Obama Watch

New Librarian of Congress and Cuban-Americans

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Carla Hayden, shown in 2015, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to head the Library of Congress. Hayden is the longtime leader of Baltimore's library system

On July 13, 2016, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Dr. Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress.

Dr. Carla Hayden, president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2003-2004, refused to support an amendment to the section of the final report on the proceedings of the ALA’s mid-winter meeting to help free ten librarians that Fidel Castro had imprisoned for making available such documents as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and George Orwell’s 1984.

It is noticeable that Dr. Hayden was a vocal opponent to the Patriot Act during her tenure as ALA president, leading a battle for the protections of library users’ privacy. She objected to the special permissions contained in Section 215 of that law, which granted the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI the power to access library user records. Dr. Hayden often disagreed publicly with then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft over the language of the law.

It is ironic that Dr. Hayden would not side with the ten Cuban librarians who were locked up by Fidel for circulating access to information to the Cuban people.

See:  http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-abandoned-librarians-6408599

OBAMA — THE FIRST LATINO PRESIDENT???!!!

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PinochioOutrageous article below and outrageous idea to consider! Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) is on point when he said that Obama’s Cuba Initiative represents “a limitless willingness to appease enemies of freedom,” and a “grotesque concession.”

U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants, has shown his true colors.  Not only is he delusional by implying that Obama could go down in history as the “first Latino president,” but he has demonstrated by his insensitive remarks that he is not a friend of freedom-loving Cuban Americans.

And the author of this article, Edward-Isaac Dovere, showed his discriminatory animus toward Cuban-Americans by implying that because Cuban-Americans make up “only 3.5% of Hispanics,” Obama didn’t risk much by angering them. After all, Dovere indicated that the majority of other Hispanics approve the President’s actions pertaining to Cuba.

Now, Dovere is not far-fetched with the last statement. It is true that there are many Hispanics who are against anything that most Cuban-Americans are for — mainly out of envy for the huge success that Cuban-Americans have garnered in the U.S.

Let’s get real!   It is quite an accomplishment to have five representatives and three senators serving in the U.S. Congress — two of the senators being potential presidential candidates — despite being 3.5% of the Hispanic population!

By not keeping his promise not to change the Cuba relationship without, first, offering guarantees of human rights or freedom of labor unions and political parties, Obama has lost credibility with Cuban-American voters.

Cuban-Americans do not forget who betrayed them when it comes time to vote.

Personally, I think that a more appropriate designation for Obama would be “Pinocchio-In-Chief.”

To read the article, click on http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/the-first-latino-president-113694.html

Dear Jorge Ramos: I’m not impressed with your tweets of outrage

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(My new American Thinker post)

President Obama said that he will act on immigration reform after the elections.  I guess that he finally got the memo that a lot of Democrats in red states do not want any more Obama burdens to carry around or reasons to stay away when the President is in town.

Some are not happy with President Obama’s decision, such as Jorge Ramos, Hispanic journalist, and other immigration activists.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ramos spent much of 2008 overlooking Senator Obama’s inexperience or role in killing the work visas that were part of McCain-Kennedy immigration plan.

Don’t take my word for this.  Read Ruben Navarrette, an honest Hispanic journalist who has been calling it right for years:

Obama tends to forget that, while in the Senate, he supported — at the behest of organized labor — a “poison pill” amendment intended to kill bipartisan attempts at comprehensive immigration reform. And, as president, he failed to make reform a top priority, as he promised Latinos he would.

Like so many in the Spanish speaking media, Jorge Ramos overlooked the reality that was Senator Obama’s record.  Instead, too many in the Spanish media fell for the speeches, the slogans and phrases.  They really wanted to believe that a man who had never done a thing about immigration reform would do so if elected president!

Today, Jorge is angry.  He is now saying that Obama didn’t keep his word on immigration again!

Sorry Jorge but it’s a little too late for your tweets of outrage.  Frankly, I’d be a lot more impressed if you, and so many others like you, would just tell your millions of viewers that you didn’t do your job in 2008.    Apologize to your viewers for checking your journalism suit at the door every time that you interviewed the candidate.

Sorry Jorge but your outrage just doesn’t do a thing for me!

P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
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No “hope and change” for blacks in the Obama years

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Let’s look at the US for a second.

