The terrorists 'partying like it's 1999'

(My new American Thinker post)

There is a 1999 feeling to the news today:  

"The terror threat prompting the U.S. government to close nearly two dozen embassies and consulates Sunday is the most specific, credible threat information in years, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports. Intelligence officers have reporting from a reliable source that a major plot is under way and that the team to carry it out has been selected and is in place, Miller reports. The threat information has been described as the most specific and credible since the foiled plot to blow up British planes en route to the United States in 2006, Miller reports. The specificity ends there."

First of all, I am glad that we are taking the threat seriously and responding to it. 

At the same time, the terrorists won a big one in Benghazi.  Senator Graham is right that they've been on steroids since Benghazi. They killed Ambassador Stevens and 3 others.  

They saw President Obama get behind a "video" narrative to keep the issue from the front pages.  

We even locked up a US citizen for making the video. 

They've also heard President Obama say over and over again that we've dismantled Al Qaeda.
 
What lesson did the terrorists learn?  It's 1999 all over again!  We are back to treating the war on terror like a police matter rather than a direct threat to our country.
 
I hate to say it but Al Qaeda is partying "like it's 1999."  It certainly feels that way when they force us to close embassies all over a region.  

Click here for Sunday's show with Bill Katz of Urgent Agenda:

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Still very skeptical about the new moderate in Iran

Forgive me if I'm a big skeptical about that new "moderate" in Iran.  

He is getting a lot of coverage because of comments that he's made about Israel and the US.

Let's hope that this is the beginning of something new.  However, I guess that I will have to wait and see.    Iran is still Iran and that's a scary thought in the Middle East.

We discussed this issue and others with Bill Katz of Urgent Agenda:

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Wendy's '15 minutes of fame' are up!

(My new American Thinker post)

We spent several weeks here in Texas hearing all of those speeches about the "right to have" an abortion after 20 weeks!  We also witnessed some of the most immature antics ever seen in a political debate, from women throwing personal hygiene products to the floor to shouting messages better not suitable for this PG blog. Finally, we watched Senator Wendy Davis turn into a national celebrity going from one show to another.

Maybe Senator Wendy Davis & friends should take a look at this poll:              

"On another matter, the Republican-led effort in Congress and in many state capitols to reduce from 24 weeks to 20 weeks the time period during a pregnancy in which almost all abortions should be legal is striking a chord with voters. A total of 55 percent want a 20-week limit while 30 percent favor the current 24 week limit."  

Look "inside the numbers" and you will see that Hispanic support is 59-20%, women 60-25% & it's in the 50's for every age group. 

My guess is that Senator Wendy Davis had her 15 minutes of fame. 

This debate won't be coming back anytime soon.

Click here for Sunday's show with Bill Katz of Urgent Agenda: 

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Tags: Senator Wendy Davis of Texas  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

Baseball this week: Scandals and the Rangers wake up

As we enter the pennant races, we will start writing our baseball posts every week.  It should be a great finish with so many competitive divisions going down to September.  

The Rangers came alive this with a 5 game winning streak and 3 "walk off" home runs.  

I've seen a lot of baseball but nothing like this.  

The big cloud over baseball right now is the ARod story and the potential suspension of many others.

Baseball has dragged this out way too long.  The Rangers will likely lose their best power hitter when Cruz is suspended.  

I'm not defending the players.  I want the game cleaned up too.  I also think that it would have been better to do this in the off season so that it does not impact the pennant race.

Click here for Saturday's thoughts:

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Tags: Baseball this week:  Scandals and the Rangers wake up  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

Cubans love those "reformas" so much that they leave the island!

(My Babalu Blog post)

Our family was part of that big "outflow" of Cubans back in the 1960's and 1970's. 

We left because our parents wanted us to grow up in freedom.  They saw the ways of communism and decided to leave everything and start fresh in the US.  At least, their kids would have freedom!  I'm thankful that they made that sacrifice.

The Castro propaganda machine, and all of their useful idiots in the West, always said that we were the privileged, the rich, the CIA agents, "los Batistianos" or the people who supported Batista, "los latifundistas" or the landowners who exploited the people, etc.  They also said that we were not suited for the "new model man and woman" that the revolution was creating.  

I guess that they didn't think that we were "cut out" to be that "new man" that Che Guevara spoke about many years ago! 

