No 947 “En mi opinión” Mayo 13, 2015
“IN GOD WE TRUST” LAZARO R GONZALEZ MIñO EDITOR
Si nosotros queremos podemos regresar a unos Estados
Unidos fuertes y respetados, eso es si queremos. Lázaro R González Miño.
AMENPER: El fin del
Ciclo Socialista…
La política viaja en ciclos, los que hemos vivido los suficientes años para
ser testigos de esto, podemos identificar los cambios de las tendencias en los
pueblos.
El historiador escocés Alexander Tytler escribió un artículo
sobre esto hace tiempo, que ahora está recibiendo mucha atención
debido a su vinculación con Wikipedia.
Teoría de Tytler establece un ciclo que recorre todas las democracias.
Tytler dijo que el ciclo comienza con una sociedad en la esclavitud.
Luego dice que sigue en esta secuencia: Esclavitud, Fe espiritual, Valor,
libertad, abundancia, Egoísmo, Complacencia, Apatía, Dependencia-
Para a continuación, volver a la esclavitud. Tytler había organizado estos
elementos en un círculo que pueden ver en el dibujo.
Hemos estado en un estado de dependencia que nos ha llevado a la esclavitud
socialista como en el pasado en muchas partes del mundo. Pero
estamos viendo también como vimos en el pasado una mayoría silente que está
volviendo a la fe espiritual que llevan al valor y la libertad que
eventualmente nos llevará a la abundancia-
Quizás porque esto no ha sucedido todavía en Latinoamérica hay entre
nosotros un estado de pesimismo. Pero Latinoamérica siempre ha sido
la última región en tener los cambios de opinión.
Vemos que el conservador Partido Bharatiya Janata de la India ganó una
victoria abrumadora en las elecciones nacionales, llevando un
mensaje del gobierno limpio y responsable, esta victoria con una
histórica mayoría parlamentaria podría cambiar profundamente el
sentido de la democracia más grande del mundo.
El primer ministro británico Cameron del partido conservador obtuvo
una mayoría absoluta del Parlamento, en las elecciones
Lo que nos trae a las elecciones del 2016 en los Estados Unidos que todavía
es el faro del mundo.
El apoyo decreciente ae los demócratas. que se ha convertido en un
partido socialista, se puede notar entre los blancos de clase media, y los
votantes de clase obrera de todas las razas, grupos que eran antes la base
anterior del partido. Este cambio comenzó hace décadas, y la fruta está
madura para estas elecciones. A los obreros votantes les molesta pagar por programas
federales que dicen que desalientan trabajo duro y responsabilidad
individual.
Lo que queda en el partido demócrata es la clase que se siente dependiente
del gobierno de corte socialista paternalista, o los que han sido victimas de
la doctrina de la lucha de clases.
El principal obstáculo a que se enfrentará cualquier candidato demócrata es
resistencia a la instalación de un presidente del mismo partido en la casa
blanca por tres mandatos consecutivos lo que confirma la teoría de los ciclos,
o sea que a los ciudadanos le gusta variar el sistema establecido porque el
poder gasta creando descontento.
Si usted mira los presidentes desde la II guerra mundial, cuando el mismo
partido ocupó la casa blanca durante tres mandatos consecutivos, el
candidato de ese partido perdido en las próxima elecciones seis de siete veces.
Hay razones el por qué ha prevalecido el obstáculo de tres períodos.
La primera y más obvia ha sido porque el titular se ha vuelto impopular durante
su segundo mandato, y su impopularidad ha llevado al candidato de ese partido a
perder las elecciones.
Las elecciones de 2016, no serán solo esto. En este caso en
particular Obama y su administración es probables que permanezcan muy
impopulares entre los votantes. Ya hay una acumulación de agravios entre Obama
y los independientes y hasta demócratas que se trasladará a la candidata. Estos
incluyen el Obamacare, que ha alienado a muchos jubilados (que consideran que
la ley socava el Medicare), dueños de pequeños negocios y empleados y los dirigentes
sindicales y trabajadores cuyos beneficios serán gravados ahora. Hay que añadir
los reclamos por las regulaciones en la industria energética por los
ambientalistas, la inmigración, las armas y los derechos civiles, incluyendo
más recientemente su apoyo a los manifestantes en Ferguson y Baltimore que ha
causado preocupación de una guerra racial.
Este tono del partido en temas sociales ha alienado a algunos votantes
independientes.
Además, hay, por supuesto, muchos votantes que votarían por un republicano
independientemente de quién había estado en la oficina, pero hay muchos
votantes en el medio (especialmente en los años presidenciales) para los cuales
votar o no votar depende de estos factores.
