That said, I believe the previous memo entitled: " Obama The Poker Play or Goodbye Mr Chips!" and this one are must reads for anyone who wishes to get a better handle on why our economic status is failing, why our future is less than robust and why Obama is anything but intelligent and, in fact, is actually abysmally ignorant in matters of economics and what creates wealth.
The Saul Alinsky philosophy is spreading. The attacks on the merit of our Constitution are mounting and the intellectual effete and academic elites are actively seeking the destruction of our Republic.
Ben Franklin's prophetic response to the scullery maid's inquiry is, in fact proving prophetic: 'We have a Republic if we can keep it."
I continue to believe we are heading in the wrong direction and Obama has quickened the pace. I further believe we re-elect him at our peril. In fact, by the time he completes his first term , and has built upon the destructive economic policies of his many predecessors and Congresses, it could well be too late and our heirs will inherit a bankrupt nation both fiscally as well as morally speaking.
That is sad indeed for when America goes 'chaos adherents' will take over.
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The latest issue of Commentary Magazine has an outstanding article by Douglas Feith and Seth Cropsey entitled: "The Obama Doctrine Defined." The article goes into great length to explain why Obama has taken the radicalized tack he has with respect to America's former role as leader of the West. The article also discusses several appointees who are prominent advisers and whose influence is significant in shaping Obama's attitude that America must shrink back and be an apologist for causing so much angst and grief.
I too continue to believe Obama sees America through a prism shaped by those who have a contempt for our nation, its power, its success and its role in the world!(See 1 and 1a below.)
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A black attorney and clergyman's view of the genesis of Obama's negative attitude towards Israel. (See 2 2a and 2b below.)
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Porter Stansberry explains what economic system we have and asks has it created the wealth we believe it has? (See 3 below.)
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Even the Brits now acknowledge Iran's nuclear missile activities. (See 4 below.)
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Far too many believe Obama's meteoric rise is because he is brilliant and few believe his ascendancy to the presidency is because he ran against an incompetent campaigner and the nation was ready for change. This time around, Obama's darkening prospects are beginning to test his ability to keep his own campaign on track as stress fissures develop within his staff due to the increasing prospect of losing.
Whomever the Republicans select they will be formidable if they consistently hammer away at Obama's failed accomplishments. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1) Last week my colleague Eric Ames addressed the bias and some misstatements of fact in Richard Stengel's recent attack on the Constitution/defense of ObamaCare here.
Today, Aaron Worthing over at Patterico's Pontification's ticked off 13 factual errors in the Time magazine editor's piece and systematically addressed each one.
It's an excellent piece. Here's an excerpt that I think addresses some of Stengel's biggest errors:
False Claim #1: The Constitution does not limit the Federal Government.
The relevant passage:
If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so. Article I, Section 8, the longest section of the longest article of the Constitution, is a drumroll of congressional power. And it ends with the “necessary and proper” clause, which delegates to Congress the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” Limited government indeed.
(Emphasis added.) [Update: If you want to check the veracity of my quotes from Stengel's piece, I suggest you use this single-page version of the piece, and then perform a Control-F search.]
Proof that he is wrong: The Constitution is filled with limitations on Federal Power. For instance, Article I, Section 9 says:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. [A.W.: They’re talking about the slave trade.]
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another….
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States[.]
And then there is Article III, Section 3, limiting what the government can do to a traitor:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
It should be noted that Corruption of Blood is a doctrine by which the family of a traitor would suffer because of their alleged corrupted blood, so this is limiting the government’s ability to punish the children of a traitor for his or her treason.
And then there is the Bill of Rights. As I noted last time, Mr. Stengel considered them as of a piece with the original Constitution, an interpretation I concurred with. Every single one of them represents a limitation on federal power, so it is sufficient to only quote a few of them:
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 2
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment 9
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So contrary to his suggestion, the Constitution does indeed limit the power of the Federal Government, a point most of us learned in elementary school.
