Don’t Piss Off China – Listen To Ron Paul

China’s US$1.3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves are the largest in the world and are believed to be comprised largely of dollar assets, potentially giving Beijing enormous sway over the dollar’s value and currency markets worldwide.

…. Chinese government economists as saying China would dump its dollar holdings in the event of a trade war with Washington added to jitters in stock markets already unnerved by volatility in U.S. share markets.

Government Debt – The Greatest Threat to National Security   by Rep. Ron Paul, MD

 Once again the federal government has reached its “debt ceiling,” and once again Congress is poised to authorize an increase in government borrowing. Between its ever-growing bureaucracies, expanding entitlements, and overseas military entanglements, the federal government is borrowing roughly one billion dollars every day to pay its bills.

Federal law limits the amount of debt the U.S. Treasury may carry, and the current amount – a whopping $7.4 trillion – has been reached once again by a spendthrift federal government. Total federal spending, which now exceeds $2 trillion annually, once took more than 100 years to double. Today it doubles in less than a decade, and the rate is accelerating. When President Reagan entered office in 1981 facing a federal debt of $1 trillion that had piled up over the decades, he declared that figure “incomprehensible.” At its present rate of spending, the federal government will soon amass $1 trillion of new debt in just one year.

Why am I hearing these facts from a Libertarian?  Why aren’t these facts being  debated by all candidates candidly?  America’s decisions must pass scrutiny by China before it listens to American Taxpayers?    What exactly is the American voice in this equation?    It’s not rocket science to understand that your child’s allowance will suffer when you must pay the mortgage instead.  China seems to hold the note on this country,  that’s fine with me as long as I don’t suffer from neglect by those I elect to administer the business of America.  America’s allowance is the welfare of our infrastructure.  We know all about that because we destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and must pay to rebuild it.  Meantime, our bridges are falling,  our roads need repair,  our local services are scraping by,  our water supply is getting polluted and dwindling, our sewer systems are collapsing and our kids health care is pitiful.  Oh, forgot,  our electrical grid is becoming unreliable.  So, what does this all mean?  Ever hear of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”?  Well, Peter is pissed and Ron Paul knows it.

Is this why Bush has Armageddon envy?  Will this cancel our debts?  It surely get everyone’s mind off his criminal behavior and focus on personal survival! 

Bush Jealous: Malaki And Karzai Warm Up To Iran, Watch Out For Cheney

Bush breaks up Iran-Iraq love-in Correspondents in Washington and Tehran
US President George W. Bush yesterday told Tehran there would “be a price to pay” for meddling in Iraq and warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki against cosying up to the leaders of Iran.

Amid what Washington sees as unsettling signs of warming Baghdad-Tehran relations, Mr Bush said he was not surprised at pictures yesterday that showed cordial meetings between Mr Maliki and top Iranian leaders in Tehran, but he said he hoped the Shia leader was delivering a tough message.

“You don’t want the picture to be kind of, you know, ducking it out” when on a diplomatic mission, he said, putting up his fists like a boxer.

“If the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend the Prime Minister because I do not believe they are,” Mr Bush said.
Mr Bush’s comments came just days after he disagreed sharply with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about Iran’s influence after Mr Karzai called Tehran a positive force in combating extremists in his country.
Iraq PM calls emergency summit correspondents in Baghdad | August 13, 2007
PRIME Minister Nuri al-Maliki overnight called on senior leaders in Iraq’s bitterly divided communities to hold crisis talks this week in an effort to save his fraying national unity government.
His latest attempt to bring the leaders of the warring communites under one roof came at a time when the American military declared that five more of its troops battling to bring security to war-torn Iraq had been killed.
“I have invited major political leaders to a meeting to discuss substantial matters,” Mr Maliki said in a televised speech.
“Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow could be the first meeting for these leaders to discuss the political program and important strategic problems,”   the embattled Shiite prime minister said.

The last thing King George and Lord Cheney want is for Iraq’s neighbors to kiss and make up. Watch closely while Cheney’s Blackwater/KBR/CIA goons do something to screw this neighbors night out in the Middle East. Cheney has a plan, whether Bush goes along or not. Can’t have peace breaking out before we are through destroying everything in sight. Got to make good on the promises made to our ‘war profiteers’. We must pay them for contracts never met – we only have a short time left before someone demands accountability. INCENTIVE FOR UNSCRUPULOUS BEHAVIOR is what has kept this ‘A-Bomb-A-Nation’ in office. The clock is counting down. Watch out for the UNSCRUPULOUS terrorist production coming to a city near you.

