[GUEST EDITORIAL] China, show your math

From The Chicago Tribune

In the first frightening minutes of Wall Street trading Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 1,000 points in reaction to another overnight stock sell-off in China. Then came a remarkable recovery — up about 500 points in one hour, 300 another — followed by a second collapse before the Dow finished down 588 points, or 3.6 percent.

Insane day, but at least you knew the numbers were real. In New York, anyway.

Questions about the future strength of the Chinese economy are at the center of the market’s extreme volatility, but China’s actual performance is as mystifying. No one observing China completely trusts the accuracy of the country’s official economic statistics or fully understands Beijing’s decision-making process. This adds to the risk of assessing what’s happening over there. On Monday, American investors paid the price, in portfolio values and stomach pain.

Going forward, the China question could affect the U.S. Federal Reserve’s anticipated decision to raise interest rates, potentially delaying the U.S. economy’s return to more normal footing. Oil prices are in retreat because China’s a major buyer. In other words, a lot rides on Beijing getting its house in order.

Big-picture wise, China is well understood. It is factory to the world and an incredible growing market for consumer goods like cars and iPhones because of its rising middle class. Whatever uncertainties China presents as a competing political and military power, we know China already has staked a claim in the global economy. Consider China to be the world’s fourth table leg, supporting world growth alongside the U.S., Europe and Japan. Which, to reiterate, means everything the Chinese government does to manage its economy matters.

Yet, as we were reminded again Monday, China plays by different rules. Among global economic powers, it is the only nondemocratic country, run by the collective leadership of the Communist Party, whose boss, President Xi Jinping, may be the most powerful figure in Chinese politics since Deng Xiaoping. But who knows? Maybe he isn’t. There is no free press or speech in China, no political opposition, and no way to double-check the government’s math. The place is hard to analyze. There is only what we observe: the slow, steady embrace of free market principles, contradicted by the practice of secret decision-making and the tradition of ruling through official propaganda rather than truth-telling.

And our 401(k)s are dependent on this?

China clearly is in a growth slowdown. All the signs, from industrial production to real estate values, indicate that.

Chinese leaders, eager to encourage their consumers to keep spending, made a series of critical mistakes this year, starting with a veiled promise through the party mouthpiece People’s Daily to keep frothy stock prices rising.

That upswing didn’t materialize, leading to another opaque decision: devaluing the currency, ostensibly to allow the yuan to trade more freely as part of the transition to a free market economy.

But few people believe that explanation. To outsiders, devaluation looks like a panicked effort to goose growth, because a weaker currency would help exports. There’s been no better explanation posited by the government, leading outsiders to hope policymakers there have a better handle on things than appears. The Wall Street Journal threw up its hands at analyzing the fiasco: “One reason markets have been so unnerved is that China’s economy remains something of a black box,” its Beijing correspondents wrote Monday. “For starters, analysts have long wondered about the accuracy of government economic statistics. And levers pulled by Chinese policy makers can be unconventional.”

Hence the collapse of stocks globally, China’s included. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.5 percent Monday.

The levers of government don’t, and shouldn’t, control markets. Government’s job is to set conditions for markets to operate efficiently. Most of the time in the West, though, policymakers find a way, through steady leadership, to manage expectations. It starts with providing trustworthy data.

The pace of transition in China is breathtaking. China has quickly matured into a world economic power. But its travails no longer represent an interesting, distant experiment. China owes its partners a transparent accounting of its economy’s performance, and a thorough explanation of its decision-making. It’s time for China to commit to the next steps in its evolution from communism to capitalism, and be clear about it.

Via: Northwest Georgia News

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China Tests New Long-Range Missile with Two Guided Warheads

Latest DF-41 flight test indicates deployment near

China conducted a flight test this month of its newest long-range missile that U.S. intelligence agencies say lofted two independently-targeted simulated nuclear warheads, according to defense officials.

The launch of the DF-41 road-mobile missile Aug. 6 was the fourth time the new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has been test-fired in three years, and indicates that the weapon capable of hitting U.S. cities with nuclear warheads is nearing deployment.

The DF-41, with a range of between 6,835 miles and 7,456 miles, is viewed by the Pentagon as Beijing’s most potent nuclear missile and one of several new long-range missiles in development or being deployed.

