New Emperor of the Empire

The effort to demonize Russia's President has reached absurd levels. President Putin grants interviews, only to have NBC News edit out parts that show him reasonable. Comedian Stephen Colbert has become a key propagandist for the establishment. Award winning film director Oliver Stone produced a long interview with Putin. He was invited to appear on Colbert's Late Show to discuss it. Colbert proceeded to lambast Stone for being too nice to Putin. Stone was confused and asked Colbert if he had watched the interview. Colbert admitted that he had not, which means he was just reading teleprompted criticisms fed by CBS propagandists.

When Colbert promoted the lie that Russia interfered in the election, Stone challenged Colbert with “Israel had far more involvement in the U.S. election than Russia. Why don’t you ask me about that?” Don’t look for the exchange with Colbert on YouTube. CBS deleted it from its broadcast and website. An "analyst" at Newsweek published an article about this interview, in which he smeared Stone with a childish rant that included:

"In the dreadful final installment of Stone's dire Putin Interviews, a quadripartite display of boot-licking by the increasingly deranged director." ...Earlier in the week, he informed The Nation that he thought the intelligence had been “cooked” by American agencies. The statement would have been astonishing if made by someone with credibility or dignity. Stone has been evidently disburdened of both. ...Stone, looking like he’d recently woken from a nap, jowls sagging like his reputation, listened somberly to this preposterous explanation. Stone has been roundly criticized for treating Putin with adulation and failing to perform the interviewer’s basic task, which is to ask difficult questions. Stone has also been accused of anti-Semitism, though Putin is unlikely to have known that."

I was shocked at such hatred and unprofessionalism at Newsweek, and commenters on the website thought so too. That level of smearing belongs at third rate websites written by angry idiots. Why did Newsweek editors allowed this garbage in their website? It must be required by their neocon owners.

Students of finance are taught about "the madness of crowds" and the first was the "Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637". Tulips (yes the flower) became so popular that their value rose to absurd levels. At least tulips existed, but the current insane bubble fraud are crypto currencies. These are massive, legal, financial scams where computer programmers create things like "bitcoin" and sell them like the old chain letter scams. They only exist as data on the Internet, but gained acceptability like national currencies. Traders have made millions "investing" in these non-existing things, so it was nice to read a major news website shed light on these frauds: Stay away from bitcoin -- it's complete garbage

While Russia wants to avoid war over Syria, Syrian and Iranian militias don’t care. ISIS is almost gone from SE Syria, so there is no need for an American base there to train anti-ISIS units. They know the Americans have illegally invaded Syria, and the international community agrees. These militias have mortars and artillery, so can fire away and wait to see if the Americans dare counterattack by air. If they do, Russian missiles are ready for self-defense. Imagine a downed American pilot captured by ISIS.

Meanwhile, Russia shows restraint to enjoy the Qatar situation, with new Saudi demands that compensation is due and the Turkish troops there must leave. Gulf State dictators have long tolerated American military bases under the assumption that it meant American protection. If the USA backstabs Qatar, what will the other Gulf State tyrants think? What if Iranian troops are invited to defend Qatar?

And what about the Turks? They are itching for chance to reclaim NE Syria and its oil fields, which they say the Brits and French stole a hundred years ago. They can wipe out the Kurd forces there at the same time. They are building up forces in Syria and are just waiting for an excuse to attack.

Many people think that covert "Deep State" rule is just a theory because there is no hard evidence. If one bothers to search the net, there are thousands of examples. Here are four good ones:

1. Early this year, a former editor of a major German newspaper died of a heart attack, shortly after he began promoting his book explaining how the American CIA controls all news in Germany and is foolishly promoting a war with Russia. Americans would find this fascinating, but CNN and the rest of big media will never cover this story.

2. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura publicly complained on many occasions about CIA officers showing up at his state capitol to ask him questions about politics, and said there was a covert CIA officer filling an executive position in his state government!

3. When you have time for a long, insightful interview, watch this one with David K. Johnston. It has four parts, so you may jump to the 3rd segment about the "Deep State" if short on time.

4. Congressman Ron Paul recently expressed alarm at the growing power of the "Deep State", his words. He noted that the supposed hostility between Republicans and Democrats disappeared when more mindless sanctions against Russia and Iran were proposed. They were passed last week with no debate and near unanimous votes in Congress.

Over the past year, lots of webzines dropped on-line comments, including my local newspaper. I loved them despite many comments by idiots. Commentators often added more details to a story or corrected the reporter, which often proved embarrassing to the newspaper. The HuffPo dropped its very popular comments section as progressives rebelled against its pro-war pro-Hillary propaganda.

My Jun 15th blog post described a fake news article at Marketwatch, and noted that there was no link to send corrections to the editor or author. As a result, I posted the info from my blog post into the comments section, providing a lengthy, professional, and detailed correction. But Marketwatch comments are "moderated" and the facts with links I provided were deemed unacceptable and the comment rejected. I've encountered this before at most websites whenever I post a correction in the comments section. At one time news organizations were embarrassed at their mistakes and promptly corrected them with an apology. Nowadays, they spew out so much fake news that they just ignore messages about errors.

Readers of G2mil often suggest that I set up a comments section. That would be fun but requires 24/7 attention and I haven't the time. Maybe I'll try this when I retire because comments provide inside knowledge and breaking news not found in regular articles. Read the SNAFU blog for an example. Unfortunately, there are also thousands of floggers paid by corporations and governments to monitor and control comments on the net to protect their interests, often by attacking other commentators. Our CIA and Israel employ hundreds of floggers, and Facebook employs thousands of censors who remove "hate speech". Paid floggers also secretly become "moderators" at websites to control comments and ban those attempting to expose lies. They've taken over much of Wikipedia.

NASA astronauts only make half as much as most commercial airline pilots

In the article linked above, Marketwatch writer Leslie Albrecht exposes one of her lies in the link she provides. The link is about airline captain salaries, who are the pilot in charge of an aircraft and can make twice as much as a co-pilot. She notes the pay for United Airline captains, who only fly large aircraft from large airports and have far more career flight hours than any military pilot. That same link notes that United Airlines captains are the highest paid and make 2-4 times more than captains for smaller airlines. They are not: "most commercial airline pilots."

"The military astronauts are paid according to their rank and branch of service, and make between $68,000 and $94,000, according to public data on military salaries."

If one simply Googles "military compensation", a link to a US Government .gov military pay calculator appears. Anyone can type in basic data to include NASA's zip code in Florida to learn these facts:

At the low end, a 34-year old major (O-4) with 12 years in service with a wife and two children based at Cape Canaveral does not earn just $68,000 a year, but earns:

At the high end, a 48-year old colonel (O-6) with 26 years in service with a wife and two children based at Cape Canaveral does not earn just $94,000 a year, but earns:

In addition, military pilots collect a few thousand dollars more each year for Aviation Career Incentive Pay (formally called Flight Pay), and Aviation Continuation pay bonuses of up to $25,000 a year! In addition, they contribute nothing to their very generous retirement plan that includes health care, which is also free while on active duty.

Marketwatch should post a correction, but there is no link to contact the editor or reporter. They should do a story as to why they were fed fake news. I'm sure a Marketwatch reporter didn't come up with this idea, the article was offered to her, even though the basic premise is false. Military associations are always pressing Congress for more pay by peddling the low pay myth. Did officers in the Pentagon plant this fake news for their own benefit?

A better story would be why our nation wastes millions of dollars a year keeping a dozen astronaut pilots on duty. There is nothing for them to "fly" in space! The mission to Mars is a decade away, and that will be 100% automated anyway. Even the Space Shuttle missions were fully automated with a system of seven back up computers. It was possible to shift to manual control in an emergency, but control was so complex that no one thought that pilots could adjust course in an emergency to land anyway. These dozen astronaut pilots will never fly a spacecraft, so why are they playing at NASA when the Pentagon says it has a shortage of pilots?

There is no better example of government corruption in the USA than the tens of thousands of sports scholarships awarded to foreigners each year. This is great for these people, but each robs an American citizen of a chance to attend college with a full scholarship. Private institutions may excuse themselves of patriotic duties, but most are awarded by state governments!

One might assume these costs are recovered by the NCAA's profit machine, but this recent article proves otherwise. Few are awarded for profitable sports like football and basketball. Most scholarships awarded to foreign athletes are for minor sports like: tennis, squash, fencing, rowing, and water polo. These sports generate zero ticket sales or television royalties, and these teams are flown around the nation at taxpayer expense.

If you read on-line comments at that article or talk with friends, some 90% of Americans are angered by this corruption, yet it gets no news coverage or political commentary. The next time your state university system demands another budget increase, suggest that they stop providing full scholarships to foreigners. The justification for state subsidized universities is their graduates provide vital skills for our economy, but these foreigners return home after their free four years of college! Meanwhile, an American athlete denied a scholarship must work at Wal-Mart and pay taxes to support the state university system that pays for food, housing, education, and nationwide travel for thousands of foreign sportsmen.

Here is a great article about the Pentagon's worst procurement disaster. Our Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier cost almost twice as much as the older, proven Nimitz class, yet it cannot safely launch and recover aircraft. This occurred because the Navy incorporated several expensive, experimental systems that had not passed tests ashore. The Navy has been trying to fix these systems for years and seems ready to give up. Then what? There are 4300 crewmen aboard the USS Ford right now, and the second ship in this class is already half complete! The USS Ford passed sea trials and will soon be commissioned, but has never launched an aircraft. The Navy has pushed its first planned deployment back to 2021! It may deploy one day, but probably with just helicopters and VTOL aircraft.

Do you become angry when you hear nonsense that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for our freedoms? Do you become enraged when the death of soldiers is explained by claiming they protected us? This is nothing new, as shown in this short movie clip with Korean War vet James Garner. Most blame the Generals and politicians, but he also blames the people back home for glorifying wars, thus allowing the deadly ruse to continue. He stated: "It is always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade" as though their husbands died by accident.

National Missile Defense is a long standing racket that puts billions of dollars in the pockets of wealthy Americans each year. It's an idea worthy of research, but more money is made building and deploying a NMD system that doesn't work. Fraud and deception are common, as I explain in this article: The SM-3 Fraud.