El cambio de tendencia que estamos viendo en el mundo recientemente, apoya
las oportunidades del partido republicano.
Si optan por un candidato experimentado y calificado en 2016, y hay
una mayoría de buenos candidatos entre los aspirantes, esta es una buena
oportunidad de recuperar la casa blanca, confirmando la reticencia de los
norteamericanos a mantener el mismo partido la casa blanca tres mandatos
consecutivos
A pesar de que en la superficie vemos una distención entre las tendencias
políticas de los candidatos republicanos, todos están en mayor o menor grado
con una filosofía conservadora, al final, uno sólo será el candidato en las
elecciones generales, y con la estrategia adecuada podrían tomar ventaja del
clima político.
Una estrategia que podría determinar el resultado de la carrera por la
Presidencia en el año 2016, es aprovechar que en la actualidad, que el
candidato presidencial que gana el voto popular en todo el estado lleva todos
los votos electorales en cada estado menos en Maine y Nebraska, donde los
electores se dividen por distritos congresionales.
Añadir unos cuantos Estados azules que pueden volverse más rojizos al
modelo de asignación proporcional, estados donde los distritos ahora pueden
estar orientados a maximizar las victorias republicanas, haría
posible grandes cambios en el resultado de las elecciones.
Los esfuerzos republicanos deben de concentrarse en, Michigan, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, y sobre todo en Wisconsin y Florida (por eso la
candidatura perfecta sería Walker-Rubio) Estos estados fueron la fuente de 106
de 332 votos electorales de Obama-
Si por fin Hillary Clinton es la candidata demócrata, con sus problemas
insumergibles que la perseguirán durante la campaña, el partido republicano
sólo puede perder si se suicidan con luchas internas, no presentan a los
votantes una plataforma coherente o no salen a votar.
Obama Has Just Thrown His Own Country Under
The Bus At The UN, Inviting International Ridicule
Once again the Obama administration screams to the
world about the supposed sins of America.
When
President Obama launched what critics widely called his “apology tour” shortly
after his first inauguration, he made highly publicized speeches in a number of
other countries in which he repeatedly pointed the finger of blame at the
United States for its supposed past transgressions. For instance, he traveled
to another country and chastised his own nation for having “shown
arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe.
As Karl
Rove wrote in an April 2009 commentary for The Wall Street Journal,
“President Barack Obama has finished the second leg of his international
confession tour. In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents
for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors.”
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Now, once
again, the president has shown he is more than willing to paint the U.S. in a
very bad light. He has put his stamp of approval on a report from the State
Department to the United Nations in which the administration cites what it
claims are widespread human rights violations within the U.S. itself. Breitbart
News notes
that the alleged violations cited in the report to the U.N. Human Rights
Council include a number of so-called abuses which many say Obama and his
radical policies have caused or worsened:
– Police brutality, including the
Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri
– Discrimination against Muslims who want to build or expand mosques
– Voter identification laws in Texas and elsewhere
– Predatory lending in home mortgages
– Suspension of black children in schools
– Women earning “78 cents on the dollar” (a false statistic)
– Discrimination against Muslims who want to build or expand mosques
– Voter identification laws in Texas and elsewhere
– Predatory lending in home mortgages
– Suspension of black children in schools
– Women earning “78 cents on the dollar” (a false statistic)
And
what’s been the reaction from other member countries of the United Nations —
countries in which human rights abuses have often been documented? Breitbart
says the U.S. has come under withering criticism from a “variety of
dictatorships,” including Pakistan, Russian, China, and Iran.
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“Iran,
for example, complained about racial discrimination in the United States, among
other criticisms, calling on the U.S. to ‘protect the rights of African-Americans
against police brutality.’”
Following
the Obama administration’s report to the U.N., the headline on the Middle
East-based Al
Jazeeranetwork blared: “US cited for police violence, racism
in scathing UN review on human rights.” In fact, as the Al Jazeera report does
not make clear, it was the President of the United States himself, through his
own State Department, who condemned his own country’s human rights record and
subjected America once again to scorn and ridicule in a troubled world where
Obama’s “apology tour” supposedly elevated other nations’ opinion of the United
States.
Chiste del
futuro
Una mujer que está embarazada va a su parroquia a hablar con el párroco....
“Padre, como usted puede notar, estoy encinta, es una hembra... y la fecha
“Padre, como usted puede notar, estoy encinta, es una hembra... y la fecha
del parto es el 4 de noviembre, día de las elecciones”.
