Back to Basics

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Can you hear it?

It’s the drumbeat for war. And it’s beating louder by the day.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Eleven United States and one Israeli warships pass through the Suez Canal.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Former CIA Chief Michael Hayden says a United States military strike against Iran “seems inexorable” because diplomacy is failing.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen says the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives last week introduced Resolution 1553 which would give Israel the go-ahead to attack Iran. The resolution grants support for Israel to “…confront nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force…”

The neocons have never seen a war they couldn’t support, no matter the President’s party affiliation.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The end is near—so President Barack Obama tells us—for former President George Bush’s incursion into Iraq. He said last week that America’s combat mission in Iraq will end by Aug. 31. But that doesn’t mean all troops will come home. There will still be 50,000 there as August turns into September. And it’s going to be 18 more months before they all come home… if he sticks to his timeline.

We can only hope 50,000 troops are enough to prevent that governmentless nation from descending further into chaos.

For those troops that do come home, it appears they will only be home long enough to change their underwear and restock their ammunition belts before heading off to another Mideast hellhole to die… for what?

To blow up suspected nuclear sites, even though a 2007 U.S National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran had halted work on developing a nuclear warhead in 2003. Meanwhile, an unclassified military report submitted to Congress in April concluded, “Iran is developing technological capabilities applicable to nuclear weapons and, at a minimum, is keeping the option to develop nuclear weapons,” as The Washington Post reported.

A May report by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran hasn’t sufficiently cooperated to allow the agency to determine if Iraq’s nuclear activities are solely for peaceful activities.

Conflicting stories of weapons of mass destruction: Haven’t we heard this before… during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq?

If HR 1553 were to pass and Israel does strike at Iran’s nuclear reactors and nuclear sites, what then? If Iran strikes back—which President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has said they would—and is joined by Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, would the U.S. then be obligated to intervene?

It would seem so. And what would be the result of such a conflagration?

Obama has pledged America’s undying support of Israel no matter what… even if he did treat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu badly during his visit to the White House earlier this year. And Israel maintains it is convinced that Iran is working to acquire nuclear weapons.

Much of the international community also seems convinced Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. The feckless U.N.

A new ‘smart missile’ threatens to tip the balance of power towards China, US military analysts say.

The latest generation of the Dong Feng 21D (DF-21D) [Photo] is a supercarrier killer according to experts on China’s armaments. The missile can be launched from land and strike an aircraft carrier 900 miles away.

China has 11,200 miles of coastline. That fact coupled with the range and accuracy of the new missile could spell doom for any US or allied carrier fleet.

Patrick Cronin, a senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program that is part of the Washington, DC Center for a New American Security organization admits the DF 21D is designed to kill carriers—specifically US Naval carriers. “The Navy has long had to fear carrier—killing capabilities. The emerging Chinese anti-ship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post—Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose.”

The new Chinese military’s 96166 Unit will be outfitted with DF 21C medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and possibly the DF-21D ASBM as well.

For more than a decade Pentagon strategists, analysts and war-gamers have worried about a new super missile that could pierce America’s invincible carrier fleet. The carriers maintain the dominant American influence in the East Asian waters and counterbalance the threat of the globally emerging China.

With the potential loss of carrier superiority, the US faces the prospect of a very real Chinese move on Taiwan. It also could potentially greatly weaken the US leverage on North Korea and expose South Korea to greater military risk.

Other than a nuclear attack, American carriers are well shielded with defensive weaponry, high-tech machinery of war and of course state-of-the-art jet fighter aircraft and jet bombers. All US carriers are also equipped with conventional cruise missiles and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

“The Chinese now have a weapon that can potentially neutralize our 21st Century carrier fleet,” a USN admiral said under conditions of anonymity. “If the Chinese decide to deploy it and launch against us we’d be backed into a corner. We’d have to respond with our nuclear arsenal.”

