Read it well, Bush/Obama/Trump Supporters

[Silver]

https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/07/3 ... bert-gore/

Killing Them is Killing Us, by Robert Gore
Posted on July 30, 2017 | 42 Comments

The murdered cannot forgive. Their blood won’t be washed.

There is something eerily fascinating about cold-blooded murderers—a staple of Hollywood thrillers and crime dramas—killing without emotion or remorse. Ordinary humans, afflicted with guilt for minor, not even criminal transgressions, can’t conceive of pulling the trigger and then sitting down for dinner. In real life, the number of people who can is glancingly small. Even for those few, actions have consequences. The blood never washes away.

“Live and let live,” is, in American mythology, a benevolent and almost uniquely American attitude. We destroyed Japan and Germany in World War II and then helped rebuild them. Live and let live goes down well with the living, the winners. However, it’s often nothing more than balm for an uneasy conscience, hand sanitizer for bloodstained hands. A century and a half later, many Southerners lack this “unique” American attitude towards their conquerers in the War of Northern Aggression.

The war on terror has laid waste to large swaths of the Middle East and Northern Africa. Cities, towns, and villages have been reduced to smoking, bombed-out rubble, chaos reigns, the carnage is ubiquitous. The US military keeps count of its own personnel wounded and killed, a number in the thousands. Civilian casualties —or collateral damage as the military calls it—across Chaostan (Richard Maybury’s apt coinage) are in the millions, as are the number of people displaced (an estimated 11 million in Syria alone). Imagine the American fury and media sensationalism if a small US town was carpet-bombed by a foreign power. YouTube’s servers would melt from the overflow of viewers watching videos of parents pulling their dead children from collapsed homes.

The war on terror’s refugee flows threaten to upend civic order and submerge the cultures of the countries receiving them. It’s a vicious act of intellectual corruption to maintain that the war on terror does not create terrorists, that those killed, wounded, or displaced have no friends or family who will exact what they consider justified vengeance. The terrorism we see now is lava trickling from a volcano of hatred that has boiled, bubbled, and occasionally erupted for centuries, and will continue to do so. There will be no live and let live. Blood will have blood, not banalities.

Macbeth was a dramatic psychological study of two murderers. They screwed their courage to the sticking place, but they couldn’t turn themselves into killers without conscience. In Mafioso parlance, “button men” are hit men. Figuratively they “push a button,” literally they murder. With the US government, the figurative and literal have merged. Someone pushes a button on a drone, missile, or bomb control and murder is done in furtherance of never-ending American war. It’s as disassociated, remote, and cold-blooded as murder gets. Nevertheless, neither the murderers nor the public from which they try to hide reality will have any more success eluding the psychological turmoil and toll than the Thane of Cawdor and his lady.

During the entirety of President Obama’s terms and most of President Bush’s, the US has been fighting one or more wars. Odds are there will be no peace during Trump’s tenure either. What does it do to a government, and the people in it, when collateral damage, a bloodless term that now applies to millions of bloody deaths, wounds, and lives upended, prompts no remorse or reappraisal, and only occasionally half-hearted apologies to meet the exigencies of diplomacy and public relations?

How does evil become banal? Practice, practice, practice. Killing becomes the routine, what the government does. Like many bloodthirsty, tyrannical regimes the US government has warmed up on foreigners. However, the functionaries and politicians who now push the Kill the Enemy button also push the Domestic Surveillance button. They will not hesitate to push the Enemies of the State, Mass Detention, Concentration Camp, and Execution buttons when the time is right. Rotten government, like rotten fruit, gets more rotten, until it’s finally tossed in the trash.

Try as it might, the government cannot entirely shield its constituents from the knowledge and consequences of its murderous ways. Having learned its lesson in Vietnam, it can keep its media puppies docilely distant from much of the killing, but the Internet has proven not entirely controllable. And although most people don’t make the connection, institutionalized murder is responsible for an appreciable part of the government’s $20 trillion debt and $200 trillion in unfunded promises, as well as its cronyism and corruption, loads under which the economy now strains and will finally collapse.

Any American who travels abroad is liable to run into a forthright foreigner who will tell them that the US government is the most hated institution on the planet. That sentiment is increasingly directed at the US population at large, who’ve tolerated these homicidal megalomaniacs for so long. Aside from its fellow travelers in other governments, multilateral fronts for world government, useless NGOs, universities, corporations, and the media, the world’s peoples would little mourn the overthrow of the US government by an enraged citizenry.

But that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Executioners have a short ‘life’. They get tired of the work. The soul sickens of it. After ten, twenty, a hundred death-rattles, the human being, however sub-human he may be, acquires, perhaps by a process of osmosis with death itself, a germ of death which enters his body and eats into him like a canker. Melancholy and drink take him, and a dreadful lassitude which brings a glaze to the eyes and slows up the movements and destroys accuracy. When the employer sees these signs he has no alternative but to execute the executioner and find another one.
From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming

Killing them is killing us. Does any phrase more aptly characterize the US population than “dreadful lassitude”? The US government murders in their name. They accept its rationalizations, bread, and circuses, avert their eyes, and sink into technological and pharmacological oblivion. Despite these dubious efforts the knowledge seeps in, drop by drop, like rainwater under leaky sills during a hard storm. The government has its buttons for those few who protest and resist, but even the most oppressive regimes can’t seal off their people entirely.

Red, white, and blue are no more; it’s bureaucratic gray and charnel-rubble carmine. Americans grow “tired of the work” and soul sickness spreads. Birnam Wood advances and the empire crumbles. A somnambulant Lady can’t wash away the blood; her Thane can’t sleep.

