Monday, May 30, 2016

Same Cuba, same Castro regime


Let’s do a quick before and after President Obama normalized relations with Cuba.
Before December 2014, there was a lot of repression in Cuba. Since then, there is still a lot of repression in Cuba. The only difference is the U.S. flag in an embassy in Havana.  
We keep getting these reports from Cuba, as posted over at PanAm Post:
The Cuban police raided the national headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), a civil dissidence group in opposition to Raúl Castro’s administration.
Without giving explanation, security confiscated three computers, two cell phones, a hard drive, passports and other hardware and records.
Arcelio Molina, an activist and owner of the property, told the newspaper Martí Noticias that police also seized the luggage of the youth leader Carlos Amel Oliva Torres, who traveled from Santiago de Cuba to Havana to take a flight to Argentina.
According to Molina, Oliva can’t travel, and has since been arrested.
This is the fourth time this year that state security has raided and confiscated Unpacu’s equipment.
Molina added that what has transpired is a classic “trampling” of citizens’ rights in the country, “where there are no laws or respect for the constitution on the part of the authorities.”
It’s hard to believe that the normalization supporters thought that you could change Cuba by saving the Castro regime. Let’s look at some of the arguments for normalization:   
1) Opening up Cuba will be good for the Cuban people. Really? Is that why they continue to leave? There are nowCubans in Colombia looking to travel to the U.S.
2) Allowing US businesses to operate in Cuba will bring prosperity to the island. The idea is that Cubans would get a taste of capitalism and demand more of it. Really? There is no evidence that the Castro regime is allowing Cubans to play the capitalism game.
So where are we? We are watching the consequences of bailing out a regime and demanding nothing from it.
We are where many of us feared that we’d be!   
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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Sunday, May 29, 2016

The week in review with Bill Katz, the editor of Urgent Agenda



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Venezuela update with José Alberto Niño



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Latin America this week: US-Cuba issues plus the latest from Colombia



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Saturday, May 28, 2016

Penalty kicks stink!


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Let's chat with Chris Corbett about the GOP and VP speculation.



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What if Bush had said that Obama was not ready to be president?


President Obama reacted to a potential President Trump by saying this in Japan:
President Obama says world leaders are “rattled” by Donald Trump — and have good reason to feel that way.
Mr. Obama was discussing the 2016 presidential campaign during a news conference in Japan, saying foreign leaders are surprised by Trump and not sure how seriously to take the things he says.
The assessment of the presidential campaign came on the sidelines of a Group of Seven advanced economies summit in Japan, the latest world gathering to be colored by global concerns about Trump.
Mr. Obama said many of the likely Republican nominee’s proposals display ignorance about world affairs, a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting “tweets and headlines.” He contrasted that to proposals to make America safe.
We don’t know which one of the world’s leaders was rattled. He did not say!
At the same time, we do know that China is turning international waters into its own private lake and Russian jets keep flying within feet of U.S. ships. Furthermore, Iran is pushing its weight around with lots of U.S. dollars as a result of the recent deal.    
Leaders rattled? Yes, and they are probably looking at their watch every hour counting down to Mr. Obama’s successor.     
Last, but not least, why is President Obama talking about U.S. presidential candidates on foreign soil?  
Where is the media? What if President Bush had said overseas that a one term senator with no executive experience was not ready for presidency?    
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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2016, the state of the race and a few other thoughts



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Friday, May 27, 2016

The Perils of Trump


On Thursday night, I caught a bit of the interview with Speaker Gingrich on Fox News. He reacted to Mr. Trump’s attack on Governor Susan Martinez of New Mexico:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned Wednesday that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attack Tuesday on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was “very, very destructive” and an example of him going “off the deep end.”
Gingrich is a supporter of Trump and has even been floated as a potential vice presidential running mate for billionaire businessman. But Gingrich told Fox News Channel’s Eric Bolling, guest hosting on “Hannity,” that the attack was a mistake.
“You don’t want to see a Republican presidential candidate attacking a Republican governor, and you particularly don’t want to see a candidate who needs to get stronger with Latinos and stronger with women attack a Latina woman Republican governor,” he said.
Do we want a GOP nominee with a penchant for going off “the deep end”?   
I can’t wait to see a Clinton ad with the words “off the deep end” and a reminder that the president has his fingers on nuclear weapons.    
Fair or unfair, it worked against Goldwater in 1964 and he was a much more serious candidate than Trump.
What do you do when you are struggling with Hispanics and women?  You go out and take a cheap shot at the popular “Latina” governor of New Mexico.
It reminds us of the attack on Rafael Cruz on the eve of the Indiana victory. Trump went on TV and talked about some crazy conspiracy connecting Mr. Cruz to Lee Harvey Oswald.
This is why many of us are hesitant to hitch our wagon to the Trump train.
Frankly, some of us are not sure whether Trump will self-destruct down the road, i.e. “go off the deep end” one too many times!
I understand that Trump’s supporters will laugh and say that Trump is not a politician. Frankly, there is nothing funny about “going off the deep end.”
Finally, can someone tell Trump that Governor Susana Martinez is on our side? We need more women like Governor Martinez campaigning for the GOP this year.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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Thursday, May 26, 2016

Trump, Clinton, Sanders and President Obama in Japan.