As with earlier DF-41 flight tests, Pentagon spokesmen had no direct comment. A defense official, however, told the Washington Free Beacon: “We do not comment on PRC weapons tests but we do monitor Chinese military modernization carefully.”

The Pentagon has said it expects the new missile to become operational as early as this year.

Deployment of the DF-41 also could coincide with China’s first patrols, slated to begin this year, of submarines armed with nuclear-tipped JL-2 missiles.

The Aug. 6 test is viewed as significant by U.S. intelligence agencies because it confirmed the DF-41’s multiple-warhead capability, said defense officials familiar with analyses of the test.

Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the repeated flight tests indicate the DF-41 is “nearing operational status.”

“The mobile and solid-fueled DF-41 will be the second MIRV-equipped ICBM to enter PLA Second Artillery Corps service after the currently deployed, liquid-fueled and silo-launched DF-5B,” Fisher said.

“The bottom line is that China potentially is beginning a new phase in which its nuclear warhead numbers will be increasing rapidly,” he said.

The Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military, published in May, stated that the DF-41 is “possibly capable of carrying MIRVs”—the acronym for multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles. The Pentagon calls the DF-41 the CSS-X-20 missile.

MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles) are considered state-of-the-art nuclear warhead technology because their use vastly increases the potential killing power of a single missile.

The annual Pentagon report states that China’s missile force, called the Second Artillery Corps, “continues to modernize its nuclear forces by enhancing its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and adding more survivable, mobile delivery systems.”

When deployed, the DF-41 is expected to significantly enhance China’s force of between 50 and 60 ICBMs that include DF-5, mobile DF-31, DF-31A, and submarine-launched JL-2 nuclear missiles.

Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon expert on China, said the DF-41 “marks a significant evolution in the Second Artillery’s force modernization program.”

“The DF-41 is one of a number of PLA ballistic missile systems in the advanced stages of research and development,” Stokes, now with the Project 2049 Institute, said. “Few details on deployment plans technical characteristics are currently available. Once fully operational, the DF-41 is expected to be the PLA’s most sophisticated ICBM to date.”

China’s first suspected multiple warhead flight test for the DF-41 was carried out in December 2014, when an unknown number of dummy warheads were thought to have been used. Earlier DF-41 flight tests took place in December 2013 and July 2012.

The new multiple-warhead missile is likely to renew debate over the size of China’s nuclear arsenal. Current U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of Chinese warheads at around 240 warheads. Other analysts, however, say China’s warhead arsenal is far larger, with perhaps as many as 1,500 warheads, and base their assessments on the growing size of China’s missile forces, the addition of multiple warhead technology, and its large-scale nuclear material production capabilities.

The DF-41 is assessed by U.S. intelligence agencies as being able to carry up to 10 warheads on a single missile.

The location of the latest test was not disclosed. Past DF-41 flight tests, however, were carried out from the Wuzhai Missile and Space Testing facility, located about 250 miles southwest of Beijing.

Via: WFB

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China Rattles Markets With Yuan Devaluation

China devalued the yuan by the most in two decades, a move that rippled through global markets as policy makers stepped up efforts to support exporters and boost the role of market pricing in Asia’s largest economy.

The central bank cut its daily reference rate by 1.9 percent, triggering the yuan’s biggest one-day drop since China ended a dual-currency system in January 1994. The People’s Bank of China called the change a one-time adjustment and said its fixing will become more aligned with supply and demand.

The announcement suggests policy makers are now placing a greater emphasis on efforts to combat the deepest economic slowdown since 1990 and reduce the government’s grip on the financial system. Authorities had been propping up the yuan to deter capital outflows, protect foreign-currency borrowers and make a case for official reserve status at the International Monetary Fund.

“The one-off devaluation of the fix and allowing more market-based determination takes us into a new currency regime,” said Khoon Goh, a Singapore-based strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “It looks like this is the end of the fixing as we know it.”

The yuan dropped 1.8 percent to close at 6.3231 per dollar in Shanghai. It slid 2.6 percent to 6.3790 in Hong Kong’s offshore trading, the biggest discount to the onshore spot rate since 2011. The central bank allows the Shanghai rate to diverge a maximum 2 percent from its daily fixing, which was set at 6.2298.