America cannot wash its hands…or know an innocent’s slumber.

[Silver]

OK, so Trump equals Obama equals Bush. Why though? Why do they all commit the same war crimes around the world? The prophet Moroni warned us of secret combinations. In spite of the warnings, the Latter Day Saints have allowed evil to gain power over us. They hold positions of wealth and power. It doesn't matter which political stripe they are. Remember that people determine policy. When the highest levels of the US government continue to be populated by the CFR elitists and warmongers, all you will get is policy that benefits the elitists and warmongers.

iWriteStuff started a thread that explores how the Democratic Party equals the Republican Party. I invite all to consider the comments there.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45437

[Silver]

Dr. Paul again on the lust for war by both major political parties. What will we do when he's gone? Video at the link is 21 minutes.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/07/31 ... -cold-war/

Ron Paul on Real Bipartisanship: Republicans and Democrats Unite for New Cold War
Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams
Posted on July 31, 2017

Donald Trump claimed that he wanted a different foreign policy, but then he went and hired neocons for the State Department, Pentagon, White House, and so on. In the meantime, both Republicans and Democrats have found something to agree on: a new Cold War with Russia. Is it just impossible to change our foreign policy? More in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

[Silver]

North Korea Or Iran - Ron Paul Asks "Who Will Trump Attack First?"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... tack-first

Aug 1, 2017 12:40 PM

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

President Trump seems to be impatiently racing toward at least one disastrous war. Maybe two. The big question is who will be first? North Korea or Iran?

Over the past several days President Trump has sent two nuclear-capable B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula to send a clear message that he is ready to attack North Korea. On Saturday he blamed China for North Korea’s refusal to cease its missile tests. He Tweeted: “I am very disappointed in China… they do nothing for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue.”

One press report from an unnamed Pentagon source claimed that President Trump “is to order a military strike against North Korea within a year,” after this weekend’s North Korean test of a longer-range missile.

Iran, which along with North Korea and Russia will face new sanctions imposed by Congress and expected to be signed into law by Trump, is also in President Trump’s crosshairs. He was reportedly furious over his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s certifying that Iran was in compliance with the nuclear deal – even though Iran was in compliance – and he seems determined to push a confrontation.

Twice in the past week the US military has fired at Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. On Tuesday an Iranian military ship in the Persian Gulf was warned off by machine gun blasts from a US Naval vessel. Then on Friday the US Navy fired warning flares toward another Iranian ship operating in the Persian Gulf.

Imagine if the US Navy had encountered Iranian warships in the Gulf of Mexico firing machine guns at them when they approached the Iranians.

Facing new sanctions, the Iranian government announced that it will not end ballistic missile testing even under US pressure. The missile program is not a violation of the P5+1 Iran deal unless it is specifically designed to carry nuclear weapons.

So whom will Trump attack first? Let’s hope nobody, but with continuing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans over the unproven “Russiagate” allegations, it increasingly looks like he will seek relief by starting a “nice little war.” If he does so, however, his presidency will likely be over and he may end up blundering into a much bigger war in the process.

Although Trump’s bombastic rhetoric on Iran and North Korea has been pretty consistent, the American people voted Trump because he was seen as the less likely of the two candidates to get the US into a major war.

A recent study by the Boston University and the University of Minnesota concluded that Trump won the most votes in parts of the country with the highest military casualties. Those most directly suffering the costs of war were attracted to the candidate they saw as less likely to take the US into another major war. These are the Americans living in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan that surprised the pundits by voting for Trump over Hillary.

Will Trump’s legacy be blustering us into one or two wars that will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cakewalks by comparison? Millions dead? It’s time to make our voices known before it’s too late!

[Silver]

Who wants to be held accountable for the next war started by the US Military Industrial complex? Lots of images and video at the link below.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... orth-korea

Senator Graham: Trump Is Prepared To Strike; "There Is A Military Option To Destroy North Korea"

by Tyler Durden
Aug 1, 2017 1:15 PM

Appearing on the Today Show earlier this morning, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that President Trump has indicated to him that the administration is prepared to strike North Korea to prevent an attack against the U.S. Pushed on by Matt Lauer on whether a viable military option exists in the region, Graham responded: "They're wrong. There is a military option to destroy North Korea's program and North Korea itself."

"They're wrong. There is a military option to destroy North Korea's program and North Korea itself. If there's going to be a war to stop him [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they're going to die over there, they're not going to die here and he's [Trump] told me that to my face."

"And that may be provocative, but not really. When you're president of the United States, where does your allegiance lie? To the people of the United States. This man, Kim Jong Un, is threatening America with a nuclear tip missile. President Trump doesn't want a war, the Chinese can stop this, but to China, South Korea, and Japan, Donald Trump is not going to allow this missile."

"I'm saying it's inevitable unless North Korea changes because you're making our president pick between regional stability and homeland security. He's having to make a choice that no president wants to make. You can stop North Korea militarily or diplomatically, I prefer the diplomatic approach. But they will not be allowed to have a missile to hit America with a nuclear weapon on top and to allow them to do that is really abandoning homeland security."



Of course, North Korea tested a second ICBM over the weekend which prompted the following statement from President Trump:

"North Korea's test launch today of another intercontinental bassistic missile - the second such test in less than a month - is only the latest reckless and dangerous action by the North Korean regime. The United States condemns this test and rejects the regime's claim that these tests - and these weapons - ensure North Korea's security. In reality, they have the opposite effect. By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive it's people. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region."
View image on Twitter
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Steve Herman ✔ @W7VOA
And now @POTUS statement on the #DPRK "reckless and dangerous" ICBM launch.
5:34 PM - Jul 28, 2017
1 1 Reply 20 20 Retweets 11 11 likes
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* * *

For those who missed it, below is our note on NK's latest launch.