El padre le dice: “Hija mía estás segura?- “Sí , padre”.
“Y... qué te sucede? – “Es que tengo un gran dilema sobre como llamar a mi hija”
“Por qué Hija mía? – “Pues vea padre, si gana Marco Rubio, la llamaría GRACIAS DE DIOS
“Pero si gana Hilary....qué hago ? - El padre con lágrimas en los ojos le contesta... “Tendrá que llamarse ... SOCORRO !
El padre le dice: “Hija mía estás segura?- “Sí , padre”.
“Y... qué te sucede? – “Es que tengo un gran dilema sobre como llamar a mi hija”
“Por qué Hija mía? – “Pues vea padre, si gana Marco Rubio, la llamaría GRACIAS DE DIOS
“Pero si gana Hilary....qué hago ? - El padre con lágrimas en los ojos le contesta... “Tendrá que llamarse ... SOCORRO !
Washington Post Gives Clinton ‘Four
Pinocchios’ for Illegal Immigration Claim
"As a former senator, Clinton should know
better."
Democrat presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton made the claim last week at a roundtable discussion
in Las Vegas that: “…in New York, which I know a little bit about because I
represented it for eight years and I live there now, our undocumented workers in New York pay more in taxes that some of the
biggest corporations in New York.”
The Washington
Post sensed that her
statement did not pass the sniff test and decided to do some digging.
RELATED STORIES
First, the paper
noted that Clinton is comparing apples and oranges. She was grouping
together primarily the estimated state and local taxes illegal immigrants
pay and comparing that figure with federal income taxes corporations may or may
not pay in a particular year based on their earnings.
When the Post reached
out to the Clinton campaign for facts to back up her claim, her staff pointed
to an op-ed piece which appeared in the New York Daily
News.
The op-ed’s author,
Albor Ruiz, claimed that illegal aliens paid $1.1 billion in state taxes in
2012. That figure came from the liberal Institute of Taxation and Economic
Policy, which made some generous assumptions in deriving that figure which the
paper accepted for comparison’s sake.
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But even taking this
figure at face value, Clinton’s assertion does not add up. The op-ed her staff
cited offered the examples of Verizon and Citigroup, among others.
In 2012, Verizon paid
$1.7 billion in property and other taxes and $1.3 billion in employment taxes.
The income tax bill in 2012 was a relatively low $351 million, due to lower
earnings.
In other words, the
more apples-to-apples comparison found that one New York-based corporation
alone paid over three times as much in taxes ($3.4 billion vs. $1.1 billion) as
the estimated total of what over 870,000 illegal immigrants in New York paid
that same year.
The illegal immigrant
tally came close to the 2012 Citicorp total of the approximately $1 billion in
state and local taxes and employment taxes (the company paid no corporate
federal income taxes that year due to still recovering from significant losses
during the recession). This figured does not include the sales taxes the
company paid. Further, in 2014 Citicorp paid $1 billion in corporate income tax
alone.
Clinton spokesman
Josh Schwerin told the Post: “The point she was making is that undocumented
immigrants pay more in state and local taxes alone than some of our biggest
companies pay in either state or federal corporate income tax.” He added, “That
is a striking fact. And that’s why she raised it.”
A 2013 Heritage
Foundation report found that overall,
illegal immigrants cost the United States over $54 billion more in benefits
received versus taxes paid. That deficit would soar to over $100 billion by the
end of the decade if illegal immigrants were allowed to become citizens.
The Post’s final
assessment of Clinton’s claim:
[C]omparing the taxes
of hundreds of thousands of people to the tax bill of one corporation is a
stretch and fairly misleading. Even the companies that pay little or no federal
income taxes end up paying lots of other taxes. So it’s a nonsense comparison.
We wavered between
Three and Four Pinocchios, but ultimately settled on Four. As a former senator, Clinton should know
better.
Hillary Clinton/ WHAT
DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
There are many unanswered questions surrounding the
September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Because of the coming
Presidential elections, an effort was made to incorrectly characterize an
obvious terrorist attack for a reaction to an obscure video. America was
misinformed by members of the government. A total disclosure of what happened
is long overdue to the American people.
Hay
demasiadas preguntas sin respuesta en relacion al ataque del 11 de septiembre
de 2012 en Benghazi, Libia. Debido a la cercania a las elecciones
presidenciales del 2012, el esfuerzo fue hecho para justificar incorrectamente
un obvio ataque terrorista como resultado de un oscuro video. El pueblo
americano fue desinformado por miembros del gobierno. La total
explicacion de los sucesos debe ser revelada al pueblo americano.
