asmPolitics-271 [Joe DiGenova comments on Andrew Weissmann & Robert Mueller]

asmPolitics-270 [President Barack Hussein Obama ends 'wet foot-dry foot' policy

President Obama announced Thursday an end to the 20-year-old "wet foot, dry foot" policy that allowed most Cuban migrants who reach U.S. soil to stay and become legal permanent residents after one year.

President Obama issued a statement Thursday evening saying the U.S. is working to normalize relations with its one-time foe, and ending this policy was the next logical step.

"Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal," Obama said. "By taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries."

The "wet foot, dry foot" policy, created by President Clinton in 1995, has generally allowed Cubans who simply touch U.S. soil to stay in the country. Those caught at sea are returned to Cuba. In exchange for the new policy, Cuba has agreed to start accepting Cubans who were issued a deportation order in the United States, something the communist nation has refused to do for decades.

The decision, formalized in a joint statement issued by both governments Thursday, comes as Obama tries to cement his historic opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba and one week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Obama ended more than five decades of isolation with Cuba in December 2014 and even visited the island in 2016. Trump has said he would renegotiate the U.S. dealings with Cuba, and ending the "wet foot, dry foot" policy could affect Trump's plans.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has advocated for closer ties with Cuba, praised the move.

"Individuals on both sides of the U.S.-Cuba debate recognize and agree that ending ‘wet foot, dry foot’ is in our national interest," Flake said. "It’s a move that brings our Cuba policy into the modern era, while allowing the United States to continue its generous approach to those individuals and refugees with a legitimate claim for asylum."

Others were enraged, arguing that Cuba's communist regime continues to violate the human rights of its citizens. Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, called Obama's decision "another example of a heartless foreign policy."

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American Republican from Florida, agreed. "With just eight days left in his administration, President Obama has found one more way to frustrate the democratic aspirations of the Cuban people and provide yet another shameful concession to the Castro regime," he said.

Cubans have received favorable treatment from the United States ever since Fidel Castro took control of the island in 1959 and declared it a communist ally of the Soviet Union. Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966 that allowed tens of thousands of Cubans who had already fled Castro's revolution to gain legal status in the U.S.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it left Cuba in economic ruin, prompting thousands more to take to the sea for the United States on makeshift boats and rafts. To end the crisis, Clinton enacted the "wet foot, dry foot" policy.

Rumors that the policy would end have been rampant in Cuba since the 2014 rapprochement between the two countries, prompting a surge of Cubans fleeing for the United States. In the year before Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced the opening of diplomatic relations, 24,278 Cubans reached the U.S. That number nearly doubled in 2015 and surpassed 54,000 in 2016, according to the White House.

Many Cubans continue traveling to the U.S. by sea in rickety, dangerous boats built from spare parts in Cuba. In recent years, more Cubans have taken advantage of laws that allow them to travel to Ecuador, where thousands have started the long, dangerous land voyage across Venezuela, Central America and Mexico to reach the southwest border.

The Obama administration said the surge in Cubans risking their lives to reach the U.S. played an important factor in its decision. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the improving diplomatic relationship between the two countries also contributed.

For example, U.S. officials met Thursday with their Cuban counterparts in Washington to coordinate efforts to combat human trafficking, and another set of government officials met in Havana to discuss outstanding claims by U.S. citizens who had their property confiscated during Fidel Castro’s revolution.

Rhodes pointed to one more factor: Most Cubans now come to the U.S. "for more traditional reasons, in terms of seeking economic opportunity," instead of fleeing in fear of the Castro regime as in the past.

That's why the U.S. should treat them the same as economic migrants from any other country, Rhodes said.

"There's not going to be a separate queue for Cubans," he said. "It just treats the Cuban migrants like migrants from other countries."

Under the new joint agreement, the U.S. will still accept at least 20,000 Cubans each year through traditional immigration channels.