While North Korea has test fired numerous ballistic missiles (mostly intermediate-range, including one intercontinental) in the past, and as such today's launch was largely seen as merely the latest political provocation to Trump by a seemingly oblivious Kim John-Un, there was one notable difference in the launch post-mortem: according to press and Pentagon reports, the maximum altitude attained by the ICBM was 3,700 km (2,300 miles) with a flight time of about 47 minutes. This is material because according to All Things Nuclear, based on the latest information, today’s missile test by North Korea could easily reach not only the US West Coast, but also a number of major US cities.

As reported earlier, North Korea launched its missile on a very highly lofted trajectory, which allowed the missile to fall in the Sea of Japan rather than overflying Japan. It appears the ground range of the test was around 1,000 km (600 miles), which put it in or close to Japanese territorial waters.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter
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Anna Fifield ✔ @annafifield
This is the place where North Korea launched its latest missile (left) and the Japanese island closest to its landing spot (right)
12:16 PM - Jul 28, 2017
53 53 Replies 735 735 Retweets 406 406 likes
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According to physicist and co-director of the UCS Global Security Program, David Wright, if those numbers are correct, then the missile flown on a standard trajectory would have a range 10,400 km (6,500 miles), not taking into account the Earth’s rotation. Adding the rotation of the Earth increases the range of missiles fired eastward, depending on their direction. Calculating the range of the missile in the direction of some major US cities gives the approximate results in Table 1.

Table 1 shows that Los Angeles, Denver, and Chicago appear to be well within range of this missile, and that Boston and New York may be just within range. Washington, D.C. may be just out of range.

Wright caveats his calculations saying that "it is important to keep in mind that we do not know the mass of the payload the missile carried on this test. If it was lighter than the actual warhead the missile would carry, the ranges would be shorter than those estimated above."

While the above calculation has yet to be confirmed by third parties, the US is not taking any chances. According to Reuters, top U.S. and South Korean military officials "discussed military options after North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday."

Marine General Joseph Dunford was joined by the Commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, when they called General Lee Sun-jin, chairman of the South Korean Joint Chief of Staff. "During the call Dunford and Harris expressed the ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance. The three leaders also discussed military response options," said Captain Greg Hicks, a spokesman for Dunford.
In light of North Korea's reportedly expanded offensive capabilities, now that the US has an justification to launch a preemptive "defensive" attack on Pyongyang, a US military operation in North Korea now appears to be only a matter of time.

[lundbaek]

I am wondering if Trump realizes the extent of the latter-day gadiantons' control over our government and the media, and how they are influencing him. I'm not yet convinced that he is knowingly in on it.

[Silver]

I am wondering if Trump realizes the extent of the latter-day gadiantons' control over our government and the media, and how they are influencing him. I'm not yet convinced that he is knowingly in on it.

We're beyond having to wonder about it, lunbaek.

He criticized Ted Cruz for his connections to Goldman Sachs during the campaign and then filled his administration with those traitors.
He criticized Hillary for her warmongering during the campaign and has now inserted troops into Syria, sold weapons to the murderous House of Saud, and is increasingly threatening North Korea. (North Korea ranks 113th in GDP and with about 25 million citizens, it ranks 52nd in population.)
He promised healthcare revisions he knew (or should have known) that he couldn't deliver.
He promised tax reform that is ephemeral.
He promised the Mexicans were going to pay for the wall.

An open-minded individual would recognize this sort of rhetoric as the babbling of any typical Gadianton puppet, said just the right way to get the dumb-downed sheeple to vote for him.

[lundbaek]

I never had any delusions that Trump would totally shut down the globalist agenda (and did not vote for him for that and other reasons). But it looks to me like he is slowing it down enuf that the globalists in control both major political parties are still showing serious intent to purge him from power, which I would not expect if he was a gadianton. And I think he is being fed a lot of false intel.

[farmerchick]

I admit, I voted for Trump. Mostly because he wasn't Hillary. With that a admission made here, I ask the question, besides Judge Gorsuch on the supreme court What has Trump been able to do that is meaningful for the rest of us working for a living? I liken his performance to that of a con man or the Carbanero effect. Really, this is like watching a train wreck in time lapse photography. Trump always has a better strategy or person coming after some horrendous bunch of crap is made known to the public that was perpetrated by some other brilliant genuis member of his staff that is now out of favor. Trump is the vortex of a swirling swamp that has engulfed his administration like a sharknado except with people instead of sharks. The other swamp remains on the ground undrained. We have been duped into voting for someone who does not share our values. The media is part of the swamp and although there has been some push back by Trump, I believe it is just part of the performance art that he brings to the highest position in the land. Trump is doing to us what has never been done before in recent history if ever. He has created a super fan base that has no principles to guide them. This group which many on this forum seems to be a part of, support anything and everything Trump is doing or is perceived of doing. This reminds me of working for a corporate entity that shall not be named. The corporate culture of never doing anything constructive to fix anything. Everyone just does a whole bunch of nothing. Then if by chance some issue resolves itself by happenstance ( because all common sense is never used to find a solution) and then the person who fought the hardest against any resolution whatsoever than takes all the credit for some random act that fixed the Problem. It's all just smoke and mirrors. Trumps style of leadership is worse than the follow behind strategy of Obama, it's just a narcissistic systematic way to victimize everyone else for his failures. The buck stops before it gets to trump, some underling gets the sensational press for the problem, and a new worse genius is put in the underling position. Folks this is not leadership. This is controlled Chaos. Hillary supporters are Trump's best friends. Where does this lead? we shall see...... like trump says "time will tell.... time will tell......"