False Claim #2: The Constitution is not law.
The relevant passage:
Originalists contend that the Constitution has a clear, fixed meaning. But the framers argued vehemently about its meaning. For them, it was a set of principles, not a code of laws. A code of laws says you have to stop at the red light; a constitution has broad principles that are unchanging but that must accommodate each new generation and circumstance.(emphasis added)
Proof that he is wrong: Again, the Constitution itself contradicts this claim. Article VI, Paragraph 2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land[.]
And of course in my long fisking piece, I cite several passages from Marbury v. Madison that is on point as well, but the Constitution is enough.
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Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2011/06/28/conservative-blogger-spots-13-factual-errors-time-editors-attack-us-co#ixzz1QfwARQcL
1a)At Obama's Pentagon, ‘be all that you can be’ becoming ‘dress for success’
By Anna Mulrine
Army move is meant to signal a change in military culture, from 'muddy boots' to military 'corporate'
Just as the US troop drawdown in Afghanistan announced by President Obama has been characterized as the beginning of the end of the war, the US Army is making a highly symbolic change that similarly signals an ebb in combat footing.
Starting next month, US Army servicemembers will no longer wear their Army Combat Uniform — or ACU's, otherwise known as fatigues — around the halls of the Pentagon.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Pentagon-based soldiers began wearing their camouflage uniforms. It was one way of signaling that though not all forces were deployed to the conflicts overseas, the entire US military was at war.
It was then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker's intent after he took the job in 2003 to "get people to realize that we are in combat," says the US Army's top noncommissioned officer, Sgt. Maj. Raymond Chandler — and that the war "wasn't going to get done with anytime soon."
The current Army chief of staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, decided that starting in July Army troops at the Pentagon will wear their BDUs — or battle dress uniforms — considered business attire for troops.
"Everyone understands that we are at war," Chandler said. "Everyone has been touched by it." Now, he added, there is a gradual shift within the Pentagon to emphasize "the corporate part of the Army" as well.
This marks a key movement away from "this muddy boots culture that has pervaded everything" in the US military, says retired Col. Charles Allen, professor of cultural science at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
The downside of an extensive emphasis on war fighting is that "sometimes it can take away from the long-term focus of the Army," Dr. Allen added.
With the drawdown in Afghanistan, "the Army needs to bring back the best and the brightest now fighting the wars and bring them back into the institutional side of the house."
There will be other uniform changes as well. Soldiers will no longer be required to wear the black beret that has been part of the Army Combat Uniform since 2001.
The beret was not particularly popular among soldiers, and during the decade that it was in use it proved difficult to wear, Allen says. "You couldn't put it on with one hand, you had to shave it, stand in the shower to get it wet and form it." On sunny days, it didn't offer a bill to shield the eyes. "All those things which seemed overburdensome in some cases."
Dempsey's decision to change the beret may have been part of his decision to emphasize trust, discipline, and fitness among the soldiers, Allen says. "Changing the uniform is a trust issue — you trust that your leaders will listen to what you want, and that the small things sometimes matter. When you're trying to do the big things, those small things can sometimes be a foundation."
Though the decision to move away from the beret has been greeted with enthusiasm, Chandler acknowledges that the decision for soldiers not to wear fatigues at the Pentagon was "an emotional issue" for some. "Frankly there was discussion about whether or not this would take people away from the idea that we were still at war."
He added that here was a concern among some leaders involved in the discussion that not wearing camouflage uniforms "somehow" means "not being in touch with the soldiers" fighting the war.
Allen adds that, alternately, there may also have been a perception among other services in the Pentagon that chose not to wear fatigues that the Army's decision to wear BDUs over the years "was dismissive of other services."
The shift, Allen adds, could be interpreted as a signal that "everybody involved in the defense enterprise is important to the fight — not just those wearing the combat uniforms and their muddy boots."
