Monday, August 22, 2016

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



Tags: 2016 like 1964 or 1980, Syria and Obama 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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Where were you the night that Nolan Ryan got his 5,000th strikeout?


Tags: Nolan Ryan 1989 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 poster child of Obama’s foreign policy


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Indeed, the babies are dying in Aleppo, as Robin Wright posted today:
Last month, four newborns in incubators fought for their lives in a small hospital in Aleppo, the besieged Syrian city. 
Then a bomb hit the hospital and cut off power — and oxygen to the incubators. The babies suffocated. 
In a joint letter to President Obama this month, fifteen doctors described the infants’ deaths: “Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun.” 
The doctors are among the last few in the eastern part of Aleppo, the historic former commercial center where a hundred thousand children are now trapped.
The photo of the bloody 5 year old boy, is one of the ugliest ones I’ve ever seen. We learned more about him later:
More than a third of all casualties in Aleppo are now kids, according to Save the Children. 
Among them is Omran Daqneesh, the toddler with the moppish Beatles haircut whose picture captivated the world this week. He was shown covered with blood and dust after being dug from the debris of a bombing in Syria on Thursday. Rescuers placed him, alone, on an orange seat in an ambulance. His stunned, dazed expression mirrored the trauma of a war-ravaged generation. (On Saturday, we learned that Omran’s older brother Ali, who was ten, had died from wounds sustained in the attack.)
I understand that war is hell, as any veteran will tell you. However, this picture is more than the byproduct of bombs. It is the consequence of a foreign policy that has made the world a heck of lot unsafer than it was in 2009.   
It started with a reckless withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. It was followed by tough talk about “red lines” that were never followed up. It did not take long for the bad guys in the region to find that President Obama was all about getting reelected in 2012 rather than U.S. national security.      
As Charles Krauthammer wrote:
Two terms later, we see the result. Ukraine dismembered. Eastern Europe on edge. 
Syria a charnel house. Iran subsuming Iraq. Russia and Iran on the march across the entire northern Middle East.
And two terms later, we know that Mr. Obama’s successor will have to clean this up. The next one, he or she, won’t have the luxury of “hope and change” and a media willing to overlook President Obama’s pathetic performance. He or she will have to face the facts and make extremely painful decisions, such as sending ground troops.
And worst of all, one of the authors of this mess is leading in the polls to inherit the problems.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Tags: Aleppo and the Obama foreign policy  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, August 21, 2016

The world on this Sunday afternoon, from elections to a little history


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The world on this Sunday afternoon, from elections to a little history 08/21 by Silvio Canto Jr | News Podcasts:

We will look at the latest political stories......the collapse of Syria and the picture of that little boy.....it is a poster picture for the failures of the Obama foreign policy..........Mr Trump tries to go after the Hispanic and African American vote with proposals about economic recovery........in 1959, Hawaii became # 50 after Alaska became # 49 in January of the same year.............in 1968, the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia........in 1991 the coup against Gorbachev collapsed........Happy # 78 to Kenny Rogers, great singer......and other stories of the week......................


Tags: Obama and Syria, Clinton vs Trump, 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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Brazil and other stories from Latin America



Tags: Impeachment in Brazil, Olympics and Brazil, Cuba and the US embargo 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 refugee situation in Europe with João Cerqueira, author from Portugal



Tags: Immigration and  refugees in Europe 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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Clinton will try to run out the clock this fall


We understand that Hillary Clinton is not going to Louisiana.  I agree with her that candidates on the ground may be more distracting than helpful.  Nevertheless, a little show of support would help, especially after what thesemedia folks said about President Bush in 2005.
She is not going to many other places, either.   
I think there are a couple of things going on here:
1) Her health is an issue, as it should be with any 68-year-old person running for president.  Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump (who is 70) should release their medical records.  In all fairness, Mr. Trump shows a lot more vitality, but that’s more of his personality than an objective health finding.
I’m old enough to remember all the questions about then candidate Reagan in 1980.  Remember the Saturday Night Live sketchabout President Reagan getting a bit old to be president?  It wasn’t the only time jokes were made about his age.   
2) The latest RCP average has Mrs. Clinton up by 5.7%.  The electoral college looks even better!
So why put her out?  She is very stiff in public.  Furthermore, the news media does not seem to mind that Mrs. Clinton does not hold press conferences.  Why fight the media if they are ready to carry your water all the way to Election Day?
So why risk it?  Let her run on mute until the debates and take a chance on Mr. Trump saying something that dominates news coverage for another week.
To be fair, the strategy has its risks, as we are seeing in Louisiana, where Mr. Trump looks more concerned by talking to real voters.    
Furthermore, the polls are tightening, a reflection that her convention bounce may be evaporating.   
And, most importantly, there is a lot of uncertainty about the economy, and God only knows what October surprise is out there.  Unlike other elections, I’m a bit skeptical of these polls, because people are not in love with Mrs. Clinton.
My guess is that we won’t see a lot of Mrs. Clinton until the debates.  I think her team is betting on Mr. Trump taking the limelight and fumbling again with another round of self-destructive comments.    
Frankly, she is a horrible candidate, so why not run out the clock if you can get away with it?   
Staying away is the best strategy!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Tags: Clinton 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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Obama and GITMO, the 2016 election and a few other other thoughts



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Saturday, August 20, 2016

The 2016 election with George Rodriguez from South Texas



Tags: 2016 election Trump vs Clinton  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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Trump looking for a Bob Lemon ending


The Trump campaign had another managerial change, or shake-up as they like to call them.   
The latest is that Paul Manafort is out, apparently over the New York Times article claiming handwritten ledgers and $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to him. The source was ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012.    
It may be that the change makes sense but it shows once again that Trump can not step forward without having to go back one or two.     
Just this week, he gave a good national security speech. He followed that with a good speech and town hall meeting about Milwaukee and urban violence. Not along ago, he delivered a good economic speech.   
By any historical standard, the Trump campaign should be living off those speeches with followup statements or having his helpers speaking about it from coast to coast.    
Unfortunately, it’s personnel and internal matters that consume the media. I get it that the media does not like him. At the same time, I also get that Trump is giving them a lot of material that has nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton.    
So I’m hoping that this is the last distraction before election day. Maybe we can finally direct our speeches at Mrs. Clinton and her target rich record and past.
Mr. Trump is a Yankee fan so he probably remembers 1978 and what they used to call “The Bronx Zoo’, a reference to the chaos in the team’s clubhouse.  
So they fired the controversial Billy Martin and brought in Bob Lemon, the quiet man. The rest is a history that Trump would love to see repeated:
The Red Sox were running away with the American League East. 
Steinbrenner’s Yankees, half a season after winning the World Series again, were turning into some national joke of sports. 
Lemon lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair and somehow his team gave us three months of baseball you had to see to believe.
Lemon took over. The players bought into the quiet discipline. The superstars, like Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson, stopped calling each other
names in the press. And the team started winning all the way to the World Series.
I just hope that there is a Bob Lemon in that new campaign team.
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Tags: Trump campaign staff changes  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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