Global Impact

China's devaluation jolted global markets, with the currencies of South Korea, Australia and Singapore falling at least 1 percent amid bets other countries will seek weaker exchange rates to keep exports competitive. Shares of Chinese airlines sank on concern dollar debt costs will rise, while commodities retreated amid speculation yuan weakness will erode the buying power of Chinese consumers. U.S. Treasuries gained on growing demand for dollar assets.

“Today’s sudden policy move is a reaction to a significant weakening of China’s export numbers in July and rising deflation risk”

Exchange-rate intervention contributed to a $300 billion slide in China's foreign-exchange reserves over the last four quarters. It also made the yuan the best performer in emerging markets, a factor behind last month’s 8.3 percent slide in exports.

The yuan’s real effective exchange rate -- a measure that’s adjusted for inflation and trade with other nations -- climbed 13 percent over the last four quarters and was the highest among 32 major currencies tracked by Bank for International Settlements indexes.

Market Forces

Effective immediately, market-makers who submit prices for the PBOC’s reference rate will have to consider the previous day’s closing spot rate, foreign-exchange demand and supply, as well as changes in major currency rates, the central bank said in a statement. Previous guidelines made no mention of those criteria.

“The new fixing will be quoted based on the previous day’s closing, which is a real market level,” said Becky Liu, a Hong Kong-based senior strategist at Standard Chartered Plc. “The band will become the real band. This is a big step, and bolder than we expected.”

Tuesday’s devaluation was a one-off adjustment and shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that the yuan will enter a depreciation trend, PBOC chief economist Ma Jun was cited as saying in a Caixin report. The central bank said it will stabilize market expectations and ensure the new reference-rate mechanism will take effect “in an orderly manner.”

Capital Flows

China has to balance the need to boost exports against the risk of capital outflows, Tom Orlik, chief Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note. He estimates that a 1 percent depreciation in the real effective exchange rate boosts export growth by 1 percentage point with a lag of three months. At the same time, a 1 percent drop against the dollar triggers about $40 billion in outflows.

“The risk is that depreciation triggers capital flight, dealing a blow to the stability of China’s financial system,” Orlik said. China’s leaders may be calculating that they can manage those risks with their $3.69 trillion of foreign currency reserves, he said.

The PBOC said Tuesday that a strong yuan puts pressure on exports and cited a high effective exchange rate as a factor behind the devaluation. July’s export slump was deeper than economists predicted, while the nation’s index of producer prices declined 5.4 percent, the most since 2009.

Via: Bloomberg Business

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Blind, stubborn ideology, gross incompetence caused capitulation to Iranian totalitarian theocracy

It looks as if the president and his secretary of state are on a mission to praise, protect and defend their enemies, to despise and punish their allies, and to diminish America

Almost two years of “negotiations,“the final “deal"appears as a total surrender of the Obama government to all the demands of the Ayatollahs who boasted that all their red lines have been met. The deal will put them on the path to become a nuclear power, not as a pariah but legitimized by the US and Europe;they will continue to enrich uranium and to develop their ICBM program; the lifting of the sanctions will give them 150 billion dollars to improve their economy and their military capabilities which include, of course, strengthening Hizbollah, Hamas, and other purveyors of terror in the troubled Middle-East.

The bazaar merchants have trounced the feeble and naïve negotiators led by the team Obama-Kerry. You would think they have defeated America militarily and are now dictating their terms, as the allies in Versailles with Germany or McArthur in Japan. Years ago, Obama asked the Iranian mullahs to “unclench their fists ” and normalize relations with America. They didn’t but he did; he opened his hands, he raised his hands and said “Don’t shoot ! We give you what you want.”

The flaws in the preliminaries:

Some observers think that the original sin was not to limit the negotiators to US vs Iran but to include what is called P5+1 with Russia and China a sort of fifth column siding with Iran.

This was, indeed, a flaw, but a deliberate one, not a mistake.I think the Obama team knew in advance that they wanted a deal at any price, and intentionally enlarged the forum so that they could use the “other partners” as excuses for the multiple concessions they knew they had to make . How many times we heard Kerry say, apologetically, that “we are not alone;we had no choice if we wanted to keep our partners…”

Another flaw was pointed out by James Jeffrey , former ambassador to Iraq, who said after the “Interim agreement:” Those who studied the art of negotiating found two big mistakes that should be avoided :never show that you are desperate to obtain a deal and never take off the table a credible threat of use of military force if the talks collapse.” The shrewd Iranians knew that Obama was desperate for a deal and swore off the use of force, and they ratched up their demands.

