Rabbi Jonathan Hausman as part of his ongoing ‘Speaker Series’ invited Admiral Ace Lyons (Ret.), Frank Gaffney, and Clare Lopez to speak on national security issues facing our country.
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I sometimes wonder why I bother writing anything but Ruth Hank pie recipes (Mom could have patented some of her recipes, quite honestly). I can’t remember how many times I have reported things that ought to be obvious to everyone with a broad view of world events, and then a year or two later, sure enough, someone else reports essentially the same thingas “news” and everyone acts shocked.
Just for example, last December, I showed that the Chinese RMB (yuan) was destined to challenge the dollar mightily within a very short time. It was a no-brainer. I presented a brief analysis and my translation of an interview with China’s top monetary policy expert who reported, among other things, that RMB clearing centers were popping up all over Europe as well as in Asia. His statements tied in with what I had said earlier about the worldwide dedollarization campaign, which was being absurdly ignored by the most “respected” U.S. media outlets, depriving you of any inkling of what was inevitably coming your way and hence of any chance to prepare for it. But of course, who would trust a news report from a web site without a donate button?
Hence, the world was later shocked to learn that almost every single U.S. ally had abandoned the U.S.-dominated World Bank/IMF in favor of the Chinese investment bank AIIB, despite Obama’s stern warnings. I showed that this was most likely in part a response to the way these agencies bullied Third World countries, denying them any respect whatsoever for their national sovereignties.
But getting back to Wikileaks and the Soros revelations, anyone paying attention to George Soros’ TV interview with Fareed Zakarias in May of 2014 had to know that Soros was at least one of the masterminds of the Maidan armed uprising in Kiev. Especially if they read my analysis of that interview.
Yet most people reading the recent Wikileaks report proving that Soros was in fact virtually the sole mastermind behind that coup are reacting as if said recent report of Soros’ involvement were blockbusting news.
The fact is, Soros gave away his dirty secret in that interview, for example, in this segment from May of 2014, over a year ago:
ZAKARIA: […deletia…] … during the revolutions of 1989 [you] funded a lot of dissident activities, civil society groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doing similar things in Ukraine?
SOROS: Well, I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now. [my highlighting]
Arch-Neocon Soros also blasts Russia’s Putin in this interview, claiming he “came out of the closet” as a nationalist through his protection of the Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine. I showed that this was nonsense because, unlike the supranational Satanists like Soros and most Western “national” leaders, Putin instinctively desires to protect his people, in contrast to the US government, which has no clear cut singular purpose at all in its foreign interventions beyond pretending to protect a set of undefined “Western values” and most certainly would never be caught protecting American lives (I later pointed out that the only unifying aspect of US foreign and military policy was that it invariably redounds to the promotion of Saudi interests). Unlike U.S. presidents, Putin does not see himself as President of the World, but merely president of Russia and protector of Russian interests, nothing else. In fact if Putin is guilty of anything in the eyes of the Western hegemons, it is humility and a love of his country. What a horrible man!
The point is, Soros’ unfounded anti-Putin remarks and his admission that his foundation played “an important part” in the “events now” in Ukraine are solid evidence that the powerful amoral supranational Neocon elites like Soros are not only behind the Ukraine tragedy but also behind all or most of the Russophobia and Putin bashing in the Western press and political world. (An intelligent American patriot will instinctively reject this bashing of a man whose only purpose in intervening in Eastern Ukraine was to protect his own peopleagainst the Nazi-infested Ukrainian military which bombs innocent civilians from the air).
Now just recently, Wikileaks leaked what I had leaked to you over a year ago simply by taking Soros at his word. If you listened to or read this interview carefully in light of my analysis at the time, you heard Soros’ unequivocal confession and knewfull well back then, a full year ago, that he was at least one of the culprits in blowing Ukraine apart.
In light of the above, I am hereby starting an “I was shocked” contest.
To enter, please submit photos of your shocked look when you heard the recent Wikileaks revelation of the news I reported to you last May.
Address: zoilandon@msn.com
RELATED ARTICLE: Trade agreements like TiSA, TPP and TTIP will sideline national laws, Wikileaks says
Napoleon Bonaparte purportedly said “Let China sleep, for when China wakes, she will shake the world.”
