuelan individuals accused of censoring protests against the government. Obama plans to sign the bill.
Ana Maria Benedetti, social media director, “Latin American Leaders Cheer Historic Opening Of U.S.-Cuba Relations,” December 17, 2014, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/17/leaders-in-latin-america-_n_6343524.html/NV
Leaders across Latin America from both the right and the left cheered on the historic steps taken by
the governments of the United States and Cuba to thaw their long-frozen relations.
The jailing of U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross since 2009 had long stood as the largest obstacle for the Obama administration toward further relations.
The prisoner swap that led to Gross's release on Wednesday paved the way for sweeping changes to U.S. policy toward Cuba
, including the establishment of embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, reviewing whether Cuba should remain on the "State Sponsors of Terrorism" List and allowing American travelers to bring some items purchased in Cuba home with them (yes, including $100 worth of cigars).
For most heads of state in Latin America, where the embargo is unpopular and Cuba generally isn't viewed as a pariah, the move was long overdue.
Here's what Latin American leaders had to say:
Colombia
: Conservative President Juan Manuel Santos applauded both the U.S. and Cuban governments'
"courage" through Twitter.
"We celebrate the courage and audacity of President Barack Obama and the Cuban government to create a peaceful future in the American continent."
Peru: Left-leaning President Ollanta Humala also celebrated the event
.
"It's a brave, historic decision that opens a new stage in the process of America's integration."
Venezuela: Leftist President Nicolás Maduro
focused his comments on the release of three Cuban prisoners convicted spying in the United States, a cause championed by the Cuban government for years.
Maduro said that " we were living a historic day
" due to the liberation of the prisoners while at the 47th Mercosur Summit in Argentina. He also said that the event was made possible due to "actions by Fidel Castro" while recognizing Obama's role in the process, according to local Venezuelan media.
Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto's government released another positive statement,
saying the move was a step forward for both countries.
Argentina: President Cristina Fernández praised the Cuban people
for their "courage."
Fernández, who just handed over the temporary presidency of Mercosur to Dilma Rousseff, specifically congratulated the Cuban government and its people on behalf of
Mercosur (which stands for Southern Common Market, in Spanish). The sub-regional bloc counts Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela among its members.
She said the process of normalizing relations with the U.S. had been undertaken with "absolute dignity and on an equal standing," according to EFE.
Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff congratulated both countries
on the opening of relations.
Rousseff heaped praise on both Obama and Castro for the reconciliation. She also gave a shoutout to Pope Francis, saying the agreement "sets an example that it is possible to reestablish broken relations."

Roberta Jacobson, current Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. State Department, “NORMALIZING U.S. RELATIONS WITH CUBA:
FIVE MINUTES WITH ASSISTANT SECRETARY ROBERTA JACOBSON,” June 15, 2015, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, http://journal.georgetown.edu/normalizing-u-s-relations-with-cuba-five-minutes-with-assistant-secretary-roberta-jacobson/NV
GJIA: What is the current timeline for re-establishing relations with Cuba?
RJ:
The re-establishment of diplomatic relations and re-opening of embassies will allow us to better represent
U.S. interests and increase our engagement with the Cuban people.
Conversations with the Cuban government are on going, and they will continue until we work out a way forward that both serves U.S. interests and ensures that our embassy can operate in a normal manner. It is important to remember that what we are discussing with Cuba right now — the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of embassies
— is the first step in a process of normalization
that will ultimately take years.
GJIA: What are the most important political considerations for the U.S. government, as it moves forward in this process?
RJ: Our objective has been and continues to be to empower the Cuban people to freely determine their own future. Our previous approach, though rooted in the best of intentions, has had little effect after half a century.
This new approach is designed to bring about a dialogue between the U.S. and the Cuban people, thus promoting changes that support universal human rights
and fundamental freedoms in Cuba, as well as our other national interests.
GJIA: What does the Cuban government hope to achieve by normalizing its relationship with the U.S.?
RJ: We are currently discussing matters of mutual concern, including migration, law enforcement, civil aviation, access to information, environmental protection, human rights, health issues, and trafficking in persons.
When I led the U.S. delegation to Havana in January, I was moved by the many Cubans — from people on the plane to people in the street — who spontaneously came up to us to give us their blessings and wish us good luck in the negotiations. I also just saw a recent poll that shows that the majority of the Cuban people support reestablishing diplomatic relations with the U.S. So there is a collective will to normalize our relationship as well.
GJIA: What are the greatest challenges in re-establishing ties with the country?
RJ: As I mentioned before, both the U.S. and Cuban governments are working together on areas of mutual interest. That being said, we have different views of how society should be organized and issues on which we deeply disagree. President Obama was direct with President Castro that we are not going to stop raising the issues of democracy and human rights, including the freedom of assembly and the freedom of expression. We do not think we are perfect or that every country has to mimic us, but there are a set of universal commitments for which we stand up everywhere. As the President also pointed out, the previous policy of isolation did not advance the goals and interests of United States citizens, nor did it advance those of the Cuban people
. Reestablishing diplomatic relations and re-opening embassies will advance our interests and also more effectively engage the
Cuban people
on our core values.
GJIA: How do you envision the process of Cuba’s economic re-integration playing out, if it does so at all?
RJ: The Cuban government is responsible for the direction of Cuba’s economy. Though we have seen some small changes in it over the last few years, we are taking steps to aid this process. President Obama’s new approach helps Cuba’s nascent private sector by permitting Americans to send unlimited remittances to individual Cubans in order to better support private businesses and independent non-governmental organizations, and to engage in certain microfinance activities, entrepreneurial training, and development projects in Cuba under general licenses. This new approach allows for increased telecommunication connections between the United States and Cuba. Also,
U.S. companies are permitted to export items such as building materials, equipment, tools, and supplies for use by the Cuban private sector. The President called on
Congress to begin the work of lifting the embargo this year.
GJIA: What role will the State Department play in attempting to mitigate these challenges moving forward?
RJ: We want to deepen our interaction with a much broader segment of Cuban society.
As an embassy, our mission in Havana will be to even more effectively represent U.S. interests, as our engagement with the Cuban people increases.
The U.S. Interests
Section in Havana already provides consular services to both Americans and Cubans, speaks out on universal human rights, works to ensure safe, orderly, and legal migration, supports cultural, educational, and sports exchanges, and encourages greater access to information about the United States and in general for all Cubans. But with an embassy, we hope to further expand our interaction with Cuban officials and the Cuban people.
GJIA: What impact has the Cuban Human Rights Act (2015) had on U.S. federal laws regarding sanctions toward the country and human rights violations in Cuba? Does
Cuba have a plan in place to quell these violations?
RJ: We understand that the Cuban Human Rights Act has been introduced in the House and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Relations. Our commitment to universal human rights in Cuba is unwavering. We condemn all instances of Cuban government-sponsored harassment, the use of violence, and the arbitrary detention of
Cuban citizens that peacefully exercise their rights of expression or assembly. We will continue to speak out on behalf of universal values in Cuba and elsewhere in the world.

Simon Romero, the Brazil bureau chief for the New York Times and previously a national financial correspondent in Houston, Texas, William Neuman, writer for the New
York Times, “Cuba Thaw Lets Rest of Latin America Warm to Washington,” December 18, 2014, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/world/americas/a-brave-move-by-obama-removes-a-wedge-in-relations-with-latin-america.html?_r=0/NV
BUENOS AIRES — President
Obama has been lambasted for spying in Brazil, accused of being a warmonger by
Bolivia, dismissed as a “lost opportunity” by Argentina, and taunted in Nicaragua
by calls for Latin America to draw up its own list of state sponsors of terrorism — with the United States in the No. 1 spot.
But now Latin American leaders have a new kind of vocabulary to describe him: They are calling him “brave,”
“extraordinary” and “intelligent
.”
After years of watching his influence in Latin America slip away
, Mr.
Obama suddenly turned the tables this week by declaring a sweeping détente with Cuba, opening the way for a major repositioning of the United
States in the region
.
Washington’s isolation of Cuba has long been a defining fixture of Latin American politics
, something that has united governments across the region, regardless of their ideologies. Even some of Washington’s close allies in the Americas have rallied to Cuba’s side.
Now
, Mr.
Obama’s restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba is snatching a major cudgel from his critics and potentially restoring some of Washington’s influence in a region where rivals like China have long chipped away at America’s primacy
.
“We never thought we would see this moment,” said Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who chided the Obama administration last year over the
National Security Agency’s surveillance of her and her top aides. She called the deal with Cuba “a moment which marks a change in civilization.”
The change in tone was perhaps starkest from President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Cuba’s main financial patron
.
He has called
Mr.
Obama the “big boss of the devils
,” a puppet and a sad “hostage” of American imperialism. More recently, he lashed out at Mr. Obama over a bill calling for sanctions against Venezuelan officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses.
But on Wednesday,
when Mr. Obama announced the Cuba deal, Mr.
Maduro was almost effusive.
“We have to recognize the gesture of
President Barack
Obama, a brave gesture and historically necessary, perhaps the most important step of his presidency
,” Mr. Maduro said.
Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president and former Sandinista rebel, was chastising Mr. Obama just days ago, saying the United States deserved the top spot in a new list of state sponsors of terrorism. Then, on Wednesday, he saluted the “brave decisions” of the American president.
“Our previous Cuba policy was clearly an irritant and a drag on our policy in the region,” said
Roberta S.
Jacobson, the American assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs,
adding that it had caused friction even with countries friendly to Washington
. She said that countries “with whom we have significant differences are going to be, let’s say, thrown off their stride by a move like this.”
“It removes an excuse for blaming the United States for things,” she added.
The thaw comes just a few months before the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of hemispheric leaders in
Panama under the Organization of American States
, the Washington-based group from which Cuba was suspended in 1962.
The Panamanian hosts confirmed earlier this month that Cuba would attend the summit for the first time, making for a potentially awkward meeting for American officials.
“They asked themselves, do you really want to show up and have every reasonable president of the region say, ‘Is this how you really want to engage with Latin America?' ” said Eric Hershberg, the director of the American University Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.
One senior Obama administration official said that pressure from the region on Washington’s Cuba policy had crept into and impeded other discussions.

“In the last Summit of the Americas, instead of talking about things we wanted to focus on — exports, counternarcotics — we spent a lot of time talking about U.S.-Cuba policy,”
said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “A key factor with any bilateral meeting is, ‘When are you going to change your Cuba policy?' ”
As for Cuba, experts said a significant factor pushing it to favor better relations with the United States was the economic trouble in Venezuela
, whose leftist government has propped up Cuba for years with shipments of oil, much as the Soviet Union once did.
Venezuela ships about 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba, in exchange for Cuban doctors, nurses, athletic trainers and military advisers. The relationship is worth billions of dollars a year to Cuba.
Mr. Maduro has pledged to continue supporting Cuba, but Venezuela is in the throes of a deep economic crisis that is being made worse by a drastic drop in the price of oil,
Venezuela’s main export.
“That’s been an ongoing problem for the Cuban government for some time now, trying to figure out how they can diversify their economic relationship so they weren’t so dependent on Venezuela,” said Ted Piccone, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research organization. “When they looked at their options, they realized that better relations with the United States were critical to their economic strategy.”
Mr.
Obama’s shift on Cuba could have tangible effects. In Brazil, it may deprive critics of an easy target and ease the way for Ms. Rousseff, a leftist with skeptics of her leadership in her own Workers Party, to mend ties with the United States
.
In Colombia, the top ally of the United States in South America, the new policy could spur peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to end the region’s longest-running guerrilla war.
Cuba, which long supported FARC, has played a central role in the talks by helping to bring the two sides to the table for negotiations, which are taking place in Havana.
Many analysts thought that Cuba’s role was part of a broader strategy to soften its profile and convince Washington that it could play a constructive role in the hemisphere, where it had once sought to stir violent revolution.
Given the long history of skepticism over Washington’s policies in Latin America, some in the streets of the region’s cities greeted the shift warily.
“I’m always suspicious of the United States,” said Rubén Grimaldi, 65, a retired owner of a toy store in Buenos Aires. “They must have a knife somewhere under their poncho.”
But while sharp differences persist on many issues, other major Washington policy shifts have recently been applauded in the region, including Mr. Obama’s immigration plan and the resettlement in Uruguay of six detainees from Guantánamo Bay.
“These measures will not eliminate suspicions and resentments, but they will give Washington enhanced credibility on a range of other issues,” said Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group, speaking from Havana.
The first test of the impact of the shift over Cuba could come swiftly in Venezuela, where Mr. Maduro must determine how to respond to the new American sanctions, which Mr. Obama signed into law Thursday.
Given that he had called a rally against the United States and thundered against the “insolent Yankee imperialists” on Monday, Mr. Maduro’s response to the new law was muted.
“President Obama has taken a false step against our country today,” he said in a series of posts on his Twitter account. “On the one hand, he recognizes the failure of the policy of aggression and embargo” against Cuba, “and on the other hand, he starts the escalation of a new stage of aggression” toward Venezuela.
Before the thaw with Cuba
, Mr.
Maduro had hinted that he was considering kicking out American diplomats, something he has done before. But now that Cuba has opened its doors to American diplomats,
Mr.
Maduro must consider how it would look for him to be once again showing the door to American envoys.
“There will be radical and fundamental change,” said Andrés Pastrana, a former president of Colombia. “I think that to a large extent the anti-imperialist discourse that we have had in the region has ended.
The Cold War is over.”

Harold Trinkunas, is a senior fellow and director of the Latin American Initiative in the Foreign Policy Program at The Brookings Institute, “New U.S.-Cuba Policy Will
Revitalize Hemispheric Relations,” December 18, 2014, Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/12/18-cuba-policy-will-revitalizehemispheric-relations-trinkunas/NV
The steps announced by the White House yesterday to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and move towards normal travel and trade between the two countries are remarkable. There have been many false starts during the past 50 years of back channel negotiations seeking to improve U.S.-Cuba relations
. In recent years, Cuba had already been playing a more positive role in regional and global relations, for example by hosting the Colombian peace negotiations, a process that the United States supports, and by sending medical personnel to combat the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Although pressure in the United States for a change in Cuba policy had been building, the president’s announcement goes beyond what had been discussed in the past and beyond what many thought possible.
Easing the restrictions on trade, travel, investment and financial relations between United States and Cuban citizens also builds on the process of economic restructuring that has been underway in Cuba
in recent years. This has already produced remarkable transformations in Cuban society, such as an emerging middle class and a growing non-state sector that is offering new opportunities for hundreds of thousands on the island.
It also goes without saying that this is an important story for U.S. domestic politics.
U.S. policy towards Cuba has always been controversial, and there is considerable resistance to change even today, particularly in the U.S. Congress. On the other hand, U.S. public opinion towards Cuba has been shifting
, particularly across generational and demographic lines. In early 2014, 56 percent of all Americans and 63 percent of Floridians were found to be favorable to improved relations.
President
Obama’s use of executive authority to push for restored diplomatic relations with Cuba and liberalization of economic ties creates a historic opportunity to revitalize hemispheric relations
, but there are also some potential pitfalls ahead.
New Space for Productive Regional Engagement
Since the 1990s, Latin America’s support for U.S. policy towards Cuba in the hemisphere has dwindled. Even the once-shared consensus on the defense of democracy and human rights,
embodied in institutions such as the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Democratic Charter, has weakened
in recent years. This meant that most Latin American states no longer accepted a lack of democracy as a valid rationale for excluding Cuba from hemispheric institutions, such as the
Organization of American States or the Summit of the Americas.
Leaders of the region made this clear to President Obama
at the
Cartagena Summit of the Americas in 2012, and until yesterday, there was a real possibility that U.S.-Cuba relations might be the focus of another acrimonious Summit in Panama in 2015
.
As Richard Feinberg argued yesterday, there is a major opportunity to reframe U.S. participation in the upcoming Summit of the Americas.
By re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, the United States has removed a contentious issue that has been a thorn in
U.S.-Latin America relations and has diverted attention from more productive areas of collaboration
in the hemisphere.
This policy change creates a space for the U.S. to engage more productively with Latin America on
a broad agenda, including on key Summit topics of democracy and human rights, as well as on global competitiveness, energy and environment, and social inclusion. All of this serves to enhance U.S. soft power
in the region, which has eroded in the past decade.
Divergent Interests vis-à-vis Venezuela
However some states in the region, particularly Venezuela, are likely to be quietly concerned by the implications of normalized U.S.-Cuba relations. Venezuela has been a major supplier of oil to the United States historically, although this role has declined in recent years. U.S.-Venezuela relations have been quite poor for over a decade, and
Venezuela has led a coalition of countries, known as ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), that have adopted generally anti-U.S. foreign policies.
Starting in the early 2000s, Venezuela has supplied oil to Cuba on very generous terms in return for Cuban technical, medical and political support. So while President
Maduro eventually welcomed the historic news on U.S.-Cuban relations, initial reactions in Caracas suggest that Venezuela was never fully informed of the state of negotiations with the United States. If true, this is a telling indicator of the state of Cuba-Venezuela relations.
Venezuela’s economy is rapidly deteriorating, and the Cuba-U.S. policy shift highlights its increasing isolation in the region. Venezuela depends on oil for close to 95 percent of its foreign exchange and it imports over 70 percent of basic consumer goods. The decline of oil from an average of $111 per barrel in 2012 to less than $60 today

represents a dramatic decline in the government’s ability to satisfy basic consumer needs, let alone fund Venezuela’s international petrodiplomacy in the region. Even
President Maduro has admitted that his regime needs oil at $100 per barrel, and other estimates put Venezuela’s breakeven point even higher. The rapid deterioration of
Venezuela’s economy is also a blow for whatever soft power its Bolivarian regime had accumulated internationally.
The United States and Cuba have both invested considerable prestige and diplomatic effort in securing the present agreement, and it opens up a new panorama for inter-American relations
. In addition to the themes of democracy and human rights that will be discussed at the Summit of the Americas, there are important areas for cooperation between the two countries on security and energy in the
Caribbean. But both the United States and Cuba are part of a triangular relationship with Venezuela, a regime whose economic fortunes are rapidly deteriorating and whose political future looks increasingly troubled. Cuba and the United States will inevitably have differences of opinion over how to handle Venezuela, given their very different historical experiences and government-to-government relations with this country.
Managing these tensions will be an important part of successfully completing the agenda that President Obama has set out.

--- Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Olivia, ForeignAffairs.co.nz, “Roadblocks Remain in US-Cuba
Rapprochement,” Factiva/NV)
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba will finally be restored on July 20, when
Washington reopens its embassy in Havana after more than 50 years of political turmoil
between the two countries. Cuba will also open its embassy in Washington that day, and John Kerry will visit Havana, making him the first U.S. secretary of state to go to Cuba in 70 years.[1]
This is a step in the right direction in regard to US-Cuban policy since the U.S. embargo, which was enacted in the early 1960s, has not been successful in bringing about regime change or some version of the
Washington Consensus in Cuba.[2] “It hasn’t worked for 50 years,” Obama said
in his announcement from the Rose Garden last week. “It shuts America out of Cuba’s future, and it only makes life worse for the Cuban people
.”[3]
Instead of naming an ambassador right away, the Obama Administration announced it would make Jeffery DeLaurentis its charge d’affaires. DeLaurentis has led the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba beginning last year. Senators and presidential candidates Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have declared they will oppose any ambassador that Obama nominates.[4]
These Republicans and other critics of the normalization process between the two countries argue that Obama is legitimizing the government of Raúl Castro without attempting to seek guarantees of improvement in human rights on the island. Rubio has been especially indignant about the easing in relations, insisting that it is “important that pro-democracy activities not be sacrificed in the name of ‘diplomacy’ just so that we can change the name of a building from ‘Interest Section’ to ‘Embassy.’”[5]
While this condemnation
on Rubio’s part certainly makes him appear tough on governments that do not share Washington’s values, it does not offer any real solution to the problems dissenting Cubans face and ignores the valuable cultural exchange that can take place through increased levels of tourism and bilateral economic transaction
.
The number of Americans who visited Cuba between January 1 and May 9 this year increased 36 percent compared to the same period in 2014.[6] Although the result of this influx of American tourists remains to be seen, it appears that if critics like Rubio want Cuba to inherit
American ideals, contact between the countries would be a good start
.
As part of the agreement between the United States and Cuba,
Cuba has agreed to relax restrictions on Internet access,
and, in fact, the
American media streaming site Netflix announced Cubans can now stream its content.[7] Although independent Cuban websites are still blocked, this increase in
Internet freedoms will most likely snowball into greater access
.[8]
It should be noted that this exchange of ideas will not only be one way, and it should not be assumed that Cuban citizens will be the only ones learning from American tourists and companies. For example, Cuba provides healthcare for “all segments of the population” and still manages to boast a medical system with “results similar to those of the most developed nations.”[9] Its education system enjoys success as well; its literacy rate is 99.8 percent
, far above many of its Caribbean neighbors.[10]
In addition to the Republicans’ opposition to appointing an ambassador, another roadblock to complete normalization is the fact that the embargo can only be completely lifted by Congress, which is currently Republican-controlled.[11] Obama cannot lift these sanctions against Cuba himself because in 1996 former President Bill Clinton signed the Helms-Burton law, which declared the embargo could only be lifted by a majority of votes in Congress.[12]
This illustrates that, despite the progress made on Obama’s part, barriers remain. Rubio and other critics of this rapprochement are only gumming up a process that could actually result in some of the increased human rights and democratic changes they have been calling for.
Those who critique this decision not only get in the way of a potentially positive step in the lives of Cubans but also are hypocritical in their intense devotion to fighting for human rights.
In a 2013 article, Human Rights Watch detailed a handful of countries with whom the United States is allied that have, arguably, worse human rights records than Cuba and should not receive unconditional U.S. support, such as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Mexico.
Critics of Obama’s actions regarding US-Cuba rapprochement should not use human rights as the only reason to deny this easing of relations when they do not mind being associated with oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a country that “suppresses most dissent
” and “insists that the neighboring Bahraini monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement.”[13]

Another important aspect of the discussion is how Cubans view this decision. Traditionally, Cuban-Americans have been against the easing of relations between Washington and Havana, but a Florida International University poll indicated that
7 in 10 Cuban-Americans are now in favor of reestablished diplomatic relations.[
14]
In light of the news that the United States will be reopening its embassy, the atmosphere in Cuba is hopeful overall, according to independent Cuban news publication
14ymedio. While the online newspaper did note that some Cubans critiqued the move, many others emphasized their positive expectations for the future. Specifically,
Cubans highlighted that rapprochement could mend familial ruptures caused by the 54-year-old political divide between the countries.[15]
“I have two brothers that I only know through photographs,” said Cuban citizen Elizabeth Batista Acosta,
“because I am the youngest of three and they went to the United States in a raft when I started primary school. They’ve never wanted to return, and [the government] won’t give me a visa to see them.”
Batista hopes that, with the opening of an American embassy, her brothers will be able to visit her and her mother “and bring flowers together to our father in the cemetery.”
María Suárez, a Cuban-American and resident of Miami, who also has been separated from her family for long periods of time due to the embargo, said, “I hope the diplomatic relations between the countries help the Cubans both here and over there to be closer. I don’t understand much about politics, but I do know that we can’t go back.”[16]
--- U.S. Rep., a Democrat, represents Georgia’s 4th congressional district (Hank, The Atlanta Journal – Constitution, “Cold War failed; build new bridges with U.S.-Cuba,” Factiva/NV)
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
---Albert Einstein
More than a quarter-century since the Cold War ended, and after more than 50 years of oppressive policy,
President Barack Obama is pursuing a new course with Cuba.
With this new direction, America is reopening our embassy in Havana and easing sanctions. It is now time to admit the Cold War-era strategy has failed
.
The United States' 53-year-old policy towards Cuba has been
to isolate and embargo this small island nation, which was designed to cause the collapse of the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Despite America's policy, which has made life harder for the Cuban people, Cuba's economy has weathered the U.S. embargo while maintaining positive growth
for most of the last four decades.
President Ronald
Reagan added Cuba to the State Sponsor of Terrorism list in 1982 when Cuba was actively supporting the guerrilla movement in Colombia
and the Spanish Basque terrorist group ETA. According to the State Department, this activity ceased decades ago.
Today,
Cuba poses no threat to the United States militarily, economically or otherwise. So why should America continue pursuit of a failed strategy? Opponents of diplomacy point to the lack of human rights
the Cuban government affords to its citizens, including the lack of free speech protectionsand the generally slow pace of democratic changes within Cuba.
These are real and pressing issues of legitimate concern to the United States, but even President Obama's opponents admit the isolation of
Cuba has not produced the desired result. Just as economic sanctions have failed to cripple Cuba's economy, they have also failed to encourage improvement of Cuba's human rights record
. We are more likely to see democratic changes emerge in Cuba through negotiations, open dialogueand the free flow of ideas and commerce.
The rest of the world agrees. Not only has the United Nations General Assembly voted 23 times calling on the U.S. end to its embargo, but 97 percent of nations throughout the world oppose our policy. It also makes economic sense to normalize relations,
which would give U.S. banks access to Cuba's financial system and decrease barriers to free trade, benefiting both nations.
Perhaps most importantly, by opening relations the U.S. can show good faith to the people of Cuba and all of
Latin America
by affirming that sovereign people have the right to choose their own destiny, how they are governed and how they are educated without fear of foreign intervention.

For decades, United States policy has been illogical and driven by a small but powerful lobby. For Congress to appease this lobby by impeding the administration's use of diplomacy, and continue to pursue the same tired policy of the past, is the very definition of insanity.
I have supported normalizing our relationship with Cuba since I was elected to Congress in 2007. As a co-sponsor of the Free Trade with Cuba Act, the Export Freedom to
Cuba Act, the Promoting American Agriculture and Medical Exports Cuba Act and the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, I have consistently pursued policies that will improve the lives of Americans and Cubans.
I agree with a majority of Americans.
A recent Gallup Poll indicated that nearly
60 percent favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Similarly, a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post said 97 percent of Cubans favored the normalization of relations with the United States
.

