This is out of New Zealand. What is believed an American company is selling financial investments without registering with New Zealand.

February 27, 2015
By Hamish Fletcher

...The company, (click here) Eco Investments Group, regularly advertises in New Zealand newspapers offering guarantees and high-return investments for small amount up front.
The FMA warns anyone dealing with them to exercise extreme caution before obtaining any financial services, or buying a financial products.
The company is not registered or licensed to offer financial services in this country.
Eco Investments Group operates two websites, one claims to be run out Lamont, California and the other in North Carolina.
One said returns are guaranteed in 14 days....

New Zealand, an ally to the USA, should not be having this type of problem with a USA company. There should be no problem with New Zealand approaching the USA government about their concerns and have a resolve to the issue. Why is New Zealand's interest in this reaching out to citizens because the New Zealand government cannot make a course correction with this company. This should be an automatic reason for New Zealand and the USA to have a conversation to protect an ally and it's people.

Don't hand me, "This is why we need TPP." This has nothing to do with TPP, this is about an ally and our best interest in having successful and productive relations with another country.  

I can't find a "Eco Investment Group" in California or North Carolina. It appears to be complete fraud, the question is from where in the world? I don't appreciate the USA being used as a method of fraud.

How many faux companies may be feeding money to militias in the world? 

I think the one week extension for the Department of Homeland Security is genius. 

I can't believe passing important laws is this difficult. This is a democracy. This stuff is suppose to be easy and straight forward. This is suppose to be one of the most invisible issues to politics. This is national security. This is suppose to be boring and mundane. How did this happen to this country? This is ridiculous. There is nothing radical about funding national security priorities. The Democrats don't even carry on about military funding like this.

What the heck is at the base of this? 

Minority Speaker Pelosi has remarkable resilience with all this. I don't know where we would be without her. She has a path forward for every emergency. "The Rock." Rep. Nancy "The Rock" Pelosi. 

What are these statements from Chuck Todd about "...now the Republicans are going to be stuck with full funding?" That is a bizarre statement. There is no doubt the USA has to fund national security. The problem with the Republicans is they are stuck on 'hate' regarding a resolve to immigration. 

The last thing the USA needs is more inflammatory statements about our national security. 

Stenography.

There is no reasoning through an issue with the press. These are two separate issues for the USA. The Senate is functioning better the House when it comes to immigration. The Senate passed a bill. At least it was a way forward for the country, but, the House is stuck in hate regarding immigration. Even children are a focus of hateful speech when it comes to immigration. There is no other word, hate. The press is allowing hate to exist in a political dialogue that is completely dysfunctional to the national security of the USA. 

The question before the country is about funding national security. The OTHER question before the country is how do we adequately address Immigration Reform. The immigration system in the USA is not broken, it is completely dysfunctional AND a threat to our country in regard to new members of our society that came here legally AND the international reputation of the USA when it comes to compassion and problem solving.

There are ways of solving the Undocumented issues, but, all the Republicans can see is THE FENCE on the southern border. The fence isn't going to be any more successful than a lack of the fence. The reason people are coming to our southern border is because the USA has been a really lousy neighbor to the north. Really lousy neighbor.

The USA should be assisting Mexico to STABILIZE their country. I can't believe the level of negligence of the USA to the problems of the Mexican people. They are living in hell everyday because of drugs and corruption. The USA has to resolve their problems and find a way to allow function to return to it's government. There are young people missing from their families because a mayor and his wife didn't LIKE THEM. And the USA is ignoring all of it. 

People from South American and Central America came to our southern border because they would die otherwise. These people were children. There is a lot wrong with the relationships the USA has with it's hemispheric neighbors. And the answer the USA press has is to use inflammatory language to our national security and the immigration problems that causes compromise to our country EVERY DAY. EVERY DAY.

Thank you Majority Leader McConnell for putting forward a bill that would pass. I wish the US House were functional, but, they are terrible. I don't think they care about the country at all. I hope Senator McConnell has a good weekend, thank you again. 

And thank you, Harry. You're the best.

I don't believe that was a snowball. Not that there wasn't snow in DC, but, it's not dripping. Senator Inhofe would have had an assistant walk outside and carry it through a warm building to the Senate floor.

I don't think it is a snowball. It more looks like an iceball that could have been formed in a freezer.

A frozen ball of water is not the same thing as a snowball. If the snowball were to be in his hand, given the dense water content of the snow, it would be melting quickly.

Why wouldn't Senator Inhofe want the iceball melting on the Senate floor?

CPAC?

Every Democrat with aspirations into the Presidency in 2016 or otherwise needs to listen closely to Senator Rand Paul. He has the attention of the young adults considering themselves Independents.

Governor Of New Jersey Chris Christi is absolutely correct. If the Republicans voting in their primaries actually want someone who will govern, he has a real shot at the nomination. If I were Christi, I would not count on it though. The RNC is mired in their own problems and they will never crawl out of it. Governor Christi needs to consider a run for the US House after his years as Governor. He needs to have a federal influence to provide him a stage and federal vote to carry his message.

Jeb Bush is an empty suit, no different than Romney. The RNC will nominate him because he is next in line, not the best qualified candidate. Romney carried 23% through most of the primary season for the nomination in 2012, Bush will be the same way.

For those that believe the USA needs a conversation to bring back American soldiers on the ground in the Middle East...

...I'd like to remind the war mongers we have been through all this before. The kidnappings, the beheadings and the dysfunctional Iraqi military units. We have been though this over and over and over again in the Middle East. There is absolutely no reason to repeat the same mistake.