As Thomas J. Christensen, the author of his recently published “The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power”, reminds us, “For millennia China was arguably the greatest civilization on the planet and for many previous centuries its most powerful empire.”
China is no longer an empire, but it remains a huge nation geographically and huge in terms of its population.
From the website worldometers.info, we learn:
Christensen is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Currently he is the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics and director of the China and World Program at Princeton University. After reading his book, you might well conclude that there is little about China and Asia he does not know.
We are mostly dependent on various news stories about China to have any idea what is occurring, but the fact remains that just as the U.S. has its optimists and pessimists, conservatives and liberals who influence policy the same exists for China, so a lot depends on who is being quoted. Generally, though, it is only the top leaders who are. That means we are getting the Chinese “party line” and the occasional general or admiral warning against any aggression.
China did not begin to awaken as a modern nation until after the death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, a Communist with a capital “C.” Christensen notes that, while keeping its political ideology, the leader that followed him made a “peaceful transformation launched under CCP leader Deng Xiaopping in 1978 and the collapse of the superpower Soviet Union thirteen years later that made China appear to stand tall again among the great powers.” The transitition was to a capitalist-based economy.
These days the Chinese and the Russians are making efforts to achieve areas of cooperation and, in particular, their militaries. They hold drills together for common defense strategies.
Christensen believes that “China’s return to great power status is perhaps the most important challenges in twenty-first century American diplomacy”, but to put that in context he points out that “China’s per capita income is only one fifth that of the United States” and “though a true trade superpower, many of its exporters are controlled at least in part by foreign investors.”
“Still, the pessimists do not give enough credit to the sustainability of U.S. leadership in Asia,” says Christensen. “For example, they often underestimate the value of American’s unparalleled network of allies and security partners.” You can be sure that the Chinese leadership does not.
They also have, as one would expect, concerns about U.S. military power in their area of the world, but they feel the same about Japan and South Korea as well. “China is not currently an enemy of the United States,” says Christensen, nor is it likely to be for a long time to come.
“It does not need to be contained like the (former) Soviet Union. Nor should China become the kind of regional or global adversary that we have faced in the past, although that outcome, unfortunately, is still a distinct possibility.” That possibility depends on China’s leadership now and in the future. For now they are concentrating on their economy and are likely to do so for many years to come.
“China’s economic clout is real and growing rapidly, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. China has been the main engine of growth for the world’s economy since that time and, by some measures, has become the world’s number one trading state.” There is only one reason why the U.S. has not yet recovered from the financial crisis and his name is Barack Obama.
I suspect that Obama is held in disdain by the Chinese leadership despite all the public handshakes. For one thing, China weathered the financial crisis far better than the U.S. “One of the burdens the new Obama administration inherited in early 2009 was a China bearing a mix of cockiness and insecurity that would negatively influence its policies in 2009-2010,” says Christensen and as the U.S. foundered in Afghanistan and Iraq “American power inspired less awe.”
“Sometime in 2012, the ‘Asia pivot’” of the Obama administration “would be jettisoned in Washington for the more subtle ‘Asia rebalance.’” If you get the feeling that the Obama administration has no real China policy or one that will have little influence, you are right.
With regard to China, It likely does not matter what the Obama administration does for its remaining one and a half years in office.
Various scholars and diplomats will continue to keep a watchful eye on China and most surely many corporate leaders and U.S. entrepreneurs will do so as well given its huge population as a marketplace. It’s already a great tourist destination.
Napoleon was right.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
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For years, a bust of John James Cowperthwaite sat prominently in the foyer of Jimmy Lai’s Next Media office in Hong Kong, along with others of economists F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman. If that’s all you ever knew about Jimmy Lai, you could at least surmise that he loves liberty and free markets.
Cowperthwaite had been the architect of Hong Kong’s free market miracle. He started with a destitute rock and turned it into one of the world’s freest and most prosperous economies. (Indeed, I’ve suggested that he deserves to be recognized annually and everywhere with a Cowperthwaite Day on the anniversary of his birth date, April 25.) Jimmy Lai is precisely the sort of individual that Cowperthwaite had in mind when he decided that entrepreneurs, not central planners, should drive an economy. Because of what Cowperthwaite had done, Jimmy Lai found a hero himself. And Lai, too, would go on to do great things.