As a result, I am skeptical of recent news that an ICBM target was shot down in mid-course. This test was delayed for almost a year, and on April 13th Admiral James Syring, the guy in charge, promised the US Senate that a successful GBI intercept would soon occur. The timing of this success is perfect as the Pentagon talks up the North Korean missile threat and seeks a big budget increase to build and deploy more of these ultra-expensive, unproven missiles.

The moment of impact when the exo-atmospheric kill vehicle intercepted and destroyed the target in a direct collision during the FTG-15 Flight Test. Missile Defense Agency

The first clue of deception is that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) refused to call the target an ICBM, always referring it to an ICBM "class" target. Pictures of the target missile were released, and it is a very odd missile. (below) I have never seen a missile with a flat nose because that is not aerodynamic. This slows the missile and causes tremendous air friction resulting in red hot heating of the nose. This makes no sense, unless you want to slow the missile and limit its altitude, while an ultra-hot glowing missile nose helps the infra-red seeking interceptor find it in space among the dozens of other orbiting satellites and space debris it encounters in the target area.

A second issue the MDA requested a major budget increase for FY2018 just four days before this test that Admiral Syring already said would be a success. After the test, the Admiral announced: “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland." If this is the case, might someone keep things on track by ensuring the missile exploded as it was "intercepted"? Fighter aircraft often intercept other aircraft. This does not mean that they hit or destroy them.

The MDA civilian spokesman released a statement that the target was hit directly by the intercepting missile, because that is what someone told him. The guy in charge of the program, Admiral Syring, was careful not to say hit, only saying "this was a developmental test, the scenario is the same as one they would expect to occur during an actual operational engagement. Based on all the data we've received to date, all indications are that all our system performed exactly as designed.”

Note that Syring used Pentagon terminology "a developmental test," which is not a realistic test. That is called an "operational test" overseen by an independent office from the Pentagon. A developmental test is used to test certain components, and this often requires a "design" that simulates or rigs some things. This is why some developmental tests are marked as a success even if the missile fails to hit the target, because that was not the objective. This is often not disclosed after the test until outside investigators conduct routine reviews months later. One review disclosed that the target missile emitted a homing signal so that the target missile could find it. This is why Admiral Syring never stated the missile was hit, but said vague things like: "Based on all the data we've received to date..." and “Initial indications are that the test met its primary objective, but program officials will continue to evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.”

Note that all target missiles have a self-destruct mechanism because they sometimes go out of control and could hit a populated area. The range safety officer throws a switch and detonates the target missile at the first sign of trouble. Perhaps a later outside review will discover that something caused this target missile to self-destruct just before the missile intercept. But this will be months if not years after Congress authorizes more funding and after Syring has been promoted or retired to a profitable job with a military contactor. If someone did push the missile self-destruct button, just a few key people in the program would realize what happened.

The US Air Force released a one minute video taken by a space unit not part of the MDA. This official proof was distributed widely and posted on numerous websites. (a screen shot is shown at the top of this post.) I noticed that the target missile blew up before the intercepting missile struck, and several people made that comment on various websites. Some speculated that it was a blast-fragmentation warhead, but it was clearly stated that it was a hit-to-kill warhead, "hitting a bullet with a bullet." Did they blow up the missile as it was “intercepted” but not actually hit? Or maybe fragments of the target missile were hit when it blew up as the intercepting missile arrived, so it was "hit" as the video shows.

The second intercept video clip from a different angle seems correct, but you can see something streak by in the lower left corner of the video as something explodes in the center. You might think the video would include an explanation, or that a reporter might ask for one. Has our society has become so docile that our government is allowed to rely on the words of Groucho Marx who once said: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Watch that video a few times and decide for yourself.

Perhaps all this can be explained and the target missile was hit. Great job! Since there are dozens of these missiles ready to fire from silos and billions of dollars yet to be spent for more, let's quickly organize an operational GBI test with independent observers before the end of this year!

I like to think outside the box, but Miles Mathis thinks outside our world. Read his odd thoughts on world events that are interesting. He is obviously intelligent, well-read, a good writer, and unafraid to upset everyone with his views. He is either brilliant or crazy, but reading his essays are mind bending.

I love his essays on how the abstract art world has become a massive money laundering scheme. Here is a simple example. Let's say you are a big time criminal who wants to buy a mansion in Florida, but your only reported income is $1000 a month from Social Security. If someone wires $20 million to you from an overseas account and you attempt to buy a home, the Feds will demand an explanation and probably seize it.

But your wife can slap some paint on canvas and have a corrupt local art gallery praise it and include it in an auction. At that auction, two or three buddies dressed nice bid the price up to $8 million and the gallery sells it to you, an anonymous foreign buyer, who promptly wires the money. Then another piece by this new discovered abstract artist is sold two months later for $12 million. All nice and legal.

Now comes the fun part. A few months later, these two great masterpieces are auctioned again. Since they sold for $8 and $12 million each, the art gallery may be able to con others to buy them. Their value has been proven! An investor might grab them both for $7 million each. What a bargain! Then the art gallery and mobster split that $7 million in easy money. These sums may seem outrageous, but "art" that most people wouldn't pay $100 for can sell for over $100 million in the art world with crafty salesmen such as this lady. Yet even her spin cannot convince sane people that art such as these examples were legitimate sales. Buyers of this fake art may represent investment or pension funds and get big kickbacks for their role.

As Trump attempts to slash budgets, he should target the DEA. Everyone familiar with the illegal drug trade and the DEA knows that it's budget could be cut in half and there would be no impact on drug use in the USA. There might be lower prices, which only hurts the drug traffickers. Some efforts are counterproductive. Because money laundering efforts made cash transactions more difficult, dealers starting paying their mules with drugs, who them sold them cheaply in local Mexican communities along the trade route, causing a drug epidemic in Mexico.

DEA agents know little about the real drug trade, which is why they are powerless to stop it. The major dealers were in business before these guys were born and have lived in their areas all of their lives. DEA agents show up not even knowing the local road system. They clumsily seek info as each is quickly identified as narc. He's the clean cut guy who speaks limited Spanish asking too many questions. The big time dealers will not speak to anyone unless someone they trust vouches for them, and they let their low level employees do the actual transactions.

However, DEA agents are often successful. The big time drug dealers are annoyed by startups that cut into their action. They can kill them, but that costs money and is messy. It is far easier to tip off local police or the DEA to take them out. Retired DEA agent Michael Levin wrote several great books about all this. The futility and complexity of the failed drug war is depicted in the great movie "Traffic". In this video clip, a small-time drug dealer is under DEA protection before he is to testify against a big time drug dealer in return for a sentence reduction. When a cocky DEA agent pokes fun at him, he tells the DEA agent that his life is pointless. Despite all their efforts, the drugs continue to flow since all the DEA does is take out competition for the major dealers.

If Trump really wants to hurt the drug cartels, pull those DEA agents from their expensive overseas postings and rotate them to border posts. I explained this in my Oct 25, 2010 blog post:

"I spent most of my life along the Mexican border, including two years at a Border Research Institute in Laredo, Texas. One thing I learned through observation and talking to people is that most illegal drugs are driven across border checkpoints risk free. Choosing which vehicles to send to detailed secondary inspection is up to the lowly Homeland Security guy at each booth. He asks for ID, runs the license plate, asks a few questions to measure nervousness, and allows around 95% to pass on without a detailed inspection. Since friends, relatives, or drug smugglers can call, text, or see who is in each booth, they can choose the line to their friendly inspector and avoid searches. Border officials also know the big political players in their border region, so they never search the mayor, police chief, fellow employees, senior officials, or their wives.

The guys in the Homeland Security booths can wave through whoever they want, so they are easy to corrupt since they can trade favors or collect cash for doing nothing. They just pretend not to notice the illegals crouched down in the back seat or the suitcases, which may have drugs. They cannot be caught, unless someone squeals on them. Even when that occurs, there is no hard evidence. Some may apply for such jobs with plans to become rich by waving through fellow gang members. This problem is widespread because few are caught every year. A lone, low ranking, corrupt official can allow dozens of vehicles with tons of drugs or dozens of illegals to pass through risk-free each day!

The solution is simple and costs almost nothing. Federal agents from outside the area should be tasked to supervise border inspections. Every few years, they would be assigned a 90-day duty at a border station, which would require a half dozen temps at each border crossing to provide coverage 24/7. They would often search Homeland Security personnel at booths for cell phones -- none allowed. They would choose who is at each booth, and move them around every hour. Its a good idea to install sun tarps so people in the Mexican side can't see who is in which booth.

The outside Fed would walk among cars waiting in line and can also choose vehicles to inspect. He would keep a keen eye out for cars that try to change lanes for no reason, especially after he shuffles the guys in the booths. The drug cartels now drive large shipments through daily at no risk, because they have a "friend" at the inspection booth. This would become risky because it would be difficult to determine which lane their friend is working, and he might be moved just before they pull up, and that annoying Fed wandering around may choose them for inspection. The Fed should wear a bullet proof vest and carry an M-16 because smugglers may open fire and flee when he doesn't allow them to choose their lane.

This would be a thankless task, because this outsider would be disliked by the local Homeland Security people. This is why he must be an outsider on temporary duty, outside the Homeland Security chain-of-command and not worried about becoming hated in the local community. Every border crossing is different, yet the impact of outside supervisors would be huge. These agents would face serious authority confrontations with a few border inspectors who are found with cell phones or senior officials who insist that certain vehicles cannot be searched.

This would be similar to the disruption drug smugglers encountered when aircrews were required to go through gate security checkpoints after 9-11. A lot of stewardesses and pilots were frequent drug mules, with a perfect cover and risk free transport method. If outside supervisors are used at border crossings, I'd guess the drug flow from Mexico would fall in half. This wouldn't solve the drug war, but would smack down the profits of the Mexican drug cartels, and those of some Homeland Security folks. Unfortunately, Homeland Security dislikes this idea because it implies that corruption exists, and no one wants outsiders telling them what to do."

When asked if I think aliens have visited Earth, I say they may have been here all along. Such comments irritate some readers, but they have never looked into facts. A starting point is this short video with clips of American Presidents commenting on this possibility.

The Trump laptop bomb “leak” tale is absurd. There have been numerous news reports in past weeks that the USA does not permit laptops on flights from most Muslim nations, and may extend that ban to Europe. If you can’t figure out why, you’re an idiot. If ISIS did find a crafty way to place a bomb in a laptop, the USA should have informed Russia and everyone immediately! Why didn’t Israel inform everyone immediately? Is someone upset that Trump may have thwarted ISIS plans to blow up a Russian civilian airliner?

