That's Not Artificial Lilacs I Smell.

Seems there has been a run on Glade, Airwick and Fabreeze in all the local stores inside the DC beltway over the last couple of days. In spite of this there is finally dawning the realization that Obama’s shit does stink after all. Lost in the flood of fained editorial outrage over the IRS and DOJ revelations is one missing question; Why now? Why would the someone within the administration pick this of all moments to air this dirty laundry?

The answer is quite simple and two fold. Firstly, enlist the media to produce large enough amounts of phony outrage about the IRS and the DOJ to make them greater issues in the eye of the public than any further revelations of incompetence and or malfeasance in regards to Benghazi and the deaths of four Americans. Why? Because as damaging as the IRS and DOJ revelations my be they are damaging only to the President and his AG, and seeing as he is his second and final term there are only limited personal and political repercussions for his lame duck administration.

Benghazi on the other hand is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. Hillary is up to her neck in that mess, so the push is on to build the IRS distraction and do whatever can be done to preserve her chances for 2016. I would not be surprised in the least if it turns out that it was Clinton operatives within the Obama administration that are the ones that dropped the IRS and DOJ bombshells. Better three years of a hobbled and lame duck Obama than a Benghazi tarnished Hillary going into what will no doubt be her last shot at the brass ring. Anyone who thinks its all love and kisses between the Clinton and Obama camps is naïve at best.

 In fact the White House’s decision to release the accumulated emails from the time of the attack may not just be relenting to Congressional and public pressure but a retaliatory strike against the Clintons. All in all I’d say this is starting to look as much like infighting between the Clinton and Obama camps as between the administration and Congress. Obama may have decided that if he’s going to go down in flames he’s not going alone.

The question then becomes how do the Republicans play this opportunity. Do they take the shorter and easier path and go directly after Obama and Holder on the IRS and DOJ fiascos, or do they take the more difficult and longer road and pursue the Benghazi lies and possible reward of destroying both Obama and Clinton and thus strengthening their chances in both 2014 and 2016? Only time will tell. I expect their will be some serious infighting on the Republican side of the aisle on that question as well.

More to Come?

Reposted from THE RIO NORTE LINE
terror attack?

By flasawdustApril 20, 2013

Do you know who Juval Aviv is? He was Golda Meir’s bodyguard and the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ‘ Munich ‘ was based. Golda Meir appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, Aviv shared information that EVERY American needs to know, but that our government has not yet shared with us.
A little background:
• Aviv predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O’Reilly show on ‘Fox News’, stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O’Reilly laughed and mocked him, saying that in a week he wanted Aviv back on the show. Unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
• Juval Aviv also gave intelligence to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said that they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments… I think we all know what happened, right?
• Congress has since hired Aviv as a security consultant. Aviv predicts that the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months . Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try hijacking a plane again as they know the people on board will never go down quietly again. Aviv says that our airport security is a joke ‘that we have been reactionary’ rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

Example 1: Because an idiot tried to light his shoe on fire, now everyone has to take off their shoes.

Example 2: A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives, and now we can’t bring liquids on board.

He says he’s waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; government security will then have us all traveling naked! Last but not least, our airport security looks for metal, but the new explosives are made of plastic!

Currently, our government only focuses on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. For example, it would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.

Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate, such as Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as in rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.). The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won’t need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas , they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.

Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U.S. Government does not want to ‘alarm American citizens’ with the facts. The world, however, is soon going to become ‘a different place’, Aviv says, where issues like ‘global warming’ and political correctness will have become totally irrelevant. On an encouraging note, Aviv says that Americans don’t have to be concerned about being nuked. He says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. Instead, they like to use suicide, as it’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s effective and they have an infinite abundance of young, ignorant, fanatic militants more than willing to ‘go see Allah’.

Aviv also says the next level of terrorists over which America should be most concerned will not be coming from abroad. They will instead be ‘home grown’ meaning they will have attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U.S. These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won’t know/understand a thing about them.

So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for its intelligence. Instead, we need to follow Israel ‘s, Ireland ‘s and England ‘s hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust ‘aware’ citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U.S. Government continues to treat us, its citizens, ‘like babies’. Our government thinks we can’t handle the truth’ and are concerned that we’ll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.

Aviv recently created/executed a security test for Congress by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase!

In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well ‘trained’ that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, ‘Unattended Bag!’ The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortunately, America hasn’t been ‘hurt enough’ yet by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it’s the citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.

Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, children who were basically ‘lost’ without parents being able to pick them up, and schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until their parents could get there. (In New York City , in some cases this was days!) He stresses the importance of having a plan that’s agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terrorist emergency . He urges parents to contact their children’s schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel . He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.

Does your family know what to do if you can’t contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? Aviv says that the U.S. Government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE’s ability to use cell phones, as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot use phones, internet? Bottom line, you need to have a plan!

If you believe what you have just read, then you must feel compelled to send it to every concerned parent or guardian, grandparents, uncles, aunts, whatever and whomever. Nothing will happen if you choose not to do so, but in the event it does happen, I promise this particular email will haunt you.
Don’t be in the category of saying, “I should have sent this to…”, but I didn’t believe it and just deleted it as so much trash.

Something Worth Consideration

http://americaswatchtower.com/2013/04/13/introducing-the-new-federalist-party-2/

Suckers On A Leash

In the latest round of Wall Street and Banker propaganda, Morgan Stanley's Gerard Minack has warned that any calls for the  "reindustrialization" of America is bearish for stocks (and ponzinomic profits).

Total bullshit from an asshole banker, what a surprise. Nothing more than another diatribe of the usual propaganda that there is no difference between industrial capitalism and financial capitalism. The former produces wealth while the latter is parasitical on the former. The primary reason that the whole globe is in such deep shit is twofold. We have allowed the bankers and their political puppets to feed us the aforementioned propaganda (which we have swallowed whole) and we have we have also swallowed the British imperialist concept of "Free Trade" as opposed to the "American System” of Hamilton and Carey of "Fair Trade" and tariffs and supplemented investment in industrial and technological development.

So now when we do develop new technology the first thing we do is take it to China to manufacture with cheap labor and where the Chinese don't hesitate to rip off the technology and go into competition with us and pay no royalties what so ever. Worse we let them get away with it just so long as they keep lending us back the very same money they stole from us in the first place. This is of course just fine with the bankers as they take a healthy cut of the action through the FOMC process.

 

From the time of the Revolutionary War up until the Wilson administration the federal government was financed primarily by taxes on liquor and tariffs on imported goods (primarily goods that were in competition to domestic manufacture or supply). But then Wilson begat the three horseman of our current apocalypse, the federal income tax, the federal reserve bank and prohibition. The loss of revenue from liquor taxes, combined with the cost of trying to enforce the Volsted Act was just the excuse the government (and the federal reserve) wanted to start jacking up the income tax rate (that were promised to never exceed 2%, yeah right). Little surprise then that some of the prominent families (i.e. Kennedy. Harriman etc.) made their fortunes as financiers of liquor smuggling. All this was off the books of course.  Just like FDR who got his money from his maternal grand father who made his fortune smuggling opium up the Pearl River into China right along with his British imperialist pals.