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2) Pawlenty Slams Obama on ‘Anti-Israel Attitude’: ‘He Thinks Israel Is the Problem’
By Christopher Santarelli
The Council on Foreign Relations in New York City set the stage this afternoon for Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty to deliver the most hawkish and extensive Middle East policy agenda speech to date among candidates in the 2012 field. The speech outlined a four category approach to Middle Eastern governments, criticized President Obama’s murky policy of “engagement” when handling democracy movements, and condemned the President’s treatment of our ally Israel.
“The revolutions now roiling that region offer the promise of a more democratic, more open, and a more prosperous Arab world. From Morocco to the Arabian Gulf, the escape from the dead hand of oppression is now a real possibility.
Now is not the time to retreat from freedom’s rise.”
The former Minnesota governor slammed President Obama for being “timid, slow, and too often without a clear understanding of our interests or clear commitment to our principles,” and claimed the president failed in his response to the Arab Spring.
As several Republican candidates have advocated for a isolationist-leaning approach to foreign policy, Gov. Pawlenty affirmed himself as someone who would take a different approach if president:
“The leader of the United States should never leave those willing to sacrifice their lives in the cause of freedom wondering where America stands. As President, I will not.
We need a president who fully understands that America never ‘leads from behind.’”
The race for the GOP 2012 presidential candidate is as open as it has ever been, and as the media frenzies over each new candidate that files FEC paperwork, attention on Gov. Pawlenty has begun to dilute. Some see today’s speech as a turning point for Gov. Pawlenty, and a move to cement himself among the ticket’s top contenders. From the New York Times:
“The speech comes as Mr. Pawlenty is struggling to break out in a campaign that has been dominated recently by the entries of Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is leading in polls that show Mr. Pawlenty at the bottom of the pack.
Mr. Pawlenty is trying to take advantage of a rift in his party over the extent of the country’s involvement overseas.”
It remains to be seen if Gov. Pawlenty’s foreign policy approach will be in line with majority of voters in the GOP primary. That said, Tuesday’s speech hedged the Governor of a state over 2000 miles from any ocean as the Presidential candidate with the most extensive global ambitions.
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2a)Why Obama is Opposed to Israel
A BLACK AMERICAN CLERGYMAN POINTS TO THE SOURCE OF THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-ISRAELISM
Like Barack Hussein Obama II, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.
We heard it in Jesse Jackson's “HYMIE town” remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about “them Jews” not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a “Jew” problem.
Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania , I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were “greedy cheaters” who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were “evil”. Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.
In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of “The Nation”, but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, “he speaks the truth” and “stands up for the black man”. What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived “enemies” of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.
The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does? First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called “sitting under”. You don't merely attend a church, you “sit under” a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama “sat under” Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his “Million Man March”. I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what “good” he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support.
The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and the Palestinians are Israel's victims. Obama is clearly sympathetic to this view. In speaking to the “Muslim World, “he did not address the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews. Instead he attacked Israel over the growth of West Bank settlements. Surely he knows that settlements are not the crux of the problem. The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle. That's where the pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently. He also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian “dislocation”.
Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of “The Muslim World” is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President's truest – albeit undeclared red – sensibilities
Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentor-ship under Jeremiah Wright. If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days ahead. For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the United States siding with her enemies. Those who believe, as I do, that Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight. We are.
NEVER AGAIN!
E. W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired attorney
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2b) Obama may be losing the faith of Jewish Democrats
By BEN SMITH
David Ainsman really began to get worried about President Barack Obama’s standing with his fellow Jewish Democrats when a recent dinner with his wife and two other couples — all Obama voters in 2008 — nearly turned into a screaming match.
Ainsman, a prominent Democratic lawyer and Pittsburgh Jewish community leader, was trying to explain that Obama had just been offering Israel a bit of “tough love” in his May 19 speech on the Arab Spring. His friends disagreed — to say the least.