Joel Brinkley, was a columnist at the New York Times for 23 years, taught journalism at Stanford University and won a Pulitzer prize for his work in foreign news, “Cuba embargo isn't working but isn't going away,” December 18, 2012, POLITICO, http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/cuba-embargo-isnt-working-but-isnt-going-away-
85281.html/NV
America’s embargo on Cuba began its 53rd year this fall, and it’s hard to find anyone who thinks it’s working
.
Even Cuban-Americans who hate the Castro brothers and fervently insist that the embargo remain in place generally agree that it has accomplished little, if anything.
Still, said
Jaime Suchlicki, a Cuban émigré who is the director of the Cuba Transition Project at the University of
Miami, “do you give away a policy that has been in place for 50 years
, whether you think it’s right or wrong, good or bad, effective or not — for nothing? Without a quid pro quo from Cuba?”
Suchlicki came to the United States in the first wave of Cuban refugees in 1960 after the communist revolution. His hardline views mirror those of many in his generation.
And for decades, it dominated the Cuba discussion in Florida, a state presidential candidates have long believed they need to win to be elected.
But today the Cuban-American population is more diverse, as the U.S. presidential election last month showed. Previously, Cuban-Americans regularly voted in favor of
Republicans, who are generally staunch embargo supporters, by 4 to 1. This time, President Barack Obama won half their vote.
Now an argument can be made that if the half-century of political paralysis on this issue can be overcome, both Cuba and the United States would benefit. American tourists would most likely pour into Cuba, buying cigars, staying in beachfront hotels — spending money in the Cuban economy. And American businesses would find an eager new market
for a range of products beyond the food and medicine they are already authorized to sell.
“We cannot afford an obsolete ideological war against Cuba,”
Richard Slatta, a history professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in Latin America, wrote in an op-ed last month. “The embargo against Cuba denies North Carolina businesses and farmers access to a major, proximate market.”
Cuba experts say many business leaders, particularly, are making the same case, especially now that the American economy has remained in the doldrums for so long. They add that it’s an obvious second-term issue; Obama doesn’t have to worry about winning Florida again.
But for so many people in Washington, “Cuba doesn’t matter any more now,” said Ted Piccone, deputy director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and a former
National Security Council official. “There’s no political incentive” to change the policy — even though the arguments for changing it are rife. Despite ample provocation, the U.S. doesn’t impose similar embargoes on other authoritarian states.
Late last month, for example, Kazakhstan said it planned to shut down the last of its independent and opposition media, meaning “pluralism would quite simply cease to exist in this country,” Reporters Without Borders said in a news release. But has anyone talked about imposing an embargo there?
In September, Cambodia, one of the world’s most repressive nations, sentenced Mam Sonando, a 71-year-old radio station owner, to 20 years in jail for criticizing the government on air. He’d been broadcasting for decades. At about the same time, newspaper journalist Hang Serei Odom was found dead in the trunk of his car, hacked to death with an ax. He had been writing about illegal logging, a long-standing problem in Cambodia.
Despite that and much more, Obama visited Phnom Penh last month, attending an Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference. Has anyone in Washington advocated imposing an embargo there? Suchlicki said, “Maybe we should.”
“Despite political tensions” with Venezuela, another authoritarian state in Latin America, the State Department says: “The United States remains Venezuela’s most important trading partner. In 2011, bilateral trade topped $55.6 billion.”
The State Department endlessly debates this question about foreign aid that applies to Cuba: Cutting off aid to a nation removes any ability to influence it, one side of the debate goes. But the counterargument is: Does that mean the U.S. should continue giving aid to a brutal, repressive government? It’s a quandary with no clear solution.
In this debate, Egypt is the state du jour. Last month, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) issued a news release calling on “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to immediately suspend U.S. aid to Egypt, saying ‘American taxpayer dollars should not be used to aid and abet any nation that stands with terrorists.’” In Congress, he was hardly alone in that view, but the State Department is resisting.
Of course, the U.S. embargo of Cuba arose from a totally different set of circumstances, in 1960 at the height of the Cold War and Washington’s unremitting opposition to
Communism. Cuba was allying itself with the Soviet Union. Fidel Castro also nationalized American property on the island. (Even as he announced the embargo, President
John F. Kennedy sent his aide, Pierre Salinger, to buy him 1,000 Cuban cigars, Petit Upmanns, in the hours before the full embargo took effect.)
After the Soviet Union fell in 1991 that reasoning fell away, but at that time the Cuba lobby in Miami was at its strongest. Looking at the embargo today (Cuba calls it “the blockade”), its principal accomplishment is that “it has given Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro the perfect scapegoat on which it can blame all their problems,” argued Ted
Henken, a fervent Cuba expert at Baruch College in New York. A few days ago, Cuba’s Ministry of Education asserted that “the 50-year trade embargo imposed by the
United States has severely undermined the country’s education efforts.”

Piccone said most Cubans aren’t buying that argument. “The average Cuban is not blaming the U.S.” he said.
“I’ve seen polling on this. They’re blaming the system.”
Henken said the embargo “has strengthened the revolution” and “ceded Cuban policy to the most conservative Cuban-Americans.” Even Suchlicki acknowledges that the embargo has accomplished “nothing substantial,” though he adds: “That’s not an argument for changing it.”
Some Cuba experts argue that allowing American tourists to visit Cuba for the first time since 1960 might bring the beginnings of substantial change by fostering greater prosperity. They point to China, a passive agrarian society until the government opened the economy, pulling millions of Chinese out of poverty. Suddenly, these newly prosperous people began standing up to their government, demanding greater freedom and opportunities. The same could be true for Cuba, Henken said.
President Raúl Castro has opened the economy a bit, allowing more free enterprise. But apparently wary of this threat, his efforts have been small, cautious and halting.
The changes “are only half-hearted in the sense that [Cuban officials] are taking it slow,” Piccone said. “The want to manage it; they don’t want to undermine their political position.”
Henken jokingly calls Suchlicki “old Ironsides ” for his continuing support of the embargo.
Most Cuban-Americans of Suchlicki’s era agree with his position. In Henken’s view, though, “it’s really hard to keep justifying it since it hasn’t borne any fruit.” Cuban-Americans seem to be coming to the same view
. A recent poll by Florida International University in Miami showed that just 50 percent of Cuban-Americans still support the embargo, “well below its heyday,” the university said in a news release. “
This, despite 80 percent believing that the embargo has not worked very well or not well at all.”
“We ought to change our tactics,” Piccone said, and “think of other ways to support our goals.”
Right now, though, Cuba and the embargo are not occupying even a moment of attention in Washington
, given the urgent concerns about Iran, North Korea, the fiscal cliff and so much else. But that will almost certainly change next month.
In October, the Cuban government gave its people permission to travel at will beginning in mid-January. Well, since 1966 the Cuban Adjustment Act has afforded every
Cuban who reaches the United States by any means automatic refugee asylum. Now, with travel to the U.S. legalized, some in Congress — including outgoing Rep. David
Rivera (R-Fla.), a fervent embargo supporter — are talking about hurriedly revising the act before the new Cuban law takes effect next month and thousands of Cubans begin stepping off airplanes.
Suddenly Cuba could be thrust to center stage in Washington again. That may prove to be the time, some experts say, when serious discussion of the embargo could be on the table again, for the first time in more than 50 years.
Marjorie Arons-Barron, a blog on politics, media and culture “Cuba: Obama’s push for legacy,” December 19, 2014, Marjorie Arons-Barron, http://marjoriearonsbarron.com/2014/12/19/cuba-obamas-push-for-legacy/NV
Hmm, the country has an authoritarian regime, a Communist credo, a record of human rights violations, no open elections or free press, and we’re liberalizing relations with it? How can we do that? Well, it worked with
China
, Richard Nixon’s legacy foreign policy initiative.
And Vietnam too. Why not with Cuba? To paraphrase President
Obama, our hardline embargo
and lack of diplomatic relations for five decades hasn’t dramatically improved political conditions in Cuba. Why think that continuing the approach will bear positive results
.
New, more relaxed regulations have still to be worked out in a whole range of issues. What will be the rules for U.S. businesses eager to tap new markets? What will be resolved regarding lands confiscated by the Castro regime, many owned by people who are now American citizens? Will Cuba be taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism? Oddly, North Korean was taken off, while Iran, Syria, and Sudan are on.
We do have diplomatic relations with Sudan.
Consistency has never been our strong suit, so why fear flexibility in Cuba relations
?
This move toward normalization shouldn’t come as a surprise. President George W. Bush had allowed some limited medical supplies and agricultural products to go from the United States to Cuba
. President
Obama has talked in vague terms for years about his goal of accelerating normalization
. Tea readers have seen bits of evidence gathering for the last year, including President Obama’s shaking hands with President Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson will visit
Havana next month. In April, Cuba will, for the first time in half a century, attend the Organization of American States meeting in Panama. Feedback to this week’s announcement from other Latin American countries has been positive.
Negative reaction from older Cuban Americans is understandable. They, and their families, suffered horribly at the hands of the Castro brothers and their compatriots.
They view the President’s move as caving in before any reassurances of Cuba’s willingness to institute reforms. Younger
Cuban Americans are more positive. But scalability and reasonability must be integral to what the United States does
.

There are immediate opportunities for cooperation. Cuba’s doctors have been poster children for the island’s health care system and have played a key role in fighting ebola in Africa
. But on the home front, Cuba’s economy is shaky, with many household necessities in scarce supply.
Tourism from the nearby United States, limited now to specific arts and culture groups licensed to travel there, could expand dramatically under loosened restrictions, bringing money to ordinary people to ease their daily lives, if the money really gets to them. (My husband and I are going with a “people-to-people” group this winter, a trip planned last summer. It may be too soon to use U.S. credit cards there, but, yes, we may be able to bring back Cuban cigars when we go.
The embargo imposed by the Helms-Burton law in 1996 can’t be lifted without Congressional input. The real question is whether Raul Castro can make incremental moves quickly enough to reassure Congress
. The release of political prisoners, including Alan Gross, is step one, but it is a step in the right direction.
Years from now, normalization with Cuba could be regarded as a positive aspect of Barack Obama’s legacy.
El diablo está en los detalles.

--- news Editor for Defense One (Ben Watson, 6-30-15, “Obama Names New Envoy to Close Guantanamo”, Defense One, http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/obama-names-new-envoy-close-guantanamo/116638/)//Jmoney
President Barack
Obama named
former National Security Council official
Lee Wolosky as his new special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the State Department, filling a key post in the administration’s bid to shut down the controversial prison by moving its remaining detainees to foreign countries and the U.S. mainland. Wolosky will assume
“lead responsibility
” for arranging for the transfer of Guantanamo’s remaining 116 detainees, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.
Wolosky’s arrival gives the White House added firepower in its bid with Congress to close the prison before the end of
Obama’s second term
. That’s an accomplishment few—including Defense Secretary Ash Carter—expect will happen. But last month
, Carter and the
White House’s
chief counterterrorism official, Lisa Monaco, promised
Senate
Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R.-Ariz., a
closure plan is coming soon.
Wolosky, 46, now fills the void left by Clifford Sloan, who stepped down in January after nearly 18 months on the job. He will work closely with Paul Lewis, who holds the counterpart job at the Defense Department. Wolosky, a 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School, was the National Security Council’s director of transnational threats for
Presidents Bill Clinton and, briefly, the George W. Bush administration. He left in 2001. Later, Bloomberg in 2013 called his New York law firm “a network of influential
Democrats built during his career in counterterrorism, foreign policy and law,” including former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor and Secretary of State John Kerry, who brought Wolosky on as his counterterrorism policy advisor during the 2004 presidential campaign.
(Related: SPECIAL REPORT: Beyond Guantanamo)
After reporting the administration was planning a transfer of up to 10 detainees in June, Defense One was first to report on June 12 that six detainees were en route to
Oman, the first prisoners to leave Guantanamo since January. Of the 116 detainees currently held at the prison, 51 are still waiting to be transferred.
Wolosky will inherit the diplomatic effort behind moving each detainee, while Lewis will continue to work on the security concerns that follow them.
Obama requires six national security agencies—the Offices of the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the departments of Defense,
State, Justice and Homeland Security—in order to conduct an intelligence review of just one detainee and his potential host country.
“I’m certainly under no illusions that this is going to be easy
,” Wolosky told the Miami Herald Monday.
Well before the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, closing Guantanamo has confounded the administration, which has encountered no shortage of critics on Capitol Hill. But right as the president
and McCain have taken renewed steps to close the facility, “ the circumstances have changed, the world is blowing up around us,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C., said in January, adding,
“There is no appetite to close Guantanamo Bay.”
And while Obama is enjoying his highest approval rating in two years, a recent Defense One and Government Business Council poll of senior defense workers and troops found only 24 percent supported closing Guantanamo. And as recently as January, nearly half the country opposed closing the prison in the next several years.
--- (Stephanie Condon, 7/1/15, “Obama administration appoints new Guantanamo Bay Envoy”, CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-administration-appoints-new-guantanamo-bay-envoy/
After a six-month vacancy, the
Obama
administration has finally found someone to serve as the State Department's Special
Envoy for Guantanamo Closure.
Attorney Lee
Wolosky will be charged with the difficult task of facilitating the closure of the controversial
, Pentagon-run prison.
Wolosky's job will entail
finding countries willing to accept detainees who have already been cleared for release, as well as overseeing the State Department's participation in the periodic reviews of the remaining detainees. It involves serious diplomatic efforts with other nations, as well as intensive engagement with
Congress.
President Obama has said since the first day of his presidency that he intends to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but the task has proven to be much more difficult than he anticipated. Last week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CBS Newsthat he was not confident that he could close the prison before Mr. Obama leaves office.

Congress has barred the Defense Department from using any appropriated funds to build facilities in the U.S. to house the Guantanamo detainees, but the administration is working on a proposal to
send to Congress to get past that
, Carter told CBS. The defense secretary said the prison is very expensive to run and serves as "an extra talking point" for Jihadi propagandists. "It would be good to eliminate that," he said.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for transfer, commended Wolosky's appointment. Wolosky, the group said in a statement, he needs to "break through the logjam within the Department of Defense in order to generate and maintain increased momentum on transfers, and ultimately to ensure the just closure of Guantanamo by the end of President Obama's term."
Wolosky previously served as the National Security Council's Director for Transnational Threats under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
His appointment comes as the U.S. takes other significant steps to normalize relations with Cuba. Cuban President Raul Castro has said the U.S. should returnthe U.S. base at Guantanamo to Cuba.

--- nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization (January 3 2008, “How to Close Guantanamo”, Human
Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/01/03/how-close-guantanamo#Why We Must Close Guantanamo)//Jmoney
Why We Must Close Guantanamo
The United States has long prided itself on its efforts to promote freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world
.
Yet it now finds these efforts sidetracked by easy
– and often true – attacks on the United States' own integrity.
"Take Guantanamo for example," exclaimed Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's autocratic President, in a statement before the 62nd session of the U.N.
General Assembly. "
Can the international community accept being lectured
by this man on the provisions of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Definitely not!"
17 Mugabe is not alone.
A long list of leaders
– including Russian president Vladimir
Putin
, Bashar Assad of
Syria
, and
Iran's
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – have pointed to Guantanamo to deflect attention from human rights abuses in their own countries
.18
U.S. diplomats in several countries have told Human Rights Watch of being unable to challenge stateauthorized round-ups and detentions without trial because of Guantanamo
. When Human Rights Watch raised concern about
U.S. silence over arbitrary detentions in Malaysia, a senior State Department official replied, "
With what we're doing in Guantanamo, we're on thin ice to push.
"19
Allies that have long looked to the United States as a standard-bearer on human rights now find themselves instead issuing reports and public statements decrying the indefinite detention without charge of hundreds of men in Guantanamo
.
The finger-pointing is justified
. The continued detention
of hundreds of detainees without charge at Guantanamo undermines U.S. moral authority
, is in disregard of international human rights and humanitarian law
, and is bad counterterrorism policy.
It hurts – not helps – the fight against terror.
Consider the dubious legal claims behind the Guantanamo detentions. The Bush administration has defended Guantanamo by claiming that the detainees are "enemy combatants" in the "global war" against terror, and that it can hold them without trial until the war is over. Its definition of "combatant" is so broad as to encompass anyone
– from anywhere around the world – whom the president deems to have supported or associated with the terrorist enemy. This theory turns the entire world into a battlefield for whom any alleged terrorist is a "combatant" who can be held until the end of terrorism under the laws of war. Of note, combatants are also legitimate military targets under the laws of war. Taken to its logical conclusion, this overbroad conception of combatant would permit U.S. forces to fire on sight at any suspected terrorist anywhere they find him.
Under this same legal theory, the Russian military could detain
(or shoot at) an American aid worker in Chechnya based on the claim that she was supporting Russia's terrorist enemy and lock her up without charge
– at least until
Russia has rooted out all Chechen separatists.
The United States would have little standing to object.
--- Associate Professor of Law at the United States Coast Guard Academy and was a National Security and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center,
Harvard Kennedy School (Glenn Sulmasy, 2009, “THE NEED FOR A NATIONAL SECURITY COURT SYSTEM”, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary, 23 St.
John’s J.L. Comm. 1007, Lexis)//Jmoney
While one can arguably understand the initial decision by the administration to try these terror suspects in military tribunals
, given the context of the post 9/11 world, seven years later
, it is hard to assert that this approach has been successful
. As a matter of policy it has been nothing short of an unintended disaster.
The use of military commissions has become a lightning rod of criticism for the administration n11 and the nation
[*1011] at large, hurting both our reputation and our ability to lead in other critical areas internationally.
To those who grew up in Navy or Coast Guard families, the current reputation of the Guantanamo Naval Base is particularly painful
. Guantanamo, even as a military base, is severely tarnished in the year 2008.
During my youth in the 1980's, I vividly remember my father speaking about Guantanamo as a beacon of human rights within the totalitarian regime of Cuba and the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay was looked upon as being a base of freedom - as a base representing the nobility and strength of the United States.
It is both unfortunate and ironic that the international community and much of the

American public now views Guantanamo as anything but a representation of the once embraced "shining city on a hill." The criticisms have been vicious. Some of the criticisms are well founded,
but many are mired in hyperbole and exaggeration. Unfortunately, even the well-respected
non-governmental organization
, Amnesty International, termed Guantanamo in 2005 as "the gulag of our times." n12 The United States of America simply cannot permit the military commissions process in Guantanamo to continue adjudicating war crimes against al Qaeda.
--- (Friends Committee on National Legislation, 2014, “The Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay: A Dark Chapter”, http://fcnl.org/issues/torture/the_detention_facility_at_guantanamo_bay_a_dark_chapter/)//Jmoney
As a Quaker organization, FCNL believes in the principle of “seeing that of God in everyone.”
As a nation that purports to guide itself by high moral standards, the U.S. has an obligation to uphold its cherished values of justice, freedom, and
equality. If our nation hopes to remain a voice of morality in the world, it is imperative that we close Gitmo; each day that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is open is another stain on our country’s moral fabric.
--- Executive Director at WOLA, Washington Office on Latin America (Joy Olson, Oct 9 2014, “The prisoners of guantanamo: Politicized Human rights”, WOLA, http://www.wola.org/commentary/the_prisoners_of_guantanamo_politicized_human_rights)//Jmoney
The proposal to receive various Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release has become the central issue in Uruguay’s electoral race. While some of the questions that are emerging in the public debate are valid and deserve to be answered, what is really happening is the politicization of an issue that deserves to be treated as a humanitarian issue, an issue of human rights
.
The darkest stain on U.S. human rights history
in recent decades is the Guantanamo Bay detention facility
.
Hundreds of individuals have been held there since 2002, almost all of them without trial, under a dubious
American interpretation of the laws of war. The “war” in question is the war on terror, which seems to have no end.
The United States has created a humanitarian and legal mess out of which it can’t seem to find its way.
Debate surrounding the facility and its closure has dragged on for so long that it has fallen from the national consciousness.
Before President Obama was elected in 2008, he pledged to close Guantanamo. But it didn’t happen in the first term. In the second term he renewed that commitment, but
Congress has made closing the facility increasingly difficult. As this political standoff plays out year after year in Washington, the 149 prisoners still held at Guantanamo are left in limbo.
While some were certainly involved in acts of war or terror, individuals were brought to Guantanamo for many reasons—including that the U.S. paid bounties for turning people in, a technique that often nets more than those intended.
About half of those currently detained have been “cleared for release,” meaning that every conceivable part of the U.S. government has been asked if there is any reason to view these people as a threat to the United States. For these 79 individuals, the answer has been no, but they are still being held captive.
Congress has passed laws that will not allow them to be released into the United States. Most of this group cannot go home because of the risks they face in their homelands. Without a plausible return home or to the U.S., these 79 are left with nowhere to go.
But for every problem, there is a solution—even limbo.
This one will need uncommon political courage and help from leaders outside of the United States who are committed to human rights and willing to bear potential political costs at home because they have the capacity to resolve a serious human rights issue.
It will always be politically controversial for any nation to resettle Guantanamo prisoners authorized for release. How unfortunate that those prisoners who could have a new life in Uruguay now remain captives of a partisan electoral debate.

If Uruguay receives these Guantanamo detainees, the nation must use this act as what it is, a demonstration that Uruguay is a leader on human rights issues.
Those of us who work on behalf of human rights on the continent will owe a debt of gratitude with those who
, through this resettlement, help to put an end to the human rights catastrophe that is Guantanamo.

--- Senior Counsel in Human Rights First’s Law and Security Program, Daphne Eviatar investigates and reports on U.S. national security policies and practices and their human rights implications (Daphne Eviatar, 7/6/15, “Remaining brit at Guantanamo highlights the contradictions of independence day”, Huffington
Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/remaining-brit-at-gitmo-h_b_7736724.html)//Jmoney
While Americans were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday with fireworks and beach vacations, some prominent Brits were noting a certain irony.
"[W]hile the US is celebrating its freedom, and its foundation under the rule of law, the continuing detention of men at Guantánamo
-- largely without charge or trial -- continues to undermine America's notion of itself and its international standing," wrote more than 90 UK politicians, celebrities and activists in an open letter to President Obama seeking the return of former British resident and current Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer.
The Saudi-born 48-year-old has been imprisoned at the U.S. detention center in Cuba for the past 13 years. The signatories, which include six former cabinet ministers, a former attorney general and the comedian Russell Brand, note that Aamer has twice been approved for release from Guantanamo, first under President Bush and again by President Obama's interagency task force.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has requested Aamer's release, as did a parliamentary motion supported by the British government in March. A cross-party delegation of MPs also visited Washington,
D.C., in May to establish a timeline for Aamer's transfer. Nonetheless, the U.S. has failed to say when he will be released or why it hasn't transferred him home already.
"
It is difficult for us to shake off the depressing notion that the Obama administration is indifferent to the repeated requests of the British government
," the letter reads. "
It is a slap in the face for America's staunchest friend."
Critics of the Guantanamo Bay detention center have long been saying that its continued existence hurts U.S. relations with its allies
. This may be the most public demonstration of that negative impact so far.
So why hasn't Aamer been released yet?
British officials
have told The Guardian that there are "extreme 'sensitivities' surrounding the case
," which may relate to the fact that
Aamer has accused British security officials of intentionally feeding false information about him to the Americans. Aamer says he was detained in Afghanistan while working for an Islamic charity. He was handed to the U.S. military in exchange for a payment and subsequently tortured at a secret CIA prison in the presence of British soldiers and
M15 agents, he says.
For some undisclosed reason, the Obama administration has approved his transfer to Saudi Arabia, but so far not to the UK.
Of course,
Aamer is only one of 52 prisoners still stuck at the Guantanamo prison despite having been approved for release or transfer
. Although President
Obama has
claimed he wants to close the notorious detention center since taking office, he's made little effort
to actually do that. Just last week he finally appointed a new State Department envoy to facilitate transfers to other countries of the cleared detainees, after leaving that position vacant for six months.
--- Senior members of the British Parliament (Jeremy Corbyn, David Davis, Andrew
Mitchell, Andy Slaughter, 6/5/15, “Obama’s Slap in Britain’s Face”, nytimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/opinion/obamas-slap-in-britainsface.html?_r=0)//Jmoney
London –
Two weeks ago, we went to Washington to argue for the immediate release of Shaker Aamer, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay
. Mr. Aamer’s wife and four children live in London but he has yet to meet his youngest child, Faris, who is now 13.
We are unlikely political bedfellows from the left and right of british politics.
The four of us agree on almost nothing, with this exception:
Mr. Aamer, a British permanent resident, must be freed and transferred to British soil immediately.
Mr. Aamer was picked up by the Northern Alliance in November 2001 in Afghanistan, where he was doing charity work, and sold for a bounty. He was taken to the notorious Bagram Prison, where he was brutally tortured, before being sent to Guantanamo in Febraury 2002. In 2007, under President George W. Bush’s administration,

he was cleared for release. In 2010, under President Obama, he was cleared for release again – after an arduous process requiring unanimous agreement by six agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Departments of State and Defense.
We should never have had to make the trip to Washington. Earlier this year, during his visit to the United States,
Prime Minister David Cameron asked
Mr. Obama to release Mr. Aamer. The president promised to pursue the matter. On March 17, the House of
Commons passed an unusual unanimous notion calling for Mr. Aamer’s immediate release and transfer to
Britain. Since that time little, if anything, has been done by the United States.
We heard during our visit that “Congress has prevented transfers”; yet, under current legislation,
Mr. Obama could give notice to Congress and then transfer Mr. Aamer 30 days later, as the British government has requested.
We heard that there may be “security considerations.”
Any suggestion
that Britain does not have the legal structures, the security and intelligence skills, or the care capacity to address any issues with Mr. Aamer is deeply insulting.
We are, after all, America’s most trusted ally, and have stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States, extending our blood and treasure
, in two controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our troops are deployed together
in our joint determination to defeat fundamentalist terrorism. Our government, from the prime minister on down, would not press this case with such determination if we believed that
Mr. Aamer would put either our allies or our own citizens at risk.
We came to Washington
to meet with Obama administration officials and senators to express the British Parliament’s anger that after twice being cleared for transfer, Mr. Aamer is nevertheless facing his 14 th year of detention
. We were astonished to find a similar degree of incomprehension among the senators we met from both parties. Though we appreciated their concern, their lack of knowledge about Mr.
Aamer’s case indicates a troubling failure by the White House to communicate the importance of it.
Our impressions were confirmed during meetings with the president’s special envoys for the closure of Guantanamo. Although almost five months have passed since Mr.
Cameron’s request to Mr. Obama, the Defense Department’s special envoy, Paul M. Lewis, and the State Department’s acting special envoy, Charles Trumbull, were unable to adequately answer our questions regarding a timeline for Mr. Aamer’s transfer.
We left feeling shortchanged.
If the president has any intention of closing Guantanamo, it will not be accomplished by complaining about Congress, whose members seem to have not been given even basic information about the detainees still held there or about the special case of Mr. Aamer. Mr. Obama must keep others informed – particular when the omission damages relations with America’s closest partner, as we assured the senators and special envoys that it has.
This is particularly unforgivable omission in Mr. Aamer’s case because he has never been charged with anything, has been twice cleared for transfer, and is suffering from ill health. Over a decade in Guantanamo would be a long punishment for any crime, if one had actually been committed
. Fifteen other British detainees have recently been returned to us and none have been guilty of recidivism. Indeed, while our request for Mr. Aamer’s return has not yet been granted, the American government has seen fit to pay for the transfer of other detainees to Kazakhstan and
Uruguay –
neither of which has a security or care structure equal to Britain’s. There is simply no reason, domestic or international, for the United States to keep Mr.
Aamer in custody.
It is difficult for us to shake off the depressing notion that the Obama administration is indifferent to the repeated requests of the British government. It is a slap in the face for America’s staunchest friend.
These things matter in the war against terrorism. All four of us are senior members of Parliament who represent minority and Muslim communities in our constituencies.
The scourge of terrorism will never be defeated unless we can win the hearts and minds of those who might be receptive to the terrorists’ message. And respect for justice and for the rule of law is essential in that battle.>

(Friends Committee on National Legislation, 2014, “The Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay: A Dark Chapter”, http://fcnl.org/issues/torture/the_detention_facility_at_guantanamo_bay_a_dark_chapter/)//Jmoney
There’s no way around it— the sheer cost to uphold Guantanamo showcases just how economically irresponsible it is to keep the facility open. It costs more than $3 million
per year to hold each detainee
at Guantanamo, meaning that it costs
American taxpayers nearly $400 million to keep the facility operating every year.
To put this in perspective, it costs 100 times more money to hold an individual at Guantanamo than in a high security federal prison in the United
States
. Gitmo is now considered the most expensive prison in the world, a point that makes it even more difficult to justify its continued existence.
--- (Jackie Speier, Janurary 2015, “Guantanamo prison is wasteful and un-american. Shut it down”, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-wasteful-and-un-american-guantanamo-prison-must-be-shut-down/2015/01/15/70abcb06-9c35-11e4-bcfb-
059ec7a93ddc_story.html)//Jmoney
We have been told that holding prisoners at Guantanamo for more than a decade is a necessary price for freedom. No matter what Nicholson’s character says, we can handle the truth, and the truth is that the prison in Cuba is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars
, makes us less safe and runs contrary to our values as Americans.
In September, I visited Guantanamo to see how detainees were being treated and to better understand the costs of the operation. Walking around the dilapidated facility, I saw that
Guantanamo is truly a relic, symbolizing a flawed strategy to house an ever-dwindling number of detainees.
Of the 779 detainees who have been held there, 657 have been transferred to the few countries willing to take them. The current population is down to 122— 54 of whom are slated for release — but instead of closing the center, the Pentagon has asked for $290 million for building upgrades.
Holding a single prisoner at Guantanamo costs $3.3 million per year
, more than 40 times the cost of holding a prisoner in a
“supermax” prison in the United States.
The logistical chain required to support the facility contributes to this price tag.
A desalination plant provides water, but food and supplies must be shipped in.
There are 2,268 staffers at Guantanamo, and medical personnel alone outnumber detainees
.
Medical costs are a growing portion of facility costs.
According to a New York Times report, when a detainee needed a stent,
$1 million was spent on a mobile cardiac catheterization lab
. The detainee refused the procedure, and the equipment was left to decay outdoors. When another detainee needed a kidney stone removed, the military imported a laser lithotripsy machine along with a urologist, all at massive expense to taxpayers. Such procedures will become only more complicated and expensive as these detainees age.

