Tag Archives: China

China, Economy, Energy, Politics

Obama Declares War On ANWR

Declaring the oil-rich coastal plain, which was set aside for oil exploration and development in the first place, a “wilderness area,” Obama is effectively preventing any access to it for the purposes it was originally intended. Oil and gas exploration and development.

Time for a refresher on ANWR.   ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE 101

Shutting down energy resources by declaring wilderness areas is nothing new where Democrat Presidents are concerned. Bill Clinton  shut the low-sulfur coal industry completely down by declaring all of it (1.8 million acres) in the United States a “monument.”

For Clinton though, it was more sinister. It was a twofer for Clinton. By declaring the lands where all our low-sulfur coal exists in the United States a “monument,” he hands a world monopoly to a big campaign contributor of his, the Chinese Rhiady family,

Now a quick mineralogical lesson. There are only two known low-sulphur coal reserves in the world, one of which is under the land in Utah that was blocked off by Clinton. And the other is in China. Thanks to Bill Clinton, the U.S. energy sector can buy low-sulphur coal from China, because now, they have to.

Links: Obama Seeks Bigger Wilderness Designation in Alaska Refuge  |  President Obama Calls on Congress to Protect Arctic Refuge as Wilderness

2014 Election, China, Economy, Energy, Iran, Middle East, Obamacare, Politics, Race Relations, Russia, War On Terror

aSide Order

Iran Wins Another Round With Delay

Ten years and counting. Learning from recent history, when it comes to their nuclear program, Iran knows that this administration is all bark and no bite. The deadline for compliance has come and gone. The solution? Instead of shutting down centrifuges, they have six more months of full-steam ahead development and production. Oh, and the monthly dole-outs of $700 million in frozen funds that began under the temporary nuclear deal agreed on late last year that led to the present talks, continue.

Link: Iran nuclear talks stumble, extended until July

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So How’s It Going?

Iraq is falling to pieces, again. ISIS and al-Qaeda are growing. Beheadings have become common and, a new normal. Russia is occupying. The Commander-in-Chief cuts military budgets and personnel while expanding their role. After withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, now that the mid-term elections are over, President Obama is sending the new smaller military back. Third Secretary of Defense in six years resigns. Iran continues to ignore the world in rolling back their nuclear weapons program.  China is eating our lunch. No one wants to eat Michelle Obama’s lunch. Not her lunch, the lunch she wants your kids to eat. The economy on Main St. is treading water. Long-term unemployment is growing. Average family income is falling. The “no-energy” energy policy is increasing energy cost. The Affordable Care Act fraud exposed. And cities are burning.

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Jump Rope Girl – World’s Best Jump Roper!!! Adrienn Banhegyi

China, Egypt, Europe, Iran, Middle East, North Korea, Politics, Religion, Russia, War On Terror

Surrender-in-Chief

President Obama, our elected Commander-in-Chief, has demonstrated over and over his naiveté in foreign policy. If you can point to one successful, tactical foreign policy decision, then you’re a magician because there isn’t one. North Korea, China, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Russia, Ukraine, Egypt, Eastern Europe’s missile defense shield, Israel, Lebanon, Arab Spring, Red Lines.

Likewise, his military acumen as a warrior is totally laughable. Except for the fact that he is responsible for our sons and daughters in harm’s way. He fights wars based on timetables instead of results. And he announces them, not just to his political hacks but, to the enemy. He creates a false narrative about the Benghazi attack, and broadcasts apologies to the Islamist goons in Pakistan about a movie that they likely never saw. As if they will do anything other than laugh at his amateur hour.

Withholding judgment whether Bowe Bergdahl is a deserter (an investigation will tell), this latest prisoner swap (he does negotiate with terrorists) is yet another example of how far Barack Obama will go to 1) stick it to the military, 2) appease terrorists in hoping (“hope” is not a strategy) that they’ll like us, 3) let these 5 terrorist kingpins go free after one year (who were supposed to be detained until the cessation of hostilities, ie. indefinitely). That is, if Qatar doesn’t release them or allow them to escape beforehand, and 4) he finally has a chance to give preference or weight to an Islamist goon, over an American. When the era of slavery was coming to an end, there was a time when slaves counted as 3/5 of a person. But today, President Obama (who claims to be Black) has a chance to exercise a little payback. Bergdahl weighs in at 1/5. One American, in exchange for the 5 most dangerous terrorists on the planet.

And that makes sense to who? Makes one think that President Obama is on the wrong side in this war. Problem is, he thinks he’s on the right side.