I mean let’s take a look at the “sorry” state of black America under our first black president:

“For black Americans, age 16 and older, seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate between July and August stayed the same at 11.4%, and that is up from the 10.7% rate in June.

The last time the black unemployment rate was 11.4% was more than 5 years ago, in October 2008. (It was at a low 7.6% in August 2007.)”

In a word:  Bad!

In two words:  It stinks!

In three words:  It’s stinkin’ bad!

It’s interesting but the article points out two things:

1) It was 7.6% under President GW Bush, further evidence that the Bush economy was better than he was given credit for.  The unemployment rate was under 5% for much of the GW Bush presidency; and,

2) Black youth unemployment is also very high.  It begs the question:  why are we talking about legalizing millions of people to compete with young blacks?

Of course, don’t expect the Black Congressional Caucus to say much.  I guess that they are rather busy these days making excuses for President Obama, using Ferguson to get the black vote out or visiting Cuba to talk “business” with Raul Castro.

Sadly, Cuba is another place where blacks are not doing very well either, as dissident Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, the head of Cuba’s Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement, reminded the Caucus.

US blacks do have one big advantage over Cuban blacks.  They can change our leadership by voting differently or stop giving Democrats 90% of their vote automatically.  Cuban blacks don’t get a chance to vote for change.

Check my blog here!

 

 

Dear President Obama: “Tu nuevo embajador a la Argentina nunca ha visitado Argentina”

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(This is my American Thinker post about our new ambassador to Argentina.)

Let’s be fair and admit that ambassadorships are often handed out to friends of the president.   So I will cut President Obama some slack if he chooses a political friend to fill an ambassador’s post.

But not Argentina. Not today’s Argentina.

Senator Rubio and Mr. Noah Bryson Mamet, our future ambassador, had this incredible conversation:

“SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Mr. Mamet, have you been to Argentina?

NOAH BRYSON MAMET, NOMINEE: Senator, I haven’t had the opportunity yet to be there. I travel pretty extensively around the world, but I haven’t yet had the chance.

RUBIO: Well, here’s why I ask — this is with all due respect. You have an impressive resume, work, and so forth. Obviously, we’re interested in your testimony and what we learn in the days to come leading up the nomination, but I don’t view this appointment as one — I think this is a very significant post.”

Yes, it is a very important post.

There are two problems with this nomination:

First, it will make him a “joke” before he presents his credentials in Buenos Aaires.  Most people in Argentina will find this appointment insulting and further confirmation of President Obama’s indifference to the region.

Second, Argentina is in deep trouble, as reported by Ian Vazquez of Forbes:

“Argentina’s luck is finally starting to run out.  It devalued its currency by 15 percent last week, marking the beginning of a possible economic crisis of the kind Argentina has become known for.”

Argentina may soon default on its foreign debt and it could hurt its neighbors.

My bottom line is that we need someone in Argentina who’s had some knowledge of this very important country.

We don’t need a US diplomat who will be the target of jokes, such as never having been to the country he is ambassador to.

P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.

 

“No me digas”: The Obama Care website “habla Spanglish”!

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Why is anyone surprised?   The Spanish Obama Care website is a mess!

The Obama Care website is frustrating Spanish speakers:

“The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late.

A Web page with Spanish instructions linked users to an English form.

And the translations were so clunky and full of grammatical mistakes that critics say they must have been computer-generated — the name of the site itself can literally be read “for the caution of health.”

“When you get into the details of the plans, it’s not all written in Spanish.

It’s written in Spanglish, so we end up having to translate it for them,” said Adrian Madriz, a health care navigator who helps with enrollment in Miami.

The issues with the site underscore the halting efforts across the nation to get Spanish-speakers enrolled under the federal health care law. Critics say that as a result of various problems, including those related to the website, many people whom the law was designed to help have been left out of the first wave of coverage.

The article also goes on to explain that enrollment is way down.

My guess is way down because of it is too expensive.  Too many “hispanos” bought into the nonsense that Obama Care would be paid by the rich!

They are slowly finding out they are the rich!

As our parents learned in Cuba, be careful with the charlatan who promises by playing class warfare.  It usually ends up hurting the exact people cheering the speech at the rally.

Again, just ask our parents about socialist demagoguery!