Since we left, others have followed.

In 1980, the Mariel boat lift brought 100,000 Cubans to the US.    They left when Castro said:  "Those without revolutionary blood...we don't need you......"

So they left! 

Others left in rafts and some did not make it!  I remember a young couple who left Cuba in a raft and survived miraculously without water for days. 

I recall the story of the young man who stepped out of a raft and was greeted by a reporter.   

"Why are you leaving?  Don't you appreciate free health care and education"?   

The young man looked at the reporter:  "There is more to life than lousy hospitals or getting indoctrinated"!

Just now, we read in Reuters that Cubans are leaving again:

"According to Cuba's annual demographic report for 2012 (here), 46,662 Cubans migrated permanently in 2012, the largest annual figure since more than 47,000 left the communist-ruled island in 1994 after what international observers dubbed the "Rafter Crisis."

Over the last five years, Cubans have been emigrating at an average annual rate of more than 39,000, the report said, higher than in any other five-year period since the earliest years of the revolution."
 
That's a lot of people leaving all of those "reforms", "free health care" and the wonders of a "workers' paradise".

As my parents once said:  "Esto es una mentira"  ("This is a lie") 

Yes, the whole revolution is a lie indeed.  Unfortunately, it is a lie that some in the international left still want to believe! 

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Wanna smuggle something? Call The Castro Movers!

(My new American Thinker post)

We are learning more and more about that  "brown sugar' Cuban ship traveling to North Korea: They keep finding weapons under all of that brown sugar!  

 

Check out this little surprise in the ship:   

 

"Two more containers with suspected arms have been found on the ship in addition to the two already discovered.   Access points to the ship's storage areas were all 'completely blocked' in breach of international regulations when Panamanian officials boarded it, security minister Jose Raul Mulino said.    Cuba said the weapons on the ship included two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 fighter jets, and 15 MiG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century.
North Korea would breach the arms embargo imposed by the U.N. by carrying out repairs.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, said the ship appeared to have violated the U.N. arms embargo.   One senior U.S. lawmaker called the matter a 'grave violation of international treaties', while officials said Washington would be speaking to Cuba about the ship."  
 

Speak to Cuba about the ship?  I guess that we will tell the Cubans that they are not supposed to violate UN rules.  Is that what we are going to talk to them about?

Maybe we should ask the Cuban government about that high ranking North Korean military officer who visited Cuba a couple of months ago.  

Don't be surprised if the Cuban official explanation is that the military man was in Cuba to pick up a few baseball tips for the new North Korea baseball team in the World Baseball Classic.

You laugh?  Aren't these the same people who told Panama Canal officials that the ship was full of "brown sugar"?

Thank God that Panama did not fall for that!

The Castro brothers say that North Korea sent a high ranking officer to promote the historical ties between the two communist nations. 

It turns out that the only connection that Cuba and North Korea were promoting was shipping old Soviet weapons and we have to assume selling them in the black market!

And I hear that some people want to lift the embargo against Cuba?  Click here for Saturday's show:

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Tags: Cuban and the brown sugar ship  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

Having Eugene Robinson call you "nutty" is really "nutty"!

(My American Thinker post)

It would be a lot better if Eugene Robinson would focus on 'black on black" crime and the lousy unemployment rate in all of those black districts run by black Democrats.  Or maybe he could do a story about all of those Democrats who take money from the public teachers' union but don't send their children to public schools!  

Unfortunately, Eugene Robinson would rather talk about Senator Cruz and how the GOP is "nutty":  

 

"It's not your imagination. The Republican Party really does seem to have taken leave of its senses."     

 

Maybe Eugene Robinson should get out of MSNBC and sit down with Democrats running for reelection in 2014.  He may find out that a lot of them are very concerned about ObamaCare. After all, it was Democrat Senator Baucus who warned us about a "train wreck".  

 

Robinson would also be well served if he looked at some polling data. ObamaCare is not popular at all.  

 

Or maybe he should talk with business owners!   

 

Even IRS workers would rather keep what they currently have!  

 

Robinson then repeats the nonsense that the 1995 shutdown hurt the GOP.  

 

As I recall, the GOP kept the House and Senate in 1996.   And it was President Clinton who signed all of those GOP bills like "welfare reform".    

