Will the US military let Congress to pull the trigger?


The Eurozone countries are floating in an ocean of debt holding to the last straws and hoping for a miracle that will convince the world their situation is not dire. The US Congress Super Committee may provide that miracle by putting America in the spot light instead. If the ideologues prevail over the common sense folks, the inability of the US government to deal with its $15 trillion debt in orderly fashion will give another impulse to the stock market roller-coaster.

Busy with countless wars and covert operations around the world the US military ignores the enemy at home: class of radical ideologues in President Obama’s circle of friends, who are committed to reducing the power of the US in the world for the cause of ‘world peace’ and the chance to be in charge of a new global currency to replace the US dollar.

If the Congress pulls the trigger, the Super Committee failure will cause not only defense cuts, but also drastic reduction in Medicare funding. Seniors will be losing their social benefits and their retirement savings (in the turmoil of the markets)at the same time. Do you really think they will support re-instating military funding before Medicare?

The anti-war sentiment in America is so strong that the operation in Libya had to be handed over to NATO and the Uganda activities were briefly announced and never discussed with the public to avoid poking the fire.

America is so tired of warmongering that the conservative republican presidential candidates keep talking about future of the war as a series of covert operations. They wish the public will believe that special ops the type of Captain America jumping along Optimus Prime will take care of the world and the line of coffins carrying men and women killed in third world hell holes will disappear.

In the case of Congress pulling the trigger on Wednesday, the US military leaders will find themselves in the situation similar to what their Soviet counterparts experienced right before they surrendered to Gorbachev – realization that they lack the support of the people.

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United Europe or Independent Greece?


The European Union canceled the theatrics of democracy by suppressing referendum in Greece in attempt to get in control of the deepening debt crisis and keep the organization whole. ‘The democracy is dead!’ – commentators are screaming. You bet it is.

The Demos (the people) want to keep the social benefits, the government jobs, the generous labor laws. Unfortunately, what the Demos want is impossible because the honeypot is empty, so the ‘democratic’ thing to do (following the will of the people) is impossible too.

There is no democratic solution for the debt crisis in Greece until the demos is willing to join the real world: oops, we ran out of other people’s money.

Pain and Panic roam the streets of countries that have to undergo the economic shock therapy which teaches nations to live on budget and the US better take notes. Greek pensions will be reduced to absurdity, sweet job descriptions are deemed obsolete, and lifesavings disappear quickly during unemployment. Neighbors and friends look at each other pointing finger: ‘Why my job and not his, why me and not her?’

Eastern Europeans lived through the horrifying austerity measures of the transformation in the 90s without real social riots. One explanation is that for decades under communism those nations were used to obeying orders and staying in line, marching in directions promising light at the end of the tunnel. So suffering today for the sake of Winning the Future was a drill that Eastern Europeans knew how to perform. Celebrating newly found freedom of speech was a silver lining in the whole transition to ‘democracy’. This is why the demonstrations from that period are still seen as inspiring as opposite to the Greek riots that have mostly economic demands.

The people in Athens did not suffer lack of freedom, just lack of fiscal discipline, so the austerity measures come without the ideological fireworks of ‘ liberation’ that disguised the pain during the fall of communism. The EU demands from Greece hard core cut in live style for a promise of a future success of the Union.

This kind of uninspiring offer is the major problem of the EU today. The Greek are asked to lose their pensions and give up more of their national identity at the same time for the sake of United Europe. It is a real test for the level of popularity of the ‘European Ideals’ (empty concept that nobody really can define).

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Just one percent?


The US foreign aid is ‘just’ one percent of the federal budget. This is why, according to establishment pundits, it is not a matter of importance that needs to be discussed in the republican presidential debate. The talking heads couldn’t be more wrong.

What is just one (and a half, actually) percent of the budget for the Americans is an avalanche of wealth compared to the GDP of most of the countries in the world.

$47-48 billion of annual foreign aid is bigger than the GDP of Slovenia, Guatemala or Uruguay. It is twice the GDP of Kenya, 3 times the one of Bosnia, 4 times Iceland, 5 times Macedonia, 6 times Malta… 36 times the GDP of Belize… you get the point. What are crumbs for the US federal bureaucrats is a giant loaf in many places around the world. So with the small percentage of the US budget a well-organized international bureaucracy is calling the shots and influencing the life of billions of people.

On top of the US aid money the American taxpayers contribute $6 billion to the United Nations annually (about 22% of the UN budget officially, half of it in fact). Let’s discuss that! ‘Just’ $6 billion is enough to influence the international ‘intelegencia’ by providing a fancy job title and the feeling of importance to the world order bureaucrats. To compare how minuscule the amount is let us point that the Harvard University endowment is $32 billion. Which is more influential: the UN or Harvard?

The foreign aid and contributions to the global bureaucracy is a cheap way to rule the world: just identify and give a nice job to folks who have leadership skills so they can steer the sheep to whatever direction the global experiment is going.