 

“Barbara y su falso mesías”

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Barbara Walters admitted the obvious, i.e. too many people got caught up in Obama the Messiah:

“Barbara Walters said the difficulties engulfing President Barack Obama are a reflection of the let-down people are feeling from the high expectations they had during his earliest days in office when she and others thought he was going to be “the next messiah.”

The 81-year-old broadcast journalist made the remarks during an interview on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live” on Tuesday, after Morgan asked her why Obama is facing so much opposition and why “he is struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?””

Really Miss Waters? It took 5 years to figure this out.

It took Miss Walters 5 years to figure out that a guy who had never managed anything might run into a few problems trying to run the federal government.   Obama had no executive experience, only 2 years in the US Senate, no significant accomplishments in the Illinois Senate and so on.    Obama was totally unprepared for this job.

Wonder what other liberal is going to come out and admit that he or she fell for the false Messiah?

My guess is that more will “come out of the closet”, specially after they learn that The Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable at all.

 

“El que tiene palanca”: ObamaCare is so great that some of Obama’s friends get waivers

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There are many reasons to dislike ObamaCare, such as the whole issue of federal overreach and impact on the private insurance market.

However, the #1 reason is that the law does not apply equally to all.    President Obama has unilaterally changed the law to give groups special favors or treatment.

The Wall Street Journal reminds us of how “unions” are about to get another one of those “waivers“:

“The unions ought to consider this tax a civic obligation in solidarity with the (uninsured) working folk they claim to support.

Instead, they’ve spent most of the last year demanding that the White House give them subsidies and carve-outs unavailable to anyone else.

But don’t expect ObamaCare favors unless you helped to re-elect the President.

In an aside in a Federal Register document filed this month, the Administration previewed its forthcoming regulation:

“We also intend to propose in future rulemaking to exempt certain self-insured, self-administered plans from the requirement to make reinsurance contributions for the 2015 and 2016 benefit years.”

Allow us to translate.

“Self-insured” means that a business pays for the medical expenses of its workers directly and hires an insurer as a third-party administrator to process claims, manage care and the like. Most unions as well as big corporations use this arrangement.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I think that private sector unions are good.  They represent workers and should continue to do so.

My problem is with favors not unions.

This is why health care should not be run by politicians. They will find a way to take care of their friends at the expense of the rest of us.

Wonder when The NY Times will get their special little waiver for being such a staunch defender of the cause?

 

“Yo no fui” Obama throws the NSA under the bus

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The NSA people are furious that they are getting thrown under the bus for carrying out orders, according to Max Boot:

“The intel community isn’t happy about being blamed for conducting what Obama implies is a rogue operation: “People are furious,” said a senior intelligence official. “This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community.”

Not only is Obama blaming the intel community for doing something wrong, he is leaking word that he will order a ban on spying on allied leaders.

One wonders how “allies” will be defined since no nation stands with the U.S. on every single important issue.

Germany, for example, supported us in Afghanistan but not in Libya. (I am tempted to say Germany didn’t support us in Syria either but since we have no coherent policy on Syria it is hard to say whether they support us or not.)

If he is serious about it, Obama’s actions will result in a loss of valuable intelligence and will hardly appease the NSA’s critics who think that all data-hunting operations except perhaps those focused on Ayman al-Zawihiri’s emails should be shut down.

Obama was aware earlier in his administration of the danger of stigmatizing the hard-working intelligence professionals he needs to keep America safe; that’s why the administration shut down attempts to prosecute CIA personnel over the use of torture.

But now, in a frenzy to appease European critics, the president is demoralizing the intel community and sending them a signal that aggressive collection efforts will not be rewarded. That’s a bad tradeoff.”

Here is the problem. The men and women at the NSA follow orders.  They do espionage or carry out policies approved by the president.

President Obama should support the men and women at the NSA for carrying out his policies.  He should not play word games and throw patriots under the bus.

Taking ownership and responsibility won’t make the hyper sensitive Europeans happy but it will establish that someone is in charge.

We desperately need to know that someone is in charge in Washington!

“Yo no fui” Obama is making the US, the NSA and President Obama look rather silly.  He needs to “man up” and support the people who are carrying out his orders!

P. S. Speaking of “our shocked European allies”, they should watch “Casablanca” tonight: