Obama arrives in Cuba; hopes visit will usher in change

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

Havana (CNN)President Barack Obama touched down in Cuba on Sunday, definitively ending a half-century of estrangement in a dramatic personal demonstration of his core foreign policy principle of engaging America's enemies.

It's a shift that the change-minded president hopes will nudge the Communist government here to grant more freedoms to its people and open new economic channels for American businesses. The President and his allies also hope a successful détente will offer something bigger: a lasting example of diplomacy's power in dealing with longtime foes.

Just before Obama stepped from Air Force One -- carrying an umbrella as a persistent rain fell on the tarmac -- he sent a message to Cubans on a platform that until recently would have been unheard of in the repressive regime.

"¿Que bolá Cuba?" he wrote on Twitter, using an informal Cuban greeting. "Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/20/politics/obama-cuba-arrival-change/index.html

[Downwinder]

1. Stop at Gitmo for a round of golf?

I had those hopes of change eight years ago.

[brooklynite]

3. Explain how the President can override a Congressional Law.

[Downwinder]

4. The President is Commander in Chief of the Military.

He has control of distribution of forces.
He could have the detention units assigned elsewhere.
The base would remain open.
Standard military operation.

[brooklynite]

5. No, he can't...

...he can make decisions about the military. He CAN'T make decisions about movement of prisoners to civil authority in the United States if Congress says otherwise.

[Downwinder]

6. If there are no detention units there are no prisoners.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Congress must appropriate the money to close the detention units

and move the prisoners, but many on DU think that Article 1 Section 9 Clause 7 doesn't exist -

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

<Explanation: The departments and agencies of the executive branch may not spend any money that Congress has not appropriated, or use federal money for any purpose that Congress has not specified.>

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/02/article-i-the-legislative-branch-powers-denied-to-congress-and-the-states-sections-9-and-10/

[Downwinder]

9. Show me the requirement for staffing.

I put my time in grade. I know how the Military works. If there was a desire to close Gitmo detention, it would be done. With or without Congress.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I am a 30+ year fed

and know how this damn tricameral government works and have taken far too many Appropriations Law courses to count. In order to completely close that facility, it needs appropriations to move the personnel and equipment, and Congress must authorize and appropriate the funds to do that, otherwise you are in violation of the law. You should know better.

[Little Tich]

2. This is good news. n/t

[NBachers]

7. This is good news.