The Chinese were floundering in attempts to build effective missiles until the Clinton administration agreed to sell China three Cray supercomputers as part of a trade deal. Intelligence analysts agree that China immediately put the superior computing power to work for their military, especially nuclear and missile development.

The Chinese are well aware their new weapon has the ability to checkmate the US Navy. For several years the Chinese government has become more strident in their demands that US naval forces stay out of the Yellow, East and South China seas. Beijing has flatly claimed that region as theirs.

International experts claim that several US naval exercises during the past several years have been delayed or moved because of Chinese threats. They point out China strongly protested war game exercises the US planned jointly with South Korea in the Yellow Sea.

Within days, Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to bring sweeping energy and climate legislation to the Senate floor. He won’t call it cap-and-trade or cap-tax-and-trade, and certainly not a carbon tax.

“Those words are not in my vocabulary,” he says. “We’re going to work on pollution.”

Senator Reid’s twenty-pound bill will be laden with lofty language about “clean energy,” energy conservation, “green jobs,” reducing “dangerous” power plant emissions, ending our “addiction” to oil, creating a renewable economy, and saving the planet from “imminent climate disaster.”

Environmental euphemisms aside, however, the legislation is really about imposing national “low carbon fuel standards” (LCFS) and forcing dramatic reductions in the use of oil, natural gas and especially coal. It would expand on existing laws, regulations and decrees, like the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that carbon dioxide somehow “endangers human health and welfare,” EPA’s June 30 invalidation of flexible air quality permits for Texas refineries, Interior Secretary Salazar’s offshore drilling moratorium, multiple state and federal renewable energy standards and mandates, and various state and regional “greenhouse gas initiatives” that restrict emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.

The EPA, Energy Information Administration, White House and Mr. Reid insist that America can easily limit hydrocarbon use and switch to “eco-friendly” wind, solar and biofuel energy – at low cost and minimal harm to families, businesses and jobs. However, their self-serving, other-planet claims are flatly contradicted by a host of studies by reputable analysts with a solid history of integrity and accuracy.

The most recent is a June 17 report by Charles River Associates, examining the “Economic and Energy Impacts Resulting from a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” Prepared for the Consumer Energy Alliance, the study looked only at transportation fuels. (Including coal for electricity generation and other uses would dramatically increase its cost estimates.) Nevertheless, the study found that national standards implemented in 2015 would:

* Increase average gasoline and diesel prices by up to 80% in five years, and 170% within ten years – sending regular gasoline prices soaring to nearly $5 per gallon by 2020 and $7.50 per gallon by 2025 (assuming other international price pressures remain unchanged);

* Spur sharp cost increases for petrochemicals in plastics, pharmaceuticals and other vital products;

* Reduce employment and consumer demand significantly, by increasing the cost of transporting people, equipment, supplies, raw materials, food and finished products – for work, school, healthcare, business, manufacturing, vacation and other purposes;

* Cut business investment by $200-320 billion annually, compared to the no-LCFS baseline;

* Slash gross domestic product by $410-750 billion annually by 2025;

* Cost 2.3 million to 4.5 million American jobs, including up to 1.5 million in manufacturing and 3.0 million in the service sector; and

* Force household purchasing power downward by $1,400 to $2,400 for a family of four by 2025 – impacting minority, elderly and other low and fixed income families worst of all.

None of this should be surprising.

The question was answered on June 16 by the Committee to Protect Journalists‘ Executive Director, Joel Simon. The setting was a hearing on “Press Freedom in the Americas,” held by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. And quite interestingly, none of that very “press” in the “Americas” has seen fit to report this item. Hummmm?

So let’s ask the multiple-Peabody and Emmy award-winning American journalist Dan Rather if he knows who jails and tortures the most journalists on earth.

Fidel Castro is Cuba’s Elvis!

Nope. Seems that Dan’s no help.

Okay, now let’s ask the same question to Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism-winner Andrea Mitchell:

Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly — even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!

