Crimea River; Stay Calm, Rational, and Don’t Repeat The Mistakes of 100 Years Ago

Photo courtesy of the EPA.

That would be my advice.  Truth is, we quickly make Russia into a demon.  They do the same to us.  If there is anything we have learned over 100 years since the Great War started in August 1914,  it is that going to war, should be the last resort…

Back in the early ’90’s upon being given the privilege to look over the Soviet’s intelligence when Communism fell,  we were shocked that all their aggressive actions were seen in their eyes as defensive moves against possible aggression being planned by us….It is best represented by a young officers story from the cold war.  I’ve long forgotten the source, if it comes up later I’ll tag it in…

But a young officer was in charge of a section of the German fence, and on his first shift, received a request for orders and told the reconnaissance  brigade to go 5 more miles along the fence past where they usually turned around.  They called back to say they’d stumbled on fresh movement of troops being maneuvered to that gap on front line we never had bothered to inspect..  After finding our troops were now outnumbered  by their new response, this young officer ordered another brigade to move up from the south.   That brigade also discovered another large number of troops moving in from the eastern reserves to that same point… The officer began to sweat. Was he witnessing on his watch, in his territory, the beginning of the long-feared invasion of Western Europe by the Soviets?  He called up two more brigades and ordered them to dig in around that point.  The Soviets brought up tanks, and lined them up for an invasion… The young officer then picked up the phone…  Far away, the head of command looked over all the evidence… Finally he gave this advice… Pull your troops out, by ten miles…. he did, and the Soviets pulled theirs back as well.  Ok, came the next order. Resume normalcy.  And soon, everything again was routine….

For those that don’t understand war,  the point of the story was, that the young officer caused the crises.  The whole Russian buildup, was because of him.  He made a move the Russians didn’t understand, and since they didn’t understand, they prepared for an attack. As we brought up more, so did they. They were simply matching our moves… Fortunately someone wise enough to understand that he Russians really didn’t want to go to war, stepped in and averted a possible WWIII start-up incident…

As if on cue, already dumb John McCain is rattling swords and demanding we nuke Moscow.  Soon Lindsey Graham will follow as Tweedle Dumb always follows Tweedle Dee… Likewise, Putin will also have his exact same crowd (probably riding Harleys), his group of idiots, clamoring for war as well…

The Western press has already begin its war talk, leading with the condemnation of the Russian Government…  But really, isn’t that a bit premature?   No one has died.  Far less than anything that happened in Kiev earlier this week….

Let’s wear Putin’s shoes for moment….

What if the predominantly Mexican population of San Diego wanted to be aligned with Mexico instead of the USA, all because we couldn’t get Republicans to pass immigration laws.. What if they gathered en masse in San Diego to protest, stayed, burned down government and private buildings.  What if we tried to make them stand down, and it roused up even more Mexicans to their defense.  What if the Mayor fled to Yuma, and camped out in a sanatorium. …   …

What would the US do.  OUR entire Pacific Fleet rests in San Diego… We would probably act prudently. and move outward to expand our perimeter.  We would probably commander all airports and ship docks in that area in order to be able to land reinforcements if necessary.  We would probably park a couple of gunboats facing the city as an intimidating force reminding the Mexicans we had forces they couldn’t get to, so their behavior should keep that in mind.  We’d probably block access roads leading into the port, so an invasion army wouldn’t be able to charge in unannounced…

Just to play devils advocate, what might happen if we took no action to defend ourselves?  As most Americans are asking the Russians to do? We saw the Mexicans had little respect in town for law and order.  There are a lot more of them than there are of us… What if 10,000 of them just walked on to the base, armed with shotguns, hunting rifles, and a few semi automatics.  What if they boarded all our ships, our subs, and put our sailors at gunpoint into the brig, and announced they were in charge of the Baja Mexican Navy… Now the 2nd largest navy in the world.   What would the US do?  Would we sail into our own harbor as did the Free French and blow what used to be our own ships up out of the water?

Of course the Mexicans would say we are invading their new country.  Of course every Spanish tonged nation South of our border would be condemning us for invading Mexican California… despite the fact that a lot of gringos, maybe even a majority, live around San Diego and support our American troops being there and keeping the masses of Mexicans from turning on them….

Point is, we would ourselves, do what Russia just did...

So how can we condemn them, when we have contingency plans to do exactly the same thing?

There is further evidence this is not like Sudetenland, . One, no one has died. It was a smooth peaceful quiet takeover, textbook by American Standards.   Two, action is isolated to the port and Crimea.  Three,  all evidence points to these actions solely for the purpose of controlling access to the base.

