Can Holder hold on?

Too many a problem?

Washington D.C. in damage control .  Huffington Post ran a front-page call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. The Obama administration has been on damage control since the outbreak of the 'scandals'.  ***Eric Holder's tenure as Attorney General is beset with failures, even if you judge him by his own goals .President Obama has expressed concern about the chilling effects his own administration has caused on investigative reporting by aggressively spying on journalists reporting on government actions, even to the point of accusing some of being co-conspirators and/or using the Espionage Act against whistleblowers and reporters. That seemed weird enough already, but one point that was even stranger deserves to be called out separately. In asking for a review of the administration's policy, Obama has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to run that review. And that's ridiculous. It's asking Eric Holder to review his own surveillance of journalists. But Holder would have us believe that, contrary to the claims of journalists and civil libertarians, the Justice Department did nothing improper. In his telling, spying on journalists was necessary because there was a leak that compromised national security in a particularly serious way. Pestered by Republicans and some Democrats, Holder testified that he has faith in the individuals conducting the broad investigation, driven in large part by GOP outrage last year over the possibility that administration officials leaked information to enhance President Barack Obama's national security reputation in an election year. Holder said he had rescued himself from the case because "I am a possessor of information eventually leaked." He said he was unable to answer questions on the subpoenas and why the Justice Department failed to negotiate with the AP prior to the subpoenas, a standard practice. Newly released documents show how the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and local police forces partnered with corporations to spy on Occupy protesters in 2011 and 2012. Detailed in thousands of pages of records from counter terrorism and law enforcement agencies, the spying monitored the activists’ online usage and led to infiltration of their meetings. One document shows an undercover officer was dispatched in Arizona to infiltrate activists organizing protests around the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),  the secretive group that helps corporate America propose and draft legislation for states across the country. Holder is a man not suited for the office he occupies. At most, Holder has shown himself to be completely incompetent and corrupt.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 *** While Eric Holder’s Justice Department was spying on Fox News… the Chinese were stealing all our military secrets. Patriot missile system, the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter, the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, even the $1.4 trillion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – Chinese hackers got them all. Holder should have been gone long ago. That he isn't brings a sharp focus to what this administration thinks is legally & morally important. Members of the previous administration have publicly admitted, in PRINT, to activities that would seem to be glaring violations of both US & international law. But this AG refuses to even open an independent investigation. The CEOs of major international banks seem to have violated a number of laws in the process of raping the global economy since 2007, & no real investigations have been forthcoming there either. Legal advisers to the President find creative ways to justify assassination by drone of US citizens, & apparently the Justice Dept thinks that is just okey dokey. But let some individual government employee with a conscience dare to go to the media with reports of government malfeasance, after being systematically ignored by the chain if command, & woe betide him.

Welcome Obama-care : California.

My Union said we have nothing to worry about Obama- care.

Are you ready? Obama-Care ( Affordable Care Act ) is coming to California near you. So far it's gotten a mixed press . How it's going to affect you is a problem . It's a problem if your employer provides you with negotiable benefits package . Already Unions whom I belong to tell that we don't have anything to worry about . However a cautionary note about negotiable benefits : Some labor unions that enthusiastically backed President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul are now frustrated and angry, fearful it will jeopardize benefits for millions of members.Union leaders warn that unless the problem is fixed, there could be consequences for Democrats facing re-election next year.“It makes an untruth out of what the president said — that if you like your insurance, you could keep it,” said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “That is not going to be true for millions of workers now.”

