By Sara Carter
Russia is preparing to fight World War
III against the United States, not with conventional weapons but with
the American dollar, a financial analyst told TheBlaze.
Kevin Freeman, a global financial analyst with expertise in financial
warfare and terrorism, warned that Russia, along with allies like
China, could cripple the U.S. financial system.
It’s not a theory but a “very real reality” that should not be ignored, he said.
“The real risk is if we go after them with economic weapons, they
come back after us and this creates World War III,” said Freeman, who
has consulted for the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. ”This is a very tough game
of chicken that we’re playing, and Putin is serious.”
...U.S. analysts told TheBlaze
that the sanctions announced Monday against seven of Russia’s
wealthiest oligarchs and politicians may not be enough to stop Putin.
Some Russian leaders have even joked that these are insignificant measures from a weak U.S. administration.
“There is no doubt that Russia has been thinking long and hard about
how to disrupt U.S. power and the value of the dollar in the global
market,” a U.S. defense official said. “We’re mindful but I don’t think
we’re mindful enough. One thing is certain the greatest threat to our
stability is not a conventional war but the destabilization of our
economy by an enemy.”
For the past five years, Putin has promised that he would take
America’s role as the leading global financial mammoth away, vowing to
create alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank. In 2011, he criticized the U.S. debt load, saying the “U.S. is
living way beyond their means and shifting a part of their weight of
their problems to the world economy.”
“To some extent [the U.S. is] living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar,” Putin said.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported a
significant drop in foreign central banks’ Treasury bond holdings at
the Federal Reserve. Analysts said they believed the drop was a result
of Russia shifting Treasury bond holdings out of the Fed and into
offshore accounts so it would be able to buy or sell its portfolio if
the U.S. and its European allies imposed economic sanctions over
Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev made
Russia’s intentions for economic warfare very clear, saying, “an attempt
to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of
the United States, which would cause the end of domination of the United
States in the global financial system.”
Glazyvev said Russia could stop using the dollar, creating its own payment system with “our partners in the East and South.”
By Neil Munro
The first lady, her mother, her two kids, plus numerous White House
aides and security personnel are going to tour China this month,
but White House officials are refusing to say how much the taxpayers
will pay for the trip.
However, they did say it would be a thrill for everyone on the trip, including for Michelle Obama’s top aide, Tina Tchen.
Penn Dem AG Shuts Down Corruption Sting After Only Black Democrats Are Caught, Blames Racism
By Duane Lester
So the Attorney General of Pennslyvania set up a sting. Some
politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, are offered bribes by
undercover agents. The Republicans pass. Only Democrats accept the
bribe. Black Democrats, to be precise. So clearly it was racist, or something:
...The undercover sting, begun three years ago by Kane’s
predecessor, Republican Tom Corbett, captured leading Philadelphia
Democrats, including four local members of the state’s House delegation,
on tape accepting money. The lobbyist who agreed to wear a wire and
tape officials reacting to offers of cash and/or gifts is Tyron B. Ali,
40, who was arrested in a $430,000 fraud case.
“Sources
with knowledge of the sting said the investigation made financial
pitches to both Republicans and Democrats, but only Democrats accepted
the payments,” said the Inquirer.
Four state lawmakers took money, the sources said. State Rep. Ronald
G. Waters accepted multiple payments totaling $7,650; State Rep. Vanessa
Brown took $4,000; State Rep. Michelle Brownlee received $3,500; and
State Rep. Louise Bishop took $1,500, said people with knowledge of the
investigation.
But it was racism that made them take the bribe.
By Thomas Lifson
It’s good to know that our commander in chief has plenty of time for his March Madness bracketology, even as the United States is humiliated by Russian officials’ mockery of meaningless sanctions for Putin’s Anschluss
in Crimea. I’ll bet The Russkies are quaking in their boots over the
preezy’s basketball prowess, as evidenced by this recent Instagram photo
put out by the White House on Instagram:
There’s also plenty of time for the president to raise money for his Democrat allies, for instance New York fundraisers yesterday, “including a high-dollar fundraiser at the home of Alan Patricof, the founder of a New York venture capital fund. Patricof is a longtime Clinton friend and financial bundler for her Senate and presidential campaigns.”