As Americans we would laugh at Europe, Russia, and China telling us to abandon San Diego.  There are a lot of similarities between that and the Russian base. The number one move now appears to be: for the Kiev Ukraine government to insist that the base will forever stay Russian, and guarantee the safety of all Russians living on Crimea… Second, it should state that the current administration insists  there will be no change for those who like having Russians close by. For that select group, there will be only two options.  Life goes either goes on the same; or it gets better.  The third option that it may get worse, is forever off the table.. .

It would be the equivalent of that American young officer calling off his men, and telling them to retreat backwards 10 miles..  it would be the opposite of what happened 100 years ago, where threats begot threats and soon rigid plans took effect and not one leader had the chutzpah to stop it from going forward.  6 million soldiers died, 15 million civilians died, and a whole generation of young men was wiped out.  Girls had to marry men their father’s age.. and in the end  Western Europe’s borders were right back where they were before the whole event started.

Cool heads must prevail.  Of course the McCains will spout off.  They don’t matter.  What matters is that we treat the Russians with respect just as we would like them to do for us, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were fighting the battle of San Diego…..

It Is The Presses’ Fault; Speaking Of The Sequester

We’ve all dealt with duplicity.  Where someone will complain loudly behind their bosses back and as soon as he pops into the room, they flip and lavish praise, sometimes to the point of criticizing others in the same room….

Today I listened to WDEL’s two talk show hosts, and Allan Loudell during his two news broadcasts.

Of the three, Al Mascitti was the most honest, Allan the second, and Rick Jensen …. not even plausible.  Let me explain.

Al Mascitti laid out the facts.  The sequester was small compared to the overall budget, but the people it hurt, were the ones who not only had no safety net but nowhere else to go.   The sequester could have been, and would have been prevented if the Republicans had not filibustered the Senate bill to raise the revenue from those who could easily have afforded: the top one percent.

Allan Loudell was neutral and baited both sides.  I believe I counted four times he asked leading questions that would suggest it was both side’s fault that this bad sequester bill was passed.  I believe I counted three of the four who all laid the blame solidly on the Republicans.  However,  why was this even brought up? Any impartial observer like a journalist from another nation, can easily see off of any newscast that the Democrats are running around the country trying to avert the sequester and warn America ahead of time about its effects, while the Republicans are doing nothing!  In fact, they are gloating over how they pulled the sequester off ……   It is disingenuous to even pretend this is not completely a Republican debacle;  one forced upon the nation by their party and their party alone, and forced in such a way, that Democrats were powerless to prevent it from being fulfilled…..

Rick Jensen, … oh my.  His time was spent trying to pin the sequester on Jack Lew, because Jack Lew was the person Bernstein said originally brought it up…  Therefore only in his mind, is it a Democratic machination.   There was no mention of course, that it was a Republican filibuster that prevented the solid alternative from reaching a vote.  There was no mention that it was all the Republicans who agreed upon the sequester, and voted for it.  There was no mention that a budget act without the sequester attached, was vetoed by every single Republican when it came up for a vote, and that the sequester was only passed, because the Republicans all piled on to push it through….

And here is how he tried to explain all the press reports to the contrary.  “Oh, the press is part of Obama’s team.  They are all lying and twisting things to make it look like it’s the Republicans are the ones who made this sequester happen….. ”  

Upon hearing this misstatement, one must readily ask themselves, hey, wait a minute! Since the press is rather hostile to Obama, perhaps reality IS that they are indeed telling the truth, (and nothing but the truth), and perhaps Rick Jensen is dismissing that truth, and all the facts supporting it, because it makes his side look really bad….

Most people will probably accept the latter before the former. After all, only 24% of voters today will admit grudgingly that they were once Republican.

And here is the problem for the rest of us.  If the press can’t straight up tell the truth, how can the American people ever know?  If the press tries very hard to contort reality into making this appear an even handed event when it certainly is not, they are doing the public a disservice by not informing the public of the reality taking place before their faces….

So, why are we not being informed Republicans filibustered that piece of legislation that would have prevented the sequester?  That alone, makes them the culprits.  You cannot filibuster a bill that will prevent something, and then say… It wasn’t us; it’s the other sides fault.

So, why is only Al Mascitti telling the truth, and nothing but the truth at WDEL these days?

There absolutely, unequivocally, irresolutely is no way Democrats are culpable to the sequestration…  This is absolutely, unequivocally, and irresolutely the Republican’s mismanagement that put us into this predicament…. Pure and simple.

