Thursday, June 26, 2014

Reagan made 232 recess appoinments - Obama 32. What gives? CONGRESS is sabotaging America's Future

Ronald Reagan made 232 recess appointments during his eight years in office. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each made well more than 100. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt made more than 160 recess appointments during one short break between congressional sessions.

To date, Obama has made only 32 recess appointments.

BECAUSE CONGRESS REFUSES TO DO ITS JOB. The tea party has sabotaged our economy in order to win elections - costing us millions of jobs. They are also putting us behind the rest of the world across the spectrum.

Repeal the GOP so we can put work back to work, and back to being No. 1 again!
The roadmap for America to be No. 1 again is in "Agenda for American Greatness" - free, at the link...

SHARE if you want AMerica to be No. 1 again! We are running out of time...
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.vom
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/06/26/supreme-court-obama-senate-appointments/8528059/

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

In 2002 Al Qaida was Confined to Caves, Until Bush Did This...Result is ISIS, a cancer

In 2002 Al Qaida was confined to caves in Afghanistan. But after Bush invaded Iraq, they flooded into that country via the open borders. Then they got into Syria and like a cancer they spread.

If Bush had not made his false claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11 (and had WMD's), Al Qaida would STILL be in caves in Afghanistan...

Actions by leaders (especially Presidents) with limited global knowledge can have dire consequences down the road. ISIS is Exhbit "A."

I covered the roll up to Iraq --and my arguments against the invasion when I was a TV terrorism analyst (ironically, for a Fox station) -- in my book "Better Times Ahead April Fool."

Its in the chapter "Predicting 9/11 and Running Against the Hammer."


The final chapter, Agenda for American Greatness, does offer SOLUTIONS to make America No. 1 again...It's available free at the link.

Monday, June 23, 2014

WHERE Does America Stand in the World TODAY? Facts from Agenda for American Greatness

Here are some of the FACTS about America's status in the world that i put into "Agenda for American Greatness" and talked about some of them this morning on the radio interview...

In 2000, America was No. 1 in education.

By 2008, America had fallen to somewhere between 9 and 17 in the world in education, depending on whose calculation you use. Obviously, the trend was in the wrong direction.

We were down to No. 12 among developed nations in college graduation, 79th in elementary-school enrollment. U.S. students ranked only 11th (if that now) in science and 9th in math in the world, falling behind Asia and Europe.

My question to you is “How do we lead a high tech world with that?

The average age of American schools is 40 years!

Of the 172 democracies in the world, the United States ranks 139th in voter participation.

Barely a third of Americans can name the three branches of government.
More than half of college seniors recently flunked a civic literacy exam. And in half of US states, civics education isn’t even required in high school.

Life expectancy at birth for American men was 75.6 years and 80.8 for women in 2007― 36th and 33rd in the world!

In Texas, 25% of our residents do not have health insurance, over six million people, the worst ranking in the U.S.

Our infrastructure is No. 23. Meanwhile China is becoming a space power…
EX-IM Bank move by GOP – over 200,000 jobs will be lost..

Our leaders wait for 50-year old bridges to fall before our leaders act to repair them, like the one that fell into the Mississippi River killing unsuspecting commuters in Minnesota when Governor Pawlenty was in office.

We have over 77,000 bridges that are considered “derelict and dangerous” by engineers.

Our roads are crumbling yet we do nothing, invest nothing, while believing we will lead the world anyway....(cont at link 'Agenda for American Greatness")

If you want Better Times Ahead for America, please read "Agenda for American Greatness" at the link and SHARE...(its Free, for now).
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.om

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Sunday, June 15, 2014

WHY are all those Kids Flooding our Border? Simple...

A lot of people are screaming about the illegal kids coming across our borders.
Why are they coming? Not to follow Kim Karashian or to watch Miley Cyrus twerk. They come because they are fleeing violence in Central America - some of it stemming from the gangs we deported back to places like Guatemala and Honduras. They are abused in Mexico on their way here.


If you want to "fix" the border than we will have to help "fix" these unstable, violent countries in Central America --not with troops (they need jobs to come and the gangs to leave). 

Otherwise, these women and kids will do what YOU would do in that situation - come HERE...

How do I know? I've been there...
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

A shocking Case How Dumb and Dumber is Taking Over...Can't even tell an EBook Cover from a Logo!...



We’ve got a problem folks. I just spent $300 for EBook cover design -- and several of the people submitted LOGO designs! There is a HUGE difference between a logo and a book cover.

Is this what is happening in American education? We seem to have more and more people who can't read simple instructions! My instructions  said: "Need an eBook cover." Here is a title and some photos. That was it! This was not a NASA space shot with reams of instructions (imagine them doing that!)

The trend seems to be dumb and dumber (not the movie). The last time I went through this process I got a GREAT cover (attached). This time I am underwhelmed.

Sorry to break bubbles, but that is one of the reasons why JOBS are going overseas (or people from overseas training are filling them here in the USA).  China and India are producing the engineers and scientists we aren't producing in America. This is not helped when Texas GOP platforms proclaim their desire to “CUT education funding” (after they left it over $2 Billion short in the last Texas legislature despite over 70,000 new students arriving every year). To top it off we have GOP reps in Texas (and nationally) who are convinced the earth is only 5,000 years old!   