 

Why did Michael Moore & 4 million liberals vote for Nader in 2000?  Because they were angry at the Clinton-Gore team for moving toward the GOP, from free trade agreements to GOP bills. 

 

Eugene Robinson is "the nutty" one here!  

 

And so is the MSNBC outlet that people are not watching!  Click here for Saturday's show:

Listen to internet radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio

 

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Another one of those Friday jobs report

Once in a month, we get that Friday's jobs report. 

Once again, the report leaves us wondering about the state of the US economy.

We ask again:  Where are the jobs?

As always, we turn to Tyler Durden:

"But what really shows what is going on in America at least in 2013, is the following summary: of the 953K jobs "created" so far in 2013, only 23%, or 222K, were full-time.

Part-time jobs? 731K or 953K of total."

So there are a lot of part time jobs out there.  That's the story of this jobs report.

Once again, fewer people are looking for work:  The labor participation rate dropped to 63.4% from 63.5%.  

Another terrible statistic is black youth unemployment:  41.6%!

Click here for our Friday show:

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Tags: Friday's jobs report----August 2013 version  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

Does the Obama family really need to take this expensive vacation?

(My new American Thinker post)

We just heard from President Obama that the middle class is struggling.  We also heard that he is taking another those vacations that will cost a fortune:  

"The Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, the exclusive playground for presidents and their families, is about to get its annual summer infusion of cash and attention as President Obama and his family prepare to arrive August 10 for an eight-day vacation. Local reports indicate that the first family will likely be staying at a $7.6 million resort home on southern edge of the island in the town of Chilmark where homes feature water access to Chilmark Pond, tennis courts and swimming pools. Staying at the home of Chicago corporate finance manager David Schulte is a break from past Obama vacations because the $21 million home they've rented, Blue Heron Farm, isn't available. Schulte's summer home sits on nine and a half acres, has ocean views and a basketball court."

Does anyone at the Obama White House understand how bad this looks?  I guess not because Valerie Jarrett is going for the ride!

Does anyone in the White House Press Corps dare ask that simple question: Why such an extravagant vacation when so many middle class Americans are downsizing their own vacation plans?

At some point, we have to conclude that the Obama team is "out of touch," "tone deaf," not very "savvy" or just plain arrogant.   

Maybe all four!

Or maybe they just don't think that anyone in the media will ask them about it!   

Click here for Thursday's show:

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Obama: A broken record

(My new American Thinker post)

The "focus on the economy choo choo train" stopped in Chattanooga this week.  As always, the speech had a little bit of everything except something new or a specific economic reform. (Question:  How much are they paying those people who sit behind President Obama and show all of those happy faces?)  

The speech came on the day that AP reported that the US GDP is not growing: 

"A key government report and a statement from the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday that the U.S. economy still needs help. 
The economy grew at a lackluster 1.7 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said. That was better than a revised 1.1 percent rate for the first quarter but still far too sluggish to quickly reduce unemployment." 

That's pathetic.

Wonder what a Senator Obama would be saying about a US economy with a GDP growth of 1.7%?  Don't you think he'd be calling for some presidential leadership?

We have two suggestions for President Obama:

1) Get a different speech. We need a speech that calls for growth because there is not enough growing.  

For example, you call for finishing the Keystone Pipeline or putting ObamaCare on the disabled list until we have a better sense of how it will be implemented.

2) Get over high taxes on the rich. They don't work. Call the president of France!

The WSJ nailed it:   

"The problem, as ever, is that Mr. Obama simply can't get over his ideological fixation to keep tax rates as high as possible. We say "ideological" because his own advisers concede that a 35% rate hurts U.S. business competitiveness. Even Japan, the last high-rate holdout among rich countries, is cutting its corporate rate. But recall the famous moment in the 2008 campaign when then Senator Obama was asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson if he would support higher capital gains tax rates even if they raised less revenue than lower rates. Mr. Obama said yes. " 

It's sad but we have an American president who does not understand how a capitalist economy works.  

And Valerie Jarrett won't put anyone on his agenda who can tell him how a capitalist economy works. She is only letting people in who tell the president how great he is!

Our lackluster economy will continue because President Obama does not get it. He does not understand who creates jobs or how employers are motivated to create more of them.  

He does not get any of this and that's why the speeches are "tanking"!

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