A variety of links to articles/interviews on current topics that may of be interest.

Lawmakers agreed last night to a $1 trillion omnibus spending package, which will fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, until September 30, 2012. The agreement eliminates some but not all of the policy riders that Republicans coveted in the deal.

This week, Michele Bachmann tries to convince us that Hezbollah is going to use Cuba as a missile base.

A motley crew of Senate Republicans, joined by Sen. Lieberman, have introduced a bill to make Guantanamo a permanent “terrorist” prison. Once upon a time, this could have been dismissed as GOP posturing. But recent events suggest this is more likely a harbinger of the future fate of the US Naval prison, as President Obama has already pronounced that he will support indefinite detention of prisoners based on unchallenged U.S. executive fiat.

The White House announced last night a series of changes to travel and remittance policies with Cuba, that will allow more visitation and transfer of funds to the island 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

[Welcome authors, Campbell Craig and Fred Logevall, Hosted by Jeremi Suri] [As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book.  Please take other conversations to a previous thread.   - bev] Craig and Logevall, America’s Cold War America’s Cold War is a powerful and provocative book written by two very talented historians. Campbell [...]

A skate ship owner demonstrates citizen-enabled diplomacy via random acts of kindness.

In Dateline Havana, Reese Erlich takes on the central paradox of American attitudes towards Cuba, which is that almost no one in United States, on the right or the left, has a realistic appraisal of the modern Cuban state. The misperceptions and outright distortions of the right have, without doubt, had greater policy import, and are probably held by a greater number of people. However, those on the left often overlook the shortcomings of the Revolution, and the problems afflicting Cuba today. Although Mr. Erlich does not spare those on the left (he was once in solidarity with them) he appropriately reserves most of his criticisms for the right wing interpretation of the Cuban Revolution. It is this interpretation, advanced by Cuban exiles and unrepentant Cold Warriors, that has structured US policy towards the island for the last fifty years.