Unless and until we reject the propaganda, break the power of the banks (and their political tools in both parties) by reinstating the Glass-Stegal Act, and taxingf the hell out of cheap foreign goods and encouraging reindustrialization (and real jobs paying real wages) we are just a bunch of suckers on a leash. And as long as the vast majority of the populace remain ignorant suckers and willing fools of partisan politics we have earned and will deserve our fate as debt slaves to Wall Street.

The Plauge of Ignorance, Apathy and Ancient Evils.

If there is one thing that I have learned in my 63 years dealing in the private, public and government sector it's that individuals with strong leftwing political opinions tend to be pretty thin skinned when it comes to what is to actually be deemed "left" or "right".  The more thin skinned they are the more profoundly ignorant of the subject they are found to be.

This failure of reason and logical thinking is most easily exposed by daring to posit that fascism is the intellectual child of the left.  Bring this subject up and you will soon see how the "open-minded" and "tolerant" leftist is more close minded and intolerant than any conservative I've ever met.  Such a contention is met with utter contempt at best, accusations of stupidity or attempting to manipulate any discussion at worst.  For the contemporary left this is a closed subject and even the discussion is strictly forbidden.  It's even worse in circumstance than questioning Al Gore and his global warming consensus. (I wonder how those folks in New England and the upper mid-west enjoyed the first day of spring from under that freshly fallen blanket of snow.)

Never mind that the so-called idea that fascism was a rightwing ideology had its origins with Joseph Stalin who regarded anything not in conformance with Soviet style international socialism as extreme rightwing.  These leftists have had this idea pounded into their heads in college by various professors who no doubt came from the same "this is axiomatic, no discussion is necessary" (or allowed) perspective.  The question that many of these same professors were/are dedicated leftists doesn't seem to have entered or affected the thought process of these so-called graduates.  In short they have been taught what to think not how to think, particularly as to the subject of the origins of fascism.

This highly singular and as we shall see dangerously erroneous position places profound limitations on the development of political thought moving forward.  I would compare it to dropping anchor and then putting a ship’s engines in all ahead full, then looking over the stern and confusing the turbulence created by the props for forward motion.  They may look over the bow and fixate on the horizon of some "perfected state" but they never look down to see that there is no bow wave being formed.

And yet it doesn't take a very deep examination or comparison between the propagandist rhetoric of today's leftist and that of 1930's Nazi Germany to find shocking similarities.  The evidence exists but like with so many other things they are convinced that by simply refusing to acknowledge its existence it magically disappears.

How frequently have we heard the argument that the constructions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are "antiquated" or out dated or somehow not consistent with modern society? How different is this really from "the constitutional reality of the Third Reich cannot be mastered  with the aid of juridical thought patterns of  the  past."?¹  The left has created a political thought process whose only discernible foundation is that the Constitution must be seen as a "living" document whose interpretations are only defined by the exigencies of the moment or whatever is currently deemed "politically correct." How different is this sophistry from that of the Nazi's'; "nor is it admissible to determine National Socialism's political theory by drawing inferences from its system of thought."²  How different is the left’s desire to use the electoral process to move the United States in the direction what they envision as European socialism from the Nazi's self characterization of the Füherstaat as "the most ennobled form of a modern European Democracy."?³

The contemporary leftist will tell us that the concepts of individual liberty (defined as freedom from government interference in daily life), self-initiative and moreover personal responsibility for our actions and circumstances are out dated or incomplete.  It is no longer enough to have a system of government and rights that guarantees what the government can't do to the people and their freedoms we must have a government that guarantees what it will and must do for us.  Never mind that historically under such systems "do for us" soon devolves into "do to us".  "No one among us lives for himself, each of us lives only for the people.  No one lives for his own happiness, each lives only for the happiness of the community. No one among us can say as he may have done before: 'My happiness lies in my home, in my business, in my profession.' No -- we live beyond space and time in the millennial destiny of the people.....we have built our happiness in the fortress of socialist life."⁴  Sounds like something lifted right out of the pages of Pravda or Izvestia right?  Guess again then see note 4 below.

It would be mistake to think that this is simply a resurgence of the Hegelian concept of primacy of the rights of the state over the rights of the individual. Nothing could be further from the truth. The theme of the 1934 Nazi national party congress was "We Command the State!"  Under this doctrine the party and its functionaries (in spite of claims to the contrary) regularly interfered with the conduct of long existing administrative functions, doing so under the rubric of "the will of the leader".  The Party became the State.  How different then is this from Attorney General Holder saying that it's his job to decide which laws are to be enforced and which ones are not, or telling sovereign states that they have no right to protect themselves from a flood of aliens coming across their own borders with a foreign state, using their own duly passed legislation?  According to the Nazi's themselves it was "not the proper function of the administrative courts to act as arbiters in controversies between local government and supervisory departments."⁵

What most would be students of government and politics (both left and right) either forget or simply were never taught was that the Nazi's formed their government and continually ruled on a basis of the need of addressing a "national emergency".

At some point in the not to distant future we are all going to have to come to grips with a very significant question.   Do we want to live in a country where the final authority of the Federal government is based in law and the consent of the governed or in one where it is based in the will of those who are in "command of the state"?  Look around you at our increasingly militarized police, aggressive "pat downs" at the airport, unmanned drones in our skis and a DHS that is stockpiling enough hollow point ammunition for a thirty years war and then arrogantly refusing to answer questions about those purchases from members of Congress.  DHS is issuing mine resistant armored vehicles (MRAVs) developed in dealing with the insurgency in Iraq to local police departments.  Just who is it these "Federalized" local police envision themselves going to war with?  Look at these things in joint context and then tell us how we don't have a government operating on the basis of "national emergency".

When Senators like Chuck Shumer or John McCain tell you that none of your rights as defined in the Constitution are absolute you had best take them seriously, because what they have envisioned is an Orwellian nightmare of "All pigs are equal but some pigs are more equal than others."  He is not unlike the chuckling Dr Goebbels; "we were not legal in order to be legal, but in order to rise to power.  We rose to power legally in order to gain the possibility of acting illegally."⁶

John Adams said that "If men were angels there would be no need for government."  Men are not angels so Adams and the founders insured our right to protect ourselves from government, its agents and even the officials we elect.  Therein lay the fundamental difference between the right and the left. We don't believe in Heaven on Earth. The left thinks they can make heaven on earth if only they have the power to do so, and our individual right stand in their way.  

Not to be deliberately repetitive but George Santayana famous quotation is often truncated and its full meaning lost or distorted. Taken in full it is far more profound, especially in regards to to what I have shown above.

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.  When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence.   This is the condition of children and barbarians in which instinct has learned nothing from experience."

 Fascism in one form or another has been with us for a very long time just as has the idea of government.  Whether it started with the ancient kings of Babylon and Persia that demanded their subjects worship them as gods, or in the divine right of kings, who is to say.  History is full of manifestations of evil From the Aztecs slaughter on the alters of human sacrifice to Pol  Pot's killing fields of Cambodia evil has existed in the hearts of men who have always, who will always claim they are doing what is in "our best interest".

Our contemporary leftists may indeed be far more sophisticated than the fascists of the past, but they are fascists none the less. They may dress themselves up in cloaks of erudition and claims of superior intellect and wanting what (only they are allowed to define) is "best for us".  But beneath those cloaks lay the same same ambition, lust for power and willingness to sacrifice the rights and lives of the people for their own accumulation of power and wealth that were not just the hallmarks of the fascists of the 30's and 40's but have plagued mankind since the dawn of time.

