Defending the Empire

Hospital ERs are very dangerous to your financial health. Their on-call MDs may be out of your insurance network, meaning they have no pricing agreement with your insurance company, so they may bill you for anything that your insurer refuses to pay. Even when paid, your insurer often pays its normal fee that is often just one-third the bill, and the MD may bill you for the rest. Hospital bills are the most common reason for bankruptcy in the USA.

Your insurer may pay nothing if it turns out not to be an emergency. If you think you are having a heart attack and go to the ER, they may report that nothing is wrong, bill you $1200 for the check up, then your insurance company tells you they will not cover this non emergency event. ERs double bills because half their visitors pay nothing since federal law requires them to treat all comers.

So unless you are dying, don't go to an ER, even for a broken limb or bad cut. I'd even go to urgent care for chest pains since that can be lots of things and urgent care has the essential defib (shock) machine. Urgent care triages those in the waiting room, so if you have chest pains they take you first. If you call your doctor or insurer you will always be told to go to the nearest ER due to liability issues. Don't call an ambulance unless you are dying and no one can drive you right away. It will never take you to urgent care. It must take you to the nearest hospital ER that is accepting ambulances at that moment. If your nice hospital down the street is busy, it will have an unavailable status and the ambulance might take you to an older one 20 miles away.

The ER will make you wait as the trauma cases go first, the ambulances cut in line, and others have waited hours. You'll be seen much sooner in urgent care and some facilities have lots of staff and equipment. So learn their locations and hours near work and school for urgent care contracted by your insurer, and you might visit to make sure it's a large facility with radiology on site. Mine has a 24-hour facility downtown and six local facilities open 12-hours a day seven days a week. If they can't cure you, they can refer you directly to an specialist in your network, and if they do call an ambulance your insurance must pay since a MD said it was needed. Most can get you admitted to a hospital directly without an ER visit.

You never read about this because no medical provider can be on record saying anything but "go to your local ER" due to liability and license problems. If someone is told to go to Urgent Care and dies for whatever reason, they might be sued or sanctioned, even if that same person would have died in an ER too. Of course if someone is unconscious, floundering on the floor, smashed. or bleeding profusely, call 911 for an ambulance. Otherwise, go to Urgent Care for urgent care.

Every few weeks, evidence of an alien presence is reported but attracts little attention. In this latest event, a large telescope observing the moon recorded video of a large disc-shape object flying across the surface. No one has even attempted to explain this as a natural phenomena.

Donald Trump upset open borders advocates (aka the mainstream media) by stating the unemployment rate is much higher than official stats. He was ridiculed as misinformed by those with an agenda or little knowledge of the process. I looked into this while working for Sanders Research and found some things of interest.

First, millions of unemployed are not counted because they were not actively looking during the past month. The Dept of Labor explains why:

“Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job.”

As a result, these people who want to work are not counted as unemployed so this cuts official rate in half. This is no secret, the Dept of Labor publishes this higher figure each month, but our media ignores it. Yet this higher figure still does not include a few million Americans excluded by the survey parameters for these reasons:

-Students seeking work are never counted as unemployed. So anyone taking college classes and seeking a full-time job is not counted as unemployed.

-Pensioners seeking work are never counted as unemployed. This includes those who receive a minimal monthly pension because they retired early, often forcibly. Soldiers in the U.S. military can retire with a small pension as young as age 37, yet they must find work to support their family. An unemployed man may collect reduced Social Security at age 62. This may be just $800 a month and he is healthy and actively looking for work, but he is not counted because he is "retired."

-Anyone seeking a full-time job who works a few unpaid hours a week at a family farm or family small business is not counted as unemployed.

-People seeking their first job, such as recent high school and college graduates, and housewives are excluded. The logic is that since they were never employed, they are not unemployed.

-Homeless people are never counted because the Dept of Labor uses a household survey where persons go to random homes and ask questions. People living in tent camps, alleys, cars or shelters are never counted as unemployed.

It's been a few days since a Marine Corps MV-22 crash landed off Okinawa, and the immediate explanation was odd. I just checked the Navy Aviation Safety Center mishap page to see if it was listed yet. It is not there, but someone removed the previous MV-22 mishap that noted a Marine MV-22 suffered a Class A mishap on Oct. 26, 2016 when its nose gear collapsed upon landing at NAS Patuxent River. This was the third time I've seen V-22 mishaps disappear from official records.

After stories warning of fake news, the corporate media provided dozens of examples about Syria. Here is a quick summary for those poorly informed. Syria is the next target in the long-term plan to destroy stable Muslim nations and turn them into violent, dysfunctional tribal states, hopefully controlled by a Western puppet dictator. The USA, Saudi Arabia, and Israel sent billions of dollars in weapons and thousands of advisors to arm and train foreign jihadists in Iraq and Turkey to invade Syria and overthrow its stable, popular government. The US military began flying air support for the invaders without authority from the UN or the US Congress.

The plan was working until Russia stood up and said no more. Russia sent aid, advisors, and aircraft to turn the tide. The legitimate Syrian government went on the offensive to recapture it's largest city - Aleppo. This was a bloody fight but Syria prevailed and is mopping up a couple thousand terrorists trapped in the city. The Syrians in Aleppo suffered from this fighting, but peace will soon prevail as the Syrian government kills the remaining jihadists and restores peace. Yet our media is filled with stories that a ceasefire is needed. Why? So the foreign jihadists can regroup and prolong the fighting?

You do not hear this reality in the American CIA-controlled corporate press. All "news" is that evil Syrian soldiers and their allies are butchers who slaughter innocent civilians and want to destroy the city of Aleppo and kill the heroic "rebels." Reporters in New York concoct stories with no evidence citing second hand stories from London and even Finland where CIA paid propagandists pretend to have contact with "residents" in Aleppo who feed them horror stories. Western political appointees at the UN also spread false rumors from Switzerland. The traditional standard for the old American media was that two solid first-hand sources are needed before a story is printed. But now you read about "reported" stories based on second hand hearsay from questionable sources, who are not even in Aleppo.

The fighting in Aleppo continues in isolated pockets with no electrical power, internet, telephone, or cell phone service. So how do these "rebel spokesmen" abroad get stories from unnamed "residents." Where do all these Twitter messages about the horrors in Aleppo come from? Moreover, why would the Syrian army intentionally kill their own civilians? For example, a few days ago a rumor was spread by an American appointee to the UN in Switzerland that the Syrian army killed 82 civilians. No source was provided, yet this was accepted as fact and this fake news story can be found in almost every western media outlet. Yet you never find a story about the foreign jihadists killing civilians, or that they use civilians as shields and fortify hospitals.

This is why I was thrilled to find video of an independent reporter from Canada who actually traveled to Aleppo. She appeared at a lightly attended news conference where she ridiculed the fake news churned out by the Western corporate media. Here is a great clip where she exposes fake news about Syria. Don't expect this news from a reporter who was in Syria to appear in our corporate press.

President al-Assad receives letter from Pope Francis expressing heartfelt sympathy with Syria

Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad received a letter from Pope Francis delivered by Apostolic Nuncio to Syria, Cardinal Mario Zenari, who was received by the President on Monday.

Pope Francis expressed his heartfelt sympathy for Syria and its people in light of the difficult circumstances the country is going through, and asserted the Vatican’s condemnation of all forms of extremism and terrorism.

The Pope called in his letter for uniting all efforts to put an end to the war in Syria and restore peace in it so that it can remain a model for coexistence among cultures and religions as it always has been.

For his part, President al-Assad congratulated Zenari on being ordained Cardinal, noting that keeping him as the Apostolic Nuncio to Syria after becoming Cardinal – which is the only such case in the world – is apolitical, historic, and humanitarian president that shows Pope Francis’ great care for Syria and its people.

His Excellency asserted that Syria, as a state and as a people, is determined to restore security and stability and is continuing to achieve reconciliations, as they are the optimal way for achieving that goal.

For his part, Cardinal Zenari said he is glad to remain as Apostolic Nuncio to Syria after being ordained Cardinal, stressing that Syria, the cradle of Christianity and religions, is a very important state that plays a pivotal role in the region, and it must overcome the ordeal it is going through and become better than it was before.

Our Secretary of State Kerry should be pleased that a permanent ceasefire is finally effect in Aleppo, now that the foreign terrorists have been defeated. Refugees can now return home. Note this is not “breaking” or even “headline” news in the USA.

If a General wants to impress the President, how about having 21,000 soldiers spend several hours lining up to form an image of him?

We continue to hear public relations spin about the great V-22 Osprey. In reality, it costs twice as much to procure and maintain as similar size helicopters, but can only lift one quarter as much. Its only advantage is that it can fly 40% faster. Its ready rate is half that of helicopters, with more than half of these new aircraft down for repairs at all times because it's a very complex machine constructed of lightweight composite parts. The Marine Corps keeps this data hidden, but a Japanese news team used FOIA requests to pry this chart out of the Navy Safety Center. This chart also shows how little the V-22 was used in Afghanistan, where the same number of 42-year old CH-53Ds flew much more.