President Trump discussed this issue with other heads of states. IT WASN’T A LEAK! A President cannot “leak” information. If he reveals something, that means he chose to declassify it on the spot. Trump is the executive branch; he decides what can be shared with whoever, not some unknown un-elected bureaucrat in DC. If you disagree, then what person must Trump ask for permission anytime he wishes to discuss national security?

Trump should have taken action when some of his picks were denied posts at places like the NSA when unnamed bureaucrats deemed them unworthy and refused to grant them security clearances. Trump should have fired whoever went public with that BS. If they have concerns, they meet with the White House and discuss them, then Trump decides if they still get the post, or Trump’s team announces that he has withdrawn the offer.

The only leaks are from the traitor who gave info on Trump’s private meeting to the WashPo/NY Times. That is a serious federal felony, yet our corporate media and Congress don't care. Or maybe our own intel agencies are listening in on all Trump's meetings? Senseless anti-Trump news stories are so frequent and heavily covered by our media that even skeptics acknowledge that a coup attempt is underway.

This is not upsetting since Trump has already failed to deliver what he promised (even deportations are still just for criminals). Sending our troops into Syria and cutting domestic spending to boost military spending another 10% just spat on his supporters, but he might grow a backbone and try to change things once he realizes American Generals are nuts.

If they oust him, it will convince all Americans that a Deep State rules the nation. They would have ousted Sanders even quicker. It is also a message to outsiders who think we are a democracy, don’t step into our ring, we don’t fight fair! Hear that Dwayne Johnson “the Rock” who has shown an interest in saving our nation. Bernie knew this all along, which is why he didn’t fight to win.

A valuable rocket system is the old M202 Flash that is still used by certain US Army units. This is a napalm-like rocket that burns intensely. Strong fortifications can resist infantry rockets, or foliage and camouflage makes targeting difficult. Flash rockets need only explode near a target to produce fire and smoke to blind enemy gunners for several minutes so infantry can advance. In some cases, the enemy is entrenched in a corn field or high grass. Igniting defensive positions using Flash rockets can burn them out, as was done often in the Pacific during World War II using flamethrowers. Flash rockets also provide infantry with something to counter heavy tanks. A flash rocket hitting the thick frontal armor of a heavy tank would burn fiercely for several minutes, blocking the crew's vision and may cause damage, allowing time for heavier weapons to engage or infantry to maneuver.

The US Navy's new carrier electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) doesn't work reliably. This has been publicly documented by the GAO and DoD for years. It has improved, yet one out of every 240 launches fail, which would roll an aircraft into the ocean due to a lack of speed needed to take-off. This means each deployed Ford class carrier would lose an $80 million aircraft each month! The old steam system fails to launch only once a decade, resulting in a cold cat launch, video here. Crewmen die since aircraft like the C-2 and E-2 have no ejection seats, although ejecting into the sea in front of a huge aircraft carrier is often fatal. In addition, these buggy EMALS systems are new and were tested at clean test facilities ashore, not worn down by thousands of launches at sea amidst saltwater spray.

Here is a link to more EMALS background for those stunned by this revelation. Admirals knew of this problem years ago but installed it on the new USS Ford carrier anyway! Navy Captain Stephen Tedford, program manager for the Navy’s Aircraft Launch, Recovery and Equipment Office, dismissed a 2014 GAO report that raised concerns over data showing EMALS failed every 20 launches ashore. Tedford offered a rambling excuse that reliability is not a requirement and cannot be proven anyway:

“Reliability comes from a significant number of cycles on any system, it is statistics-based,” Tedford said. “So you have to have hundreds of thousands of cycles in order to achieve system reliability. And the way that reliability growth is established is, it’s not just from the system installed at Lakehurst, it’s in combination with the ship and the second ship of class, and the third ship of class over time. So it was never in our program, as a requirement or anything else, in order to meet threshold reliability for either system when the ship delivered, simply because it is not possible to get there statistically.”

The Navy will soon commission the Ford and it will remain in a pre-deployment phase for years as engineers tinker with this experimental launch system. They might fix it, but they've been trying to solve problems since development began in 1995. They didn't even begin launch tests with aircraft ashore until construction of the Ford commenced. When they test aircraft ashore at Lakehurst and a "soft launch" occurs, the aircraft just rolls down the runway, and not off the bow of a carrier at sea. This is why they have yet to launch an aircraft from the USS Ford, even when it recently conducted sea trials prior to commissioning.

The failure of the Ford program has been followed by Navy Matters blog, where insiders made comments warning that EMALS does not work. The Ford was supposed to be commissioned in 2016, but that was delayed a year, and for unexplained reasons Admirals state the Ford will not be ready to deploy until 2021! If one reads news stories and GAO and DoD reports about EMALS this past decade, there is no doubt that EMALS is not ready, may never work reliably. The Navy spent billions of dollars on this program that is a key sales feature for the ultra-expensive Ford class carriers. This scandal was ignored by the Obama administration until Congress expressed alarm in 2016. The Navy agreed to conduct a high-level 60-day review at the end of last year. Admirals concluded that it would cost too much (in dollars and respect) to admit to the EMALS mistake, and chose to announce all is well and hope for success.

President Trump was briefed on this disaster and took prompt action with an awkward and confusing announcement during a Time magazine interview on May 10th. Most news outlets mocked Trump's knowledge of our Navy and aircraft carrier launch systems, as he referred to EMALS as "digital", and even military reporters and bloggers were confused. Most cannot grasp how dysfunctional our Navy's procurement system has become, especially when defense contractors help fund their job.

Trump is not optimistic after years of EMALS failures, so after spending $14 billion on the Ford and formally accepting the ship as complete, the Navy will have to spend another $4 billion to rip it open and install a proven steam launch system. The second ship in the Ford class is half complete, so will also require billions to redo! Admirals hoped EMALS would be soon fixed, but Trump decided not risk billions dollars more on this experimental system that may never work. President Trump deserves praise for this overdue announcement, something Admirals should have done years ago.

When Obama was President, I was appalled at his wasteful habit of flying his family ten hours to Hawaii for a few days off, this being someone who says global warming is a threat. The press never wrote a negative comment about this, yet as soon as Trump became President and traveled two hours to Florida for a vacation, there were numerous articles about the outrageous cost.

As a new President, Trump had no say about how the Secret Service and Pentagon chose to transport him. There is massive waste as the Pentagon likes to pretend nuclear war is imminent, so does wasteful things like insisting a big E-6 Mercury aircraft accompany the President's personal 747 whenever he travels. Since both aircraft are old and modern electronics are far smaller, Trump should have the features of both aircraft built into a new Presidential Boeing two-engine 787 aircraft, which burns half as much fuel per mile as either of these two four-engine aircraft that it can replace.

A few years ago, I attacked the myth that military personnel are poor and struggle to survive with an article High Military Pay, which begins:

"One great myth in American society is that military personnel are lowly paid. That was true until the 1980s when a push to improve recruit quality boosted military pay each year at twice the inflation rate.

The military was once known for low pay yet great retirement, but now has great pay as well. This fact is hidden from the public with absurd propaganda from military associations about the need to boost pay, and fear in the Pentagon that if Congress catches on, the days of big pay raises may end."

Military careers are tough, but most GIs make twice as much as comparable Americans. As a result, I was stunned to read a PBS sponsored story titled: How Many Military Families Need Food Assistance? the Pentagon Doesn't Know. The article is about Marines at Camp Pendleton, California who go to a church funded food bank on base to get needed food. It suggests Marines struggle to survive and leaders don't care. I e-mailed the author and asked why he didn't do basic research before publishing this fake news. I noted these errors in his story:

1. The federal school lunch program and WIC do not just benefit poor people. They help below average income families, so half of American families qualify. You note that only 25% of military families qualify, so that shows they are paid well.

2. One can make $50,000 a year and qualify for $100 a month in SNAP (food stamp) benefits if he has six children. The fact that just 23,000 of 1,400,000 active duty military families qualify for food stamps proves they are paid well.

3. You publish just one part of military compensation (basic pay) and ignore other payments that may exceed basic pay. One family profiled in your article has both parents on active duty. They make over $100,000 a year in total compensation!

He responded that he just reported what he was told. I pointed out reporters have a duty to conduct basic research and his story is so misleading that it qualifies as fake news and demanded a correction. I replied:

"Since I know how to use the internet, I spent two minutes to look up facts for you. I just googled "military compensation", chose the .gov website, and typed in four simple data elements for an E-3 living in Californina. Each young Marine in your story earns: Total Regular Military Compensation (RMC): $62,408.13 You ran an article about two married Marines struggling for food who will make over $124,000 this year! And they get free medical care and don't have to pay sales tax when they shop on base. Please correct the errors in your article, they amount to fake news."

He never responded and never corrected his article because the truth makes the entire article pointless. Even military servicemen don't know that most young O-3 officers and E-9 senior enlisted collect over $100,000 a year in total compensation.

Climate change (aka Global Warming) is a complex subject. The Earth is becoming warmer, but our climate has always been changing, becoming warmer at times and then colder. Pollution causes warming, but the impact is debatable.

Denying this threat has become a sin to many Americans. Anyone who expresses doubts is branded a greedy idiot who refuses to accept science. There are many cities, counties, and states whose leaders express great concern about climate change, but they refuse to do anything! They should ban construction in areas that might be flooded and build levees and dams to prepare. Yet none have undertaken any serious preparations.

For example, California leaders are quick to denounce anyone who doubts the impact of climate change, but are doing nothing to prepare! Their climate change models show that the San Francisco and Oakland airports will be underwater in a few years, and some of downtown San Francisco will be flooded. Scientists tell them this, yet California leaders ignore them, so they are really climate change deniers.

Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution" to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (See my June 7, 2016 blog post for details.) Ukraine's President was ousted because he refused to support Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for power.

Crimea was part of Russia for over a century until it was administratively attached to Ukraine in 1954 by a Soviet premier to promote Soviet solidarity. Russians are the majority people in Crimea and Russian is the common language, but they were not consulted. In 2014, after years of Ukrainian political turmoil and an American coup in Kiev, Russia accepted a request by the people of Crimea to rejoin Russia after 94% voted in favor. (See my Aug 8, 2016 blog post for details.) Russians and Crimeans were puzzled by intense American opposition to this reannexation, and rightly concluded the Americans really wanted "NATO" military bases in strategic Crimea.