Rather than set a time limit, the negotiations continued on and off indefinitely. The give-and-take which is the essence of any negotiation, was a one-way activity: we gave and they took, slowly but surely, extension after extension, concession after concession, red line after red line crossed. That is a huge flaw, for what is in discussion here? Obama started with bombastic declarations, often repeated, that “we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon…I don’t mean to only contain ...” It was a very simple proposition:  First Iran should dismantle her nuclear paraphernalia, (as did Qaddafi of Libya after America attacked Iraq), and then discuss the modalities and the compensations. But Iran never said it would dismantle the nuclear facilities, above and underground—known and secret—in Natanz, Fordow, Parchin and other places. So they negotiated the “time line,” when and how it will be permitted to acquire the bomb.

Via: Canada Free Press

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[OPINION] Congress should reject Iran pact

WASHINGTON — It came two days after the announcement of the nuclear agreement with Iran, yet little mention was made on July 16 of the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion, near Alamogordo, N.M. The anniversary underscored that the agreement attempts to thwart proliferation of technology seven decades old.

Nuclear-weapons technology has become markedly more sophisticated since 1945. But not so sophisticated that nations with sufficient money and determination cannot master or acquire it. Iran’s determination is probably related to America’s demonstration, in Iraq and Libya, of the perils of not having nuclear weapons.

Critics who think more severe sanctions are achievable and would break Iran’s determination must answer this: When have sanctions caused a large nation to surrender what it considers a vital national security interest? Critics have, however, amply demonstrated two things:

First, the agreement comprehensively abandons President Obama’s original goal of dismantling the infrastructure of its nuclear weapons program. Second, as the administration became more yielding with Iran, it became more dishonest with Americans. For example, John Kerry says we never sought “anywhere, anytime” inspections. But on April 6, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the agreement would include “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Kerry’s co-negotiator, Wendy Sherman, breezily dismissed “anywhere, anytime” as “something that became popular rhetoric.” It “became”? This is disgraceful.

Verification depends on U.S. intelligence capabilities, which failed in 2003 (Iraq’s supposed possession of WMD), in 1968 (North Vietnam’s Tet offensive) and in 1941 (Pearl Harbor). As Reuel Marc Gerecht says in “How Will We Know? The coming Iran intelligence failure” (The Weekly Standard, July 27), “The CIA has a nearly flawless record of failing to predict foreign countries’ going nuclear (Great Britain and France don’t count).”

During the 1960 campaign, John Kennedy cited “indications” that by 1964 there would be “10, 15 or 20” nuclear powers. As president, he said that by 1975 there might be 15 or 20. Nonproliferation efforts have succeeded but cannot completely succeed forever.

It is a law of arms control: Agreements are impossible until they are unimportant. The U.S.-Soviet strategic arms control “process” was an arena of maneuvering for military advantage, until the Soviet Union died of anemia. Might the agreement with Iran buy sufficient time for Iran to undergo regime modification? Although Kerry speaks of the agreement “guaranteeing” that Iran will not become a nuclear power, it will. But what will Iran be like 15 years hence?

Since 1972, U.S. policy toward China has been a worthy but disappointing two-part wager. One part is that involving China in world trade will temper its unruly international ambitions. The second is that economic growth, generated by the moral and institutional infrastructure of markets, will weaken the sinews of authoritarianism.

The Obama administration’s comparable wager is that the Iranian regime will be subverted by domestic restiveness. The median age in Iran is 29.5 (in the United States, 37.7; in the European Union, 42.2). More than 60 percent of Iran’s university students, and approximately 70 percent of medical students, are women. Ferment is real. 

In 1951, Hannah Arendt, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, argued bleakly (in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”) that tyrannies wielding modern instruments of social control (bureaucracies, mass communications) could achieve permanence by conscripting the citizenry’s consciousness, thereby suffocating social change. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution changed her mind: No government can control human nature or “all channels of communication.”  

Today’s technologies make nations, including Iran, porous to outside influences; intellectual autarky is impossible. The best that can be said for the Iran agreement is that by somewhat protracting Iran’s path to a weapon it buys time for constructive churning in Iran. Although this is a thin reed on which to lean hopes, the reed is as real as Iran’s nuclear ambitions are apparently nonnegotiable. 