The real mishap rate is probably much worse, given that senior Marine officers have been caught manipulating mishap and readiness data several times. For example, another article noted: "The U.S. authorities calculate the accident frequency rate based on the number of Class A mishaps, and the rate for the CV-22 is 13.47, and 1.93 for the MV-22." Are Marine Corps aircrews really six times safer than Air Force crews flying the same aircraft?

Donald Trump made an excellent selection for our nation's Attorney General. The power brokers would like to block him, but this will be difficult because he is a long-time member of the Senate. He is part of their elite Senate "club" and knows all them who he always treated with respect. I became an admirer when I read his great Senate floor speech that I posted at G2mil over two years ago:

I rarely repost outside things. However, a reader sent one of the most important political speeches this decade, which was ignored by the corporate media. Opening America's borders with another amnesty would devastate the USA since it would encourage another 20 million poor, desperate refugees to flood across within a decade. If the Republicans were not so closely allied with big business, they would run on this issue and easily win the Senate and Presidency. Senator Sessions is very popular in his state due to vocal opposition on this issue so is less afraid of scorn from corporate lobbyists.

The Senate isn’t doing anything to stop Obama’s plans — thank the plutocrats.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday evening about Senate Democrats’ refusal to support legislation to block the president’s proposed executive actions on immigration policy, and the interests supporting amnesty. Following is an adapted version of his remarks.

Earlier this week I spoke about the president’s promise that he would issue an executive amnesty to 5 or 6 million people. The planned amnesty would include work permits, photo IDs, and Social Security numbers for millions of people who illegally entered the U.S., illegally overstayed their visas, or defrauded U.S. immigration authorities.

The Senate Democratic conference has supported and enabled the president’s unlawful actions and blocked every effort to stop them. Not even one of our Democratic colleagues has backed the House legislation that would stop this planned executive amnesty or demanded that Senator Reid bring it up for a vote. Every Senate Democrat is therefore the president’s partner in his planned lawless acts.

Tonight I would like to talk about the influence of special interests on our nation’s immigration system. How did we get to the point where elected officials, activist groups, the ACLU, and global CEOs are openly working to deny American workers the immigration protections to which they are legally entitled? How did we get to the point where the Democratic party is prepared to nullify and wipe away the immigration laws of the United States of America?

Just yesterday Majority Leader Reid wrote in a tweet something that was shocking. He said: “Since House Republicans have failed to act on immigration, I know the President will. When he does, I hope he goes Real Big.”

Let this sink in for a moment. The majority leader of the Senate is bragging that he knows the president will circumvent Congress to issue executive amnesty to millions, and he is encouraging the president to ensure this amnesty includes as many people as possible. And the White House has acknowledged that 5 to 6 million is the number they are looking at.

Has one Senate Democrat stepped forward to reject Mr. Reid’s statement? Has one Senate Democrat stepped forward to say: I support the legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would secure the border and block this executive amnesty? Have they ever said they support that? Have they ever said: I will do everything in my power to see that the House legislation gets a vote in the Senate so the American people can know what is going on? No. All we hear is silence.

This body is not run by one man. We don’t have a dictator in the great Senate. Every member has a vote. And the only way Senator Reid can succeed in blocking this Senate from voting to stop the president’s executive actions is for members to stop supporting him.

Every senator needs to stand up and represent their constituents — not big business, not the ACLU, not activist groups, not political interests, but the American interests, the workers’ interests. That is what we need to expect from them, and we don’t have but a few weeks, it looks like, to get it done.

In effect, the entire Senate Democratic conference has surrendered the jobs, wages, and livelihoods of their constituents to a group of special interests meeting in secret at the White House. They are surrendering them to executive actions that will foist on the nation what Congress has refused to pass and the American people have rejected. They are plotting at the White House to move forward with executive action no matter what the people think and no matter what Congress — through the people’s House — has decided.

Politico reports that “White House officials conducted more than 20 meetings in July and August with legal experts, immigration advocates and business leaders to gather ideas on what should be included in the order.”

So who are these so-called expert advocates and business leaders? They are not the law-enforcement officers; they are not our ICE officers; they are not our Border Patrol officers; they are not the American working man and woman; they are not unemployed Americans. They weren’t in the room. You can be sure of that. Their opinions weren’t sought.

No, White House officials are meeting with the world’s most powerful corporate and immigration lobbyists and activists who think border controls are for the little people. The administration is meeting with the elite, the cosmopolitan set, who scorn and mock the concerns of everyday Americans who are concerned about their schools, jobs, wages, communities, and hospitals. These great and powerful citizens of the world don’t care much about old-fashioned things like national boundaries, national sovereignty, and immigration control — let alone the constitutional separation of powers.

Well, don’t you get it? They believe they are always supposed to get whatever it is they want. They are used to that. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, one report says they have spent $1.5 billion since 2007 trying to pass their desired immigration bill — $1.5 billion. They tried and tried and tried to pass the bill through Congress, but the American people said: No, no, no. So they decided to just go to the president. They decide to go to President Obama, and they insist that he implement these measures through executive fiat. And Senate Democrats have apparently said: Well, that is just a wonderful idea. We support that. Just do it. Go big. But, Mr. President, wait a little bit. Wait until after the election. We don’t want the voters to hold us accountable for what you are doing. We want to pretend we in the Senate have nothing to do with it.

One of the groups that have joined the chorus of special interests demanding executive action on immigration is FWD.us, run by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He just turned 30, and I understand he is worth about $30 billion.

Mr. Zuckerberg has been very busy recently. One of his fellow billionaires, Mr. Carlos Slim — maybe the world’s richest man — invited Mr. Zuckerberg down to Mexico City to give a speech. What did Mr. Zuckerberg promote in his speech? Well, this is a report of it.

I guess I will first note that young Mr. Zuckerberg maybe doesn’t know there is a deep American tradition — a tradition in most developed nations — that you don’t go to a foreign capital to criticize your own government. I suppose he doesn’t know about that. They probably didn’t teach him about that when he was at one of the elite schools he attended.

This is what he said in Mexico City: “We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants. And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world.”

Well, the “masters of the universe” are very fond of open borders as long as these open borders don’t extend to their gated compounds and fenced-off estates.

I have another article from late last fall that was printed in Business Insider about Mr. Zuckerberg’s actions. The headline is “Mark Zuckerberg Just Spent More than $30 Million Buying 4 Neighboring Houses for Privacy.” The article says:

So Mr. Zuckerberg — who has become the top spokesman for expanding the admission of foreign workers — championed the Senate immigration bill for which all of our Democratic colleagues voted. One of the things the bill did was double the supply of low-wage foreign workers brought into the United States for companies such as Facebook.

Many of us have heard for a long time the claim that there is a shortage of STEM and IT workers. This has been the central sales pitch used by those making demands for massive increases in foreign-worker programs across the board — programs that bring in workers for every sector in the U.S. economy. But we know otherwise from the nation’s leading academics, people who studied this issue and are professionals in it. I have a recent op-ed here from USA Today which reports that there is actually not a shortage but a surplus of Americans who have been trained in the STEM and IT fields and that this is why wages for these fields have not increased since 1999.

If you have a shortage of workers in a field such as information technology or science and mathematics, wages go up, do they not? If wages are not up, we don’t have a shortage.

So rich high-tech companies are using the H-1B visa program to keep wages down and to hire less expensive workers from abroad. Indeed, the same companies demanding more guest workers are laying off American workers in droves.

I would like to read some excerpts from that op-ed published in USA Today. The article was co-authored by five of the nation’s experts on labor markets and the guest-worker program. I think it tells a story that has not been refuted. We have partisans and advocates who have been claiming there is a shortage in these fields, but the experts say no. And since they have been speaking out on this issue, we have seen no real data that would dispute what they say in this article dated July 27, 2014.

Headline: “Bill Gates’ tech worker fantasy.” Sub-headline: “Silicon Valley has created an imaginary staffing shortage.”

The article was written by Ron Hira, Paula Stephan, Hal Salzman, Michael Teitelbaum, who has recently written a book on this subject, and Norm Matloff. These are labor-economics experts who have studied these issues for years. Many of them have testified before Congress. They say:

The “predominant source of new hires” in information-technology fields is guest-worker programs from abroad.

There is no doubt we have a surplus of IT workers. The question is whether the supply is two or three times as big as the number of job openings.

That is exactly what the bill before this Senate — the bill the House of Representatives rejected — would have done. It would have doubled the number of guest workers coming into America just to take jobs — coming in for the very purpose of taking a job that we need Americans to be taking.

The article goes on: “Another major, yet often overlooked, provision in the pending legislation” — that is the bill President Obama is pushing for, the Gang of Eight bill — “would grant automatic green cards to any foreign student who earns a graduate degree in a STEM field, based on assertions that foreign graduates of U.S. universities are routinely being forced to leave. Such claims are incompatible with the evidence that such graduates have many paths to stay and work, and indeed the ‘stay rates’ for visiting international students are very high and have shown no sign of decline. The most recent study finds that 92 percent of Chinese Ph.D. students stay in America to work after graduation.”