[...] “We’re concerned that employers will be increasingly tempted to drop coverage through our plans and let our members fend for themselves on the health exchanges,” said David Treanor, director of health care initiatives at the Operating Engineers union. California and Oregon are poised to be the first to implement Obamacare, and will be hawkishly watched by both sides of the political spectrum. Labor union leaders are complaining they are getting shortchanged by the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." They are asking the White House to allow the health care exchange subsidies to be used for their worker's health care plans, which could dramatically increase the cost of the ACA.  Let's read what we know now about it. Yesterday, Covered California—the name given to the healthcare exchange created pursuant to the Affordable Care Act that will serve the largest population of insured citizens in the nation—released the premium rates submitted by participating health insurance companies for the three health insurance program categories (bronze, silver and gold) established by the Affordable Care Act, along with the catastrophic policy created for and available to those under the age of 30.Keep in mind that the entire idea of the exchanges is to require health insurance companies to compete openly with one another by offering identical coverage programs in the three created classes—each offering insurance coverage that actually delivers meaningful protection to customers—and then openly disclosing the price each insurance company will charge for that policy. The announced rates are far below estimates and the average numbers show that a middle-aged Californian could pay anywhere from $40-$300 per month. The wide range includes the variety of benefits offered combined with the use of federal subsidies to pay for healthcare. Thus, shoppers can clearly see which company has the best price on an apples-to-apples basis. I am however dumbfounded by the level of willful ignorance by supposedly principled liberals and progressives which cheers the fact that Obamacare subjugated the entire populace to private health insurers which are merely Wall Street firms in nurses outfits.Bob Laszewski, a health care industry consultant, said the real fear among unions is that “a lot of these labor contracts are very expensive, and now employers are going to have an alternative to very expensive labor health benefits.” “If the workers can get benefits that are as good through Obamacare in the exchanges, then why do you need the union?” Laszewski said.

Future Shock revisited .

Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time". We don't have flying cars (give it a decade), fusion power (hey, 4 years), robotic house-servants (2040--you'll live to see it if you take your fish oil),  or rocket pants (disappointing)--but we do have something else: Twitter.  It seems to me that our 'society' has been accelerating at such a pace that people are going on 'overload' . While we have all this wonderful technology our American government can't no longer glue it together  , and along with the invention of the Internet our own privacy is assured no more. We all now have cyber tracks that we google daily .  Which tracks our credit rating and so on. We  do electronic transactions  that soon paper money will be replaced .The House recently posed the 37th vote to repeal ObamaCare (for a few reasons--one of which is to allow House freshmen to tell their constituents they tried--but another is, perhaps, to have some subtle psychological impact on the acceptance of the law) and, of course, it didn't go anywhere. But this time around Darrel Issa (a leading Republican critic of the administration) encouraged a particular hashtag meme, #ObamaCareInThreeWords, which encouraged participants (detractors) to describe the ACA in three pithy words. Here are two recent articles (not about the twitter war) that take on Obama and the scandals. We are now so numb to our American political system there are many of us that just don't care any more . Our society is bombard with violence , pretty sure that there is some pathological twist how it impends children . It  too has become the norm . We sit and watch our wages become smaller and smaller while the cost of our basic needs goes higher and higher.  The big bosses decide it’s in their best interest to make the job of two or three people into one job, so you are stretched to your limit to do the work of two or sometimes three people, but you are never paid more for your work.  You pray you don’t get sick, or your child does not become sick, for a sick day could mean not being able to have enough money for your rent and basic bills.  You have to work 2 jobs to meet the demands of having a roof over your head.  You live one paycheck away from sleeping on the street.Unfortunately, America hasn't changed much at all- from the beginning it's always been the rich vs the poor- We think all this angst and bad politics and injustices and economic inequality is NEW- It ain't new. The debt crisis has also spread to nearly every state as 46 states out of 50 states are on the verge of bankruptcy and many of our cities are going broke. Detroit is the epitome of a Third World city. America’s infrastructure is collapsing as evidenced by the pitiful condition of our roads which are quickly obtaining Third World status.  Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change overwhelms people, he believed, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems are symptoms of future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock he popularized the term "information overload." Currently we have 'misinformation overload' as political scandals go,people in our society are now  feeling the disorientation shelled out by the news media . Now nothing is ever the same . Welcome to the future!

IRS America’s bloated system.