Martin
, Professor, International Law, “Should Human Rights Take a Back Seat in Wartime?” REAL CLEAR WORLD, interviewed by Casey L. Coombs,
1—11—
, www.realclearworld.com/articles/2012/01/11/national_defense_authorization_act_scheinin_interview-full.html, accessed 8-21-13.
CLC: As a world leader and active promoter of universal human rights, the practice of indefinite detention without charge would seem to clash with U.S. ideals
. Could you comment on this contradiction? MS:
One of the main lessons learned in the
international fight against terrorism is that counter-terrorism professionals
have gradually come to learn and admit that human rights violations are not an acceptable shortcut in an effective fight against terrorism.
Such measures
tend to backfire in multiple ways
.
They result in legal problems by hamper ing prosecution, trial and punishment
.
The use of torture is a clear example
here.
They
also tend to alienate
the communities with which authorities should be working
in order to
detect and prevent terrorism
. And they add to causes of terrorism,
both by perpetuating " root causes " that involve the alienation of communities and by providing " triggering causes " through which bitter individuals
make the morally inexcusable decision to turn to
methods of terrorism.
The NDAA is just one more step in the wrong direction, by aggravating the counterproductive effects of human rights violating measures put in place in the name of countering terrorism. CLC: Does the NDAA afford the U.S. a practical advantage in the fight against terrorism?
Or might the law undermine its global credibility? MS:
It is hard to see any practical advantage gained through the NDAA
. It is just another form of what I call symbolic legislation, enacted because the legislators want to be seen as being "tough" or as "doing something." The law is written as just affirming existing powers and practices and hence not providing any meaningful new tools in the combat of terrorism. By constraining the choices by the executive, it nevertheless hampers e ffective counter-terrorism work, including criminal investigation and prosecution, as well as international counter-terrorism cooperation
, markedly in the issue of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Hence, it carries the risk of distancing
the
U nited
S tates from its closest allies and the international community generally
. And of course these kinds of
legal provisions are always open for bad faith copying by repressive governments that will use them for their own political purposes
.
(Therese, policy associate in international affairs at The Century Foundation, 5-12-13, "How Guantanamo Bay's Existence Helps Al-Qaeda Recruit More
Terrorists" The Atlantic) www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/how-guantanamo-bays-existence-helps-al-qaeda-recruit-more-terrorists/274956/
While these human rights issues are egregious in their own right, and a vigilant minority continues to pressure the Obama administration on the situation, in the bigger picture, the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay is damaging our national security on a daily basis.
Guantanamo Bay has often been the focus of jihadist media and propaganda. Just recently, the Islamic
Emirate of Afghanistan--the mouthpiece of the Taliban-- put out a statement calling attention to the ongoing hunger strike at Guantanamo
Bay. The brief message claims that the hunger strike at the prison has been going on for forty days (as of March 24) and calls for international rights organizations to "spread awareness about the plight of the destitute inmates."
Guantanamo
Bay has become a salient issue used in jihadist propaganda. In 2010
, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (
AQAP
) released the first issue of Inspire
, their English language recruitment magazine. To date, AQAP has released 10 issues of Inspire, and the plight of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has been featured prominently in several issues.
In the 2010 inaugural issue of Inspire, an essay by Osama bin Laden mentions "the crimes at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo . . . which shook the conscience of humanity." Tellingly, bin Laden points out that "there has been no mentionable change" at Guantanamo and the prison is noted again later in the issue. Gitmo features even more prominently in Issue 2 of Inspire. The essays of Abu Sufyan al-Azdi and Uthman al-Gamidi, two former detainees who returned to AQAP upon their release, call new individuals to join the jihad, whether at home or abroad. In Issue 7, Yahya Ibrahim notes that Guantanamo Bay
"exposed the West for what it really is" and "showed the world the American understanding of human rights." Most troubling, in the latest issue of Inspire released early this month, AQAP mentions Guantanamo Bay several times.
In a prelude to the attention that the hunger strikers have been paid lately, Abu Musab al-Suri notes that Guantanamo is not only "filled with . . . mujahedeen" but also with "hundreds of innocent civilians." While it is quite rich to hear AQAP's concern for the plight of innocent civilians, given the high number of Yemenis cleared for release still at Guantanamo, this is a very salient message for
AQAP's base in Yemen.
The constant refrain about Guantanamo Bay may be inspiring jihadist action. Anwar al-Awlaki issued a lecture discussing the plight of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay before his death by drone strike in 2011.

Awlaki's lectures still play an important role in recruiting impressionable individuals to jihad.
As we know, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan was impressed by Awlaki's message and was encouraged (although not directed) to carry out an attack on the states by the cleric himself.
The ramifications of the indefinite nature of Guantanamo have not been lost on American military and policymakers, either. Air Force Officer Matthew Alexander, who was in charge of an interrogation team in Iraq, states that many of his subjects mentioned Guantanamo in their discussions and that it remains a strong recruitment tool
. Not only does it aid recruitment, but in Alexander's words,
"the longer it stays open the more cost it will have in
U.S. lives."
John Brennan, now director of the Central Intelligence Agency, echoed Alexander's words just less than two years ago: "The prison at Guantánamo Bay undermines our national security, and our nation will be more secure the day when that prison is finally and responsibly closed." General Colin Powel underlined U.S. awareness of this perception in 2010.
Powell said unless Guantanamo is closed, it gives "radicals an opportunity to say, you see, this is what America is all about. They're all about torture and detention centers."
In Powell's words, the continuation of Guantanamo reinforces Al-Qaeda's "own positions." General David Petraeus' own words on Guantanamo Bay now seem prophetic. Just a year into Obama's first term
Petraeus stated, I've been on the record on that for well over a year as well, saying that it [Guantanamo] should be closed. . . . And I think that whenever we have, perhaps, taken expedient measures, they have turned around and bitten us in the backside. . . . Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are nonbiodegradables. They don't go away.
The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick.
As the ongoing hunger strike intensifies at Guantanamo Bay, this issue and the facility itself continues to undermine our national security. Joe Biden called Guantanamo the "greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world" in 2005. Eight years later, if human rights and budgetary concerns are not enough to end this intractable problem, maybe national security will be.
(Joshua, JINSA Fellow, Washington, DC-based consultant on national security studies, focusing primarily on terrorism, counterterrorism, and homeland security, 3-11-13, “Al Qaeda Threat to U.S. Not Diminished, Data Indicates” The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) http://www.jinsa.org/fellowshipprogram/joshua-sinai/al-qaeda-threat-us-not-diminished-data-indicates#.UbaiWvmsiSo
Conventional wisdom holds that the threat
to America posed by al Qaeda
and its affiliates is greatly diminished
compared to
9/11. Today, it is claimed, al Qaeda is less well organized, with many of its top leaders eliminated, and is so broken into geographically disparate franchises that it is unable to recruit, train, and deploy a specialized cell to carry out a comparable catastrophic attack against America. The fact that no al Qaeda terrorist attacks have been carried out in America over the last two years, while some 20 individuals have plotted to carry out attacks but were arrested and convicted during the pre-incident phases, is seen as evidence that this terrorist threat is decreasing domestically. Therefore, according to this thesis, security authorities should prepare for more numerous and frequently occurring but low casualty attacks mounted by less well-trained and capable homegrown operatives, particularly by what are termed "lone wolves."
When a more complete compilation of all the components
involved in terrorism are taken into account, however, the magnitude of the threat becomes much clearer and includes a higher likelihood of attempts to carry out catastrophic attacks as well as evidence that al Qaeda continues to recruit and prepare terrorist operatives in the U nited
S tates.
Downplaying the terrorist threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates also has significant political implications due in part to the more than $70 billion that is spent annually on America's domestic counterterrorism programs (with larger amounts expended for overseas operations), all of which need to be continuously justified as cost effective by Administration planners and Congressional appropriators. Such purported decline in al Qaeda attacks domestically
, however, is now being seized upon by those who favor reduced government funding for counterterrorism programs, including weakening the USA PATRIOT Act
, to support their position that a reduced threat requires reduced funding and resources.
When the trajectory of attacks by al Qaeda and its associates over the years are carefully studied,
however,
certain patterns recur.
Specifically, every time the threat is underplayed, it is invariably followed by a major attack. In the months leading up to the November 2012 elections, the media was filled with pronouncements that al Qaeda's threat had greatly diminished
as a result of the elimination of its leadership and the reduced operational role over attacks by what is termed "al Qaeda
Central" in Pakistan's tribal areas.
While accurate on one level, this did not stop al Qaeda and its affiliates from continuing to launch major terrorist attacks, including
that by its Libyan affiliate against the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi on September 11, 2012, which led to severe political repercussions for the Administration for its unpreparedness to anticipate such an attack.
This was followed by
the launching of the devastating cross-border attack against the natural gas facility in eastern Algeria
in mid-January by another al Qaeda affiliate in
Mali.
Thirty-six foreign workers were murdered in that attack, which, again, was unanticipated.
Moreover, the fact that a catastrophic attack against America comparable to 9/11 has not occurred over the past 11 years should not suggest that a future one is not being planned. In summer 2006, al Qaeda-linked operatives in London plotted to detonate liquid explosives on board 10 transatlantic airliners flying from the UK to America and
Canada. In
September
2009
, Najibullah
Zazi and his associates were arrested for plotting to conduct a suicide bombing attack against the New York City subway system. On Christmas Day, 2009,
Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab failed to

detonate plastic explosives while on board an airliner heading to Detroit.
Anwar al Awlaki, a former American extremist cleric, reportedly masterminded Abdulmutallab's operation. Awlaki was killed in a drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011. The killings of al Awlaki and Samir Khan, another American extremist who had made his way to Yemen in 2009, could well trigger a catastrophic attack by al Qaeda to avenge their deaths.
The recent capture of
Osama
Bin Laden's son-in-law
, Sulaiman abu Ghaith, and the decision to try him in New York City, is also likely to trigger a major revenge attack against America.
Finally, organizing catastrophic terrorist attacks requires
extensive planning, funding and preparation. A terrorist group that feels
itself strong will take its time to carefully plan a few but devastating attacks
, while a group that regards itself as weak may feel compelled to carry out frequent, but low-casualty attacks to demonstrate its continued relevancy. Some incident databases, such as a recent compilation of data about American al Qaeda terrorists by the UKbased Henry Jackson Society, only account for completed attacks
and convictions of those arrested.
If such counting is expanded to include other factors
, however, then the overall threat becomes much more severe. Other factors
, therefore, should include
the potential consequences of the thwarted attacks
had they not been prevented, the number of radicalized
Americans
who travel overseas to join al Qaeda-affiliated insurgencies, and the extent of radicalized activity by al Qaeda's American sympathizers in jihadi website forums and chatrooms.
A more complete accounting of the threat will
now reveal that the supportive extremist infrastructure for al Qaeda in America is actually not diminishing and that the purported "lone wolf" actors have actual ties to al Qaeda operatives overseas. We should not ,
therefore, also be misled into complacency if catastrophic attacks by al Qaeda do not occur for lengthy periods. Nor so by the comforting but false sense of security that comes with believing that "lone wolf" attacks in the United States are not a product of al Qaeda
recruitment and support. It is also possible, nevertheless, that al Qaeda's terrorist planners are considering both types of attacks, infrequent catastrophic and frequent low casualty. This may explain why al Qaeda's propaganda organs are calling on its radicalized followers in the West to take matters into their own hands and embark on any sort of attacks that may be feasible at the moment, but with further surprise attacks of a catastrophic nature still ahead.
[ Bunn, Matthew, Valentin Kuznetsov, Martin B. Malin, Yuri Morozov, Simon Saradzhyan, William H. Tobey, Viktor I. Yesin, and Pavel S. Zolotarev. "Steps to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism." Paper, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 2, 2013,
Matthew Bunn. Professor of the Practice of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School andCo-Principal Investigator of Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard
University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. • Vice Admiral Valentin Kuznetsov (retired Russian Navy). Senior research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Senior Military Representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense to NATO from 2002 to 2008. • Martin Malin.
Executive Director of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. • Colonel Yuri Morozov (retired Russian Armed
Forces). Professor of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences and senior research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, chief of department at the Center for Military-Strategic Studies at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces from 1995 to 2000. • Simon Saradzhyan. Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Moscow-based defense and security expert and writer from 1993 to 2008. • William Tobey.
Senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration from 2006 to 2009. • Colonel General Viktor Yesin (retired
Russian Armed Forces). Leading research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and advisor to commander of the
Strategic Missile Forces of Russia, chief of staff of the Strategic Missile Forces from 1994 to 1996. • Major General Pavel Zolotarev (retired Russian Armed Forces). Deputy director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Information and Analysis Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense from1993 to 1997, section head - deputy chief of staff of the Defense Council of Russia from 1997 to
1998.http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23430/steps_to_prevent_nuclear_terrorism.html]
I. Introduction
In 2011, Harvard’s Belfer Center
for Science and International Affairs and the Russian Academy of Sciences’
Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies published “The U.S. – Russia Joint Threat Assessment
on Nuclear Terrorism.”
The assessment analyzed the means, motives, and access of would-be nuclear terrorists
, and concluded that the threat of nuclear terrorism is urgent and real
.
The Washington and Seoul Nuclear Security Summits in 2010 and 2012 established and demonstrated a consensus among political leaders from around the world that nuclear terrorism poses a serious threat to the peace, security, and prosperity of our planet. For any country, a terrorist attack with a nuclear device would be an immediate and catastrophic disaster
, and
the negative effects would reverberate around the world far beyond the location and moment of the detonation. Preventing a nuclear terrorist attack requires
international cooperation
to secure nuclear materials, especially among those states producing nuclear materials and weapons.
As the world’s two greatest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia have the greatest//xperience and capabilities in securing nuclear materials and plants and, therefore, share a special responsibility to lead international efforts to prevent terrorists from seizing such materials and plants. The depth of convergence between U.S. and
Russian vital national interests on the issue of nuclear security is best illustrated by the fact that bilateral cooperation on this issue has continued uninterrupted for more than two decades, even when relations between the two countries occasionally became frosty, as in the aftermath of the August 2008 war in Georgia. Russia and the United States have strong incentives to forge a close and trusting partnership to prevent nuclear terrorism and have made enormous progress in securing fissile material both at home and in partnership with other countries. However, to meet the evolving threat posed by those individuals intent upon using nuclear weapons for terrorist purposes, the United

States and Russia need to deepen and broaden their cooperation. The 2011 “U.S. - Russia Joint Threat Assessment” offered both specific conclusions about the nature of the threat and general observations about how it might be addressed. This report builds on that foundation and analyzes the existing framework for action, cites gaps and deficiencies, and makes specific recommendations for improvement. “The U.S. – Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism” (The 2011 report executive summary): •
Nuclear terrorism is a real and urgent threat
. Urgent actions are required to reduce the risk.
The risk is driven by the rise of terrorists who seek to inflict unlimited damage, many of whom have sought justification for their plans in radical interpretations of Islam
; by the spread of information about the decades-old technology of nuclear weapons
; by the increased availability of weapons-usable nuclear materials; and by globalization, which makes it easier to move people, technologies, and materials across the world.
•
Making a crude nuclear bomb
would not be easy, but is potentially within the capabilities of a technically sophisticated terrorist group
, as numerous government studies have confirmed
. Detonating a stolen nuclear weapon would likely be difficult for terrorists to accomplish, if the weapon was equipped with modern technical safeguards (such as the electronic locks known as Permissive Action Links, or PALs).
Terrorists could
, however, cut open a stolen nuclear weapon and make use of its nuclear material for a bomb of their own
. •
The nuclear material for a bomb is small and difficult to detect, making it a major challenge to stop nuclear smuggling or to recover nuclear material after it has been stolen
. Hence, a primary focus in reducing the risk must be to keep nuclear material and nuclear weapons from being stolen by continually improving their security, as agreed at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in April 2010. •
Al-Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for almost two decades
.
The group has repeatedly attempted to purchase stolen nuclear material or nuclear weapons, and has repeatedly attempted to recruit nuclear expertise
.
Al-Qaeda reportedly conducted tests of conventional explosives for its nuclear program in the desert in Afghanistan
. The group’s nuclear ambitions continued after its dispersal following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Recent writings from top al-Qaeda leadership are focused on justifying the mass slaughter of civilians, including the use of w eapons of m ass d estruction, and are in all likelihood intended to provide a formal religious justification for nuclear use.
While there are significant gaps in coverage of the group’s activities, al-Qaeda appears to have been frustrated thus far in acquiring a nuclear capability; it is unclear whether the the group has acquired weapons-usable nuclear material or the expertise needed to make such material into a bomb. Furthermore, pressure from a broad range of counter-terrorist actions probably has reduced the group’s ability to manage large, complex projects, but has not eliminated the danger. However, there is no sign the group has abandoned its nuclear ambitions .
On the contrary, leadership statements as recently as 2008 indicate that the intention to acquire and use nuclear weapons is as strong as ever .
Owen B.
, chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at CU-Boulder, et al., April 19, 2007, “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” online: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf
To an increasing extent, people are congregating in the world’s great urban centers, creating megacities with populations exceeding 10 million individuals
. At the same time, advanced technology has designed nuclear explosives of such small size they can be easily transported in a car
, small plane or boat to the heart of a city
. We demonstrate here that a single detonation in the 15 kiloton range can produce urban fatalities approaching one million
in some cases, and casualties exceeding one million
. Thousands of small weapons still exist in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, and there are at least six other countries with substantial nuclear weapons inventories. In all, thirty-three countries control sufficient amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium to assemble nuclear explosives. A conflict between any of these countries involving 50-100 weapons with yields of 15 kt has the potential to create fatalities rivaling those of the Second World
War. Moreover, even a single surface nuclear explosion
, or an air burst in rainy conditions, in a city center is likely to cause the entire metropolitan area to be abandoned at least for decades
owing to infrastructure damage and radioactive contamination. As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana suggests, the economic consequences of even a localized nuclear catastrophe would most likely have severe national and international economic consequences
. Striking effects result even from relatively small nuclear attacks because low yield detonations are most effective against city centers where business and social activity as well as population are concentrated. Rogue nations and terrorists would be most likely to strike there
. Accordingly, an organized attack on the U.S. by a small nuclear state, or terrorists
supported by such a state, could generate casualties comparable to those
once predicted for a full-scale nuclear
“counterforce” exchange in a superpower conflict
. Remarkably, the estimated quantities of smoke generated by attacks totaling about one megaton of nuclear explosives could lead to significant global climate

perturbations
(Robock et al., 2007). While we did not extend our casualty and damage predictions to include potential medical, social or economic impacts following the initial explosions, such analyses have been performed in the past for large-scale nuclear war scenarios (Harwell and Hutchinson, 1985). Such a study should be carried out as well for the present scenarios and physical outcomes.

--- nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization (January 3 2008, “How to Close Guantanamo”, Human
Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/01/03/how-close-guantanamo#Why We Must Close Guantanamo)//Jmoney
The continued detention of hundreds of men without charge in Guantanamo is also bad counterterrorism policy
. As the U.S. Army's new field manual on counterinsurgency operations warns, fighting a nontraditional enemy like al Qaeda requires counterintuitive approaches. It is simply not possible to kill and capture every enemy in such a battle. Nor is it necessarily a good idea. "
Dynamic insurgencies can replace losses quickly,"
warns the manual.
The only way to win
, therefore, is to "cut off the sources of that recuperative power" by diminishing the enemy's legitimacy and appeal while increasing one's own
. The manual cautions that the United States loses its legitimacy, and therefore its ability to win the fight against al Qaeda, if it engages in illegitimate actions
. "Unlawful detention, torture and punishment without trial" are all cited as illegitimate actions to be avoided.20
The lesson derived from the counterinsurgency field manual is clear.
Locking up a few hundred detainees without charge in
a U.S. Navy base in
Cuba does little to diminish al Qaeda's threat
. To the contrary
, it fuels animosity toward the United States and becomes a talking point and recruiting tool for future terrorists. While such a policy may take a few would-be suicide bombers out of circulation, it aids al Qaeda's ability to recruit others.
A smart counterterrorism policy would instead focus on arresting, detaining, and trying the high-value al Qaeda members
– the planners, financiers, masterminds, and technological experts who, if let loose, would add the kind of value to al Qaeda and other terrorist networks offered by few others.
Some such detainees are already at Guantanamo, and they should be tried and held publicly accountable for their crimes.
In contrast, the detainees for whom the United States lacks any evidence to convict should be released from
Guantanamo's system of indefinite detention without charge, where they are likely of more value to the al
Qaeda terrorist network than they would be if they were back home in Kabul or Lahore.
--- nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization (January 3 2008, “How to Close Guantanamo”, Human
Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/01/03/how-close-guantanamo#Why We Must Close Guantanamo)//Jmoney
According to the administration, there are an estimated 70 to 150 detainees deemed too "dangerous" for release, but who cannot be tried
.25 The aggressive use of fairly expansive federal criminal laws to prosecute more of these detainees could whittle down these numbers. Anyone who has planned, conspired, aided, or abetted a criminal act can be charged and convicted – even if he did not carry out the act himself.
Yet no matter how aggressively the United States prosecutes these men, there will still be some group of detainees that are considered to be a future threat yet cannot be tried
. These are men that the United States fears may one day strap a suicide bomb to their backs and return to the battlefield.
Many argue that these men should be detained based on a prediction of future dangerousness, even if they cannot be tried
. Some detainees who have been released from Guantanamo have reportedly appeared on battlefields in Afghanistan – and others no doubt will as well.26 The United States, some argue, is better off keeping them behind bars.
But take this argument to its logical conclusion. Under this theory, the United States military could march through the streets of
Kandahar, Riyadh, or Islamabad, arrest and detain any dangerous looking male between the ages of 20 and 35
.
After all, at least some portion of them might one day join forces with al Qaeda or the Taliban, or want to.
But no prison is large enough to hold all of the angry young men in the world.

This argument also assumes a fixed supply of low-level fighters
and suicide bombers.
If these men are kept out of circulation, then there will be fewer attacks on the United States
or coalition partners.
Or so the thinking goes.
But remember the counterinsurgency field manual.
An insurgency like al Qaeda is not static, but fluid and dynamic.
If the particular detainees in Guantanamo are kept out of circulation, others
can – and will – fight in their place. The supply outstrips demand.
The high-profile detentions of a few dozen potentially dangerous men in Guantanamo do little to make the
United States safer. To the contrary, it delegitimizes U.S. moral authority, helps to fuel the
"recuperative power" of the enemy, and undercuts critical efforts to win hearts and minds.
The United States should do everything it can to mitigate the risks posed by the release of these men. It should press their home countries to lawfully monitor returned detainees' activities and to charge and detain anyone who commits a criminal act. But some countries are unable or unwilling to take on that role. Nearly 100 of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are Yemeni. It is unlikely that the United States will ever be adequately satisfied that Yemen is taking sufficient steps to monitor and respond to acts of terrorism within its borders. Does that mean that these Yemenis should be locked up without charge – possibly until the ends of their lives – based on an assessment that they might pose a future risk? No. They should be released. Doing so will require an assumption of risk.
It will require the United States to accept that at least some of these men may cross the border and join the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers and our allies another day.
General Barry McCaffrey, former U.S. drug czar, following an academic mission to Guantanamo Bay, advised the Pentagon: World opinion is so united against the detention facility that "there is now no possible political support for Guantanamo going forward."
It "may be cheaper and cleaner to kill them in combat then sit on them the next 15 years.
"27
General McCaffrey makes a point.
Those detained at Guantanamo present a greater threat to the United States than they would if they returned to the battlefield, where – under the laws of war – they can be shot and killed on sight.
(Friends Committee on National Legislation, 2014, “The Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay: A Dark Chapter”, http://fcnl.org/issues/torture/the_detention_facility_at_guantanamo_bay_a_dark_chapter/)//Jmoney
National security leaders agree: the existence of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is
more than just a moral crisis—it’s a threat to national security
.
As a symbol of torture and indefinite detention, Gitmo
has been—and continues to be—used as a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment
. According to John Brennan, director of the CIA, “
Our nation will be more secure the day when that prison is finally and responsibly closed.
” Brian
McKeon, Principal Deputy
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, recently agreed stating, “The greatest single action the United
States can take to fight terrorism is to close Guantanamo.”
--- (Jackie Speier, Janurary 2015, “Guantanamo prison is wasteful and un-american. Shut it down”, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-wasteful-and-un-american-guantanamo-prison-must-be-shut-down/2015/01/15/70abcb06-9c35-11e4-bcfb-
059ec7a93ddc_story.html)//Jmoney
Those who seek to keep Guantanamo open also rely on false assertions and fears about detainees going “back to the fight.” But recidivism rates are low.
Only 7 percent of the detainees released during the Obama administration were confirmed to have reengaged, compared with 19 percent during the Bush administration.
Meanwhile,
Guantanamo has become a rallying cry for others to take up arms against the United States
. The brutal interrogation techniques
once used at the facility were well documented
by the Senate intelligence committee’s report on CIA torture, and detainees on hunger strikes have been force-fed
.
These brutal actions have fueled hatred abroad and provided potent imagery for terrorist propaganda spread by
such groups as the Taliban and al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula. Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called
Guantanamo a “recruiting symbol” for terrorists and jihadists, which he saw as “the heart of the concern for
Guantanamo’s continued existence
.”
Before beheading journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, the Islamic

State evoked Guantanamo imagery by dressing the men in orange jumpsuits similar to those worn by detainees.
The jumpsuit resonates in propaganda because it is so contrary to our values as Americans and has endured for more than a decade.