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“La vieja mentirosa”: The story of Hillary and her emails!

How can this woman run for president?
A new State Department audit came out this week confirming that Mrs Clinton did not play by the rules.
We remind you that Mrs Clinton was Secretary of State during this period.
In other words, this is a case of the boss playing by her own rules, i.e. the Clinton way!
This is part of the report:
The report noted that by the time Clinton took the helm of the department, internal guidance was “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”
Yet, the report said, “Secretary Clinton used mobile devices to conduct official business using the personal email account on her private server extensively, as illustrated by the 55,000 pages of material making up the approximately 30,000 emails she provided to the Department in December 2014.” The report said investigators found “no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.”
By any objective standard, she should withdraw her candidacy.  How can a person this reckless about national security be president?
Clinton defenders need to stop defending her and demand her immediate withdrawal.
Politics aside, Mrs Clinton did not play by the rules that the federal government requires of everyone else.
How can someone with such contempt for the rules be the chief executive officer of the US?
What would happen to any head of a company or department if they did not respect the company rules?
What would happen to any government department manager under such circumstances?
In simple terms, she is disqualified to be president!  It’s time for her supporters to face the facts and move on.  Call VP Biden as soon as you can!
Last, but not least, who kept all of this information from President Obama? Didn’t the IT people at The White House pick up on any of these irregularities?
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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‘Univisionistas’ vs Trump



A few weeks ago, we lamented that commencement addresses had now turned into political rants.   
My good guess is that most families are there to cheer the graduates. We were, when our sons graduated!
There are probably people in the audience of varying political views.
After all, Governor Romney got 61 million votes in 2012 or 48% of the vote. We can safely assume that many of the families sitting in the audience did not do “the hope and change” the last time around.
Nevertheless, the hits just keep on coming, as Larry Lujack used to say when I’d walk home from school listening to WLS in my little radio.   
Enter Maria Elena Salinas. She is a national anchor at Univision and not known for any crazy stuff. In fact, she was tough on President Obama in a 2012 Univision appearance.   
This week, Miss Salinas decided to hang her anti-Trump trophy:
Some people in the crowd at a graduation ceremony at California State University, Fullerton, shouted at the commencement speaker after she talked about presidential candidate Donald Trump and gave a brief section of her address in Spanish.
“It’s really sad,” the commencement speaker, Maria Elena Salinas, an anchor for Spanish language broadcast network Univision, said Tuesday. “And it’s a testament to what has happened in our country. Our country is really divided.”
“Stupid estupida” that’s all I can say about Maria Elena.   
I’m glad that she is worried about someone dividing the country.   
Why doesn’t she tell people to stop dividing the country by waving Mexican flags on U.S. soil?  
Or call on President Obama to stop going around Congress?
As AT readers know, I’m not a fan of Mr. Trump. At the same, I’m no fan of immigration activists dressed up as journalists either.
Maria Elena’s remarks coincided with the news that the head of Univision has already voted for president:
The chairman of Univision, the largest Spanish language TV network in the United States, is reportedly the single biggest donor to presidential Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton.  
According to an investigation on Clinton donations by the Washington Post, Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl, a women’s advocate and author, donated $2.4 million to Clinton political campaigns since 1992 — 39 contributions over the past two decades. Separately, the couple also donated at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the investigation shows.
It’s a free country and the head of Univision can do whatever he wants with his money. It’d be nice if Univision would tell its viewers but that’s life.
It’s a free country for me too and I can agree with Ruben Navarrete about Univision:
Republicans seem to have finally figured out the Spanish translation for “Democrats’ Communications Department.” It’s pronounced: “Univision.”
So I trust that the Trump staff knows that they will be running against the Clintons, many in the media and Univision.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

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US-Cuba issues, Colombia plus other Latin America stories




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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

“Oye Clinton”: Every Mexican flag means 1 million new votes for Trump!