Of the characteristics most often identified with successful entrepreneurship, Jimmy Lai possesses them all in abundance. He is a self-starter who takes initiative (and risk) with enthusiasm. He’s creative and intuitive. He’s passionate and tenacious. Where others see problems, he sees opportunity. He’s a visionary, both in business endeavors and for society at large. He doesn’t hesitate to defy conventional wisdom when it points to a dead end. Whatever he undertakes, he musters the courage to act. He puts his all — money, time, and energy — where his mouth is (and where his convictions are).
On paper, Lai’s early life would seem unlikely to produce a “real hero.” He was born in China the year before it fell under Mao Zedong’s dictatorial rule. Lai was smuggled out of the country and into Hong Kong at age 12. In the absence of child-labor laws, which would have ensured his deprivation there, too, Lai went to work in a garment factory for $8 a month. Fifteen years later, he bought his own garment factory and built it into the giant known as Giordano, now a leading international retailer. Lai’s boundless entrepreneurial zeal, free to operate within Hong Kong’s laissez-faire business environment, yielded jobs for thousands and consumer goods for millions.
But in 1989, Beijing’s infamous Tiananmen Square massacre set Jimmy Lai on a new course. With Hong Kong scheduled to be transferred from British to Chinese rule in just eight years, Lai knew that maintaining traditional freedoms under Beijing’s rule would be a challenge. So he ventured into media, creating what soon became the territory’s largest-circulation magazines,Sudden Weekly and Next. In spite of Beijing’s coercion of advertisers, Jimmy Lai’s tabloid-style newspaper, Apple Daily, is still the premier voice in Asia for the freedoms of speech, press, and enterprise.
Jimmy Lai does not shrink from controversy. The Communist Party of China, he wrote in a 1994 column, is “a monopoly that charges a premium for a lousy service.” He defended the student demonstrators when they went into the streets by the hundreds of thousands in late 2014 in defense of democracy. He routinely exposed corruption in both government and business, including the especially toxic brand of corruption that arises when the two get in bed together. He sold Giordano, the apparel firm he founded, to save it from Beijing’s intense pressure, but he refuses to this day to renounce his principles.
In December 2014, he revealed that he was stepping down as publisher of Apple Daily and chairman of Next Media to devote more time to family and personal interests. A month later, and for the second time, unknown assailants firebombed his home. He remains under intense scrutiny from Beijing, which regularly employs ugly rumors, threats of litigation, and other nefarious means to undermine his influence.
Earlier this year, Lai told the New York Times that he never planned to make his media empire into a family dynasty. His six children (ages 8 to 37) are not in line as heirs to that business or its leadership positions. “I don’t think I should ask my kids to inherit my business, because they can’t start where I did,” he said. “I was from the street. I’m a very different make of person. I’ve been a fighter all my life.”
Whatever the future holds for Jimmy Lai, friends of liberty everywhere can count him as one very brave man.
For additional information:
In the Freeman:
Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s.
EDITORS NOTE:
The Foundation for Economic Education is pleased to present a weekly feature every Friday by our president, Lawrence W. Reed, commencing April 24, 2015. Real Heroes is expected to run for approximately one year. Each week, Mr. Reed will briefly relate the stories of people whose choices and actions make them heroes.
Mr. Reed has personally met many heroes himself. In a 2007 essay on one of them, Sir Nicholas Winton, he wrote, “The truest hero does not think of himself as one, never advertises himself as such, and does not perform the acts that make him a hero for either fame or fortune. He does not wait for government to act if he senses an opportunity to fix a problem himself.”
The people Reed will write about will not be the well-known, usual suspects. Often, they will be men and women you’ve never heard of, from the distant past to the present day. In every case, they will be individuals who deserve notice and appreciation. They will exemplify one or more of the character traits Reed wrote about in his short book, Are We Good Enough for Liberty?— traits he regards as critical to the flourishing of a free society.
Each week, a new essay will be added to the table of contents. When the series runs its course, the collection will all be published in multiple digital-book formats.
Last week we anticipated that no deal would be better than a bad deal. But this week it seems hard to know exactly what deal has been agreed. Each of the parties in the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capability seems to have a different interpretation of what the much-heralded framework deal contains or means. But what is clear is that the framework is not only bad, but sloppy.
