Tags: Iraq, Syria and Middle East To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
(My new American Thinker post)
Ron Fournier quoted a Democrat saying that President Obama is bored of being president.
What a time for a guy to get bored!
Down on the border, we are watching something that will make Mariel 1980 look like a PG movie. Yes, there were criminals among those who came here from Cuba, but most were adults quickly absorbed by the Miami economy. Today, most of them are productive taxpayers in the Miami area.
On the border today, we have kids, and most will have to be supported by the state for years.
As bad as the border crisis is, what we are watching in Iraq may turn into a nightmare of geopolitical proportions.
As I write this, major cities in Iraq are falling under terrorist rule. In fact, the terrorists are headed toward Baghdad, and the entire country could be lost in weeks. This is the same Iraq where 4,400 Americans lost their lives and won a war.
Iraq is falling apart because President Obama never understood that a successful ending of the war was in the best interest of the U.S., whether you supported the war or didn't. In other words, the debate was over once we entered the war. President Obama could never force himself to say that to the people who voted for him.
I agree with Christian Whiton, a former George W. Bush administration State Department senior advisor. He said this:
"For his part, Obama gave away the security and power that came from Bush's victorious surge of military forces in 2007.
Obama intentionally failed to reach an agreement to keep some forces in Iraq and felt he was above dealing with Iraq's leaders as Bush had.”
Whiton said that the United States should not send troops to Iraq. However, he said there are other ways Congress and the White House could intervene.
He said that if America continues to sit on the sidelines, there could be more disaster in store.
Syria is also a problem, and there is a perfect storm brewing, according to news reports:
An al-Qaida splinter group that has seized a huge chunk of northern Iraq commands as many as 10,000 fighters and has steadily been consolidating its hold on much of northeastern Syria across the border.
This is all happening because we have a president who is bored with his job. Maybe he should resign and let someone else try to run things.
This is no time for a man who is "bored" or would rather be doing something else.
You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: Iraq, Syria, the US-Mexico border To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Tags: US-Mexico border crisis To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
(My new American Thinker post)
According to news reports from Central America, the word got around in Honduras and El Salvador that it was time to go north and get in line for some kind of legalization:
"Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are promoting policies by the Obama administration that defer deportation to minors brought to the United States as children by their parents — known as "Dreamers" — and those that are housing illegal children at military bases in the South and West.
Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is quoted in a story about a new two-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act published by Diario El Mundo in El Salvador.
Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the law grants temporary legal status to many young illegal immigrants, ending the threat of deportation for at least two years."
How else do you explain that thousands of unaccompanied children ended up in camps on the US-Mexico border? They are here because they sensed an opportunity and walked 1,000 miles to go north.
To be fair, President Obama did not call on people south of the border to come north.
At the same time, he didn't tell them to stay home, either. Furthermore, his language, intended to pander to Hispanics, created the illusion of a ticket to some kind of legalization.
How does President Obama get out of this mess? He doesn't. This is going to be another difficult issue for a president who's got a bunch of others on his plate.
Ron Fournier quoted a Democrat saying that President Obama is "bored" with the job. The events on the U.S.-Mexico border are not going to make the job fun anytime soon.
P.S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: Kids at the US-Mexico border To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
(My new American Thinker post)
We know two things about Brazil:
1) They are the Portuguese speaking country of Latin America; and
2) They are passionate, and I mean really passionate, about soccer.
We know something else this week. Brazilians are very unhappy about the World Cup that starts later this week, as reported by The New York Times:
"While thousands poured into the streets in 2007 to celebrate Brazil’s winning bid to host the World Cup, bitter strikes are now roiling major cities. In São Paulo, where the opening match between Brazil and Croatia is just days away, riot police on Monday used tear gas to disperse striking subway workers.
Brazilian legends of the sport, from Ronaldo to Romário, are voicing shame and disgust over troubled preparations in the nation which has won the World Cup five times, more than any other."
Right now, there is a huge strike against the Sao Paulo subway. The public employees want a pay increase, even though the strike was ruled illegal.
The strike will probably end before the opening game. Sao Paolo is hosting another 5 games in the first round and public transportation is a must to get thousands of fans around.
What surprises me, and many of my Brazilian friends in the Dallas area, is how poorly planned everything about the Cup has been. A friend in the area told me Friday that many Brazilians are just plain embarrassed. He also hinted that there are big political changes coming in Brazil.
Who would have believed all of this when crowds cheered the news that Brazil would host the Cup? I certainly didn't. In fact, my reaction, and probably yours, was that the Cup and Brazil were made for each other.
But it did not turn out that way as any honest Brazilian will tell you!