IRS Inspector General Russell George (left) and Steven MillerApril that the IRS singled out conservative groups for scrutiny, but the officials decided not to inform President Obama of the issue, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday. Ha hoe hum. So it goes with the White House claim that it knew nothing — nothing! — about the ** targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

OK. We are all honest tax paying Americans ( or at least some ) we give our fair share and expect that our Governmental is well behaved .Is the IRS turning into a kind of common enemy of Average Americans . After all we are paying way too many taxes , we have already seen our government squander our tax dollars into wars on drugs and terror . Hardly any benefit to us . Simple: because the government needs money, and this is not likely to change. Millions of Americans owe a lot of money to the IRS. Not many of us would volunteer to pay if not for the threat of the IRS enforcement.The first income tax was enacted in 1862 to fund the Civil War. During that war a person who earned from $600 to $10,000 a year was taxed at a rate of 3%, which was not too onerous considering the fact that the federal government was financing an enormous active military effort. People who earned more than ten thousand dollars paid a higher rate of taxation. Sales taxes were increased and the first “inheritance” tax was imposed. The Act of 1862 created the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Commissioner was given the power to enforce the tax laws by prosecution and by the seizure of earnings and private property. The income tax was abolished in 1872, but was briefly revived in 1894-95. In 1895 the Supreme Court declared the income tax to be a violation of the United States Constitution and therefore illegal.Today America has an enormous, complex and deliberately bewildering tax code which, in its ponderous printed bulk, makes all of the world’s written moral codes  what has America’s bloated bloodsucking taxation bureaucracy been up to lately? Well. . .a recent examination of Internal Revenue Service employees by the Treasury Department’s inspector general has determined that these taxpayer-supported parasites spend more than half of their on-line time at work visiting chat rooms, gambling, making stock trades and drooling over video pornography.

Deputy inspector general for tax affairs, Pamela Gardiner, put 16,000 I.R.S. employees under the microscope and discovered that most of their time at work was spent attending to personal business. Almost a quarter of the I.R.S. staff hung out in chat rooms. A fifth of them spent their time researching personal financial information. Seven percent spent their time shopping. Many of them frequented gambling and pornography services. So, to hell with you Mister and Ms Taxpayer.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says he is not happy about the crappy state of affairs at the I.R.S. He noted that during this year’s tax season 37% of taxpayers calling the I.R.S. for tax information didn’t get their calls answered at all. The sorry tax slaves who did manage to get a response were given wrong answers almost half of the time (47%). Grassley wondered aloud whether I.R.S. employees were ignoring taxpayer inquiries because they were engrossed in personal activities online.

In a separate investigation, the I.R.S. inspector general monitored 82,000 incoming e-mails at the I.R.S. and discovered that almost half of them (47% again) involved non-business matters such as daily jokes, high school reunion news and news blurbs from pop-culture websites.

A wise government would never abuse its citizens this way. A dignified people would never tolerate such abuse. In a democratic republic (America?) the citizens could actually abolish a tyrannical and wasteful taxing authority. They could secure their private property. They could send the parasites packing. They could repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. It would only require determination. Two IRS managers have already lost their jobs, and it seems likely that others will, too, as Congress conducts hearings to determine who's at fault, and who bears the political responsibility. But the criminal prosecutions that some members of Congress are calling for seem unlikely and far fetched  This scandal is about bureaucratic screw-ups and inefficiency, not political manipulation of the IRS, which the American public has reason to fear.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** There are many ways to influence people or an organization, so in investigating the IRS audits of conservative groups, although it would be convincing (and legally determinative) to find a secret tape or a secret email from Obama ordering the policy, that really wasn’t necessary in order to let the IRS know what he wanted. Obama set the tone as a matter of public record, through speeches that were not the least bit subtle:

The president derided “tea baggers*.” Vice President Joe Biden compared them to “terrorists.” In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. “Nobody knows who’s paying for these ads,” he warned. “We don’t know where this money is coming from,” he intoned.
In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: “All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation.”
Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets.

The Big e-mail deal.

President Obama can't take all the Blame
on everything as of yet.......