One said he had the sense that Obama “took the opportunity to throw Israel under the bus.” Another, who swore he wasn’t getting his information from the mutually despised Fox News, admitted he’d lost faith in the president.
If several dozen interviews with POLITICO are any indication, a similar conversation is taking place in Jewish communities across the country. Obama’s speech last month seems to have crystallized the doubts many pro-Israel Democrats had about Obama in 2008 in a way that could, on the margins, cost the president votes and money in 2012 and will not be easy to repair.
“It’s less something specific than that these incidents keep on coming,” said Ainsman.
The immediate controversy sparked by the speech was Obama’s statement that Israel should embrace the country’s 1967 borders, with “land swaps,” as a basis for peace talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seized on the first half of that phrase and the threat of a return to what Israelis sometimes refer to as “Auschwitz borders.”
Obama’s Jewish allies stressed the second half: that land swaps would — as American negotiators have long contemplated — give Israel security in its narrow middle, and the deal would give the country international legitimacy and normalcy.
But the noisy fray after the speech mirrored any number of smaller controversies. Politically hawkish Jews and groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel pounded Obama in news releases. White House surrogates and staffers defended him, as did the plentiful American Jews who have long wanted the White House to lean harder on Israel’s conservative government.
Based on the conversations with POLITICO, it’s hard to resist the conclusion that some kind of tipping point has been reached.
Most of those interviewed were center-left American Jews and Obama supporters — and many of them Democratic donors. On some core issues involving Israel, they’re well to the left of Netanyahu and many Americans: They refer to the “West Bank,” not to “Judea and Samaria,” fervently supported the Oslo peace process and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and believe in the urgency of creating a Palestinian state.
But they are also fearful for Israel at a moment of turmoil in a hostile region when the moderate Palestinian Authority is joining forces with the militantly anti-Israel Hamas.
“It’s a hot time, because Israel is isolated in the world and, in particular, with the Obama administration putting pressure on Israel,” said Rabbi Neil Cooper, leader of Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs, who recently lectured his large, politically connected congregation on avoiding turning Israel into a partisan issue
Some of these traditional Democrats now say, to their own astonishment, that they’ll consider voting for a Republican in 2012. And many of those who continue to support Obama said they find themselves constantly on the defensive in conversations with friends.
“I’m hearing a tremendous amount of skittishness from pro-Israel voters who voted for Obama and now are questioning whether they did the right thing or not,” said Betsy Sheerr, the former head of an abortion-rights-supporting, pro-Israel PAC in Philadelphia, who said she continues to support Obama, with only mild reservations. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘Oh, if we’d only elected Hillary instead.’”
Even Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who spoke to POLITICO to combat the story line of Jewish defections, said she’d detected a level of anxiety in a recent visit to a senior center in her South Florida district.
“They wanted some clarity on the president’s view,” she said. “I answered their questions and restored some confidence that maybe was a little shaky, [rebutted] misinformation and the inaccurate reporting about what was said.”
Wasserman Schultz and other top Democrats say the storm will pass.
They point out to anyone who will listen that beyond the difficult personal relationship of Obama and Netanyahu, beyond a tense, stalled peace process, there’s a litany of good news for supporters of Israel: Military cooperation is at an all-time high; Obama has supplied Israel with a key missile defense system; the U.S. boycotted an anti-racism conference seen as anti-Israel; and America is set to spend valuable international political capital beating back a Palestinian independence declaration at the United Nations in September.
The qualms that many Jewish Democrats express about Obama date back to his emergence onto the national scene in 2007. Though he had warm relations with Chicago’s Jewish community, he had also been friends with leading Palestinian activists, unusual in the Democratic establishment. And though he seemed to be trying to take a conventionally pro-Israel stand, he was a novice at the complicated politics of the America-Israel relationship, and his sheer inexperience showed at times.