President Obama is going at double the pace of President Bush’s second term when it comes to fundraising. As Bloomberg BusinessWeeek puts it, “Raising money is the least -- and the most -- Obama can do for” Democrat candidates. Nobody wants to be photographed anywhere near him, because he is “political poison.”
But members of the Party of the Little Guy are more than happy to take
money from Wall Street guys, green energy cronies, Hollywood airheads,
and other Dem moneybags that is raised by a president who’s got nothing
more important on his mind than sports, money, and finding a replacement
for the White House pastry chef.
By Thomas Lifson
Things are falling apart for Obama so fast (“freakout” is the current term showing up in even liberal outlets) that the measure of his presidency is already being taken. Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a particularly pungent and insightful column full of near-aphorisms on the president and the media forces which sustain him with decreasing effectiveness. A sample:
A
cavalier foreign policy by an inattentive president that elicits the
contempt of the people it intends to punish ultimately encourages their
aggression as well.
…We
need a fat president. Or at least one who rarely thinks and never
speaks about how he looks in jeans. And one who doesn't spend his day
testing his wits against a Hollywood stoner or bantering with Ryan
Seacrest while a European ally is being pummeled by Russia. And one who
would rather spend his time working than working out, even if it means
putting on a few pounds. And one who can pitch from the mound and reach
home plate. However confined.
By Thomas Lifson
We are at the cusp of a whole lotta noticing going on.
Kimball continues:
What
exactly are you going to do about that, Mr. President? (UPDATE:
Besides, I mean, the pretend sanctions against 11 individuals that
caused such hilarity among the Russians yesterday?)
For five years, you’ve been jetting around the world at vast expense to
apologize for America. You apologized to the Muslims. You apologized to
Hugo Chavez. You bowed deeply to the Saudi despot. You cancelled the promised missile defense programs for
Poland and the Czech Republic, thereby both selling out important
allies and waving the flag of weakness to the country that, come to
think of it, might just be American’s “number one geopolitical foe,” as
someone once said.
It’s
all starting to unravel, isn’t it? The preposterous and hideously
expensive socialized medicine program you shoved down the throats of the
American people with no Republican support and against the will of a
majority of the people: Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass it to find out
what’s in it. Well, you bribed, cajoled, and threatened to get it
passed, and now the American people are indeed finding out what’s in it.
“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,
period.” You said that over and over and over. You knew it wasn’t true.
But you decided to lie to the American people in order to set about
“fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” That’s what
you promised to do in 2008. And boy have you made good on that promise.
Kimball sees where this is leading:
Meanwhile,
those very American people you, like Mencken, hold in such contempt:
they are waking up. They do not like what you are doing to this
country. Which is why your approval rating is in the 30s.
That’s Bush territory. And all signs are that the impending direction
is south. It may seem extreme now, in March 2014. But just wait. I
reckon it won’t be long before you’re faced with one of those unhappy
dilemmas I mentioned at the outset. Abdication or resignation may be one
option. The other begins with “i.” But that’s something that no
establishment Republican wants to broach. Not yet, anyway. Not yet.
The next two and a half years are going to be perilous and very interesting (in the purportedly Chinese sense of the term).
By Ken Blackwell & Bob Morrison
It
was an unprecedented confession by an American head of state. It was
shocking – or should have been – because it showed the president of the
United States conspiring, literally whispering
assurances to a foreign leader that may not have been consistent with
his own public pronouncements to us, the American voters, or to the
world.
American
presidents are not supposed to be dealing behind the hand or under the
table with foreign leaders. It speaks of a fundamental lack of trust
between the governors and the governed. Our liberal media – always in
the tank for Mr. Obama – yawned and brushed it all off.
Mitt
Romney tried to raise the issue, but he stumbled badly. He pronounced
Russia “our number-one strategic enemy.” If he had been elected, how
could he have dealt with Putin’s Russia with that deeply flawed
pre-supposition?
Russians are
not our enemy. Nor should we let Vladimir Putin’s Great Power
ambitions make the Russians our enemy. Successful U.S. presidents from
Harry Truman through JFK to Ronald Reagan maintained the view that the
Russian people were our friends, however much their dictatorial rulers tried to make them our enemies.
President Obama has done virtually everything wrong in dealing with Russia. He let Hillary Clinton
present them with a misspelled “reset” button in 2009. That button was
red, but it was a green light for Russian aggression against the
Republic of Georgia. It signaled the Obama administration’s willingness
to let bygones be bygones and let Putin’s seizure of several Georgian
provinces stand. Flexible.
