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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL......

THE NEW FRONTIER

 

THE NEW FRONTIER
by Chuck MacNab 

Violence and murder such as the most recent incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut is a tragedy and is deplorable. We all mourn for the victims and their relatives and friends.

While the nation mourns the loss of defenseless children, as citizens we should avoid supporting actions based on our emotions and the lack of facts surrounding the incident. Politicians tend to use tragic incidents and a crisis atmosphere as an excuse to enlarge government and enhance their power. After 911, billions of dollars were spent and much of it created highly questionable and permanent costs, because the tragedy provided politicians with a crisis atmosphere that provided votes they normally would not have gotten. This is a fact and is illustrated by statements such as "Don't let a crisis go to waste" (paraphrased) made by at least one famous political operative.

"Cities such as Chicago, New York and Washington lead the country in deaths from violent acts and coincidentally have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. We already hear politicians, mostly liberals, advocating stricter gun control and a ban on firearms before an adequate investigation of the Sandy Hook School incident has even started.  

Many believe that gun control would make it impossible for citizens to protect themselves from criminals and crime in general and would announce to those very criminals that they could use the guns they will always have, regardless of laws, to commit crimes against those who would be unable to defend themselves. Eliminating the population from owning guns and taking away the right to bear arms has preceded all dictatorships and criminal governments.

The arguments for and against gun control have been heard before and yet whenever a tragedy occurs where guns are involved the advocates of disarming the population can hardly wait to take unscrupulous advantage of the grief that emerges. As a Senator from Texas aptly stated, there has never been an incident of mass killing with guns at a location where people were able to be armed and were able to defend themselves.  

In areas where people are allowed to carry guns the crime rate has gone down drastically. Criminals are afraid of an armed population and of citizens who may be armed and have been trained in the proper use of firearms. Criminals usually choose a circumstance where they know people are defenseless and Senator Durbin and his cronies know that. So why do they continually favor gun control? Obviously it isn't for reasons of public safety. It is because they want to enlarge their power in government by disarming the population. They accuse gun owners and gun advocates of having an "agenda." Well, they have an AGENDA too! It is to disarm the population and leave it helpless so they will have no fear of a "distasteful" public reprisal should they decide to violate the Constitution and remove the population's individual right of self defense.

Back in the frontier days, in the early history of our Republic, those migrating west were always armed and knew how to use guns. Women were as skilled in their use as men because many times they needed a gun to defend themselves and their families from a host of dangers. America could have been a small nation that existed east of the Alleghenies forever had our pioneer forefathers not developed skill with firearms.

Perhaps our schools and public institutions are today's "frontier." Teachers and administrators may need to have weapons available and learn how to use them for the same reasons as those on America's frontier did in the early days of the Republic. Many of us believe that had the airline pilots of 9-11 been armed, that tragedy would not have occurred. Had the principal or teacher involved in the futile effort of holding their hands out to stop bullets been armed, perhaps the crime would not have been committed or would not have been as serious.

As Brit Hume said on a Sunday morning news show, it is way too early to act on the emotions emanating from the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The facts are simply not known at this point and a thorough examination of the entire incident and the circumstances surrounding it needs to be done BEFORE conclusions that result in rule changes should be suggested. Any politician, school official or administrator who advocates anything related to gun control at this point is simply taking advantage of the grief encountered by people who lost their loved ones. Those who advocate gun control or rule changes at this point should be looked upon as opportunists seeking to push a personal political agenda.

THE DANGER OF AN EMP WEAPON

THE DANGER OF AN EMP WEAPON

LAUNCHED FROM N. KOREA, IRAN or ???
By Chuck MacNab

 

Enclosed is a .pdf file of a book review originally published in a 2010 issue the O'Fallon Observer and a partial transcript of a House Armed Services Committee hearing held July 22, 2004. The review and the hearing deal with the subject of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack.  

 
  EMP Book Review   (Note: Some browsers will not open the file directly. If you find this to be the case, copy the URL from the address box and paste it into a different browser like Safari or Netscape or into Adobe Reader. It should then open for you to read. Firefox does not seem to want to read the file directly from the link.) 

 

At the bottom of this intro is the partial transcript of the House Armed Services Committee hearing. We know this is "dated" information but we believe it is still of critical importance and is not being given enough visibility. Many of the elected officials who participated in these hearings are no longer in office and considerations other than the threat posed by an EMP attack seem to have taken precedence. The purpose of the hearing outlined below was to assess the dangers of an EMP (Electro Magntic Pulse) detonation that could severely (that's an understatement!) damage the United States. You can draw your own conclusions from the enclosed review and the comments made before the Committee by well qualified scientists.

