Friday, February 27, 2009

THE YEAR OF DESTRUCTION - THE TOWER OF BABEL SCENARIO

CHARTER ARMS REVOLVER
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LEVITICUS CHAPTER 26

יז וְנָתַתִּי פָנַי בָּכֶם, וְנִגַּפְתֶּם לִפְנֵי אֹיְבֵיכֶם; וְרָדוּ בָכֶם שֹׂנְאֵיכֶם, וְנַסְתֶּם וְאֵין-רֹדֵף אֶתְכֶם. 17 And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be smitten before your enemies; they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
יח וְאִם-עַד-אֵלֶּה--לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּ, לִי: וְיָסַפְתִּי לְיַסְּרָה אֶתְכֶם, שֶׁבַע עַל-חַטֹּאתֵיכֶם. 18 And if ye will not yet for these things hearken unto Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
יט וְשָׁבַרְתִּי, אֶת-גְּאוֹן עֻזְּכֶם; וְנָתַתִּי אֶת-שְׁמֵיכֶם כַּבַּרְזֶל, וְאֶת-אַרְצְכֶם כַּנְּחֻשָׁה. 19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass.
כ וְתַם לָרִיק, כֹּחֲכֶם; וְלֹא-תִתֵּן אַרְצְכֶם, אֶת-יְבוּלָהּ, וְעֵץ הָאָרֶץ, לֹא יִתֵּן פִּרְיוֹ. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her produce, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
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UPDATED SUNDAY - MARCH 1, 2009
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YOU HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT LOCK STOCK AND BARREL:

February 26, 2009

FEDS GRANT EMINENT DOMAIN AS COLLATERAL TO CHINA FOR U.S. DEBTS!

Beijing, China -- Sources at the United States Embassy in Beijing China have just CONFIRMED to me that the United States of America has tendered to China a written agreement which grants to the People's Republic of China, an option to exercise Eminent Domain within the USA, as collateral for China's continued purchase of US Treasury Notes and existing US Currency reserves!

The written agreement was brought to Beijing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was formalized and agreed-to during her recent trip to China.

This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take -- inside the USA -- land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities - to satisfy the financial obligations of the US government.

Put simply, the feds have now actually mortgaged the physical land and property of all citizens and businesses in the United States. They have given to a foreign power, their Constitutional power to "take" all of our property, as actual collateral for continued Chinese funding of US deficit spending and the continued carrying of US national debt.

This is an unimaginable betrayal of every man, woman and child in the USA. An outrage worthy of violent overthrow.

I am endeavoring to obtain images or copies of the actual document but in the interim, several different sources both in the US and in China have CONFIRMED this to me.

More details as they become available. . . . . spread the word ASAP.


Nahum Chapter 1

א מַשָּׂא, נִינְוֵה--סֵפֶר חֲזוֹן נַחוּם, הָאֶלְקֹשִׁי. 1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
ב אֵל קַנּוֹא וְנֹקֵם יְהוָה, נֹקֵם יְהוָה וּבַעַל חֵמָה; נֹקֵם יְהוָה לְצָרָיו, וְנוֹטֵר הוּא לְאֹיְבָיו. 2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God, the LORD avengeth and is full of wrath; the LORD taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies.

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MARLIN PAPOOSE SURVIVAL RIFLE



CHARLTON HESTON - "FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS"



MICHAEL SCHEUER - CIA - SHOCKING



PELOSI INVESTIGATION OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION



Ritz Camera seeks bankruptcy protection





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My Muslim President Obama

Asma Gull Hasan, 02.25.09, 12:00 AM EST

Why members of the Islamic faith see him as one of the flock.


I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.

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HERE IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR:

Obama sees 'tougher times' for African-Americans
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Hamas missile upsurge erodes Israeli deterrence, dashes ceasefire hopes

DEBKAfile Special Report

March 1, 2009, 12:21 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran supplies Hamas with extra-heavy Grad rockets

Iran supplies Hamas with extra-heavy Grad rockets

Ten Palestinian missiles struck Israel from the Gaza Strip Saturday, Feb. 28, including two heavyweight Grads aimed at Ashkelon. The number since Israel halted Operation Cast Lead Jan. 18 has risen to seventy.

DEBKAfile's military sources directly correlate the upsurge of Palestinian rockets attacks on Israel and the setbacks in securing the release of the captive Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit with defense minister Ehud Barak's dogged insistence on the imminence of an Egyptian-brokered long-term ceasefire.

The figures are irrefutable, the ceasefire is receding and the message from Cairo is plain. The Egyptians say the rockets will keep on coming and the Israeli soldier stay missing until the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah reach an accord on sharing power, which is Cairo's top priority.

Israel is not offered any say in this process; neither is Hamas required to abandon violence or its ruling ambition to destroy Israel. But the Palestinian Islamists' conditions for a deal are largely addressed to… Israel. Hence the pressure-by-missile.