If you don’t know that.  You are not reading news.  You are reading make-believe….. The most frustrating part of the latest frame of the budget war has been that the media’s fetish for evenhandedness prevents us from seeing the simplest truth…..

More Information On Tony DeLuca

The amount Tony DeLuca spent to the Washington DC firm that is sending you all these pamphlets in the mail……

$60,497.77

None of that came from you… It came from banks, from loan sharks, from power companies, from cable companies, from collections companies, from investment companies, from insurance companies, and from development companies.

In fact, ironically, every single bill that you get in your mail telling you owe them money,…. supports Tony DeLuca….

People in his district have never heard of him, until the $60,407.77 of pamphlets started clogging their mailboxes…

Really, Tony, you are too busy to come to any local meetings? You bump local constituents because you have a bankers meeting? And you don’t even know the boundaries of your district (was caught campaigning in the wrong district)…?

You don’t even know who we are, but because you have a Washington DC Political consultant paste your pictures overtop stock photos of constructions workers, overtop stock pictures of school classrooms, overtop stock family pictures….. you think you deserve our vote?

Wnen we needed something, did you help us? No?

Then fair is fair….

Bryan Townsend has been in every neighborhood at least 5 times since this election season started. We know him. If we ever needed someone to interfere and stand up for us between us and people who are wrongly trying to take our money… Tony, really, who do think is going to back us?

One Number says it all…. $60,497 dollars…

This primary, people, we need to send a message, that yes, we the people have needs too… One vote can make that happen across the whole state of Delaware; one vote will drive fear in the hearts of our bill collectors, one vote will take away the protection these guys have had for years… That is a vote for Bryan Townsend.

Because Bryan doesn’t yet know those guys. He knows us….

Do NOT! Do Not Vote For Andrew Cherry, Val Harris, Patricia Oliphant, [ Stricken] Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx. Do Not Vote For These

They are shills.   They may be nice people too, to be honest I don’t know,  but they are shills….  It’s like voting for a candidate endorsed by Dick Cheney.   Ewwwwww.

You know there has to be an ulterior motive, somewhere.

Johanne Johanson — Red Clay

Patricia Oliphant  —  Indian River

Val Harris  —  Christiana

Andrew Cherry —  Appoquinimink 

Why I Read The Foreign Press Instead of The Crap Found In American Ones

I’m printing this article in full: tell me, where in America can you find journalism this “fair and balanced”?

Another crisis in the horizon?

A | A | A |
Winarno Zain, Jakarta | Tue, 07/19/2011 7:00 AM A | A | A |

It seems the world economy has faced endless threats preventing it from sailing smoothly into a strong recovery this year.

First there was the Greek debt crisis that jolted several major banks, and then a political uprising in the Middle East that pushed up oil prices, and then a tsunami in Japan that disrupted manufacturing activities in many countries.

The world economy has not fully dusted off the adverse impacts of these three events. Yet another headwind is looming large on the horizon. This time it is the possible default of the US government of its debt on Aug. 2, if the US Congress fails to approve an increase to its debt ceiling as requested by President Barack Obama. By that date, the US government debt would have reached its maximum allocated limit of US$14.3 trillion.

The current negotiation between representatives of Democratic and Republican parties on the US budget deficit has run into a deadlock, and so the possibility is real that there won’t be any substantial agreements reached, since the dateline is nearing. Major rating agencies such as Standard and Poor, and Moody’s have warned they are ready to downgrade the US government debt rating from top grade AAA.

This would be the first time in 90 years that the US government debt has been downgraded.

It is not hard to imagine what will happen if by Aug. 2 the US government has exhausted its credit ceiling and can not get additional debt to pay for its spending needs.

The US government would have to curb its spending, and because some of these relate to payments to government employees, pensioners and other social benefits, this would strike a severe blow to the consumer spending that is so essential to the US economic recovery.

With debt default and credit rating downgrades, it would be difficult for the US government to get loans. Faced with increasing risk, investors would ask for higher returns for US government bonds. This would push interest rate higher, further depressing the economic recovery.

The US dollar would plunge, triggering a surge in commodity prices and another round of inflation around the world. A deadly combination of inflation and economic stagnation could spin the world economy into a tailspin as happened in the early 1970’s.

How would this worst case scenario affect the Indonesian economy? As capital flows out of the US, investors have tended to seek safe havens elsewhere. Commodities, especially gold and oil, would be their first targets. Emerging markets could be the next destination of this capital flight, depending on the assessment of investors on the strength of its economy and their vulnerability and exposure to the US economic fallout.