CHENEY – The New Dr. Death, Wants To Strike Iran

Cheney urging strikes on Iran

By Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.

At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.

Bush wasn’t specific, and a State Department official refused to elaborate on the warning.

Behind the scenes, however, the president’s top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran’s support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

Cheney, who’s long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran’s complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that “we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq.”

Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that “the vice president is right where the president is” on Iran policy.

Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough with Iran.

“My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government,” he said. “You don’t have to be isolated. You don’t have to be in a position where you can’t realize your full economic potential.”

The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated campaign to pin more of Iraq’s security troubles on Iran. Until now, some hawks within the administration – including Cheney – are said to have favored military strikes to stop Iran from furthering its suspected ambitions for nuclear weapons.

Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make the nuclear diplomacy more difficult.

Before launching such a strike, “We better be prepared to go public with very detailed and very convincing intelligence,” Clawson said.

What the hell is this guy thinking? Expanding his war to Iran is a solution to his sinking ship? Mayday, Mayday! We must do something to stop this insanity. Lieberman, Tancredo and Darth Cheney are trying to assure a lifetime of war – no winners! Is this the ploy the Bush A-bomb-a-nation will perpetrate to declare the ‘state of emergency’ required to insure calling off elections? Can you spell ‘civil war’ in America between the ‘lemmings’ and the enlightened? We cannot allow any more world atrocities committed in the name of America! We either evacuate or fight. Pick your poison. I personally don’t want to abandon this great experiment to the awful corruption we have been prisoner to for the last eight years. I prefer to stay and fight. Is anyone with me? We are not subjects to a despotic dictator, we are Americans. We are supposed to have a voice, which means we a have a responsible for protecting our freedom!

Fleas Jumping Off The Dead Administration – Lets Prosecute

Bush’s Muse Stands Accused

Speeches Weren’t His, Colleague Says By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer

He has been hailed as the best White House speechwriter since Kennedy’s Theodore Sorensen, the muse behind President Bush‘s most famous phrases, the moral conscience of the West Wing. But now Michael J. Gerson is accused by a former colleague of taking credit for words he did not write.

According to Matthew Scully, who worked with him for five years, Gerson is not the bard of Bushworld but rather a “self-publicizing” glory hog guilty of “foolish vanity,” “sheer pettiness” and “credit hounding.” In Scully’s account, Gerson did not come up with the language that made him famous. “Few lines of note were written by Mike,” Scully says, “and none at all that come to mind from the post-9/11 addresses — not even ‘axis of evil.’ “

Scully’s blistering portrait of one of the president’s most prominent former advisers, in the new issue of the Atlantic, touched off an intense pushback by the White House yesterday as top Bush aides jumped to defend Gerson as the victim of a jealous associate. But the internecine feuding may signal something broader than pride of authorship. Scully’s 10-page indictment represents the sort of classic Washington tell-all once rare in an administration known for discipline and loyalty.

This is a great illustration of ‘rats jumping ship’, ‘fleas jump off dying animals’.  The impenetrable armor that has protected this most despicable monster, is melting away.  The insiders and kamikazes are seeking safe refuge and last minute advantage.  When you know a cause is lost, you turn ‘states witness‘ to protect your own ass.  Watch the coming months as former ‘unknowns’ emerge to ‘tell all’ about the greasy workings they participated in or witnessed.   Just like someone who ‘rats’ on a mafia boss, these whistleblowers are seeking asylum from the ‘Republican Dons’ who would hurt them very much …

This country needs a Nuremberg Trial for these criminals. There is no excuse. They are the guilty fringe of the most dangerous administration this country has ever produced. The definition of America was edited and re-written to serve the agenda of corporate greed. The crime of taking the emotional tragedy of 9/11, and skewing it to serve their prime agenda of invading Iraq instead of pursuing the “perpetrators” is a ‘high treasonous crime’ against this country. We should be set up to start our own Nuremberg Trial as soon as these guys evacuate the highest positions in this land!