Link: Obama defends operation to rescue U.S. soldier from Taliban

Egypt, Middle East, Politics, Russia

The Budapest Memorandum, circa 1994, Ukraine Edition

The Budapest Memorandum was a security agreement signed Dec. 5, 1994 by US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma for Ukraine. Not having a meaningful military of its own, but did have nuclear weapons, the Budapest Memorandum was Ukraine’s agreement to dismantle their nuclear capability in exchange for security guarantees for their sovereignty and protection of their borders.

The Budapest Memorandum was affirmed as recently as Dec. 4, 2009 when China and France joined as signatories to this agreement. And no one, except Russian President Vladimir (the dog killer) Putin denies that the generic troops in the Crimea part of Ukraine that came from Russia are in fact, Russian troops. And no one, except Putin, believes that the Russian-speaking Ukraines there need protecting by him. By all other accounts, including the Ukraine government, Russia has invaded their country and violated their border and sovereignty.

With Russia keeping the unarmed Ukrainian military from their posts with its military, including firing warning shots at them, preventing them from going to work (picture above), some Ukraine officials are calling on the Budapest Memorandum for the help they were promised.

Arsen Avakov, the new interior minister and member of Fatherland, the party of oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko, alleged that the international airport in Sebastopol in the Crimea had been blocked by Russian forces. He wrote on Facebook, “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”

By invoking terms of a 1994 agreement, he aims to provide a casus belli justifying Western military intervention in Ukraine.

Two things are certain. There is no will on the part of the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum to use military force to repel the Russian troops from Crimea. And, the world now sees who is calling the shots, and it is not President Obama and the United States.

There are plenty of sanctions that can be placed upon Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sanctions that will hurt their economy and the Russian people. But what remains to be seen is where Putin will stop. Will he move on to Kiev and claim the whole country? Then move on to another former Soviet satellite country in a move to effectively re-establish the former Soviet Union?

It is clear that the time to act to prevent this has long past. What is surprising (not) is that the only people who could see this coming were Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. An examination as to why that is reveals the differences between the two parties. The Republicans deal with reality whereas the Democrats deal with the way they think things ought to be, or, the way they want them to be.

Putin knows this, and just as sure as Palin and Romney knew what he was all about, Putin knows how far in over his head Obama is, and what he’s all about. One pundit characterized it this way, “while Putin is playing chess, Obama is playing marbles.”

Refusing to admit this foreign policy debacle, the Democrats in Washington are criticizing Republicans for blaming Obama for letting this crisis grow into a crisis. It wasn’t Republicans that took an apology tour throughout the Middle East and Egypt. They didn’t voice support for the green movement in Iran, then abandon them in support of the Mullahs. They weren’t the ones that sparked the Arab Spring in Egypt, supporting the students and people who wanted democracy, only to abandon them after Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took over. They weren’t the ones voicing support for the Syrian opposition, then doing nothing to help, until it was too late to help. Now a couple hundred thousand dead and millions in refugee camps later, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have taken hold in Syria. And Putin is on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

What President Obama has shown the world is that the United States is all talk and can not be a trusted ally when the going gets tough. Trying to save face, Obama’s response is one for the ages. As big as the lie of the year was. Ukraine is hearing, if you like your country, you can keep your country.

President Obama’s statement on Russia’s action qualifies for the joke of the year . . .

I actually think that this has not been a sign of strength, but rather, is a reflection that countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling.

If Russia’s move into Ukraine is not a sign of Putin’s strength, then it is an example of Obama’s weakness, naiveté, and incompetence.

China, Media, Middle East, North Korea, Politics, War On Terror

Threat Assessment, In Case You Missed It

Here’s a minute and a half of how well things are going in the world. From our “greatest” Secretary of State to the current one, and five years of “leading from (his) behind.”

Can’t imagine why you aren’t seeing this on the major news networks. You?

Full transcript HERE.

Looking back over my now more than half a century in intelligence, I’ve not experienced a time when we’ve been beset by more crises and threats around the globe. My list is long. It includes the scourge and diversification of terrorism, loosely connected and globally dispersed, to include here at home, as exemplified by the Boston Marathon bombing and by the sectarian war in Syria, its attraction as a growing center of radical extremism and the potential threat this poses now to the homeland.

Let me briefly expand on this point. The strength of the insurgency is now estimated at somewhere between 75,000 to 80,000 on the low end and 110,000 to 115,000 on the high end, who are organized into more than 1,500 groups of widely varying political leanings. Three of the most effective are the Al- Nusrah Front, Ahrar al Sham and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, as it’s known, whose numbers total more than 20,000. Complicating this further are the 7,500-plus foreign fighters from some 50 countries who have gravitated to Syria. Among them are a small group of Af/Pak al Qaida veterans who have aspirations for external attack in Europe, if not the homeland itself.

And there are many other crises and threats around the globe, to include the spillover of the Syrian conflict into neighboring Lebanon and Iraq, the destabilizing flood of refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, now almost 2.5 million, a symptom of one of the largest humanitarian disasters in a decade.