But financial crises always result in a loss of confidence and produce negative sentiments in the financial markets. They put financial markets into disarray, and as investors panic, capital starts flowing out of emerging economies.

During the global financial crisis in 2008-2009, capital moved out from emerging economies back to the advanced economies. At that time, the US government bonds and commodities like gold were considered safe havens.

If the US government defaults on its debt payment this time, the question is will the situation change? Will the US government bonds still be considered a safe haven for investors? If not, then where else will they put their money? Or maybe they would prefer to keep their money in the same place and not move it anywhere. If so, the Indonesian economy could get some benefit and may not have to face another shock.

In the longer term, however, the situation may change. No country is immune to the negative ripples of a US economic crisis. As US imports plunge from weakening domestic demand, exports from emerging countries will also suffer. The extent to which these negative impacts affect each country will depend on their trading and banking exposure to the US economy.

What is disturbing about this debt talk is the use of this debate as a political game. This is especially apparent in the Republican stance.

Economist, market analyst and CEOs of financial institutions and even the IMF itself have warned that if Congress fails to raise the ceiling of the US government debt, the world economy would slip into deep recession.

The Republicans did not fully accept Obama’s proposal to raise the debt ceiling. They only agree on a smaller number, but even it was given with some conditions. The Republicans asked Obama not to raise taxes, especially for the wealthy, and Obama should cut social spending, a sacred cow for the Democrats.

By using tit for tat tactics in the negotiation and by seemingly ignoring the impending consequences and dangers, the Republicans were trying to push Obama into an intricate political dilemma.

If the US economy slip into another crisis, economic contraction would be inevitable. Corporate bankruptcies would spread, and jobless rate would surge.

A presidential election is still slightly more than one year away, and Obama’s reelection prospects are solid. But his popularity rating is highly dependent on the unemployment rate. That is why the Republicans think the only way for them to erode Obama’s popularity now is by pushing the US economy into crisis.

As the stakes are high, the two political parties should temporarily set aside their ideologies and adopt a pragmatic stance for the interests of saving the world economy from another catastrophe.

President Obama demonstrated his willingness to compromise his political ideology during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Being a Democrat, Obama’s political inclination is generally anti-big business.

Obama realized that it was reckless lending by some big banks on Wall Street that triggered the financial crisis. But he also realized that saving these banks from bankruptcy was key to saving the world economy from further disaster.

His decision to pour $800 billion of taxpayer’s money to bail out these banks was hard to swallow by his fellow party members, but it worked. Now it is expected that the Republicans will be willing to do likewise.

The writer is an economist.

Republicans Cost to the World Today….. $1.2 Trillion

The global markets lost 1% today… Actually that is pretty good. The losses stemmed over the fact that Republicans won’t allow new revenue to enhance our failing budget…….

Like George Washington, they want to apply more leeches (tax cuts) which eventually will bleed the father of our country dry, and kill him dead.

There are great ideas to get around the impasse……

One was so close last week in which Obama and Boehner had come almost to a 4$ Trillion Deal… It was so, so close. Boehner was about to become the Alexander Hamilton of the 21st Century: Historians would forever know him as the man who brought America back from economic ruin…….

But Boehner’s owner, jerked hard on his leash… cracking Boehner’s trachea. He then spun Boehner to the ground, and applied zip strips to his wrists and ankles. He then tazed Boehner repeatedly. For the first time in his life, Boehner did not cry. He was then strapped to a board, tilted backwards into a tank of water, and held for 45 seconds, over 111 times. He was then blindfolded and pummelled with cans of Pepsi, embedded in old cotton socks, leaving no evidence. He then poked with a tube, in his (you know where) and the other end was attached to a fire hydrant.

The next morning, Boehner said the deal was off; he refused to return Obama’s calls.

Leaks from those working for his owners, tell us the taxes on the wealthy 1% were the sole reason Boehner was given “the treatment”… It’s a damn shame; for a package of $3 trillion in cuts, (yes, includes modifications to SS and Medicare) and a Trillion in tax increases on the top 1%… would shake the dynamics of our economy.

It would spur investment here in America.
It would therefore create jobs.
It would stop the uncertainty where America was financially headed.
It would prevent the immediate loss to our economy of $4 billion a day.
It would reduce the deficit over time, and save money spent paying interest, which could then be used for services.
It would be the proper step at this time in the direction we need to go.