Originally Published 4:31 pm EST January 12, 2017

Updated 9:03 pm EST January 12, 2017

asmPolitics-269 [President Barack Hussein Obama-Deporter In Chief]

asmPolitics-268 [Flint-Michigan Water Crisis]

During the CNN presidential debate in Detroit on Tuesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) was asked about her plan to address infrastructure, "including the water issues so that another Flint does not happen again." The question referred to the 2014–2017 crisis in Flint, Michigan—a city 70 miles north of Detroit where contaminated water was linked to deaths of a dozen people from Legionnaire's disease.

Klobuchar responded by proposing massive infrastructure programs that would create new jobs—and union jobs, at that. The senator was in good company: Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren also talked about the need for more public investment and more government-run programs to create economic prosperity. Both scoffed at John Delaney's contention that there was only so much the government could reasonably accomplish.

The irony, of course, is that the Flint water crisis was a direct result of precisely the kind of job-creation-focused infrastructure plan that so many of the Democratic presidential candidates feel is absolutely necessary to create economic prosperity.

As my colleague Shikha Dalmia wrote in 2016, the decision to cancel Flint's 30-year-old contract with the Detroit Water and Sewage Department (DWSD) and switch to the Karegnondi Water Authority was made in part because the new plan required the construction of an expensive pipeline. "Genesee County and Flint authorities saw the new water treatment as a public infrastructure project to create jobs in an area that has never recovered after Michigan's auto industry fled to sunnier business climes elsewhere," wrote Dalmia. The plan was pure fiscal stimulus, which is why it enjoyed the bipartisan support of Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, Democratic State Treasurer Any Dillion, and Flint's Democratic city council.

Many in the media have parroted the absurd claim that the water crisis was caused by austerity, as if the government cared more about saving pennies than saving lives. The truth is exactly the opposite: Keeping DWSD as Flint's water provider was a cheaper option, but one that would have created zero new infrastructure jobs.

Two other notable facts: First, Flint's most pressing problem—prior to the unsafe drinking water, at least—was that its taxpayers could not afford to continue paying the pensions of city government retirees. As I wrote when the Flint water crisis story broke, "As recently as 2011, it would have cost every person in Flint $10,000 each to cover the unfunded legacy costs of the city's public employees."

Second, state employees received access to reliable, clean drinking water—in the form of water coolers—a full year earlier than everybody else in Flint. After the water problem became well-known, Flint's private residents finally began receiving safe water in the form of donations from Walmart, Coca Cola, Pepsi Co. Nestle, and other corporations.

Marianne Williamson also addressed the Flint water crisis, noting that she used to live in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, and "what happened in Flint would not have happened in Grosse Pointe." To the extent that's true, it's because no government bureaucrats have felt the need to promise massive job-creating infrastructure plans to the people of Grosse Pointe.

asmPolitics-267 [Flint-Michigan Water Crisis]

They said a more thorough investigation was needed.

Twelve people died after the Michigan city switched its water supply to the Flint River in order to save money.

An outbreak of Legionnaires' disease followed, and residents were found to have drunk water poisoned with lead.

Nearly 100,000 residents of Flint were left without safe tap water and at risk of lead poisoning.

Seven officials had already taken plea bargains.

The mayor of Flint, Karen Weaver, welcomed the prosecutors' decision to drop all charges:

"I was happy with the announcement that was made today because it let's us know they're taking us seriously.

"They know justice has not happened for the residents of the city of Flint and that we deserve a full investigation."

Prosecutors who assumed control of the investigation in January after a new attorney general was elected said "all available evidence was not pursued" by the previous team of prosecutors.

Some residents were sceptical after Thursday's announcement.

"We don't know if new charges will be filed," LeeAnne Walters, who is credited with exposing the lead contamination, told Associated Press.

"It feels kind of degrading, like all that we went through doesn't matter. Our city was poisoned, my children have health issues and the people responsible just had all the charges dropped against them."

The contamination was traced to the city switching its water supply away from Detroit's system, which draws from Lake Huron, and instead using water from the Flint river.

Flint was in a financial state of emergency and the switch was meant to save the city millions of dollars.

But the water from the river was more corrosive than Lake Huron's water, causing lead - a powerful neurotoxin - to leach from the pipes.

The city has since switched back to using Detroit's water system.

asmPolitics-266 [President Barack Hussein Obama-Deporter In Chief]

Carmen Velasquez is founder and retired executive director of Alivio Medical Center in Chicago.