For those concerned about European borders and justice, they should address a truly outrageous annexation. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and seized half of its land while Soviet police massacred 22,000 influential Polish POWs and civilians. This area was invaded by Germany two years later, which formed Ukrainian paramilitary units that murdered over 100,000 Poles during the war. Entire Polish villages disappeared as Ukrainians massacred everyone to include women and children, who were buried in mass graves. After the war, the Polish regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were formally annexed by Soviet Ukraine after 1.5 million Poles were forcibly deported. Over the next decade, another 1.5 million Poles were deported by Ukraine to ethically cleanse these regions (noted in yellow below).

The West did nothing about this brutality because it occurred within the powerful Soviet Union. However, that union broke up and Ukraine is weak and at odds with Russia. On July 22, 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres of ethnic Poles in Volhynia and Galicia as genocide. Poland is now part of NATO and American troops are based there. Thousands of Poles are still alive who were expelled from these regions. Homes and land were seized from millions of Poles. Ukrainian war criminals remain at large.

This raises several questions. If Poland demands a return of its territory or compensation for Poles, will powerful NATO support its demand? Will sanctions be imposed against Ukraine for this genocide and illegal seizure of Polish territory? Since Crimea was attached to Ukraine without a democratic vote, and the citizens of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia, should sanctions against Russia be removed?

Informed people know these issues will never be addressed because NATO does not exist to protect member states, but is a proxy arm of America's neocon empire trying to conquer the world. However, as Poland's military grows stronger and Ukraine struggles, this issue may arise, and crafty Russia may support a return of Poland's, Slovakia's, and Romania's seized territories!

Barak Obama is America's biggest con man who accomplished nothing "progressive" during eight years at the top, and didn't even try. (Obamacare is an insurance industry idea supported by most Republicans, which is why it recently survived.) Anyone who still likes Obama should read about his actions since he left office. Obama quickly signed a $65 million "book deal", which can only be a kickback since there is no way the publisher can sell enough books about his meaningless presidency to justify that sum. Obama doesn't get royalties based on sales, but gets the money up front for a book he has yet to write, and will have someone do that for him. (Book deals and speaking fees are legal forms of bribery in the USA.)

Then Obama embarked on 100 days of ultra expensive foreign vacations with taxpayers covering the Secret Service protection costs. He didn't appear at charity fundraisers, didn't campaign for Democrats, and didn't help build homes for the poor like Jimmy Carter. He returns from vacation this week and his first speech will be at a Wall Street firm that will pay him $400,000, then he travels to Europe for more paid speeches.

Obama gets over $200,000 a year in retirement, just got a $65 million deal, so doesn't need more money. Why would a multi-millionaire ex-president fly around the globe collecting huge speaking fees from world corporations just after his political party was devastated in elections because Americans think the Democratic party represents Wall Street? The great Jimmy Dore expressed his outrage at Obama and the corrupt Democratic party in this great video.

I know that people are tired of 9-11 mysteries, but each time I look for something, like a photograph of an airliner flying toward the Pentagon, I find more interesting stuff. For example, this on-line forum from 2012 includes this from airline pilot Dennis Cimino:

"On September 11, 2001, we were told by the U.S. government that at 9:38 a.m. on that day, a Boeing 757 jetliner impacted the building at a speed of approximately 465 knots after executing a 330 degree turn for no apparent reason any sane person can think of, as the building is highly distinguishable from virtually any altitude above 2000 feet for several miles. The official story has the flight path just to the side of the west wing of the White House, which in any person’s estimation is a significantly more important target than is the building that houses the military managers who run the Military Industrial Complex. We were also told that nobody could have foreseen this type of attack, even though just a year earlier, a drill was held, and a nearly identical B-757 American Airlines plane was flown by Chuck Burlingame himself, as the Pentagon ran a preparedness drill to simulate such an attack: "Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise", 24-26 October 2000"

I had never read about this. As the "hijacker" approached the Pentagon, this "amateur pilot" who had never flown an airliner, didn't simply crash down into the huge complex. He flew past and saw the White House dead ahead, but decided that was not a good target, so began a complex, steep diving turn back to the Pentagon in hopes of killing a few unimportant bureaucrats. He executed this perfectly, but didn't choose to crash into the center to hit the "inner ring" where senior leaders work, but aimed for the outer wall in a mostly vacated area of the Pentagon undergoing renovation, so only 125 of the 26,000 who work in that building were killed. Finally, he somehow jammed the Pentagon's air defense systems, evaded recording by dozens of security cameras, and folded the aircraft wings as he crashed since no wing impact marks were left on each side of hole in the Pentagon.

"So, on September 11, 2001, what took place was a plane that was not a scheduled air carrier flight, per the Bureau of Transportation Statistics or BTS database, departed Boston’s Logan Field from a departure gate that does not match the coordinates transmitted by the ACARS system, as well as stored in the provided by the N.T.S.B., flight data recorder records, on that non-scheduled American Airlines flight, aka ‘FLT 77’ per the government’s submission, and this plane left Boston’s Logan Airport with a hijacker on board who was capable of flying a very sophisticated and complex airplane that the average pilot in the F.A.A. pilot registry could probably not really fly with such precision. This plane took off, climbed to it’s cruise altitude, and then over W. Virginia, was hijacked in 3 minutes time, and then executed a ‘standard rate’ turn which no hijacker would have performed with such precision, and immediately turned inbound to the perfect heading that would take it directly to the Pentagon, even though for hijackers to do this, would have meant they would have had to know exactly where the aircraft was immediately — and I do mean, IMMEDIATELY — and then have the requisite knowledge of how to re-program the complicated FMS computers in the aircraft to display target area data to them, because as you might have guessed, they did not bring their own GPS system with them on the planes that would have given them immediate positional information as well as a much more immediate way of turning the plane onto a magnetic heading that would take it to Washington, D.C. from that nice precise standard rate turnaround in the skies over West Virginia. Impressed? I sure am, as would be many B-757 line captains who fly this airplane every day, especially with the level of complexity the FMS or Flight Management System on that airplane."

"Playing computer games is more than a pastime for some younger people. It’s a career. A study by Unibet sheds new light on the phenomenon of eSports, as competitive gaming is called. Did you know that the League of Legends (multiplayer online battle arena/MOBA) final drew in more viewers than the last game of the 2016 NBA Finals (36 million vs 31 million)? Or that the total eSports prize pool exceeds $93 million?"

I agree with this article based on my children's interests. How can watching millionaires run about on a TV screen be of interest, compared to something one can actually play at home. Anyone can become a pro gamer, even in a wheelchair, whereas 99.99% of Americans are too small or slow by age six to have any hope at professional sports.

You may have watched lots of fake corporate news about events in Syria. Once again, the great Jimmy Dore covers the real news, like when a Congressman and Iraq war vet suggests an investigation into the chemical bomb attack and the former leader of the Democratic Party denounced her. Many blame Assad for the half million Syrians who have died in this civil war; yet it was mostly caused by an invasion of outside Islamic mercs paid for by the Saudis and Qatar.

Dore asks if this means that Abe Lincoln was a ruthless thug responsible for the deaths of a half million Americans during our civil war? The Confederate rebels weren’t even trying to conquer the north, they just wanted to be left to run their own affairs. Dore did a follow up video about CNN screwing up and allowing someone to tell Americans what is really happening in Syria.

Over the years, I’ve read debates and seen videos with hundreds of convincing reasons why the official 9-11 story is false. Most Americans are too lazy or spineless to read though any of these arguments. Here is the simplest one for simpletons.

The Pentagon is one of the most secure buildings in the USA, with dozens of security cameras covering every angle. There are also many private businesses nearby with security cameras, and tourists with camcorders and cameras. Crime is high in Washington DC so security cameras are common. If the Pentagon attack story is true, why can’t the government provide a single videotape or picture of the American airliner approaching or hitting the Pentagon? They reluctantly released a couple edited tapes of a fuzzy flash explosion and smoke, but no visual proof of an American Airlines airliner in flight.

Recall the four security cameras pointing at the 1995 OKC bombing stopped working shortly before the bombing and resumed after the explosion, according to the FBI, which refused to release them for years. For those who like video, the testimony of Secretary Mineta about 9-11 is disturbing yet little discussed. He was sitting with Cheney as a military officer provided updates on the airplane heading toward the Pentagon, and there was some “standing order” that had been made. Nevertheless, none of the Pentagon’s air defense systems fired at the airliner and again, no one took pictures or videotaped the incoming aircraft! Did all the security cameras stop working?

The Syrian missile attack was only the most obvious example that Trump is a neocon who just came out of the closet.

2. As he took office, thousands of American soldiers were arriving in Germany to occupy new bases on Russia’s border. Trump could have ordered them to return home, but no, they are now in the Baltic.

3. Rather than pull our few troops out of Syria to focus on ISIS in Iraq, Trump ordered hundreds more into Syria and announced that Assad would have to cede Eastern Syria. More troops were sent to Iraq from the USA.

4. Rather than trim excessive military spending, Trump demands a 10% increase, to be paid for by slashing domestic programs.

5. Rather than announcing that South Korea, Japan and China must deal with the North Korean problem, Trump announces the Americans will solve it, with force if needed, and allows more American troops to deploy to South Korea.

6. Trump demanded that NATO nations spend more on their military, they laughed so he allowed our Army to deploy more troops to Germany and elsewhere.

7. Trump openly agrees that the West Bank belongs to Israel and it can do whatever it pleases, like displacing Arab villages with new ones for American immigrants.

8. Trump continues Obama’s policy of bombing Syria every day, which kills dozens of civilians each month, then orders a mindless missile attack on our ally, the Syrian army.

So its not just this missile attack that outraged Trump's base, it's his Clinton inspired neocon policies that makes Obama seem like a moderate.

Previous reports of the Syrian military using poison gas in past years were all proven false.

There is nothing gained by the Syrian Air Force using chemical weapons to kill its people.

Google: Mosul poison gas This will produce dozens of articles of ISIS employing various chemical weapons this past year.

The Saudi/CIA/Turkish backed ISIS forces are near defeat in Syria and desperate.

The Pentagon has run into resistance in Congress demanding another big jump in military spending.

Just before Trump's aerial attack, Hillary Clinton appeared on television to announce the USA must bomb Syria.