 

In addition to this hearing there was at least one closed hearing not open to the public. The only prominent official to recently highlight the dangers posed to our national defense is Newt Gingrich and he has been severely criticized, in fact called a "crank," by the media for his views on the dangers of an EMP attack. A potential enemy such as N. Korea or Iran, should they develop the capability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile armed with a nuclear warhead, could severely,and possibly fatally, disable the U. S. and make it impossible for the U. S. to defend itself and survive as anything other than a third world country. What's worse, according to the testimony heard by the Committee, the U.S. could not support a population larger than one the size of what we had 100 years ago. The entire infrastructure, our ability to grow and move food or anything else, communicate, provide power...literally everything, would be put back 100 years or more. This means mass starvation, the outbreak of disease, termination of life support for hundreds of thousands of people....a bad scene that we can hardly imagine now. To our knowledge, very little has been done to alert the nation to the dangers posed by an EMP attack and little has been done (that is effective) to prevent our potential enemies from developing such capability. In fact, indications are that funding to continue investigating this issue has been severely reduced in order to fund a lot of non-essential government spending. A top priority program dealing with this issue should be non-partisan! Using an EMP weapon launched from an ICBM, an enemy could put the population of the United States back in the Stone Age in less than 30 seconds. Does anyone believe that Iran and N. Korea are NOT working on doing just that right now! With N. Korea about to test an ICBM and selling missile and nuclear technology to Iran, whoever thinks that must have their head deep in the sand. 

 

We know it's rather tedious, but please read the book review AND the text below so you can be informed on this subject and help us to communicate our concern to our elected officials. The current Administration seems intent on drastically cutting defense spending and that includes research on missile defense (as the Israeli's have recently found out). This is just one area where funding should be INCREASED. If you care to do more research for yourself and/or communicate this to your friends and associates there is a link provided to the full text of the presentation given by the scientists who testified before the House Committee. This is an important issue...please inform yourself because the major media WILL NOT!

 

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Link to full text of the public hearing before the House armed Services Committee July 22, 2004.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has204000.000/has204000_0f.htm

   

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[H.A.S.C. No. 108-37]

THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE THREAT TO THE U.S. FROM ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE ATTACK

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD 

JULY 22, 2004

 

The EMP Commission was established pursuant to title XIV of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (as enacted into law by Public Law 106-398; 114 Stat. 1654A-345). Duties of the EMP Commission include assessing:

1. the nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years;
2. the vulnerability of United States military and especially civilian systems to an EMP attack, giving special attention to vulnerability of the civilian infrastructure as a matter of emergency preparedness;
3. the capability of the United States to repair and recover from damage inflicted on United States military and civilian systems by an EMP attack; and
4. the feasibility and cost of hardening select military and civilian systems against EMP attack.

The Commission is charged with identifying any steps it believes should be taken by the United States to better protect its military and civilian systems from EMP attack.

Multiple reports and briefings associated with this effort have been produced by the EMP Commission including an Executive Report (PDF, 578KB) and a Critical National Infrastructures Report (PDF, 7MB) describing findings and recommendations.

The EMP Commission was reestablished via the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 to continue its efforts to monitor, investigate, make recommendations, and report to Congress on the evolving threat to the United States from electromagnetic pulse attack resulting from the detonation of a nuclear weapon or weapons at high altitude.

    High-altitude EMP produced by high-altitude nuclear detonations has occurred and has been observed, and its effect has been observed. It first came to the attention of many of us as a unique and, at the time, poorly comprehended phenomena, poorly predicted, at the Starfish event in July of 1962, when even though the burst was 800 miles from Honolulu and barely above the horizon-and, therefore, the fields produced at that location were not within even an order of magnitude of what they could be-they still produced a number of effects in Hawaii, including burning out streetlight strings, setting off burglar alarms, taking down telecommunications facilities and about 15 other events that were subsequently recorded.

    While Starfish was conducted over a large body of water in the Pacific, the Soviet Union is the only country that has conducted high altitude nuclear tests over a large land mass, and, in 1994, General Loborev presented data on the effects of EMP from a high altitude burst that were observed by the Russians during their test series also around 1960.

    His observations about the EMP damaging power supplies, spark gaps, numerous other components and leading to immediate loss of power transmission and communications, physical damage as well upset, were consistent with our own observations and our own predictions.

    The Russians in this case had long transmission lines that acted as antennas well matched to receive some components of the EMP pulse. This was over a relatively sparsely populated area of the Soviet Union. By comparison, the U.S. is covered essentially end to end by a national power grid or grids that look from space like a large network of antennas tuned to receive the various components of the EMP spectrum.


    EMP effects from nuclear bursts are not new threats to our nation. The Soviet Union in the past and Russia and other nations today are certainly capable of creating these effects, and, certainly, they understand them. However, throughout the Cold War, the United States did not try to protect our civilian infrastructure against either the physical or EMP aspects of nuclear weapons in any determined way, instead depending primarily on deterrents for safety.