If our leadership is that stupid on geography (due to a lack of education) they certainly are not going to know how to be smart on economics. That's how we got 'voodoo economics' that put us in the Great Economic Collapse of 2008 (the ceiling was crashing as Bush handed the keys to Obama).

How we got into this mess -- and how we get out -- is laid out in the book Better Times Ahead April Fool (in case you care about America winning the future)...For those who are visual like me, it is loaded with photographs I took globally over 30 years, so you can see the changes I’ve seen with you own eyes.

America needs to be a winner again.  Winning in a global economy will come from being smart -- not by cutting education and the minimum wage. Winning won't come from voodoo economics either.

Doesn't this cover look GREAT!? It was the winner I picked from 10 designs.

Despite the poor start in this design contest, I hope this time I get another stunning submission for "Houses of Straw...."

Happy Father's Day!

Friday, June 13, 2014

Why Iraq is Blowing Up -- Bush and Maliki set up failure. There is no putting Humpty Dumpty Iraq back together

Over 55,000 men in the Iraqi army woke up in Mosul in northern Iraq a few days ago to discover that their generals had left them alone in the night, and had fled. Without their leaders, the troops decided sticking around in Sunni land wasn't worth it, discarded their uniforms and abandoned American tanks and equipment and started walking back to Baghdad.

Why did this happen?

Three reasons. The biggest reason is because Iraq's Prime Minister Mr. Al Maliki is a Shiite (aka Shia) who has frozen out the Sunni's (the religion of ISIS and Al Qaida) and Kurds from sharing power in government, despite demands by President Obama (and Bush before him) to include them in his government.

In short, Maliki is the main problem that is causing Iraq to unravel. The chickens are also coming home to roost from a bad decision made by an American President in 2002.

Joe Biden once caught hell for suggesting Iraq should be split into three parts: one for the Kurds in the north, one for the Sunnis and a final piece for the Shia like Maliki (who is supported by Iran, who is sending 500 troops to "help"). Biden made a good point since Iraq is an historical accident. It was formed at  the end of WWII when the British drew boundaries for Iraq (and other countries) with the purpose of making it unstable so it had to be run by a "strong man" like Saddam. It's that old 'divide-and-conquer' mentality the British used as they colonized countries.

The second problem is Syria. It's the unstable next door neighbor that Congress didn't want to get involved in when moderates rebeled against "President" Assad. Syria, another country intentionally designed by the British to be unstable, took over from Iraq as a big training ground for ISIS -- a group so radical even Al Qaida kicked them out!

Now, ISIS controls large sections of TWO countries, western Iraq and northern Syria as shown on this map:


Bottom line: We are in this mess because of three things:

(1) Bush invaded Iraq when it was not involved in 9/11, (
2) Bush's handpicked Iraqi leader Mr. Maliki (a Shia like the majority religion in Iran) has refused to power share with the Sunni's, and
(3) Congress, which refused to allow the President to help the Syrian moderates fighting Assad as he bombed his own citizens into dust. That failure allowed the radicals like ISIS to grow in influence.


At this point, we have few choices. Americans will not support sending American troops back into Iraq. Even if they did it would not solve the problem of Maliki acting like a dictator and his generals being so weak and corrupt that they abandoned American equipment to ISIS.

Yes, we can launch air strikes, but without a political settlement among Iraqis that won't fix it either. Air wars don't win land. Troops do.

Possibly the best option will be to fall back on Joe Biden's comments of long ago - and allow  Iraq to be divided into three parts - one for each ethnic group. That could be avoided if Iraq had cut a power sharing agreement, but it is probably too little too late for that to happen. It is the beginning of the end of Iraq.

So it all gets back to a bad decision in 2002 by a President to attack Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction.  That decision, made on phony evidence, has cost us trillions in treasure and blood --over 4400 American lives lost along with countless Iraqis.

As you can see from the headlines, Iraq is an ongoing nightmare created by a Congress and former President that is haunting this one. No one listened to my advice that war with Iraq was wrong and not going to go well, and no one listened to Joe Biden.

Maliki hasn't listened to anyone. We can't bail him out if he continues freezing out power sharing. He needs to act fast because he has already lost the country to the ISIS.

There is no putting Humpty Dumpty Iraq back together again.

To see what I saw in Syria and my experiences with Saddam and Iraq, check out "Better Times Ahead April Fool"
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com


Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Obsessing Over 5 Old Men from GITMO - Ignoring Tens of Thousands of Jihadis Created by Iraq War...

The GOP is obsessing on release of 5 old men from GITMO in exchange for an American POW. This is a laughable concern. Why?  Because it ignores reality.

Right now TENS OF THOUSANDS of NEW ISIS Militants are roaming IRAQ and Syria and could actually BIG DOWN Iraq -- all thanks to the war started by President Bush and the same Republicans now having a heart attack over the 5 GITMO detainees released by President Obama (they said nothing when Bush released 500 GITMO detainees before he left office.)