We Saw This Coming President Musharraf, Bush Is Next

Rice Speaks With Pakistan’s Musharraf
Guardian Unlimited, UK - 1 hour ago
From AP By MATTHEW LEE AP Writer WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at length late Wednesday with Pakistani President Gen. …

Musharraf could declare emergency
TVNZ, New Zealand - 2 hours ago
Private Pakistani television channels reported that President Pervez Musharraf was preparing to declare a state of emergency imminently, but government …

Pakistani TVs say Musharraf to declare emergency
Washington Post, United States - 4 hours ago
By Zeeshan Haider ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Private Pakistani television channels reported on Wednesday that President Pervez Musharraf was preparing to declare …

All the prophets that have been watching this game unfold knew exactly what Musharraf was planning. Now that the US Presidential elections are raising the volume on rhetoric about terror and what to do about it, Musharraf’s grip on power is slipping. His precarious balancing act is starting to tilt, so, his solution is to declare the emergency in a last effort to stay in power. One of the presidential debaters made it clear that Musharraf is the only one keeping Pakistani nukes out of terrorist hands. Good or bad, there is no one on our side waiting in the wings who can guarantee anyone’s safety from Pakistan’s nuclear armaments

You know if this works for Musharraf,  Bush will try it next … 

Good Timing For Bush – American Al Qaeda Speaks

Qaeda video vows attacks on US missions

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – A wanted American member of Al-Qaeda has warned in a new video that US diplomatic missions and other interests were ‘legitimate targets,’ vowing that the network would attack these ‘spy dens.’

In the footage compiled by Al-Qaeda’s production arm As-Sahab, an unnamed narrator singled out US missions in oil-rich Gulf Arab states as potential targets.

American Terrorist Threatens U.S. in New Al Qaeda Video

CAIRO, Egypt — An American member of Al Qaeda threatened foreign diplomats and embassies in the Islamic world calling them “spy dens” in the terror network’s latest video released Sunday. “We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centers from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzan al-Amriki.

Well, well, well, whether the threat is real or not, the timing of this new threat is impeccable. That children’s story, about the kid who cried ‘WOLF’ too many times, is front and center in my mind. King George has deceived us so many times and been caught in so many lies, that I am skeptical about any more video productions allegedly from Al Qaeda. If this threat is real, we are at the same security level we’ve been in since the war began. Nothing has really changed. Bush and his marketing handlers have staged so many productions that Hollywood should be the one threatened. Funny how Al Qaeda pops into the news every time Bush wants to pull something over on Americans. This ‘American Al Qaeda’ is probably a CIA operative who is handed a script to boost polls to continue Bush’s Armageddon Envy.

King George Wins Wiretapping For All Foreigners

Associated Press
House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill

WASHINGTON –

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government’s abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, “Protecting America is our most solemn obligation.”

Oh well.  What did you really expect?  FISA  neutered,  the 4th Amendment a memory.

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency’s ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals “reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

10:38 P.M. –

On agreeing to the resolution Agreed to without objection.

10:37 P.M. –

Considered as privileged matter. On approving the Journal Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 205 – 187 (Roll no. 837).

S. 1927:

to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes

(Click here to see how everyone voted) 

Many congressional Democrats wanted tighter restrictions on government surveillance, but yielded in the face of Bush’s veto threats and the impending August recess.

“This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review,  without any checks and balances,”  said Rep. Zoe Lofgren,  D-Calif.,  during the debate preceding the vote.   “I think this unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the 4th Amendment,”  which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The House of Faux Representatives must have a VERY good reason to appease the King.  I am sure the Sunday morning talk shows will be filled with excuses and explanations.  This bill is a great tool not bound by accountability.  Gonzales  will be the decider when and where to use his expanded powers.  Woe, I mean Wow,  I feel safer already.  Time to learn sign language.  I think I’ll wear moccasins, too.  They make no sound as you tiptoe across the border into Canada.

Happy Afghans – Happy Taliban – Buying Power

Another record poppy crop in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world’s near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say. As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies have delayed release of a $475 million counternarcotics program for Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.

