America's prosperity depends on the strength of it's people and local economies.

Any leader needs to realize the local, small business economies recovered from the 2008 economic collapse far faster after losing less from that same Great Recession. Presidents need to understand where the USA's strengths are and it is DOCUMENTED, the American people can recover their own economy. It is high time DC realize it and build on it rather than selling legislative power to Wall Street. No more stupidity. End of discussion.

It was an interesting convention. The speech by Donald Trump is no different than anything he has said before. It is a populous message and I questions his facts in many instances.

The issue is Congress. He is not automatically going to receive help with his agenda by Congress. Has he received support from the US House and Senate? 

I am fairly sure when he cuts spending and cuts taxes the USA will experience a recession. He might want to consult with someone about that. Brownback's Kansas did exactly that.

June 17, 2016
By Jim Tankersley and Max Ehrenfround
In 2012, (click here) voters in California approved a measure to raise taxes on millionaires, bringing their top state income tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. Conservative economists predicted calamity, or at least a big slowdown in growth. Also that year, the governor of Kansas signed a series of changes to the state's tax code, including reducing income and sales tax rates. Conservative economists predicted a boom.
Neither of those predictions came true. Not right away -- California grew just fine in the year the tax hikes took effect -- and especially not in the medium term, as new economic data showed this week.
Now, correlation does not, as they say, equal causation, and two examples are but a small sample. But the divergent experiences of California and Kansas run counter to a popular view, particularly among conservative economists, that tax cuts tend to supercharge growth and tax increases chill it.
California's economy grew by 4.1 percent in 2015, according to new numbersfrom the Bureau of Economic Analysis, tying it with Oregon for the fastest state growth of the year. That was up from 3.1 percent growth for the Golden State in 2014, which was near the top of the national pack.
The Kansas economy, on the other hand, grew 0.2 percent in 2015. That's down from 1.2 percent in 2014, and below neighboring states such as Nebraska (2.1 percent) and Missouri (1.2 percent). Kansas ended the year with two consecutive quarters of negative growth -- a shrinking economy. By a common definition of the term, the state entered 2016 in recession....

The verdict is in on "Trickle Down Economics." It doesn't work. 

Nice event and the family was great, but, the policies ?????? not so much.

Good night

We need to push alternative energy sources at a quicker pace.

The energy of the USA comes from many sources, but, the distribution of those sources are changing. We need to change at a faster rate.

When viewing this net generation chart of trends, the demand is consistent, but, from 2000 to 2016, carbon based fuels are reducing with the exception of natural gas while the alternative energy generation is increasing.

Ted Cruz does not want Donald Trump to win the presidency. It has nothing to do with any reason except because it could mean tying up the office for eight years. Eight years of Donald Trump will eliminate the Republican establishment and the Ted Cruz brand.

Debriefing.

To record carnage only leads to a single path, where the attack could have been better and what the country/city does to record the crime. Not only that, how many people are on the scene that can be attacked the day after.

Dae'sh has a couple of hallmarks including doing the unthinkable. How secure was the crime scene while professionals assessed the crime scene?

I thought Bouhlel was not connected to Dae'sh. If that is the case then what is going on in Nice?

July 21, 2016

Tunisian truck killer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel (click here) was helped to prepare his Bastille Day attack by five suspects who are now in custody, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Francois Molins said the four men and a women were "involved in the preparation" of the attack in the French Riviera resort of Nice, which had been planned months in advance.
More than 400 investigators have been poring over evidence since the July 14 attack in which Bouhlel rammed a truck into crowds on the Nice promenade, leaving 84 dead and over 300 injured.
"Investigations have not only confirmed the premeditated nature of the attack, but allowed us to establish that (Bouhlel) had support and accomplices in the preparation and execution of his criminal act," he said.
In one chilling turn of events, Molins said that one of the suspects, a Tunisian named Mohamed Oualid G., had filmed the scene of the crime the day after the carnage, as it crawled with paramedics and journalists.

Amazing. This is the second time Harold Hamm is bieing guaranteed a cabinet position.

Mitt Romney used Harold Hamm as an advisor with a promise to bring him on as Energy Secretary.

It was after Hamm went into politics that his wife divorced him and took her part of the oil empire with her.

July 21, 2016
By Michelle Conlin 

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (click here) is considering nominating Oklahoma oil and gas mogul Harold Hamm as energy secretary if elected to the White House on Nov. 8, according to four sources close to Trump's campaign.

The chief executive of Continental Resources (CLR.N) would be the first U.S. energy secretary drawn directly from the oil and gas industry since the cabinet position was created in 1977, a move that would jolt environmental advocates but bolster Trump's pro-drilling energy platform.