What do all these facts indicate? Our corporate media is fake news. They all report that Assad used chemical bombs as a fact, without the proper use of "allegedly" or "accused." Any reasonable person has serious doubts the Syrian military used these weapons, because it makes no sense.

If attacks on Syria escalate, I expect a crafty Russian response via Iran. We have 20,000 troops scattered around Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait, along with 20,000 Western “contractors.” The Shia led Iraqi government with the anti-American Sadr militia and several thousand Iranian “advisors” are in Iraq. If Syria goes, Iran is next, so that will not happen without a fight. It would not be difficult to quickly overrun some of these remote American outposts and round up a few thousand American POWs.

That would be a mess, yet we see the neocons and fake progressives cheer Trump for a clear mistake, after attacking him for every minor action he has taken thus far. I expect Trump's approval rating to drop at least 5% since this senseless action contradicts his announcements while running for president, yet his advisors will tell him this occurred because he didn't bomb enough. No one mocked Trump for expressing anger about the civilians killed when daily American airstrikes in the Muslim world kill just as many civilians each month! Those who need their mind cleansed after watching corporate fake news the past 72 hours, watch this real news.

Huge worldwide corporations have controlled public information for a century, enabling them to control public opinion and democratic governments. They began to lose control as the Internet grew, but information posted websites was often dull, couldn't generate much income, and most people don't like to read anyway.

Google Adsense was the solution as it allowed websites to collect money depending on viewership with advertisements automatically appearing. As this was applied to youtube, viewership soared! "Youtubers" became wealthy with millions of followers who enjoy their edgy, innovative shows. Without corporate masters, Youtuber news and opinions were authentic and loved by viewers tired of the propaganda spouted by corporate news sites. Jimmy Dore, Unz Review, SNAFU, Antiwar.com and Information Liberation are my favorites. Russia's RT network became popular worldwide as it exposed the hypocrisy and lies of American and European governments. Corporate television viewership continues to plummet along with advertising revenues as millions of people cancel overpriced cable TV service to watch on-line shows.

Last year was an awakening to our corporate rulers as people rebelled against EU control in Europe and the election of Donald Trump in the USA. It became clear to secretive rulers they had to act, so their media and political lackeys began warning of the dangers of hate speech and fake news. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other billionaire controlled Internet search and hosting services began a massive censorship effort by banning websites, restricting content, and limiting advertising. Actions are taken instantly against posts or videos that a mysterious person deems "controversial" or "hurtful." There must be thousands employed to censor content.

Watch this recent video and the follow-on video to understand the massive censorship effort underway around the world as rulers replace Youtubers with their traditional corporate brainwashing programs. This past week, several large corporations announced they would no longer advertise via Adsense or similar Internet advertising methods. A recent example of brainwashing is the myth that the Russians interfered in the recent US presidential election. No evidence exists, but this myth has been promoted by corporate news for months so that of 67% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans believe it true! These figures would be much higher if not for the evil Internet.

I was proud of my Jan 9th and Mar 3rd blog posts explaining why lasers are impractical weapons. This is obvious to any layman who spends an hour reading about the limitations of lasers. They are not useful weapons because of the massive electrical power required, the atmosphere weakens and distorts laser beams, and they must maintain a precise laser spot on a moving target for several seconds to burn through. I saw my info was reposted at a few other military blogs, and it seems some in the Pentagon noticed. This month's National Defense magazine has an article: Navy Officials No Longer Talking Publicly About Laser Weapon Systems, which includes this:

"When asked by National Defense for updates on LaWS, and a test of a 150-kilowatt laser aboard a ship that Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran announced last year, he said he would not share them, citing competition between the United States and its adversaries.

'I’m going to be far more reluctant to talk about things like that,” he said. “When it comes to specific capabilities, when it comes to specific schedules, specific operations, … I would rather find a more appropriately cleared room to talk about that.'

Later during the summit, Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems at OPNAV N9, said that in the past he was happy to speak about program specifics. However, 'we figured out that the competitors were actually learning and doing their own kind of crowdsourcing thing, learning from us,' he said. Richardson did stress, however, that while he would no longer give too many details on its laser program, the service was hard at work developing such systems."

Yes, competitors learned not to waste their time and money on bogus laser weapons! The Admiral also claimed lasers are the future and he needed more money quickly to speed development. The editors were good enough to post my comment at the bottom of that article. The Navy Research Lab article that I quote was linked in my Jan 9 blog, but the link is now dead.

As I explain in my book, the video-guided fiber optic missile will prove a decisive weapon in future wars. I linked South Korea's new outstanding version, and even the Philippine army has acquired a smaller system, yet the USA ignores this revolutionary weapon. It seems these systems make attack helicopters and tanks obsolete, so terrify entire branches of the US Army and their allies in the military industry who choose to ignore this development.

The Russians think the new American missile bases in Romania and Poland are not defensive systems designed to shoot down their offensive missiles. The small SM-3 missiles said to be inside MK-41 launchers based there lack the range to shoot down Russian missiles, unless they are aimed at Romania or Poland! The SM-3 missile defense scheme is either a huge fraud, or a covert excuse to use these MK-41 launchers to fire offensive cruise missiles from where they can secretly attack Russian missile sites.

The Russians think this is the reason, which is why they deployed missiles to Kaliningrad and western Russia. Yet warmongering American Generals spin this as aggression. How dare those Russians deploy missiles within their own borders to counter American missiles deployed nearby!

HD security cameras allow police to identify bank and store robbers, but not the way you assume. It is not because their mask or disguise was poor. Almost all robbers "case" a target the day before and most take another recon look less than an hour before they rob. They do not wear a disguise and their face is clearly recorded by security cameras as they oddly look around the place and leave. So after a robbery, police review previous recordings and find people with the same shape, gait, and often the same clothes used by the disguised robbers.

If you are bewildered by current anti-Russia hysteria, watch this brilliant video from a recent Jimmy Dore show that highlights the absurdity of this fake news. Who is promoting this insanity?

1. Corrupt NATO racketeers will pocket billions of dollars more each year as US troops remain in Europe forever and more arrive, pretending the Russians will soon invade.

2. The nuclear weapons racketeers halted the downsizing of our massive nuclear arsenal and presented plans for the USA to spend a trillion dollars to build a new and larger stockpile.

3. The billionaires who secretly run the US/UK empire worry that a friendly Russia will unite with Europe and use rail links to China to become an economic powerhouse greater than the dying US/UK monopoly.

Traditional advice for those with high credit card debt is to take out a home equity loan. Credit card interest is around 14% annually, but some can be found below 10%. Nevertheless, taking out a $40,000 home equity loan at 4% to pay off $40,000 in various credit cards is sound advice, but not the best advice in recent years.

A few years ago, big banks began to offer "balance transfer" deals. Transfer debt from one credit card to another and pay a 3% fee upfront, then there is no interest charged for 12-20 months. This is roughly equivalent to a unsecured annual loan at 2%! This debt can be pinged between different accounts each 12-20 months to keep the game going. It can become complex, but the modern world provides automatic e-mail reminders and simple on-line payments as $40,000 bounces around between numerous accounts.

This allows money to be borrowed at half the rate of a home equity loan, with no application fee! Moreover, it is unsecured debt, which is important should one face bankruptcy. People with high credit card debt are already on the path to bankruptcy, and most are living paycheck to paycheck. If they lose their job or become disabled (even temporarily from an accident) they soon face bankruptcy. One may also face bankruptcy due to big unexpected hospital bills, business problems, or lawsuits.

Your home is protected from seizure during bankruptcy, unless you are unable to make your mortgage and home equity payments. Payments on a $40,000 home equity loan must continue after bankruptcy. However, unsecured credit card debt is discharged or reduced in bankruptcy, and one can eventually get a home equity loan after bankruptcy, or if forced to sell, walk away with that $40,000 in cash! Home equity debt interest is tax-deductible, but not for some 30% of homeowners whose income is so low that the standard deduction is better, which includes most with high credit card debt.

The homestead equity protection in bankruptcy is an unusually generous provision. There are limits set by state law. The amount protected varies from $5000 of home value in Kentucky to unlimited in several states, but one must have lived in the house over three years. Note that one must pay a very small fee to file a homestead exemption to qualify.

Beware of free financial counseling services often advertised on television. These are funded by big banks to discourage consumers from filing bankruptcy, and they encourage home equity loans and pulling money out of 401Ks and borrowing from retirement plans to pay unsecure bank debts. If a job loss and other financial crisis will cause bankruptcy in the future, it is foolish to delay the inevitable by throwing away lifetime savings that are protected during bankruptcy settlements.

The North Korean threat is in the news every week, fed by the Pentagon/CIA propaganda machine. This has been the case since 1950, even though this threat mostly disappeared around 1980. South Korea is five times more powerful than the North and no American troops are needed to protect South Korea. American military bases in South Korea cost Americans billions of dollars a year and are the primary obstacle to peace on the Korean peninsula. It is sad to hear the Trump administration continue this wasteful tradition, here is what is needed:

1. We need strong civilian leaders to force our Generals to obey orders and withdraw our troops from the DMZ as the Bush administration ordered long ago.

2. We need to downsize back to the agree upon troop levels in South Korea and stop sending more and more forces there, while the South Korean military downsizes.

3. The biggest threat is a cross border artillery exchange that kills thousands of South Koreans and hundreds of Americans (who were supposed to have withdrawn from the DMZ to a new $13 billion base south of Seoul several years ago.) If this occurs, angry South Koreans will blame the USA, no matter who is at fault, and storm American bases during riots. South Korean troops will seize our bases while troops and families are escorted to the nearest airport for immediate expulsion.

4. China is the biggest threat to North Korea! It is tired of their troublesome BS and may invade one day.

Meanwhile, American political leaders and Generals must shut up! Stop imposing sanctions, making verbal threats, denouncing North Korea, and conducting military exercises near the DMZ! North Korea is not our problem and they DO NOT HAVE missiles that can hit the USA and CANNOT build them. North Korea is a problem for South Korea, China, and Japan. Whenever asked about a North Korean announcement or action, American leaders must simply say: “That is a problem for South Korea to address.” This will ensure that if anything goes wrong and leads to violence, only South Korean leaders can be blamed.