To view
the 2-min short visit / para ver este corto de 2 minutos apriete aqui: www.YouTube.com/JAUMS
EMO:
{Hay que tener la gandinga cocinada para escuchar a esta comunista} LRGM
WND EXCLUSIVE
EX-CIA DIRECTOR FLIPS OUT ON BENGHAZI
Claims
attackers demonstrated 'little or no advance planning'
Mike Morell
TEL AVIV — In a new
account, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who has been implicated in
the Benghazi talking-points scandal, claimed the Sept. 11, 2012, attack against
the U.S. Benghazi mission took place with “little or no advance planning.”
Morell’s theory does
not explain how hundreds of militants arrived with weapons, erected armed
checkpoints surrounding the compound and demonstrated insider knowledge of the
facility while deploying military-style tactics to storm the U.S. mission.
Nor did he attempt to
resolve how the attackers knew the exact location of a secretive CIA annex,
including the specific coordinates of the building that were likely utilized to
launch precision mortar strikes.
Morell’s latest
claims also do not explain how militants with “little to no advance planning”
could be capable of mounting a fierce, hours-long gun battle with highly
experienced U.S. forces stationed inside the Benghazi mission and CIA annex.
Seeking to promote
his new book on the war on terrorism published this week, Morell turned a
section of the forthcoming work into a piece at Politico titled “The Real
Story of Benghazi: A CIA insider’s account of what happened on 9/11/12.”
In the piece, Morell
writes, “I believe that, with little or no advance planning, extremists in
Benghazi made some phone calls, gathering a group of like-minded individuals to
go to the TMF (Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi). When they attacked, at
about 9:40 p.m. local time, the assault was not well organized — they seemed to
be more of a mob who intended to breach the compound and see what damage they
could do.”
Continued Morell:
When you assess the
information from the video feed from the cameras at the TMF and the Annex,
there are few signs of a well-thought-out plan, few signs of command and
control, few signs of organization, few signs of coordination, few signs of
even the most basic military tactics in the attack on the TMF. Some of the
attackers were armed with small arms; many were not armed at all.
Many of the attackers,
after entering through the front gate, ran past buildings to the other end of
the compound, behaving as if they were thrilled just to have overrun the
compound. They did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They
appeared intent on looting and conducting vandalism. When they did enter
buildings, they quickly exited with stolen items.
Morell concluded,
“Clearly, this was a mob looting and vandalizing the place—with tragic results.
It was a mob, however, made up of a range of individuals, some of whom were
hardened Islamic extremists. And it was a mob that killed two Americans by
setting fires to several buildings.”
Morell’s account of
“little to no advance planning” stands in contrast to a number of factors.
Fox News previously
reported late Republican Florida Rep. Bill Young said he spoke for 90 minutes
with David Ubben, one of the security agents severely injured in the assault.
Young said the agent revealed to him the intruders knew the exact location of
late Ambassador Chris Stevens’ safe room while demonstrating insider knowledge
of the Benghazi compound.
“He (Ubben)
emphasized the fact that it was a very, very military type of operation [in
that] they had knowledge of almost everything in the compound,” stated Young.
“They knew where the gasoline was, they knew where the generators were, they
knew where the safe room was, they knew more than they should have about that
compound.”
Morel’s description
further doesn’t jibe with the State Department’s Accountability Review Board
investigation into the Benghazi attack.
The ARB described a
well-orchestrated attack with militants who apparently had specific knowledge
of the compound. It doesn’t focus on looters but rather on “men armed with AK
rifles” who “started to destroy the living room contents and then approached
the safe area gate and started banging on it.”
In another detail
suggesting a plan, the ARB states the intruders smoked up Villa C, likely to
make breathing so difficult that anyone inside the safe room where Ambassador
Stevens was holed up would need to come out.
It may be difficult
for keen observers to swallow Morell’s claim of largely unplanned attackers and
looters in light of events that demonstrated the attackers knew the location of
the nearby CIA annex and set up checkpoints to ensure against the escape by
Americans inside the special mission.
Further, the
perpetrators attacked the CIA annex with mortars that reportedly landed on the
roof of the building. Security experts stress the attackers would likely have
had to possess exact coordinates of the CIA complex to calculate the precise
trajectory and distance from which to fire.
Muhammad video
Meanwhile, in his
Politico piece, Morell linked the Benghazi attack to an attack against the U.S.