The UN is a workfare program for intellectuals that provides them with cozy chair behind a solid desk with a nice salary and schedule of symposiums, biennales and whatever other word for international conferences they were able to come up with. Let me point that the military (peacekeeping) part of the UN is on separate accounting books and is not included in the ‘regular’ budget of the monstrosity.

The actual amount for food aid that the US Department of Agriculture is giving to the UN is $245 million a year to feed the world. That’s two times less than the cost of producing a new unit of Marine One presidential helicopter.

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Ohio hits Romney


Forcing people to buy health insurance was rejected by the voters of Ohio in the 2011 special elections. The result hurts Mitt Romney, who fathered the idea of individual mandate by implementing it as governor of Massachusetts.

Ironically President Obama (who forced the penalty on the whole nation) was against this approach when he was campaigning in 2008. It was the ‘moderate’ Hillary Clinton who was pushing for individual mandate as a way to finance health care. At the end, ObamaCare included the unconstitutional measure and the President never missed a chance to point that Mitt Romney provided the inspiration for it.

And then there’s a vicious rumor floating around that I think could really hurt Mitt Romney.  I heard he passed universal health care when he was governor of Massachusetts.  (Laughter.)  Someone should get to the bottom of that.

- Remarks by the President at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner,
May 01, 2011

Ironically the Individual Mandate fuzz is just a side issue to distract from the real cost cutting  measure in ObamaCare – the Accountable Care Organizations, which will provide services according to ‘scientific’ standard established by the US federal government. It is one of the biggest assaults on freedom of thought and is second only to establishing of official religion.

The ObamaCare is a perfect opportunity to debate the issue of ‘Separation of State and Science’. Americans were distracted instead by a juicy piece of bone-free, easy to chew red meat issue like the Individual Mandate. The Courts most likely will strike it down, but the rest of the bill will prosper if the republicans lose in 2012.

The cheap and uninspiring circus of the GOP primary battle so far gives little hope for a good outcome in the presidential elections next year. The disappointed base is not holding the line in swing states as evident by defeats the republicans suffered from Mississippi through North Carolina to Ohio.

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Maybe we really can’t wait!


President Obama ‘We can’t wait’ until 2012 slogan is often ridiculed by the republicans. With all seriousness, the conservatives should consider giving it some thought.

The establishment favorite for republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is so uninspiring that many folks rather pay national sales tax than have him in the White House. If you prefer to go to the dentist instead of showing up for a date it is a clear sign that your date has issues.

One day on November 2012 the conservatives may wake up with President Obama re-elected and Congress gone blue as candidate Romney and the House Republicans wave good-bye to Washington DC hand in hand.

The time between now and the election may be the only chance in the next five years to get something ‘right’ out of President Obama as he needs to appear moderate and appeal to independents.

On foreign policy the current administration meets the middle. President Obama managed to gather impressive scalp collection on his belt that includes Gaddafi and Bin Laden’s worst hair days. If he can add Syria’s Assad to Egypt’s Mubarak jail cell, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate may be close to match President Bush Sr. who swept clean the Eastern European dictatorships.

Unfortunately for the current commander-in-chief, his constituency is so young and immature that they have to Google-search ‘who is binladin’ to understand what all the fuss is about. Consequently, to stay in power President Obama needs to triangulate on some major domestic issue, like President Clinton did with the welfare reform.

The Super Committee on Debt presents the US chief executive with a second chance to become ‘greater than Clinton democratic president’. Barack Obama missed the first one that was given to him by his own Debt Commission. Chaired by Simpson and Bowles, the bipartisan group of reformers came up with surprisingly acceptable plan for reducing the giant debt that is drowning the US economy. With the exception of the carbon tax (masked as ‘transportation tax’) the proposed tax-reform is very close in spirit to what the conservative presidential candidates are advertising – flattening the tax-code through eliminating of deductions and reducing the rates.

If President Obama is able to push major bipartisan tax-reform, based on the Simpson-Bowles commission plan, before Christmas he will save the US credit rating, his re-election and will leave Bill Clinton far behind in greatness.

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Perry is borrowing from the Obama campaign playbook


Hillary Clinton was standing in the bed of a pickup truck screaming dares at Barack Obama to show up for debate in the 2008 democratic primaries. The no-drama candidate, however, focused on organizing in the caucus states instead of bickering with his experienced opponent on TV. When the time came to count the chicken, Barack Obama won mostly because he had the delegates from those states that Hillary 08 campaign ignored.

Hiding from too many debates also helped Barack Obama to lower the expectations for those where he did show up and receive favorable reviews.

Rick Perry is in a similar position in today’s republican presidential primaries. His experienced opponent , establishment favorite, Mitt Romney spent the last three years circling around the bushes in the early primary states and setting organization there. Meanwhile Rick Perry had a full time job as Governor of Texas.

