The National Interest: Leslie Gelb: What Should Be The Purpose of American Power?

The National Interest- Russian-Chinese Alliance?

Source:The New Democrat

I believe Les Gelb has the right attitude here and he’s someone who knows about American Power being the President of the Council of Foreign Relations. American Power, it depends on how you define it. I find think of most Americans when they think of American Power think of the U.S. Armed Forces and the broader National Security State. Like the Central Intelligence Agency, to use as an example. But our entire National Security Council is part of American Power. Which includes the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, as well as our Treasury Department.

See American Power, is our Armed Forces, and the National Security State, but it is also our economy. The stronger our economy is, the better our military can be. The more effective our economic sanctions against terrorist states can be. The main reason we won the Cold War against Russia, is because our economic strength. Their Marxist system simply failed their country. And their people had enough and you saw all of those non-ethnic Russian Soviet Republics break up and form their own countries. America, probably had a stronger military than Russia during the Cold War. But our economy and economic system was the main weapon there.

Now the purpose of American Power again using the NSC and economy to make America as strong as it can be. So we never have to worry about our own security. At least in the sense that someone could invade us, or wipe out a section of our country, or even attack us from the air. Which is where we’ve always have been at least since Pearl Harbor. The purpose of American Power is not to rule the world, or even police the world. At least by ourself, but to use our power to more than adequately defend us when needed. And to advance our interests and values that a lot of the world already shares.

I agree with Les Gelb, that America is and should be the strongest leader in the world. Simply because we are and there isn’t another democratic developed nation in the world that is capable of replacing us, or even coming close. But being the strongest leader in the world and the most powerful country economically and everything else, is different from being the leader of the world. And having to take all the risks and pay all the price when some crisis develops around the world. While everyone else debates what America should be doing at the debating society known as the United Nations. While they don’t do anything themselves.

Liberty in Our Time: G. Edward Griffin: 'More Deadly Than War: The Communist Revolution in America'

Source: Liberty In Our Time- G. Edward Griffin.

Source:The New Democrat

Communists, at least self-described Communists have never had any real power in America. The only real movement they had in America that was able to gain any momentum, popularity and gain attention, was the Black Panther and Black Power movement of the 1960s. That was made up of more than African-Americans, but other Americans as well. The New-Left of the 1960s, had both a social democratic and Communist movement in it. But Socialists, at best today whether they self-describe themselves that way, or not, are at best 15-20% of the population. Marxist-Communists, again self-described, or not, are not even ten-percent in America.

When you look at third-parties in America, there have only been two third-parties that have gained any prominence and traction in the last twenty-years or so. The Libertarian Party, that has a large growing movement in and outside of the Republican Party. And the social democratic Green Party, that has a growing movement in and outside of the Democratic Party. The Bernie Sanders movement, is essentially the Green Party right now ideologically. And the title of this film is The Communist Revolution in America and it came out in 1969. And yet who are these Communist revolutionaries who are going to put this revolution together.

What this film really looks like to me, is a right-wing propaganda film, or at least a right-wing perspective and the opposition to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That, "civil rights freedom fighters who non-violently for the most part fought for equal rights for African and other Americans in the 1960s, really weren't freedom fighters at all. They were really Russian agents working for the Communist Party in Russia to spread communism in America." This looks like a lot of, right-wing garbage to put it mildly. Anglo-Saxon mostly Americans who in 1969 of course were still angry about losing all of those civil rights battles of the 1960s.

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin: 'John Kasich is The Un-Trump'

Source:The Washington post-

Source:The New Democrat

Just to be clear, I wouldn’t vote for John Kasich for president perhaps on any circumstances. Unless there was some reason why only Republicans were running for president. But what I’ve seen from him so far looks like he’s the best the Republican Party has and is someone who they desperately need if they’re going to win Latinos back and win back the White House. The Republican Party, won’t win the White House back until they win Latinos, Asians, Jews and get closer to Democrats when it comes to women. They’re Anglo-Saxon Southern-Protestant rural base is dying off and they know that.

Governor Scott Walker, simply too far-right on social issues. Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, allowing for employers and other groups to deny gays access simply because they’re gay, no abortion under any circumstances, he’s flipped on immigration and is no longer in favor of a policy to deal with the 10-15 million illegal immigrants other than perhaps sending them home. So he’s basically the Rick Santorum of 2016 and would have a hard time winning outside of the Bible Belt and would have a hard time even winning his home state.

