China Warns United States: Stop Printing Money; Situation May Cause U.S. Loss Of AAA Rating

I find it very disturbing that major news outlets here in the United States are not following this story more closely. Perhaps because to do so would mean casting Obama and his cronies in a negative light.

The story is that in order to finance the massive debt we are running up (5 times larger than what the Bush Administration ran up) we are prining money at a break-neck pace. And it is causing concern among those who are floating our debt right now, namely, the Chinese government.

From the Telegraph UK:

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said: "Senior officials of the Chinese government grilled me about whether or not we are going to monetise the actions of our legislature." "I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasuries. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States," he told the Wall Street Journal.

What happens when the Chinese call us on these loans? We won't be able to pay and our monetary systems collaspses.

More:

Mr. Fisher, the Fed's leading hawk, was a fierce opponent of the original decision to buy Treasury debt, fearing that it would lead to a blurring of the line between fiscal and monetary policy – and could all too easily degenerate into Argentine-style financing of uncontrolled spending.

I think we are already at the "uncontrolled spending" stage with the Democrats feverishly trying to squander our children's and grand-children's future by saddling them with huge debts and liabilities in order to waste money on ear-mark and pork projects now.

The Oxford-educated Mr. Fisher, an outspoken free-marketer and believer in the Schumpeterian process of "creative destruction", has been running a fervent campaign to alert Americans to the "very big hole" in unfunded pension and health-care liabilities built up by a careless political class over the years. "We at the Dallas Fed believe the total is over $99 trillion," he said in February. "This situation is of your own creation. When you berate your representatives or senators or presidents for the mess we are in, you are really berating yourself. You elect them," he said. His warning comes amid growing fears that America could lose its AAA sovereign rating.

Massive spending will not get us out of this. Nor will increasing the size of the government. In fact, those two actions in tandem will cause the situation to get worse and worse which is precisely why the United States is in danger of losing the AAA sovereign rating.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

China Warns Federal Reserve Over 'Printing Money'
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph UK
May 27, 2009

North Korea Nuclear Crisis Raises Tensions

Just a week or so ago, Barack Obama pledged to begin a unilateral scrapping of our nuclear weapons. Since then, North Korea has been taking some very provocative steps. Again, I have to wonder if North Korea's actions were calculated based based on Obama's stance and words.

Now, the situation has become worse. North Korea announced that it was pulling out of the treaty that ended the Korean War more than 50 years ago. This has lead to heightened tensions in the region and U.S. and South Korean troops have gone on high alert.

Apparently, North Korea sees our efforts at controlling nuclear proliferation and preventing terrorists from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon as an "act of war."

From BBC News:

Pyongyang has blamed its decision on South Korea's decision to join a US-led initiative to search ships for nuclear weapons, calling it a "declaration of war". "Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty," said a spokesman for the North's army. "We will immediately respond with a powerful military strike."

So, how does the Obama administration respond to this? Read what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the North's violation of Security Council resolutions, but also held out hope that North Korea would return to six-nation disarmament talks.

I'm sure that the communists in Pyongyang are quaking with fear over Clinton's statement. The truth is that with a President who is weak on national security and even weaker on dealing with rogue nations seeking nuclear weapons, North Korea and Iran have become emboldened in their actions.

The longer Obama and company maintain a weak dispostition towards DPRK and the Islamic Republic, the closer we will come to having a nuke snuck into our country and detonated.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Alert Level Raised On North Korea
BBC News
May 28, 2009

North Korea Tests Nukes And Iran Deploys Bluewater Navy

I'd bet my next paycheck that back during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, when Barack Obama pledged to sit down with Iran without any pre-condidtions, that the governments of Iran and North Korea were listening very intently even if the voters who voted for Barack Obama were not.

In fact, recent developments lead me to believe that the governments of Iran and North Korea took their current actions precisely because of what Obama promised.

First, North Korea tested more nukes and the missiles necessary to deliver them, most likely as a test of the how strongly the Obama administration would respond. From Reuters:

The nuclear test was a major diplomatic challenge to Obama at a time when he is facing a global economic crisis and working to curb Iran's nuclear enrichment program, which the West fears is aimed at producing nuclear arms but Tehran says is for energy. Obama vowed when he took office to extend a hand to troublesome countries "willing to unclench your fist" but so far he has had little success with North Korea or Iran, which have continued to advance their nuclear programs and showed little interest in renewed dialogue.

And then the Iranians decided to flex their naval "muscle" in the Gulf of Aden, yet another test of Obama's resolve to stand-up to regimes that oppose the goals of the United States. From Fox News:

The deployment is "a signal of military strength, resolve and continued defiance to U.S. and U.N. Security Council efforts to end the impasse over Iran's nuclear program," said Jim Phillips, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Institute. "What's very important here is the timing of this move — and this naval muscle flexing comes after Iran's missile test earlier this week, which was saber rattling that was meant to send the same signal as this naval dispatch." Phillips said Ahmadinejad was using the opportunity to thumb his nose at the U.S. and U.N. to advance his own popularity in Iran ahead of the country's hotly contested June 12 election.