[farmerchick]

I never had any delusions that Trump would totally shut down the globalist agenda (and did not vote for him for that and other reasons). But it looks to me like he is slowing it down enuf that the globalists in control both major political parties are still showing serious intent to purge him from power, which I would not expect if he was a gadianton. And I think he is being fed a lot of false intel.

THEY LOVE THIS......THEY WANT TRUMP IN POWER....HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING EVEN IF HE WANTED TO WHICH I HIGHLY DOUBT HE WANTS TO. THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE FOR THE RULING ELITE. THE GLOBOLISTS COULD NOT HAVE PLAYED THIS BETTER!!!!!!

[Silver]

Farmerchick,
Thanks for the passion and the awesome display thereof. So lacking in society today.

[Silver]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-0 ... t-them-all

Pat Buchanan Asks "Shall We Fight Them All?"

Aug 1, 2017 11:55 PM

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Saturday, Kim Jong Un tested an ICBM of sufficient range to hit the U.S. mainland. He is now working on its accuracy, and a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop that missile that can survive re-entry.

Unless we believe Kim is a suicidal madman, his goal seems clear. He wants what every nuclear power wants — the ability to strike his enemy’s homeland with horrific impact, in order to deter that enemy.

Kim wants his regime recognized and respected, and the U.S., which carpet-bombed the North from 1950-1953, out of Korea.

Where does this leave us? Says Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, “The U.S. is on the verge of a binary choice: either accept North Korea into the nuclear club or conduct a military strike that would entail enormous civilian casualties.”

A time for truth. U.S. sanctions on North Korea, like those voted for by Congress last week, are not going to stop Kim from acquiring ICBMs. He is too close to the goal line.

And any pre-emptive strike on the North could trigger a counterattack on Seoul by massed artillery on the DMZ, leaving tens of thousands of South Koreans dead, alongside U.S. soldiers and their dependents.

We could be in an all-out war to the finish with the North, a war the American people do not want to fight.

Saturday, President Trump tweeted out his frustration over China’s failure to pull our chestnuts out of the fire: “They do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem.”

Sunday, U.S. B-1B bombers flew over Korea and the Pacific air commander Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy warned his units were ready to hit North Korea with “rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force.”

Yet, also Sunday, Xi Jinping reviewed a huge parade of tanks, planes, troops and missiles as Chinese officials mocked Trump as a “greenhorn President” and “spoiled child” who is running a bluff against North Korea. Is he? We shall soon see.

According to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump vowed Monday he would take “all necessary measures” to protect U.S. allies. And U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley bristled, “The time for talk is over.”

Are we headed for a military showdown and war with the North? The markets, hitting records again Monday, don’t seem to think so.

But North Korea is not the only potential adversary with whom our relations are rapidly deteriorating.

After Congress voted overwhelmingly for new sanctions on Russia last week and Trump agreed to sign the bill that strips him of authority to lift the sanctions without Hill approval, Russia abandoned its hopes for a rapprochement with Trump’s America. Sunday, Putin ordered U.S. embassy and consulate staff cut by 755 positions.

The Second Cold War, begun when we moved NATO to Russia’s borders and helped dump over a pro-Russian regime in Kiev, is getting colder. Expect Moscow to reciprocate Congress’ hostility when we ask for her assistance in Syria and with North Korea.

Last week’s sanctions bill also hit Iran after it tested a rocket to put a satellite in orbit, though the nuclear deal forbids only the testing of ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. Defiant, Iranians say their missile tests will continue.

Recent days have also seen U.S. warships and Iranian patrol boats in close proximity, with the U.S. ships firing flares and warning shots. Our planes and ships have also, with increasingly frequency, come to close quarters with Russian and Chinese ships and planes in the Baltic and South China seas.

While wary of a war with North Korea, Washington seems to be salivating for a war with Iran. Indeed, Trump’s threat to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear arms deal suggests a confrontation is coming.

One wonders: If Congress is hell-bent on confronting the evil that is Iran, why does it not cancel Iran’s purchases and options to buy the 140 planes the mullahs have ordered from Boeing?

Why are we selling U.S. airliners to the “world’s greatest state sponsor of terror”? Let Airbus take the blood money.

Apparently, U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia are insufficient to satiate our War Party. Now it wants us to lead the Sunnis of the Middle East in taking down the Shiites, who are dominant in Iran, Iraq, Syria and South Lebanon, and are a majority in Bahrain and the oil-producing regions of Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. military has its work cut out for it. President Trump may need those transgender troops.

Among the reasons Trump routed his Republican rivals in 2016 is that he seemed to share an American desire to look homeward.

Yet, today, our relations with China and Russia are as bad as they have been in decades, while there is open talk of war with Iran and North Korea.

Was this what America voted for, or is this what America voted against?

[lundbaek]

according to Pat Buchanan " Washington seems to be salivating for a war with Iran."(See above post). I'm not convinced there is a good reason to provoke a war with Iran. It appears to me that the globalists are trying now to take down the governments of both Syria and Iran because of their resistance to a Mid-East Union.

"One wonders: If Congress is hell-bent on confronting the evil that is Iran, why does it not cancel Iran’s purchases and options to buy the 140 planes the mullahs have ordered from Boeing? Why are we selling U.S. airliners to the “world’s greatest state sponsor of terror”? Let Airbus take the blood money. "

[larsenb]

according to Pat Buchanan " Washington seems to be salivating for a war with Iran."(See above post). I'm not convinced there is a good reason to provoke a war with Iran. It appears to me that the globalists are trying now to take down the governments of both Syria and Iran because of their resistance to a Mid-East Union.