Sarah E.
, Director, Human Rights and Security Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “U.S.-Russian Relations and the Democracy and Rule of Law Deficit,” CENTURY FOUNDATION REPORT, 20
, p. 3-4.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, every U.S. administration has considered Russia’s political trajectory a national security concern. Based on campaign statements and President Barack Obama’s early personnel choices, this perspective likely will affect policy toward Russia in some way for the foreseeable future.
While the
Obama
administration plans to cooperate with Moscow
on a number of issues, it will find that Russia’s current deficit in
the areas of democracy and the rule of law complicate the relationship and
may, in some cases, undermine
attempts at engagement.
The organizers of the Century Foundation Russia Working Group have labeled this policy problem “coping with creeping authoritarianism.” Results from nearly a dozen large, random sample surveys
in Russia since 2001 that examine the views and experiences of literally thousands of Russians, combined with other research and newspaper reporting, all s uggest the current democracy and rule of law deficit is rather stark
. The deficit does not diminish the importance of Russia in international affairs, nor is it meant to suggest the situation is unique to Russia. The internal conditions of many states have negative international security implications. As Europeans repeatedly pointed out during the administration of George W. Bush,
U.S. departures from the rule of law made the U nited
S tates increasingly problematic as a global partner
, whether through the use of force in Iraq or the manner in which the United States pursued and handled terrorist suspects. In fact, coping with authoritarian trends in Russia
(and elsewhere) will involve changes in U.S. policies
that have, on the surface, nothing to do with Russia. Bush administration counterterrorism policies that authorized torture, indefinite detention
of terrorist suspects, and the rendering of detainees to secret prisons and Guantánamo have had numerous negative unintended consequences for U.S. national security, including serving as a recruitment tool
for al Qaeda and insurgents in Iraq. Less often recognized, these policies also have undercut
whatever leverage the U nited
S tates had, as well as limited the effectiveness of American decision-makers, to push back on authoritarian policies adopted by,
among others, the
Putin administration. At its worst,
American departures from the rule of law
may have enabled abuse inside Russia.
These departures certainly left human rights defenders isolated.
Repairing the damage to U.S. soft power and reversing the departure from human rights norms that characterized the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies will provide the
Obama administration strategic and moral authority and improve the ability of the United States to work with allies. It also can have positive consequences for Obama’s Russia policy.
The changes
that need to be made in U.S. counterterrorism policies
, however politically sensitive, are somewhat more straightforward than the adjustments that must be made to respond to the complex issues concerning Russia.
The Obama administration must determine how best to engage Russian leaders and the population on issues of importance to the United States, given Russia’s poor governance structures, the stark drop in oil prices, Russia’s continued aspirations for great power status, and the rather serious resentment by Russians concerning American dominance and prior policies. The policy puzzle, therefore, is how to do all this without, at the same time, sacrificing our values and undercutting (yet again) U.S. soft power. This report assesses the political dynamics that have shaped Russia’s authoritarian drift, briefly addresses a few of the ways in which they matter for U.S. policy, and suggests several organizing principles to help the Obama administration manage this critical relationship. Possible approaches include working closely with Europe on a joint approach to Russia, accurately anticipating the unintended consequences of U.S. policy in one realm (such as Kosovo) for Russia policy, and embracing the rights of states to choose their own security alliances. A final important principle relates to U.S. engagement with Russians beyond the Kremlin. President Obama should speak directly to the Russian people, engaging in a manner that respects their interests and desires, but also reflects the core values of the Obama administration; that is, “reject[s] as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”6 The Obama administration also should endorse a platform and a process for a renewed dialogue between U.S. and Russian civil society. the VIew from the KremlIn Two interactive dynamics over the past several years have shaped the dominant approach by the Russian government to the outside world: the United States declined as a world power, and at the same time, the Russian state accumulated massive wealth from high gas and oil prices. Following what many in the Russian elite view as the “humiliation” of the 1990s, by 2008, Russia was no longer a status quo power. Instead, revisionist in nature, Russian authorities focused on the restoration of great power status.7 Fueled by petrodollars, the government tackled this project in numerous ways, including military exercises around the globe, soft power projects such as a twenty-four-hour-a-day English language cable news station, “think tanks” in New York and Paris, and perhaps most important, gas and oil distribution systems meant to make Russia a central player in energy security for decades to come.8 This restoration project undoubtedly will be slowed by the current financial crisis and drop in oil revenues, but the building blocks remain in place. As the restoration project evolved, the Putin administration increasingly challenged aspects of the post–World War II and post–cold war legal, security, and economic architecture, and suggested the need for new arrangements. Many in the Russian elite seemed to view the changes that have occurred in Europe over the past twenty years, such as the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European
Union (EU), as illegitimate, driven not by the choices of local governments or populations, but by the will of Washington. Nostalgia for the Soviet era, a related sentiment, is widely shared, and is an important source of former president and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s popularity.9 Some experts even suggest that many in Russia’s governing structures believe that Europe whole and free—that is, post–cold war Europe—is not in the security interest of Russia. The Carnegie Moscow Center’s Lilya
Shevtsova has labeled this view “great power nationalism” and observes that the “Putin-Medvedev-Lavrov doctrine” derives from the premise that Russia seeks to contain the West—while the West is busy trying not to offend Russia.10 Some other studies suggest that Russian policymakers have attempted, in fact, to divide the United States from Europe, and generally have preferred bilateral to multilateral engagement.11 At the United Nations, Russia, together with China, repeatedly has challenged international responses to gross human rights violations in Burma, Darfur, and Zimbabwe, and it has engaged in systematic efforts to undermine the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) election monitoring efforts and the Council of Europe’s human rights monitoring.12 Meanwhile, Russian leaders seem to believe the current European security arrangements are soft commitments, ripe for renegotiation and restructuring. President Dmitri Medvedev has, in fact, called for a new
“collective security arrangement,” at the same time reintroducing the concept of spheres of influence.13 All of these actions taken together, along with the decline in U.S. soft power, have looked at times as if some in the Russian government were trying to reset the table on human rights and international law, exporting its democracy and rule

of law deficit abroad. How best can the United States, together with Europe, respond to this situation? Two additional dynamics are relevant: Russian internal weaknesses, both political and economic, but also the degree to which the Russian authorities’ assessment of the condition of the international system is correct. For example, in August
2008, Russian government officials fecklessly deployed human rights and international law rhetoric to justify the Russian use of force in South Ossetia—was that just a murky reflection of the current deeply inconsistent international order?14 Will that calculation be challenged by the Obama administration? How can it do so effectively?
Will we see a new era of more robust international organizations, underpinned by respect for human rights and international law? If not, will we be in for a period of serious instability in Europe, along Russia’s borders? russIa’s democracy and rule oflaw defIcIt What makes these questions so pressing is the reality that American and European political strategy dating back to the early 1990s of integrating Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community and thus encouraging democratic development has largely failed. By
2009, Vladimir Putin’s policies have systematically closed off nearly all legitimate structures for voicing opposition. Many nongovernmental organizations are under daily pressure from the authorities.15 The parliament is dominated by a government-run party, United Russia, and outcomes of local and national elections are controlled by the authorities. The government controls national television. The few critically minded journalists that exist routinely are threatened or are under constant surveillance by the authorities, and twenty murders of journalists since 2000 have gone unsolved.16 One small newspaper known for its criticism of Kremlin policies has seen four of its journalists killed in recent years. At a minimum, the authorities have presided over an era of impunity, and at worst, some fear government authorities may have been directly involved in these deaths.17 Meanwhile, the democratic political opposition is extremely marginal and dysfunctional—irrespective of whatever government pressures are brought to bear on it. Russia has no leading liberal figures that might emerge as national leaders at present. In years past, the fighting among liberal parties was legendary, and led to multiple fratricidal losses in single-mandate districts, as liberal parties ran against one another—back when there were competitive elections for parliamentary seats.18 Today, it is unclear when or how the democratic opposition will repair itself. Yet, as political space has shrunk steadily in the past ten years, the majority of Russians do not appear to mind. In terms of the younger generation, the conventional wisdom that wealth would lead to a demand for democracy has not been borne out; only about
10 percent of survey respondents could be considered strongly supportive of democracy, while most are ambivalent. In the early 1990s, many in the West assumed that the older Soviet generation would be replaced eventually by a younger, pro-Western, pro-democratic generation. Experts and policymakers alike assumed this succession would be a natural course of events, like gravity. A similar conventional wisdom about the younger generation in Russia continues. It holds that iPods, lattes, skateboards, and other artifacts of Western consumer culture will translate into a desire for independent media, justice, and human rights. In 2005 and 2007, in an environment of steadily shrinking political space, a study based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) explored how young Russians viewed Soviet history and Stalin. Our nationally representative surveys of 16-to- 29-year-old Russians suggested that, despite economic prosperity, most young people gravitated enthusiastically to Vladimir
Putin’s ideological platform of revisionist history and nostalgia. The narrative advanced by the government concerning recent history quite simply resonated with this younger generation. In both surveys, a majority believed that Stalin did more good than bad and that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. These findings undoubtedly reflected coordinated strategic communications efforts by government authorities, including support of a teacher’s guide rewriting Soviet history, downplaying the deaths of millions of citizens, and effacing historical memory. These actions facilitated Russia’s authoritarian trend.19 In sum, the Russian middle class and support for authoritarian governance coexist. The tacit bargain of the past decade, however, in which dissenters were punished but Russians’ pocketbooks grew, may now be threatened by the international economic crisis. Oil prices plunged from a high of $147 a barrel in July 2008 to about
$40 a barrel in December 2008. If the price of oil stays low, the lubricating effect of oil and gas revenues may well dry up, laying bare Russia’s dysfunctional state institutions and challenging the authorities’ ability to govern. Economic hardship and poor governance seem, at least anecdotally, to correlate with an increase in public protest and nervousness on the part of the ruling authorities.20 Perhaps, in the long run, the mix of economic hard times and poor governance will stimulate a greater demand for democracy and the rule of law in Russia, as citizens grow unhappy with state institutions that do not function and link that dysfunction to poor governance. In the near term, we can expect growth in nationalism and xenophobia. 21 To be sure, the democracy and rule of law deficit and the growth in nationalism pose problems primarily for
Russians. In the twenty-first century, independent investigative journalism and the legitimate use of courts for prosecution are necessary to fight corruption. Today, Russia is plagued by corruption, and the Russian authorities dominate both television and court decisions.22 Independent newspapers and Internet sites exist, but journalists who have engaged in investigative journalism have been killed or live under threat.23 In a state where the rule of man predominates, the population experiences the police as predatory rather than protective. Torture in police stations is said to be common and police officers who have been rotated through Chechnya are said to be especially abusive.24 In a 2004 CSIS survey of 2,400 Russians ages 16 to 65, 41 percent of respondents feared arbitrary arrest by the police.25 In a 2007 CSIS survey of 2,000 Russians ages 16 to 29, 62 percent of respondents fully or partially distrusted the police.26 While one cannot make direct comparisons for methodological reasons, it is worth bearing in mind a recent study of attitudes toward police in China, where only 25 percent reported distrust.27 Undoubtedly, the democracy and rule of law deficit varies regionally, but it is particularly worrisome in the southern regions of Russia. The government’s approach to what it perceives as widespread radical Islamic sentiment in the North
Caucasus has increased violence rather than contained it. Between May 1 and August 31, 2008, there were at least 282 incidents, and between September 1 and December
31, 2008 there were at least 333.28 When the situation is at its most dire, the Russian government appears not to control this part of its territory. Many experts worry that there will be war in the North Caucasus in 2009, or possibly that, south of the border, a Russian-Georgia war will break out again.29 That prognosis may be overly gloomy, but violence is clearly on the rise and the socioeconomic conditions in the region are dire. why It matters What does any of this have to do with the Obama administration?
The democracy and rule of law deficit in Russia has a range of security and human rights implications for the United States and our allies in Europe. For example, the
Obama administration comes to office with a number of arms control goals. These plans may be complicated by the absence of Russian military reform that, in turn, correlates with abuse inside the army. (They are also complicated by continued government reliance on nonconventional forces: in September 2008, President Medvedev committed to modernizing the nuclear arsenal.30) Serious, joint counterterrorism efforts with the United States, Europe, and Russia are likely to remain illusive as long as the police and security services are corrupt and abusive, and the media, a potential source to expose that corruption, is largely controlled by the government. Even at the nongovernmental, track-two level, it is now difficult to have the sort of transatlantic policy dialogue on terrorism that has been common among other nations and societies since 2001.31 The most dire evidence suggests that security service personnel or contractors have been deployed abroad, in European cities, to eliminate Kremlin enemies.
In the most famous example, British authorities have sought the extradition from Moscow of former KGB bodyguard and current Duma member Andrew Lugovoi for the murder by Polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006.32 Kremlin proxies, such as Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov, may have agents doing the same on his behalf on the streets of Austria, also with apparent impunity.33 At a minimum, the Russian authorities seem to have drawn a red line at additional enlargement of Euro-Atlantic organizations. Instead of allowing states and societies to decide for themselves what alliances and security or economic arrangements they want, Russian officials speak of “zones of interest” and “neutral” spaces—presumably such as Ukraine. In the worst case scenario, the Kremlin might decide to probe the resolve of existing NATO and EU security commitments. Presumably, this realization led General James Craddock to request that NATO begin defense planning for the
Baltic states.34 Some believe, although the evidence is not clear, that the May 2007 cyber attack on Estonian government agencies, banks, newspapers, and other organizations was a first probe by the Russian government.35 In the August 2008 war in Georgia, for which all sides deserve some blame, experts saw evidence of additional
Russian government cyber attacks and a prime example of blatant disregard for international law as the Russian government sought to change an internationally recognized border by force.36 Meanwhile, existing Euro-Atlantic organizations are negatively and directly affected by Russia’s democracy and rule of law deficit. In recent years, the
European Court of Human Rights has heard far more cases from Russia than any other country, effectively substituting for Russia’s domestic judiciary. Some European human rights lawyers argue that this situation is severely undermining the court’s efficacy and ability to handle cases from a broad range of countries. Moreover, the Russian government increasingly has failed to compensate victims or their families, apparently now risking its expulsion from the Council of Europe.37 According to numerous
OSCE officials, the Kremlin has waged a systematic campaign to undercut the organization’s various monitoring efforts.38 The emergent norm of international election observation has been undermined by the Kremlin’s attempts to legitimize fraudulent elections at home and in neighboring states, supporting a wave of authoritarian governments in this region.39 an obama strategy The unprecedented economic crisis and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominate the initial agenda of the Obama administration. Worries over another Israeli Palestinian war, relations with Iran, nuclear proliferation, and the status of al Qaeda are somewhere next on the list of serious security challenges. Russia is, of course, on the list, as was made clear by Vice President Joseph Biden’s speech in Munich, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting with
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, the April London meeting and the July Moscow summit with President Obama and President Medvedev. The Obama administration appears keen not to let U.S.-Russia policy drift as it did in the Bush administration, and the Obama team is moving quickly to establish the organizing principles that would drive policy and guide how it copes with the political realities of Russia today, and seeking opportunities to change the relationship. As a guide to coping with creeping authoritarianism, and for planning purposes, the Obama administration
reasonably
can
(1) assume that Russia will continue, in the

near term, on an authoritarian trajectory while at the same time, try to encourage
President
Medvedev toward more openness and engagement
; (2) consider that Russia’s political regime may grow more brittle and thus potentially more fragile, rather than more robust and invulnerable; (3) propose and prepare for joint cooperation with Moscow on a number of issues, but anticipate that these plans could be overwhelmed by internal dynamics in Russia; and (4) understand and prepare for that which is difficult to anticipate, such as the depth and length of the economic crisis, and the potential divisions within Russian leadership that might emerge over a range of issues such as whether and how to cooperate with the United States and how to address the effects of the crisis, including the use of force against civilians to stop public protest.40 The ability of any U.S. administration to shape what happens inside Russia has long been exaggerated and misunderstood. The impact of foreign assistance clearly matters to those individuals who receive funds and technical training, but recent evidence suggests that how the U nited
S tates conducts itself in the world has far more weight in terms of its ability to bolster or undermine democracy, human rights and the rule of law in other countries.
41 For example,
U.S. noncompliance with human rights norms and laws has enabled
, although not caused,
Russia’s authoritarian drift. Therefore, a robust and comprehensive effort to opt back in to international legal frameworks will have important knock-on effects for our relations with
Russia, in addition to bolstering our ability to work with allies. The United States needs to shape the larger policy context in a positive, rather than a negative, way. 42 An array of new U.S. policies unrelated to Russia
(such as closing Guantánamo, ending detention without charge
, and halting unlawful interrogation of terror suspects) can help restore U.S. soft power, as well as repair the international architecture that Russia
(correctly) views as weak and that it
(regrettably) seeks to replace. If the United States once again is associated with justice
instead of injustice, it will do much to shore up human rights activists inside Russia. It will also challenge core assumptions that have taken hold within the Russian elite about the hypocrisy and weakness of democracy and human rights norms within the international system.
Harlan
, senior advisor, Atlantic Council, “The Third Russian Revolution,” UPI, 6—12—
, www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-
View/2013/06/12/Outside-View-The-third-Russian-Revolution/UPI-84461371009900/, accessed 8-7-13.
Make no mistake : On the current trajectory, Russia won't be immune to
many of the forces that provoked
the socalled colored revolutions in
adjacent states and even the misnomered
Arab Awakening. A third Russian revolution is unfolding .
The only questions are when will that revolution reach a critical mass and, most importantly, will the forces of autocracy or pluralism carry the day? Russia, of course, experienced two revolutions in the 20th century. The Kaiser's Germany provoked the first by sending Lenin from Switzerland to Russia in the famous sealed train in 1917.
That led to the undoing of the tsar and the Kerensky government as well as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended the war with Germany and allowed the Bolsheviks to sweep away the opposition. The second revolution came about in some seven decades later. The causes were a corrupt and fundamentally dishonest political system kept in place by a disciplined central leadership and dictatorship of the party. But that required able or at least competent leadership. Instead, the ruling Politburo became a genitocracy headed by sick, old men. Leonid Brezhnev took years to die and was replaced by two even less well general secretaries. In the mid-1970s, CIA Director William
Colby repeatedly predicted Brezhnev's pending demise. It wasn't until 1982 that Colby's forecast came true. In the succession process, a few younger members were elevated to the Politburo. Because of the succession of antiquated leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev found himself moving from post to post from his appointment to the Politburo in
1979. In each post, he realized that the Soviet Union was an empty shell and each department was grossly mismanaged and underperforming. Six years later, when he became general secretary, Gorbachev was determined to save the Soviet Union and modernize the failing system. Gorbachev's tools were glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). The floodgates of reform were fully opened and the old and unworkable system couldn't resist them. By 1991, the Soviet Union was no more. In the two decades since, Vladimir
Putin has emerged as the Ironman of Russia.
In the process,
Russia has been
described and viewed by many as a kleptocracy ruled by the few who have pillaged national wealth
for their own benefits. Under what Republicans and
Democrats alike in the United States see as a government of and by thugs, human rights have been violated ; dissidents and members of the media arrested; and opponents of the Kremlin subjected to purges and show trials leading to long prison sentences.
Russia's immediate neighbors are fearful of the return of the aggressive Russian bear anxious to spread its influence through manipulating its oil and natural gas reserves for political purposes and through military maneuvers designed to intimidate. Further, cyberattacks, principally against Estonia, reinforce this perception of a neo-Soviet Union under the leadership of former KGB Colonel Putin. And Putin's commitment to far greater military spending as well as unwillingness to accept NATO's missile defenses raises sinister possibilities.
Within Russia, discontent
on the part of many Russians is waxing. Outright theft on the part of oligarchs has gone too far. Persecution
of political opposition is particularly vexing
. And the health and longevity of a declining population
reflects more than excesses of consumption of vodka and harsh winters. Indeed, as a buffer to Putin's intent to ramp up his military, the Kremlin faces a very limiting factor: 90 percent of all Russian youth are unfit for military service. Unfortunately, the West in general and the United States in particular have never been very good at Kremlinology (or indeed in understanding many foreign cultures).
Whether Putin is aware of the ticking time bomb over which he presides or not, Russia is still very important to Western interests
. Syria and Iran are two major crises where Russian support could be important.

(Peter Vincent, Former US Intelligence Operative, War Scare: U.S.-Russia on the Nuclear Brink, netlibrary)
Russian internal troubles
—such as a leadership crisis, coup, or civil war— could aggravate Russia’s fears of foreign aggression and lead to a miscalculation of U.S. intentions and to nuclear overreaction
. While this may sound like a complicated and improbable chain of events,
Russia’s story
in the 1990s is one long series of domestic crises that have all too often been the source of nuclear close calls.
The war scares of August 1991 and October 1993 arose out of coup attempts. The civil war in Chechnya caused a leadership crisis in Moscow, which contributed to the nuclear false alarm during Norway’s launch of a meteorological rocket in January 1995. Nuclear war arising from Russian domestic crises is a threat the West did not face, or at least faced to a much lesser extent, during the Cold War.
The
Russian military’s continued fixation on surprise-attack scenarios into the 1990s, combined with Russia’s deepening internal problems, has created a situation in which the U nited
S tates might find itself the victim of a preemptive strike for no other reason than a war scare born of Russian domestic troubles.
At least in nuclear confrontations of the 1950s–1970s—during the Berlin crisis, Cuban missile crisis, and 1973 Middle East war—both sides knew they were on the nuclear brink. There was opportunity to avoid conflict through negotiation or deescalation. The nuclear war scares of the 1980s and 1990s have been one-sided Russian affairs, with the West ignorant that it was in grave peril.
—Director of Clinical Laboratory Science Program @ University of Missouri [Steven Starr (Senior scientist @ Physicians for Social Responsibility.), “The climatic consequences of nuclear war,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 March 2010, Pg. http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/the-climatic-consequences-ofnuclear-war]
This isn't a question to be avoided. Recent scientific studies have found that a war fought with
the deployed
U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals would leave Earth
virtually uninhabitable
. In fact,
NASA computer models have shown that even a
"successful" first strike by Washington or Moscow would inflict catastrophic environmental damage that would make agriculture impossible
and cause mass starvation. Similarly, in the January Scientific American, Alan Robock and Brian Toon, the foremost experts on the climatic impact of nuclear war, warn that the environmental consequences of a "regional" nuclear war would cause a global famine that could kill one billion people.

--- White House reporter for politico (Josh Gerstein, 1/12/15, “even in legacy mode, Obama’s unlikely to close gitmo”, POLITICO, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/white-house-guantanamo-bay-prison-114170.html)//Jmoney
President Barack
Obama is moving aggressively to shrink the prison population at Guantánamo
, whittling the number of detainees nearly in half since he took office.
But his drive to close the offshore prison before he leaves office in two years faces very long odds
.
Among the obstacles: existing law limits transfers, the new Congress seems even more hostile to loosening those restrictions than the previous one
, and the president’s plan to bring some prisoners to the U.S. for open-ended detention faces resistance from both the right and the left.
And that’s not all.
A terrorism threat that once seemed to be fading has reared up again, with gains by groups like the Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant and last week’s attack on a Paris newspaper stoking fears that released prisoners could return to the fight.
So, while Obama has defied Congress in recent months on issues like immigration and the environment
, and he has stepped up efforts to transfer prisoners overseas — moving a flurry of 21 abroad since mid-November — it’s far from clear that he’ll succeed in closing the base. That’s because just chipping away at the numbers won’t do it.
“
How close you are to closing the facility is not
now and never has been a function of the number of people held
,” said Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution. “
The group of people who are moving out now have been cleared for transfer for a long time
. … Not until they’re making disposition decisions for people who have not been cleared for transfer for five years is it that you’re going to convince me that we’re in some game-changing Guantánamo moment.”
Administration officials say their strategy is to keep cutting the number of prisoners, which started at 242 when Obama was sworn in and now stands at 127. When the tally drops below 100 and perhaps even as low as a few dozen, officials say, the cost per prisoner will zoom so high that keeping the facility open will be transparently foolish and lawmakers will abandon their resistance to closing the island jail.
“I think the facts and the logic will be very compelling, once we get it down to a small core,” said Cliff Sloan, who stepped down last year after 18 months as the State
Department envoy for Guantánamo closure. “I think the case becomes overwhelming for them to be able to be moved to the U.S. and placed in very secure facilities.”
One proponent of closing the facility said the recent flurry of transfers helps demonstrate that releasing prisoners doesn’t unleash chaos.
“I do think there is value in creating momentum and the demonstration effect of we do this and the sky is not falling,” said Elisa Massimino of Human Rights First.
Several sources also said that in private meetings in recent months Obama has personally and emphatically underscored his commitment to get the Guantánamo prison closed before he leaves office. One of his first acts on his first day was to order his new administration to close the facility, established by President George W. Bush to hold suspected terrorists in a location outside the legal protections of the U.S. judicial system. Its continued operation not only continues to draw criticism from allies and human rights advocates, but also threatens to tarnish Obama’s legacy.
“Nobody should underestimate the determination of the president to close Guantánamo in his presidency,” Sloan said. “He feels very strongly about it.”
In an interview last month, Obama stopped short of vowing to shut the prison by the time he leaves office, but he insisted that he would do what he could to make that happen.
“I’m going to be doing everything I can to close it,” he told CNN. “It is something that continues to inspire jihadists and extremists around the world, the fact that these folks are being held. It is contrary to our values and it is wildly expensive. We’re spending millions for each individual there.”
Some Guantánamo closure advocates and administration officials say they’re optimistic that the new Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, John McCain of Arizona, could help ease the current restrictions. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he favored closing Guantánamo — a stance that lulled Obama and his aides into believing it could happen within a year.
However, McCain told POLITICO his key concern at the moment is that released detainees not join up again with Islamic militant groups.
“I want to see a plan. I don’t want to see a situation [where] 30 percent of those released re-entered the fight,” McCain said last week. “They’re going to release lots more.
Of course, that’s their plan, to release as many as they can, in fact to the point where it costs X million for Y number of detainees.”
Some observers say it’s simply illogical to expect the current Republican-dominated Congress to be more open to closur e. And within hours of the new Congress being sworn in, Sen. Kelly Ayotte
(R-N.H.) made their point, announcing plans to pursue legislation that would essentially halt transfers of “high-risk” detainees.