So there is this myth that we have thousands and thousands of students graduating from schools and being sent home. That is not accurate, according to the experts who study the data.

I talked to a gentleman whom I knew a little bit who worked at a computer company. He is well into his 40s, maybe close to 50. I asked him what kind of security there is. He said, well, in the tech industry these companies go and fall. I said, what happens if you were to lose your job? He said, at my age, it would be very difficult.

So I would pose a question to Mr. Zuckerberg. I read in the news that Facebook is now worth more than $200 billion. Is that not enough money to hire American workers for a change? Your company now employs roughly 7,000 people. Let’s say you want to expand your workforce 10 percent, or hire another 700 workers. Are you claiming you can’t find 700 Americans who would take these jobs if you paid a good wage and decent benefits?

Let me just say one more thing: Facebook has 7,000 workers. Microsoft just laid off 18,000. Why doesn’t Mr. Zuckerberg call his friend Mr. Gates and say: Look, I have to hire a few hundred people; do you have any résumés you can send over here? Maybe I will not have to take somebody from a foreign country for a job an unemployed U.S. citizen might take.

As Byron York reported, Hewlett-Packard, a high-tech company, “laid off 29,000 employees in 2012” — 29,000. “In August of 2013, Cisco announced plans to lay off 4,000 workers in addition to the 8,000 cut in the last 2 years,” and Cisco was right in the White House this summer with a group of other companies demanding more workers from abroad. Cisco was signing a letter with a bunch of other companies: “United Technologies has announced 3,000 layoffs this year”; “American Express cut 5,400 jobs”; “Procter and Gamble announced 5,700 jobs cut in 2012”; “T-Mobile announced plans to lay off 2,250 employees in 2012.”

“According to a recent Reuters report,” York writes, overall “U.S. employers announced 50,000 layoffs in August of 2013, up 34 percent from the previous month, then up 57 percent through August 2012.”

But FWD.us and other immigration lobbyists are working with the White House to extract executive orders from the president that provide them with the same financial benefits that were included in the Senate bill that was rejected by the House of Representatives. One proposal would increase by as much as 800,000 the number of foreign workers admitted for the explicit purpose of taking jobs in the United States.

A recent Associated Press article, entitled “Obama Weighs Broader Move on Legal Immigration” reports that “President Barack Obama is considering key changes in the nation’s immigration system requested by tech, industry and powerful interest groups.” Not by the American people was he being requested to do this, not by the national interest, but by “powerful interest groups” that are referred to here.

“Other advocates.” Who are they? We know the ACLU has been there. We know La Raza has been meeting there on a regular basis. It goes on. The article says:

But how about the fact that a single mom might like that job? An unemployed single mom or a single mom who has a job prospect that would pay $3 more than the job she is now working while trying to raise a family? Or an unemployed father? Maybe they would like those jobs first.

So these actions fall on the heels of previous executive action in which the president already acted unilaterally earlier this year to grant companies an additional 100,000 guest workers. He has already done that. In just the first year of this order, it adds 100,000 guest workers by providing work authorizations to the foreign spouses of temporary guest workers. It would increase the supply of guest workers by approximately 30,000 each year thereafter — this at a time when we have 58 million working-age Americans who are not working. Since 2009 the number of adults has increased by 13 million, while the number of people actually working has decreased by 7 million.

Median household income has dropped $2,300 since 2009. According to the National Employment Law Project, wages are down across all occupations.

A CBS report titled “Why American workers feel increasingly poor” writes of the NELP’s study:

It goes on: “Across all occupations, real median hourly wages slipped 3.4 percent since 2009. While even better-paid workers saw median hourly earnings erode, the worst hit segments were at the bottom” — the people who got hurt the most were at the bottom — “with declines in their wages of more than 4 percent.”

We have business CEOs, lobbyists, activists, immigration groups, and clever politicians who demand that we have to have even more workers brought into America even when we have a decline in wages and a decline in jobs. But what does the president do? His administration issues an executive order to provide foreign spouses — the citizens of other countries, not American citizens — with 100,000 jobs in the United States, precious jobs that many Americans would love to have. How many American spouses struggling to support their families would benefit from one of those jobs? How many single moms would benefit from a chance to earn a better paycheck?

Our Senate Democratic friends talk about paycheck fairness repeatedly. Yet they are supporting policies that take jobs and wages directly from American women by the millions.

Immigration policy is supposed to serve the national interest and the people of the United States, not the interests of a few activist CEOs and the politicians who are catering to them. We have had 40 years of mass immigration combined with falling wages, a shrinking workplace, and exploding welfare rolls. We know that, don’t we, friends and colleagues? It is time for a shift in emphasis. It is time to get our own people back to work, and our communities out of poverty, and our schools back on their feet.

Harvard professor Dr. George Borjas — who is probably the leading academic in this entire area and has been for many years — estimates that our current immigration rate results in an annual loss of more than $400 billion in wages for Americans competing with immigrant labor. Between 2000 and today the government issued nearly 30 million visas to temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants, largely lower-skilled and lower-wage.

A recent Reuters poll showed that Americans wish to see the record rate of immigrant admissions reduced, not increased (as the Gang of Eight bill would have done), by a huge 3-to-1 margin.

Another poll from pollster Kellyanne Conway recently showed that 80 percent of Americans think companies should hire from among the existing unemployed rather than bringing in new workers from abroad to fill these jobs. Yet Senate Democrats have unanimously supported legislation to double the annual supply of labor brought into the United States. These workers would be brought in to take jobs in every field, occupation, and industry in America.

So what about the good, decent, and patriotic citizens of our country who fight our wars, who obey our laws, who follow our rules, and want a better future for their children? Should their needs not come first?

As National Review explained, we are “a nation with an economy, not an economy with a nation.” We cannot put the parochial demands of a few powerful CEOs ahead of an entire nation’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

The basic social contract is that citizens agree to follow the law, pay their taxes, and devote their love and loyalty to their country, and in exchange the nation commits to preserve and protect and serve their interests, safeguard their freedom, and return to them in kind their first allegiance and loyalty.

The job of elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington — not to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs and dreams to the highest bidder.

I like to pretend that my opinion matters, and often comment on articles at my favorite website: The Unz Review. Readers have suggested that G2mil would become very popular if I offered a comments section. I agree, but that's an all day job monitoring posts to delete the sickos and advertisers. I might do this in a few years after I retire. I made this long comment at Unz about what Trump should propose and repost it here:

I agree with bringing down the top tax rate from 39.5%, but the ultra-rich get most of their income taxed at the senseless 20% capital gains rate, which is lower than middle class income is taxed. So bring the top tax rate down even as low as 30%, but count all income as income, and the government pockets many billions more. This also kills the carried interest loophole. Don’t tell me the BS that this discourages investment; they are not going to stuff cash in a mattress instead.

Close half of our overseas military bases, which are unneeded to maintain a global force. Get rid of half our nukes, 1500 nukes is plenty, and this will save billions more.

Lower the Medicare age to 62, to cover eight million more Americans with efficient single payer. This will encourage millions of 62-65 year olds to retire and open millions more jobs to younger people. These people have enough income to retire, but keeping working because health insurance would cost too much. Kill Obamacare to pay for it.

Stay with the hardline on illegal immigration. Require E-verify and enforce it and most the problem goes away. End all work visas except for a special program that requires a $50,000 annual fee payment, which ensures only those really needed get in. Deport all those arrested for any crimes, it will be a good jobs program. End all the idiotic refugee programs, like the lottery insanity. Stop giving “Family” visas so immigrants can’t bring their elderly parents over and dump them on SSI and Medicare.

If 10 million illegal workers leave, that creates 10 million jobs for Americans, although business may have to offer higher wages. Crime, school crowding, public hospital costs, and urban traffic will fall.

As for foreign policy, Trump should announce that after discussions with the governments of Syria and Turkey, they are certain that ISIS can be destroyed within a year without American help. Therefore, the USA will end American airstrikes and withdraw American ground troops in Syria immediately. The USA will focus its forces on destroying ISIS in Iraq by the end of 2018, leading to a withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq.

In Europe, the push for a new Cold War will end. American forces will revert to their original post-Cold war bases, and any new bases opened or under construction will be closed, along with excess bases described here. American forces will be temporarily banned from training, providing equipment, or conducting exercises with non-NATO nations in Europe.

Here is an interesting interactive worldwide nukemap map where you can see the potential damage certain nuclear weapons could cause. Choose your hated city or your hometown, select a nuke, and detonate!

David Stockman is honest and blunt about our dismal economic future in this short interview. I agree, but this has been predicted for decades. Wall Street and the Fed may be able to keep our faux prosperity in place for decades more by looting the world via dollar creation. Dollars are the USA's #1 export!

I noticed a new propaganda term has appeared in our corporate media to demean those who oppose globalists: White Nationalist. A nationalist is defined as: a person who advocates political independence for a country. So what is wrong with being a white nationalist, or a black nationalist? I assume it's a way of calling white people racists when no proof is available. But then there is no real proof that Trump is a racist, yet he is called one all the time.

Same with xenophobe: a person who fears or hates foreigners, strange customs, etc. If you oppose open borders because it drives down wages, increases crime, crowds cities, and increases unemployment, it's really because you hate foreigners.

Americans are constantly told what to think by globalists via their corporate media. Here is a great film clip where a famous news anchor tells the truth to a room filled with "highly educated" people.

Donald Trump may not take office. Some think this is justified since Clinton won the popular vote, but others question that since counts are in dispute. But this logic fails since the campaigns were run with the electoral college system in mind. They focused advertising and campaigning in key "battleground" states. If winning the popular vote was the goal, their efforts and the results would have been different. Likewise, millions didn't vote knowing that polls showed their state was certain to be won by one candidate, but if the popular vote mattered these millions would have voted.

The popular vote doesn't matter, but the electoral vote does. People assume that Trump is certain to win because he has plenty of extra electoral college votes to deter a few turncoats seeking to upset the results. I took interest because the state of Michigan with 16 electoral votes remains "undecided" a week after the election. The undisputed 100% tally shows Trump won by 13,107 votes, and there are no reports of fraud or disputes, yet AP refuses to call it for Trump until the state finishes it's month long verification process. For some reason, all our "independent" media rely on AP to declare winners.

The 290 Trump Republican electors are chosen due to their party loyalty. Most Republican leaders did not support Trump, and some joined a "Never Trump" effort to openly oppose him. Many stated they would prefer that Clinton win. If only 21 of these 290 Republican electors refuse to vote for Trump, he loses! They don't even have to vote for Clinton! They can refuse to vote, or vote for Pence or Bush or Romney or Ryan or anyone.

If no candidate gets the required 270 votes, the election goes to the House of Representatives to decide, where Republicans hold a majority. Given the number of Never Trumpers in the House, they are likely to choose someone else who got a required one elector vote. The Republicans may not agree on a candidate, so House Democrats could play a role, and an acceptable "moderate" like Paul Ryan may emerge as President. Never Trumpers may already have 21 traitors ready to block Trump's presidency, but he won far more states than predicted, hence the need to put Michigan's close win on hold until a "recount" can discover errors so that Clinton wins Michigan.

People would be upset at this coup, but our corporate media would strongly support this. They could flood the nation with another Trump "scandal" and explain that our founding fathers created the electoral college system to prevent unsuitable winners from taking office. They would call these traitors "patriots" for bravely protecting our republic and constitution by stopping Trump! The Democrats would be ecstatic and their television personalities would tell us our system works and Trump lost the popular vote anyway. I don't think this will happen now that Trump has moderated his views and brought some Republican insiders into his administration, but "Never Trump" means "Never Trump" and this is an easy and legal maneuver fully supported by the "deep state" to include our CIA.

Our corporate press continues to mislead. They report that people are protesting Donald Trump, but he has done nothing! They are protesting democracy! President Obama has been running things for nearly eight years, but there have been no major protests at the White House. He had done many things that so-called leftist should protest, like destroying Libya and Syria, and dispatching thousands of American troops back to Iraq. Obama did nothing while American factories continue to move overseas, work visas expand in number, and medical costs soar. Medical care inflation has risen by nearly 49% since 2005, while Social Security beneficiaries have been given only a 27% increase over the same timeframe.

Donald Trump has done nothing since he's not even President yet. His only firm announcement is that he will halt the CIA's controversial operation that ships weaponry to militia groups in Syria. These are called "moderates" by the CIA although terrorists is more accurate. American leftists should applaud that announcement.

My favorite "Not My President" protestors are Mexican citizens, some of whom wave Mexican flags. They are correct, Enquire Nieto is their President. People in the San Francisco Bay area like to protest, and there are great targets right there. For example, the University of California announced plans to lay off American IT workers at its San Francisco campus and outsource the work to imported foreign workers. Protest that and gain some respect! Meanwhile, the protestors are correct, Trump is not (yet) their President, but they should be protesting their President.

This US presidential election was historic because the American people defeated the oligarchs. Hillary Clinton lost despite a vicious media campaign against Donald Trump, where she outspent him by 400%. The corporate media and the political establishments no longer have credibility with the American people. I am not excited that Trump won, but I am thrilled that he swept aside the Bush crime family and corporate puppets like Rubio. I am ecstatic that the Clinton crime family has been crushed. I suspect Arab dictators are asking for refunds from the Clinton Foundation.

Moreover, World War III with Russia has been averted and mass immigration to the USA will slow. The Democratic Party defeated itself. I looked up polling data and all showed that Sanders would have beat Trump by ten percentage points. As I've written before, if Trump proves a phony, a true progressive can win in 2020, now that Trump killed Hildabeast. Otherwise, she'd rule until 2024 and select her corporatist replacement, which might have been Princess Chelsea Clinton, assuming she survived the nuclear holocaust.

E-Verify was developed several years ago to allow employers to instantly verify a prospective worker's eligibility to work in the USA. This system taps into the Social Security database to see if a SSN is valid, and matches the last name and date of birth. It is used by most employers, but not by all -- those who hire illegal immigrants, or foreign students and tourists who are not supposed to work.

As this recent article explains, we don't need a border wall or mass deportations, we just need to make E-Verify mandatory. Yet those in charge of our nation refuse to implement this common sense step, because they want millions more workers flooding into the USA each year to drive down wages further and deter the formation of unions. The problems of illegal workers is often discussed, but this simple solution is rarely mentioned.

This website has great articles, such as this one that destroys the myth of Pentagon budget cuts.

Michael Moore was an interesting populist 20 years ago, until he discovered that he could become rich and famous as a spokesman for the corrupt Democratic party. So he lambasts Republicans only. He recently created a furor by going off script during an anti-Trump speech. While explaining why Trump is popular, he ends up delivering a great pro-Trump speech. He later explained that he was misunderstood, but watch this video segment and decide.

First of all, GDP is just a rough measure of economic activity, not prosperity. Hurricanes, floods, and smoking are good for GDP. When a used car is sold, GDP activity and sales tax is generated, but nothing is created. As the Fed turns over debt by selling bonds, that is lots of financial activity and boosts GDP, but is just computer activity and nothing real is produced. Lower interest rates produced many billions of dollars in mortgage refinance GDP activity, but no real product was produced. Also note that official population growth in the USA is 0.77% a year, so GDP growth per person is less than half the current 1.2% GDP growth rate.

My Oct 23rd post shows a congressmen berating an FBI official for not turning over all the Clinton e-mails for review, and handing him a subpoena for them. We now know why they were withheld, because the FBI now says it has found "new" e-mails of interest and reopened the investigation. Doing this just before turning them over to Congress is an obvious political game that our corporate media ignored.

One great myth in the USA is that our nation liberated the Philippines from Spanish rule. This lie is found in all school textbooks and is repeated in modern news articles, whose authors express dismay that the new President of the Philippines does not appreciate America's past assistance. If one bothers to read history books about the Philippines, they reveal that the USA invaded the Philippines in 1899 and destroyed its new government and army.

In summary, a colonial rebellion was orchestrated by wealthy and educated Filipinos beginning in 1896. They assembled a modern army as they gradually defeated the scattered Spanish army throughout their nation. (Filipino officers are pictured in 1898.) The Philippine Army grew into regiments and battalions, with an officer corps, uniforms, cavalry, and some artillery. Most of its officers were college educated (many in Spain) and included dozens of former Spanish officers.

The once mighty empire of Spain was collapsing as rebellions in the Philippines and Cuba sapped its strength. By 1898, the Spanish had been militarily defeated in the Philippines. Its navy held onto its main naval base at Cavite, located on a narrow, easily defended peninsula. The remnants of the Spanish colonial army held the fortified central part of Manila. Unless major reinforcements arrived from Spain, these remnants would be forced to surrender.

In the USA, some wealthy Americans were anxious to establish an empire and manipulated public opinion until the US Congress declared war to allow the US military to seize parts of the collapsing Spanish empire. The US Navy had a squadron deployed to Hong Kong. Soon after war was declared in 1898, it sailed into Manila Bay and quickly sank eight old Spanish warships. US Marines went ashore to accept surrender of the Cavite naval base.

The General in charge of the 8400 Spanish soldiers stranded across the bay in Manila sent word that he wanted to surrender to the Americans too. The USA had declared war on Spain after demonizing its military as evil sadists, so leaving their fate to the advancing Filipinos seems fair. However, that is not why the USA declared war. The USA was mobilizing and assembling an entire Army Corps in California to invade and occupy the Philippines, so the Spanish were told to hang on because a rescue force was on the way.

American Generals in Cavite assured the new Philippine government that the USA was not an empire and had no colonies. The US military was a force for good and troops would soon arrive to end the bloodshed by convincing the encircled Spaniards to surrender. As American infantry arrived, Filipino units escorted them to Spanish strong-points. Spanish officers were from a proud empire and cowards were court-martialed and imprisoned back home. Their officers informally agreed to surrender, but only after brave skirmishes with American troops.