1.   Reuss Juristische Wochenschrift, vol. 64 page 2314, 1935.
2.  Hans Schnidt-Leonhardt, Deutsches Recht, (central organ of the Association of National Socialist Jurists), vol. 5, page 340, 1935
3. Joseph Goebbels, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, no. 78, March 20 1934
4. Reichs Minister Hans Frank (later governor of occupied Poland), Mitteilungblatt des Bundes National-Sozialistischer Deutscher Juristen und des Reichsrechtsamts derNSDAP, no. 1, page 9, 1935 
5.  Theodor Manuz, Deutches Recht, vol.5, page 479, 1935
6.  Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung, nos. 549-550, Nov. 25, 1934

Time to Take the Gloves Off

I tried to exercise a bit of diplomacy in the previous post concerning my local newspaper. I didn't name names or even say what city was involved. I had even gone to the trouble of writing to the editor of the editorial pages and asked him if he would look into the situation. Well perhaps I should have know better but at least I tried to appeal to their "better angels" as it were. I was willing to look aside from the fact that I am dealing with hidebound ideological liberals for the moment and see if they retained even a modicum of human decency. Needless to say such exploration proved fruitless.

Having failed to receive any response to my inquiry, not even an acknowledgment or a polite or impolite "buzz off," I simply secured a new on screen identity and proceeded to comment again on the LTTE pages. After only three posts my comments were at first diverted to the "Awaiting moderation" pile where they would of course never see the light of day,. This was quickly followed by another banning.  There were no violations of their sacred rules, it was simply a question of who I was not what I said.

Well then the time has come to address directly on these pages both The Charlotte Observer and one Taylor Batten, the editor of the Editorial Page. Apparently you both as an institution and as an individual have become shining examples of what is both wrong and deeply troubling with the American press. You have abandoned any principles of objectivity and dedication to the truth that you were supposed to have been taught in journalism school and replaced them with a hidebound ideological perspective and a hands off attitude toward financial corruption that bears no tolerance for any conflicting opinion except as a varnish and a badly worn one at that.

The press in this country used to stand for something. Sadly that is no longer true. Winston Churchill once said that "A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny." Voltaire was famous for his quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  Somehow I don't think these words can be found inscribed on the walls of The Charlotte Observer or in the hearts of Mr. Bratten and his staff.  By the absence of such a moral and right philosophy as a guide to their works they have become, again both institutionally and personally, the enemies of everything those words and the First Amendment stand for.

This is what happens to people and the institutions they operate when they loose any sense of duty to moral or Constitutional principle or anything above or beyond personal political ideology or perspective They have not simply perverted any history they may have been taught or Christian moral guidance they may have once had, they have completely abandoned it.

While it could be argued that newspapers have always had their prejudices and political perspectives, but these are different times in that where there was a time when if you did not like the position of a particular newspaper you could step to the other side of the news stand and pick up another one.  Only within the confines of major metropolitan centers do we still have that luxury.  In Charlotte we don't.  All the more reason they should remain above the fray, remain impartial and objective "observers."  This does not mean that they are not entitled to opinions of their own or the right to express them but it does mean they have an obligation to provide at least the appearance of presenting balanced perspective.  It does not give them the right to actively suppress contrary opinion, even if they can do so in secret and beyond the eyes of the public.

I'd ask if Mr Bratten has any sense of shame but apparently he does not.  Given how quickly this latest banning incident occurred I suspect he is possessed of more than just a bit of hypocrisy and vindictiveness as well.  After all this is a man who has published editorials endorsing placing restriction on "the peoples right to keep and bear arms" so as to protect themselves in their homes and against crime and the tyranny of government and yet drives home to a gated community with armed guards every evening.  After all why should he dirty his hands with a firearm when he can pay someone else to do it for him.  He doesn't have to worry about home invasions or criminals wandering the streets outside of his house so why would anyone else.

I would guess that Mr Bratten is one of those individuals who feels secure and righteous in his opinion because after all he doesn't know or associate with anyone who disagrees with it.  Like so many of the rest of the would be elite, the likes of Mr. Bratten have placed themselves above the rest of society and by doing so have convinced themselves that like  George Orwell's pigs they are "more equal than others." Not living in the real world and experiencing its day to day struggles have produced an insular and arrogant attitude as regards the rest of us simple folks.  Unless of course we agree with them.  Get a clue Mr. Bratten we don't and there are a lot more of us than you would like.

As the global financial crisis deepens and leads to inevitable breaking point there are a vast number of folks out there who will angrily ask; "Why didn't anyone tell us this was happening?"  And then they are going to start  looking around for those whose responsibility it was to keep them better informed.

Cyprus, Denial, Entrenched Liberalism and Personal Animosity

This post was going to be a follow up to the previous one concerning the Commerce Department's expressed desire to "help" regulate personal 401K and IRA accounts and how it was but a shadow of what the kleptocrats are proposing to do to Cypriot bank depositors. As often happens we sometimes find ourselves on different if not unexpected tangents.  In this case the raving lunacy and cognitive dissonance of leftists.

One of Our Usual Suspects

Late Friday evening I posted the following in my local newspaper's Letters to the Editor section.

"So dear editors, why no story about the latest bail-out in the Euro zone?  Come on you must have some take/comment on the forced expropriating of nearly 10% of every saving account in Cyprus. 

Are you really comfortable with a bunch of political and banking elites conducting such a blatant daylight bank robbery?  (Please don't tell us this is "just Europe" and it can't happen here.)  Can you possible begin to grasp that this is a test balloon for even more naked thefts anytime Greece or Italy or Spain needs another round of freshly printed cash?  (Well maybe not Greece as they have no money whatsoever  left to expropriate.)

Can you maybe see that this just might even be connected to the announcement a couple of weeks ago that our beloved beneficent Federal government wants to get involved in "managing" our 401K and IRA accounts?
 
So when is the 4th estate going to return to its traditional role of being the watch dog looking out for government and institutional corruption?  Or are you so imbedded in a political agenda and blind loyalty to the local banking community that you will just sweep this under the rug and hope it goes away?

Don't worry were not going to hold our breath waiting for an honest answer, or any answer for that matter   I'll just be counting the minutes until this post disappears down the memory hole."

Surprisingly  it was nearly 24 hours before the gaping maw of "This Comment was deleted" opened and it disappeared along with several follow ups.  Had there not been numerous replies by that time it would have simply disappeared without even that trace of it existence.

What was not surprising was the viciousness and blatant hypocrisy of much of the resident leftist that regularly appear on that particular board.  I refer to them as "the usual suspects," they don't seem to like it.  But that aside it is the usual position of most of thes individuals to regularly condemn the "evils" of Wall Street and banking institutions.  So here was a conservative making a condemnation of unelected bureaucrats and bankers and they just couldn't help themselves.  Whatever tenuous commonality of interest my position may have represented was of no import to the hidebound ideological leftist mind.  I was to be attacked because I am a know conservative even if that meant coming to the defense of bankers expropriating private property without any legal foundation.