“If Obama couldn’t win over Congress on this issue when the Democrats controlled one house, how much more likely is it he’ll be able to win over Congress when the Republicans control both houses?
” asked detainee lawyer
David Remes.
A Republican the White House once counted as an ally in the Guantánamo closure fight is already mocking the administration’s suggestion that costs should spur debate.
“I tell you whatever money we spend to keep a terrorist off the battlefield is money well spent,” Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) said.
“I can’t wait to debate somebody who thinks we can’t afford to keep a committed jihadist in jail.”
At the moment, the administration is not publicly arguing that detainees be released in order to save money, simply that it would be cheaper to house prisoners in the U.S.
But many in the GOP believe the White House is shipping prisoners out of Guantánamo so that costs per prisoner appear to rise sharply.
Graham and other critics also said the White House drive to shut the prison is ill-timed, given advances terrorist groups, particularly Islamic State
, have made in recent months.
ISIS is a Guantánamo detainee’s worst nightmare
,” Cully Stimson, a top Defense Department detainee official during the George W. Bush administration who now works at the Heritage Foundation, said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“It means further scrutiny and further review of all potential future transfers.”
The situation on both sides of Capitol Hill also looks grim for closure supporters. By 230-184, the
House cast a largely party-line vote last year to put a one-year halt on all transfers out of Guantánamo, a measure stripped out in talks with the Democratic-controlled Senate
. Republicans now have 12 more House seats than they did last year and have gained a majority in the Senate.
New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has long opposed bringing Guantánamo prisoners to the U.S. and played a key role in mustering congressional opposition to
Obama’s first-year plans to shutter it.
“Mitch McConnell, back in 2009, was the one who got the whole thing rolling,” said Chris Anders, a legislative liaison for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The challenges Obama faces in closing Guantánamo aren’t limited to conservatives or even to
Democrats fearful of Republican attacks on the issue. Many of the most strident backers of closing the prison approve of transferring prisoners to other countries but strongly oppose bringing them to the U.S. for detention without putting them on trial.
“The problem is not where the detention without charge or trial is happening — it’s the fact that it’s happening at all, whether it’s in Guantánamo or Kansas,” said Laura
Pitter of Human Rights Watch.
Several civil liberties and human rights groups have declared that they would rather see Guantánamo remain open than have the government detain prisoners without trial on U.S. soil. “Bringing the practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial to any location within the United States will further harm the rule of law and adherence to the Constitution,” the ACLU, Amnesty International and others told Congress in 2010.
“
It’s always been something of a half-baked idea to bring [detainees] here without charge or trial,” Anders said. “They keep proposing that and when everything gets rejected the administration acts surprised Congress didn’t go along.”
--- politics reporter for the Washington Times (Tom Howell Jr., 6/16/15, “House GOP votes to keep checks on Obama’s power to transfer
Gitmo detainees”, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/obamas-guantanamo-transfer-power-detainees-rejecte/)//Jmoney
House Republicans beat back an effort Tuesday to remove parts of an intelligence bill that would prohibit the use of funds to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and make it harder for the administration to house
the suspected terrorists
on U.S. soil.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, pushed to unshackle the White House, saying he couldn’t support the overarching bill to authorize funding for the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies unless the Guantanamo measures were removed.

“Keeping Guantanamo prison open serves as a recruitment tool for militants,” he said. “It undercuts our relationships with our allies and undermines our international standing.”
But his amendment failed on a 246-176 vote after Republicans said they were putting national priorities first and keeping America safe from “people who don’t like us.”
“I’m sorry,
Boko Haram and other do not hate us only because of the prison
,” said Rep. Doug Collins, Georgia Republican, referring to an extremist group that has been plaguing West Africa. “
They hate use because we’re free.
They hate us because we have an society that is open.”
He noted there were no detainees at Guantanamo when terrorists “rammed planes into the World Trade Center” on Sept. 11, 2001.
Rep. Alcee Hastings, Florida Democrat, said while terrorist groups would still attract recruits, a shuttered Guantanamo would be “one less arrow in their quiver.”
For years, Mr. Obama has pushed to close the prison by working with foreign nations to transfer detainees while putting security measures in place to mitigate their threat.
“Operating this facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists,” the White House said in its veto threat to the intelligence bill. “Rather than taking steps to bring this chapter of our history to a close, as the President has repeatedly called upon Congress to do, this bill aims to extend it.”
House Speaker John A.
Boehner
, Ohio Republican, and others have accused the administration of transferring prisoners tied to terrorist groups
, including six who were sent to Oman in recent days, with little oversight.
“
The administration should be honest with the American people regarding the detainees’ terrorist affiliations and activities and about what steps are being taken to prevent their return to terrorism,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire Republican, said after the Oman transfer.
--- political reporter for IJ Review (Joe Perticone, 6/23/15, “Gitmo detainees have been returning to terrorism-now these congressmen are trying to stop it”, IJReview, http://www.ijreview.com/2015/06/353328-preventing-guantanamo-bay-detainees-from-reengaging-in-battle/)//Jmoney
The Guantánamo Bay Naval Station is a 45 square mile base that opened in Cuba in 1903. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, President George W.
Bush repurposed the facilities in order to hold suspected terrorists.
But after succeeding Bush, President Obama has been actively transferring detainees out of Guantánamo Bay, with the goal of it being permanently closed. As a result, the facility’s population has fallen from 242 to 116 over the past six years.
But the main fear over releasing the detainees is that they will eventually return to terrorist activities
. Brian McKeon, the
Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, testified
before Congress in February, painting a dark picture of the released terrorists:
“
A primary concern
we have regarding a potential transfer is whether a detainee will ‘return to the fight’
or otherwise reengage in acts that threaten the United States
or U.S. persons…
We take the possibility of reengagement very seriously.”
According to the Senate Armed Services Committee,
6.8 percent of detainees have re-engaged
in terrorist activity during Obama’s tenure as president.
The figure, which is considerably smaller than estimations of the Bush administration (19 percent), still has members of Congress very concerned.
In an interview with IJReview, Representative Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who chairs the House Subcommittee on National Security, outlined his efforts to prevent released detainees from reengaging:
“Basically what we’re saying is if a foreign country takes some of these Guantánamo detainees and then those detainees go back into the fight, then that country’s foreign assistance will be docked as a result.”
DeSantis was describing the bill he has sponsored, H.R. 1689, which penalizes countries that take in detainees who return to the battlefield.
Should it become law, the bill could impose penalties on the nearly 55 countries which have accepted detainees from the United States military. DeSantis, who served at
Guantánamo Bay and has achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy, continued:
“A lot of the detainees who were released early on — the military had judged that they were no longer a threat and so they released them and yet of those people who were not viewed to be a threat, you had about 30 percent of them return to the fight.”
But DeSantis isn’t alone in the fight to ensure countries don’t let the detainees slip away and return to terrorist activities. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has a similarpiece of legislation in the Senate, titled the “Guantánamo Bay Recidivism Prevention Act of 2015.”
DeSantis described what he and Cotton hope to accomplish:

“So what [Cotton] and I are trying to do is shape it so the countries that are taking these [detainees] are doing it knowing that they’re gonna need to either have precautions to make sure those guys don’t return to the fight or they need to be convinced that these people really don’t represent a danger.”
Meanwhile, the administration has been steadfast in its commitment to close the facility
, despite
Defense
Secretary Ash Carter
insisting that a closure
by the end of Obama’s presidency is unlikely
. Speaking with CBS News, Carter added:
“I’m not confident, but I am hopeful
. I think we’ll have a good proposal, and I think we’re hoping it wins the support that it needs in Congress, so that we can move forward.”
DeSantis maintained that administration efforts to close the facility are unlikely, as Congress holds “bipartisan majorities” that are in agreement the facility should remain active.
One of the goals is to release enough detainees so that the population level drops below 100 inmates, which according to The New York Times, the administration hopes would prompt Congress to eliminate the law that prevents detainees from being transferred to facilities inside the U.S.
--- Alex Rogers covers Congress as a staff correspondent for National Journal. He previously worked as a political reporter at TIME (Alex Rogers,
6/8/15, “Rand Paul’s Off GOP Message Again, This Time on Gitmo”, NationalJournal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/rand-paul-s-off-gop-message-againthis-time-on-gitmo-20150608)//Jmoney
Two presidents have talked about closing Guantanamo. Yet the prison remains open
, largely because neither
the
Obama
nor the Bush administrations have been able to lay out a plan for dealing with the prisoners deemed too dangerous to release but impossible to prosecute.
Sen.
John McCain
, the GOP's 2008 nominee and now chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is leading the annual defense authorization bill and has dangled before Obama a provision that would authorize the president to close
Gitmo so long as Congress gets to approve his plan
. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war, says he supports shuttering Gitmo because it has become a worldwide symbol of abuse.
But he's criticized Obama for not coming up with a viable plan.
"For over six years, the administration has stated that one of its highest policy priorities is to close the detention facility at Guantanamo, but for that same period of time members of the Senate have repeatedly requested a plan that explains how the administration will handle the detainees held there,"
McCain said on the Senate floor Monday. "Unfortunately … the administration has consistently failed to provide that plan."
>

--- Former Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary (James Sensenbrenner, 7/16/07, “Do not shut down Guantanamo bay”, Human Events, http://humanevents.com/2007/07/16/do-not-shut-down-guantanamo-bay/)//Jmoney
Next to bringing our troops home prematurely without giving the “surge” a chance to succeed, the last thing President Bush should do is shut the prison at Guantanamo.
Gitmo is a success. It
keeps terrorists away from our shores and helps keep Americans safe.
The prisoners at Gitmo were captured as members of al-Qaeda
and fought against American soldiers to defend the Taliban. Interrogations have brought invaluable intelligence that has helped President Bush prevent further attacks on American soil.
Critics frequently call for Gitmo’s closure by claiming that prisoners are treated inhumanely and tortured.
Inhumane treatment is beneath America, but
I have visited the facilities at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions there are humane. There are five different camps for the detainees with varying levels of amenities and security measures.
The detainees are distributed among the camps based on their compliance, their prominence, and whether they are considered dangerous to other prisoners and guards.
The main camp, where most of the detainees are held, looks like a U.S. prison, except that there are arrows on the floor pointing toward Mecca to allow the prisoners to pray.
After
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s inexcusable remarks comparing Camp Delta to a “gulag,” a bipartisan group of 14
Congressmen and women visited the prison and found no instances of abuse
. Instead, they reported that the prison officials were sensitive to the cultural mores of the detainees. Officials even have formal policies for
appropriately handling copies of the Quran. Each day the detainees are given three culturally appropriate meals. They have daily opportunities to shower, exercise, and receive medical attention.
Furthermore, the
International Committee of the
Red
Cross is in Guantanamo, ensuring that detainees
from Afghanistan receive fair treatment under International
Humanitarian Law
.
More than 1,000 journalists have visited Gitmo
. In the history of warfare, there has probably never been a detention center more transparent than Guantanamo Bay.
One option the Administration has considered is moving the terrorists from Guantanamo to the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The primary goal of American foreign policy should be to keep terrorists off of our soil. Why would we intentionally move known terrorists here? Imagine the justifiable outcry from residents living near these prisons. The security and first-responder costs would be enormous. Furthermore, Guantanamo Bay’s isolation protects it from terrorist strikes.
My visit to Gitmo also assured me that the military takes seriously its obligation to detain terrorists and release those who are innocent. No one favors incarceration of innocent people
.
America has released prisoners from Gitmo that it did not have sufficient evidence to detain.
We know that some of these
prisoners have returned to the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers.
The combatant status reviews held for each prisoner at Guantanamo Bay are literally adjudications that could mean life and death for American citizens. These are wartime adjudications. The safeguards of the American legal system should not be afforded to individuals whose only connections to America are the plots to kill its citizens. Our judicial system is not for their theatrics.
I shepherded the Military Commissions Act through the House last year. This law authorizes the President to establish military commissions to try unlawful enemy combatants. This bill establishes a fair and effective process to prosecute terrorists without compromising intelligence sources and national security. This legislation also protects the rights of those charged by permitting them to mount a full defense and maintain access to our federal courts. I believe that the Military Commissions Act strikes the right balance by establishing a system that is fair, yet also orderly.
We need to continue holding terrorists and continue to prevent them from fighting our troops and plotting against America. Alan Liotta, Principal Director for the Defense
Department’s Office of Detainee Affairs, recently said, “When you capture a lawful enemy combatant and hold them as a prisoner of war, you are entitled, under the laws of war, to hold that individual until the end of the conflict. And the reason for that is because you’re trying to diminish the enemy’s capacity to fight.”
We are at war, and the terrorists are our enemy. It is our government’s job to diminish their capacity to do us harm. So, rather than shut down Gitmo, I believe that it should be expanded to detain even more radical terrorists.

--- (2/24/11, “How to close Guantanamo”, The Economist, http://www.economist.com/node/18231360)//Jmoney
Well, if Mr Obama is not really going to close Guantánamo, Mr Wittes says, he should stop pretending he is. He should also face the fact that
Guantánamo has improved. The prisoners there have access to lawyers, and the federal courts oversee habeas corpus cases.
Such cases are followed closely by journalists, hundreds of whom have visited Guantánamo. There have been no serious allegations of abuse for a long time
. Naturally, the regime of detainee rules and rights could be improved. But so long as the big fight is between the closers and the keep-it-openers, America fails to address the really vital question of what rules it should observe when—and wherever—suspected terrorists are held.
Concentrate on making it better
So here is his proposal. Mr Wittes would like
Mr
Obama
to say that since Congress has made closure impossible, he will work to make Guantánamo
“a symbol
not of
excess, not of lawlessness and evasion of judicial review, but of detention under the rule of law
”. In addition, he should commit himself to bringing to Guantánamo all the counter-terrorism detainees America captures anywhere in the world whom it means to hold in military detention for a protracted period, thus ensuring that they benefit from the legal standards established at Guantánamo
Needless to say, this argument has fallen flat with civil-libertarians. Most say that the government should either put prisoners on trial or let them go (except for those seized on the battlefield, who could be held under the normal rules of war until the conflict ended). This is principled and neat—and the position this paper has taken. The problem is that, like Mr Bush, Mr Obama seems to have concluded that some of the people in Guantánamo cannot be convicted in a criminal court but are nonetheless too dangerous to free, maybe ever. If Mr Obama does think that
, closing the place would be a symbol, but a hollow one if America simply creates a less transparent Guantánamo somewhere else.
Better, perhaps, to get the present one right.

(Brendan, “Obama and the Myth of Presidential
Control,” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/upshot/obama-and-the-myth-of-presidential-control.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1, JMP)
One of the most common criticisms of presidents
— especially struggling ones during their second term — is that they have lost control of events
.
This charge, which has been leveled at chief executives such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, has become a mantra lately in coverage of President Obama, who faces a stalled legislative agenda and crises in Ukraine, Gaza and at the border with Mexico.
What happened?
One frequent explanation from pundits and journalists is that
Mr.
Obama has “little control” and is instead being “driven” or “buffeted” by events
.
This notion pervades commentary and debate on the presidency.
We want to believe that the president is (or should be) in control.
It’s the impulse behind holding the president responsible for a bad economy and giving him credit for a good one (the most important factor in presidential approval and election outcomes).
The reassuring nature of presidential control is also why news media coverage of foreign policy crises and other events that rally the country tends to use language that depicts the president as being in command.
The flip side of the demand for presidential control is disappointment when he can’t magically work his will.
Advocates of
what I’ve called the Green
Lantern theory of the presidency suggest
that Mr.
Obama’s failure to achieve his goals in Congress reflects a lack of effort or willpower
. If he only tried harder or were tougher, they suggest, he could control events rather than being controlled by them.
These analyses get the direction of causality backward
, however.
It’s not hard to seem in control when the economy is booming, the president’s party has a large majority in Congress or the nation is rallying around the president after a national tragedy.
Once unfavorable circumstances arise, though, even the most accomplished chief executives seem to lose control. My research has found, for example, that scandals are not simply about misconduct. They are more likely to arise when presidents are unpopular with self-identified members of the opposition party or when there are few competing stories in the news.
Obviously, the modern presidency is a powerful office with enormous influence, especially in foreign policy. Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, might look very different today if Mr. Bush had made different decisions. Even in the domestic realm, the president can have success with a supportive Congress, as Mr. Obama’s success in passing the Affordable Care Act demonstrates.
At the same time, the powers of the presidency are outstripped by the unrealistic expectations placed on the chief executive in the modern era
. When problems arise, it’s only natural that people want the most powerful person in the country to fix them, but these demands often lack a plausible account of how the problem could be solved. And even when the president has a proposal that he thinks would provide a solution, he’s likely to struggle to persuade Congress or the public to support it, as Mr. Reagan discovered despite his reputation as the “Great Communicator.”
The limits of the president’s power can be scary
— as human beings, we find a lack of control threatening — but the idea that
they can control events is a comforting fiction, not an explanation for their success or failure
.
As
Abraham
Lincoln
(perhaps our greatest president) wrote, “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events controlled me.” Imagine what the pundits would do with that admission today!

--- professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Daniel W., “What can Obama really do in his fourth quarter? He had a good week last week. What does that mean for his presidency going forward?” http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/30/what-can-obama-really-do-in-his-fourth-quarter/, JMP)
So the consensus among the political cognoscenti was that last week was the best week of Barack Obama’s presidency. I guess that includes me. Last week I tweeted:
[image omitted]
And this was all before the Supreme Court eliminated all restrictions on same-sex marriage and Obama gave the speech of his presidency in eulogizing the Rev. Clementa
Pinckney:
So, naturally, the Sunday morning shows were all about Obama reborn and the political press was writing all about
“After momentous week, Obama’s presidency is reborn,” and I think it’s time to just take a step back and think real hard about this meme a bit.
This kind of analysis is akin to sports-writing about momentum: The notion that a player is on a hot streak implies that he will continue to go on his hot streak
, when in point of fact, regression to the mean is the far more likely outcome. To be fair, in politics, there’s the “political capital” argument that prior successes burnishes a president’s popularity, which in turn gives him some form of political capital to seek out even more successes
. And Obama’s popularity is rising in some (but not all) polls.
Still, a dose of realism seems useful here
. A president can advance his agenda through a number of means: acts of legislation, executive actions in domestic policy, foreign affairs accomplishments and burnishing his political legacy. Let’s think about these in turn.
The president could reel off 10 consecutive speeches like he did in Charleston, but that’s not going to make this Congress any more amenable to his policies.
The
GOP leadership has just cooperated with Obama on the one policy initiative that they agree on — there isn’t
anything left in the hopper.
And buried within Politico’s “Obama reborn!” story is this little nugget:
Meanwhile, progressives on the Hill, especially those still burning over how hard he steamrolled them on trade, are rolling their eyes at the lionizing. Remember, they point out, that many of the big things Obama gets the credit for didn’t originate with him — people like Nancy Pelosi were pushing him further on health care than the
White House wanted to go, or out in favor of a gay marriage plank in the 2012 convention platform when he was still deciding what to say.
So the congressional route is pretty much stymied.
Then there’s executive action, a route that this administration has been super-keen on since last year, particularly with respect to climate change (see also: new overtime rules). But lost among all the “huzzahs!” and “WTFs!!” about King vs. Burwell was the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts’s ruling actually constricted the executive branch’s ability to do that very thing. Roberts’s opinion placed significant limits on the “Chevron deference” that the courts have bestowed to the executive branch in the past, as Chris Walker explains:
[T]he Chief went the extra step of reasserting the judiciary’s primary role of interpreting statutes that raise questions of “deep economic and political significance.” This is a major blow to a bright-line rule-based approach to Chevron deference….
One could say that King v. Burwell—while a critical win for the Obama Administration—is a judicial power grab over the Executive in the modern administrative state….
It will also be interesting to see how this amplified major questions doctrine affects other judicial challenges to executive action. Especially in light of the King Court’s citation to UARG, one context that immediately comes to mind is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
So while the health-care ruling was a substantive victory for the Obama administration, it was a process loss, and could make it difficult for the president to implement parts of his agenda through executive action.
Then there’s foreign policy, his most promising avenue. Obama has the ability to rack up some significant accomplishments over the next 18 months: the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, an opening to Cuba, an Iran nuclear deal and a climate change deal in Paris at the end of this year.
I think it says something, however, that of the five things listed above, the Cuba opening is likely the least controversial. TPP and T-TIP are important but will not build him political capital since his own domestic allies hate it. The Iran deal and climate change negotiations are significant but will run into considerable opposition. And, connected with the point above, political polarization will make it harder for Obama to make credible commitments in Paris. More significantly, I think foreign policy is an area where the president has lost the broader debate about how the United States should approach the world.
Finally, there’s his political legacy. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016, then Obama can legitimately compare himself to Ronald Reagan as the only postwar presidents who managed to bequeath his party the presidency after his two terms were up. But as Jonathan Martin noted over the weekend in the New York Times, the paradoxical effect of last week is that it clears the deck for GOP candidates:

[E]ven as conservatives appear under siege, some Republicans predict that this moment will be remembered as an effective wiping of the slate before the nation begins focusing in earnest on the presidential race.
As important as some of these issues may be to the most conservative elements of the party’s base and in the primaries ahead, few Republican leaders want to contest the
2016 elections on social or cultural grounds, where polls suggest that they are sharply out of step with the American public.
“Every once in a while, we bring down the curtain on the politics of a prior era,” said David Frum, the conservative writer. “The stage is now cleared for the next generation of issues. And Republicans can say, ‘Whether you’re gay, black or a recent migrant to our country, we are going to welcome you as a fully cherished member of our coalition.’ ”
So will Obama be able to build on his great week to have a successful fourth quarter? Color me somewhat skeptical. On the domestic policy front, the president is likely to find his political options more
restricted rather than less restricted after last week.
There are significant but polarizing opportunities on foreign policy. And his political legacy rests on Clinton’s ability to fend off Bernie Sanders and a Republican who will be battle-tested from the most competitive party primary I’ve ever seen.
He’s got decent chances on the latter two fronts — but let’s put last week into perspective. It was a great week for the president. It does not mean that his presidency is reborn.
Scott Lemieux, is a professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany and frequently contributes to American Prospect, “How
Congress learned to stop bowing to
President
Obama on national security
,” July 8, 2014, The Week, http://theweek.com/articles/558953/howcongress-learned-stop-bowing-president-obama-national-security/NV
For a brief period of time last week, the post-9/11 National Security Agency telephone surveillance program was no longer fully in force. In an all too rare case of Senate procedures actually protecting civil liberties, Sen.
Rand Paul won a battle with
Majority Leader (and fellow Kentuckian) Mitch
McConnell
in preventing the relevant sections of the USA Patriot Act from being re-authorized.
Paul's "victory" was temporary, and ultimately resulted in only modest changes to the surveillance state,
in the form of the USA Freedom Act. But the new restrictions on the N.S.A.'s surveillance program can be a basis for cautious optimism going forward, not only on the topic of surveillance but on other issues related to civil liberties and national security.
It appears Congress has finally recovered some of its
clout.
The machinations in the Senate were an outgrowth of the political firestorm created by Edward Snowden, who revealed the N.S.A's secret surveillance program. A majority of the American public, which tends to be highly supportive of antiterrorism measures, opposes the collection of metadata revealed by Snowden. Whatever one thinks of
Snowden's means, his whistleblowing has had a significant effect on American political culture, creating more skepticism about the NSA's antiterrorism efforts among both political elites and ordinary people.
As a result,
Congress finally acted to restrict the NSA's powers. The USA Freedom Act
, signed into law by President
Obama, contains two significant reforms
. First of all, the NSA will not be permitted to collect bulk telephone and internet records. And second, at least some decisions of the FISA court that oversees NSA surveillance will be made transparent to the public, rather than be classified.
It is important not to overstate the significance of these changes. While the NSA will not be able to store data in bulk, private telecommunication companies will, and the government will be able to access that data with an order from the FISA court, which has generally been extremely deferential to government requests. And while it's good that the process will become more transparent, it's hard to imagine that making such information available will have a transformative effect. The new law is an improvement over the status quo ante, but not a major one.
Does the passage of the legislation at least signal the arrival of a new civil liberties hero in the Republican Party, who also happens to be running for president? Not really.
Paul's procedural obstructions were more about bringing attention to himself than getting a better bill. After all, McConnell brought up the USA Freedom Act for a vote that same day — it almost certainly could have passed had Paul supported it. Indeed, if not for Paul the bill could have passed the Senate last November — the cloture vote fell two votes short, and Paul was one of those votes.
Even though Paul was theoretically opposed to the bill because he (correctly) believed that it didn't go far enough, his obstructionism did not actually cause Congress to pass a better statute. As Russell Berman observes in The Atlantic, Paul is, in a sense, as much a political loser in this as McConnell.
The new restrictions on the NSA aren't about Rand Paul per se. But they do suggest the existence of a new civil libertarian coalition in Congress, consisting of most of the
Democratic caucus and a handful of Republicans. This group of legislators might be able to make modest headway not only in pruning the surveillance state, but on other important issues, such as mass incarceration. I wouldn't hope for too much yet — the political headwinds are likely to be stronger against other kinds of reform, and Paul's presidential run is likely to expose the fact that even watered-down civil libertarianism has little constituency within his party. But supporters of NSA reform should consider whether bipartisan reform is possible on other civil liberties issues as well.
In addition to the policy changes, then, the USA Freedom Act is also politically significant. The fact that a Senate supermajority was able to pass a bill over the defiance of the Senate majority leader suggests that the days

when Congress gave maximal deference to the executive branch might finally be over
. (Congress, of course, has shown little deference to the president when it comes to him trying do more to protect civil liberties, such as his attempt to stop imprisoning people at Guantanamo Bay.)
As we get further away from 9/11, hopefully a majority in Congress will finally begin to recognize that we do not need to diminish the civil liberties of American citizens to effectively fight terrorism.
(Greg, 9/10/2013, Washington Post.com, “No, a loss on Syria would not destroy the Obama presidency,” Factiva, JMP)
Get ready for a lot more of this sort of thing, should Congress vote No on Syria strikes:
The fate of President Obama's second term hangs on his Tuesday speech to the nation about Syria.
This is a particularly cartoonish version of what much of the punditry will be like if Obama doesn't get his way from Congress, but make no mistake, the roar of such punditry will be deafening. Jonathan Bernstein offers a much needed corrective:
There's one permutation that absolutely, no question about it, would destroy the rest of Barack Obama's presidency is: a disastrous war. Ask Lyndon Johnson or George W.
Bush. Or Harry Truman. Unending, seemingly pointless wars are the one sure way to ruin a presidency.
Now, I'm not saying that's in the cards; in fact, I don't think it is. I'm just saying: that's the kind of thing that really does matter a lot to presidencies. And if you do believe that the administration is going down a path that winds up there, or a path that has a high risk of winding up there, then you should be very worried about the health of this presidency.
If not? None of the other permutations here are anywhere close to that kind of threat to the Obama presidency.
Presidents lose key votes which are then mostly forgotten all the time. They pursue policies which poll badly, but are then mostly forgotten, all the time
.
Look, there is no question that if Obama loses Syria vote
, the coverage will be absolutely merciless. But let's bring some perspective. The public will probably be relieved, and eventually all the "Obama is a loser" talk will sink out of the headlines and be replaced by other big stories
with potentially serious ramifications for the country.
It's key to distinguish between two things here. One question is: How would a loss impact the credibility of the President and the United States with regard to upcoming foreign policy crises and confrontations? That's not the same as asking: How would a loss impact Obama's relations with Congress in upcoming domestic battles?
And on that latter score, there's a simple way to think about it: Look at what's ahead on the calendar. The two looming items are the government shutdown and debt ceiling battles, and when it comes down to it, there's no reason to believe a loss on Syria would substantially alter the dynamics on either. Both are ultimately about whether House Republicans can resolve their
own internal differences.
Will a Syria loss weaken Obama to the point where Republicans would be even more reluctant than they are now to reach a deal to continue funding the government?
Maybe, but even if a shutdown did result, would a loss on Syria make it any easier for the GOP to dodge blame for it? It's hard to see how that work in the eyes of the public. Same with the debt limit.
Is the argument really going to be, See, Obama lost on Syria, so we're going to go even further in threatening to unleash economic havoc in order to defund Obamacare and/or force cuts to popular entitlements? There's just no reason why a Congressional vote against Syria strikes would make the
"blame game" on these matters any easier for Republicans.
Is it possible that a loss on Syria will make Congressional Dems less willing to draw a hard line along with the president in these talks, making a cave to the GOP more likely? I doubt it.
It will still be in the interests of Congressional Dems to stand firm, because the bottom line remains the same: House Republicans face potentially unbridgeable differences over how far to push these confrontations, and a united
Dem front exploits those divisions. Syria doesn't change any of that. If a short term deal on funding the government is reached, the prospects for a longer term deal to replace the sequester will be bleak, but they've been bleak for a long time. Syria will fade from public memory, leaving us stuck in the same stalemate -- the same war of attrition -- as before.
What about immigration? The chances of comprehensive reform passing the House have always been slim. Could a Syria loss make House Republicans even less likely to reach a deal? Maybe, but so what? Does anyone really imagine Latinos would see an Obama loss on Syria as a reason to somehow become less inclined to blame the GOP for killing reform? The House GOP's predicament on immigration will be unchanged.
Whatever happens on Syria, and no matter how much "Obama is weak" punditry that results from it, all of the remaining battles will be just as perilous for the GOP as they appeared before the Syria debate heated up. Folks making the case that a Syria loss throws Obama's second term agenda into serious doubt --

as if Congressional intransigence were not already about as bad as it could possibly get -- need to explain what they really mean when they say that. It's not clear even they know.