    What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are very difficult to deter. They can be transnational terrorist groups that have no particular state identity or no overt state identity and might have only one or a few nuclear weapons, but are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety.

    Axis-of-evil states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.

    Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variance of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter century.

    China and Russia have considered limited nuclear options that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack, and both Mr. Weldon and Mr. Bartlett described one instance in which they were the recipients of such threats.

    Another key difference from the past is that the U.S. has developed, more than most nations as a modern society, a heavy dependence on electronics, telecommunications, energy, information networks and a rich set of financial and transportation systems that leverage modern technology. They make our society very efficient, but they also make it very vulnerable.

    Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles, such as the Scuds that were described, armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or a military base, they may obtain the greatest political military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them or threatening their use in an EMP attack.

    The current vulnerability of U.S. critical infrastructures can both invite and reward that attack, if not corrected. However, correction is feasible and well within the nation's means to accomplish.


    The electric power network is probably the most fundamental of all the nation's critical infrastructures, all of which depend on the energy delivered by the electric power grids. Assessment of the commission on the electric power grid is that that grid is in danger of functional collapse during an EMP event over a very wide area.

    For example, protective relays and electronic switches, which may protect the grid, may be damaged by fast rising early components of the EMP pulse, while the late time EMP component can couple energy into long runs of transmission lines which can overload and damage long lead time items on the grid.

    For example, large power transformers today are all manufactured offshore and typically have lead times, even when ordered in small numbers, on the order of a year. We do not maintain large stockpiles of these, and, in some cases, we do not maintain any stockpiles at all in the U.S. So there is a time lag associated with replacing damaged power grid components that can be very substantial.

        Everything is dependent on electrical power availability, but telecommunications is the other fundamental infrastructure on which we depend, and it, too, requires that power. The financial system of this country is critically dependent on telecommunications, which in turn depends on power.

    The Federal Reserve System, with whom we spoke at length, has gone to great lengths to address and mitigate potential vulnerabilities in the telecommunications systems on which it is so critically dependent. Far more monetary transfers occur today electronically than in any other form, but, in the end, they ultimately rely on the proper functioning of electronics and the telecommunications grid.

    All infrastructures are increasingly dependent today on supervisory control and data systems, sometimes called SCADA systems. We did experiments on SCADA systems and determined that widespread failure of SCADAs would not only make recovery very difficult, but, in fact, it is very likely to occur under a determined EMP attack.


    In fact, we had tested under the Commission's direction a number of critical infrastructure systems-power, telecommunication, transportation, emergency services and SCADAs related to energy distribution and other control mechanisms-and we found vulnerabilities in all of these systems. The vulnerabilities were both upset, but also permanent damage, depending on the specifics of the case, and all well within the range of EMP threats.


    With the mandates you gave us, it was particularly challenging to look at the civilian infrastructures, we discovered, as we proceeded, because the civilian infrastructure is very tightly coupled, and it has interdependence that is very complex.

    We have just shown a few aspects of it in this diagram, but the way we have recovered from infrastructure failures in the past has been to note that they have tended to be single infrastructures to begin with, like the Northeast power grid collapse of last summer, and that they have been somewhat geographically constrained and often have been brought about by control failures, not by permanent damage to the system, which was certainly the problem in the Northeast power blackout.

    So, by working in from the edges, the operators were able to restore the system, but to restore power, you need telecommunications, and to maintain telecommunications, you need power, and to get out to facilities to fix them, you need transportation, and you may need emergency services to clear transportation routes, and you may need government services to direct activities, and you may need banking, finance or at least the ability to obtain funds to carry out these activities, and, finally, of course, you need energy, transport, oil and gas to run power systems.

    So, when you put all that together, you find you have a multidimensional chicken-and-egg problem that, should all of those infrastructures be disrupted and/or experience damage simultaneously over a large area, you have a very complex problem of restoration and repair of the national infrastructure.

    One thing we have also found is that today the U.S. does not have the ability to model such complex interactions, and this is probably one reason that even in simpler cases why major disruptions seem to come as a surprise, such as the Northeast power blackout again.


    To turn to the military aspects of the EMP threat for a moment, the end of the Cold War relaxed the discipline for achieving EMP survivability within the Department of Defense and gave rise to the perception that an erosion of EMP survivability of military forces was an acceptable risk. Again, Congressman Bartlett cited specific examples of that in his experience.

    EMP simulation and test facilities have been mothballed or dismantled, and research concerning EMP phenomena, hardening, design, testing and maintenance has been substantially decreased. However, the emerging threat environment, characterized by a wide spectrum of actors that include near peers, such as Russia, established nuclear powers, rogue nations, subnational groups and terrorist organizations that either now have access to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or may have such access over the next 15 years have combined to place the risk of EMP attack and adverse consequences to the U.S. to a level that is not acceptable.