When Barack Obama and I last sat down in 2006, I refused to shake his hand. Today, I still won’t. His announcement last weekend that he would delay executive action on immigration is his fifth broken promise to Latinos on this all-important issue for our community. He has been blind to the pain of the 1,100 deportations our communities face every day and the anguish our families feel as they are swung back and forth as political pawns.

The question for us Latinos — especially the nearly 24 million of us eligible to vote — is, what to do about this? How can we ensure that the fastest-growing demographic in the country isn’t taken for granted by Democrats who purport to be our allies but often dash our hopes in the face of the least bit of political pressure? There are no obvious or even satisfactory answers, but one thing is clear: We’ve been slapped in the face one too many times by this president. And it probably won’t be the last: Obama has a long record of betraying Latinos — and it predates his days in the White House. I’ve seen it up close.

asmPolitics-265 [President Barack Hussein Obama-Deporter In Chief]

When President Obama leaves office in January, among the angriest of core constituencies who wished the president accomplished more in his eight years will most likely be Latinos for his failure to deliver comprehensive immigration reform.

"He completely failed us in 2008, and he failed us in 2012," the Center for Community Change Action's Kica Matos said about Obama's campaign promises to overhaul the immigration laws and offer a path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.

They shake their heads about his attempts to get Republicans on board instead of just pushing it through, as he did with the healthcare reform, while Democrats controlled Congress in 2009 and 2010.

asmPolitics-264 [Statue of Liberty Celebrates Abolishment of Slavery]

The newly opened Statue of Liberty Museum, which debuted May 16 in New York Harbor, brings to light a little-spoken-of aspect of the statue’s history: the statue was never meant to be about immigration, but meant to honor the liberation of slaves.

Wrote the Washington Post:

“One of the first meanings [of the statue] had to do with abolition, but it’s a meaning that didn’t stick,” Edward Berenson, a history professor at New York University and author of the book “The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story,” said in an interview with The Washington Post.

 As reported in the Washington Post, the idea that the Statue of Liberty is about immigration, doesn’t add up. Ellis Island, the gateway for many immigrants, opened in 1892, six years after Lady Liberty was gifted to the U.S. by France in 1886. Also, the Emma Lazarus poem, engraved on the base of the towering sculpture, which reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...” didn’t appear on the statue until 1903.

An expert on the U.S. Constitution and a prominent abolitionist, Édouard de Laboulaye came up with the idea for the tourist attraction, which drew 4.5 million visitors in 2018. He developed it in June 1865 after meeting with other French abolitionists, hoping to bolster the French belief in democracy by honoring America’s democracy, which had just abolished slavery.

“They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves,” Berenson told the Post.

In an early model of the statue from 1870, the Statue of Liberty can be seen holding broken shackles. This clay model, referencing slavery’s end, can currently be viewed at the Museum of the City of New York. According to the Washington Post, with the final version, you can clearly see that there are broken chains under Lady Liberty’s feet, but they are not as readily apparent as in the older terra cotta model where she is holding the chains in her left hand.

The statue would ultimately be revealed to the public as “Liberty Enlightening the World” on Oct. 28, 1886. And while, originally, the celebration was meant to mark the history of American slavery, the true nature of the event was obscured by quite a bit of pomp and circumstance (from fireworks to a military parade)—including the French sculptor who created the statue, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, pulling his own stunt of removing a French flag obscuring the statue’s face.

But even then, black critics were vocal about what they saw as the hypocrisy of a monument to liberty in the land of inopportunity.

From the Washington Post:

In his book, Berenson quotes an 1886 editorial in the black newspaper the Cleveland Gazette: “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an industrious and inoffensive colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family … The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme.”

And this is a problem that surrounds Lady Liberty to this very day, an America where “liberty” is still determined at times by the color of one’s skin.

Correction: 6/17/19, 5:25 p.m.: This story has been updated to reflect the correct date of the museum’s opening and to correct phrasing around the Statue of Liberty’s lore. This story has also removed and rewritten unattributed text.