Julia Pace, White House Correspondent for Associated Press, “Obama's Legacy Takes Shape With The Help Of Unlikely Allies,” June 25, 2015, Associated Press, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/25/obama-legacy-scotus-trade_n_7667946.html/NV
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Long past the prime of his presidency, Barack
Obama is defying the lame-duck label and solidifying the contours of his legacy with the help of unlikely allies in Congress and the Supreme Court
.
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court preserved Obama's signature health care law Thursday, hours before a Republican-controlled Congress paved the way for an Asia-Pacific trade pact at the center of the president's international agenda. The Supreme Court also handed Obama a surprise win by upholding a key tool used to fight housing discrimination.
"This was a good day for America," Obama said, speaking from the White House Rose Garden shortly after the court rulings.
For a president deep into his second term, the legal and legislative victories were a vindication of policy priorities that have sapped his political capital and exposed rifts with his own Democratic Party. The back-toback successes
also energized a weary White House
, with senior officials and longtime advisers making little effort to hide their glee.
"I don't think that a lot of people expected that a lame-duck president could still very actively lead on every major issue being debated today," said Bill Burton, a former
White House and campaign adviser to Obama.
The coming days could bring further clarity to president's legacy, as U.S. negotiators work feverishly to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran ahead of a June 30 deadline. While securing an elusive agreement would mark a major foreign policy breakthrough for Obama, it could be months or even years before it's known if a deal successfully prevents
Iran from building a bomb.
Against the backdrop of his recent successes, Obama will also confront the stark limitations of his presidency when he travels to Charleston, South Carolina, Friday to deliver a eulogy for victims of last week's massacre at a black church. Obama has failed to make any progress on gun control legislation, and even against the backdrop of the tragedy in South Carolina, he made clear he had given up hope of pursuing such measures again during his remaining 19 months in office.
Despite the unfinished business Obama will leave behind, Thursday's health care ruling largely answered what has long been one of the biggest questions looming over his
White House: Would the sweeping health care overhaul that has fueled so much Republican hostility toward Obama survive his presidency?
Now, that answer is all but guaranteed to be yes.
The Supreme Court ruling marked the second time the justices have saved the health care law, with Roberts writing the majority opinion both times. In an ironic twist,
Obama as a senator voted against Roberts when he was nominated by former Republican President George W. Bush.
While House Republicans may still hold votes to repeal the health care measure, as they have already done more than 50 times, the Senate and Obama's veto power prevent such efforts from going any further. And even if Obama is succeeded by a Republican president, fully repealing the law could become less politically palatable given the millions of Americans who have gained health care coverage through its mandates.
"The 6-3 decision is strong validation of the constitutionality of the law," White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said of the court's ruling. "Coupled with over 16 million people who currently have health care who didn't have it before, that makes it very difficult to unwind."
Still, some Republican presidential candidates insisted that remained their goal.
"This decision is not the end of the fight against Obamacare," said Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. "I will work with Congress to repeal and replace this flawed law with conservative reforms that empower consumers with more choices and control over their health care decisions."
Obama had to flip Washington's standard political scorecard in order to get support for the Asia-Pacific trade pact. While Republicans are largely supportive of free trade, many of Obama's fellow Democrats fear such agreements put American workers at a disadvantage and have weak environmental protections.
Just two weeks ago, Democrats dealt Obama an embarrassing defeat on trade, leaving him searching for a solution with many of the same Republicans lawmakers who decry the health care law.
The unusual coalition succeeded. On Wednesday, Obama secured the authority to get fast approval for a final Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, and on Thursday, Congress sent a workers' assistance package to his desk.
White House officials cast Obama's successful dealings with Republicans as evidence of what they had hoped would be another piece of the president's legacy: an ability to work with his political opponents and curb Washington's intense partisanship.
But few in the White House or elsewhere in the nation's capital expect this brief detente between
Obama and the GOP to last for long, especially as they stare down deadlines this fall on taxes and
spending - issues that have rivaled health care in driving deep divisions between the Democratic White
House and Republican lawmakers.

"It's going to give the White House some momentum going into the fall," said
Jim
Manley, a former adviser to
Senate Minority Leader Harry
Reid
, D-Nev.
"But I don't think anyone can expect the efforts to work with Republicans on trade to translate into help on these tax and spending issues."

--- Chief correspondent (2/7/2013, Michael, “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital; The idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong,” http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207))
Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless
a surge in the economy—at the moment, still stuck—or some
other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the
2014 election, the less he will be able to get done
. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him
(and the Democrats) stronger.
But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just don’t know what you can do until you try. Or as
Ornstein
himself once wrote
years ago,
“Winning wins.” In theory, and in practice, depending on Obama’s handling of any particular issue, even in a polarized time, he could still deliver on a lot of his second-term goals, depending on his skill and the breaks.
Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can dawn, such as when many Republican
Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote.
Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that political capital is, at best, an empty concept, and that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. “It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a president’s popularity, but there’s no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless,” says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests.
Winning on one issue often changes the calculation for the next issue
; there is never any known amount of capital. “The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other
actors” Ornstein says. “If they think he’s going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side.
It’s a bandwagon effect.”
ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ
Sometimes, a clever practitioner of power can get more done just because he’s aggressive and knows the hallways of Congress well
. Texas A&M’s Edwards is right to say that the outcome of the 1964 election
, Lyndon
Johnson’s landslide victory
over Barry Goldwater, was one of the few that conveyed a mandate. But one of the main reasons for that mandate
(in addition to Goldwater’s ineptitude as a candidate) was
President
Johnson’s
masterful use of power leading up to that election, and his ability to get far more done than anyone thought possible, given his limited political capital
. In the newest volume in his exhaustive study of LBJ, The Passage of Power, historian Robert Caro recalls Johnson getting cautionary advice after he assumed the presidency from the assassinated John
F. Kennedy in late 1963. Don’t focus on a long-stalled civil-rights bill, advisers told him, because it might jeopardize Southern lawmakers’ support for a tax cut and appropriations bills the president needed. “
One of the wise, practical people around the table [said that] the presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn’t to expend it on this,” Caro writes
. (
Coinage,
of course, was what political capital was called
in those days.)
Johnson replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”
Johnson didn’t worry about coinage, and he got the Civil Rights Act enacted, along with much else
: Medicare, a tax cut, antipoverty programs.
He appeared to understand
not just the ways of Congress but also the way to maximize the momentum he possessed in the lingering mood of national grief and determination by picking the right issues, as Caro records. “Momentum is not a mysterious mistress,” LBJ said. “It is a controllable fact of political life.”
Johnson had the skill and wherewithal to realize that, at that moment of history, he could have unlimited coinage if he handled the politics right
. He did. (At least until Vietnam, that is.)
And then there are the presidents who get the politics, and the issues, wrong. It was the last president before Obama who was just starting a second term, George W. Bush, who really revived the claim of political capital, which he was very fond of wielding. Then Bush promptly demonstrated that he didn’t fully understand the concept either.

(Sabrina, The Guardian, “Barack Obama basks in public approval after 'best week of his presidency'; President's approval ratings at 50% for first time in two years Obama vows to 'squeeze every last ounce of progress' from rest of term,” Lexis, JMP)
Barack
Obama pledged
on Tuesday to "squeeze every last ounce of progress" out of his remaining time in the White
House
, as his poll ratings reached a two-year high following what political commentators said was the best week of his presidency.
Asked to describe a week marked by several victories for his administration
, including the passage by Congress of so-called "fast-track" authority for the president to negotiate trade deals and landmark supreme court rulings on gay marriage and his healthcare reforms,
Obama said
it was gratifying
.
The president also won acclaim for a stirring eulogy, during which he sang Amazing Grace, delivered on Friday in Charleston, South Carolina, after the racially motivated shooting of nine people at a historically black church there.
During a joint press conference with the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, on Tuesday, Obama said the legislative and judicial achievements were "simply a culmination" of the work of his administration since he first came into office.
But he expressed
his satisfaction at being able to secure the trade powers in Congress despite opposition from his own party
, and said the results of the supreme court decision to uphold a key component of his healthcare law "speak for themselves".
Obama's remarks coincided with the release of a new poll that found his approval ratings at 50% for the first time in more than two years. The CNN/ORC survey found that support for how Obama was handling the presidency had shot up five points since a similar poll in May, when just 45% approved of Obama's job performance and more than half of Americans disapproved.
Last week's news, as well as an improving economy, contributed to the climb in Obama's approval ratings, the poll found.
It also included higher marks for the way the president had handled race relations in the United States. According to the survey, 55% of Americans said they approved of
Obama's handling of issues pertaining to race, while just 42% said they disapproved.
The subject has risen in prominence following a series of high-profile killings of unarmed black men by white police officers and the mass shooting in Charleston this month in which a white male gunned down nine African American churchgoers. The suspect seems to have been a white supremacist.
"My remarks in Charleston were heartfelt," Obama said on Tuesday of his eulogy for one of the victims, the pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney. "It wasn't a celebration. It was, I think, a reflection on the consistent challenge of race in this country and how we can find a path towards a better way.
Asked what he planned to do with the political capital he appeared to gain from last week, Obama said:
"The list is long."
"We are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make
... as long as I have the privilege of holding this office," he said, before identifying issues such as infrastructure spending, criminal justice reform, and expanding free community college as potential opportunities.

Colleen McCain Nelson, is a Washington D.C. Reporter for the Wall Street Journal, “Obama Sees Recent Wins as ‘Culmination’ of Hard Work,” June 30, 2015, Wall Street
Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/30/obama-sees-past-week-as-culmination-of-hard-work/NV
After celebrating victories
in the last several days on trade, health care and gay marriage,
President Barack
Obama deemed it a gratifying week and pledged to keep pushing on his agenda
.
“In many ways, last week was simply a culmination of a lot of work that we’ve been doing since I came into office,”
Mr. Obama said
Tuesday in a joint press conference with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. “
How am I going to spend whatever political capital that I’ve built up? You know, the list is long and
my instructions to my team and my instructions to myself have always been that we are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make
…as long as I have the privilege of holding this office.”
Congress last week gave the president broad authority to negotiate trade deals, and the Supreme Court upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, preserving Mr.
Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The Supreme Court also ruled that same-sex marriage is a nationwide right, a decision that Mr. Obama lauded as a “thunderbolt” of justice.
The White House claimed another victory when the Supreme Court ruled that minorities could continue using a civil-rights era statute in housing discrimination lawsuits.
And Mr. Obama closed last week by delivering an emotional eulogy for the pastor of the black church where nine people were slain, calling for gun-control measures and action to address racial disparities.
The string of wins and the president’s compelling address in Charleston, S.C., prompted pronouncements that this had been
Mr.
Obama’s best week in office
. On Tuesday, the president brushed aside such commentary, suggesting that other life events trump a good week in politics.
David Nakamura, reporter on the White House for the Washington Post, “Obama scores a major trade win, burnishing his foreign policy legacy,” June 24, 2015, The
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-poised-for-a-major-trade-win-burnishing-his-foreign-policy-legacy/2015/06/24/e940c6fa-1a77-11e5-
93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html/NV
President
Obama won new powers from Congress on Wednesday
to bring home an expansive Pacific Rim free-trade deal that
analysts said
could boost U.S. economic standing in Asia and ultimately burnish his foreign policy legacy.
Obama’s victory on Capitol Hill, coming 12 days after House Democrats nearly scuttled his bid for “fast-track” trade authority, sets the stage for his administration to complete the multi-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, by year’s end.
It represents a hard-won payoff for a president who was willing to partner with his Republican rivals and defy a majority of his party
in pursuit of an accord that aides have said will ensure that the United States maintains an economic edge over a rising China.
“This looks like a big, strategic piece,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk analysis firm. “It’s a global strategy doctrine that will move the world in a direction that, in the long term, is useful for the investments of America.”
The intensive legislative fight — waged for months by a White House eager to score a rare, bipartisan legislative victory late in Obama’s tenure — appeared to be coming to a close after the Senate voted 60-38
to grant final approval to the fast-track bill. Also Wednesday, key House Democrats signaled that they would concede defeat and support related legislation — which they had blocked two weeks ago to stall the trade agenda — that provides retraining assistance for displaced workers.
“Within reach is an opportunity to shape tomorrow’s global economy so that it reflects both our values and our interests,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said.
[Earlier: Trade war heating up among Democrats]
The trade-promotion bill now heads to Obama’s desk for his signature. It gives the executive branch additional powers for six years and authorizes the president, and his successor, to present trade deals to Congress for a vote on a specified timeline without lawmakers being able to amend the terms.

Although the outcome is a full-fledged victory for Obama
, the acrimony along the way has raised questions about the Democratic Party’s cohesion heading into the 2016 election cycle. Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who supported the TPP as Obama’s secretary of state, sought to distance herself from the pact more recently.
Most Democrats have dismissed the strategic foreign policy benefits of the trade deal, warning instead that the TPP will cost U.S. workers jobs in traditional manufacturing industries and exacerbate the nation’s widening income gap.
“The foreign policy establishment of the executive branch has divorced itself from the domestic policy,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who opposed the legislation.
U.S. officials expect the new authority to jump-start the final rounds of talks. Negotiators still must hammer out deals on a number of thorny issues, including new rules on access to Japanese auto and agriculture markets. In addition to lowering tariffs, the trade pact also aims to expand copyright and intellectual property protections and regulate the flow of information on the Internet.
Once negotiations are complete, the administration will have to get a final deal through another vote in
Congress
, during which labor unions are certain to renew their opposition efforts. The whole process could take six months or more and plunge the Democratic Party into further political turmoil in the middle of a presidential campaign.
The passage of the fast-track bill “does not end our fight for working families,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who opposed the legislation.

Singer, 9
– Juris Doctorate candidate at Berkeley Law (Jonathon, “By Expending Capital, Obama Grows His Capital,” 3/3/2009, http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/3/3/191825/0428)
Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President
Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high.
Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House.
"What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks,"
said Democratic pollster
Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
"And against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank."
Peter Hart gets at a key point.
Some believe that political capital is finite
, that it can be used up. To an extent that's true. But it's important to note, too, that political capital can be regenerated -- and
, specifically, that when a President expends a great deal of capital on a measure that was difficult to enact and then succeeds, he can build up more capital.
Indeed, that appears to be what is happening with Barack
Obama
, who went to the mat to pass the stimulus package out of the gate, got it passed despite near-unanimous opposition of
the
Republicans
on Capitol Hill, and is being rewarded by the American public as a result.
Take a look at the numbers. President Obama now has a 68 percent favorable rating in the NBC-WSJ poll, his highest ever showing in the survey. Nearly half of those surveyed (47 percent) view him very positively. Obama's Democratic Party earns a respectable 49 percent favorable rating. The Republican Party, however, is in the toilet, with its worst ever showing in the history of the NBC-WSJ poll, 26 percent favorable. On the question of blame for the partisanship in Washington, 56 percent place the onus on the Bush administration and another 41 percent place it on Congressional Republicans. Yet just 24 percent blame Congressional Democrats, and a mere 11 percent blame the Obama administration.
So at this point, with President Obama seemingly benefiting from his ambitious actions
and the Republicans sinking further and further as a result of their knee-jerked opposition to that agenda, there appears to be no reason not to push forward on
anything from universal healthcare to energy reform
to ending the war in Iraq.

(Carol E. Lee, 7/2/15, “White House Gears Up for Domestic Policy Offensive”, Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/02/whitehouse-gears-up-for-domestic-policy-offensive/)//Jmoney
While President Barack Obama‘s top foreign-policy initiatives–particularly on Cuba, trade and Iran–have dominated the headlines lately, the White House is gearing up for a domestic policy push that’s largely been under the radar.
The effort is designed both to burnish
Mr.
Obama’s domestic-policy legacy and to try to make headway on issues where progress has lagged.
Mr.
Obama has already begun to showcase the strategy. The White House announced
this week a proposal to expand overtime pay to about five million more Americans
, and on Wednesday Mr.
Obama traveled to Tennessee to
highlight his health-care law in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld federal subsidies to millions of low-income
In coming weeks, the White House is expected to roll out more executive orders
, perhaps on gun safety
. And top White
House officials are hoping to
capitalize on their successful collaboration with congressional Republicans on trade to advance a business-tax overhaul and transportation initiatives targeted at shoring up the country’s infrastructure.
Changes to the criminal justice system are also at the top of the president’s domestic wish list.
He telegraphed his renewed domestic focus this week during a news conference with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
“The list is long
,” Mr. Obama said. “What we’re going to do is just keep on hammering away at all the issues that I think are going to have an impact on the
American people. Some of them will be left undone. But we’re going to try to make progress on every single one of them
.”
The renewed domestic offensive, coupled with an aggressive front on foreign-policy issues, are a reflection of a president who is, as former senior White House adviser
David Axelrod recently told The Wall Street Journal, “feeling the pressures of time.”
The challenge for Mr. Obama will be in the places where his domestic and foreign policy agendas intersect.
The president has limited political capital in Congress. And he needs lawmakers to back–or at least not amass a veto-proof majority opposition to–a nuclear deal with Iran
if one is finalized in coming days. He’ll also need to generate enough support among Republican and Democratic lawmakers for lifting the embargo on Cuba, which on Wednesday he again called on Congress to do as he announced finalized plans to open an American embassy in Havana.
It’s unclear if
Mr.
Obama will also be able to persuade Congress to act on issues such as infrastructure, business taxes and the criminal justice system. But White House officials have been instructed to make a strong
effort.
“We are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make when I have the privilege–as long as I have the privilege of holding this office,” Mr. Obama said
Tuesday.

Jordan Fabian, is a reporter who covers the White House for the Hill, “Nuclear deal with Iran appears elusive,” July 7, 2015, The Hill, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/247156-nuclear-deal-with-iran-appears-elusive/NV
White House hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran —a top foreign policy achievement for President Obama
— seemed in danger of crumbling on Tuesday.
Negotiators extended their talks again in Geneva, as Iran made new hard-line demands, including that the United Nations lifts its arms embargo on the country.
It was the second time the parties blew through a deadline since the original June 30 cutoff, and it raised fresh questions on whether Obama’s push to use diplomacy to cut off Tehran’s path to a nuclear weapon can succeed.
The White House acknowledged a number of difficult issues stand in the way of a deal but said the countries involved have “never been closer to reaching a final agreement than we are now.”
“That’s an indication that these talks, at least for now, are worth continuing,”
White House spokesman Josh
Earnest told reporters
.
At the same time, Earnest declined to put odds on reaching a deal. “I’m not feeling like a betting man today,” he said.
The parties extended an interim agreement to July 10, allowing the talks to last into Friday. But Iran is warning it won’t sit at the negotiating table indefinitely.
“We’ve come to the end,” an Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday. “Either it happens in the next 48 hours or not.”
The stakes are high for Obama. Along with his bid to re-establish ties with Cuba, the Iran deal is a major test of the president’s doctrine of engaging with the U.S.’s traditional adversaries to address common interests.
If the talks falter, it would wipe away an elusive legacy-defining foreign policy achievement for Obama
, who has grappled with instability in the Middle East and the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
While
Obama is riding the momentum from a series of successes on the domestic front, on trade, same-sex marriage and healthcare, failure on Iran could blunt his gains
.
“He had secured his domestic legacy in a pretty dramatic fashion in the last two weeks.
That’s always been his No. 1 priority,” said James
Jeffrey
, a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former ambassador to Iraq under Obama. “He realizes his international legacy is a mess.”
Obama has spent a tremendous amount of political capital in pursuit of the deal — both with
Democrats in Congress and the U.S.’s traditional allies in Persian Gulf states and Israel,
who fear the deal could embolden Iran in its pursuit of dominance in the Middle East.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes acknowledged last week the president is “taking on some sacred cows” in dealing with hostile regimes.
But he said the aim of dealing with Iran is to avoid being pulled into another conflict in the Middle East while preventing it from becoming a nuclear power.
Administration officials told The Wall Street Journal Monday that they hope a successful Iran deal could open the door to resolving lingering conflicts in Syria and Yemen, where Iran is involved.
But
Obama is coming under pressure from lawmakers in both parties not to agree to a deal at all costs.
On Tuesday evening, the president met with Senate Democrats at the White House, where he was expected to sooth members of his party who are worried about the talks.
Influential Democrats, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin (Md.), have demanded “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities.

But those conditions are unlikely to be met, making it tougher for the administration to prevent a veto-proof majority from voting to disapprove of a deal, if one is reached.
Complicating that effort further is the fact that a deal is unlikely to be reached by Thursday, when the congressional review period doubles from 30 days to 60 days. That could allow opposition to build.
Republicans were emboldened in their calls for Obama to walk away from the talks
following Tuesday’s extension.
“The stakes are too high for this diplomatic charade to continue,”
Sen. Marco
Rubio
(R-Fla.), a 2016 presidential candidate, said in a statement. “Iranian leaders continue to walk back previous commitments, even as they actively sponsor terrorism, pursue regional domination and hold American citizens hostage.”
At the same time, Obama seems to understand the risks failure could pose to his legacy
.
“Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this,” he told The Atlantic in May.
Obama is closely following the talks, receiving updates from national security adviser Susan Rice and other aides multiple times daily, Earnest said.
There are major risks for Iran too. The regime in Tehran desperately wants relief from international sanctions related to its nuclear program, which have crippled the country’s economy.
Sanctions caused its gross domestic product to shrink by 5 percent in 2013, and its economy has recovered only slightly since an interim agreement was reached that year.
Despite the delay,
Jeffrey
believes Obama is in a strong position heading into the final stretch of the talks.
He predicted the president’s legacy would not be hurt if, at this point, a deal falls through because Iranian intransigence.
“By taking a tough position at the talks to the point where we’ll walk out or the Iranians will have to walk out — we’re basically making it clear to the Iranians that we can’t be pushed around,” he said. “That we are deadly serious in this process.”

--- news analyst at Media Research Center, Bachelor’s in political science and history at University of Delaware (Matthew Balan, 6/30/15, “CNN’s
Acosta Tosses Softball to Obama Over his ‘Best Week Ever’, newsbusters, http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2015/06/30/cnns-acosta-tosses-softball-obamaover-his-best-week-ever)//Jmoney
CNN's Jim Acosta quoted colleague John King at a Tuesday press conference at the White House by asking President Obama about "what some people are calling 'your best week ever.'" Acosta played up that "you had two Supreme Court decisions supportive of the Affordable Care Act and of gay rights. You also delivered a speech down in Charleston that was pretty warmly received."
The correspondent
then underlined that 'it seems that you've built up some political capital for the remaining months of your presidency." He asked
, "I'm curious, how you want to use it?
What hard things do you want to tackle at this point?"
[video below]
The President led his answer with the obvious personal answer to the question – that the real "best weeks" in his life were the weeks where he married his wife, Michelle, and where his daughters were born. The CNN correspondent gushingly replied, "Good thing you remembered those." He then spotlighted something Acosta didn't mention: Congress passing his fast-track trade legislation. He continued by cheering the Supreme Court's ObamaCare decision, before touching on his remarks at the
Charleston funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed days earlier in a mass shooting. Interestingly, the President didn't mention the Court's decision on same-sex
"marriage."
Near the end of his extended answer (altogether,
Obama spoke for ten-plus minutes answering Acosta's "multi-part" question), the chief executive outlined that he planned to use his "political capital" to press for the passage of overtime rules, infrastructure spending, reforming the criminal justice system, education, and generally making "a difference in the lives of ordinary
Americans."
When the President cracked that wanted to "see if we can make next week even better," Acosta wondered if there would be "another press conference." The Democrat replied by joking, "I love press conferences. It's my press team that's always holding me back. I want to talk to you guys everyday."
--- Staff Correspondent for the National Journal (Sarah Mimms, 7/5/15, “Must-Pass Highway Bill Dominates Jammed July”, NationalJournal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/must-pass-highway-bill-dominates-jammed-july-20150705)//Jmoney
With a month-long recess looming in August,
Congress is going to try to pack as much as possible into July.
In the next three weeks, members will have to contend with several pieces of must-pass legislation, meet a
July 31 deadline to fill the nation's Highway Trust Fund, and lay the groundwork for even more critical legislation due in the early fall.
The House plans to take up two appropriations bills
during its remaining summer stint in D.C., funding the Department of the Interior and filling the coffers for financial services, the White House, and a handful of other related agencies
. Passing those two bills will get the House a third of the way through its appropriations process before the
August recess, giving the lower chamber just three weeks to deal with eight additional bills—and coordinate passage through the Senate—before the government's funding runs out on Sept. 30
.
The Senate is much further behind and has not passed a single appropriations bill yet this year
. Whether the upper chamber will attempt to pass any of the 12 spending bills in July is unclear, given the current stalemate between the two parties.
Democrats have not backed off their vow to block each of them until Republicans agree to raise the coming sequestration on nondefense programs. Given that each of the 12 appropriations bills takes about a week in the Senate, the upper chamber is already running short on time
, raising the likelihood of a last-minute omnibus spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this fall.
In the meantime, the
Senate will take up education legislation revising No Child Left Behind
as its first act of the July session. The bipartisan bill, coauthored by Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray, looks likely to pass. But the House will revive its own, much

more conservative version of the education legislation during this session as well, likely leading both chambers to conference.
The only true deadline
this session is
July 31
, when the nation's Highway Trust Fund
—which gives federal funding to states to build and maintain roads and other infrastructure projects— runs dry.
With just three weeks to find a solution, neither chamber seems to have made much progress
. Many in the Senate are pushing for a multi-year solution, with bipartisan legislation out of the Environment and Public Works Committee calling for a six-year extension, but the Senate's Finance
Committee has yet to announce how it would be paid for. The House, meanwhile, appears to be moving toward another short-term patch, the third in the last year.
Complicating matters further, Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate plan to attach a bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank's charter as an amendment to the highway bill, or perhaps some other legislation. That won't go over well with House conservatives
, who have been pushing to wind down the bank for years and praised its expiration on July 1. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised his members a vote to reopen the bank's doors sometime this month, and it's clear that there are enough votes in the upper chamber to pass it.
But it's unclear what House Speaker John Boehner, who opposed letting the bank expire abruptly, will do. Boehner has kept mum, telling reporters last month that the
House would wait on the Senate before deciding what to do. The bank was not mentioned in House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's list of upcoming legislation for the
July session.
The Senate could also see action on a forthcoming U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, which is set to be released to Congress by July 9, setting off a 30-day review period in the
Senate on one of the most contentious issues the upper chamber has handled this year. If the administration misses that deadline, however—which is a possibility, given that negotiators this week announced they'll have to extend talks through July 7—senators will have 60 days to review the final accord whenever it comes through.
Both chambers will also begin conferences to resolve their differences on the National Defense Authorization Act as well as a customs-enforcement bill.