As HJS’s new briefing out this week makes clear, there is not even any single agreed upon framework proposal in the deal. Indeed, as our briefing outlines, the joint Iranian-EU statement made on 2 April had a number of differences to the one made by President Obama on the same day. Indeed the French fact-sheet on the framework contradicts the U.S. version, with the U.S. one appearing more stringent and implying sanctions relief would be staged – a claim that is, in turn, denied by Iran.
There seems to be an ongoing dispute over what has been agreed in regard to inspections. There is an ongoing lack of clarity on what this all now means for regional proliferation (in particular now that every other country will want to get their own nuclear assurance). And there is a deeply disconcerting anomaly about the number of centrifuges Iran needs. The framework deal seems to allow Iran to have 6,000 centrifuges, when it is generally agreed that the country would require no more than 2,000, if this were truly about the country’s search for nuclear technology limited solely for civilian use.
In all of its negotiations, Iran appears to have played a steady and consistent hand. But this is in stark contrast to the shifting moves by the P5+1. Only eighteen months ago President Obama agreed that the Fordow facility, its heavy water reactor and advanced centrifuges, were not necessary for the development of a civilian nuclear capability. Under the framework that seems to have been agreed in Switzerland, all of these capabilities remain in place.
So why the anomalies and why the uncertainties? Because it seems at present that the P5+1 agreement in Lausanne is aimed more at instilling confidence back home in the West than it is about coming to the best deal to prevent Iranian enrichment and development beyond civilian levels. There has been a steadily rising opposition to this deal from the general public in the U.S. and at the highest levels of experienced policy-makers, bolstered this week by the intervention of Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. The administration in Washington appears to be trying to placate this position while also trying to placate the Iranians. If there is a reason why the framework so far seems such a fudge it is because these two positions cannot be reconciled.
But neither can they both be danced around for long. The end aim of this process should not be to buy off critics of the Obama administration in Washington, but rather to prevent Iran from ever acquiring weapons grade nuclear capability. From the reaction to the agreement so far it seems that the Obama administration has achieved the impressive feat of failing in both these objectives.
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESKThere is a 50:50 chance of a war between the USA and China in the next 15 years. Not my words, but those of Professor Christopher Coker, the world’s leading international relations academic and a visiting speaker at HJS this week.
It would be fair to say that despite its size and growing importance on the world stage, China is a subject under-discussed in the UK. There are very few Sinologists located here, and political and media opinion on the subject tend to be dominated by the economic relationship – with the odd nod to human rights concerns when our leaders think they can get away with pointing out China’s many abuses without incurring its wrath in the form of trade restrictions in return. This is a pattern witnessed across Europe, where the relationship with China has become completely unbalanced in China’s favour, and our leaders are wary of speaking the truth for fear of offending a vital trading partner.
But as Professor Coker reminded us, ‘in times of peace, prepare for war’. China is the only real global challenger to the U.S., and therefore to our own liberal democratic and economic system, but it sees the international system today as made in America. This does not fit with the vision of a nation which was the world’s dominant power before 1820 and sees itself as returning to that trajectory.
Nothing is predetermined of course, and there are doves as well as hawks within the Chinese leadership. But the latter will have been emboldened and even inspired by Russia’s example of remaking the international system in its neighbourhood. Given the many tinderbox situations in East and South East Asia which have China as one of the potential protagonists, is it so far-fetched to assume that China will not at least try to probe the U.S. commitment of security guarantees for many of its neighbours in a bid to start supplanting U.S. influence in its own backyard?
As we have seen over the past few years, our leaders are often fixated by short-term threats rather than the ones just over the horizon. Coker’s analysis reminds us of the importance of vigilance in international affairs. And it deserves to be taken seriously.
Dr. Alan Mendoza
Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society
Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza
“Will the Middle East explode in 2015” is the name of our three-part series looking at the tension in Israel, the instability in Yemen and the consequences of a new King in Saudi Arabia together with the advance of Iran more deeply onto this region.
This series is a must see for anyone concerned about the national security of the United States of America!
Don’t miss the excellent presentation by Mark Langfan and Eric Stakelbeck on the oil fields of Saudi Arabia that the Iranians want to steal!
To listen to Episode 1 click here.
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Business Insider July 18, 2014 reports:
The People’s Liberation Army Navy auxiliary general intelligence ship has been operating within the United States 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around Hawaii, but not within the 12-nautical-mile territorial seas, said Capt. Darryn James, spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor….