Dan Eberhart, an oil investor and Republican financier, said he had been told by officials in Trump's campaign that Hamm, who has been an informal advisor to Trump on energy policy since at least May, was "the leading contender" for the position...

Pence said, "...the police are being tested..."

What does that mean?

What kind of test are the police going under according to Pence?

I haven't noticed any testing, right?

It is spiritual testing. It is sovereign testing. It is testing that can be engineered by any Republican focus. Are we headed for another Kent State? I thought that already passed.

I do not approve the "Good cop, bad cop" introduction, but, it is out there.

Twitter is taking on socially acceptable dialogue (click here).

July 20, 2016
By Yoree Koh

Twitter Inc. (click here) has taken the bold step of permanently banning conservative blogger Milo Yiannopoulos under its abusive-content policy, fueling a fierce debate about freedom of speech in the social-media age.

The company’s suspension of Mr. Yiannopoulos, tech editor of conservative site Breitbart, came after he sparred with actress Leslie Jones on Twitter this week while users deluged her account with racist comments and hateful memes related to her new movie, “Ghostbusters."

Among his tweets about Ms. Jones, Mr. Yiannopoulos, who on Monday wrote a negative review of “Ghostbusters,” tweeted that the actress was “barely literate.”...

Twitter has a social responsibility. If they are linked to attacks of any kind that physically causes injury or death; its executives can be arrested and prosecutioned at The Hague. 

In this video, the police are out of control. There was absolutely no danger to police officers. The two human beings surrendering to police were as unarmed as it comes. What were they thinking? Suicide bombers? That could have been cleared up easily with a call to the assisted living facility. Police sometimes solicit family in potential suicides and/or stand offs with people with guns or otherwise, there was no reason for the THREE gun shots. One of the three bullets landed in an unarmed and innocent caregiver, where did the other two go?

This is not a TEST! It is gross malpractice of police that engaged unarmed people. The police should have been assisting both men after a quick call to the assisted living facility.

If there was a spiritual test it belonged to the two men in the road under police oppression.

There is more than one reason the USA is on China and Russia's radar.

Here is the bottom line.

"The Friendship Agreement" between Russia and China was struck July 2001. It was before September 11, 2001 of which Russia was the first country in Afghanistan to support our troops with a medical unit.

July 16, 2001
By Patrick E. Tyler

Russia and China signed a treaty of ''friendship and cooperation'' today, (click here) binding the two giants closer in the next 20 years and also committing them to oppose jointly much of the framework for international security that the United States is seeking to erect after the cold war.

Composed of 25 articles, the treaty joins Russia and China formally in opposing the United States' missile plans and places Russia more firmly behind China's claim of sovereignty over the island of Taiwan. It also strengthens military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow while rejecting the intervention that NATO undertook in 1999 in the Balkans to stop the killing of civilians.

The accord, sought by China, was concluded in a Kremlin ceremony with effusive gestures of camaraderie. The treaty bears the markings of a strategic pact that sets forth the deep concerns shared by Moscow and Beijing about a new world order dominated by the United States and its European allies. The agreement will quite likely be the center of discussion this week when President Bush and the leaders of the large industrial countries sit down with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a summit meeting in Italy.

One Russian commentator here described the treaty as ''an act of friendship against America.''...

A Bush had been elected with Cheney as Vice President and the USA overnight became a threat.

The Friendship Agreement probably existed before July of 2001 in some dark room in the Kremlin where documents are kept for emergency circumstances, but, it was signed after the USA elected the most aggressively stupid duo in it's history. It was an emergency for the powers in Asia.

Today, with war mongering heard in every corner of the Republican convention the tensions are being ramped up in Asia for a confrontation to end all confrontations. China and Russia are tired of the American landscape and are prepared to do the unthinkable. The lack of Chinese presence at The Hague is an obvious message no one can ignore.

Russia and China want peace, but, on their terms only. The word is expansionism. So, the major powers are backed into a powder keg and I believe this is the end of hatred between the five nuclear countries. That is UNLESS the next USA administration throws away eight years of a peace initiative that is finally seeing the entire global community unite against 'an idea'; the common enemy. No other force could bring about a world determined to end a regime that is globally genocidal.

President Obama has brought together the greatest coalition of countries to settle on peace to end hatred between ethnicities. Ending systemic problems with rebels will end war and bring about an understanding of cultural differences enforced by a global resolve for peace.

President Obama also harnessed willingness within this global alliance to end the climate crisis and protect citizen's lives. 