Embassy in Cairo that same day. Morell claimed the Sept. 11, 2012, Cairo attack
was motivated by an infamous anti-Islam YouTube video mocking Muhammad.
“We know from having
monitored social media and other communications in advance that the
demonstration and violence in Cairo were sparked by people upset over a YouTube
video that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad negatively,” he wrote at Politico.
Morel continued, “We
believe that in Benghazi — over six hundred miles away — extremists heard about
the successful assault on our embassy in Egypt and decided to make some trouble
of their own, although we still do not know their motivations with certainty.”
However, the Cairo
protest Sept. 11 was announced days in advance as part of a movement to free
the so-called “blind sheik,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, held in the U.S. over the 1993
World Trade Center bombing.
The State
Department’s 39-page ARB said a group acting to free Rahman was involved in
previous attacks against diplomatic facilities in Benghazi.
The anti-U.S. protest
movement outside the Cairo embassy was a long-term project to free Rahman. As
far back as July 2012, Rahman’s son, Abdallah Abdel Rahman, threatened to
organize a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and detain the employees
inside.
On the day of the
Sept. 11, 2012, protests in Cairo, CNN’s Nic Robertson interviewed the son of
Rahman, who described the protest as being about freeing his father. No
Muhammad film was mentioned. A big banner calling for Rahman’s release can be
seen as Robertson walked to the embassy protests.
Regarding his attempt
to connect the Muhammad film to Benghazi, Morell fails to mention an
independent investigation that found no mention of the video on social media in
Libya in the three days leading up to the attack. A review of more than 4,000
postings was conducted by the leading social media monitoring firm Agincourt
Solutions, finding the first reference to the video was not detected on social
media until the day after the attack.
“From the data we
have, it’s hard for us to reach the conclusion that the consulate attack was
motivated by the movie. Nothing in the immediate picture – surrounding the
attack in Libya – suggests that,” Jeff Chapman, chief executive with Agincourt
Solutions, told Fox News.
Morell does concede,
“I should note that our analysts never said the video was a factor in the
Benghazi attacks.”
Still, it would be
strange for the public to have gathered outside the Benghazi mission to protest
a Muhammad film. The U.S. special mission was not a permanent facility, nor was
its existence widely known by the public in Libya.
Indeed, State’s ARB
report on the Benghazi attack itself documented the facility was set up
secretively and without the knowledge of the new Libyan government.
“Another key driver
behind the weak security platform in Benghazi was the decision to treat
Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility, not officially notified to the
host government, even though it was also a full-time office facility,” the
report states.
Morell and talking points
A 46-page House
Republican report from last April probing the Benghazi attack detailed how
lawmakers who led the investigation were given access to classified emails and
other communications that prove the talking points were not edited to protect
classified information – as Morell had originally claimed – but instead to
protect the State Department’s reputation.
“Contrary to
administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect
classified information,” states the ‘Interim Progress Report for the Members of
the House Republican Conference on the Events Surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012,
Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi.’”
“Evidence rebuts
administration claims that the talking points were modified to protect
classified information or to protect an investigation by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI),” the report continues.
The report charges
that the talking points were “deliberately” edited to “protect the State
Department.”
States the report:
“To protect the State Department, the administration deliberately removed
references to al-Qaida-linked groups and previous attacks in Benghazi in the
talking points used by [United Nations] Ambassador [Susan] Rice, thereby
perpetuating the deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the
attacks evolved from a demonstration caused by a YouTube video.”
As WND reported, the
tale of the talking points began when U.S. intelligence officials testified
behind closed doors in early November 2012 and were asked point blank whether
they had altered the notes on which Rice based her comments about the Benghazi
attack.
On Sunday, Sept. 16,
2012, Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White
House response to the Benghazi attack. In nearly identical statements, she
asserted that the attack was a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful
video.”
Other Obama
administration officials made similar claims.
Two congressional
sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said Morell, then acting
CIA director, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and
National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, each testified behind
closed doors that they did not alter the talking points.
On Nov. 16, 2012,
former CIA director David Petraeus testified before the same congressional
intelligence committees and also replied no to the question of whether he had
changed the talking points, three congressional sources told Reuters.
Then, on Nov. 27, the
CIA reportedly told lawmakers that it had in fact changed the wording of the
unclassified talking points to delete a reference to al-Qaida, according to
senators who met with Morell that day.
The Nov. 27 meeting
was between Morell, Rice and Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and
Kelly Ayotte.
The three senators
said in a statement that Morell told them during the meeting that the FBI had
removed references to al-Qaida from the talking points “and did so to prevent
compromising an ongoing criminal investigation” of the attack on the U.S.
mission.