Donald Trump, is nothing more than a one man reality show and if he still looks like a contender and December, I’ll consider apologizing. Jeb Bush, doesn’t want to be his brother, or father and yet its hard to tell how he differs from G.W. at least on economic policy. He now says the Iraq War was a mistake, but blind people could see that. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants to be right now other than what he was in Florida as Governor. But not a lot of people know what kind of Governor he was. He might end up being a weaker frontrunner than Mitt Romney.

Marco Rubio, the younger Jeb Bush? He’s G.W. and Dick Cheney when it comes to foreign policy and national security. He hasn’t come out with much of an economic policy yet. On immigration, Senator Rubio, Governor Bush and Governor Kasich, are where the party needs to be to win back Latinos and probably Asians as well. But all three men are going to have to do better than that and offer a vision to win those groups back. But Kasich, is a little different. Blue-collar guy from Pennsylvania and Ohio. Nine-term U.S. Representative and two-term Governor of Ohio which is a swing state. One of the lead authors in Congress of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.

John Kasich, has real Washington experience and real experience outside of Washington. As well as private sector experience that he had after he left Congress in 2001. He’s not a fan of same-sex marriage, but wouldn’t do anything to stop it and has said he’s even been to a gay wedding. This all coming from a center-right Republican. Republicans, have to win Ohio back, as well as breakthrough the Democratic lock on Asians and Latinos. They also need to win back blue-collar voters regardless of race, or ethnicity. Kasich, might be the only Republican who can do that. And if I’m Hillary Clinton, or Jeb Bush, Kasich would be the person I would be most concern about.

The National Interest: Paul R. Pillar: Right & Wrong Lessons From the Iraq War

Source:Global Public Square-

Source:The New Democrat

I believe I know how Peter Beinart, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Kerry, feel about the 2003 Iraq War. See, I supported it to. I thought it would be a good opportunity to one, eliminate a brutal Middle Eastern dictator in Saddam Hussein. Perhaps one of the top three most evil dictators of the 20th Century. I at least would put him in the same bastard class as Joe Stalin and Adolph Hitler. And the idea of Saddam being allowed to continue to had weapons of mass destruction to be used against his own people, or use them against others, or perhaps sell them to terrorists, was unacceptable to me.

I wish I had the foresight of Dick Durbin. Who when was one of I believe twenty-two Senate Democrats who voted against the war. Sometimes it helps to be in Congress especially with a national security role and serving on one of those committees. And then maybe I would’ve seen the same lack of evidence that Saddam still even had WMD and a competent military, let alone a nuclear weapons program. Remember, the original justification for invading Iraq in 2002-03 and original being the key word here, is to prevent Saddam from obtaining nuclear weapons. Not to save a large country from a brutal dictator.

The lessons for Iraq, I think are pretty simple. Don’t invade a country unilaterally without a plan for the aftermath. What the country could look like in the short and long-terms after the regime is kicked out. Once you eliminate another country’s government, you then have the responsibility for governing that country until they can do that for themselves. That is what occupation is about.

If you’re going to invade another country simply to eliminate a brutal authoritarian regime and that country is not currently a threat to you, don’t do it unilaterally. Make the case the case to the country’s neighbors and your allies that the regime has to go, so we can save the people there from future murders and a genocide. Build a coalition to not only take out the regime, but to occupy the country in the short-term in the aftermath. Work with the opposition on the ground if you can and get their assistance.

The last lesson and I think might be the most important, other than believing the current evidence on the ground and not taking out the weapons inspectors before they’ve completed their work and this has more to do with the Iraq Civil War than anything else, is don’t try to fight for a country that won’t fight for themselves. One of the reasons why we’re still trying to assist Iraq twelve years after we knocked the Hussein Regime out of power, is because the Bush Administration set no deadlines. They said we would be there as long as we need to be. The new Iraq Government took that as forever and didn’t do their part to make sure that their country could be secure.

I know I said last lesson already, but I’ll close with this. And you can talk about hindsight all you want, but we had weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003. They were finding nothing and again I go back to the original justification point for the original reason to invade Iraq which was to eliminate their WMD and nuclear weapons program. But as the years went on the Bush Administration kept coming up for new reasons for invading Iraq.