I quickly pointed out that this position was both strangely contrary to their previous positions regarding banks but that it was completely in accordance with their underlying corporatist, liberal fascism.  Rage, cognitive dissonance and hilarity soon ensued. The responses varied from that it didn't matter because Cyprus is a small place and very far away to that of saying that they (the banks) were just doing what needed to be done.  My question to them then became "So you're saying it's ok to expropriate private property without legal authority provided those being stolen from are small in number, inconsequential or unable to effectively fight back, just so long as it needs to be done'."  I then suggested that maybe then the Congress should just expropriate the bank accounts in Rhode Island or Delaware, their small, inconsequential and far away.  Or maybe our city council should solve its budgetary problems by seizing the accounts of all the residents of a particularity wealthy neighborhood, there's not that many of them, and they aren't necessarily equiped to fight back.  These ideas were met with silence.  Knowing deeply in their corrupt little liberal hearts they would love to do exactly that I then further suggested that better yet let's seize the bank accounts of all the Jews.  Again there's not that many of them and they certainly can "afford it."

What ever you do don't point out their continuity of thought with these guys.

Unveiling their inner fascist hearts really unleashed the vitriol and personal attacks, as was to be expected particularly as this conversation was a follow on to my bring to their attention former Supreme Court Justice Souter's comments that the greatest threat to the Republic comes not from foreign invasion or military coup but from widespread and blatant ignorance of civics and how law function and the absence of teaching history as the foundation to current events. and the critical interplay between the two.

Needless to say this was too much for both my 'Usual suspects" and apparently the powers that be at our local newspaper as I soon found myself on the "you do not have permission to post" list......again. 

So then don't ever expect a leftist to be able to grasp the fundamental difference between industrial capitalism and financial manipulation.  Neither expect them to accept the fact that history plays a crucial role in the unfolding of current events  In short they are children who never grew up.

When confronting them with George Santayana famous admonition you can expect their reaction to to be either a blank stare of incomprehension or rage for daring to point out their immaturity such as is demonstrated by they bullying I noted above.  Particularly so if you use the entire quotation; "Progress far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.  When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence.   This is the condition of children and barbarians in which instinct has learned nothing from experience." 

I've already decided that my next screen name at the paper will be "Itching Powder" it is so much fun getting under their skin.

                                                     

And Now The Ravenous Dogs Are Set to Feed.

Well I've been warning anyone who would listen that the kleptocrats in the District of Corruption were getting ready to unleash the biggest con job the world has ever seen.

From Bloomberg news:

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency’s first foray into consumer investments.

That’s one of the things we’ve been exploring and are interested in in terms of whether and what authority we have,”

Authority?  Read how do we structure regulation so we can force people to divest their 401K savings from corporate stocks and bonds and into US Treasuries.

Given that 1, neither Congress nor the Obama administration have no interest whatsoever in actually reducing spending (not that they could even if they wanted to) and 2, there is a declining interest in open market buying of government debt paper, in order to stave off looming inflating resulting from monetizing there is an overarching need for new sources of capital to fund deficit spending.

And there sits in private accounts some $19.6 Trillion.  Unencumbered,unentangled by the Leviathan's tentacles.  The temptation for the bureaucrats and politicians to feed their everlasting desire for more government, more power and control over the lives of others has now reached the point of open salivation barely below the level of a ravenous dogs.

These ravenous dogs have a problem however.  With the stock market again reaching (artificial highs) is going to be hard to convince investors to switch from growing stocks to low return (below inflation) bonds.  So what is a greedy bureaucrat to do make this fraud look like a good deal?  Simple.  Crash the market by bursting any one of several available debt bubbles.  Bring the DJIA back down to 8000 or so and the suckers will be lining up and begging the government to "save" them.

The first suckers (victims) will be government employees as the bureaucrats will claim that that status give their employer the right to exercise "authority" to direct where their savings can be invested.  Then with the precedent established the government will claim that because investors have been accumulating income "tax free" the government will exert "authority" over what they can make this tax free income on.  With the stock markets down there will no doubt be a large supply of suckers willing to trade risk equities for negative return bonds.

The problem and outrage won't come of course until either the bond market falls apart and or equities go back up, inclining the investors to want to take their money out of Treasuries and move them back into equities or commodities and the bureaucrats will tell them "oh that's too bad" their investments are no longer "self directed" and they are stuck with increasingly worthless US government debt.

The trap will be sprung and there will be no escape.

My Two Cents on the 2nd Amendment.

We as Americans often point out that one of the strengths of our form of government is that it is a system of "checks and balances".  No one branch of government is supposed to have so much power as to be able to over run the authority of the others.  When the Constitution was first proposed to the various states the first, largest and loudest objection to it was the absence of a Bill of Rights.  This was quickly corrected, established and included as the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Very infrequently if ever do I hear of them be put into the context of "checks and balances".  That is what they are however, checks against the tendency of government to grow more powerful and controlling.  Balances, reminders to the politicians that sovereignty resides with the states and the individual not just with the central government.

Sadly many now regard state sovereignty as an anachronism, a vestigial remnant of times long past.  Personal liberty, freedom of action and responsibility for the consequence of action have become equally lost in the miasma of the modern welfare state.  We teach that "you can't make it on your own."  You need help from government.  The criminal is no longer responsible for his actions.  "It's not his fault, society made him that way."  The Newtown Connecticut shooter didn't kill all those people, guns and our "gun culture" made him do it.

One of the standard arguments of the left in calling for limitations on the 2nd amendment is that the founders could not have foreseen the advent of modern semi-automatic weapons, and asks us to draw the assumption that this invalidates the protections of the 2nd amendment.  If one were to apply this logic to the protections of the 1st amendment, they would not then apply any of the forms of modern electronic media.  If the founders could not have foreseen radio, photography, television, high speed printing or the internet are they then exempt from the protections of the 1st amendment? 

Quite simply the guarantees of liberties in the Bill of Rights are based on principles not technologies.  But then the absence of logic and principle is the standard operating procedure of the left.

Sadder still this is largely the result of a moral relativist social attitude that wants the benefits of freedom but is not willing to accept any absolutes of inviolable rights that make that freedom possible.

The Guns of Obamerica

This piece by Danial Greenfield has be getting quite a bit of attention and I thought worth passing on.  His work can be found at http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Forget Wal-Mart and skip your local gun show. The murderers of tomorrow will not be found wearing orange vests at your local sporting goods store. They won't have NRA memberships or trophies on their walls.

You won't find them in America. Look for them in Obamerica.

67% of firearm murders took place in the country's 50 largest metro areas. The 62 cities in those metro areas have a firearm murder rate of 9.7, more than twice the national average. Among teenagers the firearm murder rate is 14.6 or almost three times the national average. Those numbers are from six years ago. They have grown worse since.

Those are the crowded cities of Obamerica. The places with the most restrictive gun control laws and the highest crime rates. These are the places where the family is broken, money comes from the government and immigrants crowd in from some of the most violent parts of the world bringing with them their own organized crime. These are also the places that have run by Democrats and their political machines for almost as long as they have been broken.
Obama won every major city in the election, except for Jacksonville and Salt Lake City. And the higher the death rate, the bigger his victory. He won New Orleans by 80 to 17 where the murder rate is ten times higher than the national average. He won Detroit, where the murder rate of 53 per 100,000 people is the second highest in the country and twice as high as any country in the world, including the Congo and South Africa. He won it 73 to 26. And then he celebrated his victory in Chicago where the murder rate is three times the statewide average.

These places aren't America. They're Obamerica.

In 2006, the 54% of the population living in those 50 metro areas was responsible for 67% of armed killings nationwide. Those are disproportionate numbers especially when you consider that for the people living in most of those cities walking into a store and legally buying a gun is all but impossible.