    Current policy is to continue to provide EMP protection to strategic forces and their controls, command and control. However, the end of the Cold War has relaxed the discipline for achieving and maintaining that capability for our strategic forces.

break in text........

    Years ago, there was only one potential origin, the Soviet Union. Today, there are, what, four or five or so? There is India and Pakistan and China and Russia and maybe North Korea, and who knows how many more in the near future?

    I would submit, Mr. Chairman, that with the large uncertainty of the origin of the attack and the enormous catastrophic effects on our society, wouldn't you think that that would increase the probability of such an attack in the future?

    I would ask the panel. Would not those two rather obvious realities increase the probability of attack? It is disastrous to us, and we would not even know from whom it came, if it came from the sea, as Vladimir Lukin suggested.

    Dr. Wood.

    Or Dr. Foster, then Dr. Wood.

    Dr. FOSTER. I agree with your assessment, sir. It seems to me, however, that it is possible that one would know where it came from. It might take a long while, but the damage would have been done.

    Dr. WOOD. From a game theoretic standpoint, end-person games are unstable, two-person games are stable. That basic consideration kept the peace of the Soviet Union for decades because, if an attack came from anywhere, we knew what the address of the attacker was, and, though we were incapable of defending against the attack, we were exceedingly capable in retaliating with respect to it and retaliating swiftly and in a fashion that clearly posed unacceptable damage to its potential attacker.

    When it is no longer possible to confidently, superconfidently attribute the original of an attack, as it could be in the case of single-shots or silver-bullet attacks of the EMP flavor, you do not go out and burn down another country on the basis of suspicion, and, in that sort of context, it becomes very difficult to retaliate because of the difficulty of attribution and, thus, deterrence automatically fails.

    Dr. GRAHAM. Pardon me. One more response to your question just briefly: it seems to me this loops around to the major event of today, which is the 9/11 commission report, that the idea of hijacking airplanes and flying them into large office buildings was thought of by a number of people, but viewed as not being credible. That reminds me of the response that you received from the infrastructure commission that they did not worry about EMP because they did not view it as credible.

    I do not know how to evaluate whether it is credible or not, but I do believe that the less attention we pay to something that we know is within the capability of adversaries of ours, the less attention we pay, the more likely it is to come and be visited on us, and that is exactly what happened in 9/11 which might happen here as well.

    Mr. BARTLETT. The question that I was going to ask, and this is a great lead-in to it: Do you think that this kind of attack is more or less likely than that your personal home will burn? [Laughter.]

    Mr. BARTLETT. Now you have fire insurance for your home. I would submit, you know, this is a big city, and very few homes burn, and there are a whole bunch of them here. I would suggest that the probability of this happening is considerably greater than that your individual home would burn. Now, if you are prudent enough to have insurance on your home, don't you think we ought to be nationally prudent enough to invest something in the equivalent of a fire insurance policy against this?

    Dr. GRAHAM. I think we all certainly agree with your point, Mr. Bartlett.

    Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you all very much.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. WELDON. I thank the gentleman. I think, Mr. Bartlett, we are in good hands with the recommendations of this commission.

    We are going now to a closed session. We are going to adjourn this session and move to 2212 for a classified hearing.

    Before I do that, the public and those in attendance that want to know more about this phenomenon, but obviously cannot get access to the classified information that we are going to now share might want to be aware of an article that ran in ''Scientific American'' in June of 2004, this year, written by Dan DuPont. Dan covers a lot of defense issues on the Hill.

    It is a nine-page article entitled ''Nuclear Explosions in Orbit,'' and it goes into great detail in the public arena of information that is out that you can read. It will not be the depth that we are going to go into now, but, certainly, it is available for the public to access on the Internet.

    With that, we want to thank you all for an outstanding job. Your work, I think, is going to be a landmark, a sea change in the way that this committee and this Congress looks at this threat.

    It is just unfortunate it has taken us five years to get to this point when we first started raising this issue with our leadership-this is not a political statement-all the leadership in both the military and non-military, pooh-poohed the idea of this ever happening. It is real, it is significant, and we are unprotected.

    So your work, I think, will in the end be a landmark event in having this country turn around its response, and we look forward to the classified session.

    This hearing now stands adjourned.

STAYING IN OFFICE THE "CHICAGO WAY"

Staying in Office the "Chicago Way"

By Chuck MacNab
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DISTRACTING VOTERS

In the "old days" in Chicago, when an election was coming up, if a murder or high profile crime remained unsolved for a period of time the Media would get on the Mayor's back to solve it. He and his cronies would get together and their solution was usually to send the cops down to the Illinois Central Railroad yards, pick up a bum that had no relatives and no alibi, give him the rubber hose treatment until he confessed to the crime and put out a press release to get the headlines off the front page. It usually worked.