The ISIS (an Al Qaida group) has just taken over control of the Iraq cities of Mosul and Tikrit (Saddam's hometown). They have grabbed American military equipment and weapons as Iraqi soldiers abandoned their posts, weapons and uniforms. Compared to the ISIS the "Gitmo 5" are as dangerous as a toothless dog at this point compared to the real threats now on the ground in the Middle East.
Grand Mosque, Mosul, Iraq

Iraq's hand picked (by Bush) Prime Minister Noori Al Malaki is a Shiite - and has created this situation by not sharing power with the Sunnis in Iraq. These Sunnis went off to fight in Syria and are now flowing back across the border from Syria (which is empty desert) and grabbing Iraqi land.

Since Mr. Al Malaki refused to sign a "Status of Forces" agreement that would have allowed American forces to stay, he is on his own.

Bottom line: 5 old men out of circulation are no threat to us compared to the THOUSANDS of new jihadis created by the Bush invasion of Iraq and the collapse of Syria. Iraq and Syria are now one big jihadi kingdom covering two countries.  They could collapse Iraq, which means America's 4400 deaths and $5 Trillion in blood and treasure could all be for nothing.

A bigger threat to Americans are not these malcontents in Iraq. It is from the new American DOMESTIC TERRORISTS, the shooters that are starting to act out at an increasingly alarming rate!

Unlike the Iraq terrorists, the American terrorists are RIGHT HERE, and HEAVILY ARMED. And they listen to false information from select media that has people willing to shoot our own police in their "anti-government" obsessions. Congress should spent less tie on the "GITMO 5' and more time worried about protecting Americans safety here in America.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

The Massacre Chinese Are Never Told About - June 4 1989

 Americans bitch about their "loss" of freedom but they have no clue how much freedom they really have compared to the rest of the world.

If Americans are clueless on an issue, its because of deliberate neglect - like watching all conservative media.

But in Russia and China its different. They can't find the truth if they wanted to. 25 years ago China in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China their military drove tanks over people, killing students protesting for freedom.  We still don't know how many thousands were killed. Police won't even let people near the cemetery where they were buried on this date.

But with a one party country history can be erased, unlike in America where everything is exposed to media scrutiny. Today over 1.4 BILLION Chinese do NOT know about the June 4 TiananMen bloodbath.

If an American wants to look up that incident or any other crazy thing, no problem. But Chinese censors block the ability of Chinese citizens from knowing about events on June 4, 1989. If a Chinese were to google it, the screen will omit this event.  Compare that to the NSA which is just gathering information not blocking it from search engines!

June 4 was also a time of an heroic act by one man facing off against a line of tanks. With a bag, not a gun. We still don't know what happened to him.

Today, truth remains hidden on Chinese media. The same is true in Russia. Putin has eliminated all independent media. The only stations allowed to broadcast are government controlled. "Russia Today" spreads his propaganda. As a result Russians are fed the same nationalism without fact that Chinese are. Their citizens are clueless about the true world, and about America.

In America we have so choices of independent media NOT controlled by the government, yet we throw it away when Americans limit themselves to only one source of information. They volunteer to be misinformed when all they hear is  Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly, on a station set up to be a propaganda for one party without question.

The Tiananmen massacre came after my first trips to China on business in 1982 and 1984. The incident disgusted me and I wanted nothing more to do with China for over a decade afterwards. I didn't go back until 2012 - and discovered that they had gone from behind us to in front of us in key technologies. I documented it in my book.

In today's China, I could NOT get on Facebook or my email (there was no Internet in the 80's).  It is still not the land of democracy.

Only in Hong Kong did 100,000 people turn out to remember those killed in 1989 for wanting only one thing - FREEDOM.

My experiences in China then and now are part of "Better Times Ahead April Fool" - a true life global adventure rags-to-riches-to-rags-to success.  It is a lesson for today, looking back on the future of America.


I do think that as wealth has multiplied in China, and more Chinese travel globally where they can find out these things, that they too will want that ultimate gift - FREEDOM to choose their own leaders, instead of the leaders choosing themselves...

In the meantime, the undemocratic oligarchs can stay in power only by starting wars and land grabs to stoke national fervor.  In Russia with the Ukraine. In China with the South China Sea and its OIL...stay tuned.

I am pulling for the people of China and their right to democracy, and TRUTH about their history.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Why Open Carry Makes Us Look Like the Unstable 3rd World Countries I've Negotiated In

Today there is a big push by groups for Open Carry of guns in Texas and America.

From what I have seen it makes America look like the 3rd World countries I have been in. It does the OPPOSITE of providing security. It makes everyone feel LESS secure. Imagine wanting a coffee in Guatemala or Paris next to these guys - but its America instead. i have flown into Bangkok after a coup had occurred. Now I see this here?




In "Better Times Ahead April Fool" I describe some wild and crazy and all true scenes from weird place around the world-- in over 50 countries the past three decades.

After each of those trips I always felt GREAT coming back to America after I had seen people with assault weapons staring at me as we drove past them in places like Bolivia and Nigeria.

If we let Open Carry pass it will make America look like Somalia (below). Then we are less secure.