Afterwards, American infantry units were scattered among Filipino infantry around Manila. American Generals said they needed their own zones to prevent incidents among American troops (with their Spanish POWs) and Filipino soldiers. This was granted by the Philippine government, but demands for larger zones were made as more American troops landed. American troops poured into Manila even after all the Spanish POWs had been evacuated! Tensions grew as excuses offered by American Generals made no sense, and some bored American soldiers abused locals, who they referred to as monkeys and niggers.

Once the entire American 8th Army Corps was ashore in Manila and ready for battle, a local shooting incident was the excuse to invade. Large battles occurred as American infantry attacked their nearby "allies." The Philippine Army (a unit is pictured) was overwhelmed, mostly because the Americans had mobile light artillery and new Gatling guns. The defeated Philippine Army withdrew northward as American forces landed elsewhere to conquer all the Philippines. There were large conventional battles for almost a year. An insurgency only developed after the regular Philippine Army had been shattered.

Many American veterans of this invasion/occupation felt betrayed since they had volunteered to liberate the oppressed, just like many who joined our Army a century later to liberate Iraq. These facts are not disputed, but American textbooks spin them to evade the reality that the USA invaded the Philippines. A great book about this war with lots of pictures can be read on-line: Philippine-American War 1899-1902.

While everyone is tired of this issue, it has become more interesting as stories of more missing e-mails emerge. The few Wikileaked e-mails from her chief of staff's personal account hint at massive corruption, like when Qatar gave Bill Clinton a million dollars for his birthday. This topic has been evaded by our corporate media, to include outright censorship, as this CNN video clip shows.

Thousands of Clinton e-mails have been illegally withheld from Congress by Clinton and Obama's FBI. Watch this interesting short video of a Congressman berating an FBI representative at a hearing for refusing to turn over e-mails. It is obvious that these e-mails are not withheld because of their national security content, but revelations of illegal activities, corruption, and incompetence. Congressmen can read top secret information, but face criminal prosecution if they leak it. What if they leak information about criminal activity that is not related to national security? They might be prosecuted, but that would only draw more attention and is unlikely to result in a conviction.

But the FBI has read all these e-mails, and the CIA and NSA. Recall the Snowden revelations that the NSA copies and stores every e-mail ever sent worldwide. Of course they don't have time to read 99.99% of them, but if they have a name or e-mail address, they can search this massive database and read whatever is found. They copied all these Clinton e-mails that probably contain enough evidence to imprison both Clintons. This is why the FBI/CIA/NSA openly support Clinton for President, because a quiet blackmail will allow them to dictate national strategy, legislation, and their own budgets. Clinton will just be a puppet President, which is okay with her anyway.

I hate that phrase, but that's what's happening to this new youtube video. Insiders secretly recorded several covert Democratic party operatives explaining their dirty ops in the presidential election. Most involved coordinating actions between the "independent" super-Pacs and the DNC, and detailed plans to disrupt Trump rallies by inciting violence. They even take credit for specific events this year. Let's see if the corporate media will cover this story, if the FBI will investigate, or if youtube executives remove it.

I can barely watch TV anymore because of the flood of negative political advertisements, and the same smear content appears on corporate news shows like CNN. Corporate funded faux "progressive/liberal" websites like HuffPo and Truthout carry several Trump smear stories everyday. Even the late night talk shows, which traditionally remained neutral, ridicule Trump every night. This would not occur unless approved and demanded by network executives.

The message is that Americans don't care about issues. They are outraged that billionaire playboy Trump said sexist things over a decade ago so he can't possibly become president. The debates avoid issues too, since questions are selected by millionaire corporate puppets who direct discussions toward meaningless issues and away from key topics like trade, immigration, and war. The anti-Trump propaganda is so strong that many Americans fear to admit they support him!

Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein gets almost no coverage since she will steal votes from Clinton. She recently remarked that Secretary of State Clinton made the Middle East more violent and unstable, and concluded:

"On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary's policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia."

Only C-span provides such views, as well as allowing Americans to hear Trump speak about issues. If all Americans could hear his recent speech in Florida, he would win in a landslide. Part of this anti-Trump campaign are stories that his campaign is in tailspin and he is well behind in "their" poll. They fail to note that the independent Rasmussen poll shows Trump still leads Clinton. Trump has many flaws, but he boldly entered the political ring to fight the tigers, something no other prominent billionaire would dare. In contrast, Hillary Clinton has strong support from Wall Street, corporations, billionaires, Arab dictators, and government bureaucracies because she plans to change nothing, except to implement the final steps to open borders with no immigration or trade restrictions.

Here is my advice to true Democrats/Progressive/Liberals. Vote Trump! There are good reasons not to vote for him, but you can't allow another eight years of a pseudo-Democratic neocon team in the White House that expands the corruption of our political system, opens the border, exports ever more jobs, and may start a nuclear war. At least Trump is unlikely to start a nuclear war with Russia, and should retire our warmongering Generals. It may be too late because NBC News just reported that the neocon invested Obama administration may soon launch a massive cyber attack against Russia.

The evil neocon Bush/Clinton/Obama international crime alliance must be expelled from the White House. If Trump is elected and fails, a Sanders type Democrat can run in four years, but only if Hillary is finally retired. This same advice applies to Republicans/Conservatives/Libertarians. Vote Trump to remove the neocon cancer, and hope for change.

Let me begin by stating that Bill Kristol is a warmongering traitor who all decent people despise. Nevertheless, he hosted this interesting conversation with economist Charles Murray where they acknowledge problems with globalization. Murray admits that we need a plan to deal with the growing number of jobless Americans who resent open borders and a lack of decent paying jobs. They both acknowledge these thoughts arise from the Trump movement, and the threat such populism poses to the ultra-rich.

Swords were replaced by pistols as symbols of military leadership. Pistols are rarely used in combat because they have limited utility. A far more effective compact weapon is a 40mm pistol. These simple, lightweight, single-shot, multi-role weapons are now for sale on the civilian market for just $60 each. This is just a shorter version of the M79 that was very popular during the Vietnam war. The US military's current M203 is also made of aluminum, so there is little difference with the Airsoft "game" 40mm pistol pictured, if any. The kick is big, so two hands should used. Since the barrel is half as long, velocity/range is cut in half, but still far more than a pistol, and recoil is less than the M203 since a shorter barrel allows more gas energy to escape.

For close encounters, a 40mm buckshot round is extremely effective and far more likely to hit a target with the first shot. In urban combat, this pistol can fire explosive grenades down a hallway or through a window. They can fire HEDP rounds to blast open doors or cars, or to punch a hole in a light armored vehicle.

The variety of 40mm rounds allows them to fire signal or illumination flares. In non-combat roles, they can fire a beanbag round to knock someone down, or tear gas to disperse crowds. While they are larger than military pistols, they are lighter, more intimidating, and far more useful for a variety of roles.

Our billionaires are united to suppress a populist uprising ignited by Donald Trump. He threatens the pillars of globalization, open borders and unrestricted trade enforced worldwide by the CIA and U.S. military. They have directed their newspapers to officially support Clinton. Such statements obviously show "news" bias, but they don't care. They pretend their newspaper is a democratic team of experts, so when "USA Today" endorsed Clinton, some voters are duped and don't realize its just the billionaire owner's endorsement. If you owned the "Boston Globe" and support Clinton, would you allow your paper to endorse Trump?

The current attack on Trump is a videotape made 11 years ago as Trump engaged in guy (locker room) talk with Billy Bush. Trump made offensive comments similar to those made by most men in the USA. Does this make all men unfit to be President? In contrast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coordinated the overthrow of the government of Libya, just for fun, or for Israel, or for oil corporations, or for the empire; probably all those factions. Libya was the wealthiest and most developed nation in Africa, thanks to a small population and great oil wealth. Thousands of people have died as a result of this coup and the nation is in chaos, with some US troops now on the ground trying to establish a puppet dictatorship.

There is almost no news about this disaster, and no one asks Clinton about her role, even though CBS News reported her participation in 2011 that included a video clip of her laughing after Libya's leader was reported killed, and exclaiming: "We came, we saw, he died." Despite these acknowledged war crimes, none in our corporate media declares Clinton unfit for President. Donald Trump has never issued orders that killed a Muslim, yet Obama supported by Clinton have issued orders that have killed thousands of Muslims in a dozen nations for no clear reason. Yet our corporate media repeatedly tells us that Trump hates Muslims, and hates women, and hates children, and hates minorities, and that anyone who supports him hates all these people too.

No one seemed to know why American flags were at half-staff for several days, so I googled around:

Presidential Proclamation -- Death of Shimon Peres DEATH OF SHIMON PERES - - - - - - - BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION As a mark of respect for the memory of Shimon Peres, former President and Prime Minister of Israel, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, on September 30, 2016. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-first.

1. Trump was the first 9-11 Truther. Watch this video of a news report on that day where Trump says that an airplane couldn't have knocked down the WTCs, and states bombs must have been used too.