Now we have Hillary taking the blame for the security breach (A whopper when the people you place in charge refuse to send help, in fact REDUCE IT in the face of such obvious necessity.) AND... we have the Chicago "go get a bum off the railroad and blame him" version of a distraction by an Administration announcement that they are considering using military force to find and kill those responsible for the attack on the Libyan Consulate. Do they believe people will not ask the question "Where were they when the attack was ongoing? Out campaigning, we guess!

First of all the security of American Citizens is NOT the final responsibility of the Secretary of State. It is the responsibility of the President! Members of Congress and other well-qualified people have pointed this out many times over the past few days. While it may be true that the President cannot personally guard every American overseas, in conditions such as those that existed in Libya, he, along with his cabinet and security advisers should have been paying closer attention (instead of NO ATTENTION AT ALL) to the Libyan situation. Especially since credible threats had been issued, targeted attacks had taken place previously by enemies and it was 9-11! Instead, his campaign was apparently in charge of government action and he was busy with the details and issues that might impact the campaign. Had he been doing the job of President, he would have known the difference between campaigning and being President and the tragedy in Libya and four good Americans might be alive today.

Hillary obviously wants Obama to win because that means she can opt to keep her Cabinet position and her power (and her personal benefits) for another four years. She can keep the personal money machine going full bore for Bill (the huge fees for speeches and appearances, etc.) Normally we would not be as critical, regardless of Party affiliation, but the record over the years shows that she and Bill have gone from a net worth of a few thousand dollars (according to press reports) to nearly 100 million since they have been in various elected and appointed offices. We believe it is fair to state that "personal money gathering" is very high on their list of priorities. Her position as Secretary of State gives her enormous clout with all of America's friends (and enemies) around the world and in studying the history of personal enrichment of politicians who hold important offices (Joe Kennedy in the Roosevelt Administration as Ambassador to the Court of St James, etc.) we can fairly assume that important posts in the government provide enormous economic advantages and opportunity for those who hold them.

Yep, we expect that the old "Chicago way" of getting the media and Congress off your back may be emerging in the Libyan crisis. Nothing else seems to be working so it's time to try the old political hack bag of tricks. Surely SOMETHING will work!

 

Since this issue is one of those at the very heart of why in political campaigns we try to select people with good character to be President (we failed miserably to do this in 2008). In the case of the death of four Americans in Libya, we hope the American people will focus squarely on the facts, the importance of what those facts indicate and on our collapsing foreign policy. We hope the American people will not allow themselves to be distracted by red herring arguments coming from a Chicago "operation" that is desperate to use lies, distortions and a charismatic African-American President to establish Alinsky-like dictatorial control over a great country and its citizens.

Tusday evening's Romney-Obama TOWN HALL Event

  

This evening's SECOND Romney-Obama Event - A Few of Our Views

By Chuck MacNab
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Based on long observation of the liberal psyche and a gut feeling we have about these things... we're going to go out on a limb and venture some observations about tomorrow's evening's Presidential Town Hall meeting to be held at Hofstra University on Long Island.

We agree emphatically with Newt Gingrich that the Republican Party does not seem to be able to produce fair moderators when they make arrangements for debates. Most will agree (except the hard core) that all four "moderators" chosen for the debates are left wing oriented! For instance, The VP debate was about as good an example of total unfairness by a moderator as can be seen thus far but maybe tomorrow evening's Town Hall meeting will plow new ground for left wing bias, considering the backgound of the chosen moderator.  

In the VP debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, the moderator tried her very best to place Ryan at a disadvantage. The absolute stink bomb of a question at the end was deplorable! We wonder why the Republicans make agreements that allow this sort of disadvantage? Jim Lehrer, in the first debate, was surprisingly fair and unobtrusive but he still "lives" on the left. Something happened in moderating of the first debate that altered his "normal" style. Maybe Lehrer reverted to being a decent journalist, who knows. We can't explain it but, from an unbiased point of view, his performance was about as fair as we could expect.

Now we get to our predictions. Considering that we are not "professionals" (no fees involved) in the political arena we venture the following for the Tuesday evening "Town Hall" meeting between Romney and Obama:

1. The Obama side will spring an "Alinsky surprise" at some point during the debate.

"RULES FOR RADICALS" (Alinksy):

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." (There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating.)

RULE 12: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." (Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.) This will be aimed at the "undecided vote" 

2. If the debate does not seem to be going well for Obama, our guess is that Obama or the moderator will throw something "very stinky" on the table and in full view! The intent will be to divert attention away from substance and make it difficult to get back to the real purpose of the event.... educating the American public.

