The so-called patriots of America are pissed that President Barack Obama is shaking hands with Cuban leader Raul Castro. The junk food media knew it was going to be bait for the racist right.
They knew anything the president does, it will attract some form of controversy with these conservative assholes here stateside.
At the Nelson Mandela funeral, President Barack Obama accompanied by former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter were showing solidarity for the world's greatest leader.
The presidents along with First Lady Michelle Obama, former first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton (former Secretary of State) were at the funeral.
It was a great funeral (and celebration).
Stateside, conservatives are outrage pimping over this.
Matt Drudge (aka That Guy Who Throws Shit On The Wall), Rush Limbaugh (aka King Hippo), Sean Hannity (aka That Guy Who Helped Obama Win) and other assholes are bitching about it. Certainly the racist right will have something to say about it (see below).
The handshake between Obama and the brother who took over the duties of longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was seen by millions around the world on live television and was confirmed by a senior US official to AFP.
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| U.S. presidents Obama (current), Bush, Clinton and Carter attend the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. |
But it remained unclear whether it would presage a meaningful thaw in relations across the shark-infested waters off Cuba.
It comes as Obama seeks to live up to his campaign promise made in 2007 to reach out directly to US enemies as president -- and after he spoke by phone to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in September.
Obama is likely to face some domestic backlash from his gesture, as Cuba is a fiercely divisive issue in US politics.
Vehemently anti-Castro Cuban-Americans make up a sizable portion of voters and political donors in Florida, a battleground state where US presidential elections can be won or lost.
Obama's clear jab at states like Cuba, which claim kinship with Mandela but do not follow the example of a man who forgave his enemies and built a pluralistic state, may have been intended to insulate him from some domestic criticism.
"There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people," Obama said, stabbing his finger in the air in the rain-sodden stadium hosting the event.
As a presidential candidate, Obama was pilloried as naive and dangerous by rivals from both parties for suggesting that as president he would be willing to talk to foes without preconditions.
As he ran for reelection, Obama's success in tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden and a fearsome drone war largely insulated him from allegations of weakness in foreign and security policy.
But the interim nuclear deal between US and world powers reached last month and his decision to call off 11th-hour military strikes on Syria over the use of chemical weapons have revived opposition attacks over his foreign policy spine.
It was unclear whether Tuesday's gesture would significantly thaw relations. In 2000, then president Bill Clinton shook the hand of Fidel Castro at the UN General Assembly in New York.
There was no picture of the moment and the White House initially denied it had occurred.
Havana and Washington have not had diplomatic relations since 1961, two years after Fidel Castro came to power in the Cuban revolution.
Tensions have eased since Obama took office, with both countries reaching a series of agreements seen as confidence-building measures including cooperation on air and maritime rescue and migration issues.
In 2011 Obama eased restrictions on visas, remittances and travel.
The move was designed to expand religious and educational travel, allow any airport to offer charter flights to the country and restore cultural initiatives suspended by the previous Bush administration.
Talks are under way to resume a direct postal service between the two countries.
Here comes the word vomit courtesy of Yahoo News.
These people can't be satisfied.
They are the reasons to why Republicans are looked upon as "bigots" and "idiots".
They can't even allow a moment of solidarity go through without bitching.
Don't the progressives and rational minded people get tired of this stuff?
I mean all this outrage pimping is going to hurt the Republicans. Even Stallmigo Ted Cruz (R-TX) was getting attacked by his "stans" over even sending his condolences to the Mandela family.
It's basically the reasons to why it's fair to say that conservatives are not to be taken seriously. They don't take issues seriously. The AMERICAN WHITE CONSERVATIVE MALE is more dangerous than Castro.
These are the people the world needs to worry about.
Also in attendance is American gospel singer Kirk Franklin. He was singing at the memorial of Mandela.
Kirk Franklin appears on GospelCentric Music, LLC.
This is to prepare the ground for Cuba's demand of "reparations" from the US for damage to its economy, much the way that the third world is trying to pick the pockets of the west for damage due to climate change (see: Philippines representative crying a couple of weeks ago at UN climate talks).
Question: Where and to whom do we present the bill for Polio vaccine, GPS and communications satellites, Penicillin, highly productive and more nutritious genetically modified rice strains, the internet, aviation, ....?
Obama couldn't wait to make a scene. What a ...
"Submitted for your approval, an excursion into a bizarre alternate universe. Destination: a country that was once a shining beacon but is now presided over by a man whose arrogance and delusional personality are matched only by the slavish adulation of his blathering minions in the media, a nation formerly called the United States of America but with each passing day becomes more and more a part of The Twilight Zone."