"Never in the history of the United States, has a President and Supreme Court Judge openly advocated the overthrow of a Presidential candidate. Never has the entire mass media engaged in a round-the-clock one-sided, propaganda war to discredit a Presidential candidate by systematically ignoring or distorting the central socio-economic issues of their opposition."

For example, in 2010 Bill Clinton was hired as a part-time work-at-home "Chancellor" by Laureate Education, a for-profit education chain of schools and colleges operating worldwide. He mostly allowed his name to be used as an endorsement and helped influence Congress. It would not be unusual for Clinton to be paid a modest salary, but in 2015 it was revealed that he collected $16 million of this role! He earned more each year for this part-time job than during his entire eight years as President, and this was money collected from students!

3. Here is a great video about world events and how Trump could save the USA and the world by embarking on a mission for peace.

Our corporate media has begun to censor stories that involve immigrant violence, because such reality supports Trump's claims. Our media provided heavy coverage of the shopping mall shooting in Washington state, but most refused to report that the crazed killer was an obnoxious Muslim from Turkey with lots of guns at home. And the crazy black guy shot by police in California turned out to be an illegal immigrant from Uganda with a long criminal record who ICE tried to deport twice, but our State Department refused to arrange travel. This fact was mostly ignored by our media, although ABC News reported it.

Obama's team pretends that they can't deport dangerous criminals because some nations will not accept their own citizens! Yet no effort is made to pressure these nations diplomatically or with sanctions to force them to cooperate. In the case of defenseless nations like Haiti and Uganda, we can just fly a planeload of dangerous criminals to a neighboring country, or one of our dozen new military bases in Africa, and then use a helicopter to dump them off. This topic would be a news story of great interest, and I hope Trump speaks about this to see if Clinton agrees that something must be done.

"WASHINGTON—Major U.S. airlines are hoping to restrict the types of animals that passengers are legally allowed to bring on board an aircraft."

I hope they succeed, and yes, this is a real photo from Delta airlines. Many people become attached to pets and some expect others to tolerate strange behavior by insisting pets be treated like people. Over the past few years this has been abused as "emotional support" animals appeared along with a note from a doctor stating that they must bring their animal everywhere, or they may sue for discrimination against the "disabled."

Another reason this plague spread is because they don't want to pay $300 to check-in their animal as airline pet cargo. This is selfish and rude. Aircraft are packed with people who don't want a smelly, yapping creature who might panic and cause disruptions. If people want to travel with pets, they should pay for pet cargo or drive. Since the vast majority of citizens agree, let's hope our government stops this growing abuse.

Allow me to provide Trump with an idea that can garner him a couple million votes. Announce that he will repeal the recent DEA order to reclassify Hydrocodone as a Class II drug. This pain med is used by millions of Americans, so now they must see a doctor every three months in person to continue routine prescriptions, rather than once a year. Many users are elderly or disabled who can't drive, so this is a huge burden on families, nursing homes, and doctors. The DEA states four visits a year are needed because Hydrocodone is addictive. I agree, being free from pain is addictive, but three more visits a year will not stop them.

This was done by the DEA, even though the AMA opposed the idea! The drug warriors overruled the doctors, and Obama did nothing! Most Americans know nothing of this, but the millions affected are outraged. This includes overwhelmed primary care doctors who must make room for frequent "howdy" visits simply to renew Hydrocodone prescriptions because the non-medical DEA warriors now require it. Trump could score huge points by addressing this "war on drug" battle by saying he trusts doctors more than bureaucrats and promising to reset Hydrocodone to a Class III.

Here is another 9-11 video of interest. A two minute live broadcast that WTC-7 had collapsed, but a minute into the broadcast the building is seen "going down right now" as a broadcaster said. It was impressive that these two news readers expressed no confusion or shock as to why they were told WTC-7 had collapsed before it did. If you watch the video that automatically follows, it shows a BBC reporter announcing the WTC-7 had collapsed while it can be seen standing in the background.

If you want another example of how all our corporate media wants Clinton to win, read this article from "The Hill" about Colin Powell's hacked e-mails. All the major media reported that Powell wrote Trump is "a national disgrace", but it didn't think Americans would be interested to know that he wrote Hillary Clinton is "greedy" whose husband "is still dicking bimbos at home."

Clinton now faces two more problems. The presidential debates will sink her so she might back out of them. Whatever one thinks of Trump's ideas, on stage he is more confident, energetic, and likeable than Clinton. Moreover, Clinton must be 100% healthy by then, with no coughing or bathroom breaks. Americans are ready for a woman president, but not a sickly granny president. Finally, Wikileak's Assange has been kicked around by the Obama/Clinton gang for years. He has promised a few more Clinton e-mail zingers before the election. Both these factors doom Clinton, unless Trump does something really stupid, or they rig the election.

Americans fear Clinton because they know what she plans to do. Americans fear Trump because they don't know what he plans to do. So most will roll the dice with Trump because the hated corporate media hates Trump, and that is a great endorsement.

I highly recommend this brilliant article about how the New York Times and Washington Post have become propaganda machines for the American Neo-Con Empire. They rarely print corrections when caught in a lie, and even attack those speaking the truth by implying they are foreign agents. In reality nearly all major media have become spin machines evidenced by that article's interesting news item that I read nowhere else:

As an example, MacFarquhar cites the case of the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, claiming “Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories.” The Times correspondent then asserts as flat fact that “The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.”

The Dutch Safety Board’s reconstruction of where it believed the missile exploded near Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. But, according to official investigations that have been underway for more than two years, MacFarquhar’s claim is not “the simple truth,” as he put it. Last year’s report by the Dutch Safety Board reached no conclusion about who was responsible for shooting down the plane, killing 298 people.

Indeed, the DSB’s report included a statement by Dutch intelligence (reflecting NATO’s intelligence data) that the only powerful anti-aircraft-missile systems in eastern Ukraine on that day – capable of hitting MH-17 at 33,000 feet – were under the control of the Ukrainian military. (Though an official document, this Dutch intelligence report has never been mentioned by The New York Times, presumably because it conflicts with the favored Russia-did-it narrative.)

In my June 24th blog post, I wrote about a US Air Force F-16 "Thunderbird" crashing just short of a runway when it ran out fuel. The elite demonstration team was circling to perform a flyby after President Obama finished a speech at the US Air Force Academy. Obama arrived late, the speech was long, and the aircraft team ran low on fuel. Basic fuel safety rules were ignored, and a $20 million aircraft crashed. Here is a recent news report about the long delayed crash investigation report:

The Air Force's investigation into the graduation day crash of a Thunderbirds jet in Colorado Springs remains underway, and the service won't say when it will be complete or what steps have been taken. Air Force guidelines call for most accident investigations to be finished a month after a crash, but Air Combat Command, which includes the flying team, says the probe of the June 2 crash near the Colorado Springs Airport is more complex than that timeline would allow.

"There's a lot involved in this," said Melissa Walther, a spokeswoman for the command at Langley Air Force Base, Va. The Air Force regulations over crash investigations comes with a caveat that allows investigators to take more time if required.

"The lack of definitive timeframe reflects our commitment to explore all possible evidence to come to the correct conclusions, so we can use that information to prevent further incidents," Walther said. "We take these boards incredibly seriously and want to find that "ah-ha" moment of why something happened as much as the next person."

The F-16 single-engine jet crashed into a field after Thunderbirds flying team put on a show over the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony. The jets were below 500 feet on their final approach to the airport when Thunderbird 6 pilot Maj. Alex Turner reported engine trouble.

The trouble was the engine shut down when it ran out of fuel. Air Force Generals would prefer to sweep this under the rug and blame engine problems, but that means unfairly blaming the enlisted engine maintainers. Moreover, the truth leaked out right away and thousands of people already know what happened, as comments from a July 26th military.com article show:

You ASSUME he ran out of gas! Nice way of besmirching the pilots reputation without any facts. Way to go "Col". You are dishonorable.

No assumption; at all! The C/R Team found nothing but essentially dry-tanks i.e., residual fuel ONLY at the scene....thus no fire!! And the exchange between lead and # 6 makes it clear (to any qualified military pilot) that "bingo" had been exceeded and ignored! "Cranky Retired" analysis is spot-on...AND...honorably-so!! As to you Mr "landshark6"? Suggest you do a lot more homework before you tangle w/the big-boys again.

If the Generals lie, someone will blow the whistle, and a reporter may already have a story ready, but is just waiting for the official Air Force report. Some investigations are difficult because the pilot died, there were no witnesses, and the aircraft crashed into tiny pieces. This was a simple one and they knew the answer within an hour, so the long delayed report proves a cover-up is under consideration.

I few weeks ago, I posted a story about thousands of Africans entering Latin America and heading north. Now read this:

Mexico issuing transit visas to African migrants flocking to U.S.-Mexico border

I wish the Trump campaign would discover this issue. International agreements are that refugees are granted refugee by the first nation they reach. But Latin American nations are shooing them north, and Mexico is doing this openly. Imagine if our Border Patrol loaded them on busses and took them to the Canadian border. I'd turn them away at the border or put them on an airplane back home ASAP. The USA needs to end this illegal migration racket now! Put the US Army back on our border!