Aviation Week has a good article about the never-ending development of a civilian tiltrotor - the AW609. (One must register to read it for free.) The program began in 1996 and has been unable to pass FAA safety tests after 14 years of flight testing. Boeing dropped out and later Bell, even as they claimed the V-22 proved the future of the tiltrotor. It remains in development in Italy, where two test pilots died in a 2015 crash after it wobbled out of control during a straight maximum speed test. The article noted:

An interim report posted in June 2016 by the ANSV revealed that the aircraft had begun experiencing oscillations as it entered a high-speed flight regime, required as part of the certification testing. When the pilots attempted to correct the oscillations, the AW609’s flight control system tried to compensate and inadvertently generated a phenomenon that investigators called “divergent Dutch roll.” The investigators found that the company’s simulator was unable to reproduce the phenomenon, and so the condition could not have been predicted. They also urged the manufacturer to review the AW609’s flight control laws.

They have no clue as to why this happened, but development continues as Bell attempts to fool the US Army to purchase a similar aircraft called the "Valor" that has just begun development. The problem with tiltrotors is they cost twice as much to purchase and maintain, are less stable and less reliable, and vertical lift performance is less than a half that of a similar sized helicopter.

I am puzzled by Trump's approval to send over a thousand US combat troops into Syria. There is no UN or NATO or Congressional authorization to send troops into Syria. If Trump wants to fight ISIS, there are lots left inside Iraq. Why not focus on them while the Syrians and Turks clean up ISIS in Syria?

The only thing that makes sense is the Saudis have ordered the Pentagon to keep the Syrian Army out of eastern Syria so they can build a natural gas pipeline to Turkey and onto Europe. Syria's President Assad rejected this proposal in 2009, leading to a "rebellion". Yes, the Saudis have more influence in the Pentagon than Trump, which is why we are now bombing Yemen too.

I posted great video from a news conference on Dec 16th where a true journalist who was on the ground during the fighting in Aleppo, Syria exposed fake news in the western press, to include the fake "humanitarian" group the "White Helmets." Two interesting things happened afterwards.

First, the great Jimmy Dore posted parts of the video on his youtube broadcast, even though he was quickly warned that he would not earn money for this show via youtube hits. The money comes from Google advertisements, and they refuse to advertise on inflammatory youtube posts. Watch that video and read the comments and you'll only see brilliant journalism, so Google discourages real journalism. Google bans advertisements on websites that fail to heed to its demands. Fred Reed and Antiwar.com were cut off for refusing to remove photos of people injured by American weaponry.

Second, the fake "White Helmets" were depicted as heroes in a documentary that just won an Academy Award for "best documentary"! Just a few minutes of Internet searching informed the esteemed Academy that this was a neo-con/CIA propaganda outfit, but that only ensured a win! They demonize Syria's President Assad with fake news and fake tweets and demand foreign military intervention.

In 2011, I wrote about a fraudulent missile defense scheme. Major military contractors continue to collect billions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to build and deploy SM-3 missiles worldwide to protect against medium and long-range ballistic missiles, even though they lack the range to hit them. I searched websites and news stories since then attempting to learn how anyone could justify the idea that SM-3s can shoot down long-range missiles. I finally found the answer in a 2015 RAND report:

"The methodology employed to perform the calculations discussed in this report assumes

impulsive interceptors and missiles that spontaneously obtain their entire velocity immediately

upon launch. This assumption is made to simplify the mathematical complexity. Similarly, the

calculations were done assuming no air drag and a nonrotating Earth. The modeling of the

interception was done assuming perfect tracking information and no countermeasures from the

target missile. The end game of the interception process was also not modeled. Given the ranges

and times involved in comparing the kinematic reach of different interceptors, these assumptions

I am reading a long book about World War I, which I will review later. The author made an interesting point. Both the Germans and French thought the Americans were bravely foolish. They had been fighting for three years before the Yanks arrived. By 1918, they would launch an attack with artillery fires and send infantry forth. Most of the time they would discover the plan was bad. Defenses were stronger than expected, or the terrain was too tough, or enemy artillery fire too devastating. So they would call it off and pull back mostly intact to preserve units for an attack elsewhere that might succeed.

However, the Americans would press on even when failure was obvious. Generals would refuse to allow retreat after frontline officers reported insurmountable problems. Units would be left to die in kill zones for days until entire battalions were annihilated. The few officers who wisely allowed a withdrawal from a failed attack were relieved of command and humiliated.

I was surprised to learn that by 1918 the crude French tanks were considered important to support infantry attacks, mostly because they drew enemy fire until they were knocked out, thus saving infantrymen. Life as a tanker was short.

American troops were frequently strafed by German aircraft because American aircraft had no interest in protecting or supporting infantry attacks. Their Generals dedicated aircraft to large strategic operations where they attacked enemy airfields and dropped tiny bombs on targets far behind enemy lines.

5.3.2. Laser Beam Divergence. Beam divergence is the spread of the laser beam over distance. Laser spot size is a function of beam divergence and the distance from the laser system to the target. If a designator has a beam spread or divergence of 0.25 milliradian, its spot would have a diameter of approximately 0.25 meters at a distance of 1,000 meters in front of the designator. At 5,000 meters, the beam would spread to 1.25 meters; at 10,000 meters, the beam would spread to 2.5 meters (see FIGURE 7).

In this example of a common military laser, at just a kilometer (.625 miles) a laser beam aimed to cut through steel expands to ten inches! That could burn skin and start paper fires, but not harm a tank, or even a car.

Americans assume that if arrested they must be charged with a crime and allowed a speedy trial. They are not familiar with "contempt of court", a technique also used by dictatorships. An American may be arrested and tossed in jail forever with no bail or trial until a judge gets what he wants. For example, a guy refuses to tell where he hid the gold treasure he found, so was tossed in jail two years ago and will remain there until he dies or gives up the gold. If he gave away the gold, forgot where he hid it, or it was stolen, he spends the rest of his life in jail without conviction for a crime. And he can't appeal since he was never convicted! Who granted judges this unconstitutional power? Is this "the land of the free"!

“Linda” is the tricky question Kahneman and Tversky made famous. They implied that people who chose answer 2 were being irrational, because, wait for it, it is more likely from a statistical point of view that Linda is a bank teller (answer 1) than that she is a bank teller with a particular political interest (answer 2). This is because there will be at least some bank tellers who are not feminists, and even if there is only one such bank teller, then the category “bank teller and also feminist” will be smaller than the category “bank teller”. So, it is more likely that she is just a bank teller.

For those unfamiliar with the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, watch this recent, excellent documentary that reviews evidence to show the official version of events is unbelievable. Facts show that it was a "false flag" event pinned on a covert government operative who was set up as a pasty, just like Oswald.

Some big corporations recently used their media outlets to promote their open borders theme. In this advertisement, American immigrants would go on strike and stay home one day to punish citizens and show they are essential. This got lots of press, but few stories that people were inconvenienced. Several restaurants closed for the day to show their support, including a few McDonalds franchises. Owners appeared on TV to explain that only foreign supermen can perform jobs like dishwasher.

This was fake news for several reasons. First, no reporter dared asked if these wealthy restaurant owners paid their poor workers for this day they closed. This upset their workers, but the owner attitude is "screw them." They can't go on strike or form a union because they can be easily replaced with other illegal workers. Second, reporters dare not ask how much these jobs pay, if any regular hours are guaranteed, or benefits provided. Third, immigrant workers know that more immigration hurts them. There is no need for owners to give these workers higher pay or benefits when they have a pile of job applicants and visas to bring in more immigrants. Fourth, most immigrants will not stay home for fear of getting fired by bosses, while others know that co-workers will eagerly work more hours to fill any gap in the schedule.

Recall the fake news about illegal immigration the past few years. When Alabama cracked down, there were many "news" stories of food rotting in the fields because Americans are too lazy to work. However, there were no follow up stories about food shortages. Sane people know that attracting American workers is simply a matter of higher pay and benefits. When a pro-worker laws were passed mandating a $15 minimum wage in San Francisco and Seattle, lots of stories appeared about restaurants closing. But restaurants close all the time for many reasons, and plenty of restaurants remain open in these cities with higher paid workers.

President Trump made sympathetic comments about "dreamers"; i.e. illegal immigrants who arrived before age 17. Obama illegally attempted to legalize them after Congress refused, but this was overturned by a federal judge. I could argue that they got a free school education off the backs of citizen taxpayers, so they should say thank you and go home. And if arriving before age 17 guarantees a green card, our border will be flooded with families in need of welfare.

Obama's executive order to grant visas to minors caused a massive influx of impoverished families from Central America. Bus owners made lots of money hauling families across Mexico to the border, where they walked across and waved down Border Patrol vehicles for transport to facilities with free housing, food, clothing, and health care, while Mexican officials laughed. Meanwhile, Latin American gang sent thousands of their young soldiers northward who simply stated they were age 17 for a free pass northward, where they joined up with local gangs.

If Trump wishes to compromise, give them a green card if they pay the fees with a special condition. They would not be allowed to sponsor immediate relatives for green cards, meaning their parents who entered illegally would not be rewarded. They must also affirm that their parents have returned home, and if their parents are arrested in the USA their green card is revoked. I agree that it's not their fault they were brought to the USA illegally, it's their parents fault, who should not be rewarded.

...most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn't what this resistance is now doing. What they're doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that.

Even if you're somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there's a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that's what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons' allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it's incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.

...the idea that Donald Trump is some kind of an agent or a spy of Russia, or that he is being blackmailed by Russia and is going to pass secret information to the Kremlin and endanger American agents on purpose, is an incredibly crazy claim that has been nowhere proven to be true.

There is much furor over Donald Trump's plans to crack down on illegal immigrants. Trump is demonized and called a racist for protecting working class Americans from the flood of cheap, desperate foreign labor that corporate America loves. But he is simply enforcing existing laws advocated by President Bill Clinton, who gave speech where he said:

“Our nation is rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country…Illegal immigrants take jobs from citizens or legal immigrants, they impose burdens on our taxpayers…That is why we are doubling the number of border guards, deporting more illegal immigrants than ever before, cracking down on illegal hiring, barring benefits to illegal aliens, and we will do more to speed the deportation of illegal immigrants arrest for crimes…It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that has occurred in the last few years.. and we must do more to stop it.”

The "Deep State" and it propaganda arm (called the mainstream media) continues efforts to destroy Donald Trump. They present the idea that Russia is so evil that anyone attempting to improve relations and prevent nuclear war is a traitor who has been blackmailed or bribed. This was the theme in destroying General Flynn by corrupt leaders in Congress along with the Intel community, as explained in this short video by the great Jimmy Dore.