 Pentagon Requests More Troops; Interview With Anna Quindlen (click here)

This is from the transcripts of CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown in April of 2004, more that a year after the "W"rongful invasion into Iraq. I'd like the media to remember the years of George Walker Bush was hell in this country and it was hell for more reason than the Iraq War. There were report cards that were spawned to bring the message that regardless of what the administration was saying they were lying. There were all kind of coping within the media itself in order to survive those horrible years.

Violence in Iraq Continues Despite Shakey Ceasefire (click here)

This was nearly ten years ago and I am confident if the press back in the day recalls their practice, it was oppressive and controlled and creative in order to get a message out to the American public and voter. 

It is the same old song. Enough already.

Aired April 12, 2004 - 22:00 ET
By CNN NEWSNIGHT with AARON BROWN

...In less than two weeks, (click here) American forces have taken more casualties than during any period since the invasion a year ago and things look almost as bad for thousands of contractors, American and otherwise, now the target of shadowy kidnappers, in all the makings of a dangerous and uncertain month and it is barely half begun.So, as it has so many times before, the program and the whip begin in Baghdad. CNN's Jim Clancy has the watch this morning. We'll join him shortly.We also are at the Pentagon where the concern is for thousands of American troops not coming home, as well as the shortcomings of their Iraqi counterparts. Jamie McIntyre has that angle on the story, Jamie the headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, with the failure of one Iraqi Army battalion to report for battle and the poor performance of other units, the Pentagon is moving to stiffen their resolve and, at the same time, bolster its own troop levels in Iraq too -- Anderson.

COOPER: Jamie, back to you shortly. More fireworks expected in the 9/11 hearings. CNN's David Ensor with a preview for us tonight and a headline -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the witnesses tomorrow will be the leadership, law enforcement leadership of the Bush administration and of the previous Clinton administration and they'll be some very tough questions about how the FBI failed to connect the dots before 9/11. The commission is also now trying to get another presidential daily brief made public. This one was a briefing to President Clinton back in 1998 -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, David, check back with you shortly, back with all of you.Also ahead on the program tonight the story of Thomas Hamill, an American contractor who went to Iraq to make ends meet back home and who is now a hostage of forces unknown....

This is interesting. Despite all the testing of missles and nuclar explosions it has no nuclear weapon capacity.

January 26, 2015
By Korea Herald

North Korea (click here) does not appear to have miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit on its ballistic missiles despite having advanced its technology to "a considerable level," Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday.
  
Officials and experts from South Korea and the United States have said the communist country is believed to have the technology to build nuclear-tipped missiles, though Pyongyang has yet to demonstrate the miniaturization capability.
  
"Despite its significant technology level, we don't think the North is capable of making such nuclear weapons," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said at a regular press briefing....

It also explains a few things as to why North Korea carries out muscle flexing and wrestling with power struggles in national waters and islands.

Touching on an analysis by U.S. expert Joel Wit that Pyongyang is currently believed to have 10-16 nuclear weapons -- six to eight of them based on plutonium and four to eight based on weapons-grade uranium, Kim said it is "simply a presumption without any evidence."...

Evidnetly, sanctions haven't meant much.

Panama stopped a North Korean ship in 2013 caught smuggling arms from Cuba and seized the cargo - like this Soviet-era SS-4 medium range nuclear capable ballistic missile - after a stand-off with the North Korean crew in which the captain tried to slit his own throat.

February 26, 2015
UNITED NATIONS — A North Korean (click here) shipping company that famously tried to hide fighter jets under a cargo of sugar later sought to evade U.N. sanctions by renaming most of its vessels, a new report says.
The effort by Pyongyang-headquartered Ocean Maritime Management Company, Ltd. is detailed in the report by a panel of experts that monitors sanctions on North Korea. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, makes clear the challenge of keeping banned arms and luxury goods from a nuclear-armed country with a history of using front companies to duck detection.
The U.N. Security Council holds consultations Thursday on the report, which also says North Korea's government persists with its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of council resolutions.
North Korea's mission to the U.N. did not respond to a request for comment....

All the elaborate scenarios are fiction. They are estimations and nothing more. There is no solid proof of the North Korean nuclear capacity. All this is only possible if North Korea has a perfect world scenario.

February 25, 2015
By Shannon Tiezzi

A new research project (click here) warns that North Korea’s nuclear stockpile could grow from roughly 10-16 nuclear weapons at the end of 2014 to 100 by the year 2020.The North Korea Nuclear Futures Project, a joint collaboration between the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and National Defense University, aims to predict possible futures for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs over the next five years...

...The project (click here) provided three scenarios for the growth of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs over the next five years. Under the “minimal growth, minimal modernization” scenario – a best care scenario for concerned observers – North Korea conducts no further nuclear or missile tests and its technology progresses slowly. Even under this scenario, North Korea is expected to roughly double its stockpile of available nuclear weapons, from 10 to 20....

The IAEA has assessed the potential of a working nuclear reactor, not the capacity of missiles.


VIENNA – The U.N. nuclear watchdog (click here) said it has seen releases of steam and water indicating that North Korea may be operating a reactor, in the latest update on a plant that experts say could make plutonium for atomic bombs.
North Korea announced in April of last year that it would revive its aged 5-megawatt research reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, saying it was seeking a deterrent capacity.

North Korea has no nukes. It has nuclear reactors that it is allowed to have on the non-proliferation treaty. This is from the Japan Times which has an interest in the truth about such capacity.

The isolated and poverty-stricken state defends its nuclear program as a “treasured sword” to counter what it sees as U.S.-led hostility....