The best reason for rejecting the agreement is to rebuke Obama’s long record of aggressive disdain for Congress — recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess, rewriting and circumventing statutes, etc. Obama’s intellectual pedigree runs to Woodrow Wilson, the first presidential disparager of the separation of powers. Like Wilson, Obama ignores the constitutional etiquette of respecting even rivalrous institutions.

The Iran agreement should be a treaty; it should not have been submitted first to the U.N. as a studied insult to Congress. Wilson said that rejecting the Versailles Treaty would “break the heart of the world.” The Senate, no member of which had been invited to accompany Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference, proceeded to break his heart. Obama deserves a lesson in the cost of Wilsonian arrogance. Knowing little history, Obama makes bad history.

— George Will is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.

Via: LJ World

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Will Hillary’s ‘Half A Billion Solar Panels’ Promise Send Billions To China?

Hillary Clinton’s newest campaign promise to install half a billion solar panels across the country has been praised by liberal media outlets and environmentalists, but could this pledge end up benefiting China?

On Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promised to install half a billion solar panels by the end of her first term and get the U.S. to a point where it can generate enough green energy to power every home in the country.

“Through these goals, we will increase the amount of installed solar capacity by 700% by 2020, expand renewable energy to at least a third of all electricity generation, prevent thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year, and put our country on a path to achieve deep emission reductions by 2050,” Clinton’s website boasts.

While there’s no doubt U.S. companies and green energy interests would benefit from the “competitive grants and other market-based incentives” Hillary promises to implement under her plan, the deal will also be a boost to the oppressive Chinese government.

“Mrs. Clinton’s plan would be a huge boost to China and Taiwan, where over 70 percent of solar photovoltaics are made,” Daniel Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“It’s also a huge boon to Japan and Malaysia, who make the lion’s share of the remaining world production,” Kish said. “I’m not sure Americans are going to be comfortable with Chinese solar panels covering their houses, plugging into their electricity systems and taking their jobs as official government policy.”

Thanks to government subsidies, China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels, and could see huge benefits from increasing solar energy incentives in the U.S. A 2014 report by the European Commission found that “China and Taiwan together now account for more than 70% of worldwide production.”

“The majority of panels [in the U.S.] are manufactured abroad, with the plurality coming from China and many from other Southeast Asian countries and Korea,” a spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association told TheDCNF. “The imposition of tariffs on Chinese panels is beginning to have an effect on Chinese imports, however, and we’ve seen domestic production increase over the past six months as Chinese imports decline.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Global Financial Crisis: Greece, China, Puerto Rico Teetering On The Brink .... Could It Happen To The US?

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China makes desperate move to prevent stock market crash
• Puerto Rico’s governor says the island’s debts are ‘not payable’
• Greece’s Tsipras appeals for calm after banks are forced to close
• How complex systems fail

China makes desperate move to prevent stock market crash

People’s Bank of China

As we’ve been reporting, China’s stock markets have been in free fall since June 12, falling almost 20 percent in a couple of weeks.

Desperate Chinese officials are scrambling to stop the implosion and restore the bubble, and so the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) made a major move, cutting interest rates sharply, to a record low. This makes more money available to banks, which officials hope will flow into the stock markets and prop up stock prices.

According to a Nomura analyst quoted by ZeroHedge:

“The policy easing should be viewed as a measure to contain the risk of a hard landing or systemic crisis rather than one to achieve faster growth. In this case, the stronger-than-expected monetary easing may help stem the decline in the equity market following a 10.6 percent drop over the past two trading days. The positive wealth effect of the equity market on consumption or aggregate demand is limited in China, but an equity market collapse would hurt millions of mid-class households and pose great danger to the economy and social stability.”

In other words, the purpose of the policy measure is to prop up the stock market, but it will have little effect on growth, which is the “normal” purpose of interest rate easing. Whether it will even succeed in propping up the stock market and preventing “an equity market collapse” remains to be seen in the next few days.

As of this writing on Sunday evening ET (Monday morning in Shanghai), stocks are up two percent, though it’s been bouncing in and out of negative territory. (Bloomberg andZeroHedge and Reuters)

Via: Breitbart

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Trump Jumps Into the Race: 'I Am Officially Running for President of the United States and We're Going to Make Our Country Great Again'

Real-estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump announced his 2016 presidential campaign Tuesday morning.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again!" Trump said.