A coincidence that these things are happening on the watch of an American President whose international policies are soft on terror? I think not. These were calculated moves. It now remains to be seen whether or not Obama has his nation's best interests at heart, or the interests of those who want to see the U.S. weakened and even attacked again.

I'm willing to bet that Obama will put politics above the national interest.

You can access both articles on-line here:

Obama Says North Korea Nuclear Test A "Grave Concern"
David Alexander
Reuters
May 25, 2009

Iran Sends 6 Warships To International Waters In 'Saber Rattling' Move
Fox News (from Reuters)
May 25, 2009

Memorial Day - Remember The Fallen Who Purchased Your Freedom With Their Lives

Former Gitmo Inmates Returning To Terrorism; Obama Administration Supresses Report

Here is something that every American should be aware of when it comes to the issue of releasing terrorists back in the world. A report describing how these former detainees are going back to militant and radical terrorist groups was supposed to be released back on February 2, 2009. It has not yet been released and according to the New York Times, Obama administration officials were the ones behind keeping the report under wraps:

The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.” Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.

And writing for the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn has this:

But the contents of the report deal with a hotly contested issue--one that is being debated throughout the media and is not going away any time soon. Therefore, the public has a right to know the facts and evidence accumulated by the DOD regardless of the implications for the Obama administration. This is especially true because the Pentagon had previously released a similar report on June 13, 2008. The report we’ve been expecting since earlier this year, and which only the New York Times now has a copy, is merely an update of that June 2008 report, which is freely available online. There is no good reason the updated report, as well as further updates, cannot be released in a similar fashion. Indeed, the differences between the June 2008 report and its successors are especially troubling. Perhaps those differences explain why an updated version of the June 2008 report would be especially problematic for the Obama administration as it attempts to close Gitmo. The June 13, 2008, report noted that 37 former detainees were “confirmed or suspected” of returning to terrorism. On January 13, 2009, seven months later, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that number had climbed to 61. Now, according to the Times, the DOD has found that same metric has risen further to 74--exactly double the Pentagon’s estimate just 11 months ago. ... Critics point out that even with 74 recidivists the total number of former detainees who have returned to terrorism is “only” 14 percent of the 534 total detainees who have been released from Guantanamo. But this ignores the fact, as explained above, that the recidivism rate is continuously increasing.

And what would be the main reason for this recidivism rate increase? Simple. Terrorists no longer fear what the American government will do to them if captured. No, this didn't start with the Obama administration.

Democrats had been working to undermine the anti-terrorism efforts of the Bush administration long before Obama got elected. Those efforts are now paying off for the terrorists who see a Democrat-controlled U.S. government that is weak on terrorists, but hard on those who would protect us from terrorists.

Not only have the Democrats been undermining those would who protect us from terrorists, but they are also undermining our security by pretending that such terrorists are not that big of a threat to us. Hence, the supressed report.

Any Democrats reading this blog can feel free to defend their party by commenting on this post.

You can access the original Weekly Standard article on-line here:

See No Evil
Thomas Joscelyn
The Weekly Standard
May 20, 2009

And you can access the original New York Times article on-line here:

Later Terror Link Cited for 1 in 7 Freed Detainees
Elizabeth Bumiller
New York Times
May 20, 2009

Democrat Admits On Tape That 'Cap and Trade' Is Really A 'Huge Tax'

Check out the video at the following link. If there was any question that the libs were using the global warming issue as a means for taking greater contro over our lives and livelihoods, that question has now been answered:

Democrat Admits On Tape That “Cap & Trade Is A Huge Tax”
912 Project
April 25, 2009

Airlines Are Hiring Mechanics Who Can't Speak English Or Even Read The Maintenance Manuals

If you've never had a fear of flying before, you ought to consider developing one now. Here we have yet another impact of illegal immigration, not only on our economy, but on the safety of travelers who fly our major airlines.

From Fox News:

Aircraft repair requires even experienced mechanics to frequently consult manuals that are written in English and leave a detailed record of what repairs they have made, according to WFAA-TV. Still, hundreds of mechanics working in the more than 236 FAA-certified aircraft repair stations in Texas were not familiar enough with the English language to even read the manuals that coincide with the kinds of planes they were expected to fix, WFAA reported. "There are people [where I work] who do not know how to read maintenance manuals as they are spelled out, because they don't have a clue," one Texas aircraft mechanic told the station. But hiring a certified mechanic in Texas costs upwards of $25 an hour, compared to the less than $10 technicians who can't speak English will do the work for.