That said, China and Russia are locked into viewing their sovereignty through a common enemy's ability to wage war, the USA. With the USA and NATO strong allies, there enters the idea peace is war in a different form. Peace is war against the old paradigm of global security. Peace is a war that is worthy of it's purpose and should be successful at every front. Europe is more than an ally, it is the linchpin that can reassure peace and how that will result in borders with Russia. If Russia can step away from the war of expansionism, it can bring about peace for it's people and a return to a far better Russian economy. 

Russia is in isolationism to maintain it's sovereignty. Economics is the new war and it needs to end with better quality of life for all people. 

Who needs Russia when you've got Trump. He cannot be serious about pursuing a 'pay your own bill strategy."

The NATO alliance is vital to American national security. There is no way entertaining dissolving NATO can serve the USA.

I find the statements by Donald Trump curious, because, I don't believe there is any constituency that would vote for the idea of dissolving NATO. I don't get it.

If money is the focus for alliance with a country there was some of that nonsense within "infortainment' media. That was within the past political year. But, that was more or less experimenting with the potential of picking up voters that were not yet known to the Republican Party. There simply isn't any American that sees NATO without the USA a good idea.

I don't believe there is momentum from Brexit that will dissolve NATO. NATO is very different than the EU.

A USA 'pay as you go strategy' as foreign policy is counter to readiness. There is nothing wrong with a discussion with NATO about sharing costs, but, that is an ongoing discussion that is fluid depending on the impact of any recession in Europe. NATO helps stabilize the economy in Europe, of that I am very sure.

NATO is a peace initiative. I realize the Ukraine opened up confrontation with Russia, but, that threat was eliminated with Minske II.

Approaching its one-year anniversary date,9click here) the February 2015 Minsk II settlement agreement to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass is not faring well. All of its provisions were to have been implemented by Dec. 31, 2015. Few were. Still, Minsk II remains the only settlement arrangement on offer, and it continues to command at least rhetorical support in Kiev and Moscow. For the foreseeable future, however, it appears that Donbass is destined to occupy a place on the list of frozen (or not-so-frozen) conflicts that dot the post-Soviet space....

Russia has become isolated. President Putin has lead self-containment as a national security strategy and he is correct. Russia has been moving into a nationalism since 2012 or so. Building nationalism began when the Olympics became a priority in Russia. That nationalism movement is mostly responsible for the current difficulties by Russia with the Olympic Committee about Rio 2016.

July 21, 2016

The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) (click here) and 68 Russian athletes attempted to overturn the suspension, implemented by the body that governs world athletics.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) has ruled it can stand.
A handful of Russian athletes could still compete as neutrals at the Rio Games, which start on 5 August.
"It's sad but rules are rules," said Olympic 100m and 200m champion Usain Bolt, who is targeting more gold medals in Rio.
He said it was important to send a strong message to the dopers.
"Doping violations in track and field is getting really bad," said the Jamaican, 29. "If you cheat or go or against the rules, this will scare a lot of people."
However, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva - one of the 68 to appeal to Cas - said the ruling was "a blatant political order"....

But, Russia is isolated because of the financial sanctions placed after there was a violation of the Ukraine agreement that removed nuclear weapons from the Post-Soviet country. President Putin was correct in assessing that Russia needs self-containment in order to survive. There is also the implementation of the Russia Economic Alliance.

Part of what is playing out in the Pacific is a debate between Russia and China, their friendship agreement and the potential of the West as a threat. One has to realize the 'powder keg' that exists with the USA, Russia and China. Really silly stuff is going on such as China relying on it's muscle rather than it's diplomacy and legal prowess at The Hague regarding it's borders. To think for one minute at this delegate time in history NATO has to 'pay as they go' is not even close to 'doable' policy for the USA. 

I agree that sincere peace does not require huge stationing of weapons or alliances, but, we aren't there yet. I think we can be getting close to a point whereby Russia and China realizes there is no war to be fought for sovereign borders, but, more a healing of 'old ghosts' of international tensions.

July 27. 2016
By Cassandra Vinograd

London — Donald Trump set off alarm bells in European (click here) capitals Thursday after suggesting he might not honor the core tenet of the NATO military alliance.

Trump said the U.S. would not necessarily defend new NATO members in the Baltics in the event of Russian attack if he were elected to the White House.

He told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that doing so would depend on whether those countries had "fulfilled their obligations to us" in terms of their financial contributions to the alliance.

"You can't forget the bills," Trump told the paper. "They have an obligation to make payments. Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what they're supposed to make. That's a big thing. You can't say forget that."

The comments were perceived by some analysts as carte blanche for Russia to intimidate NATO allies and a potential harbinger of the alliance's collapse were Trump to be elected....