"One wonders: If Congress is hell-bent on confronting the evil that is Iran, why does it not cancel Iran’s purchases and options to buy the 140 planes the mullahs have ordered from Boeing? Why are we selling U.S. airliners to the “world’s greatest state sponsor of terror”? Let Airbus take the blood money. "

I don't think there is a good reason to provoke war with any country. Gen. Wesley Clark has documented the plan in place to take down Syria and Iran and 5 other Muslim countries: https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw . As indicated, he encountered this plan just after 9/11.

Trump displays a fundamental contradiction when he says his main goal is to take down ISIS, yet tags Iran as the "world's greatest state sponsor of terror". Last I heard, Iran is basically Shia vs. the Sunni ISIS; and Iran has been helping Iraq, etc., in the fight against ISIS.

Trump needs to cooperate with the countries fighting ISIS and not venture into this mess unilaterally. He needs their approval to operate in their countries. He needs to remember his pledge to allow individual countries the right to conduct their own affairs and handle their own problems.

[lundbaek]

It seems to me that President Trump is unaware of certain things being done by elements of the US FedGov that are being fomented to facilitate the globalist movement. And I believe ISIS is one of those creations of elements of our FedGov. One might wonder how that could happen. Trust me - if something like that can happen in a small branch of the Church in a relatively obscure nook in Europe as I experienced as a branch president, it can certainly happen within a government already infested with latter-day gadiantons.

[larsenb]

It seems to me that President Trump is unaware of certain things being done by elements of the US FedGov that are being fomented to facilitate the globalist movement. And I believe ISIS is one of those creations of elements of our FedGov. One might wonder how that could happen. Trust me - if something like that can happen in a small branch of the Church in a relatively obscure nook in Europe as I experienced as a branch president, it can certainly happen within a government already infested with latter-day gadiantons.

Agreed, especially in the political/social climate in this country that is already more than halfway on the way to approving the 'plank' of the globalists.

[Silver]

Here's another must read. (I'm only pasting part of it.) When the next tragic event occurs, especially one designed to drag us into war, remember the details in this article. There is no way we're getting through tribulations without war. The CFR/NWO/warmongers like Trump and his masters will take us to war. Or Pence will.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/07/ff.html

false flag.jpg (78.8 KiB) Viewed 1442 times

False Flag Terrorism Isn’t a “Theory” … It’s ADMITTED and Widespread
Posted on July 28, 2017 by WashingtonsBlog

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this, this and this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked several attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. The staged attacks included:

The German radio station Sender Gleiwitz [details below]

The strategic railway at POSunka Pass (Jabłonków Incident), located on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia
The German customs station at Hochlinden (today part of Rybnik-Stodoły)
The forest service station in Pitschen (Byczyna)
The communications station at Neubersteich (“Nieborowitzer Hammer” before 12 February 1936, now Kuznia Nieborowska)
The railroad station in Alt-Eiche (Smolniki), Rosenberg in Westpreußen district
A woman and her companion in Katowice
The details of the Gleiwitz radio station incident include:

On the night of 31 August 1939, a small group of German operatives dressed in Polish uniforms and led by Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish (sources vary on the content of the message). The Germans’ goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polish saboteurs.

To make the attack seem more convincing, the Germans used human corpses to pass them off as Polish attackers. They murdered Franciszek Honiok, a 43-year-old unmarried German Silesian Catholic farmer known for sympathizing with the Poles. He had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. He was dressed to look like a saboteur, then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented to the police and press as proof of the attack.

(3) The minutes of the high command of the Italian government – subsequently approved by Mussolini himself – admitted that violence on the Greek-Albanian border was carried out by Italians and falsely blamed on the Greeks, as an excuse for Italy’s 1940 invasion of Greece.

(4) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(5) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

(6) The Russian Parliament, current Russian president Putin and former Soviet leader Gorbachev all admit that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, and then falsely blamed it on the Nazis.

(7) The British government admits that – between 1946 and 1948 – it bombed 5 ships carrying Jews who were Holocaust survivors attempting to flee to safety in Palestine right after World War II, set up a fake group called “Defenders of Arab Palestine”, and then had the psuedo-group falsely claim responsibility for the bombings (and see this, this and this).

(8) Israel admits that in 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

The U.S. Army does not believe this is an isolated incident. For example, the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies said of Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service):

“Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”

(9) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(10) The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

The Economist notes:

Starting in the 1950s Turkey’s deep state sponsored killings, engineered riots, colluded with drug traffickers, staged “false flag” attacks and organised massacres of trade unionists. Thousands died in the chaos it fomented.

(11) The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change.

(12) The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s through the 1980s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” … so that “a state of emergency could be declared, so people would willingly trade part of their freedom for the security” (and see this) (Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred). And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries.

The CIA also stressed to the head of the Italian program that Italy needed to use the program to control internal uprisings.

False flag attacks carried out pursuant to this program include – by way of example only:

The murder of the Turkish Prime Minister (1960)
Bombings in Portugal (1966)
The Piazza Fontana massacre in Italy (1969)
Terror attacks in Turkey (1971)
The Peteano bombing in Italy (1972)
Shootings in Brescia, Italy and a bombing on an Italian train (1974)
Shootings in Istanbul, Turkey (1977)
The Atocha massacre in Madrid, Spain (1977)
The abduction and murder of the Italian Prime Minister (1978) (and see this)
The bombing of the Bologna railway station in Italy (1980)
Shooting and killing 28 shoppers in Brabant county, Belgium (1985)
(13) In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro]”.