Nope. Seems that Ms. Mitchell is also in the dark.

Okay, let’s go over to multiple-Emmy-winning journalist Barbara Walters.

Castro has brought very high literacy and great health-care to his country. His personal magnetism is powerful, his presence is commanding.

Oops, looks like we draw another blank.

Over to Peabody Award-winner Dianne Sawyer now — but on the way, we trip over this item:

Diane Sawyer was so overcome in Fidel Castro’s presence [during a dinner party at Mort Zuckerman's Manhattan pad] that she rushed up, broke into that toothy smile of hers, wrapped her arms around Castro and smooched him warmly on the cheek.

So lets’ skip her and try eminent Newsweek and Los Angeles Times journalist Eleanor Clift.

To be a poor child in Cuba might be better than being a poor child in Miami.

Dang! Another bum steer with Ms. Clift, it appears.

Moving down a few notches, let’s try CNN’s former Havana Bureau chief Lucia Newman (nowadays with Al  Jazeera):

In Cuba we will be given total freedom to do what we want and to work without any censorship” [italics mine] … No dubious campaign spending here [in Cuba]. No mud slinging — a system President [italics mine] Castro boasts is the most democratic and cleanest in the world!

Ms. Newman, it seems, is no help. But perhaps CNN’s higher-ups can help. Heck, let’s go straight to the top: CNN’s very founder, Ted Turner: “Fidel Castro is one helluva guy! You people [Harvard Law School audience] would love him!”

OK, enough with the “fun.” (All quotes above are fully documented, by the way.)

In case you hadn’t guessed, Castro’s fiefdom wins the prize “for most journalists jailed (by far!) per capita on earth. In fact, in total numbers jailed, Cuba (a nation of 11 million subjects) is only slightly behind China (a nation of 1.4 billion!).

According to the Paris-based (not Miami — please note!) Reporters Without Borders, Cuba today holds 20 percent of the world’s jailed journalists. Imagine Castroite repression with China’s population! The Cuban “Law 88,” passed in February 1999, cranked up the repression several notches, mandating up to twenty years in prison for “providing information that could be useful to U.S. policy.”

Imagine a similar law in the U.S.

Every so often it’s a good idea to take stock of the threats facing the modern world. Any student of history will know that this analysis is going to be grim. Take a deep breath and read this for a few minutes. After that, you may need a stiff drink!

I have this theory that the world goes mad every twenty to fifty years, forgets what the devastation of war does to nations and the lives of those who want nothing to do with war.

It has been sixty-five years since the end of the last world war, fought in Europe, Russia, and in the Far East, China, the Philippines, Pacific islands, and against Japan. Much of the world lay in wreckage, millions were dead.

After that the U.S. spent a total of twenty years, from 1955 to 1975, in Vietnam, followed now by nine years in Afghanistan, and seven years in Iraq, not counting an earlier invasion to drive Saddam out of Kuwait.

Though the scale was small, war came to the American homeland with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York at a cost of nearly 3,000 lives along with the attack on the Pentagon. There have been smaller terrorist attacks since.

In the combined military services, the U.S. has over 1.4 million men and women under arms. The United States of America maintains some 700 bases around the world. We are the sole guarantor of any measure of peace, of any resistance to tyranny.

The single greatest threat to freedom worldwide is the resurgence of militant Islam. More than a billion people are Muslims, but the locus of the attack on industrialized, modern nations has been the Middle East, a region of the world that remains trapped in this seventh century retrograde religion. If successful, it could drag the world back to a new version of the Dark Ages when humanity will be oppressed by a faith based on the hatred of all other faiths.

Trying to accommodate Islam is an invitation for conquest. It has a history of building mosques over or near the holiest sites of older faiths.

The environmental movement took shape in the late 1960s and, from around the late 1980s, the greatest “scientific” fraud ever perpetrated, global warming, was launched by the United Nations and maintained through a huge propaganda program and, as often as not, by various national leaders, including our own.