China’s uninvited fifth ship — a Type 815 Dongdiao-class intelligence vessel named Beijixing — is operating a safe distance away from the Hawaiian coast and the other 50 ships taking part in the exercise “in accordance with international law” ….
“Now we learn they chose to disrespect the 20 other international participants by sailing an intelligence gathering ship directly into the middle of the exercise,” Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, told USNI. “It is clear China is not ready to be a responsible partner and that their first trip to RIMPAC should probably be their last.”
Chinese type 815 Dongdiao-class intelligence vessel spying.
WSJ: …Beijing has long argued—in opposition to international norms and the consensus of the vast majority of nations (pdf) —that it has the authority to prevent surveillance activities outside its territorial waters but within its claimed EEZ. On this basis, it has bitterly opposed lawful U.S. surveillance activities and engaged in dangerous harassment of U.S. platforms involved in them, most prominently in the Impeccable Incident of 2009.
Now, driven by its own maritime interests and trajectory, China is shifting on this issue, pursuing approaches that will complicate future opposition to similar U.S. surveillance activities.
“Chinese maritime intelligence collection operations increased in 2012,” the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Samuel Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April last year, “with historic first such missions into the Indian Ocean and within the U.S. exclusive economic zones off of Guam and Hawaii .” China’s acknowledgement at the 2013 Shangri La Dialogue of its conducting military surveillance in America’s undisputed EEZ may presage reduced opposition to similar activities in China’s own EEZ as China rises as a maritime power with access interests of its own.
For now, however, Beijing is living a contradiction while Washington adheres to long-established principles (pdf)….
October, 2013: Report: Chinese Spy Ship Operating Near Hawaii
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of a type 815 Dongdiao-class intelligence vessel deployed off Hawaii — Beijixing #851
Speaking to a group of awestruck Chinese citizens, Michelle Obama recounted her years of oppression as a victim of racism and how she survived the American extermination camps.
“There were laws in America that discriminated against people like me because of the color of our skin,” said Michelle. A sharp inward gasp was heard as the interpreter finished her comment in Mandarin.
Still haunted by laws that were no longer in effect when she was born, Michelle outlined her plight as she endured racism in Princeton University, and narrowly escaped death at Harvard Law School. Tears were seen streaming down the cheeks of some of the visibly moved Chinese citizens.
“Sometimes we had to say no to caviar, or no to a really expensive Italian sports car because we just couldn’t afford it,” Michelle Obama recalled, her voice breaking, as one Chinese woman fainted and another one began sobbing uncontrollably.
However, when Michelle recalled the glorious day when her husband was chosen as the Democrat Party candidate for president – the day when she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life – triumphant cheers broke out and she received a standing ovation.
Audience interviews showed just how significantly impressed the Chinese people were with the story of the First Lady’s painful ordeal. One young woman said, “Michelle give me hope that someday I make something of self. I not know how many opportunity I have in China until I hear how bad America be to black women.”
Another woman, who attended with her daughter, wiped away tears as she admitted, “I wish my other two children be with me to hear inspiring speech by so great woman, but number two child and number three child aborted by state. Still, I not know how good I have it until I hear how she suffer so big.”
An elderly man, who was leaning on an off-brand cane, also wished more could have been present. “If only more than eleven of my village survive Great Leap Forward, then more could hear elegant speech. I so happy state let me live to hear how bad America, and now I can die.”
After a brief time of handshakes, hugs, and selfies, Michelle Obama went on to continue her tour and spread her message of hope, made possible by statism.
If you Google the words “cyber attacks” you will get 164 million results. So where is our government on defending you and me against this growing peril? According to experts like John Jorgenson, CEO and founding partner of the Sylint Group, our government is woefully behind the times in capability and capacity to deal with the threat of cyber attacks let alone the cyber warfare being conducted on a global scale by nation states such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
Today the cry across America is the cyber attacks are coming, the cyber attacks are coming! But no one is taking action. No one that is except those few who, like Jorgenson, truly understand the catastrophic nature of the threat.
The most recent cyber attack was against our federal court system. Politico’s Tony Romm reports, “Unidentified hackers took aim at the federal court system Friday [January 24, 2014], blocking access to its public website while preventing lawyers and litigants from filing legal documents online. The incident affected uscourts.gov the federal court’s public hub, as well as most if not all federal court sites — not to mention the federal court system’s electronic filing system and its access page, PACER, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Friday.” The site remained down when this column was posted.