(14) Official State Department documents show that, in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals.

(15) As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

(16) In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States – such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica – and then falsely blaming them on Cuba.

(17) The U.S. Department of Defense also suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

(18) A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign – the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

(19) A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained: “In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.” In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look the general said, “I am giving an example”.

(20) A declassified 1973 CIA document reveals a program to train foreign police and troops on how to make booby traps, pretending that they were training them on how to investigate terrorist acts:

The Agency maintains liaison in varying degrees with foreign police/security organizations through its field stations ….

[CIA provides training sessions as follows:]

a. Providing trainees with basic knowledge in the uses of commercial and military demolitions and incendiaries as they may be applied in terrorism and industrial sabotage operations.

b. Introducing the trainees to commercially available materials and home laboratory techniques, likely to he used in the manufacture of explosives and incendiaries by terrorists or saboteurs.

c. Familiarizing the trainees with the concept of target analysis and operational planning that a saboteur or terrorist must employ.

d. Introducing the trainees to booby trapping devices and techniques giving practical experience with both manufactured and improvised devices through actual fabrication.

***

The program provides the trainees with ample opportunity to develop basic familiarity and use proficiently through handling, preparing and applying the various explosive charges, incendiary agents, terrorist devices and sabotage techniques.

(21) The German government admitted (and see this) that, in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on.

(22) A Mossad agent admits that, in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya which broadcast fake terrorist transmissions recorded by Mossad, in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter.

(23) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident”, thus framing the ANC for the bombing.

(24) An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author).

(25) In 1993, a bomb in Northern Ireland killed 9 civilians. Official documents from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (i.e. the British government) show that the mastermind of the bombing was a British agent, and that the bombing was designed to inflame sectarian tensions. And see this and this.

(26) The United States Army’s 1994 publication Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces – updated in 2004 – recommends employing terrorists and using false flag operations to destabilize leftist regimes in Latin America. False flag terrorist attacks were carried out in Latin America and other regions as part of the CIA’s “Dirty Wars“. And see this.

(27) Similarly, a CIA “psychological operations” manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the cause. The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government. The manual received so much publicity from Associated Press, Washington Post and other news coverage that – during the 1984 presidential debate – President Reagan was confronted with the following question on national television:

At this moment, we are confronted with the extraordinary story of a CIA guerrilla manual for the anti-Sandinista contras whom we are backing, which advocates not only assassinations of Sandinistas but the hiring of criminals to assassinate the guerrillas we are supporting in order to create martyrs.

(28) A Rwandan government inquiry admitted that the 1994 shootdown and murder of the Rwandan president, who was from the Hutu tribe – a murder blamed by the Hutus on the rival Tutsi tribe, and which led to the massacre of more than 800,000 Tutsis by Hutus – was committed by Hutu soldiers and falsely blamed on the Tutis.

(29) An Indonesian government fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

(30) Senior Russian Senior military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens, in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion).

(31) As reported by the New York Times, BBC and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that in 2001, the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”. They lured foreign migrants into the country, executed them in a staged gun battle, and then claimed they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies”. Specifically, Macedonian authorities had lured the immigrants into the country, and then – after killing them – posed the victims with planted evidence – “bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side” – to show Western diplomats.

(32) At the July 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, black-clad thugs were videotaped getting out of police cars, and were seen by an Italian MP carrying “iron bars inside the police station”. Subsequently, senior police officials in Genoa subsequently admitted that police planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer at the G8 Summit, in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters.

(33) The U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks – as shown by a memo from the defense secretary – as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq war.

Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties. Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq war was really launched for oil … not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.

Despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq was not the state which backed the hijackers. (Many U.S. officials have alleged that 9/11 was a false flag operation by rogue elements of the U.S. government; but such a claim is beyond the scope of this discussion. The key point is that the U.S. falsely blamed it on Iraq, when it knew Iraq had nothing to do with it.).

(Additionally, the same judge who has shielded the Saudis for any liability for funding 9/11 has awarded a default judgment against Iran for $10.5 billion for carrying out 9/11 … even though no one seriously believes that Iran had any part in 9/11.)

[Silver]

Uhm, excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Warmonger. Educational opportunity below.

http://original.antiwar.com/thomas-knap ... t-defense/

US Foreign Military Bases Aren’t ‘Defense’
by Thomas Knapp Posted on August 03, 2017
“U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation.” That’s the unifying claim of the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases (noforeignbases.org), and it’s true as far as it goes. But as a signer of the Coalition’s endorsement form, I think it’s worth taking the argument a bit further. The maintenance of nearly 1,000 US military bases on foreign soil isn’t just a nightmare for peaceniks. It’s also also an objective threat to US national security.

A reasonable definition of “national defense,” it seems to me, is the maintenance of sufficient weaponry and trained military personnel to protect a country from, and effectively retaliate against, foreign attacks. The existence of US bases abroad runs counter to the defensive element of that mission and only very poorly supports the retaliatory part.

Defensively, scattering US military might piecemeal around the world – especially in countries where the populace resents that military presence – multiplies the number of vulnerable American targets. Each base must have its own separate security apparatus for immediate defense, and must maintain (or at least hope for) an ability to reinforce and resupply from elsewhere in the event of sustained attack. That makes the scattered US forces more, not less, vulnerable.

When it comes to retaliation and ongoing operations, US foreign bases are stationary rather than mobile, and in the event of war all of them, not just the ones engaged in offensive missions, have to waste resources on their own security that could otherwise be put into those missions.