The senators’ joint
statement reads: “Around 10:00 this morning in a meeting requested by
Ambassador Rice, accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we asked Mr.
Morell who changed the unclassified talking points to remove references to
al-Qaida.
“In response, Mr.
Morell said the FBI removed the references and did so to prevent compromising
an ongoing criminal investigation. We were surprised by this revelation and the
reasoning behind it.”
Morell’s claim of
changing the talking points for security reasons is contradicted by the April
Republican probe.
Further, on Nov. 28,
2012, CBS News reported the CIA then told the news agency that the edits to the
talking points were made “so as not to tip off al-Qaida as to what the U.S.
knew, and to protect sources and methods.”
That same report
quoted a source from the Office of the Director for National Intelligence who
told Margaret Brennan of CBS News that the source’s office made the edits as
part of the inter-agency process because the links to al-Qaida were deemed too
“tenuous” to make public.
Meanwhile, a few
hours after his meeting with the senators, Morell’s office reportedly contacted
Graham and stated that Morell “misspoke” in the earlier meeting and that it
was, in fact, the CIA, not the FBI, that deleted the al-Qaida references.
“They were unable to
give a reason as to why,” stated Graham.
“CIA officials
contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier
meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaida references, not the FBI.
They were unable to give a reason as to why,” said the senators’ statement.
“This was an honest
mistake and it was corrected as soon as it was realized. There is nothing more
to this,” an intelligence official said about Morell’s briefing to the
senators.
The official said the
talking points “were never meant to be definitive and, in fact, noted that the
assessment may change. The points clearly reflect the early indications of
extremist involvement in a direct result. It wasn’t until after they were used
in public that analysts reconciled contradictory information about how the
assault began.”
However, the
intelligence community clearly at first portrayed the edited White House
talking points as a bid to protect classified information.
White House blames Morell
Morell’s involvement
in the talking points was further called into question in a New York Times
article in May 2013 quoting administration officials who said Morell deleted a
reference in the draft version of the talking points to CIA warnings of
extremist threats in Libya, which State Department officials objected to
because they feared it would reflect badly on them.
The officials said
Morell acted on his own and not in response to pressure from the State
Department.
According to the
interim House report on Benghazi, after a White House deputies meeting on
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, the administration altered the talking points to
remove references to the likely participation of Islamic extremists in the
attacks.
The administration
also removed references to the threat of extremists linked to al-Qaida in
Benghazi and eastern Libya, including information about at least five other
attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi.
Charged the report:
“Senior State Department officials requested – and the White House approved –
that the details of the threats, specifics of the previous attacks, and
previous warnings be removed to insulate the department from criticism that it
ignored the threat environment in Benghazi.”
The report authors
said that they went through email exchanges of the inter-agency process to scrub
the talking points. They wrote that the emails do not reveal any concern with
protecting classified information.
“Additionally, the
bureau itself approved a version of the talking points with significantly more
information about the attacks and previous threats than the version that the
State Department requested. Thus, the claim that the State Department’s edits
were made solely to protect that investigation is not credible.”
In a particularly
stinging accusation, the report states that when draft talking points were sent
to officials throughout the executive branch, senior State Department officials
requested they be changed “to avoid criticism for ignoring the threat
environment in Benghazi.”
“Specifically, State
Department emails reveal senior officials had ‘serious concerns’ about the
talking points, because members of Congress might attack the State Department
for ‘not paying attention to agency warnings’ about the growing threat in
Benghazi.
Jorge
Villalon: CUBA: Poder y Negocios
Hay muchas personas que piensan que el
cambio de política de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba, responde a un intento de
lograr la libertad de Cuba. La realidad es que los norteamericanos, de todas
las tendencias entendieron que la política de aislamiento no funcionaba, que no
perjudicaba en nada al gobierno cubano y que podría afectar un poco el nivel de
vida del pueblo cubano. Pero sobre todo vieron, que al mantener una política
que no funcionaba para el fin que fue diseñada, estaban perdiendo negocios,
estaban dejando de vender productos, y decidieron cambiarla.
El mismo Obama ha dicho que no espera
ninguna mejora en el aspecto de los derechos humanos, lo cual quiere decir que
no espera la democratización de Cuba. La mafia castrista continuará su gobierno
represivo, y muchas empresas norteamericanas podrán hacer negocios con el
vecino, que hasta diciembre pasado era el enemigo.
