Good News: House Votes to Overturn Bush Rules on Cuba

[donsu]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040708/ap_on_go_co/congress_cuba

The House dealt an election-season setback to President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday by voting to overturn restrictions his administration has issued on the gift parcels that Americans can send to family members in Cuba.

The 221-194 vote was won by a coalition in which Democrats were joined by nearly four dozen farm-state and free-trade Republicans to rebuff the president. The vote came just four months from an Election Day in which Bush would like to once again win Florida, the pivotal state in his 2000 victory, by gaining the support of that state's Cuban-Americans.

-snip-

Wednesday's debate was an emotional one, as the debates over Cuba policy often are.

-snip-

The amendment was offered to a $39.8 billion measure financing the departments of Commerce, Justice and State next year. The Senate has yet to write its version of the bill.
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meanwhile everyone involved stays pissed

[FighttheFuture]

1. Actually, this is bad news...

It will allow the Florida Cubans, who were pissed at Bush, to forget what he did. Also, the Rupugs will take credit for overturning a law that they will somehow blame on Clinton and the Democrats.

Remember, most of those Cubans down their are tightly ensconced in their own little communities and are pretty ignorant of what is happening in the country as a whole. They will simply go back to believing the BS and slitting their.. err... voting for Bush.

[donsu]

2. you are right of course - I was thinking from the families point of view

nt

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Don't Bet The Ranch On This Legislation Passing

I have mixed feelings about this bill passing. On a humanitarian level, I would be pleased to see that island Cubans are not going to be made to suffer yet more hardships in spite of the likes of Bush, Reich, and the Diaz-Ballart brothers. As a Democratic partisan, though, I keep hoping that the further tightening of the Cuban embargo and travel restrictions might make the Cuban exile community finally come to their senses concerning the true nature of the Runnin' Dubya Posse and the Republican Party.

Yet while this initiative is all very nice, I'm not sure it will survive. I keep remembering the efforts made during the Clinton administration to loosen the travel restrictions: the bills seemed to do very well in the House and the Senate, yet were rewritten to further tighten the travel and trade restrictions in the House and Senate committees. Who is to say that this bill won't go through a similar transformation and turn into a law tightening the embargo yet further?

[donsu]

4. agree, that's why I said "meanwhile"

meanwhile people will suffer

and this bill will flutter away with the wind