But, if the US defaults on its debt, nothing in the financial markets is sacred, and when nothing is sacred, that… causes panics…

And a panic in 1929… caused the Great Depression. A panic in 2008, caused the mess we’re in right now.

The world’s managed wealth is $122 trillion… A one percent drop.. is $1.2 trillion. That is the amount, that one half, of one third our government,… cost the world today.

They are kids, playing with a live junction box… Sticking a screwdriver in the wrong hole, burns down the entire house……

(At $50,000 a job, today’s loss is the financial equivalent of putting 24 million human beings out of work)

What We Need

We need a media that tells the truth…

I didn’t know this but up north in Canada, they actually have a law on their books, that says: “a licenser may not broadcast….any false or misleading news.”

Canada regulators today announced they would reject efforts by Canada’s right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada.

The simple question we all must ask, has to be:….. why can’t Fox broadcast in Canada if everything said has to be truthful?

Apparently right wing news is nothing but lies….  I mean, if you have to change the law just so you can broadcast…….  and that law states: “a licenser may not broadcast….any false or misleading news”, well…. go figure.

From Dro at the Daily Kos:  “Because of this Canadian law, political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper’s proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, “Sun TV News” which Canadians call “Fox News North.”

So when you require your news source to be accurate, you have civil discussions, sort of the way we all look back on politics and wish we still could, but when you remove the “Fairness Doctrine”, as was done by Ronald Reagan, you open the doors to Crazy Eileen, Birthers, Swift Boats, and Penis Heads running for office.

Hmmm.

I wish someone in the US had enough balls to at least submit a bill in the US Congress, requiring all news to be accurate in its reporting, whether it’s from the left or right, and then…. see which side rises up crying against it the most… I wonder which side that would be?

The downward trend makes sense if you think about it… It actually happens here on blogs as well.

If you have any assembly gathered together for discussion, and someone takes a big dump right in the middle of the floor, whenever it is that the assembly is finished, to the outside observers, everyone exiting the room through the door, still carries the sweet aroma of shit on their clothes… Allowing one person to falsify information, opens the door for all to….

We need a similar law. Not right, not left, just truth.

An Armed Service Day Look at Treason

A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad, at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no “direct operational link” with al Qaida.

600,000.

By investigation, however, it was found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

Vast majority.

The decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

Our official policy was known to become the subject of lawsuits.

While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq’s links with al Qaida, which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

False information was used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

The administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.

Ignored warnings from its own experts.

A bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Top officials approved of the humiliation of prisoners of war.

Cheney said that the Bush administration “moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks.” The former vice president didn’t point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.

Resources were diverted from finding Osama towards invading Iraq.

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

No proof interrogations kept America safe… they prolonged the war.

Bottom line…

Torture was sanctioned by Vice President Cheney so it could be used solely to offer credulity to the invasion of Iraq, where there was oil.

America invaded for oil… America tortured for oil, … Every dead American soldier coming back from Iraq, died for oil….

On Armed Forces Day, it would be wise to question whether our members of the American military deserve better.. As individual citizens of this great country, we must make sure that no other future leader misrepresents the American way and abuses our system for their own private gain, as did Dick Cheney

Now as private citizen, it is time that the articles of treason be filed on Dick Cheney, former Vice President of the United States…

After all, he is innocent until proven guilty, but at least the opportunity to hold him accountable, must be taken now. For if no one is ever held accountable, then what is to stop the madness from ever occurring again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and …..

Any person continuing to support private citizen Dick Cheney’s contention’s, should also be viewed as a suspect who is actively working against the best interests of all branches of the United States Armed Forces.

Happy Memorial Day.

No Open Government This Year

Due to lack of an outcry by bloggers and citizenry in general, the Democrats elected the same three who stifled open government in 2007 and 2008,… back in to chair things during 2009.

All three were unopposed in their party’s caucus. This year there are not enough Republicans to make a difference when they vote them in at a later date.

Karen Peterson did not vote. I think her comment was that none of them supported open government anyway….

I cannot shake the silly notion that if everyone reading this post, just mailed Adams a dildo with open government stenciled on the side, and we leaked the details of that protest to the national media, it would be considered a very appropriate form of protest, considering the situation……….

It would forever alter the way Senator Adams would be remembered by history and by his posterity.

Peggy Noonan

Thanks to the Digital Federalist for bringing this statement to light…….

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

Yep, there is something wrong within the Republican party, top down…

Therefore if there is any hope for them, it lies in those coming from the bottom up.