The Republican businessman made the announcement at the namesake Trump Tower in New York City.

In his wide-ranging and, lasting about 45 minutes, lengthy speech, Trump railed against President Barack Obama and the potential Pacific trade deal — the Trans-Pacific Partnership — while repeatedly touting his own negotiating skills.

"Our country is in serious trouble," he said. "We don't have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don't have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? I beat China all the time. All the time."

Via: Business Insider

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[VIDEO] NYT Report: Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Has Grown 20% Over Last 18 Months Of Negotiations, State Department’s Harf “Totally Perplexed”…

International inspectors report that Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel has increased about 20 percent over the past 18 months of negotiations, according to The New York Times.

The increase in Iran's stockpile was based on a report issued Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear programs for the United Nations.

The report also said Iran had stopped producing certain types of highly enriched uranium since January, 2014 and halted work on facilities capable of producing nuclear bombs.

The Times noted that should negotiators finalize a deal before a June 30 deadline, Tehran would have to reduce its stockpile by more than 9 tons within months.

The newspaper also reported that Western officials and experts were unsure how or why Iran's stockpile had increased. Some have speculated it was to give them leverage in talks.

The Obama administration has long maintained that Tehran's nuclear program has been "frozen" as international negotiators work to secure a deal with new limits.

A deal brokered between the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China with Iran would lift some sanctions on Iran in exchange for new limits on its nuclear program.

A framework outlined April 2 would force Iran to reduce its nuclear stockpile to 300 kilograms, or about 660 pounds.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who has led U.S. talks to secure a deal, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Saturday in Geneva.

Kerry cut short his trip and returned to Boston on Monday after a cycling accident in France over the weekend left him with a broken leg.

The State Department maintains the June 30 deadline remains set.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest described the report from international inspectors as just a "snapshot in time" amid ongoing talks.

Via: The Hill

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Charlie Daniels: ‘America Is in Decline’; Obama ‘Not Up to the Task or Simply Doesn’t Care’ By Charlie Daniels

One of two things is obvious about Barack Obama.

He is either a weak and incompetent man who hides from the truth and is afraid of confrontation or he is as naive as Neville Chamberlain.

His refusal to even identify the enemy America is fighting all over the world, his politically correct approach to rooting out the terrorists who walk among us, his abject failure to show any backbone in dealing with Vladimir Putin, his evident ignorance of a growing threat from China, his dismissal of our most experienced and battle-hardened military officers, his disrespect for the only ally we have in the Middle East, his imaginary red lines, and his total mishandling of the War in Iraq is evidence of a man totally out of his depth or a man who is and never was interested in being president for the right reasons.

I know that Obama did not start the war in Iraq. He inherited it, but his childish finger pointing and petulant attitude does not negate the fact that, in his rush to placate the left leaning voters, he pulled out too many American troops way too fast and created a perfect power vacuum for ISIS to move into.

Now, as ISIS continues to grow exponentially in numbers, territory and ruthlessness, capturing American war equipment left behind by the Iraqi army who ran away, Obama wants to leave the job of defeating them to a bunch of ragtag, poorly lead, unmotivated and terrified Iraqi soldiers who refuse to stand and fight despite their superior numbers and weapons. 

An able and pragmatic leader realizes when a policy is not working and quickly moves on until he finds one that does. Obama evidently refuses to face the fact that the Iraqi army is not up to the task of destroying ISIS and that other measures need to be taken now while the situation is still manageable.

It only takes a couple of minutes of watching the “valley girl” State Department spokesperson to realize the caliber of personnel who have been placed in sensitive positions in this administration. Obama has surrounded himself with inexperienced ideologues and political appointees.

The ramifications of this incompetence and its trickledown effect has made itself manifest in the

complete mess at the Internal Revenue Service, the fast and furious debacle Eric Holder left behind, the glaring mistakes the state department made in Benghazi, and the list goes on.

Via: CNS News

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OBAMA: I’VE RESTORED THE US AS THE ‘MOST RESPECTED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD’

Monday while President Barack Obama was answering questions at a town hall with YSEALI Fellows, an exchange program for community leaders from ASEAN, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he said his administration has restored the Untied States as the “the most respected country on earth.”

