Page 6 - 3-17-15 Tuesday's Edition

Presidential News
President Obama Guts
Disrespect Of President Obama Hits New Low
Republican Scandal With One
Hillary Clinton Email Joke
Just when you didn't think Republicans could top them- selves in finding ways to disre- spect the President of the United States, on Monday, 47 Republican Senators -- that is, all but seven -- sent a letter to Iran that appeared aimed at scuttling President Obama's diplomatic efforts to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons capacity.
The move comes on the heels of House Republicans inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress -- without even informing the White House of the plan to issue an invitation. But this latest measure went a step further, seeing Republicans in Con- gress literally stepping on the constitutional toes of the exec- utive branch and formally in- truding on U.S. diplomacy.
It's one thing for Congress to demand it ratify such a deal (as Democrats did in 2002 when President Bush nego- tiated arms reductions with
Russian President Vladimir Putin). But it's something else entirely to undermine the authority of the White House by sending a partisan letter to a foreign government (some- thing Democrats didn't do with Russia).
Under the Logan Act passed by Congress way back in 1799, U.S. citizens are prevented from influencing "disputes or controversies" involving the United States and a foreign government, without express authority to do so. Now, it ap- pears the Iran letter was care- fully drafted by Sen. Tom Cotton, a smart constitu- tional lawyer, to come as close as possible to the line of legal- ity without crossing it, specifi- cally by not explicitly taking a position against the Iran nego- tiations. Yet the intent to in- terfere with the executive branch is clear.
Sadly, this is only the most recent and extreme example of dishonor and disrespect.
President Obama made a joke at the Gridiron Dinner that gutted the Republican dreams of a Hillary Clinton email scandal.
The Gridiron dinner is closed to the press. There are no TV cameras allowed, and only a few pool reporters are allowed inside to cover a por- tion of the dinner, but a joke that President Obama made spoke volumes about the Clinton email “scandal.”
The president joked that he was once the young tech savvy candidate, but, “Hillary has a server in her house! I didn’t even know you could have one of those. I am so far behind.”
If the Clinton email scan- dal were thought to be a seri- ous matter, President Obama would not have been joking about it. The Republi- cans are going to be working overtime in an attempt to turn
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Hillary Clinton’s emails into something that they can use in 2016, but the reality is that the White House knows that the Republican hysteria is a waste of time. Most of the media, even if they refuse to admit it publicly, are aware that the Clinton emails are a space filler until they have a presidential campaign to write
HILLARY CLINTON
about.
President Obama gutted
the latest Republican attempt to generate a Hillary Clin- ton scandal that will stick with voters as a joke, as it looks like Democrats will be getting the last laugh in 2016 if Republicans continue to chase the political equivalent of fool’s gold in 2016.
Fired Host Figueroa Apologizes
To First Lady Michelle Obama,
Blames Univision
Rodner Figueroa wants First Lady Michelle Obama to know that he’s sorry for what he said about her. And that he’s not a racist.
Figueroa, who was fired from Univision’s “El Gordo y la Flaca” after he said that First Lady Obama “looks like she’s from the cast of ‘Planet of the Apes,'” has is- sued a profuse apology to Mrs. Obama in an open let- ter.
“I offer my sincere apology for an unfortunate comment I made about a makeup artist’s depiction of you on Univision’s show ‘El Gordo y La Flaca’ yes- terday. It was clearly in bad taste and misunderstood,” Figueroa’s letter began. “I would like to explain that my remark was not directed at you, but at the result of an artist’s depiction of you that I found wasn’t accurate. The en- tire video clip in context cor- roborates this.”
Nonetheless, despite the ap- parent misinterpretation, Figueroa admitted that “there is no justification for someone at my level to make any kind of comment that
RODNEY FIGUEROA
could be interpreted as offen- sive or disrespectful to you personally, or to any minority in the times we live.”
Figueroa, who had been with Univision for 17 years, went on to deny that he’s big- oted, noting that he comes from “a multi-racial Hispanic family” with an Afro-Latino fa- ther, and that he himself is “the first openly gay Hispanic TV host.”
The letter ended with a dig at Univision, which Figueroa claims smeared him in the media without giving him a chance to explain himself.
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015