At the 2007 AIPAC Policy Conference, Obama professed his love for Israel but then seemed, - to some who were there for his informal talk - to betray a kind of naivete about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians: “The biggest enemy” he said, using the same rhetoric he applied to American politics, was “not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also cynicism.”
At the next year’s AIPAC conference, he again botched the conflict’s code, committing himself to an “undivided Jerusalem” and then walking it back the next day.
Those doubts and gaffes lingered, even for many of the majority who supported him.
“There’s an inclination in the community to not trust this president’s gut feel on Israel and every time he sets out on a path that’s troubling you do get this ‘ouch’ reaction from the Jewish Community because they’re distrustful of him,” said the president of a major national Jewish organization, who declined to be quoted by name to avoid endangering his ties to the White House.
Many of Obama’s supporters, then and now, said they were unworried about the political allegiance of Jewish voters. Every four years, they say, Republicans claim to be making inroads with American Jews, and every four years, voters and donors go overwhelmingly for the Democrats, voting on a range of issues that include, but aren’t limited to Israel.
But while that pattern has held, Obama certainly didn’t take anything for granted. His 2008 campaign dealt with misgivings with a quiet, intense, and effective round of communal outreach.
“When Obama was running, there was a lot of concern among the guys in my group at shul, who are all late-30s to mid-40s, who I hang out with and daven with and go to dinner with, about Obama,” recalled Scott Matasar, a Cleveland lawyer who’s active in Jewish organizations.
Matasar remembers his friends’ worries over whether Obama was “going to be OK for Israel.” But then Obama met with the community’s leaders during a swing through Cleveland in the primary, and the rabbi at the denominationally conservative synagogue Matasar attends — “a real ardent Zionist and Israel defender” — came back to synagogue convinced.
“That put a lot of my concerns to rest for my friends who are very much Israel hawks but who, like me, aren’t one-issue voters.”
Now Matasar says he’s appalled by Obama’s “rookie mistakes and bumbling” and the reported marginalization of a veteran peace negotiator, Dennis Ross, in favor of aides who back a tougher line on Netanyahu. He’s the most pro-Obama member of his social circle but is finding the president harder to defend.
“He’d been very ham-handed in the way he presented [the 1967 border announcement] and the way he sprung this on Netanyahu,” Matasar said.
A Philadelphia Democrat and pro-Israel activist, Joe Wolfson, recalled a similar progression.
“What got me past Obama in the recent election was Dennis Ross — I heard him speak in Philadelphia and I had many of my concerns allayed,” Wolfson said. “Now, I think I’m like many pro-Israel Democrats now who are looking to see whether we can vote Republican.”
That, perhaps, is the crux of the political question: The pro-Israel Jewish voters and activists who spoke to POLITICO are largely die-hard Democrats, few of whom have ever cast a vote for a Republican to be president. Does the new wave of Jewish angst matter?
One place it might is fundraising. Many of the Clinton-era Democratic mega-donors who make Israel their key issue, the most prominent of whom is the Los Angeles Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, never really warmed to Obama, though Saban says he will vote for the Democrat and write him a check if asked.
A top-dollar Washington fundraiser aimed at Jewish donors in Miami last week raised more than $1 million from 80 people, and while one prominent Jewish activist said the DNC had to scramble to fill seats, seven-figure fundraisers are hard to sneer at.
Even people writing five-figure checks to Obama, though, appeared in need of a bit of bucking up.
“We were very reassured,” Randi Levine, who attended the event with her husband, Jeffrey, a New York real estate developer, told POLITICO.
Philadelphia Jewish Democrats are among the hosts of another top-dollar event June 30. David Cohen, a Comcast executive and former top aide to former Gov. Ed Rendell, said questions about Obama’s position on Israel have been a regular, if not dominant, feature of his attempts to recruit donors.
“I takes me about five minutes of talking through the president’s position and the president’s speech, and the uniform reaction has been, ‘I guess you’re right, that’s not how I saw it covered,’” he said.