So, allowing illegals to come in and depress the wages of legitimate American mechanics is more important than the safety of airline passengers?

One thing you can be sure of. The next airline crash that occurs here in the U.S. is going to be followed by lawsuits from victims families demanding to know if the plane had been serviced by illegals who couldn't speak English.

You can access the Fox news story on-line here:

Report: Airlines Are Hiring Mechanics Who Can't Speak English, Read Manuals
Fox News
May 19, 2009

You can access the WFAA report on-line here:

News 8 Investigates: Airline Mechanics Who Can't Read English (Video Included)
Byron Harris
WFAA Dallas/Ft. Worth
May 16, 2009

New York Times Kills Story Detailing Obama/ACORN Relationship And Violation Of Campaign Finance Laws

Now, you know that if this had happened to a Conservative Republican, the NYT would have run it as front page news for two weeks. But because Obama is a leftist socialist, the NYT spiked it.

Back in 2008, the Obama campaign conspired with the voter-fraud group ACORN to violate campaign finance laws. When the NYT learned of the story, they immediately buried it.

Powerline Blog has a very comprehensive report:

Times reporter Stephanie Strom was looking into ACORN, and she had a source, a former ACORN employee named Anita Moncrief. Moncrief told Strom that she had evidence of "constant contact" between ACORN's Project Vote and both the Obama and Clinton campaigns: On Sept. 7, Moncrief wrote to Strom that she had donor lists from the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there had been "constant contact" between the campaigns and Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate whose tax-exempt status forbids it to engage in partisan politics. Moncrief said she had withheld that information earlier but was disclosing it now that the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was "all over it." "I am sorry," she wrote, "but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans." A key part of Moncrief's story was that the Obama campaign had furnished ACORN with lists of maxed-out donors so that ACORN could mine them for contributions. In fact, Moncrief provided the Times reporter, Strom, with such a list that ACORN allegedly obtained from the Obama campaign. Hoyt does not dispute that this story, if true, was evidence of violation of the campaign finance laws.

Now, you would think that a news outlet that claims to be the "watchdog of government" would have been all over this story and reporting it to the people. Not the NYT. They immediately began to cover it up in an effort to help Barack Obama get away with breaking the law during his run for the presidency.

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt had been "investigating" the whole situation, but what he was looking at seemed to be completely different from what everyone else was seeing.

More:

The story became public because a Republican lawyer named Heather Heidelbaugh testified, apparently based on information she got from Anita Moncrief, that the Times had been working on an Obama-ACORN story but that "Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, 'it was a game-changer.'" Hoyt undertakes to show that this charge was false. He admits, though, that Strom's editor, Suzanne Daley, "called a halt to Strom's pursuit of the Obama angle." So the Times did kill the investigation and any further reporting. The only question is why. Hoyt uncritically accepts Daley's explanation: "We had worked on that story for a while and had come up empty-handed," Daley said. "You have to cut bait after a while." She said she never thought of the story as a game-changer and never used that term with Strom. But wait! Hoyt also relates that shortly before Daley pulled the plug, "Moncrief finally agreed to go on the record" and Strom had scheduled a meeting with her. It was when she called Moncrief to cancel the meeting that Strom allegedly told her that her bosses had killed the investigation to protect Obama. Obviously, if Strom was about to hit pay-dirt with an on-the-record witness, Daley's assertion that she killed the story because Strom "had come up empty-handed" is false.

As I've said before. Only the most naive and gullible would believe that leftist news outlets like the NYT are fair and objective.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Killing A Story: How It's Done
Power Line
May 17, 2009

You can read about Anita Moncrief's involvement on-line here:

Fired ACORN Affiliate Staffer Links Donor List To Obama
Brad Bumsted
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
October 30, 2008

You can also watch a good video about this story over at Hot Air:

O’Reilly: How The NYT Buried An Obama/ACORN Expose Just Before The Election
Hot Air
May 18, 2009

As The Nation’s Workforce Suffers, Government’s Thrives

There are basically two camps in the debate about how to stimulate an economy. On the one hand you have the capitalists who hold that economies are driven by the private sector and that it is most important for the people to have money to spend. On the other hand you have the socialists who think that government spending drives an economy and that it is more important for the government to raise taxes in order to have money to spend.

Right now, the socialists are in power and they are doing everything they can to implement their agenda no matter how disastrous it may be.

Writing for Publius Forum, Warner Todd Huston looks at what is happening in the private sector versus how the Federal government is growing:

Our stern and earnest president told us that it is time for Americans to sacrifice. Gone are the good times, he’s told us. We are in for austere days, he says. Sacrifice, people, sacrifice. That is the word of the day. Well, it’s the word for we commoners, anyway. For if you happen to be looking at government don’t expect to find any “sacrifice” going on at any level. In fact, government seems to be a boom business under the president of change and “sacrifice.”