Obama said, “People don’t remember, but when I came into office, the Untied States in world opinion ranked below China and just barley above Russia, and today once again, the Untied States is the most respected country on earth. Part of that I think is because of the work we did to reengage the world and say we want to work with you as partners with mutual interests and mutual respect. It was on that basis we were able to end two wars while still focusing on the very real threat of terrorism and try to work with our partners in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the reason why we are moving in the direction to normalize relations with Cuba and the nuclear deal that we are trying to negotiate with Iran.”

Via Breitbart

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Carter vows U.S. will continue, even step up operations over disputed South China Sea island

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Saturday urged China to stop trying to convert an artificial reefs in the South China Sea land into a military airfield but that the U.S. has no intentions of ending air and sea operation in the regions.

Carter made his comment at an international security conference filled with Asia-Pacific leaders and also said the United States has been flying and operating ships in the region for decades and opposes “any further militarization” of the disputed lands.

He also said the reclamation project is out of step with international rules and that turning underwater land into airfields won’t expand Beijing’s sovereignty.

A Chinese military officer in the crowd immediately slammed Carter’s comments as “groundless and not constructive.”

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who also is attending the Singapore conference, said he agreed with Carter's assertion that America will continue flights and operations near the building projects, but "now we want to see it translated into action."

He also told reporters that the U.S. needs to recognize that China will continue its activities in the South China Sea until it perceives that the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits.

Via: Fox News

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Commander in Chief's Job is National Defense, Not Climate Change

A front-page headline in the Wall Street Journal screams out: "Islamic State's Gains Reveal New Prowess on the Battlefield."

The article discusses how the Islamic State recently captured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in Iraq. The Islamic State victory, according to the report, involved the execution of a complex battle plan "that outwitted a greater force of Iraqi troops as well as the much lauded U.S.-trained special-operations force known as the Golden Division."

Flipping to the editorial page, an opinion piece discusses the increasing dominance of Russia, Iran and China in their parts of the world "as the U.S. retreats."

But what is keeping America's commander in chief up at night?

President Obama spent most of his recent address to the graduating class of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy talking about climate change.

According to our president, climate change "constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security."

The president continued to say that the science regarding climate change is "indisputable."

In 2013, the president tweeted, "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: climate change is real, manmade and dangerous."

But this is false.

Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph and a senior fellow at Canada's Fraser Institute, and others have pointed out the dubious methodology used to arrive at the claim that 97 percent of scientists agree on climate change science. It's not even close to being accurate.

Via: Townhall

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Kerry Tells China: ‘Because of Climate Change in U.S. We Are Ending Any Funding’ of ‘Coal-Fired Power’

Secretary of State John Kerry and PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on May 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

(CNSNews.com) - At a joint press conference in Beijing yesterday with People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Obama administration intends to cooperate closely with the PRC leading into a U.N. climate conference in Paris in December and that the U.S. is “ending any funding” of coal-fired power projects.

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget proposal calls for increasing taxes on the coal industry by $4.252 billion from 2016-2025 while providing "refundable" tax credits to "renewable" energy projects such as solar and wind power facilities.

“There are three key meetings that we are all working on together to prepare for in order to build success,” said Kerry. “One is the Security and Economic Dialogue that will take place in June in Washington. Two is the summit between President Xi and President Obama to take place in September. And three is the global meeting that we are working on together regarding climate change in Paris in December.”

“The United States and China are also cooperating more closely than ever to address climate change, one of the greatest threats facing our planet today,” said Kerry. “Last fall, our respective presidents came together to announce our countries’ greenhouse gas commitments, the reductions, and we continue to call on other nations around the world to set their own ambitious targets. And we agreed this morning that as we get closer to the UN Climate Conference in Paris later this year, the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, will elevate our cooperation and coordination so that we can reach the kind of global agreement that we will need to ultimately address this threat.”

“Because of climate change in the United States, we are ending any funding – public money – that funds coal-fired power projects because of their impact on the climate,” said Kerry. “And we encourage China and other countries to do the same.”

“We need to continue to strengthen our communication and coordination on climate change to jointly ensure the success of the upcoming climate conference in Paris later this year,” said the U.S. secretary of state. “Meanwhile, we need to also work together to advance our bilateral practical cooperation on climate change.”

Via: CNS News

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