Others involved in the Philadelphia event, however, said they think Jewish doubts are taking a fundraising toll.
“We’re going to raise a ton of money, but I don’t know if we’re going to hit our goals,” said Daniel Berger, a lawyer who is firmly in the “peace camp” and said he blamed the controversy on Netanyahu’s intransigence.
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3)New American Socialism
By Porter Stansberry
No one knows what to call it…
That's part of the problem. It's difficult to criticize something that doesn't yet have a proper name.
You can't just call our economic system "socialism." It's not. There's a profit motive and private ownership of nearly all assets. Socialism has neither of these. Besides, far too many people have become far too rich in our system to simply label it "socialism."
If you have ever traveled to an actual socialist country – with a power grid that never works, little public sanitation, petty graft at every turn, and endemic, horrifying poverty – you realize our system and real socialism aren't the same at all.
But our system isn't truly capitalism, either. The State intervenes in almost every industry, often in a big and expensive way. With government at all levels making up more than 40% of GDP, it's fair to say we live in a State-dominated society.
And as with all socialist experiments, it is the poor who suffer the worst economic outcomes. It is their cash savings that get wiped out by inflation. It is their jobs that disappear when regulations reduce capital investment or government debt crowds out private capital in the markets.
If the poor knew the first thing about economics, they wouldn't keep voting for socialist politicians and their programs. Alas, they don't even know the basics.
The poor in America, like the poor everywhere, still believe you can rob Peter to pay Paul. They still believe their "leaders" are trying to serve their best interests. It is a sad hoax. What has really happened is clear: Bamboozling the poor has become a way of life for American politicians.
And the poor's willingness – even eagerness – to embrace the resulting economic slavery is the linchpin of our system.
But it's not only the poor who have become addicted to the system. Businessmen like Warren Buffett embrace it, too – despite its limitations and taxes. Buffett calls it the "American System." He says it's the greatest system for creating wealth the world has ever seen.
We're not so sure.
Yes, it certainly makes it easy for big businessmen like Buffett to become wealthy. But those same benefits don't accrue to the society at large. For example… even though the value of America's production has soared over the last 40 years and asset prices have risen considerably, our debts have grown even more.
When you adjust for debt and inflation, you discover America hasn't gotten richer at all. Yes, we have become more affluent. And yes, some individuals have gotten vastly richer. But as a whole, when you add back the debts we've racked up, the country hasn't gotten richer at all.
Since the end of the gold standard in 1971, real after-tax wages, per capita, stagnated. On average, we haven't gotten any richer at all in 40 years.
What happened over the last 40 years?
Why did so many people rush so eagerly into debt? Why did they borrow more and more to buy the same things at ever-higher prices – again and again and again? And why do people in America continue to work, day after day, for jobs that offer no opportunity and declining real wages? Most important, how did a few people end up getting so rich from this merry-go-round economic system that never takes us anywhere?
To answer this question, we need only answer one core question: Who benefits?
Whose wealth and power increases with inflation? Whose stature in society grows alongside the government? Who profits from increased spending on wars, prisons, and social programs that are doomed to fail? And most of all… who profits from an explosion in debt?
A certain class of people has the power to not only protect itself from these policies but to profit as well. These people have used the last 40 years to produce massive amounts of paper wealth. And they are now desperately trying to convert those paper accounts into real wealth, which explains the exploding price of farmland and precious metals.
This explosion of wealth at the top of the "food chain" is the main feature of what I call New American Socialism. It's a system fueled by paper money, the constant expansion of debt, and a kind of corruption that's hard to police because it occurs within the boundaries of the law.
Like the European and totalitarian socialism of the last 100 years, New American Socialism harnesses the power of the State to grow and maintain production. Like in traditional socialism, the poor pay the costs of New American Socialism. But unlike socialist systems of the past, this new American version has one critical improvement…
In the New American Socialism, the power of the system produces private profits.