The CIA/NSA is wiretapping and monitoring all White House communications. They were caught doing so in the last year of the Nixon administration, and continue to this day. It seems spies learned that General Flynn was once reimbursed for expenses on a trip to Russia, and that he contacted the Russian ambassador before Trump officially took office. That's all! This matters to no one, but the Deep State portrayed it as treason and used its media outlets to demand his resignation.

Flynn recognizes that the USA cannot destroy Iran without befriending Russia, who should be our ally anyway. But then Iran could be our ally too, so I'm not upset that Flynn is gone. I was happy to see hope in France where leading presidential candidate Marine Le Pen rejected fake news promoted by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who was outraged that Le Pen was not eager to start World War III. Watch that short video clip with Amanpour's technique of proclaiming falsehoods and then asking for a comment.

I've been reading about LED bulbs after seeing many complaints that they don't last any longer than other bulbs. Nevertheless, they use far less energy and are a good buy since prices dropped the past two years. It seems their reliability claims of lasting over 20 years are bogus, and the Feds know this, but since they are promoting them as energy savers they ignore this false advertising.

I'm looking at a package of LED bulbs that says "Lasts Over 22 Years", but the fine print offers only a 5-year warranty. Articles say these claims are based on theoretical bulb life, in ideal conditions where all components work perfectly and burn only three hours a day. Of course the light bulb manufactures like the idea of charging several times more per bulb. Internet website commenters suggest keeping LED bulb receipts because most will fail within five years, so you can get new ones.

This irreverent, profane, progressive youtuber is much tougher on the Democratic Party than Fox News. Watch him destroy their leaders in this video. Their corrupt leaders and corporate media allies promote fake news that Clinton lost because of white racism, Russian hacking, and FBI Director Comey's comments. Dorr explains that Clinton could have won by 10% if she addressed working class concerns, but Clinton and the Democratic leaders are multi-millionaires who don't know any working class people and don't care about our problems.

The key issues are affordable healthcare (possible with single-payer), stopping mass immigration, jobs moving overseas, and restraining the warmongering Pentagon. Clinton ignored these key issues. Trump focused on two of the four, and is acting on them now. Watch Dorr's other videos! They are true and entertaining, especially his attacks on fake progressives. Dorr's farewell to disastrous President Obama is brilliant.

While our media provides extensive coverage of Trump's Supreme Court nominee, none mention that he would be the only Protestant on the court. A repost from this blog:

I like to comment on interesting issues that never appear in our corporate media. Racial diversity is a major topic, but religious diversity is rarely mentioned. Our nation is 51% Protestant, 25% Catholic, 2% Mormon, 2% varied Christian sects, 2% Jewish, 1% Muslim, 2% others, and 15% of Americans identify themselves as non-religious or not affiliated. As of 1994, the Supreme Court had five Protestant justices, two Catholics, and two Jews. Over the years, retiring Protestant judges were replaced only with Catholics and Jews, so today the nine-member court consists of six Catholics and three Jews, without a single Protestant!

I doubt this is an evil conspiracy, but our media never mentions this, and with all the effort at diversity, one might think the Protestant majority should have at least one seat on the Supreme Court, or perhaps a proportional representation of five seats. One might think President Obama is more sensitive to diversity, yet he replaced the last two retiring Protestants with a Catholic and a Jew. One might think that national leaders realized: “Gee, this looks awkward.” Apparently, the corporate media agrees, so they ignore the issue. I don’t think this is a conspiracy since all were nominated by Protestant Presidents, but it’s undemocratic.
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Fast forward to 2016 when much news was made about Obama’s Supreme Court nomination that was stalled by Republicans, but no one mentioned he was yet another Jew! I have no problem with Jewish people or Catholics and have many friends, but the lack of diversity on our Supreme Court is stunning, and never mentioned by our corporate media.

I was googling to learn which special interest group tricked Sioux Indians to waste much effort on irrational opposition to the Keystone oil pipeline to be built near their reservation. Oil and gas pipelines crisscross our nation because Americans want this stuff, and pipelines are the safest and most economical method to move this energy. A pipeline to move more Canadian crude oil to our Gulf Coast refineries would lower gasoline prices nationwide. This would help poor Sioux, who burn gasoline to drive to these odd anti-pipeline protests.

During this search, I stumbled upon some interesting American history. In 1873, a thousand Sioux warriors attacked a Pawnee hunting party in Nebraska consisting of 700 men, women, and children. They slaughtered 69 Pawnees as they fled and wounded many more. They would have killed more Pawnee, but left after a patrolling US cavalry troop was sighted nearby. No one was surprised because the Sioux were famous for senseless attacks on other Indian tribes.

The history of the "Plains Indians" is instructive. They once lived in forested areas and barely survived on roots and small game. The arrival of Europeans with horses allowed them to hunt bison (aka buffalo), especially after they got rifles. This provided easy food and valuable hides that greatly improved their lives. The Plains Indians were the tallest people in the world in the 1800s. Tribes grew rapidly and spread into the Great Plains. Their nomadic lifestyle combined with the bravery needed to handle large horses to kill huge bison created a macho warrior culture that often resulted in violence when they encountered other tribes, and immigrants.

Pentagon and State Department spokesmen often refer to ISIS and Al Qaeda as worldwide terrorist organizations. I wish a reporter would ask them for the names of their top two leaders. They would be stunned, and might remember leaders of small groups of Arab nationalists in small regions of a certain nations. But they can't name their worldwide leaders because ISIS and Al Qaeda do not exist. They are just names invented by the CIA to describe dozens of small, independent groups of Arab nationalists who oppose western domination of their homeland. Our government pretends they are a threat to the West to justify perpetual war.

I explained this in past blog posts, so was happy to see former CIA officer Amaryllis Fox confirm this in a short video, whose link includes this quote:

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al-Qaeda, and any informed intelligence officer knows this. But, there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an intensified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive TV watchers to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the United States.”

Youtube shows everything you need to assemble or repair anything at home. It recently taught me about modern oven technology, which you should know if you own one. Traditional gas ovens have a pilot light that always burns a small flame to ignite more gas when you use the oven. This works well, but the typical home oven burns more gas keeping the tiny pilot light lit 24 hours a day than is used for cooking.

Newer ovens have an electrical igniter that solves this problem. When you turn on the oven it quickly heats up and glows like a tiny space heater, then gas is released for cooking and catches fire. This is great, but these electronic igniters remain in the oven heat for hundreds of hours so fail after a few years. The youtube experts explained that if your oven heat doesn't come on, there may be a dozen reasons, but it's probably the igniter. They showed how a technician can use a test meter to check out your oven to determine the cause. It's usually the igniter that they replace with a $100 official part and bill you another $200 for their labor. My oven looks old and new ones cost as little as $500 and I didn't have the meter, skill, or enthusiasm to test my oven.

However, the youtubers said it is probably the igniter and you can order an identical igniter from Amazon for much less. Replacing the igniter is simple since it just plugs in, but it fits in the bottom back of the oven so it is difficult to reach. I looked up my oven model on-line and found the part for $23. The igniter arrived in three days and ten minutes later my oven lit. Keep this in mind when your oven does not light one day.

Here is another example of our oppressive police state that results in the "land of the free" having more imprisoned people than any nation on Earth, in total and per capita! A guy installed a device to cover his license plate while going thru a toll booth. He was caught by a highway patrolman, arrested on a FELONY charge for evading the $1.50 toll, and tossed in jail.

Such outrageous arrests are dismissed with absurd logic that citizens must obey the law. Then why not just pull a pistol and execute the guy on the spot? This is a more effective method to terrorize citizens who think about breaking petty laws. This arrest cost the government thousands of dollars to process, house, and prosecute this "felon" and cost him thousands of dollars and maybe his job from this trauma. I think citizens would agree that a $200 traffic ticket is better punishment, but citizens are never consulted about such things.

A visitor from Norway once told me the strangest thing he noticed in the USA is that people will sit and wait at stoplights when no one is around. He said in Europe, drivers just look around and drive on, but the visitor didn't understand Americans are terrorized by a police state.

Manhattan Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Israel) suggested a coup to overthrow President Trump that was announced by the CIA’s media outlet, the Washington Post:

"If he cannot accept reality, he is not fit to carry out the duties of the president. We are not calling — yet — for invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. ('Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.')"

If you have three hours, watch this great documentary about the mental health drug racket, especially if you have children. It shows that mental health disorders are not based on science, but a business model. It has grown so much that most people suffer from a "disorder" and expensive meds are the solution. Intense marketing encourages people to "ask your doctor" about meds that make everyone happy and healthy, at least on TV. These drugs never cure disorders and become addictive, so people are hooked for a lifetime.

I found the 17-year profit cycle that drives "big Pharma" of interest. Patents on new meds are good for 20 years from application. It takes around three years to go through the testing and FDA approval process. This follows an intensive marketing campaign that encourages people to try these drugs since insurance or governments pay nearly all their grossly inflated cost. This results in tremendous profits, but only for 17 years until the patent expires and it "goes generic" so any company can make it. Prices plunge and profit per pill drops over 90%, so a new med is needed.

As a result, an "improved" med is patented and promoted to keep profits sky high. However, many users are happy with their med, so an intense marketing campaign is launched to warn of "newly discovered" problems with their med that causes serious side-effects. Luckily, a new, better pill was approved by the FDA, so users should switch, before their med "goes generic".

I just discovered the "Jimmy Dore" show on youtube. He seems like a profane oddball at first, but is a brilliant Sandersest progressive who speaks the truth. Watch as he demolishes Congressmen Adam Schiff, explains why half of Democrats in Congress are corrupt, destroys their leader Nancy Pelosi, and reviews Obama's legacy of war and destruction.

“And it is important for the United States to stand up for the basic principle that big countries don’t go around and invade and bully smaller countries.”

That was so bizarre I had to laugh, but noted the corporate press at his final news conference didn’t laugh at that absurd statement. No need for a “fact check” news story. Hell, the USA don’t just bully and invade, it destroys an entire nation every few years. Obama had dozens of foreigners murdered via drones and snipers each week, but perhaps that’s not considered a bully tactic.