And they finally settled on Saddam was evil and brutal and needed to go. If they took that to Congress even with a Republican House and a divided Senate, their Iraq War Resolution would’ve have never gotten approved. The American people wouldn’t have backed it. We know now that the original reason for invading Iraq that Congress and the country backed was never justified and backed up even at the time of the war.
Source:CBS News

The National Review: Amy Schumer & The Creepy Politically Correct Police

Source:National Review- Free Speech Advocate.

Source:The New Democrat

Cenk Uygur, from The Young Turks, who is about as far-left as someone on the New-Left can get in America, I believe had the best line in this video. When he said that political correctness makes actual racism and real racial issues look small and non-important. He used the boy who cried wolf analogy. Which is really what a lot of this is about. It is one thing to disagree with what someone said about this person, or this group, but it’s another to say that person is a racist, or what they said was racist. Especially when what they said is accurate and funny at the same time.

If someone, or a group of people, whoever the person is, or the group of people is, has an issue, or weakness and someone accurately points that out and does it in a humorous way, what does the target, or targets of the critique and satire have to complain about. All the comedian, or commentator is doing is making an accurate statement and doing it in a humorous way. Also if someone says something that isn’t true about a person, or group, are they bigot, or are they just wrong? I mean when people have problems with the truth and reality, that is when they need to either become alcoholics and escape reality on a regular basis, or improve themselves and work on their shortcomings.

If I say that a lot of Southern Anglo-Saxon Christian-Conservatives got stuck in a time machine and were taken out of the year 1952, when women stayed at home and served their men, gays were locked in the closet and African-Americans, were second class citizens and served as servants to Caucasians. And brought up to 2015 when all Americans were free and able to live their own lives and were no longer partying like it was 1952 and instead lived in the real world that is modern America, would that make me a racist, or anti-Christian, or would I just be stating a fact and using humor to do that? Well that statement is right and there’s humor there. So what do Anglo Christian-Conservatives have to complain about?

Now use that analogy about Saudi Arabia as a country. A very conservative Muslim country, to say the least, just as water is wet and the North Pole is cold. If I said that Saudi-Muslims were stuck in the 1500s and view women as property of men. Women , aren’t even allowed to show their faces and bodies in public, they are not even allowed to drive and I could go on, but it would be very depressing. Now if I say this, am I a racist for making fun of Middle Eastern people and am I anti-Muslim, for making a joke about Muslims, or am I simply just stating a fact? Well again what part of that statement to you disagree with. Of course that statement is accurate and even funny.

The whole political correctness movement and their political correctness warriors, sound like a bunch of con men and con women. They’re not political correctness warriors, but fascist bullshit artists. On Planet PC. You can make fun of Christians, especially if they’re Caucasian and Southern and rural. You can make all the accurate and inaccurate jokes about them that you want to, but if you say something that is funny and correct about non-Caucasian-Christians, even if you’re correct, they label you as a bigot. And try to get you shut down. You can make all the fat men jokes you want, unless that man happens to be a racial, or ethnic minority. But it you make a fat women joke, you’re a sexist. Unless that women is a right-winger.

Political correctness warriors, need to go back to The Valley, or San Francisco, or New York City and sit down and smoke a joint. Just don’t buy it from an undercover cop, unless you’re in Washington State, Colorado, or Maryland. And chill, as well as develop a sense of humor. And learn that Caucasians and Christians, aren’t the only people who can be made fun of in a liberal democracy of three-hundred and fifteen-million people with all the diversity and liberal free speech protections that we have. Funny accurate jokes, aren’t bigoted. But they’re funny and accurate regardless of the people who they’re targeted at.

PJ Media: Rand Simberg: 'The Far-Left Hijacks The Word Liberal to Serve Their Agenda'

Source:PJ Media.

Source:The New Democrat

I think the only thing that I would disagree with Rand Simberg in his piece other than the line about ‘murdering unborn babies’, is that liberalism is alive and well, but it is in the Democratic Party. Liberals, are center-left and by in large so are Democrats. But like with the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has a far flank, or fringe even. With the Republican Party, it is the Christian-Right and Far-Right in general. With the Democratic Party, it’s the New-Left and Far-Left in general. Socialist, I guess would be the easy way to describe the New-Left, but it goes even further than that.

Collectivists, people who believe in the collective, or communitarian and even social democrat, would be the best way to describe the Democratic New-Left in America. Collectivists, whether it is Socialists when it comes to economic policy, or nanny statists when to comes to social issues, see individual freedom even something as basic and fundamental as free speech, as dangerous in America. They see individual freedom as freedom to make mistakes that the collective meaning society as a whole has to pay for. This covers both economic policy with a huge welfare state and high taxes across the board. But also a nanny state to make sure people aren’t making bad decisions with their personal lives.