… counterdrug proposals by some U.S. officials have met fierce resistance, including boosting the amount of forcible poppy field destruction in provinces that grow the most, officials said. The approach also would link millions of dollars in development aid to benchmarks on eradication; arrests and prosecutions of narcotraders, corrupt officials; and on alternative crop production.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

“Afghanistan is providing close to 95 percent of the world’s heroin,” the State Department’s top counternarcotics official, Tom Schweich, said at a recent conference. “That makes it almost a sole-source supplier” and presents a situation “unique in world history.”   (entire article)

So, here we go again. Just like Viet Nam (remember that one?) the CIA was an accomplice with the drug cartel of SE Asia. What makes this any different?   We talk big, but the bottom line is, to make the local war lords happy we must allow their economy to flourish. They let us destroy a field here and there to show the media, but the big money always wins. They must also line the pockets of the Narcotics Police – it’s economics after all!

Four US Contractors Missing – No One Looks For Them

Cutting Costs, Bending Rules, And a Trail of Broken Lives

Ambush in Iraq Last November Left Four Americans Missing And a String of Questions About the Firm They Worked For

By Steve Fainar Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD — The convoy was ambushed in broad daylight last Nov. 16, dozens of armed men swarming over 37 tractor-trailers stretching for more than a mile on southern Iraq’s main highway. The attackers seized four Americans and an Austrian employed by Crescent Security Group, a small private security firm. Then they fled.

None of the hostages has been found, eight months after one of the largest and most brazen kidnappings of Americans since the March 2003 invasion.

Crescent is shuttered, like dozens of other companies that have come and gone in Iraq’s booming market for private security services. The firm leaves behind a trail of broken lives and a record of alleged misconduct. In March, the U.S. military barred Crescent from U.S. bases after it was found with weapons prohibited for private security companies, including rocket launchers and grenades, according to documents and interviews with former Crescent employees and U.S. officials.

Crescent violated U.S. military regulations while being paid millions of dollars to support the U.S.-led mission in Iraq. The company routinely sacrificed safety to cut costs.

By this year, the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, a trade group based in Baghdad’s Green Zone, listed 177 active foreign and Iraqi security companies. The Pentagon has said that some 20,000 security contractors support the U.S.-led coalition, although some estimates are considerably higher.

The industry is largely unregulated by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, leaving companies to establish their own standards for operating on the battlefield.

These contractors are not security cleared, but will be soon according to new pentagon rules are lowering the standards as we speak. Crescent had managers with criminal records and allowed employees to carry armaments which is a felony. Maybe this is why the US is not looking for them. The US is not very good at admitting it’s shortcomings. Few countries are. Cutting corners with contractors is one thing, but, cutting corners with the Constitution is quite another. Lets get rid of these lying bastards ASAP

Civilians In Combat Risk All For A Few Dollars More

Service Civilians and the Wounds of War

Many Fill Vital Roles in Iraq, but Medical Care Can Be Spotty

By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer

Traveling through Sunni insurgent territory north of Baghdad, the U.S. military convoy was nearing a base when a roadside bomb ripped into the lead Humvee, leaving its gunner, Mike Helms, bleeding and swaying from a strap in the open back.

Helms, 31, a civilian counterintelligence expert with the Army’s 902nd Military Intelligence Group, had been sent to Iraq in 2004 to help fill a critical intelligence gap in the area known as the Sunni Triangle. While in Iraq, he lived with soldiers and ate military rations, took fire from mortar rounds and small arms, and clocked hundreds of miles manning a machine gun on the back of a Humvee.

Nevertheless, his status as an Army civilian would leave him stranded in the aftermath of the June 16, 2004, attack, when the bomb hit his Humvee so hard it blew his M-60 off its turret.

In the months that followed, Helms recalled, he was denied vital care for his wounds — ranging from shrapnel in his left arm to traumatic brain injury. Forced to rely on federal workers’ compensation and turned away from regular care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, Helms has faced years of frustration grappling with bureaucracies unprepared to help a government civilian wounded in combat.

‘Izzy? . . . Bring Your Daughter Here’
U.S. Officer, Wanting to Save Interpreter’s Wounded Child, Faces a Snag (By David Finkel, The Washington Post)

 

There are thousands upon thousands of these stories developing every day. No one can convince me that these facts are unknown to Bush and Company. No one can convince me that Congress is not aware – these casualties come from their political districts, too. Whether they are soldiers or hired support or local collaborators, how we treat those who risk it all will determine our future. These casualties will determine whether we even have a future. Because, the mental and physical health care we offer will determine our own quality of life. Bush and Company cannot be allowed to downplay their responsibility to everyone they have put in harms way, including the American public!