Mayors of Obamerican cities blame guns because it's easier than blaming people and now the President of Obamerica has turned to the same shameless tactic. The NRA counters that people kill people, but that's exactly why Obamerican leaders would rather talk about the guns.

Chicago, the capital of Obamerica, is a city run by gangs and politicians. It has 68,000 gang members, four times the number of police officers. Chicago politicians solicit the support of gang members in their campaigns, accepting laundered contributions from them, hiring their members and tipping them off about upcoming police raids. And their biggest favor to the gang bosses is doing nothing about the epidemic of gang violence.

80% of Chicago's murders are gang-related. But in 1999 when a bill came up in the Illinois State Senate to try anyone carrying out a firearm attack on school property as an adult, a law that would have affected gang members who often bring weapons to school, the future leader of Obamerica voted present. Had he not voted present, it is doubtful that he would have been reelected in an area where gang leaders wield a great deal of influence.
The majority of murders in the cities with the worst homicide rates are gang-related. And while it isn't always possible to be certain whether a killing was gang-related, the majority of homicide victims in city after city have been found to have criminal records.

In 2010, there were 11,078 firearm homicides in the United States and over 2,000 known gang-related killings, over 90% of which are carried out with firearms. Since 1981, Los Angeles alone has had 16,000 gang related homicides. That's more than twice the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and it's more than the number of Americans who died in the Mexican-American War.

This is what Obamerica looks like. It's a place where life is cheap and illegal guns are as available as illegal drugs. It's a series of war zones whose problem is not the supply of guns, but their own social dysfunction. It's the war that we aren't talking about, because it's easier to talk about the inanimate objects being used to fight that war.

Reformers in the twenties blamed the plight of the slums on the availability of liquor. They rammed through Prohibition for the entire country to fix the cities. The liquor went on flowing and the slums went on being slums. Gun control has been just as successful in healing the slums as whiskey control was. And like the dry reformers, gun control advocates insist on trying to apply their solution on a national level, when the problem is not nationwide.

There are, as John Edwards said, two Americas. America is a country that runs pretty well on its own. Gun sales in America do not lead to bursts of homicide. If the power goes out for an hour, there is no epidemic of looting. The new year isn't rung in at the morgue. Social dysfunction exists but it never affects the majority or even a sizable minority of the population.

And then there's Obamerica. Not all of Obamerica is broken, but a lot of it is. Obamerica has a big gap between the rich and the poor. Its middle class is always on the run. Its upper class retreats to fortresses. Its lower class is broken and constantly growing as its political machines feed off human misery and exploit social dysfunction to gain votes.

America does not have a gun violence problem. Obamerica does. And Obamerica has a gun violence problem for the same reason that it has a drug problem and a broken family problem. These social ills cannot be solved by banning something. The War on Guns is not going to fix the inner city just as the War on Drugs didn't. Rigid law enforcement can keep the numbers down, but does not deal with the causes of the violence.

Obamerica is a bad place. It has great restaurants and night clubs. It has a lot of noise and a lot of light. The next big thing in music will probably come out of there. It's where your kids probably dream of moving to when they're teenagers. But for all that it's fundamentally broken.

Democratic leaders and machines, combined with liberal social workers and justice crusaders have run Obamerica into the ground. Obamerican cities used to be the homes of industry and progress. Now they're places where young Black and Hispanic men kill each other in growing numbers.

In America, guns are used for target practice and for hunting, and on rare occasions for self-defense, but in Obamerica guns have only one purpose, as so many liberals have pointed out, like so many of the young men who walk the streets of Obamerica, they exist only to kill. The guns get blamed and the killers rotate through the revolving doors of an overburdened justice system. And then the politicians who sit around the table with gang leaders announce that they have a new initiative to get guns off the streets.

America does not need gun control. It is a mostly law-abiding place. And gun control cannot help Obamerica. Not when its murder rate is driven by gangs who have no trouble obtaining anything; whether it's legal in the United States or not.

What can help is talking about Obamerica. AIDS prevention was sabotaged by the claim that the disease was a general problem spreading through the population. It wasn't. Neither is gun violence. Despite the occasional exception created by high profile suburban shooting sprees, this is not an American problem. It’s an Obamerican problem.

Adam Lanza is as much of a plausible poster boy for gun violence, as Ryan White was for AIDS. A better poster boy for gun violence might be Jay-Z, who boasts of having been a drug dealer and claims to have shot his brother at the age of 12. The drug dealer to millionaire rapper is the Horatio Alger story of Obamerica. And Jay-Z can be seen partying with Obama, the political king of Obamerica touching base with its cultural king.

If Obama really wants to get serious about gun violence, then all he has to do is turn to the man standing next to him. But Obama, like every Chicago politician before him, don't want to end the violence. The death toll is profitable, not just for rappers writing bad poetry about dealing drugs and shooting rivals, but for the politicians atop that heap who score money and gain power by using the problems of Obamerica as some sort of call to conscience for the rest of the country.

That's what Obama is doing now. Hiding behind Newtown and adorable little kids is the grim specter of Obamerica's death toll. It's buried inside the gruesome figures of how many Americans are shot each year issued as an indictment against the entire country in general and gun owners in particular. But those numbers are not an indictment of America. They are an indictment of Democratic mayors and Liberal social policy. They are an indictment of Obamerica. They are an indictment of Obama.

This country does not need to have a conversation about how many bullets should go in a clip. It does need to have a conversation about how many parents should go in a family. It needs to talk about the ghettos of Obamerica and have a serious conversation about broken families and generational dependency. It needs to have a conversation about funneling new immigrants from broken parts of the world into areas already suffering from high levels of unemployment and street violence.

Most of all this country needs to have a conversation about the direction it's headed in. We need to set aside the same old tired social justice rhetoric that has done nothing except train .001 percent of the young men and women of Obamerica to be community organizers and race card wielders and have a serious conversation about what is wrong with New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago.

Obama has become a role model to millions of people in the Black community. You can see posters and photos of him in every barbershop. If anyone can address these problems, it's him. But instead of trying to solve the problems of Obamerica, instead of doing something about the high levels of unemployment, the broken families and the glamorization of drug dealing and violent crime, he wimped out and picked a fight with the rural Americans that he derided as gun-clingers.

In the same hollow tradition of macho posturing common among the men responsible for much of the violence in Obamerica, he chose to show his power in a fight for dominance with a perceived rival, rather than give back to his community. Rather than looking to the hearts and minds of his followers, he went after the guns of those he sees as his enemies. That is what distinguishes a thug from a leader. Leaders uplift their people. Thugs use them up as cannon fodder in their own private power struggles.

The legacy of Martin Luther King reminds us that a leader speaks difficult truths even to his own people. There are such leaders in the Black community today. Obama is not one of them.

The guns of America, by and large, are not a threat to the innocent. The guns of Obamerica are. And the conversation that we need to have is about what can be done, not about the guns of Obamerica, but about its hearts and minds.

Kabuki Theater on the Potomac.

I find it amusing if not tragically hilarious  to watch the dancing fools in Washington argue over their competing non-solution solutions the the pending fiscal cliff.  That latest load of scat is that we should raise taxes now and cut spending later and all "new" revenue will be directed to paying down the debt and or reducing the deficit.  Gee where have we heard this before?  Oh that's right, only every single time we have one of these budgetary kabuki dances.

