Friday, June 12, 2015

Obama’s Pollyanna visions about Cuba

“President Barack Obama chose to make the decision with little explanation or acknowledgement of the true suffering of the Cuban people, suffering due to the rueful policies and acts of the oppressive Castro brother’s unwavering allegiance to their ongoing Communist doctrine.
Although no relevant concessions were made by the Cuban dictatorial regime for President Obama’s personal generosity, the Obama administration was quick to pronounce the actions as something that “would help human rights almost automatically.”
We read in the media daily about the repression in Cuba, a fact that the Obama administration has chosen to ignore.
Who is thinking about the Cuban people?  Not the Obama administration!
Tags: US-Cuba talks 2015  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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US-China, US-Russia and advisers to Iraq



Tags: Iraq and ISIS, US-China tensions, US-Russia  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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Thursday, June 11, 2015

Midterm elections in Mexico provide interesting results

(My new American Thinker post)
To my surprise, the midterm elections south of the border changed little, as we see in  news reports:
Mexicans cast votes on Sunday for the 500-strong lower house as well as nine state governorships and more than 1,000 state and municipal posts in what was seen as a referendum on Pena Nieto's rule. The Senate was not up for renewal.   By Monday morning, with 85 percent of polling station returns in, preliminary results showed Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its allies in Congress had won almost 40 percent of the vote.
President Peña-Nieto came into the midterm with the usual incumbent blues that we've seen in the U.S. – e.g., Clinton '94, Bush '06, or Obama '10.  He was under fire for three big reasons:

 1) The mishandling of reports about the deaths of 43 students.  The story really caught on and generated marches throughout the country.  He eventually admitted showing a lack of urgency and a bit of tone-deafness in the matter.
2) The conflict of interest stories about his wife's expensive home and a foreign company.  She was a very successful and very popular telenovela star and made lots of money before settling down as his wife.

 3) The left's anger over energy reforms.  Peña-Nieto deserves credit for tackling a couple of sacred cows, the oil monopoly PEMEX and the corrupt teachers' unions.  
The left has been in full rage ever since.

 Nevertheless, I think that he must be feeling pretty good about the results.  It wasn't the kind of thumping that we've seen in U.S. midterm elections. 

 There were a couple of interesting developments from election day:   

 1) It was a very bad day for PRD, the leftist party.  They got just under 11% of the vote.

 2) Nuevo León, the very important industrial and conservative state in the north, will have an independent governor, the self-described "El Bronco."  This is huge, because it sets him up as a presidential candidate in 2018.  He ran an outsider type of campaign, a bit similar to Perot '92.  We will keep an eye on him.  He will either succeed big or fail very badly.  It will have consequences either way.  

 Last, but not least, let's congratulate Mexicans for voting.  The voters did their duty despite violence and a campaign to scare them by cartels and gangs.

 P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Tags: Mexico 2015 elections  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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The Mexico elections with Barnard Thompson plus Rubio vs NY Times



Tags: Mexico 2015 elections, Senator Rubio vs NY Times  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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Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Caracas 2015: Living in one of the world's most dangerous cities

(My new American Thinker post)

 How do you jog, take an evening walk, or go to the movies in one of the world's most dangerous cities?  

 The answer is that you do it and take the risk, as we see in this NY Times article about Caracas:
Twice a week, Mariela Virguez ventures out for an evening ride with a cycling group that scales the hills of El Hatillo, a colonial-era district in the south that has seen a rash of kidnappings.
"I refuse to give this up just because of the situation in this country," said the 50-year-old computer engineer. "We don't have food, we don't have toilet paper, we have to wait in long lines — and they're going to deny us physical fitness, too?"
Good for Mariela and the others in Caracas.  Nevertheless, she is a rather brave lady, especially when you look at violence in Caracas:
Venezuela has the second-highest homicide rate in the world, according to a report releasedMonday by the NGO Venezuelan Violence Observatory.
The Observatory placed Venezuela’s homicide rate for 2014 at 82 per 100,000, with a total of 24,980 killings recorded for the year. The figure marked an uptick from the group’s estimate for the year prior, which stood at 79 per 100,000.

First, the shortages make it necessary for people to go underground and fight for basic foodstuffs.  In other words, it is a tense life that pushes some to the limit.There are many reasons for the violence, as my friends in Caracas tell me.

Second, the corruption puts people in a situation where they can't trust anyone, including the police.  

 Such is life in Caracas.  It's hard to believe that this is the pleasant city that I visited years ago.  

 P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.




Tags: Caracas 2015 murder and violence  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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A look at Venezuela


Guest:  Comandante Cazorla, opposition leader, joins us for a discussion of the situation in Venezuela....the economic crisis plus the political problems.....the state of the opposition....crime in the streets of Caracas and other cities.....the relationship with Cuba......US-Venezuela relations after the sanctions......and other issues about the situation in Venezuela....Click to listen:


Tags: Venezuela 2015  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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Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Rubio vs The NY Times again


In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I have not committed to any candidate in 2016.  In other words, I want to watch them over the next few months and select the one that is most electable and better suited to navigate through some very choppy waters ahead.

Senator Rubio is in my short list, along with Governor Walker of Wisconsin, Governor Bush of Florida, Governor Perry of Texas and Governor Kasich of Ohio.     As you can see, I like governors.   Senator Rubio is on my list because he has two important qualities:  A Reagan-esque ability to communicate conservative principles and a sound foreign policy.
"Mr. Rubio has acknowledged missteps: using personal credit cards to pay for his campaigns (a bad idea, he said); appointing his wife, Jeanette, as a treasurer of a political action committee (ill advised, he said); and using the party money for the reunion trip (an accident, he said). Mr. Rubio, in his 2012 memoir, “An American Son,” confessed a “lack of bookkeeping skills” and an “imperfect accounting system.”
In private conversations, Mr. Rubio has told friends that he learned how to manage money through trial and error. His poor, immigrant parents — his father a bartender, his mother a hotel maid — had little money to manage, he told them.
In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said, “Like most Americans, I know what it’s like for money to be a limited resource and to have to manage it accordingly.”
He added: “Our primary financial motivation over the last 15 years has not been to become wealthy. It has been to provide for our children a happy upbringing and the chance at a great future.”"
OK so Marco Rubio had to raise a family and pay his bills?  Sounds pretty normal to me, at least those of us who did not inherit wealth.
The New York Times' sudden obsession with the Rubio's finances is silly, specially when we get daily reports about the Clintons and their money.
Last, but not least, the financial expert quoted in The NY Times story made a financial contribution to the Obama campaign.    The NY Times did not mention that in the article.    I guess that they couldn't find a financial expert without ties to Obama or any other candidate.
Like most of us, the Rubios could have made better financial decisions or choices over the years.   I will certainly plead guilty to making financial mistakes over my lifetime.
My suggestion to The New York Times is that they should take their curiosity over money over to The Clinton Foundation.   In other words, a former US president, married to a current Secretary of State, accepted a lot of money over there.
Maybe the NY Times should knock on The Clinton Foundation's doors and do a little digging!  They will find a lot more consequential information at that place.   
P. S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.   
Tags: New York Times vs Rubio again  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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Still undecided.......but I like Governor Scott Walker a lot




Tags: Governor Walker 2016  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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Romania 25 years later

(My new American Thinker post)


Over the last few weeks, I've been reading reports from Dr. Ileana Johnson, author and economist, about her recent trip to Romania.     

 She left communist Romania in 1978 as a young woman.  She and I have different backgrounds but share our experience with communism, although she lived under it longer than I did.

Romania is a small central European nation that borders Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, and Moldova.  They speak Romanian, a language that has a historic connection to the romance languages like Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

 After World War II, Romania was taken over by the USSR and turned into a satellite state, a member of the Warsaw Pact. 

 It broke from communism shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

 Today, Romania has one of the top 50 GDPs in the world, or $264 billion:    
In 2011, U.S.-Romania trade in goods and services totaled $2,347 million. U.S. agricultural machinery and equipment, energy, environmental technologies, healthcare, information technology, packaging equipment and waste recycling, and chemicals are particularly attractive to Romanian importers. Principal Romanian exports to the United States are fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides, industrial machinery and equipment, metals and metal products, textiles and footwear, and civilian aircraft engines.
Dr. Johnson has traveled before to Romania.  However, this trip had emotional, value given that it was the 25th anniversary of the collapse of communism.
First, she recalled "the rally" that brought down communism:  
On a beautiful sunny morning, May 21, 2015 when the Orthodox celebrated Ascension Day and Sf. Elena, we walked in the beautiful park downtown Brasov set at the foot of Timpa Peak, where a crowd had gathered in front of a large cross and several tombs of the young men and women killed on December 22-26, 1989, during the Revolution that toppled Ceausescu’s brutal communist regime. Some of them came to a rally and some were simply walking through the park. 
Ceaușescu was overthrown and eventually executed.  He was a corrupt dictator, who preached communism and socialism but lived in huge palaces without regard for his countrymen.
Twenty-five years later, Dr. Johnson saw how her homeland had changed.   
She came back with a warning for the US, her adopted homeland:  
There is a saying that goes, “Our country is so beautiful, it is sad that it is inhabited.”   We have so many simple and uneducated people who are easily manipulated by the mass-media, they are voting for the wrong people who control, lie, cheat, and steal. In exchange for a vote, bribes of 5, 10, 15 euros are paid and accepted. And schools are no longer teaching healthy values and morality.    Democracy and freedom are understood as a lack of morals, honesty, personal responsibility, and as a culture of welfare dependency somewhat different from the communist culture of dependency where at least one had to pretend to work.    “We are losing our national identity and it is deplorable.”      Days after the interview I was mulling over the similarities between the fate of our countries in terms of purposeful destruction, curricular indoctrination, moral bankruptcy, banking corruption, crony capitalism, disinformation of the voting populace, and the endemic corruption of the ruling elites.
Romania and the U.S. are obviously different countries.  Nevertheless, the lesson of Romania is that politicians will exploit the dependency that socialism creates.  And it's hard to break that dependency once people realize their vote will keep it going.
P.S. You can hear my chat with Dr. Ileana Johnson here or follow me on Twitter.   



Tags: Romania 1989 vs 2015  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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A look at Romania today with Dr Ileana Johnson


Guest:  Dr Ileana Johnson, author and economist, will join us for a chat about her trip to Romania.........she came to the US from Romania in 1978 and has been a couple of times.....we will discuss the state of Romania 25 years after the communist dictator was toppled......the economy.......concerns about Russia.......perceptions about the US and President Obama......plus some lessons that we may learn about life in her homeland.....

 Click to listen:


Tags: Romania 2015  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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