Y como en Cuba hace falta de todo,
porque hay una escasez general sobre todo de alimentos, medicinas y bienes de
consumo, las empresas norteamericanas están listas para vender desde papas
hasta computadoras, desde aspirinas hasta medicamentos de ultima generación,
sin dejar de pasar por automóviles y maquinaria para hospitales.
Asimismo, Cuba se está abriendo a la
inversión extranjera, y muchas de las mismas empresas que hace más de 50 años
perdieron lo que habian invertido en cuba por las expropiaciones castristas,
están ahora deseosas de volver a invertir. Para los negocios, Cuba está de
moda, y en oferta.
Y en el aspecto turístico pasa algo
similar. Las empresas navieras, las aerolineas y los prestadores de servicios
en general, ven una mina de oro en el potencial turístico de Cuba y no quieren
perderse su pedazo del pastel. Todos los días una aerolínea anuncia una nyeva
ruta a la habana, los Universitarios se peleán por ir en viajes de estucio a
Cuba, y no cabe la menor duda que el turismo será uno de los sectores que más
rápidamente se verá beneficiado.
El único elemento que falta en la
ecuación es cómo Cuba va a pagar por las inversiones, como se va amanejar el
aspecto financiero y si se permitirá a los bancos extranjeros, léase
norteamericanos, operar en Cuba. Eso se seguirá discutiendo y a la postre se
resolverá. Y sin duda, muy pronto se verá la Bandera Norteamericana ondear en
la embajada norteamericana, y seguramente la mismísima águila volverá a posarse
en su alto pedestal del monumento al Maine.
El efecto para Cuba será económico, y en
la medida que el gobierno se abra más, se acelerará la creación de una clase
media y una sociedad civil. Del pasado, poco o nadie hablará, y así llegará el
momento en que la biología, a pesar de los efectos milagrosos que le atribuyen
a la Moringa, actuará sobre los hermanos castro y pasará lo que Silvio
Rodríguez dijo hace un par de años: Antes de morirse, Raúl Castro debe arreglar
es desastre económico que hay en Cuba, y así será.
Lo más difícil será la eliminación de la
doble moneda, y la eliminación del estado como intermediario laboral, para
permitir la libre contratación de personas. Esto último, será lo que realmente
permitirá la recuperación del poder adquisitivo de los ciudadanos, para que
puedan comprar los bienes que estén llegando y se eleve el nivel de vida. Nivel
de vida es equivalente a capacidad de consumo.
Entonces una nueva generación nacida
después de la revolución heredará el poder y la capacidad de represión que lo
sostiene. Lo que esa generación haga, marcará la vida política futura de Cuba.
Ojalá y esa nueva generación que puede llegar al poder tan pronto como en 2018,
actúe pragmáticamente y no dogmáticamente. Ojalá que el poder no lo herede
nadie de apellido Castro, sinio un Miguel Díaz Canel o cualquier otro.
Pero no nos confundamos. Las medidas
tomadas, no buscan la libertad de Cuba, y son apoyadas mayoritariamente por
ambos partidos porque en todos los estados hay empresas que buscan hacer
negocios con Cuba, y la única excepción son algunos políticos que todavía
dependen del voto de un sector radical de la emigración cubana para ser
electos.
Que pasará cuando falten los Castro que
son el único elemento de cohesión política en Cuba. Eso no se puede saber, pero
sin duda alguna se perderá la unanimidad, habrán divisiones y diferencias, y
una lucha por el poder, porque al fin y al cabo eso es lo que más les importa a
los integrantes del gobierno cubano: Tener el Poder.
Pero la política actual hacia Cuba, está
claramente marcada por esos dos elementos: Negocios y Poder.
Jorge A Villalón
Obama Just Made A Surprising Move That
Environmentalists Hate
Environmentalists are not happy...
On Monday,
the Obama administration gave Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc. conditional approval
to start drilling for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea this summer.
Abigail
Ross Hopper, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, said in a statement: “We have taken a thoughtful approach to
carefully considering potential exploration in the Chukchi Sea, recognizing the
significant environmental, social and ecological resources in the region and
establishing high standards for the protection of this critical ecosystem, our
Arctic communities, and the subsistence needs and cultural traditions of Alaska
Natives.”
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This is
good news for Shell, which for years has been seeking approval to drill in the
remote waters of the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean, believed to hold vast
reserves of oil and gas. Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell, said: “[t]he
approval of our Revised Chukchi Sea Exploration Plan is an important milestone
and signals the confidence regulators have in our plan.”