Cairo optimistically forecasts a "successful" outcome later this month; other Arab sources mention April-May. But Barack and his envoy to Cairo Amos Gilead seem to have no qualms about Cairo's linkage of Palestinian missile fire and a Palestinian unity accord, although this makes Ashkelon hostage to a Palestinian factional reconciliation. And what happens if the Palestinian deal falls through, as it has before?

For more than a month, therefore, Israeli retaliation for the missile attacks has been muted, restricted to the harmless aerial bombardment of empty buildings and smuggling tunnels in Gaza.

This tactic contradicts the promises Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Livni made that Israel would respond instantaneously and effectively to Palestinian aggression from Gaza, if the military operation of January failed to bring the promised "new security reality" to southern Israel.

Sensing this weakness in Israel's stance, Hamas which has quickly recovered from its hammering at Israel's hands is moving forward on three fronts:

1. An upsurge in missile attacks: Saturday, two newly upgraded 170mm Grad missiles were launched against Ashkelon. One went through the fortified roof of a schoolroom where no lessons were held because of the Sabbath.

This attack on an important Israeli port-city made nonsense of the defense minister's claim that Israel's deterrence capacity was in place.

2. Iran is smuggling larger quantities of weapons to Hamas via Sinai than during the days prior to Operation Cast Lead: 50 improved Grad rockets, different types of anti-air missiles and tons of explosives were delivered in the last two weeks.

That takes care of another solemn promise (delivered by Amos Gilead) that, if Israel agreed to a Cairo-brokered unilateral ceasefire last month, Egypt would reciprocate with strenuous action to stem the smuggling of arms to Hamas through its territory.

Our sources add that Tehran, which took that promise seriously, had planned alternative, more expensive and roundabout smuggling routes. Now Iran sees it can save itself the trouble and go back to shipping arms via Sinai to Gaza relatively undisturbed.

3. Hamas is digging its heel in harder than ever before on the release of Gilead Shalit. This tramples yet another of Barak's assurances, this one endorsed by the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert, that the military offensive would bring his freedom closer. Hamas has made it clear that the price for his release is up and still rising.

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The financial crisis is quickly turning into a political crisis. Already governments in Iceland and Latvia have collapsed and the global slump is just beginning to accelerate. Riots and street violence have broken out in Greece, Latvia and Lithuania, and worker-led protests have become commonplace throughout Europe. As unemployment skyrockets and economic activity stalls, countries are likely to experience greater social instability. How does one take deep-seated discontent and rage and shape it into a political movement for structural change?

WHY WOULD THIS MAN MAKE THIS VIDEO - YOU DECIDE - INSANITY RULES



REP. RON PAUL - TEXAS


PETER SCHIFF PREDICTIONS



between the lines Joseph Farah

'Living within our means'

Posted: February 28, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

Did he really say that?

I heard it with my own ears, but I had to see it with my own eyes before I believed it.

I don't know how it played in Peoria, but when Barack Obama delivered a speech there more than a week ago, this is what he said:

"We've gotta spend some money now to pull us out of this recession. But as soon as we're out of this recession we've gotta get serious about living within our means instead of leaving debt for our children and grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. That's not the responsible way. That's not how folks here in Peoria operate in their own lives, and they should expect the government is equally responsible."

Well, maybe I don't understand. A few questions come to mind:

  • If spending money you don't have is a good thing in times of economic crisis, why is it a bad thing in good times?

  • If Obama acknowledges what we all know to be the truth, that his economic gimmicky is simply making our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren responsible for our problems, why is he doing it? How is that moral?

  • If it's not responsible, does that make him irresponsible?

  • Why doesn't he explain how increased debt to build Frisbee golf courses and more funding for the street agitators in ACORN is going to help turn around the economy?

  • And lastly, how do you like being preached to about fiscal responsibility by a man who wants you to bail out homeowners who are not making their mortgage payments?

The debt created by our federal government now exceeds the gross domestic product of the entire world. That literally means there isn't enough money in the world to pay back what Washington has borrowed. How does a country extricate itself from that dilemma? You can't print money fast enough to keep up with the rising debt.

We won't be able to pay even the interest on the debt we're creating under Obama's plan for several generations.

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DR. ALAN KEYES


Jobless Angry at Possibility of No Benefits

Harry Cabluck/Associated Press

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has said he may decline some federal stimulus money rather than change state policy on benefits.



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Adapting to water woes

Fri, Feb 27, 2009 (2 a.m.)

The southwestern United States is moving headlong toward an environmental catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions.

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Sources: Obama cuts funds for Nevada nuclear dump

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Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license?
Homeland Security seeks next-generation REAL ID

Posted: February 28, 2009
12:25 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


Washington state's enhanced driver's license

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.

The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."

"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.

Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical "mark of the beast," civil libertarians opposed it for its "big brother" connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.

"We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious," she said.

Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.

The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.

But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.

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Warning issued over 'spirit of adulation' of president
Archbishop: 'In democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs'

Posted: February 28, 2009
12:25 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


One of the prominent and rising archbishops in the Catholic Church is warning against a "spirit of adulation" towards President Obama, who was portrayed repeatedly during his campaign with messianic images.

WND reported during the campaign on a website called Obamamessiah which still holds images portraying the president in a "transfiguration" pose, with various haloes around his head, and the cover of a book, "Barack Obama, Son of Promise, Child of Hope."

But in a message at St. Basil's Church in Toronto recently, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput warned against following blindly.

"President Obama is a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts. He has a great ability to inspire. … But whatever his strengths, there's no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change," Chaput said.

"Of course, that can change. Some things really do change when a person reaches the White House. Power ennobles some men. It diminishes others. Bad policy ideas can be improved. Good policy ideas can find a way to flourish. But as Catholics, we at least need to be honest with ourselves and each other about the political facts we start with," he said.

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HERE IS THE CHANGE YOU VOTED FOR:



Obama's "Hollywood diplomacy" launches dialogue with Tehran

February 28, 2009, 10:05 AM (GMT+02:00)

Annete Bening brings a smile from Obama to the ayatollahs

Annete Bening brings a smile from Obama to the ayatollahs

Thirty-eight years ago, a ping pong team sent by US president Richard Nixon to Beijing opened the door to Communist China. February 27, 2009, president Barack Obama launched his bid for dialogue with Iran with an Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences delegation from Hollywood. It is led by the actress Annette Bening, AMPAS president Sid Ganis and his predecessor Frank Pierson who flew in just after the Oscar award ceremony. Visiting in the framework of "US-Iranian culture exchanges," they will hold talks in Tehran Saturday and Sunday.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources note that this visit coincides with three relevant events:

1. Friday, Obama announce that the bulk of US forces will be out of Iraq by Aug. 2010 leaving only 50,000 in place. This meets Tehran's objections to the presence of large-scale US forces in Iraq.

2. He calmed Iran's fears on another score when he stated in a PBS interview: "One of the things that I think we have to communicate in Afghanistan is that we have no interest or aspiration to be there over the long term."

3. The US president had his reply from Tehran in the former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rasanjani's Friday sermon, when he extended his government's first overt invitation for talks on the nuclear issue: "…we don't make false promises," said the Iranian strongman. "Therefore I declare that Iran's nuclear plan is not to build weapons …and we are ready to prove it in negotiations."

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Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

Previous Ban Expired in 2004 During the Bush Administration





DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 21 - VERSE 22

כב וְכִי-יִהְיֶה בְאִישׁ, חֵטְא מִשְׁפַּט-מָוֶת--וְהוּמָת: וְתָלִיתָ אֹתוֹ, עַל-עֵץ. 22 And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree;
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GLENN BECK


AMERICAN MILITIA - PUBLIC VIDEO


02/27/2009 15:5502/27/2009 15:5502/27/2009 15:55

'We won't be part of gov't'
Kadima Chairwoman Livni ends meeting with Prime Minister-designate Netanyahu after Likud leader refuses to commit to two-state solution. 'This is a matter of principle,' Livni says, vowing to act as 'a responsible opposition'
Full Story . . .
Netanyahu and Livni meet in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yaron Brener)

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The next big financial meltdown?

The mortgage and credit sickness that brought banks and brokers to their knees has now infected the companies that insure our lives and protect our families.

By Michael Brush
MSN Money

The life insurance companies that millions of Americans entrust to help protect their families or pay the bills in their golden years are caught in a downward spiral eerily similar to the one that has brought down banks and brokers.

Like Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. (LEHMQ, news, msgs), life insurers Hartford Financial Services (HIG, news, msgs), Principal Financial Group (PFG, news, msgs), Lincoln National (LNC, news, msgs) and many others all have significant exposure to mortgage-backed securities and other risky debt instruments.

They're reporting huge losses that -- if they continued -- could trigger a meltdown.

That could wipe out shareholders, who already have suffered declines of 20% to 40% in the past week alone. Customers with annuities or insurance policies might have to turn to state insurance backstop funds and settle for only a portion of the money they were expecting.

Health, auto and property insurers are better off. But based on how far life insurance stocks have fallen, investors are worried many won't survive at all.

What are the chances this doomsday scenario will play out?

"To know that, you have to gauge how bad this market will get over the next six months, which none of us know," responds Jim Ryan, an analyst with Morningstar (MORN, news, msgs). It all comes down to how much worse things could get for the economy and for the debt instruments and stocks that life insurance companies hold.