Like most Americans, I knew nothing about Labor Day until I read this outstanding article by Paul Craig Roberts.

My favorite website is "The Unz Review" with great articles such as this. I recently browsed through recent print editions of famous "Time" magazine. Most of its news is dull propaganda spin.

A new alliance suddenly appeared to counter American expansionism. The unofficial Turkish-Russian-Iranian-Syrian (TRIS) alliance is too powerful for the world's superpower to challenge. All four nations have similar interests, good relations, and are threatened by American imperialism. However, this dramatic change has not been recognized by American leaders nor reported in the western press.

Turkey's shift is sudden but not surprising. All of Syria was part of Turkey until the Ottoman Empire was shattered a century ago. It seems Turkey had been promised a return of control of oil fields in Northern Syria once Assad was overthrown. This plan was thwarted by Russia and Turkey was left with three million refugees. Europe promised to take most of them, but stopped when their citizens objected.

Kurdish militia groups have fought Turkish troops for a century. The desperate Americans ignored this problem and provided more arms to the Kurds and encouraged them to fight in Syria. This spilled over into Turkey where 25% of its population consists of unhappy Kurds. Kurdish fighters increased attacks on Turkish troops while the Turkish military was expelled from parts of northern Iraq, where its Generals controlled the lucrative black market oil trade for the past two decades.

The Turks were furious and began to withdraw support for Syrian "rebels" and increased attacks on Kurds. The Americans disapproved, and it seems the USA knew about the coup last month in Turkey and said nothing, and maybe organized it. What else could explain the evacuation of all American military and diplomat families from Turkey last March:

“The mandatory departure order, announced by the State Department, affects nearly all Defense Department dependents assigned to Incirlik, as well as those at smaller bases in Izmir and Mugla. The families of U.S. diplomats in the same areas also are ordered to depart. On Monday Israel issued a new travel advisory for Turkey, warning Israeli citizens to leave the country as soon as possible and avoid any traveling there.”
__________________

American Generals blamed ISIS, but the USA has been bombing “terrorists” in the region for over a decade and never considered families in Turkey at risk until just before the attempted coup. This and other evidence convinced most Turks that the Americans were behind the failed coup. The US government scrambled to convince Turkey otherwise, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and our Vice President promptly visiting Turkey amid rumors that Turkey might leave NATO.

In addition, most Turks consider the northern Iraqi city of Mosul a Turkish city, stolen by the British in 1918. Sunni rebels took over this city a couple years ago with quiet support from the Turks, who even established a military base near Mosul. Last year, President Obama pressured the Turks to withdraw their troops from Iraq and announced this large city must be conquered by the Shiite government in Baghdad. The Iraqi army is not motivated so the Americans brought in Kurdish troops to help. This may result in a bloody siege that kills thousands and leaves hundreds of thousands more refugees showing up at the nearby Turkish border.

Turkey had enough! Turkish President Erdogan recently made a sudden trip to Moscow. A few days later, experts were shocked to see Russian bombers now based in Iran overflying Iraq to bomb targets in Syria. And now Turkey has agreed to allow the Russians to use its airbases! A few days later, Turkey signed an agreement with Iran to resolve the fighting in Syria. Then the Syrians conducted its first airstrikes and ground attacks against the Kurds in Syria!

This indicates the biggest power shift since the end of the Cold War! An informal alliance, which I christen the Turkish-Russian-Iranian-Syrian (TRIS) alliance, has formed to counter the American-Israeli domination of the Middle East. The Kurds now face destruction as all its neighbors are united and hostile. They should retreat from Syria and the Mosul region and hope TRIS leaves them alone. This means the Americans will lose their best local ground troops and possibly its airbases in Turkey. Finally, the Americans may also be expelled by the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which is already allied with Iran and has conflicts with the Kurds too!

These are interesting times. Will American diplomacy, bribery, and economic aid manage to unhinge TRIS? If not, will the American military manage a peaceful retreat from Iraq and abandon the Kurds, whose semi-official nation may be dismembered by Turkey and Iraq? Syria and Iraq might agree to cede some of their remote Kurdish areas to Turkey if the big Turkish military agrees to invade and destroy the Kurdish military, which it wants to do anyway. Or will the Americans go on the offensive and send airpower and troops to finish off Syria's Assad, risking war with TRIS? This is a huge failure for Obama foreign policy and it's not even covered in the American media.

Some Americans recall the 1960 loss of an American U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. This occurred just before President Eisenhower was to meet with Soviet Premier Kruschev and sign agreements to end the Cold War. History books mention the U-2 crash as an unfortunate coincidence that derailed this agreement, but few know that former US Air Force Col. Fletcher Prouty proved this was no coincidence.

He provided details in his book "The Secret Team", later in a magazine article, and in this interview, that a super-secret CIA team ordered the mission and sabotaged the U-2 so it would crash over the Soviet Union. Prouty was the US Air Force liaison officer to the CIA. Eisenhower had ordered all U-2 flights halted weeks before this meeting to avoid an incident, yet this U-2 was launched without his authority, and even head of CIA claimed he was not aware of it.

This made relations even worse because when the Soviets claimed they had shot down a spy plane, Eisenhower publicly denied it since he knew it to be false. Imagine his embarrassment and anger when the Soviets paraded its pilot, Gary Francis Powers (pictured), before the international press to admit his role. This successful op by "The Secret Team" ended Eisenhower's "Crusade for Peace" and kept the profitable Cold War conflict going another two decades.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria is a corporate spokesman and probable covert CIA asset who spews propaganda, to include vile comments about the biggest threat to his criminal organizations -- Donald Trump. Zakaria recently hosted a discussion forum in Europe where he tried to paint Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a Trump ally. Putin smoothly proved Zakaria a liar and explained that Europeans are tired of American warmongering and now suffer from senseless American imposed sanction games with Russia. If you watch the video of Putin schooling Zakaria, you will admire him.

Americans will never see that video on their CIA-edited corporate news programs. Instead, we get steady propaganda, like criticism of Russia's "invasion" of Crimea, and Obama administration warmongers wanting ever more money for our military by creating a new Cold War, minus the communism justification. Allow me to provide the proper background to these events.

The Ukrainian conflict is the result of NATO's irrational expansion despite a post-Cold War agreement with Russia. Ukraine was targeted for absorption and NATO began sending American and NATO combat troops to Ukraine for annual military exercises. Why? The effort stalled, so Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled some $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution" to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (see my June 7th blog post for hard facts) Ukraine's elected President was ousted because he (and most members of parliament) refused to support Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for power.

Russia feared losing control of Crimea, a strategic republic (i.e. province) that was part of Russia for over a century, but had been administratively attached to Ukraine in the 1950s as a gesture of Soviet solidarity. Russians are the majority people in Crimea and Russian is the common language. After the President of Ukraine was ousted by armed thugs and Kiev fell into chaos, a referendum was held in Crimea in 2014 with international observers and citizens overwhelming voted to rejoin Russia. Russian troops didn't invade Crimea because some 20,000 Russia troops were based there as they had been for a century. Even most non-Russians in Crimea voted to rejoin Russia because Ukraine is one of the most corrupt and poorest nations in Europe, while Russia has vast natural resources and is far more advanced.

This is why knowledgeable people like Donald Trump state they are not bothered by Russia accepting the request by the people of Crimea to rejoin Russia. Now watch this PBS News Hour propaganda segment providing "facts" as to why Trump is wrong, saying only that Ukraine's pro-Russian leader was ousted so Russia invaded Crimea, without mentioning any historical facts. The segment actually lies by saying Crimea voted to join Ukraine in 1991. That is false, it voted to become an independent republic from the dissolving USSR that would remain associated with Ukraine. After years of corruption, domestic turmoil, and an American coup in Kiev, the citizens of Crimea chose to be associated with Russia instead. The Russian reannexation of Crimea was desired by the vast majority of it's citizens and no sane person should object, unless they are limited to censored information in the American media.

After years of denials, John McCain's 1969 radio broadcast from Hanoi was released after it was finally "found" in the National Archives. Some may call this propaganda and proof that he cooperated with his captors, but it was mild. For example, he didn't call for American troops to refuse to fight or criticize America leaders. On the other hand, there may be more broadcasts that remain "lost." None our our 24-hour corporate news outlets thought this story of interest.

Here is a brilliant article about the presidential elections. It includes a youtube link to a recent Trump news conference. If all American voters could hear Trump speak directly, he'd win in a landslide. But all the corporate media opposes him, and floods their media with daily smears based on limited or twisted tidbits of things he says, along with repeating lies about recent world events whenever Trump refutes them. Unfortunately, Trump responds with his own tough talk, which is used against him.