The scandal with the Benghazi e-mails seems to be getting bigger . A few Nights ago I was tuning in to hear the Micheal Savage show  on the radio. Savage said something that drew my attention . He said that "some one from within was leaking things out." Sure , he might be right . I am  quoting Savage not  in in verbatim,but (my emphasis).   Honestly I am at the point that I don't believe either the Democrats  along with Obama , or the Republicans  . All the wire taps , and all the memos, typos and e-mails . It's Washington  D.C.'s crazy circus . Yes , they or whom ever want it to be like Watergate . Soon we all be hearing about possible "wire taps" on Tea Party organizations . Worse still to come  " Arms sales to Syrian Rebels scandal " . With Obama taking the hit .   Attorney General Eric Holder appoints two U.S. attorneys to lead a pair of investigations into possible unauthorized disclosures of classified information. Major Garrett of CBS News, that Republicans were behind the false leaks. explicit confirmation  ? CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that apparently differs from how sources characterized it to two different media organizations. The actual e-mail from then-Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes appears to show that whomever leaked it did so in a way that made it appear that the White House was primarily concerned with the State Department's desire to remove references and warnings about specific terrorist groups so as to not bring criticism to the department. Either case . My view these actions are no way taking the emphasis away from the Obama administration . I feel that there was "failure" on the Presidents part , and the State Department in regards to Libya . If you all remember  Press Secretary who in response to a question asking “What happened at Benghazi” said at 9/14/2012 press conference ” We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack. The unrest we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims find offensive.” and again . In the same press conference CARNEY said: 

CARNEY: We also need to understand that this is a fairly volatile situation and it is in response not to United States policy, and not to, obviously, the administration, or the American people, but it is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy, this is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.

Nothing changes my mind . I think was also have too much government corruption in the United States  that either political party can't  be "trusted" . All the investigations are all just going to get bigger , and perhaps they are all hype or-castrated by whom ever is behind the "leaks" and "misinformation" .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

There are also two "stories" circulating about the Late Chris Stevens  that are Equally disturbing 

The American Ambassador killed last Sept. 11 in a brutal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi refused offers for more security at the compound, according to a bombshell report.

Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, who was killed along with three other Americans after terrorists stormed the mission, twice turned down offers from senior military officials for additional security at the facility, McClatchy news services reported.   (the Other version ) Hours before US Ambassador Christopher Stevens died in a terrorist attack in Libya, he sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a cable warning that local militias were threatening to take away security officers guarding the US diplomats. The cable, which Stevens submitted on the morning of Sept. 11, 2012, relayed the warning that Libyan militia “would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing.” Militia leaders had previously expressed anger at US support of a certain candidate for Libyan prime minister and consequentially planned to extract their security.

Another "scandal" Oh Mr. Pres............

Yes, “idle hands are the devil's workshop.” Jon Stewart skewered the IRS for targeting conservative groups and bashed President Obama for validating the "tinfoil behatted."  It's hard to say how much again President Obama knew about the IRS . Certainly enough the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups  and definitely looks like something the Democrats , and their leaders would have  pulled off during Obama's  run for reelection . It's vary grainy now . Along with Benghazi , now Department of Justice subpoena of AP reporters's phone calls in association with an investigation into a possible government leak regarding a foiled bomb plot in Yemen. What get's me is that the President can't give a straight answer on any thing lately ..  he being attacked on all sides , and he fighting back mad . President Barack Obama in an official statement released Tuesday evening condemned the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups, calling the agency’s actions “intolerable” and “inexcusable.” “I have now had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its investigation of the IRS personnel who improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And the report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable,” the statement reads.Marco Rubio told the Senate on Wednesday.President Barack Obama’s “culture of intimidation” led to the scandalous IRS targeting of conservative groups. President Obama appears to have given the IRS "greater" powers as the administration prepares to hand the IRS far greater power to fully implement the Affordable Care Act this year.  The White House has requested hundreds of millions of dollars to hire new agents who would oversee the various tax breaks and credits included in the ACA. But the scandal over the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups could tarnish an agency that is already far from popular, giving Republicans an opportunity to block those funds — and perhaps even achieve a long-held goal of crippling ObamaCare. President Obama’s appearance of boredom and disinterest toward Governor Romney during the first presidential debate, and Vice President Biden’s disrespectful grinning at Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, were an indication of something dangerously wrong with the Washington political culture. Many conservatives view Democrats, as not merely wrong but stupid, and many liberals view Republicans as not merely wrong but evil. If your opponents are evil, anything goes. Isn’t it ironic that, to Obama everything is Bush’s fault during the Bush administration. But, under his own administration….nothing is his fault….it’s ALWAYS someone else’s. Amazing.

Mrs. Clinton's tell all book.

Mrs. Clinton's tell all book might reveal her
inner frustrations.