They’re also redundant. The US already possesses permanent, and mobile, forces far better suited to projecting force over the horizon to every corner of the planet on demand: Its Carrier Strike Groups, of which there are 11 and each of which allegedly disposes of more firepower than that expended by all sides over the entire course of World War Two. The US keeps these mighty naval forces constantly on the move or on station in various parts of the world and can put one or more such groups off any coastline in a matter of days.

The purposes of foreign US military bases are partly aggressive. Our politicians like the idea that everything happening everywhere is their business.

They’re also partly financial. The main purpose of the US “defense” establishment since World War Two has been to move as much money as possible from your pockets to the bank accounts of politically connected “defense” contractors. Foreign bases are an easy way to blow large amounts of money in precisely that way.

Shutting down those foreign bases and bringing the troops home are essential first steps in creating an actual national defense.

[Silver]

Dr. Paul in a 21 minute video at link below.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/08/02 ... e-victory/

Trump Signs Sanctions Bill – Another Deep State Victory
Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams Posted on August 2, 2017
With the new Russia sanctions bill passed and signed into law, President Trump’s room to improve relations with Russia is nearly non-existent. He will not be able to remove the sanctions without permission from Congress, and that is unlikely to come. This is exactly what the deep state desires. Official enemies, to keep the money flowing to the military-industrial complex, which is their lifeblood. Of course they suck all of our blood and they spill blood across the globe…

[Silver]

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/08/02 ... -us-house/

Rep. John Duncan, Conservative Peace Proponent, Will Not Seek Reelection to US House
Adam Dick Posted on August 2, 2017


Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) announced on Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2018 to the United States House of Representatives. In addition to being one of the longest-serving Republican members of the House (representing the second district of Tennessee since 1988), Duncan, who argues that being antiwar is a conservative position, is also one of the House’s strongest proponents for peace.

In his April of 2015 editorial “A Return to The Peace Party,” Duncan lamented the Republican Party drifting toward being a war-supporting party and argued that it should revert to its past position as the peace party. “When I was a teenager,” Duncan wrote, “I remember reading a publication from the Republican National Committee that said, ‘Democrats start wars, Republicans end them.’” Duncan wrote in the editorial that he not only thought the party’s shift toward hawkishness is wrong but also declared, “I think it is a recipe for defeat if my Republican party becomes known as a party favoring permanent, forever wars – war without end.”


Duncan elaborated on his editorial’s analysis in an in-depth C-SPAN interview the next month.

Duncan has also spoken up in the House against war, including in a June of 2015 speech in which Duncan proclaimed, “there has been nothing conservative about our policy of permanent, forever, endless war in the Middle East,” and in March of 2014 when he advised in a speech in opposition to US intervention in Ukraine that, “We don’t need to be sending billions to Ukraine, and we especially should not escalate this situation into some type of military confrontation.”

Duncan has cast votes in opposition to US wars and sanctions, including when he was one of only six House Republicans to vote in October of 2002 against authorizing the US commencing a war against Iraq and one of only three House members to vote last week against legislation imposing and expanding sanctions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Duncan voted against the Iraq War despite the strong support in his district for starting the war. “When I pushed that button to vote no on that war,” Duncan is quoted in a Knoxville News Sentinel article regarding his vote, “I thought I might be ending my political career. I’m not trying to over-dramatize it. I really thought I might be.”

That vote did not end Duncan’s political career. But, 15 years and eight elections later, Duncan himself has decided to leave the House.

Commenting this week regarding his work in the House in a statement about his decision to not seek reelection, Duncan wrote, “During my time in Congress, I’ve worked as hard as I can to fight for what I believe in – fiscal conservatism, smaller government, and a more humble foreign policy that puts America first.”

Duncan is a member of the Advisory Board of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

[Silver]

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/08/01 ... d-bottles/

Trump’s US National Security Strategy – New Wine In Old Bottles?
Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams Posted on August 1, 2017
In a recent interview, Sebastian Gorka, an aide to President Trump, denounced “stale thinking” on national security policy over the past 30 years. He said that the White House was working on a new National Security Strategy for the United States that would reject the old “extremes” of neoconservative interventionism on one hand and libertarian “isolationism” on the other. It is quite interesting that he chose to single out non-interventionism (which is not “isolationism”) for criticism as if it had been attempted and failed over the past three decades. Why the strawman? Because this “new” strategy is being drawn up by neocons who dominate Trump’s foreign policy and national security staff. They know their brand is damaged so they are trying to pretend that they are coming out with a whole new batch of wine. But check the bottles…

[Silver]

Even if it were somehow America's responsibility to go find and kill every bad guy on the planet, we simply can't afford to do it any longer.

http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature ... rism-21585

America Literally Can't Afford More Military Adventurism
The Capitol Building.
According to the CBO, fiscal reality is coming, and far faster than most Washington policymakers appear to realize.
Doug Bandow
July 18, 2017

Republican presidents and Congresses claim to support fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. Yet the previous GOP president, George W. Bush, was a wild spender. The Republican-controlled Congress that served alongside him was no better.

So too it looks to be the case with President Donald Trump and the current GOP-dominated legislative branch. The former doesn’t want to touch entitlements. The latter doesn’t like the big cuts President Trump proposed in discretionary outlays in areas such as the State Department. And most of the Republicans are clamoring to fill the Pentagon’s coffers: the only question is how much, how quickly.

