Marco Rubio’s grandfather was, horrors, an illegal alien! Plus, according to a lot of the truthers, he isn’t eligible to be President because his parents weren’t citizens. Kind of a double edged sword there.
He has claimed that his parents fled Cuba when Castro took over, but the truth is that they came to the US when Bautista was ruling Cuba.
He supports a flat federal tax, he wants even more capital gains cuts, he opposed the Violence Against Women Act, he opposes Same Sex Marriage, he opposes abortion for any reason whatsoever, he doesn’t believe in global warming. Really a lot of things that the majority of Americans support </sarcasm>
We’re getting off on a tangent, but I think there’s a major factor on the Cuban issue that hasn’t been raised: the interests of American businesses. American businessmen see Cuba as a potential market that’s cut off to them. Other countries are making profits trading with Cuba and they want in on it. So, in my opinion, there may be some instinctive anti-Obama posturing but when it comes down to a vote Republicans will listen to their corporate backers and end the embargo.
Just making sure we use cites that actually support us, that’s all. Had this one been your original post my follow up would likely not have existed.
That’s my take on it, too. At the very least they may go along with adjusting it so that more trade activity is technically not within the Helms-Burton limits.
Flip flopping can be dangerous if it becomes a habit. In 2008, the only thing she got asked about was NAFTA, which she never gave a firm answer on. But since then, a lot more issues have built up where she’s praised things that were the opposite of what her husband did. So it’s fair to ask her if she’d even vote for Bill Clinton if he could run again.
What it also risks doing is establishing her as the lefty terror many right-wingers have portrayed her as. For someone trying to stake out a centrist position, she’s sure doing a lot of disagreeing with her husband from the left. That’s hazardous. Why bother with a liberal Hillary Clinton when you can have a liberal Liz Warren(should she run). Hillary Clinton’s primary appeal is that she portrays herself as well, a Clinton. The less she acts like a Clinton the less voters are going to be interested.
Marco Rubio supplies us with as good an answer as any to the OP:
This is Palin-level stupid. Coming from someone who routinely prattles on about “credibility” and American “leadership,” it’s pretty rich to say that not only should the US renege on its international commitments, but that we should do so contrary to the wishes of our most important allies on a matter of presumably great importance.
And what does Sen. Rubio expect to happen when the US imposes unilateral sanctions? Does he expect those sanctions to possibly be stronger than the current multilateral regime already in place? Does he actually believe that any of our allies would follow our “lead” in imposing further sanctions after we unilaterally blew up the deal they all supported? What Rubio is describing is a plan to trash American credibility, reduce our capacity to lead the world, an generally embarrass the country that elected him.
Why anyone listens to what this fresh-faced sophomoric ass has to say, much less treating him like some sort of eminence on foreign policy, is beyond me.
the US isn’t making any commitment. President Obama is, unilaterally, against the wishes of bipartisan majorities in Congress. What would be stupid is to concede a power to the President that Congress shares.
The President has the power to negotiate. He does not have the power to make binding law. Only Congress can do that.
The President has the same power to make agreements and negotiate that other presidents have. It’s Congress that is acting as though something is unusual with these negotiations – but it’s the same sort of (potential) agreement that many other Presidents have negotiated, without Congress trying to stop it.
Your point is valid, but the President cannot commit the US all by himself. He has to have at least the tacit support of Congress. Congress isn’t even likely to wait until he leaves office to violate his agreement, and they can probably do it over his veto.
Some people seem to expect Marco Rubio to keep a commitment made against the will of Congress.
This would mean that Congress dictates foreign policy. They don’t, and never have. There’s nothing special about this President or this Congress that changes that.