Sunday, November 16, 2014

President Obama suddenly discovers the urgency of "immigration"

We are a few days away from an executive order that will impact about 5 million people.   The order will stop deportations.

 My big problem is that it will happen by "decree" rather than legislation.   He will use his "discretion" to change immigration law, a decision that will expand presidential powers as Ross Douthat explained:
"No defender of Obama’s proposed move has successfully explained why it wouldn’t be a model for a future president interested in unilateral rewrites of other areas of public policy (the tax code, for instance) where sweeping applications of “discretion” could achieve partisan victories by fiat. No liberal has persuasively explained how, after spending the last Republican administration complaining about presidential “signing statements,” it makes sense for the left to begin applying Cheneyite theories of executive power on domestic policy debates."
President Obama would be better off addressing the nation on TV and outlining his goals, from keeping families together to allowing people "already working here" to continue working here.    He should call on the public to contact Congress and pass a bill that he can sign.   

 President Obama should try to persuade Americans rather than govern by decree.
Tags: Immigration reform  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Mexico is not a failed state but it has problems

It's funny how quickly things can change for a Mexican president.    

 I remember President Lopez-Portillo on top of the world in 1981 and then hated by everyone after the devaluations a year later.    He left office as a disgraced man and spent much of his retirement in seclusion.

 What about President Salinas?   He was doing great and then came that awful 1994 and all of the accusations of corruption.  He became a "bad word" and left the country for years.

 President Pena-Nieto was doing well a year ago after important oil and school reforms.  Today, he faces a lot of criticism for corruption and the recent deaths of 43 students.

 It seems like the deaths of the students have broken the back of the camel, as Mexican journalist Jose Carreno-Figueras just wrote:
"To use a cliche, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, a strong indication that Mexico's people are no longer willing to tolerate the current state of affairs. Some have suggested that the government will fall, and others have said Mexico is a failed state.
The Mexican government does not appear ready to fall, not even close. But it seems to be in a defensive situation, maybe waiting for the tempest to wane so that it can regain the political initiative."
To be fair, it's not all President Pena-Nieto's fault.   At the same time, he's the president and gets the credit and the blame.

 Mexico faces a serious problem and I don't see any easy answers.  There is too much money in the drug business and the authorities seem incapable of controlling the gangs behind the violence.     (We remind you that we in the US consume the billions of dollars going to the cartels)

 Last, but not least, there is a sense that the whole system is "compromised" as Mr Carreno-Figueras wrote.

 Mexico is not a failed state but it is failing in many areas, specially in projecting to its citizens that the justice works for all.

Tags: Mexico  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Dear Professor: ObamaCare never fooled me

Put me down as someone who always knew that ObamaCare was a bad idea.  I got very suspicious when it was rushed through Congress over Christmas 2009.  I knew that something was wrong with this bill when they had to give away stuff to get the 60th vote in the US Senate.

 Today, we got another video (I believe it's # 6) from Professor Gruber:
"In a 2011 conversation about the Affordable Care Act, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the law more commonly known as Obamacare, talked about how the bill would get rid of all tax credits for employer-based health insurance through "mislabeling" what the tax is and who it would hit."
Frankly, I am not really shocked to hear this. To be honest, I was not expecting videos from the professor, but I had a feeling that we would get to the truth somehow.
ObamaCare was a horrible piece of legislation - 2000 pages of stuff that no one read or understood .

Most of these Democrats, currently out of a job because they voted for it, probably expected The Supreme Court to kill it.   

 The public is now learning how the "ObamaCare sausages" were made and it's really ugly. 

 However, what's really ugly is that the sausages taste awful and are very expensive, as we learned again today:
"The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans."
But there is a catch to switching plans:  higher deductibles and out of pocket expenses!

 I always had a funny feeling that Obama Care would turn out this way, i.e. higher costs and less choices!

P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: Obama Care  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Saturday: politics and other thoughts


Tags: Immigration by executive order, President Obama  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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