The Romney election machine is practicing the drills with manic obsession for years. As a result Mitt Romney has most of his present time devoted to rhetoric. The Perry campaign has to set up the ground game in crucially important states in short time and make up for the missing months of hand-shaking with voters.

However, totally ignoring the media parade would be a mistake for the Perry folks. The base around the country wants its weekly portion of red meat and cage/stage fighting showdown and the candidates who fail to deliver may be voted out of the rumble.

Nice start would be getting a new communication director that shows some signs of life to replace the current one who performs like a scratched old fashioned record producing talking points over and over with disregard of the discussion. The republican primary voters are informed ones. They can make difference between focus group tested drivel and passionate vision. To paraphrase Herman Cain: may be ‘Let Perry be Perry’ approach can revive the campaign.

Borrowing Obama’s campaign playbook for ground game may not be enough to win the nomination, but it is a wise thing to do. For every handshake that Mitt Romney does Rick Perry has to do four to make up for the past three years. Skipping some of the none-televised debates to free time to meet with voters, opinion makers and donors may be a necessity for the Rick Perry campaign.

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Romney’s Meg Whitman problem


The republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seems to have a ‘Meg Whitman’ problem. It is not so much a Nicky Diaz kind of problem. Although, there is a high probability we will see illegal immigrant lawn mowing workers shedding tears on a press-conference in the general election if Mr. Romney gets nominated. It is ‘I inspire Wall Street, but not Main Street’ kind of problem.

The republican establishment is obviously working hard to nominate for President one of their own: opportunist, whose principles are not set in stone, and who possesses great understanding of the sweetheart symbiotic relationship between the financial speculators and the Washington DC gang. Mitt Romney fits the description.

The Whitmans and  Romneys of the world, however, fail to inspire the regular folks who are tired of their jobs being shipped to China, while they are kept quiet with stimulus handouts of fishy QE money laundered in the stock market.

Americans are craving to be able again to produce something to show for their money.

The political establishment of both parties promised energy independence for over thirty years. Instead, billions of dollars supported the world’s creepiest regimes over domestic production. Today, when the Arab world is largely about to sink into a dark era of hardline Islamism, there is a convenient excuse to pull out from those parts of the world. It is time to isolate and define who is who.  China, which has better tolerance for cruel, totalitarian regimes, can deal with whatever oil the Arabs have left (and some information gathered in Iraq suggests that the ‘proven’ reserves there may be overestimated by hundreds of millions of barrels).

For North America it is time for energy self-sufficiency, not new Wall Street money laundering schemes.  Oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and clean energy: those industries do not need government subsidies; they don’t need tax-payers green. They need a green light from the government and policy commitment to energy independence – course that will be viciously attacked by the UN ‘globalist’ crowd that is used to live off the US petro-dollars and the OPEC countries which will be terrified by the competition.

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Racketeering by threatening to whip a Revolution


Reading the foreign press these days gives you the impression that America is occupied by struggling hippies from sea to shining sea. At the North Carolina State Fair this weekend a totally different crowd was gathered: folks splurging on fun-rides and fried food. The fairgrounds were truly occupied by happy campers voting for traditional Funnel Cake vs novelty Chocolate Banana with sprinkles, and testing their bravery in the Ring of Fire (coaster ride).

Unfortunately the happy crowd in North Carolina does not make the cut for the worldwide news, so folks around the globe have no chance to come out and support it by frying a pickle or something.

When the leftovers of hurricane Irene hit New York the whole world had to watch for two days exclusive coverage of… rain. The news worthiness of precipitation is proportionate to its closeness to NYC and Washington DC. The same goes for the news value of street gatherings.

Political commentators are busy with future watching, trying to guess the end game of the Occupy Wall Street saga. No crystal balls and black cats are involved but dark predictions (about the end of America and the world as we know it) are offered daily. So I will put some tea leaves in the boiling water too.

The Occupy Wall Street protests may end if the amount of the campaign contributions from that same street surprises pleasantly President Obama and his union friends.

The leftist crowd has no chance in destroying America because it is slapping only one head of the beast – the big business – while cuddling the other – the big government. The powerful monster in charge of the US needs at least one head to be intact so it can bail out the other. The Tea Party has equally zero chance to bring real change because they are storming Washington DC, while watching out for the gang on Wall Street (in hope for campaign contributions).

The day when Glenn Beck and Van Jones walk shoulder to shoulder protesting Wall Street in the morning and the White House in the afternoon is the day when America as we know it can be destroyed. The odds of that happening are comfortably low.

Are there reasons why conservatives should be upset with Wall Street? You bet!

When provided with inside information about the downgrade of the US debt rating, the major banks placed bets against America. Unfortunately for them, the free market decided that downgraded US debt is worth more than triple-A European one, so Goldman Sachs and friends lost on their bet. There are only two possible explanations for that:

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