Unfortunately there are a majority of Americans who either don't care, have absolutely no idea of the vastness of the numbers involved or are so ideologically hidebound (left or right), that all they care about is political power positioning and not economic reality, that they can't see never mind conceive that there is no solution.  At least not within the constructs that created the mess in the first place, namely Keynesian economics and fiat currency central banking.

So the dance will continue right up to the so-called deadline and then we will get an announcement of some "grand bargain" wherein both sides will claim victory over the other in the more taxes/less spending argument and that real progress has been made in resolving the country's economic woes.  Everything will be declared as "fixed," markets will soar, the FED will print even more monopoly money and the sound of the can rattling down the road to inevitable disaster will be drowned out in all the applause from the know nothing pundits and back slapping self-congratulation of the politicians.

Except of course nothing will have been fixed in the least no matter which "side" prevails in these all for show negotiations.  Creating more new debt to pay off old debt and then adding new-new debt on top of the pile has never worked on any economic scale, be it micro or macro or anywhere in between.  This is nothing more than the same foolishness we see playing out in Europe where each new month we see yet another "summit meeting" followed by another solution and another declaration that the problem is fixed.  It's all the "Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" writ large.  I'm reminded of the Governor's board meeting meeting from "Blazing Saddles."  "Hey I dind't get a loud enough harumph out of that guy!"

Tragically it's not like there aren't more than a few politicians in Washington that understand the truth of what I've said here it just that they are either more concerned with re-election than reality or they are scared to death of the financial elites who pull their strings and fund their campaigns.  So the likes of Ron Paul and others are left to preach in the wilderness.

So before we go any further lets look at the simple math of the situation.  Our present debt is some $16.3 Trillion (it grows by tens of billions every month).  Now let's imagine so so-called "best case" scenario of a "grand bargain" wherein the Democrats get to raise taxes by some $100 billion over ten years, (They use ten years to try and make people think there are actually looking ahead but any fool knows that with each new year the last years deal is the first thing thing goes out the window) and the Republicans get to cut spending by another $200 billion over ten years.  (It won't be a real cut but a decrease in the rate of growth but that's just another inside the beltway absurdity.)  But for the sake of this argument lets call it an actual cut.

So then we take these ten year numbers and reduce them to an annualized figure.  We now have $10 Billion in "new" revenue and $20 Billion in cuts.  Now we simply divide the total debt of $16.3 Trillion by the combined new revenues and cuts of $30 Billion.  (After dropping off all the over lapping zeros this comes to 16,300 divided by 30 = 5,433.33, the number of years it would take to pay off JUST THE EXISTING DEBT.  If that number begins to open your eyes just a little to the absurdity of it all now consider that none of these numbers include the interest due on this debt or the fact that Congress will keep adding another $1.1 Trillion, at least, to the existing debt each year.

The US of course is not operating in some vacuum here.  The European situation is on par in terms of over all numbers as ours, they're just closer to the end of the road than we are.  Japan is a basket case with the highest debt to GDP ratio in the world.  Their only saving grace right now is that the largest part of their debts are held internally and not just to their central bank.

What is unsustainable is unsustainable but our politicians and their banking masters are determined to sustain this mess right to the bitter end, determined that whatever final reckoning comes will be as disastrous as possible so we can then be told that this is a failure of capitalism not the central planning methods that brought it about.  More power and more control to the center and less freedom and less liberty for the individual.  Digested down to a single word TYRANNY.

These politicians aren't in the least bit afraid of any popular rebellion or any secession movement. They are scared to death of the bankers.  Unless and until that changes (part and parcel to the false left vs. right pardigm) the future looks grim and 2013 will not be a "good" year.

The Pagans Dance In The Blood Of The Innocent.

What we have had on display for the last few days has been nothing less than the wide assortment of vile fascist control freaks dancing in the blood of the innocent victims of the atrocity in Newtown Connecticut.  The bodies of the dead had not even been identified before the leftist twitterverse exploded in calls for blood vengeance against the NRA and anyone associated with it or the defense of the 2nd amendment.  Closely following if not in tandem came the calls for disarming the American public.   

Nowhere of course was there any discussion from the left that connected any legally possessed firearm with this tragedy.  Nor was there any discussion of how disarming legal owners, and most certainly uninvolved citizens, will prevent criminals from committing crimes. 

 

None of this of course has anything top do with mourning thee dead or sympathy for the grief of their families.  It was all about furthering the fascist agenda of destroying the 2^nd amendment to the Constitution. 

Anyone and everyone who dared speak out in any public forum in defense of their 2^nd amendment rights has been immediately vilified as heartless and uncaring for the loss of the victims and their families, as if the two were by definition mutually exclusive.   

How quickly these great “humanists,” who shed crocodile tears over the dead children in Connecticut are to dismiss the existence of any humanity in those they perceive as the enemies of their political agenda.  No moral person can be anything but shock and appalled by these events.  That most of the victims were children so young makes it all the more shocking. We all mourn, as individuals and as a nation, for the families of the dead.  So I can only ask these great “humanists” where are their tears for the thousands of innocent children slaughtered in the womb every single day.  Are they anything if not even more innocent than the children of Newtown?  Are they any less dead?  How exactly are they any less deserving of our grief? 

Lets look at the facts here.  This heinous act was committed by a criminal (I won't dignify him by repeating his name) bent on slaughter.  Connecticut has some of the strongest gun control laws in the nation.  Among them being that no person under 21 years of age can legally possess a firearm.  He couldn’t have purchased a weapon even if he tried. 

Before even the first shot was fired at the school a string of felonies was committed.

He stole his mother’s weapons.

He murdered her.

He stole her car.

He took  loaded firearms onto school grounds. 

So since when have criminals cared about any laws?  No law no mater how strict or rigidly enforced would have stopped this sick mind for a single second.  Where is the responsibility of those who have turned our schools and public places into "free fire zones" for criminals by declaring them "gun free zones"?

 

Of course none of these facts or questions will stem the calls for even more blood from the left.  Nor will it stop their dancing in the blood of those already slaughtered to further a dangerous and misguided political agenda.  Nor will it lead them to any remorse or even second thoughts for the blood of the thousands of aborted dead that is already on their hands by their silent acquiescence.

To All My Readers Across The Globe.

Firstly I want to thank you all for you repeated visits, and especially those of you who take the time to leave a comment. (I wish there were more and I'd love to start conversations, especially with those in some of the more far flung corners of the world).  A special thanks to some of my fellow bloggers who have been so kind as to link and/or repost some of my humble tomes.

All that said as we get ready here in the States to sit down with family and friends for a sumptuous Thanksgiving meal, you are all in my thought and prayers.  I hope you all have a happy Christmas season and that you will join me in hope and prayer for a better new year.