Environmentalists,
though, were not happy with the news. Many have been pressing the
administration to reject proposals for offshore Arctic drilling, saying a
drilling accident in the icy and treacherous waters of the Arctic Ocean would
have far more devastating effects than the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico, which killed 11 and spewed millions of barrels of oil into the water.
It has
also been noted that the Chukchi Sea is one of the most dangerous places to
drill in the world. The weather is extreme and the area is extremely remote,
which would make it difficult for any clean-up or rescue workers to get there
in case of an accident.
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A New
York Times article notes that, while in some ways Obama has pursued
a more ambitious environmental agenda than any other president, he “has also
sought to balance those moves by opening up untouched federal waters to new oil
and gas drilling.” The opening of the Chukchi Sea comes just four months after
Obama opened a portion of the Atlantic coast to new offshore drilling.
The
Interior Department’s approval of the drilling is conditional — Shell will have
to obtain approval on a series of remaining drilling permits for the project;
but as long as they pass a final set of permit reviews, they can proceed to
drill this summer.
‘Judgment Has Begun’: Billy Graham’s
Daughter Explains How America Resembles Days Of Noah
In part, she blamed an increase in secularism.
According to Anne
Graham Lotz, daughter of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, the United States –
and the world in general – is actively incurring the wrath of God in much the
same way as it did prior to the great flood of the Old Testament.
During a recent
speech, Lotz paraphrased Jesus Christ’s
prophesy regarding the state of a sinful world during its final days:
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As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the
coming of the Son of Man. Men and women eating, drinking, marrying, giving in
marriage; and they had no idea that judgment was coming until it came and swept
them all away.
She went on to draw
parallels between that period and modern society.
“It was as though God
was just speaking into the wind,” she said of those living in the days of Noah.
“No one was paying any attention to Him at all; and then the flood came. And
today, people are eating, drinking, giving in marriage. Nothing wrong with
those things; they’re just normal everyday activities, right? Except when
they’re all done with no acknowledgment of God at all – complete indifference
to God.”
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Lotz cited a “rising
atmosphere of secularism and atheism” as a direct contributor to the dire moral
straits in which humanity currently finds itself.
“I believe judgment
has begun in the world and in this nation,” she said, “but we’re eating and
drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. And I think the malls are packed
and the stadiums are packed and people talking about what happened on the
latest sitcom and worried about all their entitlement; and they have no idea
they are living on an abyss and judgment is getting ready to fall.”
‘Asylum’ Status Increases Dramatically Under
Obama
Source: Congressional Research Service
China (PRC) 25%
Mejico 21%
El Salvador 7%
Guatemala 6%
India 4%
Honduras 3%
Ecuador 2%
Nepal 2%
Haity 1%
Egipto 1%
Otros 28%
"It isn’t border security if all you need is a
story."
There has been a
dramatic increase under the Obama administration in the total number of those
who are granted “asylum” status and permitted to stay in the United States.
According to a House
Judiciary Committee report, there has been a 586
percent increase in the total of those
staying in the country from 2007 to 2013. The Executive Office for Immigration
review stated as of Dec. 31, 2014, there are 415,060 non-detained asylum cases
(i.e. released into the United States) awaiting review on the immigration court
docket.
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Asylum status is
supposed to be granted to those who face a “credible fear” of persecution or
torture in their country of origin.
“Unfortunately our
generous asylum policies have become subject to ever increasing levels of abuse
largely due to the Obama Administration’s pattern of rubber stamping ‘credible
fear’ claims and asylum cases,”said Bob Goodlatte, R.-Va., chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary.
“Instead of detaining asylum seekers while the government determines whether
their cases are legitimate, the Obama administration simply releases them into
the United States.”
Chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., agrees. “It changes the
standards. It’s breathtaking in its liberalities in regard to what a refugee
is.”
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Fox News reports:
Under current policy,
aliens caught crossing the border illegally can claim asylum, and with it
receive authorization to work in the United States. Once a work permit is
conferred, then comes a social security card and a variety of taxpayer funded
benefits such as are Supplemental Security Income, SNAP/Food Stamps, Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families, and Medicaid.Some of which even legal, permanent
residents do not receive.
Jessica Vaughan,
director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies says it is a
second bite at the apple. “You just have to be on the docket to derive the
benefits. But before 2009, there wasn’t an incentive. People don’t come here to
sit in detention, they come here for the work permits.”
The House Judiciary
Committee recently voted a bill out of committee hoping to tighten the definition for asylum seekers,
but critics argue it does not go far enough because it still leaves all the
incentives in place.
“FREEDOM
IS NOT FREE”
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