Billions were allocated to research and other responses to this non-event. The planet was not in the throes of a sudden and dramatic warming, nor is there any need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For the past decade, the planet has been steadily cooling.

The rise of the United Nations following World War Two has been a ceaseless quest for control over the world’s population. The UN has never successfully deterred any war, large or small. It seeks to undermine the individual sovereignty of nations. It is a cesspool of corruption and deception.

There is no shortage of disastrous behaviors in Obama’s District of Corruption today, but among the most fatal practices is that of refusing to discuss our many challenges in an open, honest and forthright manner.

One of the most dangerous patterns in American politics today is the practice of allowing political ambitions to drive the facts, instead of allowing the facts to drive policy decisions. Nowhere is that more evident than in the insane discussion concerning very serious global economic conditions and the right medicine for those international ills.

Fact: United States of America remains the most productive, prosperous and generous nation anywhere on earth

Despite seventy years of Democrat efforts to destroy the U.S. free-market economy, the United States of America remains the most productive, prosperous and generous nation anywhere on earth, which is to say economically speaking, we are doing things much better than any other nation and should be leading the international community toward free-market capitalism instead of following Europe into bankruptcy via some version of Marxism or Socialism.

However, Democrats seem quite determined to follow Marxist principles by way of Alinsky Rules, even though nobody in the recent G20 meetings was ready to march along with Obama.

Facts about the U.S. economy

• The U.S. remains by far the largest economy on earth with a $14.5 Trillion GDP
• Americans remain the most productive people on earth with a per capita GDP of $46,400
• We have one of the highest per capita personal incomes in the world at $37,500 (80.8% of PGDP)
• Our federal budget is approximately 25.2% of GDP
• The federal tax rate is 28.2% of GDP – and we are still running red ink well into the future
• And our federal debt will be 97% of GDP by end of 2010, not counting interest or unfunded Obama promises, an increase of 40% since Obama took office less than two years ago

The good news is – Americans are still very productive and prosperous despite the fact that our federal government is suffocating that private sector productivity to death with excessive spending and increasing government intrusion into the free-market.

The bad news is – Obama is not leading anyone towards the principles and values that made America the most powerful nation on earth. Instead, he is leading America toward utter destruction on the pathway of European economics.

So now we must take a close look at how our friends abroad compare to the good ole USA, in economic terms.

The UK Facts

The UK is only a $2.2 trillion economy (1/6th the size of the USA)

• Per capita productivity is $35,200 compared $46,400 in the USA
• Per capita income is $27,650 compared to $37,500 in the USA
• The UK national budget is 51% of GDP compared to 25.2% in the USA
• The UK tax rate is 39% of GDP – compared to 28.2% in the USA
• UK debt is 68.5% of GDP – compared to the USA at 97% of GDP

Canadian Facts

• Canada has only a $1.33 trillion economy – 70% of it exported to the USA
• Per capita productivity is $38,440 compared $46,400 in the USA
• Per capita income is $29,740 compared to $37,500 in the USA
• The national budget is 41.1% of GDP compared to 25.2% in the USA
• The tax rate is 33.4% of GDP – compared to 28.2% in the USA
• Debt is 72.3% of GDP – compared to the USA at 97% of GDP

French Facts

• France has only a $2.66 trillion economy
• Per capita productivity is $32,800 compared $46,400 in the USA
• Per capita income is $27,460 compared to $37,500 in the USA
• The national budget is 54.5% of GDP compared to 25.2% in the USA
• The tax rate is 46.1% of GDP – compared to 28.2% in the USA
• Debt is 79.7% of GDP – compared to the USA at 97% of GDP

How about Greece (with its new junk bond credit rating)

• Greece has only a $342 billion economy
• Per capita productivity is $32,100 compared $46,400 in the USA
• Per capita income is $19,920 compared to $37,500 in the USA
• The national budget is 42.4% of GDP compared to 25.2% in the USA
• The tax rate is 33.5% of GDP – compared to 28.2% in the USA
• Debt is 113.4% of GDP – compared to the USA at 97% of GDP

Are you beginning to see the picture here?