Next,
Mr. Obama stiff-armed the Poles and Czechs over missile defense. He
withdrew an American offer of help to our new NATO allies while
wishfully thinking this would make Putin more amenable to aiding us with
Iran’s nuclear program. Putin pocketed the concession and gave not an
inch, nor a millimeter on Iran, or, for that matter, on Syria. More
flexible still.
Now,
we have Secretary of State John Kerry tripping over his shoelaces with
every public utterance. We’re going to impost sanctions against the
ruling Russian clique – the crowd that used to be known as the nomenklatura. They won’t be able to travel freely in the West. They won’t be able to access their offshore bank accounts, presumably.
But
this is a ruling elite that can already command the best that a country
spanning twelve time zones can offer. They will have their dachas on the Black Sea (and now they will have easy access through a newly acquired province in the Crimea).
But Secretary Kerry hastens to add that this is not a “threat,” not “personal.” Does he believe that? Does anyone?
So much for this administration’s post-election flexibility. The latest public opinion polls show that the bloom is off Barack Obama’s red rose. Americans are increasingly becoming disenchanted with his left-wing politics and his mistrustful dealings with foreign dictators.
Remember that open hand with which he approached the Iranian mullahs? How has that worked out?
Meanwhile,
this administration is showing manly firmness with at least one foreign
nation. The Obama State Department has taken to counting Jews in Judea
and Samaria and is daily berating the Israelis about settlements.
They
are doing this on behalf of the PLO. That terrorist outfit lined up
unapologetically with the USSR for decades. Only when Western resolve
helped bring down that evil empire did Yasser Arafat and his PLO cohorts
shift sponsors.
Why the United States should be flexible with Putin and PLO boss Mahmoud Abbas never made sense. It makes even less sense now.
By Rick Moran
According to the Hill, many insurance companies are contradicting HHS Secretary Sebelius's rosy predictions about modest increases in Obamacare premiums next year.
Some of the increases will be "significant." How significant? In some states, the increase may be as much as 300%.
The
expected rate hikes will be announced in the coming months amid an
intense election year, when control of the Senate is up for grabs. The
sticker shock would likely bolster the GOP’s prospects in November and
hamper ObamaCare insurance enrollment efforts in 2015.
The
industry complaints come less than a week after Health and Human
Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to downplay concerns
about rising premiums in the healthcare sector. She told lawmakers rates
would increase in 2015 but grow more slowly than in the past.
“The
increases are far less significant than what they were prior to the
Affordable Care Act,” the secretary said in testimony before the House
Ways and Means Committee.
Her comment baffled insurance officials, who said it runs counter to the industry’s consensus about next year.
“It’s
pretty shortsighted because I think everybody knows that the way the
exchange has rolled out … is going to lead to higher costs,” said one
senior insurance executive who requested anonymity.
The insurance
official, who hails from a populous swing state, said his company
expects to triple its rates next year on the ObamaCare exchange.
The hikes are expected to vary substantially by region, state and carrier.
Areas
of the country with older, sicker or smaller populations are likely to
be hit hardest, while others might not see substantial increases at all.
...Much
will depend on how firms are coping with the healthcare law’s raft of
new fees and regulatory restrictions, according to another industry
official.
Some insurers initially underpriced their policies to begin with, expecting to raise rates in the second year.
Others, especially in larger states, will continue to hold rates low in order to remain competitive.
But insurance officials are quick to emphasize that any spikes would be a consequence of delays and changes in ObamaCare’s rollout.
They
point out that the administration, after a massive public outcry, eased
their policies to allow people to keep their old health plans. That
kept some healthy people in place, instead of making them jump into the
new exchanges.
Note
that part of these massive increases is due to President Obama's
desperate attempts to deal with consumer backlash about his failed
promises as well as his desire to push back some Obamacare mandates
beyond election day next year.
...The
problem for the Democrats is that Obamacare has left the realm of the
theoretical and entered the real world. As long as Obamacare's problems
were predictions, Democrats could claim that Republicans were bad
mouthing the law in order to kill it.
Now,
the American people don't need Republican spin to see the damage this
law is going to inflict on them. They are experiencing it first hand and
if the GOP is smart, it will develop ads and social media campaigns to
buttress what people already know and are seeing in their own lives. No
need for overkill. The truth is devastating enough.
