Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Chaos has Austrians voting for order

Some of us have worried about Europe being the ghost of the future, sort of like the ghost that appeared to Scrooge in Dickens’ novel. Remember the scenes about the future and how Scrooge eventually changed?
Well, the ghost of the yet-to-come has a few Austrians rethinking their future. It looks like many want change,as we saw in Austria’s elections:
Austria’s government was licking its wounds Monday after a historic debacle that saw the opposition anti-immigrant far-right triumph in a presidential ballot two years before the next scheduled general election.
According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) came a clear first with 36 percent of the vote, while candidates from the two governing parties failed to even make it into a runoff on May 22.
I am not suggesting that an Austrian Barry Goldwater is about to become the next leader of Austria.   However, there is anger in the streets of Vienna and just about everywhere else. The anger is clearly setting up nationalist parties to do well in elections.
We have some good friends in Austria and exchanged information for a few months about the refugee problem. Therefore, I am not really surprised by these election results. I’ve been reading the anger between the lines in the messages.
Over and over, my friend used the word “chaos” in his messages. He told me that the refugee crisis is threatening their culture and the relative peace that Austria has enjoyed since World War II. They are not anti-immigrant or inhumane. They want order, specially the orderly integration of people who come from cultures with radically different values, i.e. women’s rights!
They also say something that we also hear over here. They say that they can’t recognize their country anymore, i.e. too many people who are not Austrians.   
Austria may be starting something over in Europe. I guess people will only take so much “chaos” before they vote for those who promise order.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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President Obama misfires over in Europe and a few other stories of the week




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Monday, April 25, 2016

Mrs. Obama should know better

Welcome to the last 270 days and here comes Mrs. Obama.    
During a school speech, First Lady Obama decided to attack the people of Mississippi and their elected officials. This is from the Daily Mail of the UK:
Michelle Obama has waded into Mississippi’s religious freedom law row, slamming the state for marginalizing the LGBT community.
The First Lady told 35,000 people at Jackson State University to ‘stand side by side’ with people of all sexualities, not only on social media but also at the ballot box.
‘We see it right here in Mississippi — just two weeks ago — how swiftly progress can hurtle backward,’ Mrs Obama said in her commencement speech.
‘How easy it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are or who they love.’ 
Then she went after people who don’t vote:
Continuing her speech in Mississippi, Mrs Obama said if people fail to exercise their fundamental right to vote, rights will be under threat.
‘Congress will still be gridlocked. Statehouses will continue to roll back voting rights and write discrimination into the law,’ she said. 
She said many young black people disenfranchised themselves in the 2014 midterm elections, when only about 20 percent of them voted.
‘You can hashtag all over Instagram and Twitter, but those social medial movements will disappear faster than a Snapchat if you’re not also registered to vote,’ the First Lady said. 
Frankly, this is very unfortunate, demagogic, and irresponsible.
It is unfortunate because the First Lady should be speaking in a positive tone, especially to young people who are getting a degree and listening to the first African American woman in that role.  
Also, what reason did the Obama administration give young African Americans to vote?  
It is demagogic because she is not offering any solutions other than making noise. Has she actually spoken to African Americans about men using women’s bathrooms? It’s easy to make noise about this issue when your own daughters will never use a public restroom without security around or attend a public school.
It is irresponsible because it shows the Democrats’ desperation. They are down to the gender, racism or whatever other card to get voters excited about Mrs. Clinton. There is a lot of youthful excitement on their side, but it’s about Senator Sanders not Mrs. Clinton.
The last 270 days will be tough to take. My guess is that President Obama knows that there is not much of a legacy, from a collapsing ObamaCare to the mess in the Middle East to the events we just watched in London.    
Yes, the Obamas will go out with a bang but not a very classy one at all.
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




Tags: Iran nuclear deal, Clinton vs Trump, Pennsylvania primary, Cruz 2016, Kasich 2016, President Obama in the UK and Saudi Arabia 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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Sunday, April 24, 2016

The book "Show boat" by Edna Ferber



We watched the "Show Boat" last night.   I was delighted to hear that it was originally a book by Edna Ferber published in 1926.  The story is about a the showboats that ran up and down the Mississippi a long time ago.

 Well, I need to read that book.  



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The Dallas Opera put on quite a "Show Boat" this weekend



What a great show:  The Dallas Opera put on a great performance of "Show Boat".   The story takes us back to the old South and the Mississippi River.   The music is great and that song "Old man River" is superb.

 We discussed the show with Bill Katz, the editor of Urgent Agenda on Sunday.   Bill has followed musicals over the years and saw the show in New York when he was a young man.    Here is the conversation:


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Saturday, April 23, 2016

The GOP race between New York and Pennsylvania primaries





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The risks of being the de facto nominee

(My new American Thinker post)

 Does Mr. Trump really want Senator Cruz or Governor Kasich to get out? He may say so, but is Trump really ready to be the only man standing?

 Trump learned yesterday that the media is not his friend, no matter how much they are desperately trying to get him nominated.

 Gotcha question # 1 was about bathrooms.  

 Trump, who pretends to be the smartest man ever to run for president and master manipulator of the media, can not see a "gotcha" question yet.     

 The purpose of the bathroom question was not to learn his opinion about a complicated question. It was about starting a controversy and a big one got started: 
“North Carolina did something — it was very strong — and they’re paying a big price,” Mr. Trump said. “And there’s a lot of problems. And I heard — one of the best answers I heard was from a commentator yesterday saying, leave it the way it is, right now.”
He added that before the law passed, there had been “very few problems” but now North Carolina is experiencing an exodus of businesses and “strife” from people on both sides of the issue.
“You leave it the way it is,” he said. “There have been very few complaints the way it is.”
A better answer would have been to throw back the grenade and say that this is a state matter. His answer may have been an honest one but confirms what Senator Cruz said about New York values.   

 He stepped on it again when he answered another "gotcha question # 2" about abortion. Trump wants to change the GOP platform on abortion.   

 Again, another rookie answer. He is not going to get any pro-abortion votes by saying this but will upset many of the pro-life people who've been working hard to elect GOP candidates.

 Trump's style worked great when he got 90 seconds to answer questions on a crowded stage. He is alone now and that means that he is the one getting all of the questions.

 So far he is stepping on it a lot more than he is connecting with the base.   
GOP voters are about to get a rather unique look at Trump.   

 They will get a free "test drive" for a couple of months. They'll get to drive it before the 1,237 is official.

 My guess in late April is that many of the uncommitted delegates will learn that he is not ready for the fall campaign, no matter how often he calls her "Crooked Hillary".

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

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Russian jets, NATO and President Obama in London & Saudi Arabia with Barry Jacobsen




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Friday, April 22, 2016

They don’t greet President Obama at the airports anymore


Don’t be surprised if President Obama has an emotional attachment to that Neil Diamond/Barbra Streisand song, “You don’t bring me flowers anymore.”
A month ago, we were surprised that Cuba’s Raúl Castro did not greet President Obama at the airport.  After all, they told us it was historic.  It had not happened since President Coolidge visited Cuba in the late 1920s.  Castro would have been the second leader in Cuban history to greet a U.S. president on Cuban soil.  However, he stayed home doing something rather than showing up to make history.  Maybe a pirated copy of The Mambo Kings was on Cuban TV that afternoon.
Well, it happened again.  Another world leader was too busy to greet the president of the U.S.  He was welcomed by Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, the governor of Riyadh.
Yes, our president is now greeted by governors.  It does not get any more insulting than that.  Maybe having Russian jets fly within 50 feet of U.S. warships is a very close second!
King Salman was not there to greet President Obama.  However, he found time to greet other world leaders just last week:
Ahead of Mr Obama’s arrival, Saudi state television showed the king personally greeting senior officials from other Gulf nations arriving at the King Salman Air Base, the Associated Press reported.
Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Centre, said the Saudi decision not to dispatch a high-level delegation to greet the president was unusual and intended to send a clear message that they had little faith in him. 
It is true that Saudi Arabia is angry over the redacted pages from the 9-11 report.  Frankly, it’s a tough call, and I am willing to give President Bush and President Obama the benefit of the doubt here.  After all, they have more information than I do.  At the same time, President Obama could make a speech about the issue rather than let his critics dominate the coverage.
Saudi Arabia is angry about something else: the Iran deal.  They just don’t like the idea that Iran is going to get all of those billions of dollars, as reported by The Guardian:
Their larger fear is that Iran, flush with new revenues, will be emboldened to intensify its activities across an already violent and unstable Middle East.
“Every country in the world is worried about this,” Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, said last week as sanctions were set to lift. 
“Iran’s record has been one of war and destruction, terrorism, destabilisation, interference in the affairs of other countries and the concern … is that Iran not use these funds in order to fund destabilisation activities, but instead use the funds to improve the well being of its people.”
Saudi Arabia is not a perfect ally.  However, they are a major player in the region.
They also didn’t get the memo about the Iran deal and Obama’s legacy.   
Maybe Saudi Arabia understands something about legacy than the Obama supporters don’t get.  It’s legacy only if it works.  It’s a bad idea if it doesn’t work.  As Warren Spahn said about a pitch that Willie Mays put in the seats: “Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch“!
President Obama is off to London next.  He’s got some fence-mending there, too.
We’ve come a long way from that summer of 2008 visit to Germany, when thousands of fools cheered the new American messiah.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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