These nominally “conservative” spendthrifts act like they have no choice but to foist money onto the military. They rightly worry about a mismatch between foreign policy and force structure. But America’s expansive international intervention is discretionary, not mandatory. No security imperative requires defending prosperous and populous allies in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, fighting other nations’ battles in Africa and the Middle East, engaging in seemingly endless nation building in Central Asia and the Middle East, and treating the slightest instability anywhere as a summons to act.

Congress and the president must begin to rethink priorities as America’s fiscal situation becomes more precarious. As usual, the Congressional Budget Office produces the grimmest reading in Washington.

In late June, the agency released “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027,” revising estimates released only three months before. Alas, the news got worse. On the cover, the CBO announced that “over the next decade, outlays are projected to grow more quickly than revenues, thereby increasing the debt.” Yet “growth in real GDP” will be only “modest over the coming decade.” That is double bad news.
What is the outlook over the coming decade? The CBO reported, “After declining between 2009 and 2015 as a percentage of GDP, the deficit rose significantly in 2016 and is likely to do so again in 2017.” Although the agency expects a dip next year, the deficit “will resume its upward trajectory over the remainder of the projection period. The growing shortfalls would occur mainly because, under current law, growth in revenues would be outpaced by growth in spending for large federal benefit programs (primarily retirement and health care programs targeted to older people) and for interest payments on the federal debt.”

The estimated deficit this year is $693 billion, up $134 billion from the January estimate. And that’s a $109 billion increase over the number in 2016. The projected deficit next year will be “only” $563 billion, rising to $689 billion in 2019. The red ink will bust the trillion dollar mark in 2022 and near $1.5 trillion by 2027—all without a fiscal crisis, which caused the previous, temporary, jump over a trillion dollars. The accumulated deficit over the coming decade is expected to be $10.1 trillion, averaging more than $1 trillion annually.

The annual deficits pose a short-term burden. The debt they create will persist far longer. Although the debt as a percent of GDP will drop next year, it will “rise steadily in subsequent years,” warned the CBO. Debt held by the public—which excludes past intragovernmental “borrowing” of the Social Security “surplus”—already is an excessive 77 percent, and will jump to 97 percent by 2027. That would be the highest since 1947, as America was starting to pay off the cost of simultaneously battling Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Alas, the news gets even worse in future years, which are covered in detail in another CBO report: “Beyond the 10-year period, if current laws remained in place, the pressures that are projected to contribute to rising deficits during the baseline period would accelerate and push debt up even more sharply.” Every bad trend will be reinforced and redoubled.

This all will occur without another recession, another financial crisis or another “cakewalk war” or two—let alone a real conflict with a country with a real military, such as Russia, North Korea or China.

Unfortunately, the increased debt would compound America’s economic problems. According to the CBO:
• “Federal spending on interest payments would increase substantially as a result of increases in interest rates, such as those projected to occur over the next few years.”
• “Because federal borrowing reduces total saving in the economy over time, the nation’s capital stock would ultimately be smaller, and productivity and total wages would be lower.
• “Lawmakers would have less flexibility to use tax and spending policies to respond to unexpected challenges.”
• “The likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States would increase. There would be a greater risk that investors would become unwilling to finance the government’s borrowing unless they were compensated with very high interest rates. If that happened, interest rates on federal debt would rise suddenly and sharply.”

While the third point, less flexibility, might actually be a good thing, given how badly Congresses and presidents have performed in the past, the others together threaten America’s fiscal future. Spending as a percentage of GDP will rise from 21 percent this year to 23.6 percent in 2027 (it was only 18.8 percent in 1967). Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP will go from 17.3 percent to 18.4 percent over the same period (they were 17.8 percent in 1967). Social Security will rise from 4.9 percent to 6 percent, health care programs will go from 5.4 percent to 6.9 percent and net interest will rise from 1.4 percent to 2.9 percent.

[lundbaek]

President Trump seems to be still trying to readjust his staff to bring some semblance of order to his administration and stop the constant leaks from the Deep State/latter-day gadiantons (LDGs). I don't anticipate that Trump will be able to stop the leaks by the LDGs who infest the West Wing. And I think nothing will stop the leakers deep within the NSA who monitor everything electronic that happens within government. Unless Trump and his supporters wake up to the reality of the Deep State/LDGs and their real agenda of global government, and bring people into government who are true enemies of the deep state and who knows how it operates, I have little hope that our current course into globalism will be reversed. In other words, Trump & Co. (and all Americans, if possible) need to awake to our awful situation.

[Silver]

President Trump seems to be still trying to readjust his staff to bring some semblance of order to his administration and stop the constant leaks from the Deep State/latter-day gadiantons (LDGs). I don't anticipate that Trump will be able to stop the leaks by the LDGs who infest the West Wing. And I think nothing will stop the leakers deep within the NSA who monitor everything electronic that happens within government. Unless Trump and his supporters wake up to the reality of the Deep State/LDGs and their real agenda of global government, and bring people into government who are true enemies of the deep state and who knows how it operates, I have little hope that our current course into globalism will be reversed. In other words, Trump & Co. (and all Americans, if possible) need to awake to our awful situation.

lundbaek, I appreciate your thoughtful approach to these matters, but Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, received over $200 million from George Soros, the supposed bad guy and enemy of liberty. How can Trump be fighting against evil when his own daughter is benefiting from evil? They are all dirty -- Trump included -- and the joke is on us.

[lundbaek]

You may well be correct, Silver, that President Trump & Co. are in cahoots with the LDGs. I have not investigated that possibility myself as you and others have, there not being much of anything I can do about it. It just seems strange to me that if Trump is as you have suggested I would not expect the LDGs to be making such an effort to disrupt his administration, unless that is all just for show and tell to deceive us.