Liberty and Democracy

"Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter. A democratic state may profess to venerate the name, and even pass laws making it officially sacred, but it simply cannot tolerate the thing. In order to keep any coherence in the governmental process, to prevent the wildest anarchy in thought and act, the government must put limits upon the free play of opinion. In part, it can reach that end by mere propaganda, by the bald force of its authority — that is, by making certain doctrines officially infamous. But in part it must resort to force, i.e., to law. One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty. Always they condition it with the doctrine that the state, i.e., the majority, has a sort of right of eminent domain in acts, and even in ideas — that it is perfectly free, whenever it is so disposed, to forbid a man to say what he honestly believes. Whenever his notions show signs of becoming "dangerous," ie, of being heard and attended to, it exercises that prerogative. And the overwhelming majority of citizens believe in supporting it in the outrage. Including especially the Liberals, who pretend — and often quite honestly believe — that they are hot for liberty. They never really are. Deep down in their hearts they know, as good democrats, that liberty would be fatal to democracy — that a government based upon shifting and irrational opinion must keep it within bounds or run a constant risk of disaster. They themselves, as a practical matter, advocate only certain narrow kinds of liberty — liberty, that is, for the persons they happen to favor. The rights of other persons do not seem to interest them. If a law were passed tomorrow taking away the property of a large group of presumably well-to-do persons — say, bondholders of the railroads — without compensation and without even colorable reason, they would not oppose it; they would be in favor of it. The liberty to have and hold property is not one they recognize. They believe only in the liberty to envy, hate and loot the man who has it.

-- "Liberty and Democracy" in the Baltimore Evening Sun (13 April 1925), also in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy : New Selections from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (1994) edited by Terry Teachout, p. 35

JFK Rolls Over In His Grave

"Ask not what you country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" has metastasized into Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. The status quo won last night.  Nothing will be fixed.  Nothing will change except for the worse.  A new debt ceiling vote will still come up in December.  The fiscal cliff is still there. Sequestration and massive layoff still loom.

Europe is still a disaster tettering on the edge of a collapse that can push the whole world into a depression where the only survivors will be the politicians and the bankers and those few who prepared for the inevitable. The Middle East is still a powder keg awaiting a Franz Ferdinand moment that will drive oil prices through the roof and crush the none existent recovery into dust.  Even absent some dramatic event what is already a bad situation will continue to deteriorate.  There is no plan to address the massive unfunded liabilities of endless entitlements and interest on the debt.  There is no plan to deal with state and local governments going bankrupt left and right.  There is no plan to deal with an entire world drowning in debt.  The only solutions are so-called leaders propose is piles of new debt and austerity to pretend we are paying off the old piles of debt. These non-solutions will only crush the human spirit and the rob from generations unborn so that politicians and bankers can survive to propose more useless solutions.

The winter of the fourth turning is upon us. No thanks to government mis-education the vast majority both left and right can't see it. The 80 year cycle is about to reach its nadir and there is no guarantee that what will arise from it will be good.

Time To Go Long On The Oil Of Champhor

Well the Benghazigate scandal iterations were weekly, then they went to every fourth day and then every other day and now they are going almost every half day.  Earlier today came the revelation of emails from Ambassador Stevens stating that the Consulate could not withstand a sustained attack.  The newest story is that two large media outlets have the documented evidence of just who it was that issued the "stand down" orders that ultimately resulted in four dead Americans and they are sitting on the information for the political purpose of running cover for the administration.

There is a leak somewhere. Whether it's coming from CIA or the State Department or the Pentagon doesn't much matter.  I would suspect that Obama's statement that he had ordered everything possible be done to protect the personnel in Benghazi cheesed somebody off who had the evidence to the contrary.

Seems someone around here warned that the media's shameless bias on this scandal was going to result in the stench rubbing off on them.  Do these fools honestly think that they are the only ones that have it or that there aren't others who will deliberately use it to make sure that the stink get soaked into their credibility as well as the administration's if they don't release it?  The only question that remains is will the media throw Obama under the bus to try and save themselves? Jackals have been know to eat their own in the midst of a feeding frenzy.  This will only get more interesting from here.

Really Mr. Secretary?

Well that sure didn’t take long.  Seems I recall predicting to someone just Friday that we would get a “new” Benghazigate story by today.  Right on cue, and early in fact, we get one Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta projectile vomiting the latest batch of lies and misdirection in a crude attempt to cover up for the previous batch of lies and misdirection.

Misdirection #1. “There is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on by people who don’t know what’s going on.”  Really Mr. Secretary?  Are you implying that the DoD does know what’s going on or are you saying that if the DoD doesn’t know what’s going on nobody else possible could either?

Lie #2. When asked why fighter aircraft had not been sent to the scene to at least do “low and loud” passes over the consulate or to lay down suppressing fire the Secretary said that they “were concerned about creating civilian casualties that might further inflame the situation.”  Really Mr. Secretary? The Consulate was already in flames, how much more inflamed could it get?  Anybody who has ever been in combat will tell you that once a firefight breaks out that civilians flee the area as quickly as possible or crawl into the deepest hole they can find to keep from getting their heads blown off.  What did the Secretary think these “civilians” he’s so concerned about were doing?  Sitting out in their lawn chairs watching the show and roasting shish-ka-bobs of the flames of burning vehicles?

Lie #3. “We weren’t going to deploy assets into a situation we hadn’t fully assessed.”  Really Mr. Secretary?  Just how much more information did you need?  You had both Flash Traffic and emails coming from inside the Consulate as the attack was taking place.  You had CIA assets at the annex requesting permission to led assistance to the Consulate that could have both provided support and on a further on the ground situation report.  You had Predator drones circling overhead providing you live video feeds in both visible and infrared light.  What else were you waiting for Mr. Secretary?  Did you think al Qaida was going to post their Order of Battle to help you make a decision? 

This was followed by the most monstrous, shameful and shameless lie of all.

Lie #4.  With a shrug of his shoulders Mr. Panetta concluded, “This was all over before we could do anything about it.”  Really Mr. Secretary?  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the designator for US Army Delta Force units is QRT (Quick Response Team).  Do you need “quick” defined for you?  Why did they remain on the ground in Sicily two hours away?  Why were they not embarked on their KC-130 aircraft to at the very least circle off shore where they could then either go into action or return to base as the situation developed?  Do not such QRTs also have AC-130 gunships attached?  Aren’t these aircraft designed for and known for being able to lay down pinpoint accurate suppressing fire?  Is there not a US Navy CVN and LHA stationed full time in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea?  Just what are those QRT teams, aircraft and that full Battalion of Marines there for if not for just such situations?

I’m sorry Mr. Secretary no one but the gullible, naïve or stupid is buying any of this retched street pizza your laying out.  The real shame is not that hack politicians lie to us; we’ve come to expect it.  No the real shame is that no one in the so-called mainstream media is asking anything close to these kinds of follow up questions when presented with such blatant and obvious lies.

A Scathing Indictment. Another Piece from Matt Bracken.

OBAMA WENT TO BED
Matt Bracken 10-25-2012

The biggest stench from the Benghazi fiasco is that it is beginning to smell like Obama went “nighty-night” to rest up for Las Vegas, instead of manning up in the Situation Room and seeing the crisis through and (had he only been awake) ordering a rescue mission.

In Benghazi, after 6-8 hours enduring a few “Fort Apaches,” with running street battles in …
between, (like a mini Blackhawk Down), the living Americans must have been thinking, “Any minute now, here come the helicopters! Just hang on!”

But they didn’t. So even though Delta had forward staged to Sigonella Sicily (rumint) from base in Germany, nobody was willing or able to pull the trigger and send a rescue force. Or even a few F-18 supersonic flybys, to bust windows and warn, “Here comes American airpower, and you camel jockeys know what that means.” Just as a morale booster it would have helped the besieged staffers.

But it was never sent, not even a lousy supersonic low-level flyby. One hour from bases in Italy, max.

