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I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:
To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
To post relevant news items or videos.

There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.


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Monday, March 4, 2019

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)


Marco Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants. His grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, fled Cuba in 1962. Despite lacking the credentials to legally immigrate to the United States, Garcia was eventually granted permission to stay as a parolee. Rubio considered his grandfather his “closest boyhood friend” whose respect he “craves” to this day. Rubio’s advocacy for a stricter refugee vetting process, which will prevent people like his grandfather and aunts from entering the United States, probably does not help him in this regard.

In 1999, Rubio was elected to the Florida House of Representatives and became Speaker of the House seven years later. In 2010, Rubio won Mel Martinez’s seat in the US Senate. His unexpected victory is largely credited to the support that he received from the Tea Party. In 2015, Rubio announced his presidential run. He suspended his presidential campaign in 2016, after losing the Florida primary to Donald Trump. He was re-elected to the US Senate later that year. 

Senator Rubio primarily sponsors bills regarding International Affairs, and plays an active role on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He advocates for interventionist policy, believing that the United States should increase its involvement in the fight against totalitarianism. A firm opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, Rubio has suggested the possibility military intervention to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He considers President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria to be a catastrophic mistake. In 2019, Rubio introduced anti-BDS legislation to prevent American corporations that boycotted Israel or Israel-owned corporations from obtaining government licenses. The bill was criticized for violating the First Amendment, and did not pass.

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