Caricature ambassade américaine à Cuba: début d'un jour nouveau?

Caricature de NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 

 Beeler ne semble pas confiant de voir le régime changer...

Caricature démocrates 2016: tout va bien!

Caricature de JOHN DARKOW, COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE, MISSOURI

Caricature Cuba et la fin de l'embargo: "change you can believe in"?

Caricature d'ARCADIO ESQUIVEL, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

Caricature John Kerry à Cuba

Caricature de KAP, LA VANGUARDIA, SPAIN

Caricature Jimmy Carter: "C" pour courage...

Caricature de JOE HELLER, GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE 

 Comme bien des analystes et observateurs, j'a été critique de la présidence Carter. Je reconnais au président Carter l'honnêteté et l'intégrité, mais je le trouvais un brin "naïf" (inexpérimenté?) pour diriger les États-Unis pendant une période trouble. Depuis la fin de son mandat il a cependant largement contribué à promouvoir une foule de causes très nobles. On peut également compter sur Carter pour contourner la "langue de bois" et exprimer des réserves sur les politiques américaines, qu'elle émanent des démocrates ou des républicains. Carter révélait vendredi dernier qu'il lutte contre le cancer.

Obama prépare activement sa retraite

Le Président Barack Obama serait aussi déterminé et discipliné dans sa préparation qu'il l'était pour son élection en 2008, c'est tout dire.

 "Shailagh Murray, a senior adviser, oversees an effort inside the White House to keep attention on Mr. Obama’s future and to ensure that his final 17 months in office, barring crises, serve as a glide path to his life as an ex-president. Mr. Obama’s recent visit to a federal prison indicates, advisers say, a likely emphasis on criminal justice reform after he leaves office. His eulogy for one of nine African-Americans killed at a church in Charleston, S.C., is a forerunner, they say, of a focus on race relations. Diplomacy with Iran and Cuba could serve as the foundation for foreign policy work.

“His focus is on finishing this job completely, thoroughly,” said Valerie Jarrett, one of Mr. Obama’s closest confidantes inside the White House. But officials in the West Wing said the president’s thinking about some of his signature issues — including health care, economic inequality and fighting climate change — also involves considering their incorporation into his life after January 2017.

The heart of the postpresidential planning is Mr. Obama’s own outreach to eclectic, often extraordinarily rich groups of people. Several aides close to Mr. Obama said his extended conversations over the lengthy dinners — guests say his drink of choice at the gatherings is an extra-dry Grey Goose martini — reminded them of the private consultations Mr. Obama had with donors and business leaders as he sought to build a winning campaign."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politics/with-high-profile-help-obama-plots-life-after-presidency.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Donal Trump et son équipe hors normes

Donald Trump n'est pas un candidat comme les autres et la composition de son équipe le reflète bien. Portrait sur le site de POLITICO.

 "His campaign manager was once arrested for a bringing a gun into a House office building. His Iowa campaign co-chair is a reality television star who says politics is “not my lane.” He hired a self-described “rabid tea party activist” who proved too rabid for like-minded activists and resigned. And that’s not the half of it.

This is Donald Trump’s political machine.

From the grassroots base to the burnt-orange top, Trump’s hastily assembled operation is not the typical presidential campaign. Rarely in American politics has such an unlikely gang of misfits, rogues and loose cannons helped a candidate climb to the top of the heap.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trumps-gang-of-outlaws-121414.html?hp=t4_r

Télévangélistes américains: une manne déductible (John Oliver, Last Week Tonight)

Joe Biden peaufine sa stratégie pour 2016

Joe Biden serait sur le point de confirmer qu'il sera candidat pour la présidentielle 2016. Ce qui n'était qu'une rumeur ou un ballon d'essai il y a deux semaines semble sérieux.

 "With his blessing, confidants to Vice President Joe Biden have begun strategizing about travel to early primary states and identified potential donors who could bankroll a campaign even as he remains undecided about whether to pull the trigger on a late-entry 2016 run for president.

The moves are a sign that after months of speculation, Biden is taking a few significant if small steps toward a presidential campaign, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Biden’s strategy, the sources say, would be to focus on South Carolina while almost writing off New Hampshire, where both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have considerable footholds.

 Biden proxies have also homed in on rich supporters who could help finance a run through a super PAC — in particular, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, a past top donor to both Joe and Beau Biden, whom Democratic operatives noted has not yet given to the Hillary Clinton-backing Priorities USA Action despite previous support for the former secretary of state. Biden allies also have set their sights on Geocities founder and tech investor David Bohnett, a longtime Democratic donor. Angelos didn’t return a call for comment.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/biden-strategy-for-white-house-run-taking-shape-121377.html?hp=r1_4

Willam G. Harding: le "chaud lapin" de la présidence américaine?

William G. Harding n'a guère impressionné par ses compétences politiques, mais le site du POLITICO Magazine rappelle qu'il est demeuré "célèbre" pour ses scandales sexuels. En lisant l'article je me suis souvenu que l'humoriste John Oliver avait réservé un segment de son émission "Last week tonight" à des lettres d'amour de l'ancien président républicain. Vous croyez que les incartades du Président Clinton relevait de l'exception? À ce chapitre Harding était dans une catégorie à part... Je vous laisse donc ce segment et le lien pour l'article!

 

 "But Warren G. Harding is really in a category of his own. No other philandering chief executive had the 29th president’s way with words (he termed the vagina of one of his mistresses “Mrs. Pouterson”) or his sense of scenery (he and Nan regularly had sex in a White House closet). And, as was underscored this week, when news broke that Harding did in fact father a child with Britton as she had claimed, no other was quite as reckless with his libido.

Historians have long disliked Harding for reasons other than his sexcapades. He presided over an administration unprecedented in its corruption, he rolled back Progressive-era reforms and he enacted racist immigration laws. In the rankings academics conduct every few years, Harding has averaged out as the worst president in American history. “After his death,” wrote a biographer, “his reputation plummeted so quickly that only with the greatest reluctance could a Republican successor be persuaded to dedicate his tomb.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/warren-harding-child-sex-sandal-121404.html?hp=t1_r#.VdDDwfl_Oko

Hillary 2016: trop tard pour la remplacer?

Caricature de RICK MCKEE, THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE 

 Plusieurs démocrates sont inquiets et le manifestent de plus en plus ouvertement. Hillary Clinton a eu une dure semaine et certaines controverses ne semblent pas vouloir disparaître. Comme on ne croit pas que ses opposants démocrates actuels puissent offrir une chance sérieuse de conserver la Maison Blanche, on avance ici qu'il est trop tard pour trouver une alternative gagnante.

 "Dear Democrats: It’s too late to start over.

As in, there’s no replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton as your party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination. Not with Vice President Biden — even if he runs. Not with former vice president Al Gore. (I mean, come on.) Not with your ideal rich-person-with-no-record-and-a-fresh-faced-appeal."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/its-too-late-for-democrats-to-start-rethinking-clintons-2016-viability/2015/08/16/aea13116-441f-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html?hpid=z3