John Jorgensen, CEO and a founding partner of the Sylint Group.
Jorgenson notes, “Since President Obama created a White House ‘cyber czar‘ position in 2009 there have been six appointed and then leave the position. The reason is a lack of support and funding for the program.”
In an email Jorgenson states, “The Cyber Czar count is difficult to do because of the people who temporarily held the post and the ‘Cyber Czar’ post being identified with the Obama Administration and DHS both. It is not easy to find the names of those who resigned. The press makes it out that there has been only one Cyber Czar under Obama, Schmidt. You have to really search to find the others.” The players since President Obama first took office are:
“At issue is that a post as important as this, has had enormous turnover and turmoil, and we are only five years into the administration ‘leadership’. Nothing of substance to protect commercial industry, the countries infrastructure, or the citizen has come out of the White House. From the attacks being made on the United States on the Cyber Battlefield our advisories are taking Cyber Warfare seriously while we can’t find a credible Field Marshall let alone decide what needs to be done,” notes Jorgenson.
John Kelly from HowStuffWorks.com wrote, “In 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that the U.S. ‘is under cyber-attack virtually all the time, every day’ [source: Farrell]. He wasn’t joking. That year, computer spies gained access to files about the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, intruders breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system, Chinese hackers penetrated computers at Google, and Russian cyber-thieves stole tens of millions of dollars from Citibank.”
On June 23, 2009, the Secretary of Defense directed the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command to establish a sub-unified command, United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Full Operational Capability (FOC) was achieved Oct. 31, 2010. The command is located at Fort Meade, Maryland.
NextGov.com reports, “In the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act passed by House lawmakers last week, Congress required the Defense Department appoint a high level Principal Cyber Advisor with a broad oversight portfolio that includes offensive and defensive cyber missions, resources, personnel, acquisition and technology. A Senate vote on the bill is expected this week. The new cyber advisor will have ‘overall supervision’ of all Defense cyber operations and will oversee a team that will integrate the cyber expertise of the four services, combatant commands and Defense agencies.”
Jorgenson believes that “major government systems have been compromised, including the US electrical grid.” Jorgenson stated that other systems such as health care, hospitals and our food supply systems are targets of cyber attacks. These attacks are dangerous because according to Jorgenson, “they place malware on corporate and government computer systems with the intent of controlling manufacturing, distribution and information system processes.”
The danger is real, clear and present. However, it appears the federal government and Congress is less concerned with the threat as it is with making political points over the dysfunctional HeathCare.gov website. Which by the way has been compromised!
Obama has turned U.S. foreign policy on its head. It is hard to avoid the conclusion Obama thinks U.S. enemies (particularly Islamists) are friends and friends are enemies.
Obama threatens to veto a Congressional sanctions bill if Iran fails to end its nuclear program and Obama sides with Iran on the issue even though Iran has just announced it is building newer and faster centrifuges. The Saudi’s accuse Obama of stabbing them in the back. Undoubtedly Israel feels betrayed by Obama as well.
In his Cairo speech Obama apologized to Islam on behalf of America’s predominantly Judeo-Christian population who don’t believe they have anything to apologize for?
In Egypt Obama congratulated the Muslim Brotherhood for taking control of the country and tried to reinstate Morsi an Islamic dictator after he was expelled as a result of a popular uprising by Egyptians seeking democracy.
In Libya Obama supported the Islamists over the more secular Gaddafi. Now Libya where Ambassador Stevens and his assistants were murdered has become an Islamic terrorist haven and its weapons have been distributed to terrorist groups throughout the Middle East. .
In Syria Obama entered into an agreement with Putin and Assad which expanded Iran’s power in the region allowing Iran to extend its unique Islamic oppression and terrorism in the region. It is now reported the schedule to destroy chemical weapons will not be kept. Obama calls this a foreign policy success even though the agreement assures Assad and his killing machine will now remain in power. The death toll has risen to 130,000 Syrians and two million refugees.
Obama called Turkey’s Erdogan (a corrupt Islamic strongman) one of his five closet international friends and forced Israel an ally to apologize to Erdogan which Erdogan rejected. Erdogan’s corruption may soon force him from office.