In this way, it provides a huge incentive to entrepreneurs and politicians to work together on behalf of the system. This is what keeps the system going. This is what keeps it from collapsing upon itself. And this, unfortunately, is why the imbalances in the world economy will continue to grow until the entire global monetary system itself implodes.
Regards,
Porter
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4)Iran has secretly tested nuclear-capable missiles – UK Foreign Secretary
British Foreign Secretary William Hague stated Wednesday, June 29: "Iran has also been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in contravention of UN resolution 1929."
This was reported last year and repeated in the face of US and Israeli denials. Hague was the first Western leader to confirm thhese disclosures. Military sources stress Iran plans to launch a monkey into space – and therefore a 330-kilo payload - by the Kavoshgar-5 is evidence it has developed a rocket capable of delivering a nuclear warhead at any point on the planet.
Haguein, a statement to parliament, pointed out Iran had announced plans to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium - "enrichment levels far greater than is needed for peaceful nuclear energy."
Again, military and intelligence sources note the Foreign Secretary's words follow the concentration of large-scale American naval, air and marine forces in the Mediterranean, the Aden and Oman straits, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. This seaborne army is positioned for strikes against targets in Iran, Syria and Libya at 12 hours' notice. It may be safely assumed that Hague's ominous disclosure was pre-arranged with Washington.
In the past month,sources have also quoted several Saudi royal princes as warning that if Iran attained a nuclear capability, it would not be the only Persian Gulf nation to be armed with a nuclear weapon and missiles for its delivery.
As Iran's military exercise went into its third day, Aerospace commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced the launching of the new Ghadir radar system which he said had been "designed and manufactured to discover air targets, stealth planes, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and satellites at low orbits." The system, claimed to have a range of 1,100 kilometers in radius and height of 300 kilometers, was said to be operational in Iran for the first time.
In another blatantly hostile gesture towards the United Sates, Hajizadeh announced Russian military experts had been allowed to examine American drones said to have been shot down in the Persian Gulf for a close-up examination.This disclosure came on top of his announcement Tuesday that the fourteen 2,000-kilometer range missiles tested Tuesday were designed exclusively to hit American bases in Afghanistan and Israel.
He referred to the downed US drones in the plural while not indicating where, when and how they were shot down. The sort of inspection permitted the Russian military delegation of the pilotless aircraft's electronic systems is normally conducted discreetly so as not ruffle relations. This time, it was most unusually made public –not a good message for Russian-US ties especially in view of Moscow's steps against Washington's war on Libya and bid for sanctions against Syria.
By letting Russia know how they were shot down and displaying models constructed by reverse engineering, Tehran and Moscow indicated they shared the secrets of the US drones' vulnerabilities to attack.
Six months ago, Iran announced it had downed two American drones on January 2. At the time, Revolutionary Guards navy commander Ali Fadavi said the planes shot down were among the most modern US navy drones with a long-range capability.
The US Fifth Fleet operating in the Persian Gulf never responded to this Iranian statement but it did not deny it either. Generally, the American navy in the Middle East uses the unmanned MQ-8B Fire Scout helicopter for information-gathering missions, but the Iranians did not specify whether the American drones came from ships or from other air bases in the Middle East.
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5)Nerves Show on Team Obama
Recent scrambling by the president’s political advisers indicates they’re very worried about his reelection chances.
By Josh Kraushaar,
4 Reasons Obama's Advisers Are Worried
It’s been a rough June for the White House. Instead of being able to run a campaign taking credit for economic improvement, President Obama will, according to the latest forecasts, be trying to win four more years amid a grim economy next year. The president’s reelection team, once hoping to run on a “Morning in America” theme now doesn’t have that luxury. No wonder, the president’s advisers over the past month have been making moves that suggest they’re awfully concerned about his prospects:
1. Searching for an economic message. Veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg recently offered perceptive advice to the president’s team by criticizing its “getting the car out of the ditch” metaphor meant to suggest the economy is slowly improving. As Greenberg wrote: “People thought they still were in the ditch.”