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr
Tags: Brazil 2014 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Tags: Russian immigrants in the DFW area To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
(My new American Thinker post)
I guess that leaders either grow in the job, like President Truman, or shrink, like President Obama. The former continues to grow in the estimation of historians and the latter is really sad to watch.
Walter Russell Mead reminded us over the weekend just how President Obama has shrunk less than 2 years after winning reelection:
"At home, the bungled rollout of the Obamacare website and the shocking revelations about an entrenched culture of incompetence and fraud in the VA have undercut faith in the President’s managerial competency.
Abroad, a surging Russia, an aggressive China, a war torn Middle East and a resurgent terror network are putting his foreign policy credentials to the test. With the GOP hoping to seize control of the Senate in November’s midterm elections, and the inevitable decline in presidential power that occurs as second term presidents move toward lame-duck status, Obama risks being sidelined and marginalized for the remaining two years of his term."
Frankly, what worries me is how out of touch with reality President Obama looks.
On the Bergdahl controversy, he looks like a tone deaf leader disconnected from the soldiers he leads. Why couldn't he understand that closing Gitmo is not something that the soldiers are calling for? The soldier, and I have a son in the US Army, is more concerned with people going back in the battlefield and threatening our troops.
He is shrinking, the country suffers and the whole thing is sad to watch. You know that we lack presidential leadership when people were cheering for California Chrome to win the Triple Crown and give us something to feel good about.
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: 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!
(My new American Thinker post)
Put me down as someone who has not seen this kind of irresponsible lawlessness in the US before.
President Nixon had Watergate but that's beginning to look a lot like a PG movie compared to what we are seeing from this administration, from going around Congress on the prisoner swap to the events on the US-Mexico border.
For the record, I support a moderate immigration reform package that allows some of "the dreamers" to stay here, especially those who've been succeeding in school or who want to serve in the US military. It should be part of a broad border security plan.
The 10-12 million people who are here will have to wait until we can understand the economic impact of adding more people to an economy that is not producing enough jobs.
However, I can not blame those members of the GOP who've concluded that President Obama will not respect whatever Congress does to resolve the immigration problem.
Let's look at what is happening on the US-Mexico border.
According to news reports, a spike in illegal immigration is overwhelming border states. As Senator Cruz of Texas said, this is an outrage:
"Earlier this week, Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby released leaked photos of children in U.S. processing cells who entered the U.S. illegally and unaccompanied. The photos encapsulated the humanitarian crisis in relation to young, often unaccompanied, border crossers.
Cruz said of the skyrocketing number of children crossers, "When I was down at the border, Border Patrol agents were telling me with horror that roughly 10 percent of apprehended people were unaccompanied minors."
He continued, "The people who are bringing men, women, and children in illegally are not pleasant, happy, placid coyotes. These are criminal cartels. These are ruthless, brutal, nasty criminals. The idea that you have parents handing their teenage daughter or son over to a global criminal cartel is a humanitarian crisis. Untold numbers of these teens are facing assault, are facing a life of hell being turned over to drug kingpins.""
This is also a perfect storm.
First, we have a president who "panders" but never did a darn thing about the problem when he had majorities in both Houses of Congress. He loves "si se puede" speeches but has not done much to address the problem at any level.
Second, we have a president who has never publicly said that the US border has to be respected. In other words, coming to the US, as our family did in 1964, is not an entitlement. It is something that you have to earn and it starts by respecting the law.
Third, we have a weak Democrat party that desperately needs a massive Hispanic turnout in November to defend their electoral gains of the past.
Fourth, we have large numbers of people who've been told that they will "make it" by getting over here before Congress votes.
Fifth, and most important, we have a president who does not care about the rule of law. It's all about turnout in November.
So we have thousands and thousands of kids, sitting on the border.
Again, this is an outrage and it starts with President Obama, a man who refuses to defend the people who live in border states.
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: Immigration and chaos in the US-Mexico border To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
(My new American Thinker post)
It's such a "busy news week" that this story did not make the front pages:
"In a little noticed footnote to a report updating estimates of the effects of the insurance coverage provisions of the law, the agency headed by Douglas Elmendorf acknowledged that neither CBO nor the Joint Committee on Taxation could determine precisely how scores of provisions other than the insurance coverage would impact long term government spending. - "
So the CBO can no longer tell us how affordable the Affordable Care Act is!
So let me get this straight.
The ACA was supposed to provide coverage for the uninsured (it has not!), allow you to keep your current plan (no way!) and have a positive impact on health care spending (not so!).
And these are the people who said that President Bush started the Iraq War on "false pretense"?
Where is the media when we really need them? I see a great opportunity for investigative journalism for any journalist who wants to do his job rather than continue to subscribe to the Obama cult.
P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Tags: Obama Care and the deficit To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
Tags: Friday's thoughts To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