(My new Babalu post)

 Once again, we see people carrying Mexican flags at anti-Trump rallies.   It happened in New Mexico.
As my Babalu friends know, I did not support Mr Trump.    I’m still wrestling with the awful choice of Trump and the Clinton he recently said would make a great president.
Nevertheless, the Mexican flags are back and someone in the Clinton camp should take note urgently.
Who do these people think they are? They are entitled to opposing Trump but do they understand how divisive these images are?
Furthermore, what does the Mexican flag mean anyway?  Do these young people know about Mexico’s immigration laws?    
Memo to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Univision and Vicente Fox: Tell your supporters to keep the flags home.     

 P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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Sad to see Caracas today!



Once upon a time, such as the late 1990s, Caracas was one of the great cities of Latin America.   
It didn’t have tango like Buenos Aires or a carnival like Rio but it had all of the signs of a cosmopolitan modern city. I remember a couple of business trips down there and it was a great city. I recall an Italian restaurant across from the hotel that made you feel like it was the Venezuelans who really invented lasagna and pasta.
That was then and this is now. Like the once-great city of Havana, Caracas is now one gigantic mess.
We just learned from our friend Dr. Carlos Eire that there’s even a shortage of Coca Cola:
As the Normalization Circus continues to gain strength,  the Castronoid colony of Caracastan is going into an ever steeper death spiral.
It seems that  the final unfolding of the Bolivarian Revolution has arrived.
It’s dreadful, as dreadful as dreadful ever gets…. as dreadful as it was in the island nation formerly known as Cuba some fifty-odd years ago.
In that Cuba of long ago it only took about two years to reach the implosion now being experienced by Venezuela.
And in that long-dead Cuba — now known as the Castro Kingdom — the implosion has been going on for over half a century.
Can Venezuela find a way out?  Perhaps.  But only if King Raul’s storm troopers are sent back home immediately
Oh, the wonders of 21st century socialism!
But don’t expect to find many journalists blaming the Venezuelapocalypse on socialism.
No.  All of these calamities are due to falling oil prices, “mismanagement,” and political turmoil caused by those selfish bastards who can’t appreciate socialism.
A few years ago, a Latin American friend went to Cuba and took lots of pictures of Havana. My parents nearly cried as they saw some of the photos of the city. It was like seeing pictures of a son or daughter wasting away and with zero self-esteem.The elegance of Havana was gone. The decadence of communism was all around.
My guess is that many Venezuelans must be having the same reaction.   
Nothing is perfect, but Caracas was one of those cities that you were happy to visit. It had fantastic cuisine and a very modern infrastructure. You could see people working hard but enjoying life as Venezuelans know how to do. Like pre-Castro Cuba, the people were hardworking, elegant, and knew how to throw a party!
Memo to the thousands madly in love with Bernie Sanders: Take a trip to Caracas and you will see what “Sanderismo” looks like.    
And make sure you bring a roll of toilet paper just in case the hotel or your host runs out!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.    

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Tuesday May 24: The latest from Venezuela with José Niño



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Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Mr. Trump: Check out Bush ’04 and Abbott ’14 and Hispanic support


The latest polls confirm that Mr. Trump is in a big hole with Hispanic voters: 77% unfavorable.
I saw some of this a few weeks ago at a social gathering. We went to a birthday party and everyone there had voted for Romney but one. In other words, Romney beat Obama 9-1 at that table. My friends were Hispanic professionals and most were naturalized citizens like me. Trump will not win 9-1 with those Hispanics. They are furious with Trump and my friends do not support amnesty.
Maybe it’s time for the Trump people to look at two winning electoral strategies: Bush 2004 and Abbott 2014 in Texas.
In 2004, President Bush was reelected with 51% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes.
Bush did well with men, religious people, and married women. He won the white vote 58-41%.
Believe it or not, Romney did about the same in 2012: Romney got 59% of the white vote!
So why did Bush get 51% and Romney 48% of the popular vote? The answer is Hispanics: 44% of the Hispanic vote for Bush vs high 20s for Romney.
Down in Texas, Abbott won a landslide for governor in 2014:
Some exit polls also showed GOP governor-elect Greg Abbott winning 44 percent of the Latino vote, a higher percentage than the 38 percent Republican Gov. Rick Perry won in 2010.
I should add that Governor Perry was never seen as anti-Hispanic. Also, Ms. Davis turned off a lot of Hispanic women over abortion.
Mr. Abbott adopted the attitude that the GOP would ask Hispanics for their vote. He spoke about crime on the border but did not single out Mexicans or used the words rapists or criminals. He addressed the violence as a national security issue and was more critical of the Obama administration than people coming over.
Finally, President Bush or Governor Abbott did not call for open borders or amnesty.
The Trump people keep telling me that demographics do not matter. It’s “old school”, as a Trump supporter told me.
But demographics matter and it’s up to the Trump team to see the Hispanic challenge that he faces today.
In 2012, President Obama got 5 million votes more than Governor Romney. Do the Trump people really think that they are going to convert Democrats or bring in new voters and have it add up to 5 million?
The good news is that Mr. Trump has time. He will find an audience among Hispanics who care a lot more about the economy than immigration. But, Mr. Trump has to get started and I don’t mean naming a Latina as VP. He should speak to Hispanics about jobs and the lousy public schools that their kids go to.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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The Hispanic vote in 2016 with Israel Ortega