The-as-yet untitled book is skedded for publication June 2014. Mrs. Clinton  has a deal for a memoir and policy book about her years in the Obama administration, Simon & Schuster told The Associated Press. The book has yet to be titled and is tentatively scheduled for June 2014. National Enquirer calls it a "reveling book" about the Obama administration . The GLOBE reports : In a world exclusive, has learned that President Barack Obama has issued a dire warning to Hillary Clinton NOT to write her planned memoir that would rip the lid off the ugly secrets in his presidency and in his marriage to Michelle. Find out what Obama said and why a bitter Hillary is ready to air the dirty laundry. Well if it is true , it show how much turmoil President Obama has on his plate . Most political "autobiographies" are a way in which a guilt ridden politician confesses , tries to paint a better picture of one self to the world . The President is worried the tome will rip the lid off the ugly secrets in his presidency and in his marriage to Michelle.“Hillary is bitter and ready to air the dirty laundry,” a source told America’s Globe magazine.Reports last month claimed Hillary is penning a $20 million tell-all book that will rip the lid off the First Family’s dirty secrets — as payback for the insults and humiliations they heaped on her and her dying hubby Bill.“The President and First Lady cruelly back stabbed the Clintons even as they loyally battled to keep the Obama's in the White House,” a source said. Author Ed Klein  Klein made some pretty shocking allegations about the White House response to the attacks, including that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered more security at the embassy only to have her request denied. He also said that her husband, Bill Clinton, encouraged her to resign rather than to take the full blame for the attacks on the embassy.Now the question is Hillary Clinton knew as well. The question that the press should be asking today is who gave the order to not go in and save these guys? Who made the decision, “Do not launch a plane, do not send a Marine?” Who made the decision “Let them die”? Hillary Clinton stepped up and she said she takes full responsibility. However, Ed Klein was on with Andrew Wilkow last night and he says that the Obama administration knew and Hillary requested extra security, she requested things, she was overridden, and Bill Clinton stepped in. Many people were surprised that Clinton would grant an exit interview to Fox News, and it looks as though people are even more surprised by her honesty and criticism of the Obama administration.CLINTON: But you have to I think take a step back and look at the fact that the people now in power have never been in government, never had a chance to really learn how to run agencies. You do get the impression that he and the team around him are trying to deal with the economy that is in very bad shape. And some of what he’s done we have approved of and supported and some of what he’s done, like abrogating a lot of power unto himself, personally reinstating emergency law provisions, are troubling. And, you know…I think Obama used Hillary to take the blame that he is totally guilty of.  Don't you realize that Obama NEVER exposes his faults?  never is anything but RIGHT?  He always puts the blame on others.  Hillary was TOLD to take the blame or he would ruin her.  I think she was ether tossed out on her ear, or else she ran out as fast as she could to save herself.  Yes before 2016. 

Benghazi -gate revisited

Benghazi hearings are history being
made . As an American I want
some answers .

Benghazi -gate is going to be someones undoing . First of all we have had massive failure of our government to protect it's citizens overseas . We have also a not so truthful Administration .So Team Obama knew. But Team Obama also knew there had been protests in Egypt around the embassy there that had been staged in response to the YouTube video. And at some point in the days that followed, the administration decided to conflate the two events and assign blame for the attack in Benghazi on the video...  Now we have Benghazi revisited As reported by FOX News, the names of the three “whistle-blowers”.Benghazi happened a long time ago; however, these “whistle-blowers” are about to make the Benghazi White House cover up a very current problem. From the Blaze comes the following people who will be testifying; Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the September assault; Mark Thompson, former Marine and deputy coordinator for operations at the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, the former top security officer in Libya. Nordstrum also testified in front of the House Oversight committee back in October (VIDEO), saying staff at the US consulate in Benghazi lacked sufficient protection; however, Thompson and Hicks have yet to speak publically. Hicks revealed that Hillary Clinton’s sham “independent” State Dept. investigation of the incident was woefully incomplete – indeed, whistleblower Mark Thompson, deputy coordinator for operations at the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, was not even interviewed about details. (Thompson’s revelation, incidentally, came during questioning by Michigan Rep. Mark Walberg, R-Tipton. Michigan Democrats were typically mute on the disturbing whistleblower testimony, as they have been incurious about the killing of a Michigan border patrol agent during Fast & Furious).What perhaps should be a concern to Obama, Hillary and other top Administration officials is that in their underlings zeal to protect the palace from any allegations of wronging re Benghazi the underlings may have cut corners and perhaps acted  unlawfully or unethically and those actions were documented in a thorough manner by others for reasons of self preservation.  And if the bloodhounds start getting too close some of these insurance documents may start showing up.The Republican U.S. House of Representatives speaker, John Boehner, demanded that the White House order the State Department to release more emails about the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. "The goal here is to get to the truth," Boehner said. "The reason this is still under way is because the White House has done everything possible to block access to the information that would outline the truth. And the question you have to ask is, 'Why?'" Democrats accuse Republicans of a long, politically motivated fishing expedition for details of a scandal that is not there, seeking to tarnish Obama and Clinton, who headed the State Department at the time of the attack and is considered the top Democratic prospect for the 2016 presidential race. Democrats insist little new information emerged from Wednesday's hearing of the House Oversight Committee, at which Gregory Hicks, a former top U.S. diplomat in Libya, gave a dramatic account of the night that ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. One woman still looking for answers about the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is Pat Smith. Her son Sean Smith, a State Department information officer, was one of four Americans killed during the attack "I blame her," said Smith, referring to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "That's her department, she's supposed to be on top of it, and yet she claims that she knows nothing, it wasn't told to her," said Smith. "Who's running the place?"