There is no sacrifice at the Federal level. Government workers can see their pay increase from an average of $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 in 2009. And as one who lives in the D.C. area, I can honestly tell you that for that money, we taxpayers are getting very little in return.

Warner even quotes from CBS News to show how fast the Federal government is growing:

Some of the Feds’ hiring increases have been stunning. If you look at the four-year period from 2006 to 2010, the number of Homeland Security employees has grown by 22 percent, the Justice Department has increased by 15 percent, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can claim 25 percent more employees. (These figures assume that Congress adopts Mr. Obama’s 2010 budget without significant changes.)

Now, those of us in the private sector are struggling and we pray on a daily basis that we will still have a job tomorrow. Out pay raises haven't been anything like the Federal workers are getting. Where is the government getting the money from to pay for those raises? Taxes. Tax money that if left in the private sector would do more to grow our economy than any bloated government would ever be able to do. The tax money the Feds confiscate to give out pay raises to government employees could very well have been money that employers could have used to give private sector employees bigger pay raises.

Keep in mind that the only region of the nation that benefits from higher taxes is the Washington D.C. Metro area and parts of Northern Virginia and Southern/Central Maryland. The rest of the nation suffers economic decline.

Warner's parting shot:

What we see here is that President Obama is not helping the economy at all. He is helping inflate the power of government. And, since government is only a drag on the economy, he is making matter far worse than they were. What we have here with this perpetual Obama political campaign is not a president that is a savior of the economy, but one that is the patron saint of the expansion of big government.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

As The Nation’s Workforce Suffers, Government’s Thrives
Warner Todd Huston
Publius Forum
May 19, 2009

John Boehner: Pelosi Should Show Proof Or Apologize

Remember during the Valerie Plame non-scandal when the Dems thought that the CIA was the best thing since sliced bread? Well, it looks like the CIA is back in the Dem dog-house. How does a government agency gain and then fall out of favor so quickly? Well, when dealing with liberals Dems like Nancy Pelosi, it is all about political advantage. During the Plame case, it was politically advantageous to embrace the CIA. Now, the politcal wind in Washington D.C. is such that the CIA is to be shunned.

But, people who are intelligent and clear thinking can see what is really going on here. Pelosi told some rather large untruths and falsehoods about what the CIA breifed her on concerning enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) including waterboarding, the technique that yielded information which in turn may have saved thousands of American lives.

And now, she is being called on those lies. According to CNN:

A key Republican leader demanded Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi produce evidence to back up her assertion that she was misled by the CIA on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." ... "Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "If the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they be prosecuted. And if that's not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world."

It has already been established that Pelosi and some of her aides knew exactly what was going on. But, none of them ever spoke out against these EITs back in 2002 and 2003. No, instead they waited seven years for the issue to become politcally favorable for them.

It should also be noted that Jane Harmon (D-CA) has not to come to Nancy Pelosi's defense. Harmon did protest the use of waterboarding back in 2003.

More:

On Thursday, Pelosi said the briefing she received from the CIA was incomplete and inaccurate, and she called on the agency to release a full transcript of the briefing. She also accused Republicans of jumping on reports of the briefings to cause a distraction. The speaker's comments prompted CIA Director Leon Panetta to stand up for the agency on Friday and challenge Pelosi on her assertion that the CIA had misled her. "There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I'm gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress." Panetta said in a letter to agency employees.

When faced with such a scathing backlash from the CIA, Pelosi simply switched her criticism from the CIA to the Bush Administration.

Cleary, Pelosi is in a tail-spin and can no longer hide the fact that she has been lying all along. Now that so many people have called her on her lies, she is getting desperate to save whatever is left of her face.

And this little tidbit shows how deeply into the lie Pelosi is willing to go:

Pelosi wants the classified notes of her 2002 briefing on waterboarding declassified because, she has said, they will show that she wasn't told that harsh techniques such as waterboarding were being used. The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said he has read the notes from Pelosi's disputed 2002 briefing and insists to CNN that she's wrong. "The record shows Speaker Pelosi was briefed that the techniques were used on Abu Zubaydah," Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, said in a written statement. That appears to back up CIA records declassified last week, which say that on September 4, 2002, Pelosi and Republican Rep. Porter Goss of Florida were briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.

My personal view? If it is a choice between saving thousands of American lives or worrying about the comfort level of one worthless, waste of flesh terrorist, then I choose saving American lives. It seems as though the average Democrat is more concerned for the terrorist.

Pelosi should not only apologize, but she should at the very least step down as Speaker of the House for lying to the American people. I understand that Democrats would normally call for a politician to step down when caught lying. I wonder if they would apply that same standard to one of their own.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

GOP Leader: Pelosi Should Show Proof Or Apologize
CNN
May 17, 2009