3. If Romney brings up the Libyan events, as he should (and strongly hammer this topic) Obama will attempt to cover with the old "shopworn" argument that "A study is under way so we can't comment as it may prejudice the investigation." If that doesn't work (and it's so obvious it shouldn't), he will attempt to throw out the early Romney statements about Libya (that proved to be correct) and accuse Romney of making security worse "everywhere" around the world. This is preposterous and he should be called on it by using the facts from the House hearings and the continued false statements made by officialas of the Administration. Obama should be asked POINT BLANK if he knew that lies were being uttered by people representing the Administration and if he didn't know, why didn't he since his own State Dept. knew almost at the time of the attack. Does he live in a vacuum or did he just miss those security briefings?  

Romney should tell viewers that the result of the incompetence, covering up for political reasons and the death of the Ambassador and three other Americans is inexcusable. Romney should tell the 80 million people watching that as a result of what happened in Libya, Obama should be voted out of office on November 6.

4. It is important to keep in mind that Democrat radicals (those who currently control the Democrat Party) are MAINLY employing a strategy at this point (when they see themselves in danger of losing) to appeal to the Democrat base. The base believes all (and I mean ALL) is fair in politics no matter how low or rotten the material is that a campaign stoops to. The reason for this sort of tactic is because Obama has been given one job on Tuesday evening and that is TO SALVAGE THE DEMOCRAT BASE.  

5. The strategists believe it would be very nice if they could appeal to undecided voters and maybe switchers but that's not their game now. They will toss a bone to those voters and, of course, hope for the best but it is important to realize that this is NOT their main objective tomorrow evening. Lots of the Democrat base has an "Occupy" mentality, a "community organizer - Alinksy" view of politics (See Alinksky's Rules for Radicals mentioned above), and they want big government and don't really care if the country is going broke as long as they get keep getting more. Many are willing to brawl to get what they want. In other words, they are NOT CONSERVATIVES and INDEPENDENTS who have mainly earned what they get. Obama will, within what he has been advised are limits, be abusive and argumentative with the hope of making those who do not support him so disgusted with the process that they will NOT go to the polls because politics "turns them off." (Where have we seen this manifest itself before!!!)

6. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT... Expect the moderator to break the rules that have been agreed to for the event and give Obama a clear advantage or at least some material to pacify the radicals in the Democrat Party and motivate their BASE to turn out on Nov. 6.

Here's the key to the election: When it comes to both Republicans and Democrats, the Party that turns out the largest number of its base voters will win the election!

TODAY'S yellow press is -- MEDIA BIAS

Running Interference or Mediacrisy?
By VA Guest Editor EKG
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John Roberts of CNN opened the South Carolina Republican Debate on January 19, 2012, by asking former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, about an upcoming ABC interview with Mr. Gingrich's ex-wife regarding her and Mr. Gingrich's divorce13 years ago. In his response, Mr. Gingrich stated he was fed up with the "majority" media clearing the way for the reelection of President Obama.

Is Mr. Gingrich's criticism valid?

The media attack on Mr. Gingrich bears an eerie resemblance to 2004 when Barack Obama was running for the first (and only time) for the U. S. Senate, and The Chicago Tribune forced open the Republican nominee's sealed divorce records. This resulted in a sex scandal causing Mr. Obama's opponent to withdraw. At the late date, the Republicans fielded Alan Keyes who was not a resident of Illinois and was easily defeated.  

In 2008, when then-candidate Obama was running against former First Lady and Senator, Hillary Clinton, for the Democratic nomination, CBS along with other media outlets quickly exposed as fraudulent Senator Clinton's claim to have come under sniper fire in Bosnia. This same media, however, accepted Senator Obama's allegation that he had not heard 20 years worth of his pastor's anti-American sermons. Concurrently, investigations by The New York Times, CNN, and other news organizations concluded Mr. Obama did not have a close relationship with former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers even though they served together on two nonprofit boards and Mr. Ayers and his wife (former terrorist) Bernadine Dohrn hosted a gathering at their home where Alice Palmer introduced Barack Obama as her chosen successor in the Illinois State Senate. Nor was the media curious about Senator Obama's purchase of a home with the help of Tony Rezko, now a convicted felon.

During the 2000 election, the media attempted to disparage George Bush's intelligence by focusing on his SAT's and college transcripts. But Mr. Obama, whom they promote as brilliant, has never released his SAT scores, his college or law school transcripts, and the media show no inclination to pursue the subject.

In 2008, The New York Times ran a front page story that alleged an affair between Mr. Obama's opponent, John McCain, and a  lobbyist. The accusation turned out to be false. This same newspaper also ran a story critical of Senator McCain's wife. 