U.S. can't police world...........anymore.

With Syria on Pres. Obama's mind . There is one big question on my mind as well . "how long can America act as the world police?" There is no way that  United States military is now bombing 6 different countries?  U.S. aircraft are conducting air strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and now Somalia.  There is a U.S. military base in over half of the countries on the planet and U.S. military spending is over 7 times larger than the military spending of any other nation on earth. The facts are Today, the United States has become the police of the world.  The U.S. military has a total of over 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world. Total military spending by the U.S. government is nearly equal to the combined military spending of the rest of the globe.  Meanwhile, the federal government is literally drowning in debt. Last year Gov. Brian Schweitzer told Montana Democrats  it’s time for Americans to stand up and say they won’t be the world’s police anymore and they won’t become involved in more wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’ve destroyed a lot of lives,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of money for the military-industrial complex. We need people to stand up. We need people to stand up and say, ‘We will defend this country, but we’re not going to go off to war and be police for the world.’ It’s time to stand up, stand up for this country now and stand up for us first.” The audience rose and applauded. The truth is that we cannot afford to be the police of the world and the Pentagon wastes so much money that it is almost incomprehensible.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once publicly admitted that the Pentagon lost track of 2.3 trillion dollars and cannot tell us how it was spent.  Just imagine how your boss would react if you lost track of just 2.3 thousand dollars.  So why wasn't there more of an uproar about losing track of 2.3 trillion dollars?  Have we become so accustomed to military waste that we don't even care anymore? For half a century Americans were told that policing the world was a strategic and moral imperative: we were "saving the world from communism," and defending our own national security. On this pretext Washington overthrew democratically elected governments, installed and financed some of the most bloodthirsty regimes in world history, went to war in Vietnam, and even supported genocide -- from Indonesia to Guatemala -- when our leaders found it politically convenient to do so. This brings into focus a major problem that U.S. media, some politicians, and many Americans seem confused about: Which of the many foreign policy issues and crises currently in the news are crucial to the security and well-being of the United States and require presidential action? The US needs a greatly reduced role in world affairs. Let the world police itself and bring out service men and women home to US soil. America has enough problems and debt as it is. Sorry to sound selfish, but America should focus on our own first. Make sure are own house is in order first. America simply can't afford to be the Sole Policemen of the World, especially with other Developed Nations around the World that can afford to defend themselves. And work with us in coalitions to make the World safer. Its time we demand that the rest of the Developed World play its part in their own National Security and making the World a safer place. 

NOTES & COMMENTS:

Here is some reasons why the American way is unsustainable .