Obama is pressing Israel to make dangerous security concessions to the Palestinians (Islamists) who call for Israel’s destruction and won’t recognize the State of Israel. The PA now refuses to negotiate with Israel.
Obama promised to reset relations with Russia. Instead it appears we are witnessing a resurgence of the ‘cold war’.
China is taking aggressive steps against U.S. interests in the Pacific and allies are very concerned.
India is retaliating against U.S. citizens and diplomats in India in response to the strip-search treatment of an Indian diplomat and a threatened prosecution
One thing is certain. Obama has reduced U.S. influence and credibility in the Middle East and around the world. America’s allies no longer trust Obama and our enemies no longer respect or fear the U.S. This may be what Obama meant when he said he was going to transform America; but it isn’t what the American people had in mind.
The census bureau reports that one of three counties in the United States are dying, defined as counties where there are more deaths than births.
The US Census projects nearly 17% of the global population will be 65 and older in 2050, up from 8 percent today. In 2005, Europe became the first major world region where the population 65 and older outnumbered those younger than 15. By 2050, it would be joined by Northern America (which includes Canada and the United States), Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Oceania (which includes Australia and New Zealand).
The US Census Bureau reports that 17.6 percent of Florida’s population was 65 and older in 2011 — which led all states.
Kenneth M. Johnson, Senior Demographer at the University of New Hampshire
According to a Fact Sheet issued by Kenneth M. Johnson, Senior Demographer at the University of New Hampshire, “Natural decrease occurs when more deaths than births occur in an area in a given year. The growing incidence of natural decrease in America has gone largely unnoticed, but new data released on March 14th demonstrate that natural decrease is no longer an isolated phenomenon. Last year, 36 percent of all U.S. counties experienced natural decrease.” [My emphasis]
Johnson found, “Deaths exceeded births in 1,135 counties, the most in U.S. history. As recently as 2009, natural decrease occurred in just 880 counties. So the recent rise reflects sharply higher levels of natural decrease.”
“Natural decrease is also regionally concentrated . . . It also occurred early in Florida counties that were among the first to receive retirement migrants,” reports Johnson.
Johnson notes that in the US, “Natural decrease is more prevalent because births are diminishing. There were only 3,954,000 births last year, compared to a record 4,316,000 in 2006–2007. This represents a decline of 8.3 percent in just five years.”
Some like the AP’s Hope Yen are promoting an increase in immigration to offset this birth dearth. Yen states, “The findings also reflect the increasing economic importance of foreign-born residents as the U.S. ponders an overhaul of a major 1965 federal immigration law.”
Others point to the 2008 recession as the cause of the decline in births. Johnson states, “The recession was closely associated with this fertility decline. Recent National Center for Health Statistics data show that both the number of births and fertility rates dropped sharply over the last several years. Young women are having fewer babies. Fertility rates have declined sharply for them, but they remained relatively stable for older women. The fertility rate for women 20–34 declined 12 percent in just three years. Hispanic fertility declined the most, especially among younger Hispanic women. Taken together, these data suggest that the impact of the recession has been particularly pronounced on younger women, who are likely delaying fertility.”
One factor coming under increased scrutiny is the rate of abortions in the US and China.
Simon Rabinovitch from The Economist reports, “Chinese doctors have performed more than 330 million abortions since the government implemented a controversial family planning policy 40 years ago, according to official data from the health ministry. China’s one-child policy has been the subject of a heated debate about its economic consequences as the population ages.”
“Forced abortions and sterilizations have also been criticized by human rights campaigners such as Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who sought refuge at the US embassy in Beijing last year,” Rabinovitch reports.
Rabinovitch notes, “As China’s working-age population begins to decline, economists have warned that the family planning rules will pose an increasing drag on economic growth. China’s dependency ratio – which compares the potential workforce with the number of children and retirees – rose last year for the first time in 40 years.”
Rabinovitch notes, “In the US, where the population is 315 million or about one-quarter the size of China’s, an estimated 50 million abortions have been performed since the landmark Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in 1973.”
In effect the US has killed 50 million workers. Can any nation long survive economically with the demographic future of more deaths, fewer births and the killing (abortion) of its native population?
Johnson warns, “Demography is not destiny, but one ignores it at their peril.”