After unofficial reports from fellow rangers made their way to Tillman’s family, the Army admitted that Tillman was killed by “friendly fire” from fellow soldiers. Army generals claimed his death was a typical accident of war during a major firefight with the Taliban. Tillman’s family had doubts since the Army never explained why all Tillman’s personal effects and gear were burned immediately after his death. The family learned that the Army had not performed an investigation into his death, which is required whenever a soldier dies from an accident.

The Army conducted an investigation after the Tillman family complained, but refused to release details. The Army recently complied with a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press concerning Tillman’s death. These documents revealed that no Afghans were in the area when Tillman was killed. No one else was killed or injured, and no government equipment damaged. Army doctors thought Tillman had been murdered since he died from three bullet holes to the forehead, which was inconsistent with the explanation of the incident given by ranger officers. The doctors estimated the shooter would have to be less than 10 yards from Tillman when he fired those three rounds.

This new information revealed that Army generals refused to conduct the required investigation, so belligerent Army doctors took the unusual step of bypassing the chain-of-command and contacting Army generals in the USA to complain. They were rebuffed, and an investigation only occurred because some of Tillman’s ranger comrades provided details to his family.

There are other facts to consider not found in these Army documents. A rifle barrel moves when fired as the bullet exists, and the human body jerks from the impact of a bullet. Shooting Tillman three times in the forehead with an “accidental” burst of automatic rifle fire is nearly impossible. The shooter had to fire, aim, fire, aim, and fire to hit him neatly in the forehead with three shots.

It is obvious that Pat Tillman was murdered, something his mother has openly declared. Perhaps he was personally disliked by a ranger in his unit. Given that Tillman had become a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq and frequently called President Bush a war criminal, it is not unthinkable that a fanatical ranger decided to kill this dissident. Tillman was scheduled to return to the USA soon and meet with prominent anti-war activist, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky. A famous anti-war former ranger touring the USA would devastate the Bush administration and the U.S. Army, so his death was fortunate for some.

Americans find this controversy fascinating, as Internet chatter reveals. Fox News fills hours of airtime with detailed investigations of missing teenagers and murders of obscure housewives. Certainly, the murder of a football star by a fellow ranger is newsworthy, and would draw large numbers of viewers, yet the supposedly ratings hungry “news” organizations declared this murder unfit to print.

The Office of Government Ethics was created a few years back to provide advice to federal employees about conflicts of interests. It has expanded that role into demands to vet federal nominees, and openly demanded more time to dig up dirt on Trump nominees. It is headed by an Obama nominee who boldly leaks confidential information to the press and sends public tweets attacking Trump and demanding that he does certain things.

But Trump is not even a federal employee yet! Even when he becomes one, this obscure office should not act as a political machine and make public announcements and tweets! Their role is to offer advice, not to pass judgment. Who ordered these obvious political attacks?

The fake news media and congressional hysteria about Russia is the most ridiculous spectacle I've seen in years. Congress is holding McCarthyest hearings and demanding that Trump appointees proclaim they hate ~~communism~~ Russia. They were delighted when Trump appointees agreed, but they need to please these mad warmongers to be approved, so must lie if necessary. No one remembers that on June 25, 2015, ABC News reported:

China Is 'Leading Suspect' in Massive Hack of US Government Networks

The nation’s top intelligence official said today what other U.S. officials have so far been unwilling to say publicly: China is “the leading suspect” in the massive theft of sensitive U.S. government records. Speaking at a forum in Washington, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned of the danger posed by a capable adversary like the Chinese government.

“You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did,” Clapper said.

At least 18 million people -- and potentially tens of millions more around the world, including relatives, friends and associates of those who had background checks conducted by the U.S. government -- may have had their personal information stolen when hackers broke into the systems of the Office of Personnel Management, authorities have said.

Why isn't Clapper now saluting the Russians? Is it because they are only accused of hacking a private server and providing non-classified information to Wikileaks, which has openly stated they did not get this information from Russia? Wikileaks said their information was not the result of hacking, but by tricking the imbecile in charge of the Clinton campaign to send them his google password.

Our Navy recently admitted that its new F-35C fighter aircraft has a major defect that will take years and millions of dollars to correct, then millions more to modify the dozens already produced. When the aircraft is launched from a catapult, it rattles up and down leaving the pilot shaken. The Navy announced that recent tests convinced leaders the problem is serious and must be fixed.

The Navy discovered this problem in 2011 during the very first F-35C catapult launch at its Lakehurst test center. If our corrupt Admirals admitted the problem back then, before dozens of F-35Cs were produced, the program would have been delayed and possibly cancelled. The proof is on youtube, provided by the Navy. Watch the aircraft shake upon launch!

As technological innovations allow solid state lasers to grow in power, the laser weapon scammers have returned to defraud the Pentagon. They were ousted a decade ago after collecting billions of dollars to demonstrate nothing, but a new crop of officers are unaware of the limitations of lasers.

First, lasers are line-of-sight (direct fire) weapons and the earth is round. This means a laser cannot engage a low-flying incoming missile until detected coming over the horizon roughly 10 miles out. It takes several seconds for radar to track and lock onto to a subsonic missile and aim the laser, so it will have perhaps 30 seconds to shoot down the missile, and it requires several seconds of precise lasing to burn through. This means if a dozen missiles are inbound, the system may be able to shoot down only one. And since the planned systems are the size of a 5-inch gun mount and need most of the electrical power from the ship to fire, a cruiser or destroyer can carry just a couple of systems each.

Second, particles in the air reflect and distort laser beams, even on clear days. This limits their effective range to less than a mile. This is a complex topic and several, short technical explanations can be read on the Internet, such as this article and this one from a US Navy research lab which states that even in clear weather:

"A number of physical processes affect and limit the amount of laser energy that can be delivered to a target. These effects are interrelated and include thermal blooming, turbulence, and molecular/aerosol absorption and scattering. These processes affect the laser intensity profile by modifying the refractive index of the air, which causes the laser beam wavefront to distort. Wavefront distortion results in enhanced transverse laser beam spreading, and can severely limit the amount of energy that can be propagated. The maritime environment is particularly challenging for high energy-laser (HEL) propagation because of its relatively high water vapor and aerosol content. In the infrared regime, water molecules and aerosols constitute the dominant source of absorption and scattering of laser energy, and represent a limitation for HELs propagating in a maritime atmosphere."

None of this is secret, yet one reads articles and comments on internet forums by "experts" and senior officers who seem unaware of this severe limitation. In addition, lasers are worthless in rain, fog, and haze since energy is quickly lost. Even if lasers are greatly improved with magical breakthroughs, an enemy can choose to attack during inclement weather when lasers are useless.

Third, ship radar systems are located 30 feet above the ocean surface while sea skimming missiles fly around ten feet above the surface. This means systems like Phalanx, which is used to target the current laser test system, must look down and attempt to pick out tiny missiles against ocean clutter produced by waves and white caps, while missiles fly head-on toward the ship with little radar reflection. This means radar may be unable to track missiles in mildly rough seas so cannot aim the laser. This is why these systems are only tested on clear days by having them shoot at a drone flying much higher.

Fourth, a cruising missile is always making slight flight adjustments to compensate for air turbulence while tracking its moving ship target, so a laser is likely to miss due to the tracking/firing delay. To make matters worse, ships and aircraft move! They vibrate and bounce up and down. Computer software can try to predict these movements and compensate, but not perfectly, and cannot predict the slight movements of the incoming missile.

Finally, lasers do not destroy upon contact but require several seconds of EXACT lasing to burn through. Here is a video of a recent ship test. Note the weather is clear and the slow flying plastic drone is high in the sky. This exposes its large delta wing area for laser heating. Nevertheless, it takes ten seconds of laser contact to cause a fire. An inbound sea skimming missile presents a far smaller target, and if lasers proliferate, missile makers will introduce shiny stainless steel nose cones to reflect most laser light. They may also program the missile to fly a tight spiral path to the ship the last mile to evade countermeasures, like the Russian Kornet anti-tank missile. Lasers look great in tests when the target and laser are close by and both are motionless on the ground, but when both are bouncing around, accuracy is non-existent.

Lasers can blind optical systems and pilots (as the Brits did in the Falklands) so small lasers may be useful in that role. A far better idea is to mount active protective systems used by some armored vehicles. These are much smaller and cheaper than big laser systems. They could only cause missiles to detonate outside the ship before impact and this would still result in damage as the momentum (kinetic energy) from the missile fragments penetrate unarmored ships. Yet that is all a large ultra-expensive laser can accomplish since they cannot hope to detonate an incoming missile until after several seconds of precise lasing proves possible as it nears a ship.

I dismissed the value of lasers in my book, but didn't explain, so I added these details since few people are aware that laser weapons have limitations that cannot be overcome by making them more powerful.

I never understood why a top priority for President Obama was transsexual acceptance, forcing our military and our public restroom guardians to accept whoever claims they are female. He shoved this down America’s throat during an election year despite vast opposition by the public. Our media ignored local controversies of transsexuals winning female sports events and college athletic scholarships for females. And if a solider is failing fitness and obesity tests and faces discharge, can he play the transgender card and pass the lower female standard?

If you google around, there are lots of articles and videos claiming that Michelle Obama is a transsexual. One might assume that with our 24/7 news channels that lust of sensational stories, one might mention this, but it is taboo, even if Joan Rivers says its true. There is no hard proof, but enough is on youtube and the net to consider the claim plausible.

The presidential transition insanity continues as “liberal” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Israel) suggested that the Intelligence agencies will “get back” at President Trump for planning to downsize and reorganize them. He says all Americans should praise their secret, unconstitutional, and inhuman efforts. The few remaining true progressives/liberals in America must have gagged at his comments. JFK was the last President who threatened to downsize these organizations, and failed because of a sudden health problem in Dallas.

This great, short article explains why our military failed in Afghanistan, which it sums up in one sentence: "We stuck with a policy that rotated leaders through the country like tourists."

Our military has been propping up an American puppet dictator/president there since it invaded over 15 years ago, with no end in sight. The justification is that because of 9-11 our military must remain to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a training ground for terrorists like Osama Bin Laden. But as this blog has detailed, OBL had nothing to do with 9-11 and none of the alleged hijackers were Afghan nor had trained there. The FBI only claimed that OBL "inspired" the attack but never accused him of even conspiracy in the 9-11 attack. In addition, there are a dozen other failed states serving as breeding grounds for terrorists, yet our military doesn't spend billions of dollars each year trying to rule them with bullets and bombs aimed by military tourists.