Here is the deal. The military automatically does a lot on its own, under standing orders and SOPs. The minute they see that the consulate is under attack, and the ambassador and others are in a “safe room” hiding, it becomes TOP priority. Every other mission aborts or slaves over to support any possible rescue.

At that moment when the critical incident alarm messages start ringing, military steps happen on autopilot in real time. Everybody in the Navy and USAF chain of command swings into a crisis contingency plan mode. What ships are closest? Helicopters? Marines? Delta is in Germany? Get them moving right now. Where is closest? Sigonella, for now. It’s NATO, no permission needed, just fly.

En route in C-17s, the D-boys would even be prepping for an immediate action rescue mission, that is, the C-17s will fly directly to some desert road outside of Benghazi, and here comes “The Raid On Entebbe,” done in crisis mode, canned actions, but they would do it. They practice for these exact scenarios, and leave gear staged for them.

They would coordinate with fighters out of Italy, mid-air-refueling platforms start shifting, it’s a huge show that swings into action for thousands of miles around Behghazi. The ongoing consulate attack is JOB ONE, the only job. VIPs will be tossed off of planes at remote runways if they need that platform.

Or Marines on amphibious ships in the central Med, (if any were available), would also be put on the real-time options board. We used to have a “Amphibious Ready Group” of about 3-5 USN gator freighters, including a helo carrier like a Tarawa class. They carry an entire battalion of USMC, plus SEALs etc, with helos and Ospreys to carry them all. (But not at once.) Where was our ARG? Does our Navy have enough ships for that mission any more?

But while all of that military staging would have happened/did happen during the 6-8 hour battle at the consulate and annex, what the military cannot do on their own say-so is cross an international border without an order from the NCA, the National Command Authority, and that means POTUS, Obama.

Only POTUS can authorize a cross-border hostile mission. That is, guns clear, no official permission from the Tripoli govt (if it really exists outside State Dept fantasies.)

Only one man can pull that trigger and say, “GO!” Obama.

(But for America to act “unilaterally” would have meant the bogus Libyan Arab Spring and so-called new Libyan Unity Govt. that we were propping up didn’t really exist. Libyan sovereignty must be held sacrosanct, even the false image of one, where in reality, Al Queda is top dog in Libya. Even when an Al Queda offshoot is your external “security,” namely, “The 17th of February Martyrs Brigade.” IOW, the White House thought they had a “deal” with AQ in Behghazi, since we were helping to run weaponry from Libya to their pals in Syria. So there was an “institutional bias” at State against crossing the border on a rescue operation sin permisso.)

Anyway, be that as it may, no General or Admiral will order the Marines ashore, or a Delta raid or even an F-18 or F-16 low-level supersonic flyby. They can not and will not cross a border without a clear-cut order from POTUS via the NCA. Not even Hillary can make that decision. Only Obama.

But no order came, as of midnight in DC. And then none would come. Because the POTUS retired for the night with a “do not disturb” sign on his door, punted, and went to bed, to be well rested for Las Vegas.

While his ambassador was off the U.S. radar, missing, at that moment possibly being dragged down a Benghazi street or even raped. But that is when Obama went to bed. Midnight in DC is 0600 in Beghazi.

That is the greatest scandal of Benghazi. The POTUS slept through it, while all around the world, military forces were poised for the Raid on Entebbe or any other damn thing the POTUS ordered them to do. (And the were raring to go, believe me.)

But the POTUS said, “We’ll discuss it further in the morning,” and then he went to bed around midnight in DC, 0600 in Benghazi, with a missing ambassador and a full-blown crisis in full mega flap.

He punted. He went to bed.

God help us.

I think that’s the big secret they are keeping. The President went to bed, with his lost Ambassador being dragged through streets.

Obama went to bed.

Digging A Hole In The Libyan Sands

President Obama has dug himself a deep hole in the Libyan sands of Benghazi and like any other clueless leftist thinks that the way out of the hole is to keep digging. Given what came out today with the release of diplomatic traffic between the ambassador, his staff and the state department the picture get uglier and uglier every day.  (Gee didn't predict that just last week?)  Clear and definitive warnings were being given the AQ was moving into the area in strength. AQ flags were reported over government buildings and training facilities.  What few other western consulates had pulled up stakes and left town.  The Red Cross had come under repeated attacks and had also left Benghazi.  The consulate had come under two previous attacks.  One in June had blown a large hole in the perimeter wall.  The ambassador himself had sent a cable just the day before his death that the situation was "out of control" and that Libyan government security forces were not up to the task and most likely could not be trusted.

So Mr. President, why were existing SST and MSD security teams withdrawn?  Why were repeated requests for added security denied given the deteriorating conditions?   Why was the State Dept. DC-3 aircraft withdrawn?  Why weren't the ambassador and his staff withdrawn and the consulate closed?  If the State Department had a drone over the consulate during the attack and they were watching the attack as it unfolded how do you justify saying for two weeks that it was a reaction to some stupid youtube video?  It doesn't take a genius to tell the difference between a spontaneous riot and a coordinated attack with heavy weapons.

Mr. President was all this the result of incompetence, indifference or something worse?  Good and loyal American citizens are dead and the public is demanding definitive answers to how and why it happened.

Fidel Goes to Hell

Mephistopheles greets Fidel Castro at the gates of hell, “Hello my friend, welcome to your new home!”  He escorts Fidel through the gate and firmly closes it behind him.  “Before we go any further I have to ask you a few questions.  I hope you understand.”

“Of course.” Castro replies, “Go right ahead.”

“Well first, do you smoke?”

“You know I do!  I love my Havanas!”

“That’s great because on Mondays around here all we do is smoke. Cigars, pipes, cigarettes, only the finest of tobaccos.  We smoke until we are sick and then we smoke some more.  What’s it gonna do kill you?  You’re already dead!”

“Ok I guess that make sense.” Castro replies with a pleased look on his face.

“Next then, do you drink?”

“Of course I do.  Good Cuban beer. And I have to confess, I like good American Bourbon, I never cared for that Russian Vodka.”  Castro was clearly getting excited; this place was beginning to sound like party central.

“Wonderful my friend because on Tuesdays all we do is drink, beer, bourbon, whatever you want!  We drink until we puke and then we drink some more! What’s it gonna do, kill you? You’re already dead!”

Castro’s grin widened, “I got to tell you I’m sure begining to like the sound of this place!”

“Perfect then.  Next question, do you take drugs?”

“Well Che and I did smoke some weed while we were hiding in the mountains from Batista and his troops.  And then when we helped the Columbians ship all that cocaine to those decadent Americans we always took a few samples! Castro said now openly laughing with his new friend.

“Ok then because on Wednesdays we do drugs, lots of drugs, we have unlimited supplies! Weed, cocaine, heroin, what ever we want. We smoke it, snort it inject it.  What’s it gonna do kill you?  You’re already dead!”

Fidel was now ecstatic at the thought.  Hell truly was going to be the just reward for the righteous socialist.  All the murders, all his hard work and four hour long speeches were going to find their reward!

Mephistopheles smiled a wide grin and said “Ok one more question, are you gay?”

“No!” Castro sharply replied. “That is nothing more than capitalist decadence!  I will have no part of it!”

Mephistopheles’s smile was gone, replaced with a serious frown.  “Well that then is just to bad, because it looks like every day is going to be Thursday for you!” 

 

Is This Just Irony Or are They Trying To Tell Us Something?

Posted without further comment.