Not long after Representative Michele Bachmann announced her campaign for the presidency, Fox News's Chris Wallace asked her on camera, "are you a flake". Representative Bachmann handled the sexist statement with grace and viewers launched a firestorm of criticism at Mr. Wallace (liberal commentator Mike Wallace's son) forcing him to apologize. But can anyone imagine Mr. Wallace asking the same question of Secretary Hillary Clinton or First Lady Michelle Obama? Mr. Wallace likewise drew fire from Mr. Gingrich in the first Republican debate by asking what Mr. Gingrich termed a "gotcha" question.

When Governor Rick Perry of Texas soared to the lead in the GOP race, Politico broke a story that Mr. Perry had a hunting lodge at the entrance of which was a rock with a racially disparaging name painted on it. Apparently it did not matter that the parcel on the Brazos River had been called by that name well before Perry's father began hunting there. Nor was it important that the Perrys had painted over the sign.Contrast that to the disinterest shown by Politico and others when Michelle Obama claimed she had never been proud of America and/or that America is a "mean" country.

Once Representative Bachmann and Governor Perry dropped in the polls, former Governor Mitt Romney started being pilloried  (and, stupidly, by his opponents) for practicing capitalism in America and for not releasing tax returns that suggest he not only is successful but his income comes from capital gains which is taxed at only 15%. But in 2004 when then-Democratic candidate, John Kerry's wife paid only 12.3% of her gross income and 27.4% of her AGI only the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal saw fit to report it. (Mrs. Kerry files separately from the senator which in itself could have been a story).

During the week before the South Carolina debate, in addition to assailing Mr. Romney's practice of blatant capitalism, ABC reported verbatim a political attack flyer that quoted a Pittsburgh Press article (from 1990) claiming Mr. Santorum's wife had had an affair with an abortion doctor more than two decades ago. (Mr. and Mrs. Santorum have been married for 21 years). But only four years ago, the media justified their not reporting John Edwards's then-current affair with a staffer by claiming reluctance to report unsavory subjects as news.

When businessman Herman Cain led the Republican field, the media extensively covered accusations of three women who claimed sexual harassment by Mr. Cain, one that supposedly happened over 20 years ago, the media made no mention that the attorney filing one of the harassment suits was the same attorney who used a similar tactic to derail Meg Whitman's campaign for governor of California in 2010. Further in 1994 when Paula Jones sued Democratic president, Bill Clinton, for sexual harassment in 1991 (only three years before), the media questioned why Ms. Jones had not come forward sooner and quickly linked her to a Conservative legal group. When Kathleen Willey accused President Clinton of sexual harassment in the White House during his presidency, the media helpfully printed a note from Mrs. Willey written after the incident suggesting by inference that Ms. Willey continued to seek the president's assistance finding a job. (Mrs. Willey's husband had committed suicide and she needed additional income).

One of Mr. Cain's accusors claimed she and Mr. Cain conducted a 13 year affair (one that presumably went on while Mr. Cain was being treated for Stage IV colon cancer), but when Gennifer Flowers claimed (with supporting tapes) that she and Mr. Clinton were lovers, CBS's Sixty Minutes gave Mr.and Mrs. Clinton an opportunity to refute Ms. Flowers.

Once Mr. Cain no longer posed a problem for President Obama's reelection, he and the harassment suits no longer were news. Why not? If these accusations had credence and were newsworthy when Mr. Cain was a candidate, why should we not be informed of what happened? Have the suits been dropped? Or did Mr. Cain pay off the women? Why did this "news" story simply go away?

Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Romney, Santorum, Gingrich. Do these examples show a double standard or are they, as Mr. Gingrich claims, a clearing of the field for President Obama. Are the media running interference for the President?
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RiteOn Guest Editor EKG publishes frequently in the RiteOn.org blog but also writes for many other publications.

COMMENTARY ON THE NH PRIMARY

THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY  by Chuck MacNab

One can speculate about the results of yesterday's New Hampshire Primary election. Here are a few thoughts about it.

1. Despite the commentary provided by media talking heads, many of whom are assigned to promote a cause chosen by media owners, Romney won the NH Primary election with a clear victory ...not by a margin many sought to downplay because it didn't fit with the expectations of their assigned view.

2. The one-two outcome of the election provides Ron Paul and his supporters with an argument that they should be included on the ticket or at least be given a substantial position of power in a Republican Administration. We'll see what negotiations produce. Depending to some extent on the outcome of Primary elections yet to be decided, Ron Paul could create a third Party campaign that would likely allow Obama to defeat any Republican that opposes him. A repeat of the Busch #1-Clinton election.