So again we’re not just talking about a massive welfare state and high taxes across the board and an over regulated private sector with what is left of the private sector after the New-Left is through, but personal freedom would become very limited in America if the New-Left were in charge. Forget about free speech if the political correctness warriors were ever in charge. Say goodbye to that, because that would be replaced with collective speech. With some central committee getting to decide what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate for individuals to say to each other. So people who don’t deserve to be criticized and offended from the New-Left perspective aren’t offended.

But we’re also talking about a nanny state as well with the New-Left. So imagine Mike Bloomberg being in charge of the Special Committee on Human Behavior, or whatever it might be called. Anything that the New-Left either sees as dangerous, or inappropriate would be outlawed. It started with alcohol in the 1930s, so perhaps we would go back to alcohol prohibition and perhaps add tobacco, sugar and salt to that as well. The New-Left wouldn’t end the War on Drugs. Just release all racial and ethnic minorities who are in jail and prison as a result of the War on Drugs. As well as expanding the War on Drugs to include sugar, salt, caffeine and tobacco. Gambling would become illegal, because its, well gambling with your own money. Actually money that New-Left lets you keep.

The New-Left , Far-Left really in America, always say how much America should be more like Europe. Well they could start with that by being honest and accurate with how they label their own politics. And leave the words liberal and progressive for people who actually live up to the values of liberalism and progressivism. Liberals, believe in liberation, liberalization and liberty. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. That we should have a limited government to see that everyone can achieve those things for themselves. Not a big government to run their lives for them.

Progressives, similar as Liberals, but compare Franklin Roosevelt with Jack Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson with Jack Kennedy, which is probably a better comparison. Progressives, believe in individual freedom as well, but would have a bigger more centralized government than Liberals. To run the safety net, to use as an example. But not big enough to try to manage people’s lives for them. The New-Left, whether you want to call then Socialist, Statist, or Collectivist, believe in big government. The only God they really have is Karl Marx. That individuals don’t exist and people are members of the collective and should move and act together, not individually. And there’s nothing liberal about that. Not progressive either, because it doesn’t create progress.

The National Interest: Scott MacDonald: 'This Is Not Your Parents' Caribbean'

Source:The National Interest- A look at Paradise.

Source:The New Democrat

"Change is coming from multiple directions, driven by a thawing of U.S.-Cuban relations, Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and the decline of Venezuela’s regional influence...."

From The National Interest

Source:Carib Nation TV- Talking about a Caribbean single market.

"The CARICOM Single Market and Economy is intended to benefit the people of the Region by providing more and better opportunities to produce and sell our goods and services and to attract investment. It will create one large market among the participating member states...

From Carib Nation TV

There are a lot of opportunities and challenges in the Caribbean especially with Cuba coming back from the dead so to speak with its economy and having restarted diplomatic relations with America again. And will become heavy trading partners that will benefit both economies. Cuba, the largest island nation in the Caribbean will see a lot of money coming into their country as a result. Cuba, very similar to Florida as far as its physical beauty climate and tourist attractions. And culturally South Florida is very similar to Cuba. But with a much better economy and infrastructure system.

With Cuba on the move again, that could hurt struggling little Caribbean states that are already struggling economically and could do even worst in the future with more money and people going to Cuba. Which is the challenge for Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominican, Haiti, Bahamas and others. But with challenges tend to come with opportunities. The whole Caribbean region is an area of forty-five-million people roughly. But with the biggest country being Cuba with a eleven-million people. The Dominican, has around ten-million people. Maybe its time that these countries get together and restructure their debts and deficits and do what Europe did back in the 1940s and 1950s.

To look at a Caribbean Union, or some type of West Indie Alliance where they become one economic market. That everyone would want to trade and invest with. Because one Indie market would be a lot bigger and wealthier than fifteen, or so mostly very small states like the Bahamas and Barbados. As well as having a joint defense alliance and foreign policy coordinator and even law enforcement alliance. Because Cuba, is coming back and will be even stronger economically than they were pre-Fidel Castro and the Marxist Revolution there. And Cuba could become part of this West Indie Alliance as well. Especially if their human rights record improves and perhaps even lead the Alliance.