This is a time when the president needs to find his inner Bill Clinton, and feel Americans’ pain. If he wants to be one of the few presidents to win reelection in a stagnant economy, he’ll have to devote less time to defending past policies, like the auto bailout, and more to offering specific solutions to help people get back to work. Think a 21st century version of FDR’s fireside chats.
But there are few signs that the president’s economic messaging has changed. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz recently said Democrats own the economy, but they don’t seem to be adapting their message to the bad economy likely to face them in November 2012.
2. Doubling down on manufacturing. The latest White House effort to wring good news out of a bad economy focuses on successes in the manufacturing sector: the auto bailout that put GM and Chrysler on sounder footing, as well as green initiatives.
Politically, it’s a puzzling message. While there has been a small uptick in manufacturing jobs, it’s hardly enough to be felt by the blue-collar electorate, who have been bearing the brunt of the recession and never viewed Obama too favorably in the first place. The latest Gallup weekly tracking poll shows Obama’s approval with college graduates at 51 percent, with a 40 percent approval among nongraduates.
The president’s emphasis on green jobs doesn’t help. It’s tough for many steelworkers to see themselves producing solar panels. Clean-energy jobs may be the future, but they’re not seen by displaced workers as a panacea.
Instead, Obama’s key to winning reelection is solidifying his support with college-educated whites, a swing demographic that has been more receptive to his message, along with high turnout among minorities. His key to victory is rallying white-collar professionals in swing-state suburbs, like Fairfax/Loudoun County, Va.; Wake County, N.C.; Franklin County, Ohio; Bucks County, Pa.; Clark County, Nev.—none hotbeds of manufacturing.
3. Fresh fundraising concerns. With a strong connection to the grassroots and expertise with social networking, President Obama’s reelection team mastered the art of hitting up small donors in the 2008 campaign.
But there are telltale signs that the grassroots army that propelled him is in a much less giving mood. It’s not a huge surprise; the bad economy has hit Obama’s small donors too. When you’re having trouble paying the bills, you’re not exactly pining to pitch in hard-earned money to help a powerful president.
A sign Team Obama is looking elsewhere: A Los Angeles Times report that Obama’s reelection team is already asking wealthy donors to commit the maximum $75,800 to the president’s campaign funds.
If Obama’s re-election starts looking more difficult next year, donors may well be inclined to give to the Democratic Senate and House campaign arms, seeing them as the better investment. But if they’re locked in with early maximum donations to the president’s re-election, that won’t be doable.
4. Raising the stakes in the upper South. Obama’s strategists are raising the stakes in the two battleground upper South states, North Carolina and Virginia.
They’ve never been critical cogs in a presidential strategy. If Team Obama sees them as such in 2012, it suggests the campaign is struggling in states that were comfortably on its side in 2008, particularly those in the Rust Belt.
When I interviewed leading Democratic and Republican strategists about the states toughest for Obama to hold, most were pessimistic about his prospects in North Carolina, a state that he won by just 14,000 votes.
Publicly, his strategists are arguing that the Tar Heel State’s growing numbers of college-educated suburbanites and minorities plays to Obama’s advantage. It’s no coincidence the Democrats are holding next year’s convention in Charlotte.
But if North Carolina looks like a challenge, Virginia looks within Obama’s grasp. Unemployment in the Old Dominion is far lower than most battleground states, and the growth of government jobs in the Washington, D.C., suburbs and a diversifying population play to the Democrats’ favor.
Not everyone on the Democratic side is as optimistic, however. One senior Democratic operative involved with key Virginia races believes Obama would need an African-American turnout close to his historic 2008 levels to win—a tough task in a down economy.
“When folks start to depend on recreating a specific snapshot in time, it is most always a disappointment,” the strategist said.
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