For example, Trump was attacked for not praising a Muslim immigrant (who gets rich off of providing visas) because his son was killed by a Muslim while in the US Army during our nation's disastrous Iraq adventure. But when Obama ordered a bombing campaign this week in Libya that killed hundreds of Muslims, no one said a thing. Libya was the wealthiest nation in Africa until Clinton organized "change", but no one questions her love for Muslims. Meanwhile, Clinton does not hold news conferences since she doesn't answer questions.

This doesn't mean that Trump can make a big difference if elected. Some say that the first briefing every new President gets includes a secret film of the grassy knoll in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Or they can just show him the famous 1966 "Rush to Judgment" documentary.

"The top five contributors to pro-Clinton groups are employees or owners of private investment funds, according to federal data released last week and compiled by OpenSecrets.org, the center’s website. The data show seven financial firms alone have generated nearly $48.5 million for groups working on Clinton’s behalf. The total for Donald Trump: About $19,000."

Trump won 26 of 27 congressional districts in New York. The only one he lost was his own, Manhattan, home to our nation's top 1%. I've read numerous reports that the Trump campaign is struggling because it has not raised nearly as much money as Clinton. Many of these reports are from so-called liberal, progressive, or left-wing news sources, who suggest that attracting money from billionaires is a sign of success. They are unable to grasp the irony, or are quietly funded by billionaires. All our corporate run networks have their millionaire hosts demanding that Sanders' supporters shut up and support Clinton.

I knew that German subs operated off the East Coast during World War II, but I was shocked to learn one was sunk near New Orleans! That is an impressive deployment feat for a small diesel powered craft. I suspect our Navy was shocked as well, so they killed the messenger. Imagine the panic if the public were told U-boats prowled the Gulf of Mexico in 1942. Some believe U-boats sunk over 50 American ships in the Gulf.

True to form, our Admirals demeaned the U.S. Navy officer whose ship sunk the sub, calling him a liar and removing him from command of his ship. Even after being forced to admit the truth, they only awarded him a Legion of Merit years after he died in shame.

I worried that after Trump selected an agreeable VP he might soften his positions that upset the powers in Washington and New York. But Trump stayed true to his message, even when speaking to one of our empire's biggest promoters - The New York Times. Read this review of Trump's interview with the NY Times for insight as he insists that our allies must carry part of the burden. Trump would stop wasteful BS like the current effort by US Army Generals to spend billions of dollars a year to park more men and material in Germany. Trump's arguments will destroy Clinton if the general public hears directly from Trump, which is why Clinton might skip the traditional debates.

After years of controversy, the House Intelligence Committee declassified part of their December 2002 report on the 9-11 attacks, which shows direct Saudi involvement in supporting the 9-11 attackers. This major story has been ignored by most of our corporate media. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said: "This information does not change the assessment of the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals funded al-Qaida." The BBC reported the story, but assures us it proves no high level links to the Saudi government.

The House Committee report states that Saudi Ambassador to the USA and a close friend of the Bush family, Prince Bandar, and his wife sent the 9-11 attackers thousands of dollars on several occasions; but I guess the BBC does not consider him high-level, or their reporters didn't bother to read the 28 pages. BBC readers will not know these facts because the BBC report failed to provide a link to the 28 pages.

Maintenance costs are rising because the trend for ultra-expensive aircraft has limited the number of replacements, so older aircraft are kept in service longer, and require rebuilds. The solution is to buy some modest cost aircraft to fill the gap, like new F/A-18s, F-15s, and F-16s. The latest versions coming off the production lines have most of the same high-tech gear used by the F-35, and some experts say they are just as capable at half the price.

But Generals refuse to advocate this obvious solution because most want to work for big defense contractors soon after retirement, and their prospective bosses don’t like economical solutions. For example, the Marines are running low on F/A-18Cs as these old aircraft are worn out. Luckily, a new more capable model is currently in production for the Navy as the F/A-18E. That production line may soon close as Navy orders are ending. The Marines should just buy a few dozen of these $50 million aircraft to quickly fill the gap.

However, Marine Generals worry that if these aircraft are purchased, some in Congress might notice they cost half as much as the F-35 and can perform the exact same role. As a result, Generals recently pulled 23 retired F/A-18C airframes out of a desert storage facility. These can be rebuilt to provide a few more years of service, but require new engines, avionics ect. These will cost as much as new F/A-18Es, and they will only last 5-10 years before these old airframes are too fatigued; whereas an all-new F/A-18E can serve 20-30 years!

In addition, rebuilding retired F/A-18Cs using old airframes must be done at maintenance depots that are already backlogged with other work. This is not insanity, but corruption! Whatever one thinks of the F-35, all agree that costs have risen and deliveries delayed. Buying the Marines a few dozen new F/A-18Es to fill the gap is the obvious solution.

Open borders is a prime objective for corporate America. Their representative Barak Obama followed orders by announcing that it is a “moral imperative” to legalize immigrants who arrived here illegally. They are not really immigrants but trespassers. Try jumping over a wall in a wealthy San Francisco subdivision or the Vatican to see what compassion the resident “liberals” show you.

Obama pretends this is not support for open borders by setting a specific date, and has stated that whoever arrived before 2012 should be granted visas to remain forever. But there is no visa stamp for those who arrive illegally, so all can simply claim they were here before that date. But I must ask why it is a moral imperative to grant visas to those who knowingly broke out laws and cut in line ahead of those still waiting abroad for their legal visas? I must also ask why it is not a moral imperative to grant visas to those who arrived in 2012, or 2013, or yesterday?

Nothing has caused more harm to poor American blacks, latinos, and whites than mass illegal immigration. Illegal and legal immigrants drive up rents, drive down wages, and crowd hospitals and schools. It mostly benefits wealthy Americans, and more unskilled and semi-skilled workers are the last thing our nation needs as jobs are lost to robotics and automation. Bernie Sanders spoke about these facts, until a year ago, when he was undermined by rich “liberals” who took advantage of his weakness for pleasing liberals. This is why he lost, and why Jeb and other corporate spokesmen running for President lacked popular support.

Hillary Clinton avoids this issue, and all issues that matter. Her campaign is a billion dollar effort to flood the airwaves with Trump smears. Her issues are it's time for a woman President and I'm safer than Trump, who we are told is a racist simply because he opposes mass illegal immigration. She somehow got Sanders to fold, and Bernie burned his loyal followers by endorsing the person they hate most. My advice to Sanders Democrats is to vote Trump, who promises to topple the two pillars of globalization that is destroying America's working class: free trade deals and mass immigration. I recently came across this excellent video presentation of the free trade scam from eight years ago.

If Clinton is elected it means another eight years of a corporate controlled Democratic party, with more unfair trade deals, more mass immigration, and perpetual war. Even the liberal website Bill Moyers had a nice article praising Trump's anti-empire comments. Trump promises more for the working class, but if he is a phony, he can be beat in four years by a real progressive Democrat, who might even run on pro-working class issues promoted by Trump, but with more polish.

Youtube has amazing stuff, like James Files explaining how he killed JFK. This is a long interview but very detailed and believable. The first question that arises is why this guy finally talked. This is answered in this short video that you should watch first. James Files may be phony, but he is a former CIA/US Army Special Ops guy, a known gangster, and if he is a fraud, he is first rate actor with great knowledge about the underworld who spent years preparing for this interview. I'm not sure what to think about his story, but he is an interesting and likable guy!

There are websites that attempt to dismiss Files, and even one dedicated to discrediting him: James Files Fraud. But one must ask who has the time and motivation to devote a website just to counter a youtube interview? Our CIA has thousands of people employed in counter-intelligence. They have the time, resources and media contacts to refute "conspiracy theorists" like 9-11 and JFK. This includes full time "floggers" commenting on websites and maintaining the "truth" at Wikipedia.

The Files interview is very interesting and I highly recommend watching it all, before it disappears. I recall watching a youtube interview with his prison warden that has disappeared. The warden summoned Files to his office to find out why he refused to see prominent visitors. He became convinced of Files' detailed account of shooting JFK, and was angered to learn that FBI agents had managed to interview Files in his prison without his knowledge.

For unknown reasons, the FBI Director gave a speech with absurd logic that created a firestorm. He said Clinton never intended to violate the law and was just careless. First of all, ignorance of the law is no excuse. This is an old principle dating back to Roman times, noted in Latin in the title above. Second, she did not unintentionally hire an expert to install a private e-mail server in her home, and have its hard-drive replaced several times. One might accidentally bring classified material home, or FAX it, or lose it, but one does not carelessly hire someone to install a private server at home and accidentally use a non-government e-mail account for official business thousands of times!

But I agree this is a distraction. Let’s hear about the coup she organized to overthrow the government of Libya that killed thousands and left that nation in chaos. And what about her coup in Honduras to dispose of their new President who wanted the US Army to return an airbase it occupies. And let’s hear about the millions of dollars foreign donors gave to the Clinton Foundation while she negotiated deals with them as Secretary of State.

Our media ignored an interesting NASA report that the Earth has a second moon. NASA calls it an asteroid instead of a moon, even though they are both huge rocks orbiting the Earth.