--- Reporter at The Hill (Keith Lang, 6/30/15, “Obama: Road funding could be late-term achievement”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/246554-obama-boosting-road-funding-a-possible-late-term-achievement)//Jmoney
President
Obama
on Tuesday listed boosting the nation's infrastructure funding as an area where progress is possible before he leaves office in 2017.
Asked during a joint press conference with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff about legislation he plans to pursue during his final months in the White House,
Obama identified a long-term transportation bill as a priority
.
"I want to see if we can get bipartisan work done with Congress around rebuilding our infrastructure
," he said.
"Brazil just talked about their rebuilding of highways and roads and ports and bridges. You know what? We've got the same work to do and we need to put people back to work there."
Lawmakers face a
July 31 deadline
for the expiration of the current infrastructure measure,
and are struggling to come up with a way to pay for even an extension that would keep the spending levels flat past this summer.
Obama has proposed a
$478 billion
transportation bill that he says would cover six years worth of infrastructure projects. The administration has proposed paying for the measure by taxing corporate profits that are stored overseas through a process that is known as " repatriation
."
The proposal is an effort to address a transportation funding shortfall that is estimated to be about $16 billion per year.
The federal government typically spends about $50 billion per year on transportation projects, but the gas tax only brings in approximately $34 billion annually.
Congress has been grappling with the deficit for a decade, but they have not passed a transportation bill that lasts longer than two years in that span.

--- News Reporter for The Hill (Alexander Bolton, 6/28/15, “Looming highway debate stirs tax fight”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/246354-looming-highway-debate-stirs-tax-fight)//Jmoney
A fight over raising taxes has bloomed as the chief obstacle to passing a desperately needed multi-
year transportation bill by the end of next month, raising the specter of a possible shutdown of
highway programs.
Senate Finance Committee Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is tasked with finding a way to pay for a multi-year deal, has ruled out the prospect of raising taxes, putting him on a collision course with Democrats.
Senate Democratic leaders have called for a six-year, $478 billion transportation bill paid largely by taxing overseas corporate profits.
They warn it would be "very hard" for them to accept another short-term extension of highway funds after having done so 33 times.
A bipartisan group of senators, including Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), the ranking
Democrat on the panel, have proposed a less ambition six-year, $275 billion highway bill.
But Inhofe and Boxer are leaving it up to the Finance Committee to find a way to pay for a $90 billion funding shortfall not covered by federal gasoline and diesel taxes.
Lawmakers will have four weeks to solve the impasse before the Highway Trust Fund runs out of money on July 31.
The battle over tax increases will return to the forefront when lawmakers get back from the Fourth of
July recess, now that the trade debate
— which consumed May and June — is finally over.
“We hope we can get the highway bill done before the end of July,” Hatch told reporters but he identified the funding shortfall as a major obstacle.
He says a three- or four-year transportation bill is more realistic than the six-year proposals put forth by the president and Senate colleagues.
“I know one thing. It’s pretty tough to go six years. Six years is $92 to $94 billion,” he said.
“I hope it’s a multi-year, that’s all I can say, and I’m going to make it as long as we can,” he added.
Senate Democratic leaders are pushing the six-year transportation plan included in President Obama’s budget, which calls for $317 billion in spending on roads and $143 billion on federal transit projects.
They want to pay for it by requiring U.S. corporations to repatriate overseas profits at a 14 percent tax rate
, which would raise $238 billion in revenue, and tax future foreign earnings at 19 percent.
“We're asking them for their proposal. Here's ours, what's yours? Let's not wait to get to that deadline again and do a short- term funding plan number 34,” said New York
Sen. Charles Schumer, who is leading the Democratic messaging strategy in the transportation fight.
Senate Democratic leaders say the six-year, $275 billion bill sponsored by Inhofe and Boxer, which the Environment and Public Works Committee passed last week, does not go far enough.
“It's a step in the right direction because it's long term and it does increase funding, but not by enough to meet our needs and what Democrats would prefer,” said a
Democratic leadership aide.
Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) are cosponsors of the measure.
Republicans want to pass a multi-year transportation bill, but a schism has emerged within their conference over the thorny question of whether they should raise some taxes to pay for it.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) has called for increasing federal taxes on gasoline and diesel by 12 cents over two years and indexing it to inflation.
The gas tax now stands at 18.4 cents per gallon while the tax on diesel is 24.4 cents per gallon.
Inhofe and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) have not ruled out increasing the gas tax.
“John Thune made the statement that ‘nothing is off the table,’ and I agree with his statement,” Inhofe told reporters earlier this year.
The Commerce panel is responsible for about $1 billion a year of the infrastructure budget, according to a Senate aide.
But any proposal to raise taxes would pick a fight with the conservative base led by Grover Norquist, the

president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Norquist said Congress would have more funding for highway construction projects if it wipes out the federal requirement established by the Davis-Bacon Act to pay local prevailing wages.
"There is zero chance the Republican House and Senate will increase taxes. Highway spending is 25% above what is needed due to Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law…. eliminate that and your funding problem disappears,” he said in a statement to The Hill.
“No need to raise taxes. This was tried in Michigan and Massachusetts and defeated by a vote of the people," he added.
So far, Hatch is siding with Norquist and other anti-tax conservatives.
“We’re not willing to raise taxes,” he said. “I’m willing to look at everything but we’re not going to raise taxes to get there.”
Democrats believe, however, that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) has signaled interest in paying for a multi-year transportation bill with corporate tax reform.
“Lots of other Republicans, including Paul Ryan, think international tax reforms that raise revenues are a good way to go. Democrats agree,” said a senior Democratic aide.
Ryan has opposed paying for increased transportation funding by taxing overseas profits because he wants to use the reservoir of funding for a broader tax reform initiative.
Earlier this month he downplayed the likelihood of a major tax reform package passing Congress this year.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last month he is exploring options to pay for a multiyear infrastructure bill and acknowledged it would need to be partly funded with revenue increases.
--- News reporter for The Hill (Keith Lang, 6/19/15, “Feds warn of highway funding cutoff”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/245591-feds-warn-of-highway-funding-cutoff)//Jmoney
The Obama administration is warning state transportation departments
that it will have to stop authorizing payments for construction projects on July 31 unless Congress reaches a deal to extend federal infrastructure funding.
The current transportation funding measure is scheduled to expire on that date, and lawmakers are struggling to come up with a way to pay for an extension.
The Department of Transportation said Friday its Highway Trust Fund will dip below $4 billion, which is the level that triggers "cash management procedures," on the day of the looming infrastructure deadline.
The agency revived a Highway Trust Fund ticker Friday that it has used in the past to warn lawmakers of the consequences of allowing the infrastructure funding measure to expire.
"With a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund approaching, cash management steps are not far away," the transportation department said in a blog post on its website.
"Because the HTF supports critical roadwork by State DOTs, these cash management procedures will slow improvements and basic repairs on roads across the U.S," the blog post continued. "To keep Americans informed, we've posted on our website the projected cash flows for the HTF's Highway Account and Mass Transit Account."
Lawmakers are grappling with a shortfall in transportation spending that is estimated to be about $16 billion per year
, and they have not passed an infrastructure package that lasted longer than two years since 2005.
The current transportation funding legislation includes about $50 billion in annual spending on road and transit projects.
The traditional source for transportation funding is revenue collected from the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax. But the tax, which has not been increased since 1993, only brings in about $34 billion per year.
Lawmakers have turned to other parts of the federal budget to fill the gap in recent years, but transportation advocates have complained the resulting temporary patches prevent states from completing long-term construction projects.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated it will take about $100 billion to close the gaplong enough to pay for a six-year transportation funding bill, as requested by the Obama administration.
Transportation supporters have pushed for a gas tax increase. They say it would be about 30 cents per gallon now if it had been indexed to inflation in 1993.
Lawmakers have been reluctant to ask drivers to pay more at the pump, and Republicans have called an increase a nonstarter.

The
Obama
administration, meanwhile, has suggested lawmakers approve a six-year,
$478 billion transportation funding bill that it says can be paid for largely with taxes that could be collected on corporate profits that are stored overseas.
Republicans have said they are open to the idea, known as repatriation, but the parties have squabbled about how much to tax those corporate funds and whether it should be mandatory or voluntary
.

(Dana Milbank, 7/5/15,
“Obama spending his windfall of political capital on Cuba” http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20150705/OPINION04/150709675)//Jmoney
, HeraldNet,
“This,” President
Obama
said in the Rose Garden on Wednesday as he announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba
,
“is what change looks like.”
This echo of his 2008 campaign theme was self-congratulatory but deserved, coming at a time of unexpected hope late in his presidency.
In the space of just over a week, Obama's tired tenure came back to life.
He bested congressional Democrats and got trade legislation on his desk. The Supreme
Court upheld the signature achievement of his presidency — Obamacare — and thereby cemented his legacy.
The high court also made same-sex marriage legal across the land following a tidal change in public opinion that Obama's own conversion accelerated. Had the court's decisions not dominated the nation's attention, Obama's eulogy Friday for those slain in a South Carolina church, and his extraordinary rendition of “Amazing Grace,” would have itself been one of the most powerful moments of his presidency.
It is little surprise, then, that this lame duck's job approval rating hit a respectable 50 percent this week for the first time in two years in a CNN poll, and his disapproval rating dropped to 47.
The good tidings of the past week have been arguably more luck than achievement for Obama, but he deserves credit for his effort to use the momentum of his victories to revive what had been a moribund presidency.
When you earn political capital
, as George W. Bush liked to say,
you spend it. This is why it was shrewd of the surging Obama to demand new action from Congress on Cuba.
“Americans and Cubans alike are ready to move forward; I believe it's time for Congress to do the same,” he said, renewing his call to lift the travel and trade embargo.
“Yes, there are those who want to turn back the clock and double down on a policy of isolation, but it's long past time for us to realize that this approach doesn't work. It hasn't worked for 50 years. ...
So I'd ask Congress to listen to the Cuban people, listen to the American people, listen to the words of a proud Cuban American
, [former Bush commerce secretary] Carlos Gutierrez, who recently came out against the policy of the past.”
Fifteen minutes later, Obama lifted off
from the South Lawn in Marine One on his way to Nashville
, where he tried to use the momentum generated by the Supreme Court Obamacare victory to spread the program to states where Republican governors have resisted.
“What I'm hoping is that with the Supreme Court case now behind us, what we can do is ... now focus on how we can make it even better,” he said, adding, “My hope is that on a bipartisan basis, in places like Tennessee but all across the country, we can now focus on ... what have we learned? What's working? What's not working?”
He said that “because of politics, not all states have taken advantage of the options that are out there. Our hope is, is that more of them do.” He urged people to “think about this in a practical American way instead of a partisan, political way.”
This probably won't happen, but it's refreshing to see
Obama
, too often passive, regaining vigor as he approaches the final 18 months of his presidency.
The energy had, at least for the moment, returned to the White House, where no fewer than six network correspondents were doing live stand-ups before Obama's appearance Wednesday morning. There was a spring in the president's step, if not a swagger, as he emerged from the Oval Office trailed by Vice President
Biden.
Republican presidential candidates were nearly unanimous in denouncing the plan to open a U.S. embassy in
Havana. But Obama
, squinting in the sunlight as he read from his teleprompters,
welcomed the fight.
“The progress that we mark today is yet another demonstration that we don't have to be imprisoned by the past,” he said. Quoting a Cuban-American's view that “you can't hold the future of Cuba hostage to what happened in the past,” Obama added, “That's what this is about: a choice between the future and the past.”
Obama turned to go back inside, ignoring the question shouted by Bloomberg's Margaret Talev: “How will you get an ambassador confirmed?”
That will indeed be tricky. But momentum is everything in politics — and for the moment, Obama has it again.

--- (Russell Berman, 7/10/15, “Is this Obama’s moment for criminal justice reform?”, Government executive, http://www.govexec.com/management/2015/07/obamas-moment-criminal-justice-reform/117481/)//Jmoney
The U.S. locks up more of its citizens than any nation in the world, and far too many of them are African American and Hispanic men imprisoned for non-violent drug crimes.
The sad state of the criminal-justice system has become
, over the last decade, a crisis
lamented with nearly equal measure of sorrow by Democrats and Republicans alike. To hear the politicians tell it, mass incarceration is both a financial drain on the government at all levels, and a moral stain that consigns families and entire communities to a cycle of poverty.
Yet despite no shortage of proposals for reform in recent years, Congress has done virtually nothing. That may, finally, be about to change, as an emboldened
President
Obama eyes what might be the last major addition to his domestic legacy in the White House.
Speaking at a press conference last week, the president was asked how he might follow the remarkable string of victories he earned in late June
, which included a congressional win on trade, a pair of legacy-setting Supreme Court decisions, and a widely-praised eulogy in Charleston.
He ticked off several unchecked boxes on his economic agenda, including a major infrastructure bill and enactment of his proposals to boost job training and access to community college.
But the big-ticket item Obama mentioned that actually holds the most promise in the
Republican Congress is a long-awaited overhaul of the nation’s criminal-justice system
. “We’ve seen some really interesting leadership from some unlikely Republican legislators very sincerely concerned about making progress there,” the president observed.
He’s right. The bipartisan coalition pushing to reduce incarceration rates in the world’s most crowded prison system has been building for years, bringing together ardent foes like the Koch Brothers and the ACLU, and Rand Paul and Cory Booker, among others.
Various proposals
to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes, and to keep young, nonviolent offenders from receiving long, crippling prison sentences have circulated for a while without going anywhere. Yet that movement is cresting now, providing what lawmakers and advocates say is a genuine opportunity to enact legislation before the end of the year.
“
I am very optimistic that we will get something done. If you had told me a couple years ago, I would not have believed it
,” said Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who is not known as a congressional Pollyanna.
As usual, however, Cummings’s rosy view comes with a key caveat repeated by other advocates I interviewed: the looming presidential election.
“I think the stars have aligned
,” Cummings said. “I do believe, however, that if we don’t get it done now, I don’t know that the stars will align like this again.”
Obama talked up the prospect of criminal-justice reform
just a few days after lawmakers in the House unveiled the most ambitious and comprehensive proposal to modernize the system to date. Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that
Obama
was soon likely to commute the sentences of dozens of nonviolent drug offenders—an act of presidential clemency unprecedented in scope that would seek to galvanize the push for reform in Congress.
--- (Laura Italiano and Kathianne Boniello, 7/12/15, “Obama, Democrats and republicans push for prison reform”, nypost, http://nypost.com/2015/07/12/obama-democrats-and-republicans-push-for-prison-reform/)//Jmoney
An alliance of Republicans and Democrats led by
President
Obama is pushing to reform federal laws that have packed prisons with legions of aging, nonviolent drug dealers.
Mandatory-minimum- sentencing laws and guidelines
, along with so-called “three strikes, you’re out” statutes, a legacy of the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, have helped fill US prisons with drug offenders.
But warehousing them costs the government big money — up to a million dollars each in the case of teens locked up for life.
They are the legislative legacy of the crack epidemic that raged in the ‘80s and ‘90s — mandatory minimum and so-called “Three-Strikes, You’re Out” federal sentencing statutes meant to clear the streets of rampant crime.

Trouble is, those laws have left American prisons packed with aging drug dealers, many of them non-violent and costing up to a million dollars each to warehouse, in the case of teens locked up for life.
Now, a strange-bedfellows alliance of Republicans and Democrats — led by President Obama — is on board to reform those laws and start clearing prison space for violent convicts
.
Proponents of reform include lawmakers from both parties, and even staunchly conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.
This week,
Obama is expected to call for a comprehensive federal sentencing package that includes reduced sentences and greater judicial sentencing discretion for nonviolent drug offenders.
He will likely make his pitch Tuesday, when he addresses the NAACP conference in Philadelphia.
On Thursday, he will become the first sitting president to visit a prison.
Obama will meet
with prison officials and inmates
inside the federal penitentiary in El Reno, Okla., to “underscore the administration’s focus on the need to reform and improve America’s criminal-justice system,
” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday.
And as early as Monday, the president may announce his latest round of clemencies of non-violent offenders.
In March, he shortened the sentences of nearly two dozen drug inmates, including eight who were doing life.
With prisons overcrowded by almost 40 percent, and more people behind bars — 2.3 million — than in any other country of the world, sentencing reform simply makes good fiscal and humanitarian sense, said Mike Riggs of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
“The Bureau of Prisons is spending 25 percent of the DOJ budget — much of it on nonviolent drug offenders,” Riggs said. “Do we really need to do that, when we’re trying to fight cyberterrorism and ISIS?”
Sentencing reform would benefit New York state, said veteran defense lawyer George Goltzer.
“We deal with these guidelines every day, and the catalog of human tragedy is amazing,” he said. “These are not major drug dealers; these are not the leaders of a cartel.”
--- (Jordan Fabian, 7/10/15, “Obama to visit federal prison in push for criminal justice reform”, The Hill, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/247533-obama-to-visit-federal-prison-in-push-for-criminal-justice-reform)//Jmoney
President
Obama will visit a federal prison in Oklahoma next Thursday as part of his push to overhaul the country’s criminal-justice system.
Obama will travel to the El Reno Correctional Institution outside of Oklahoma City, becoming the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced Friday.
While at the prison, the president is likely to commute the sentences of dozens of non-violent drug offenders,
The
Washington Post reported.
Obama’s trip to the prison will be recorded for a "Vice" documentary on America’s prison system that will air on HBO.
The president will speak with
Vice founder Shane Smith and meet with prisoners, prison staff and law enforcement officials
, according to Vice.
The White House has close ties to Vice. The media company hired former Obama deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco last November as a senior executive. Reggie
Love, the president’s former body man and Duke University basketball player, was hired this week to cover sports.
The president's prison visit will come two days after he delivers a speech to the NAACP’s national conference in Philadelphia. He is expected to call for lower sentences for non-violent offenders
, according to reports.
Obama will “outline the unfairness in much of our criminal-justice system
,” Earnest said.
The president is stepping up his effort to push Congress to reform the nation’s sentencing laws, an effort that has attracted support from members in both political parties.

In February, the White House threw its backing behind
a bipartisan bill that would slash mandatory minimum sentences for many non-violent drug offenders
.
Obama commuted
the sentences of 22 drug offenders in March, the most aggressive use of his executive power to date to address the issue.
He has spoken out more frequently about the adverse effect current sentencing guidelines have on communities of color.
During a March interview with David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire,” Obama decried “the massive trend towards incarceration, even of non-violent drug offenders.”
“The challenge, which you depict in your show, is folks going in at great expense to the state, many times trained to become more hardened criminals while in prison, come out and are basically unemployable,” he said.
--- (Justin Sink, 7/10/15, “Obama to push U.S. sentencing change backed by Koch brothers”, Bloomberg Politics, http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/cost-of-vast-u-s-prison-population-allies-obama-and-republicans)//Jmoney
The
White House is preparing to seize advantage of bipartisan concern over the burgeoning U.S. prison population and push for legislation that would reduce federal sentences for nonviolent crimes.
President Barack
Obama will champion sweeping reform of the criminal justice system during a speech to the
NAACP annual convention on Tuesday in Philadelphia
, press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday.
Obama will present ideas to make the system “safer, fairer and more effective,”
Earnest said.
Later in the week,
Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit a federal prison
when he goes to a medium-security facility in El Reno, Oklahoma. He’ll also sit for an interview with Vice News for an HBO documentary on the criminal justice system, Earnest said.
“So it has more momentum than anybody realizes.”
Representative Jason Chaffetz
Obama came to office promising to reduce the number of Americans imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses, and in 2010
he signed a law reducing disparities in sentences for possession of crack and powder cocaine. Some
Republicans and police organizations criticized the moves as too lenient, but now a bipartisan coalition that includes Obama’s chief political antagonists, billionaires Charles and David Koch, have joined him to support relaxing federal sentencing guidelines.
Key lawmakers from both parties have been invited to the White House next week to discuss strategy
. And
Obama is expected to
soon issue a spate of commutations for nonviolent drug offenders
identified by a Justice Department program launched last year.
Top officials from the department, including Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, have recently met with members of Congress to express support for sentencing-reform legislation.
“Engagement with the president has been lacking for the past six years, but this is one topic where it has been refreshingly bipartisan,” Representative Jason Chaffetz, the
Utah Republican who heads the House Oversight Committee, said in a telephone interview.

Andrew Nachemson, staff writer for the Washington Times, “Embargo remains major hurdle in U.S.-Cuba thaw,” July 1, 2015, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/1/cuba-embargo-remains-hurdle-in-us-cuba-thaw/?page=all/NV
The embassies may be reopening, but the embargo will take a lot longer to come down
.
President
Obama paired the announcement of renewed diplomatic ties with Havana at the White House
Wednesday with a call for Congress to end the economic embargo
, but U.S. business groups anxious to crack the Cuban market say it’s already clear the economic track will lag behind the political one for the president. Cuban President Raul Castro underscored the point himself Wednesday.
“There could be no normal relations between Cuba and the United States as long as the economic, commercial and financial blockade continues to be fully implemented,”
Mr. Castro said.
But, without the approval of Congress, Obama cannot lift the economic embargo currently levied against
Cuba. Many in Congress, both Republican and Democrat, are opposed to restoring diplomatic ties with the Communist island nation.
The dissenters cite the Cuban government’s human rights violations, harboring of American fugitives, and seizure of American-owned property without compensation. Even the president’s embassy move is in
jeopardy, as Congress must approve any public spending on the American embassy in Havana.
Public opinion, on the other hand, seems to be embracing the changes. According to a survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, two in three Americans support ending the trade embargo.
Snell, 7/6/15 (Kelsey, Washington Post.com, “How Republicans want to defund Obama's legacy ; Republicans want to use the appropriations process to prevent the White
House from moving forward on a long list of policy priorities,” Factiva/NV)
Republicans are planning to use the annual spending bills to challenge some of
President
Obama's best-loved policies, adding another layer to a budget battle that already promises to be messy
as the two parties fight over how much money to spend on domestic programs.
The fiscal 2016 spending bills moving through the House and Senate are filled with attempts to block or defund a slew of
Obama administration initiatives, including
environmental rules, the effort to renew diplomatic ties with Cuba
and a
Labor Department proposal to crackdown on the retirement savings industry.
While using so-called policy riders on appropriations bills is a time-honored tradition on Capitol Hill,
Republicans have signaled they plan to be extra aggressive this year now that they control both chambers of Congress and Obama's second term is running out
.
When the fight over these policy-riders will come to a head is unclear.
The first order of business is figuring out an end to the stalemate over the top-line spending level for the fiscal 2016 appropriations bills, something that could take until the end of the calendar year
. Obama is threatening to veto any bill that conforms to the Republican budget plan approved by Congress earlier this year. Senate Democrats are also threatening to filibuster any appropriations bill until a broader deal is reached allowing for more spending on domestic programs.
As negotiations over the broader funding battle progress, at some point in the coming months the policy-riders will likely lead to a showdown between Republicans and
Obama.
What follows is a list of which ones could prove most contentious.
Cuba. The Cold War may be long over, but last week's announcement that the United States and Cuba will open embassies
later this month after more than a half-century of diplomatic isolation fueled anger among many Republicans, who are

already upset over the administration's announcement in December that it planned to renew diplomatic ties with the communist country.
The GOP is seeking to thwart the administration's Cuba agenda by denying funding for key programs
.
For instance, the House State and Foreign Operations spending bill includes language banning funds for a new embassy and its operations.
And denying money for opening an embassy in Cuba isn't the only way Republicans are targeting Obama's aspirations in Cuba.
Rep. Mario-Diaz
Balart
(R-Fla.), the son of Cuban immigrants, added language to the Commerce, Justice and
Science spending bill that would prevent the United States from providing military assistance to Cuba and to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill that would block U.S. airlines and cruise ships from travelling to the island
.
"We must not permit the exploitation of properties stolen by the Castro regime, which is expressly prohibited in U.S. law," Diaz-Balart said in a statement.
Republicans in the Senate are expected to include similar provisions in their spending bills.
"I will do all in my power to block the use of funds to open an embassy in Cuba
," Appropriations Committee member Sen.
Lindsey O.
Graham
(R-S.C.) wrote
in a tweet in December. "Normalizing relations with Cuba is bad idea at a bad time."
Simon Maloy, the Salon’s political writer, “GOP’s dead-end Cuba gamble: Republicans’ Cold War-era tough talk won’t come to anything,” July 2, 2015, Salon, http://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/gops_dead_end_cuba_gamble_republicans_cold_war_era_tough_talk_wont_come_to_anything/NV
After winning a great victory for communism with the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, Barack Obama went for broke this week and surrendered to Cuba, thus ending the Cold War in a crippling defeat for global capitalism. ¡Que viva la gran revolución! ¡Venceremos!
Okay, maybe that’s not precisely what happened. But what did happen is that the White House followed through on a key portion of the president’s plan to normalize relations with
our tiny communist island neighbor. In a Rose Garden ceremony yesterday, Obama officially announced that the United States and
Cuba
would open embassies in Havana and Washington, DC.
That announcement came just over a month after Cuba was removed from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
That’s two big changes to the United States’ Cuba policy, which had remained essentially unchanged for 50 years
and made precisely zero progress towards its goal of dislodging the Castro regime.
But Republicans in Congress and the 2016 presidential field are, as is their wont, pushing back on the president and insisting that we stick with what hasn’t been working
. The two Cuban-American Republican presidential candidates, Marco
Rubio and
Ted
Cruz, vowed to block Senate confirmation of any ambassador to Cuba
. House Speaker John
Boehner said “relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until Cubans enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner.”
2016 hopeful Carly Fiorina outdid everyone, promising to Hugh Hewitt that as president she would close the U.S. embassy in Cuba.
I guess it’s not entirely surprising that the GOP would still be so gung-ho about fighting the Cold War more than two decades after it ended
. But there’s no real reason to think that all this tough talk and posturing on Cuba will amount to anything, even if a
Republican wins the White House in 2016.
The reason is simple: corporate America very strongly approves of Obama’s plans to open up Cuba, and Republicans try very hard to not piss off the business community too much. For half a century the island has just been sitting there off the Florida coast, a market completely shut off from thorough exploitation by American business interests. Those same business interests would love nothing more than to see the 50-year trade embargo come crashing down, but
Obama can’t unilaterally end it because
Bill
Clinton stupidly gave up the executive branch’s authority over the embargo back in 1996. The only way to end the Cuba embargo is for Congress to vote to kill it, and statements like the one from the
House Speaker quoted above don’t lead one to believe that that will happen any time soon
. But America’s corporate masters are apparently massing their armies of lobbyists to try and convince enough Republicans in Congress to give up on this obsolete relic from the Kennedy administration.

