How Obama Can Rebuild the Arts

Travel to Cuba shows signs of loosening

(NEWSER) - American tourists are flooding into Cuba as the freeze between the countries shows signs of thawing, reports the Los Angeles Times. For the recent Cuban Biennale art show, young Americans arrived to enjoy the culture and nightlife, defying the longstanding travel ban. With a bill to lift restrictions pending in the Senate, citizens on both sides of the divide wonder whether the influx foretells real change. More»

Chrysler ad a political football

(NEWSER) - God bless America ... and the Chrysler bailout ... seemed to be the message that left football fans misty-eyed after Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl Chrysler ad. It's "halftime" in America, and we're all pulling together for a brighter economic future, says the gravelly-voiced star. But Eastwood was opposed to the bailout that made the Chrysler turnaround possible, and now the ad has become a political football as Dems score points with it and the GOP tackles it, notes ABC News . “Saving the American Auto Industry: Something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on," crowed White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer on Twitter, referring to Eminem’s Chrysler ad during last year's Super Bowl. "Powerful spot," chimed in Obama re-election strategist David Axelrod. But George Bush's political maven Karl Rove snapped that he was "offended" by the ad, which he argued was orchestrated by the administration to paint a rosy future. More»

Editorials largely take the president to task

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama's decision to reject TransCanada's Keystone XL oil pipeline has set a lot of tongues wagging, with some of the biggest papers in the country devoting today's editorials to it. Here's what they're saying:

• "We almost hope this was a political call," says the Washington Post , "because on substance, there should be no question." Without the pipeline, TransCanada will sell to China, and US refineries will import from the Middle East—resulting in a lot more oil crossing the ocean in tankers.

...because he's not terribly interested in fighting it

(NEWSER) - Democrats saw the way Mitt Romney's super PAC destroyed Newt Gingrich in Iowa, and it terrified them, because President Obama's super PAC—or as Politico terms it, "not-so-super PAC"—doesn't have the muscle for anything like that. "It's like when China got the bomb," says one Democrat close to the PAC, "We thought we were the ones with cash supremacy. That's clearly not the case." Obama's Priorities USA Action has just $5 million in the bank, less than half Romney's $12 million. More»

Move aims to cut down on government bureaucracy

(NEWSER) - President Obama will today announce a plan to mash together six federal agencies—including the Commerce Department—in an effort to simplify the government's sprawling regulatory bureaucracy. Obama can't actually make the move without Congressional approval, however, so he intends to ask Congress for a special reorganizational power—last held by Ronald Reagan—that would allow him to propose mergers and guarantee him an up-or-down vote on each merger from Congress within 90 days. The Wall Street Journal reports that some lawmakers may be wary of granting the Obama this fast-track authority, as they wouldn't be permitted to amend any of his proposals. More»