3. If the New Hampshire Primary is an indicator and if the Republican Party is not better organized than it is right now, Ron Paul appears to have enough support among hard core followers and conservatives to turn the threat a third Party campaign into a reality. The Republican Party, especially at the lower levels, is overburdened with politically uninformed long time activists who have gotten lazy and are mainly interested in protecting their "turf." Too many feel that the equity they have built up by "staying interested" entitles them to continue to force "old hat" and the status quo on independent voters. This could prove to be a mistake. Too many will elect the dullest among them for local leadership activities and the more active ones, bnesides having a near obsession with collecting meaningless titles, will relentlessly engage in gossip wars to protect anything perceived to be their "turf." Most have no background or interest in intelligent compromise and most of their interests evolve around social issues...that is until it comes down to their personal bank accounts. Too many Republicans are only interested in associating with those who agree with them.  When it comes to a number of issues in their Party, the Democrat's have given up leadership to the radicals and this is why many people believe Ron Paul is really a closet Democrat, particularly in foreign policy areas!

4. In our opinion, the Republican Party could substantially nullify a third Party appeal by changing some of its platform and by engaging in a broad campaign that shows exactly what wholesale abandonment of our world-wide interests would mean to each American. Stop assuming that most Americans understand what the results of what abandonment will really mean in practical terms and do something to explain it. There is certainly much modification of policy due, especially those policies related to the Obama Administration. In the case of the last three years, Obama has been engaging in a Ron Paul-like policy of withdrawal while wasting vast amounts of resources and making huge mistakes in doing it. As the losses of overseas interests become illustrated by a warped media why wouldn't Americans be sick of such policies? Why wouldn't large numbers of Americans be attracted to someone who comes along and hypothetically says, " Let's just quit and leave the rest of the world to its own devices." America's foreign interests have never been popular and have been used as a political whipping boy since the earliest days. Everything from the Louisianna purchase (a deal with France), the purchase of Alaska (a deal with Russia) to early negotiations for oil exploration in the 30's has been criticized as "folly" by politicians seeking to "play" on voter attitudes.

Though obscure and currently unpopular, the fact is that over the last 100 years or so, a winning set of worldwide ventures, both public and private, has provided  Americans with the best standard of living of anyone on the planet. So let's not be confused about that. Whoever we elect as a leader of the country should be a person who knows that the second best poker hand is the worst one to hold.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

TO YOU AND YOURS

LIBERALS WILL SILENCE MURDOCH AND FOX NEWS IF THEY CAN

The Liberal-Socialist "Pack" Smells Blood and is Eyeing Murdoch and Fox News By Chuck MacNab    It seems obvious from news comments made since the phone hacking scandal broke in Britain that some politicians, along with their liberal media allies, see an "opportunity" to eliminate Rupert Murdoch as the only major publishing force that opposes them in their determination to destroy freedom and replace it with a European style socialist system in the United States. Thus... they seem to be targeting Murdoch ever since he closed down his popular London newspaper, News of the World.   Liberal Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, Asst. Senate Majority Leader, seems to be one of those who can hardly contain himself.* Sen. Barbara Boxer, another politicians with a liberal-socialist reputation has also joined the "bash Murdoch" bandwagon. The major news organizations, CBS, NBC and ABC are undoubtedly eager to get rid of their "fair and balanced" competition and will give any politician that vents against Murdoch and his FOX news operation plenty of "face time."   Eliminating or changing the publishing policies of the FOX News organization would be a huge blow to freedom of the press and a BIG boost to the Obama Presidential Campaign for 2012. O'Reilly, Hannity, and all of the rest of the "fair and balanced" crew at FOX News. They should be VERY concerned! All of us should be VERY concerned. ------ Excerpts: * http://www.politicususa.com/en/dick-durbin-rupert-murdoch Sen. Dick Durbin Calls for Congressional and FBI Investigations Into Rupert Murdoch ** Excerpt from FCW Insider: Is Fox News in trouble? http://fcw.com/blogs/insider/2011/07/britain-murdoch-fox-news.aspx Because News Corp. is incorporated in America, it is subject to the FCPA, Spitzer writes. An investigation could lead to revocation of FCC licenses for News Corp. operations in America -- including Fox News -- even if there's no evidence of American Murdoch employees engaging in similar act.

Climate Control Freaks Continue Foisting Their Scam On Taxpayers

Washington Times Exposes Climate Control Fraud  Comment by Chuck MacNab  Please click on the following link and read the article from the Washington Times. It's more sound evidence added to previous convincing argument that the Global Warming, climate control racketeers, both in government and outside of it, are well under way with their plan to loot the taxpayers of the world BIG TIME with fraudulent and contrived information. Make no mistake, this "movement" has big money behind it! Because so many people have been sold the "climate control" lies, it holds the promise of controlling the world's population and yielding huge sums of money for its advocates. For the sake of all of us, we need to stay informed on what the looters are planning and doing. Getting them out of government, drying up their sources of money and removing their presence in influential areas should get world energy back on the right, less costly  path.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/17/un-climate-propaganda-exposed/#.TgktVJ1qL8s.email