Marple, 7/7/15 --- Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Olivia, ForeignAffairs.co.nz, “Roadblocks Remain in US-Cuba Rapprochement,”
Factiva/NV)
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba will finally be restored on July 20
, when
Washington reopens its embassy in Havana after more than 50 years
of political turmoil between the two countries. Cuba will also open its embassy in Washington that day, and John Kerry will visit
Havana, making him the first U.S. secretary of state to go to Cuba in 70 years.[1]
This is a step in the right direction in regard to US-Cuban policy since the U.S. embargo, which was enacted in the early 1960s, has not been successful in bringing about regime change or some version of the Washington Consensus in Cuba.[2] “It hasn’t worked for 50 years,” Obama said in his announcement from the Rose Garden last week. “It shuts America out of Cuba’s future, and it only makes life worse for the Cuban people.”[3]
Instead of naming an ambassador right away, the Obama Administration announced it would make Jeffery DeLaurentis its charge d’affaires. DeLaurentis has led the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba beginning last year.
Senators and presidential candidates
Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have declared they will oppose any ambassador that Obama nominates
.[4]
These
Republicans and other critics of the normalization process between the two countries argue that Obama is legitimizing the government of Raúl Castro
without attempting to seek guarantees of improvement in human rights on the island.
Rubio has been especially indignant about the easing in relations
, insisting that it is “important that pro-democracy activities not be sacrificed in the name of ‘diplomacy’ just so that we can change the name of a building from ‘Interest Section’ to ‘Embassy.’”[5]
While this condemnation on Rubio’s part certainly makes him appear tough on governments that do not share Washington’s values, it does not offer any real solution to the problems dissenting Cubans face and ignores the valuable cultural exchange that can take place through increased levels of tourism and bilateral economic transaction.
The number of Americans who visited Cuba between January 1 and May 9 this year increased 36 percent compared to the same period in 2014.[6] Although the result of this influx of American tourists remains to be seen, it appears that if critics like Rubio want Cuba to inherit American ideals, contact between the countries would be a good start.
As part of the agreement between the United States and Cuba, Cuba has agreed to relax restrictions on Internet access, and, in fact, the American media streaming site
Netflix announced Cubans can now stream its content.[7] Although independent Cuban websites are still blocked, this increase in Internet freedoms will most likely snowball into greater access.[8]
It should be noted that this exchange of ideas will not only be one way, and it should not be assumed that Cuban citizens will be the only ones learning from American tourists and companies. For example, Cuba provides healthcare for “all segments of the population” and still manages to boast a medical system with “results similar to those of the most developed nations.”[9] Its education system enjoys success as well; its literacy rate is 99.8 percent, far above many of its Caribbean neighbors.[10]
In addition to the Republicans’ opposition to appointing an ambassador, another roadblock to complete normalization is the fact that the embargo can only be completely lifted by Congress, which is
currently Republican-controlled.
[11]
Obama cannot lift these sanctions against Cuba himself because in
1996
former President Bill
Clinton signed the Helms-Burton law, which declared the embargo could only be lifted by a majority of votes in Congress
.[12]
This illustrates that, despite the progress made on Obama’s part, barriers remain. Rubio and other critics of this rapprochement are only gumming up a process
that could actually result in some of the increased human rights and democratic changes they have been calling for.
Howard LaFranchi, a reporter in the Monitor’s Washington Bureau, “US flag to fly over Havana again, but that won't end America's Cuba debate (+video),” July 1, 2015,
The Christian Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2015/0701/US-flag-to-fly-over-Havana-again-but-that-won-t-end-America-s-Cuba-debatevideo/NV
WASHINGTON —
The United States and Cuba may have agreed Wednesday to open embassies in each other’s capital for the first time in half a century, but that doesn’t mean it will be all salsa music and humdrum diplomacy between the two longtime adversaries anytime soon
.
President Obama emphasized that “very serious differences” remain between the two neighboring countries, particularly on human rights and democracy, as he announced a long-awaited accord between the two governments Wednesday. The agreement will allow each country’s existing diplomatic offices in Washington and Havana to reopen as full-fledged embassies as of July 20.

“I believe that American engagement – through our embassy, our businesses, and most of all, through our people – is the best way to advance our interests and support for democracy and human rights,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in a Rose Garden speech.
Cuba is one of a number of key foreign-policy issues – Iran and Iraq also come to mind – in which Obama has sought to get beyond what he has seen as mistaken policies of the past. Such a foreign policy emphasizes trying diplomacy where, to the president’s thinking, isolation and unilateral action have not worked. And in each instance, whether Cuba or Iran, it is still being hotly debated, with some vaunting and others vilifying the approach
.
That debate promises to figure prominently in the 2016 presidential election, and the emotional topic of Cuba is sure to stand out
.
On Wednesday, several Republican presidential hopefuls
– most notably two from Florida, with its politically crucial Cuban-American population – were quick to blast the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba as a gift to a repressive regime
.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush said diplomatic ties “will legitimize repression in Cuba, not promote the cause of freedom and democracy.”
Florida GOP Sen. Marco
Rubio criticized the Obama administration
for being so eager to open an embassy in Havana that it has “continued to look the other way and offer concession after concession” as the Cuban government “has stepped up its repression of the Cuban people.”
Insisting the US got nothing from the Cubans in the six months of negotiations since Obama announced his intention to renew diplomatic relations, Senator
Rubio said, “It is time for our unilateral concessions to this odious regime to end
.”
That theme of the US giving up much to an adversary for little or nothing in return can also be heard in reference to Iran and the negotiations to limit its nuclear program.
Most Democrats, on the other hand, hailed the reopening of the Havana and Washington embassies by echoing Obama’s foreign-policy conviction that America’s isolation of adversaries does little to resolve differences with them – while causing problems with allies who oppose unilateral steps like the 50-year-old US trade embargo on Cuba.
“Embargo and isolation failed to bring fundamental change to Cuba and have instead become a source of friction between the United States and our partners in the
Western Hemisphere and across the globe,” said Sen. Christopher Murphy (D) of Connecticut in a statement.
Preserving America’s global stature, Senator Murphy added, “depends on strong diplomatic relationships and a willingness to learn from both our successes and our ... missteps in particular – from the failed isolation of Cuba to the disastrous occupation of Iraq.”
What Congress is expected to do
Even as the political debate over Cuba continues, the Republican-controlled Congress is expected to try to thwart Obama’s opening to Cuba as best it can – largely through its control of government purse strings
.
Congress can’t stop the reestablishing of full diplomatic ties with Cuba
. On Wednesday, in fact, Secretary of State John Kerry said he will travel to Havana “later this summer” to mark both “the raising of the Stars and Stripes” over the embassy and “the beginning of a new era of a new relationship with the Cuban people.”
It will be the first time since 1945 that a secretary of State has visited Havana, Mr. Kerry noted.
Still, Congress can continue to place roadblocks on the way to a deeper US diplomatic presence in
Cuba.
A number of funding bills for US government departments have been amended in the House to limit any expansion of operations in Cuba
. Most critically, State Department funding for US diplomats operating in Cuba has been frozen – even though the State
Department won Havana’s OK to boost the number of US diplomats in Cuba as part of the transition to a full-fledged embassy.
“It would be a shame if Congress impeded implementation of some of the very things we all agree we want to do,” says a senior State Department official, referring to the ability to “reach out all over the island” with a beefed-up embassy staff.

Greg Campbell, contributor for tpnn, “Ten GREAT Reasons the U.S. Should NOT Lift the Embargo on Cuba,” January 16, 2015, tpnn, http://www.tpnn.com/2015/01/16/ten-great-reasons-the-u-s-should-not-lift-the-embargo-on-cuba/NV
As
President
Obama continues to dismantle what has stood as diplomatic bedrock for each and every president for the last fifty-plus years, Cuban leaders wait with hushed anticipation of the day when the U.S. will finally lift the economic embargo
on the island that remains a bastion of Communist government just 90 miles off our shores.
To be clear, the citizens of Cuba are not to blame for this system of government.
While it is unfortunate that so many must remain imprisoned on this island
, stuck under the oppressive rule of this despotic Castro regime, the surest hope for their ultimate freedom is for the breaking of the Communist stranglehold on Cuban citizens, not to facilitate the survival
of this method of tyrannous government.
Though President Obama and his assorted band of “yes men” and other diplomatic weaklings head towards lifting the Cuban embargo, Jim Meyers at Newsmax.com compiled a list of compelling reasons why those on the right andleft ought to be in favor of maintaining the embargo:
1. Lifting the embargo would benefit the Cuban people far less than the Castro regime. Most of the Cuban economy is owned by the government and all foreign trade is channeled through its agencies. Companies pay wages in hard currency, including dollars and euros, but the government pays workers in Cuban pesos — 500 pesos is worth around $21 USD — and then pockets about 90 percent of the wages.
2. Decades of trade between Cuba and market economies in Europe, Canada, and Latin America have not produced the political and economic benefits to the people that embargo opponents say a lifting of the sanctions would produce. What they have done is line the pockets of the Castro government. Corruption, not the embargo, denies people the benefits of trade.
3.
Opening up trade with Cuba would lead the United States into dealings with a “deadbeat” nation that refuses to honor its commitments. Cuba has defaulted on its estimated $37 billion debt to the Paris Club of nations. Russia has been forced to write off Cuba’s $32 billion debt
, and Mexico wrote off $340 million of Cuba’s debt.
4.
Cuba has not released all the political prisoners Obama said the regime had promised to free during recent
Cuban-American discussions. Estimates are that there are more than 6,000 political detainees in Cuba
, among the world’s highest per capital, and some 65,000 prison inmates altogether.
5.
Ending the embargo would be a blow to American values.
Americans want free trade with free people and not relations that strengthen an authoritarian regime’s oppression of its people
.
6.
Lifting the embargo without getting concessions from Cuba would make the United States appear
weak. According to U.S. law, Cuba must legalize all political activity, release political prisoners, commit to free and fair elections
, grant freedom of the press, and allow labor unions.
Cuba has not met these conditions. Lifting the sanctions unilaterally would send the message that America is willing to appease an oppressive
regime. Moreover, the embargo enables the United States to continue to pressure the Cuban government to improve human rights
.
7. The embargo does not prevent Americans from providing assistance to the Cuban people. American policy allows people to visit family members and send money to relatives in Cuba. Over $3.5 billion in remittances are sent to Cuban families each year.
8. Cuba remains on the U.S. “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. Cuba has provided sanctuary for terrorists from other nations and harbored American fugitives. Black
Panther activist and convicted murderer JoAnne Chesimard is among the 90 or more criminals who fled America and received political asylum in Cuba.
9.
The United States should not lift the embargo until a new leader is in place in Cuba.
Fidel Castro turned over control to his brother Raul, but Raul is over 80 years old and it is unclear who would succeed him.
The embargo could be used as a bargaining chip when a new leader takes power
.
10. The American people oppose lifting the embargo. A poll last year found that a slight majority still want the sanctions to remain in place. More importantly, an even larger majority of Cuban-Americans, those who understand the situation best, favor keeping the embargo in place.

Greg Campbell, contributor for tpnn, “Ten GREAT Reasons the U.S. Should NOT Lift the Embargo on Cuba,” January 16, 2015, tpnn, http://www.tpnn.com/2015/01/16/ten-great-reasons-the-u-s-should-not-lift-the-embargo-on-cuba/NV
As
President
Obama continues to dismantle what has stood as diplomatic bedrock for each and every president for the last fifty-plus years, Cuban leaders wait with hushed anticipation of the day when the U.S. will finally lift the economic embargo
on the island that remains a bastion of Communist government just 90 miles off our shores.
To be clear, the citizens of Cuba are not to blame for this system of government.
While it is unfortunate that so many must remain imprisoned on this island
, stuck under the oppressive rule of this despotic Castro regime, the surest hope for their ultimate freedom is for the breaking of the Communist stranglehold on Cuban citizens, not to facilitate the survival
of this method of tyrannous government.
Though President Obama and his assorted band of “yes men” and other diplomatic weaklings head towards lifting the Cuban embargo, Jim Meyers at Newsmax.com compiled a list of compelling reasons why those on the right andleft ought to be in favor of maintaining the embargo:
1. Lifting the embargo would benefit the Cuban people far less than the Castro regime. Most of the Cuban economy is owned by the government and all foreign trade is channeled through its agencies. Companies pay wages in hard currency, including dollars and euros, but the government pays workers in Cuban pesos — 500 pesos is worth around $21 USD — and then pockets about 90 percent of the wages.
2. Decades of trade between Cuba and market economies in Europe, Canada, and Latin America have not produced the political and economic benefits to the people that embargo opponents say a lifting of the sanctions would produce. What they have done is line the pockets of the Castro government. Corruption, not the embargo, denies people the benefits of trade.
3. Opening up trade with Cuba would lead the United States into dealings with a “deadbeat” nation that refuses to honor its commitments. Cuba has defaulted on its estimated $37 billion debt to the Paris Club of nations. Russia has been forced to write off Cuba’s $32 billion debt, and Mexico wrote off $340 million of Cuba’s debt.
4.
Cuba has not released all the political prisoners Obama said the regime had promised to free during recent
Cuban-American discussions. Estimates are that there are more than 6,000 political detainees in Cuba
, among the world’s highest per capital, and some 65,000 prison inmates altogether.
5.
Ending the embargo would be a blow to American values.
Americans want free trade with free people and not relations that strengthen an authoritarian regime’s oppression of its people
.
6. Lifting the embargo without getting concessions from Cuba would make the United States appear weak.
According to U.S. law, Cuba must legalize all political activity, release political prisoners, commit to free and fair elections, grant freedom of the press, and allow labor unions. Cuba has not met these conditions.
Lifting the sanctions unilaterally would send the message that
America is willing to appease an oppressive regime.
Moreover, the embargo enables the United States to continue to pressure the Cuban government to improve human rights
.
7. The embargo does not prevent Americans from providing assistance to the Cuban people. American policy allows people to visit family members and send money to relatives in Cuba. Over $3.5 billion in remittances are sent to Cuban families each year.
8. Cuba remains on the U.S. “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. Cuba has provided sanctuary for terrorists from other nations and harbored American fugitives. Black
Panther activist and convicted murderer JoAnne Chesimard is among the 90 or more criminals who fled America and received political asylum in Cuba.
9.
The United States should not lift the embargo until a new leader is in place in Cuba.
Fidel Castro turned over control to his brother Raul, but Raul is over 80 years old and it is unclear who would succeed him.
The embargo could be used as a bargaining chip when a new leader takes power
.
10. The American people oppose lifting the embargo. A poll last year found that a slight majority still want the sanctions to remain in place. More importantly, an even larger majority of Cuban-Americans, those who understand the situation best, favor keeping the embargo in place.

Mike Gonzalez, writer for Newsweek, “Cuban Rights Protestors Bloodily Beaten in Havana,” July 7, 2015, Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/cuban-rights-protestersbloodily-beaten-havana-351091/NV
When President
Obama confidently asserted, “This is what change looks like,” during his Cuba embassy announcement on July 1, he couldn’t possibly have had in mind the picture of a bloodied and bandaged
Antonio Rodiles.
And yet, the dissident leader warned Obama that very day in a tweet that appeasement meant more repression of dissidents.
Rodiles had to be operated on overnight to repair his nose after receiving a beating at the hands of state security agents. He was arrested on July 5 along with 20 other people who had the temerity to march to Mass demanding that human rights
and individual freedom be respected in Castro’s Caribbean island Gulag.
His prophetic tweet to Obama and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power the day of the announcement simply asked, “
How to talk about engagement after 11 Sundays of strong repression
.”
Rodiles was responding to Obama’s statement, “I strongly believe that the best way for America to support our values is through engagement,” which the White House tweeted out and Power retweeted.
My retweet of Rodiles said, “.@AmbassadorPower @BarackObama Pls listen to this dissident. He risks his life every day in #Cuba. Do u know better?”
And that’s just it: Apparently they think they do.
It’s either this hubristic belief that Obama and the people around him know better about how to advance democracy and human rights than the Cubans actually fighting for it, or they think that dissidents like Rodiles are a nuisance that get in the way of the state-to-state exchanges between the grownups.
There is sadly a history of such dismissal of democratic forces for this administration.
Its very first on the world stage was to stand by as pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of Tehran.
The White House was not even swayed by the gruesome murder of dissident Neda Agha Soltan. So why would it have a moment of contrition over Rodiles’s broken nose
?
For this arrogant belief in their own intrinsic knowledge of how to bring democracy to Cuba—or the worse dismissal of those suffering for speaking their minds
—Obama has broken the law by attempting to open an embassy in Havana.
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996 requires the fulfillment of two conditions before the restoration of diplomatic relations. The first is that the president must determine that “a transition to a democratically elected government in Cuba has begun.” Not even Secretary of State John Kerry in his worst moments of euphoria could make this claim.
The second condition is “the satisfactory resolution of property claims by a Cuban Government recognized by the United States.” The Castro regime’s seizure of some $8 billion in U.S. assets remains the largest theft in U.S. history.
The 12th Sunday of repression in Cuba is unlikely to stop Obama’s legitimization of the Castros, just like skullduggery on the part of the mullahs will not slow down the rush “to get an agreement” with Iran.
Congress, on the other hand, has a responsibility to make sure that the president acts within the law and does not “fundamentally transform” America’s history of supporting democracy and freedom.
Washington Post, “Despite Mr. Obama’s ‘engagement,’ Cuba continues its repression,” July 1, 2015, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/opinions/the-reality-in-cuba/2015/07/01/5b891ba2-1b6a-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html/NV
IN ANNOUNCING the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, President Obama said “nobody expects
Cuba to be transformed overnight” by his policy of “engagement
.” That’s just as well because in the first six months of
Mr. Obama’s normalization of relations
with the Communist regime, most indicators of human rights on the island have moved in the wrong direction.

Since December, there have been more than 3,000 political detentions in Cuba, including 641 in May and 220 on Sunday alone
, according to dissident sources.
Most were accompanied by beatings; at least 20 detainees required medical treatment in May
. After Cuba was invited for the first time to the Summit of the Americas in Panama, regime thugs attacked the civil society activists who also showed up.
“Some of us had hoped .
.
. that there would be a stop to — or at least a lessening of — the beatings” of peaceful demonstrators, wrote activist Mario Lleonart recently, “but we now know that what is happening is precisely the opposite.”
Visits by Americans to Cuba are reportedly up by a third, including plenty of political delegations. But in the months after Mr. Obama announced the diplomatic opening in December, there was also a 120 percent increase in Cubans seeking to flee to the
United States. Many worry that once relations are normalized, the United States will stop accepting refugees
; according to recent polling, more than half of Cubans would like to leave the country
.
Mr. Obama eased regulations on U.S. food sales, but imports of American food to the island, controlled by the state, dropped by half in the first three months of 2015, compared with last year. Netflix announced that Cubans could stream its service — but the charge for an hour of access to one of the few government-controlled Internet hotspots equals 10 percent of a typical government worker’s monthly salary, and independent Cuban Web sites are blocked.
We don’t oppose diplomatic contacts or U.S. embassies in countries such as Cuba, in principle. But the results of Mr. Obama’s initiative so far underline the opportunity he missed in not requiring even modest alleviation of the dictatorship’s repression in exchange for what amounts to a political and economic bailout of a failing regime
. Mr. Obama could have sought a guarantee, for example, that the Ladies in White, formed by the families of political prisoners, be allowed to carry out their peaceful weekly marches without arrests or beatings; as it is, attacks on the group have increased sharply.
The State Department also could have insisted that U.S. diplomats have unrestricted access to average
Cubans and could have rejected the regime’s demands that ongoing democracy programs be canceled.
Instead, a senior U.S. official said that, while access would improve, the State Department had accepted “constraints” on personnel in Cuba similar to those in other “restrictive environments.”
Thanks to congressional opposition, no U.S. ambassador to Cuba may be confirmed anytime soon. But Mr. Obama himself, according to his spokesman, is eager to visit
Havana. We’d like to hope that the president will restrain himself until the Castro regime shows some sign of delivering the improvements in human rights he says are the goal of his outreach.
So far, U.S.-Cuba rapprochement is looking entirely one-sided.

Jeff Jacoby, columnist for the Boston Globe, “Cubans pay the price for Obama’s ‘engagement’ with the Castros,” July 8, 2015, Boston Globe, http://www.therealcuba.com/NV
On July 1
, President
Obama announced the formal resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, asserting confidently that
“American engagement . . . is the best way to advance
our interests and support for democracy and human rights.”
On July 5
, the Communist regime in
Havana delivered its customary response. It arrested more than 80 democratic dissidents, including at least 60 members of Ladies in White
, a peaceful group of brave women who march weekly in support of husbands, fathers, and other relatives imprisoned in the Castros’ jails.
Many of those detained were hurt, some severely.
One prominent human rights activist,
Antonio Rodiles, was sent to the hospital with a shattered nose; he
had reportedly been
handcuffed by security forces, then beaten for shouting “Long live freedom” and “Long live human rights
.”
There had been even more arrests and beatings in the days leading up to Obama’s Rose Garden statement.
Some 225 Cuban dissidents across the island were arrested the previous Sunday
, with Ladies in White again prominent among those targeted. In fact, there have been police actions against Cuban democrats for 12 Sundays in a row — the government makes a point of going after dissidents as they walk to Mass
or emerge from church holding photos of imprisoned loved ones.
Like most US advocates of normalizing relations with the only all-out dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, Obama claims that warming up to the Castro regime is the most effective way to promote freedom and liberal reform in Cuba. When he announced last December
that ties between Havana and Washington were going to be restored, the president declared that “we can do more to support the Cuban people
and promote our values through engagement.”
Now, nearly seven months later, he reiterates “America’s enduring support for universal values
, like freedom of speech and assembly,” and
he insists that his administration “will not hesitate to speak out when we see actions that contradict those values
.”
No? Over the past seven months, life for Cuba’s people has grown even more unfree. Yet far from forthrightly condemning the repression, Obama serenely counsels patience:
“Nobody expects Cuba to be transformed overnight,” he says.
There have been more than 3,000 political detentions on the island since last December,
according to The Washington
Post. The paper quotes Mario Felix Lleonart, a Cuban Baptist pastor who laments that he, like many, “had hoped, following the announcement about normalizing relations between the US and Cuba, that there would be a stop to — or at least a lessening of — the beatings” of dissidents. “We now know that what is happening is precisely the opposite.”
The policy that Obama now embraces is also “precisely the opposite” of the one he feigned to uphold as a candidate for president.
Once upon a time, Obama maintained that there would be no American embassy in Havana until all of
Cuba’s political prisoners were free
. Now he trumpets John Kerry’s forthcoming trip to Havana “to proudly raise the American flag over our embassy once more,” even as Cuba continues to lock up men and women for daring to seek the democratic liberties Americans take for granted.
The Obama administration is bestowing tremendous gifts on Cuba’s rulers:
diplomatic legitimation, a public-relations triumph, an influx of hard currency, and expanded influence in Washington.
All this the Castros are getting in exchange for nothing: no elections, no free press, no end to beating peaceful protesters, no justice for the many victims of Cuban totalitarianism.
“Castroism has won,” mourned the Cuban dissident Yoani Sánchez
last winter, when Obama announced an end to America’s principled policy on Cuba. If it wasn’t obvious then, it is now.

Maral Margossian, a columnist for Massachusetts Daily Collegian, “Five reasons why Russia won’t start World War III,” March 27, 2014, The Massachusetts Daily
Collegian, http://dailycollegian.com/2014/03/27/five-reasons-why-russia-wont-start-world-war-iii/NV
The
recent events in Eastern Europe involving Russia and Ukraine have spawned, at their most extreme, apocalyptic claims. Here are five reasons why Russia won’t start World War III
, or any other war for that matter:
1. The world is MAD. The end of World War II ushered the world into a
precarious atomic age
that characterized the international atmosphere during the Cold War. Luckily, the Cold War never escalated to nuclear war. Why? Because of mutually assured destruction ( or MAD).
Russia knows that if it pushes that big red button, we have our own even bigger, redder button to push
in retaliation.
The odds of a nuclear war with Russia are extremely unlikely
.
2. The impact of economic sanctions on the Russian economy is far too crippling for Russia to fund a
war. As a part of a globalized world, economic sanctions are more than mere slaps on the wrist.
Already the sanctions imposed on Russia have begun to take their toll
. The West has yet to attack Russia’s strongest economic assets, but the declining strength of the Russian economy puts Putin far from a position to wage a world war
.
3. Putin’s actions demonstrate his longing for Russia’s glory days before the fall of the Soviet Union. His annexation of Crimea is more out of fear than strength
. Putin feels threatened by Russia’s changing role in world affairs and is using Crimea to tell the world that Russia still matters.
4. Russia is already seen as the “big bad wolf” of Europe
. Though Putin may have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his involvement in the Syrian chemical weapons deal,
Russia’s popularity among many Western countries is not very high. The recent suspension of Russia from the G8 group is a symbolic action that demonstrates that Russia will have to face a united front of world powers if it chooses to start a war
.
5. There is just too much at stake. War between Ukraine and Russia is one thing
; Russia’s military is large enough and strong enough to easily defeat Ukraine.
However, if Russia decides to take further aggressive action, it must also contend with surrounding European Union member nations
and their potential involvement in the war. Moreover, Russia’s involvement in other international affairs will be affected. For example, the ongoing effort to normalize relations between Iran and the rest of the world will be jeopardized, considering Russia is involved in those efforts.
Crimea may have symbolic meaning close to the hearts of Russians, but it isn’t worth risking the domino effect of events that can potentially occur.
So, those of you who feel abnormally unsettled by the recent turn of events can rest easy.
While Russia’s actions can’t be brushed aside and should be taken seriously, the chances of this confrontation escalating to a great war are slim
— assuming these countries act rationally.