The implications of the drawdown in Afghanistan: This year, as the chairman noted, is a crossroads, with the drawdown of ISAF, the presidential election, and whether the bilateral security agreement is signed. Key to sustaining the fragile gains we’ve made is sustained, external financial support.

The deteriorating internal security posture in Iraq, with AQI now in control of Fallujah, and violence across Iraq at very high levels. More than 5,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2013, which is a made — made that year Iraq’s deadliest since 2007.

The growth of foreign cyber-capabilities, both nation states, as well as non-nation states; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; aggressive nation state intelligence efforts against us; an assertive Russia; a competitive China; a dangerous, unpredictable North Korea; a challenging Iran, where the economic sanctions have had a profound impact on Iran’s economy and have contributed to the P5- plus-1 joint plan of action . . .

China, Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

Pollution from China Reaches U.S., Our Fault?

One of the best kept secrets from the global warming crowd and the so-called environmentalist movement is that the great majority of pollution going into the atmosphere comes from China and India, not the United States.

But now that pollution from China is blowing across the Western United States, the meme changes to it’s our fault because we buy too much stuff. Not only that, but the pollution we’re getting is because of what China exports to the U.S., as if  pollution generated from what they export to other countries around the world what, goes no where, or goes somewhere else?

China’s contribution to pollution is the result of the process of their manufacturing and electrical generation, not from the products we buy. That “process” being they don’t give a flip about using clean technology as is used in the United States. 

Two facts, it is the political, labor, and tax policies in the U.S. that have driven the manufacturing and related jobs overseas. And, although the U.S. is the cleanest industrial nation for its size in the world, no amount of industry strangulation here is going to make up for countries like India and China who have no desire to clean up their act.

Here are a couple other fun facts:

• China emits more CO2 than the US and Canada put together – up by 171% since the year 2000
• The US has had declining CO2 for two years running, the last time the US had declining CO2 for 3 years running was in the 1980s

Links: Pollution from China Reaches U.S., According to New Study – weather.com. | World carbon dioxide emissions data by country: China speeds ahead of the rest

China, Economy, Media, Politics

Debt, America’s New Massa

The Daily Beast is just dumfounded at the suggestion that there is a new kind of slavery going on. It’s OK that The Beast doesn’t get the metaphor. Maybe it’s a little national-debt-per-capitatoo deep for them to understand.

It boils down to this. like slaves were owned, our future generations will be owned by the debt we are putting them in today. China, the debt, becomes the new Massa for generations to come.

The political left has gotten drunk with their “racist” ranting. That’s OK as long as everyone realizes that it just means they have no way to discuss the real problem, the debt, so they do what they do, re-direct the issue to anything else.

Link: The Right’s Slavery Obsession – The Daily Beast.

China, Economy, Politics

Debt Markets React, Dollar Slides

Part and parcel of artificially fueling the global economy by printing money and buying our own debt (which would be illegal if you tried it) is the effect it has on the shrinking_dollardollar and interest rates when the party is over. Getting our own economy and the global economy back to market realities will cause interest rates to rise to a “normal” rate. It will also have a negative, albeit temporary effect on the stock market and your 401K. When interest rates rise, mortgages and other financed purchases, like your car and credit card purchases, will cost more. As the value of the dollar falls, everything you buy will cost more. This is the bad tasting medicine referred to in the previous post. Contrary to the Obama administration’s belief, shouldering future generations with our debt is not an option.

  • Relief rally short-lived as concerns over consequences dominate
  • Dollar index down 0.6 percent, euro and yen gain
  • European shares retreat from highs, Wall Street to weaken
  • Gold hits one-week high, oil slides

Facing the reality of another can-kicking session in Congress early next year, the Chinese credit agency Dagong downgraded the U.S. sovereign rating to A- from A with a negative outlook, driving further dollar losses. That’s just the beginning. Hold on to your wallet. If we’re ever going to get things back to normal again, it won’t be easy, but it isn’t an impossible task. The healing process must begin. The result being an economy that begins to grow on its own momentum, increasing the value of the dollar, and pegging interest rates at a true market-driven level.

Link: GLOBAL MARKETS-Dollar slides as relief at U.S. debt deal fades

China, North Korea, Politics

North Korea Full Of Speed Freaks

Originally produced by the government as an export product to China, North Koreans have taken to the drug crystal meth, or methamphetamine. Estimates are between 40-50% of adults are addicted to crystal meth and are now making it in their homes.

That explains a lot when it comes to dealing with North Korea. A cash strapped drug dealer with nuclear capability. Make that, nuclear proliferation capability.

Link: North Korea Grapples With Crystal Meth Epidemic – Korea Real Time – WSJ.