#1 Prior to the beginning of the “War on Terror” our national debt was under 6 trillion dollars.  Today, it has more than doubled and currently sits at a whopping 14.3 trillion dollars.#2 Today, the U.S. military is in nearly 130 different nations and it has a total of about 700 military bases around the globe.  It costs approximately 100 billion dollars each year to maintain these military bases.#3 U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.#4 The United States already accounts for 46.5% of all military spending on the planet.  China is next with only 6.6%.#5 If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.#6 When you throw in all “off budget” items and other categories of “defense spending” not covered in the Pentagon budget you get a grand total of somewhere between $1.01 and $1.35 trillion spent on national defense in 2010.#7 The U.S. government borrows an average of about 168 million more dollars every single hour.#8 The Pentagon currently gobbles up 56 percent of all discretionary spending by the federal government.#9 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.#10 The cost for the first week of airstrikes on Libya was 600 million dollars.  Keep in mind that the leader of the opposition in Libya has admitted that his forces contain large numbers of the same “al-Qaeda fighters” that were shooting at American troops in Iraq.  So we are going broke and we are helping al-Qaeda take power in Libya at the same time.#11 The total price tag for each F-22 fighter jet is approximately $350 million.#12 Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers well over a trillion dollars.#13 If you went out today and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.#14 Since 2001, the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan breaks down to well over $3,600 for every man, woman and child in the United States.#15 Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon.#16 The United States government is now responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

Syrian Escalation .

Cartoon Says it all.

The United States of America seems to be possibly drawn into another  conflict . The United States believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria, two U.S. officials first told CNN. U.S. and Western intelligence agencies are reviewing classified data showing Israel most likely conducted a strike in the Thursday-Friday time frame, according to both officials. This is the same time frame that the U.S. collected additional data showing Israel was flying a high number of warplanes over Lebanon.US president Barack Obama said on Friday he does not foresee a scenario in which he would send US ground troops to Syria and outlined a deliberate approach to determining whether the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in a 2-year civil war.Obama insisted that the United States has not ruled out any options in dealing with Syria as the United States investigates whether the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.But Obama, who has spent much of his presidency winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, made clear he was not inclined to send troops to Syria, saying "I do not foresee" such a scenario. The Jewish state had long made clear it is prepared to resort to force to prevent advanced Syrian weapons, including President Bashar al-Assad's reputed chemical arsenal, being handed over to Lebanon's powerful Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas. Assad and Hezbollah are allied to Iran, Israel's arch-enemy . President Obama’s policy on Syria has grown still muddier. On Tuesday the president backed away from a “red line” he had drawn on the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, setting the threshold for proof of a violation in such a way as to virtually exclude the possibility that one could ever be confirmed. Yet that same day his aides leaked to The Post and other news organizations the news that the president might soon reverse his long-standing opposition to providing Syrian rebels with arms. And the administration readied yet another effort to persuade Russia to abandon its support of the Assad regime in favor of a negotiated political transition. Editors at the Washington Post on Thursday called Obama’s remarks ** “weak”:

Can any coherence be found in this? A charitable interpretation might be that Mr. Obama wishes to avoid immediate U.S. intervention but wants to pressure Moscow into changing its position by letting it be known that the alternative is greater U.S. support for the rebels. If so, Mr. Obama is being too clever. His weak and legalistic words about the need to verify a “chain of custody” on any chemical-weapons use and his declaration that even a hard confirmationwould lead only to a “rethink [of] the range of options” simply invite further chemical attacks.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** This is the same weakness towards terror that we have seen here in the United States, which has allowed us to be successfully attacked at least 5 times in Obama’s first 4 years in office. Syria has a robust air defense system, an American air campaign would have to be extensive and there would be American casualties. Plus, many of those clamoring for American intervention will be denouncing it as soon as noncombatants are killed by American actions, and they will be. The choice is between a secular anti-American regime and his Islamist anti-American opponents. I would prefer not to even provide arms to the opposition, but at least that doesn’t involve the American military. Also there is the little problem that without UN Security Council authorization, any US military attack would not only violate the UN Charter's ban on non-defensive war (no UN member nation may without Security Council authorization attack another nation, excepting only in response to an actual or imminently threatened attack by the other nation), but would also be that "supreme war crime" of agressive war for which German leaders were tried, convicted and executed at Nuremburg following WWII. Apparently the Post either does not know or does not care about our Government's treaty obligations under the UN Charter and our Constitution (which makes US treaties "the supreme law of the land").