The FBI’s arrest of 11 on charges of spying for Russia has provoked an unusual response—from President Obama, who is said to be “not happy” with the timing, according to the New York Times.  “Not happy”?

The FBI moved to arrest the 11 accused clandestine agents for Moscow after a seven year investigation because they were afraid of a flight risk.  Indeed, one of those arrested was a Canadian citizen nabbed in Cyprus while trying to make a run for it to Budapest.

Which brings us back to the President’s reaction about the arrests of the Russian agents: “Not happy.”  “Not happy” that the FBI is doing its job?  “Not happy” that the arrests were made only days after President Obama had an “upbeat meeting” with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev?  Both explanations betray an American President more concerned with the optics of “resetting” U.S.-Russian relations than with the manifold reasons why this relationship has been, and will remain, difficult.

A non-exhaustive listing of recent Russian challenges might be in order at this point:

1. Russia’s invasion and crushing of tiny, democratic Georgia in 2008.
2. Russia’s selling of nuclear know-how to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
3. Russia’s stonewalling of efforts to diplomatically isolate the same Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.
4. Russian’s military threat to Poland and the Czech Republic if the U.S. Missile Defense Agreement was implemented by those nations (Obama canceled the agreement in 2009).
5. Russia’s use of its natural gas exports as a hammer to keep European nations in line.
6. Russia’s selling of high-tech weapons to the People’s Republic of China.
7. Russia’s repeated efforts, often in league with China, to penetrate and damage U.S. computer systems via massive hacking attacks.
8. Russia’s long, slow slide back into authoritarianism, as evidenced by the jailing of rivals and the growing number of “mysterious” deaths of critics.

The bottom line is that Russia is reasserting itself as a reincarnation of its Czarist past—and there is little relationship for the U.S. to “reset” here.  The Russians have their interests, we have ours—pretending otherwise won’t change that, other than to encourage the Russians with our weakness, as President Obama did when he made our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic “not happy” by unilaterally canceling the missile defense agreement the U.S. had with them.

Today the Obama administration auctioned off several national parks to help reduce the growing national debt. Among these are Yellow Stone Park and the Grand Canyon!

America can you imagine waking up tomorrow and hearing that repeated on the local TV or radio station news report?  You sit down for your coffee and morning paper and “HOLY HAMMERS AND CYCLES BATMAN”!  You suddenly realize your vacation plans have changed. Looks like your going to Russian Occupied territory this year to see the Grand Canyon!

Right now Uncle Sam is in a world of self inflected pain.  What might be Obama’s remedies to these aches?  He as, the Tyrant and Chief, may pen an executive order deeming himself  the authority to sell or lease some of these Federal lands to China, Russia, Mexico, even Iran or Venezuela would salivate over this opportunity.  The problem is a lease may not be good enough for some of our debt holders.  China may not want a long term lease.  Obama may have to sell the land instead.

Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfill their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6,000 sunkissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts.

The Guardian has learned that an area in Mykonos, one of Greece’s top tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale. The area is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer willing to inject capital and develop a luxury tourism complex, according to a source close to the negotiations.

Potential investors also looking at property on the island of Rhodes, are mostly Russian and Chinese.
SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

America we have to get back to small government again.  This is a very scary precedent being set on the world stage right now.  A stage our current president wants to be a the lead actor on.  You have heard quotes like; “He would sell his mothers soul for that car” or “I’d give my soul to the devil to have that job or that girl”…. etc…. Well we have sold our soul to Uncle Sam.

So what do we do to protect our sovereign territory?  How do we prevent these federal land grabs.  Obama initiated discussions on an attempt to seize another 10 million acres over 9 states in early 2010.