9 Apr 2013 8:59 am
For Clem who accuses me of 'trying desperately to distract from THE key issue now; the dangerously weak economy and the country's impending bankruptcy.'This is what your party is concerned with:Marco Rubio: Explain Beyonce and Jay-Z's Cuba trip.Sen. Marco Rubio says the Cuban government used celebrity couple Jay-Z and Beyoncs recent trip to the country for propaganda purposes, and the Florida Republican wants answers from the White House."According to recent news reports, Jay-Z and Beyonc's Cuba trip, which the regime seized on for propaganda purposes, was fully licensed by the Treasury Department," Rubio said in a public statement on Monday. "If true, the Obama administration should explain exactly how trips like these comply with U.S. law and regulations governing travel to Cuba and it should disclose how many more of these trips they have licensed."Reuters reported Monday that the Treasury Department licensed the trip.Rubio said that U.S. law bans American tourism to Cuba because it helps fund a "cruel, repressive and murderous regime.""U.S. law clearly bans tourism to Cuba by American citizens because it provides money to a cruel, repressive and murderous regime," Rubio said in the statement. "Since their inception, the Obama administration's 'people to people' cultural exchange programs have been abused by tourists who have no interest in the Cuban people's freedom and either don't realize or don't care that they're essentially funding the regime's systematic trampling of people's human rights."Rubio is not the first lawmaker to question the trip. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) sent a letter on Friday to the Treasury Department, wanting more information about the vacation, which coincided with the couple's fifth wedding anniversary.I guess going after Beyonce and Jay-Z will do a lot to help the dangerously weak economy and prevent the country's impending bankruptcy."Hey look, a squirrel!"