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Monday, May 23, 2016

Obama, Ho & Che


obama-vietnam_one-400x299
President Obama’s last year in office has been marked by two awful photos.
The first one was in Cuba with Che in the background.   It caused an outrage as many of you remember reading in this blog.
President Obama’s latest photo will upset more than just Cuban Americans. In other words, most Americans remember Ho Chi Minh and the 60,000 troops lost in Vietnam.
President Obama did not have to stand in front of these tributes to Che and Ho.
He could have told the leaders of Cuba and Vietnam that such displays were unacceptable.
So what does it say about President Obama?   It tells us that he is ignorant of history and not too concerned about the families of those killed in Vietnam.    
He is the Obama who sat in Reverend Wight’s church all of those years!

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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Party like it’s 1824?


In the interest of full disclosure, everyone of my 2016 predictions has turned out to be wrong. I have not been this “streaky bad” since Rich Dauer of the Orioles went 1-for-41 to start the 1977 season. Dauer turned it around and became a very good player with the Orioles that won the AL pennant in 1979 and World Series in 1983. I’m hoping the same for my predictions.
I feel good about this one: We will have four candidates in 2016 and the election will go to the House.    
Yes, we see new polls that show Mr Trump beating Mrs. Clinton. He leads in Rasmussen (42-37%) and Fox (45-42%).   
Am I the only one who sees that those numbers don’t add up to a 100%? In other words, there are a lot of people in those polls who are staying home or have not decided for Trump or Clinton. My guess is that these undecided would go away if there were other choices.
The undecided confirms what Bill Kristol said over the weekend:
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are manifestly among the worst presidential candidates ever to be presented to the American people by their respective parties. Yet our politicians are paralyzed, the donors are uncertain, and the smart set in general looks on with world-weary gaze and looks down with disdainful aspect at those who would like to provide the American people with a better alternative.
The American people know better. A high-quality national poll conducted recently by Data Targeting finds an astonishing 58 percent of the public very dissatisfied (34 percent) or somewhat dissatisfied (24 percent) with the current Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. By contrast, only 9 percent of respondents say they’re very satisfied and 21 percent are somewhat satisfied. If you add the 11 percent who are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied or who are unsure to the 58 percent who are dissatisfied, you get 69 percent of the public as a pool from which an independent candidate can prospect. And indeed that’s why 65 percent of respondents say in answering another question they are very willing (22 percent), pretty willing (10 percent), or somewhat willing (33 percent) to support someone who’s neither the Republican nor the Democratic party’s nominee. Furthermore, in a ballot test, when given a choice between Trump, Clinton, and an independent candidate, the independent gets 21 percent support, within hailing range of Trump’s 34 percent and Clinton’s 31 percent — which makes it very likely the independent candidate could get into the fall debates with the two major-party nominees. And possible that he or she could go on to win the presidency.
This is why I believe that four candidates will get votes this November. The Green Party will drive Mrs. Clinton down. Another candidate will drive Mr. Trump down.    
At the end of the night, no one will reach 270 electoral votes and it will go to the House.
In 1824, election day ended up like this: Andrew Jackson (99 EVs), John Quincy Adams (84), William H. Crawford (41) and Henry Clay (37). No one got a majority!
In 2016, the election would go to a House likely to be in GOP hands. In the end, the candidate, say Romney, with the strongest ties to the GOP would win. It could go the other way if the Democrats win the House. Mrs. Clinton would likely win under that scenario.     
It sounds as crazy as my prediction that Mr. Trump would not survive the primaries or that Mrs. Clinton would have all wrapped up after New Hampshire.      
Finally, a president elected in the House will be sworn in but it won’t be easy. We remember how many Democrats reacted to President Bush after losing the popular vote in 2000.   
Buckle your seat belts, because the turbulence of 2016 is really just getting started.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

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The week in review with Bill Katz, the editor of Urgent Agenda




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Sunday, May 22, 2016

The latest from Mexico with Allan Wall



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Clinton, the Green Party and a few other thoughts




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Trump and GOP unity plus other thoughts about 2016



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