"We're telling people to be more careful, particularly if you are going into longer-range products that involve significant upfront funding like annuities," says Bob Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America. "You want to make sure that the company is actually around when you want to get the money out. I'd say there's a good likelihood some of them will go under."

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Hal Lindsey Hal Lindsey

The Pakistani time bomb

Posted: February 27, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

So far, the United States has given the government of Pakistan more than $12.3 billion in military and economic aid. Vice President Joe Biden proposed last summer that we throw another $7.5 billion in non-military aid Pakistan's way over the next five years.

But that isn't enough to keep Pakistan from failing as a state, says the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council describes itself at its website as "promot[ing] constructive U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic community in meeting the international challenges of the 21st century."

The Council is chaired by former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is honorary chairman.

The Council's report says that "we (presumably America) are running out of time to help Pakistan change its present course toward increasing economic and political instability, and even ultimate failure."

The Council is concerned that Pakistan is unable to curtail al-Qaida, which operates openly in many parts of Pakistan, and the Taliban, which recently took over Swat, a region the size of Delaware. About 3,000 Taliban managed to fight off 12,000 Pakistani troops, forcing Islamabad into a truce.

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OBAMA




REP. RON PAUL - TEXAS




TO DO LIST
BUY AMMO NOW
BUY MORE AMMO TOMORROW
BUY RELOADING EQUIPMENT NOW
BUY PARTS AND SPRINGS NOW
BUY SPARE MAGAZINES NOW
BUY MILITEC LUBRICANT NOW
BUY CLEANING SUPPLIES NOW
BUY FOOD FOR STORAGE NOW
BUY KATADYNE WATER FILTERS NOW
USE YOUR STIMULUS MONEY FOR YOUR SUPPLIES NOW

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Major General says president's eligibility needs proof 'Most important, what I really want is the truth'

Posted: February 26, 2009
11:40 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


Retired Maj. Gen. Carroll Childers

On the heels of two active duty members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq calling for President Obama to prove his eligibility to be president, a retired major general has agreed to join the case, saying he just wants "the truth."

WND reported earlier when 1st Lt. Scott Easterling confirmed to California attorney

Orly Taitz that he wanted to be a plaintiff in the legal action she is preparing on behalf of members of the U.S. military, both active and retired. A second soldier who asked that his name be withheld for now became part of the action just a day later.

Now retired Maj. Gen. Carroll D. Childers has submitted a statement to Taitz and her DefendOurFreedoms.us website, agreeing to be a plaintiff in her pending action.

"I agree to be a plaintiff in the legal action to be filed by Orly Taitz, Esq. in a petition for a declaratory judgement (sic) that Barack Hussein Obama is not qualified to be president of the U.S., nor to be commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, in that I am or was a sworn member of the U.S. military (subject to recall)," he wrote.

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America Is in Trouble

February 27, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com
As the economic crisis worsens at home, dangerous forces are gathering strength abroad.

Over the last two generations, the United States of America has gone from being the world’s greatest creditor nation to its biggest debtor. During that time, Americans have been led to believe that oppressive debt is a way of life, rather than a grave danger. Borrowing money, in fact, is now universally accepted as being a miracle cure, rather than a debilitating cause, of economic hardship.

Take the new federal budget, for example. President Obama’s massive $3.55 trillion spending plan is so large that the projected deficit, $1.75 trillion, is nearly as much as the entire budget President Clinton submitted to Congress in the final year of his administration—which was at the peak of the dot-com boom. Based on that simple comparison alone, one would never guess that America is currently facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

How could it be that bad when we have a budget twice the size of the one President Clinton proposed just nine years ago? That’s how delusional our addiction to debt has made us.

Teetering on the brink of economic ruin? No problem! Just triple the deficit. Problem solved.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks the “recession” will be over by the end of this year. President Obama confidently adds, “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

This is pure fantasy.

The president introduced his spending proposal yesterday by saying, “Throughout America’s history, there have been some years that appeared to roll into the next without much notice or fanfare.” Then, he continued (emphasis mine throughout),

there are years that come along once in a generation, when we look at where the country has been and recognize that we need a break from a troubled past, that the problems we face demand that we begin a new path. This is one of those years.

Indeed—the day of reckoning has arrived. But why are there so few who understand that by massively increasing expenditures, we are only digging ourselves a much deeper hole than we are already in?

In his weekly radio address last week, President Obama, presumably with a straight face, said his budget was “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting,” and that it would restore “fiscal discipline.” Yet, far from signaling a new era of responsibility, as the cover page of the new budget proposal preposterously claims, the economic plan follows the same old path of President Obama’s predecessors—ever expanding government, unprecedented levels of spending and astronomical debt.

President Obama told Congress on Tuesday night that the “lifeblood” of our economy is the flow of credit. Accumulating debt is now seen as the lifeblood of America’s economy. “The ability to get a loan,” he said, “is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.”

Yes—and it’s also how a massively bloated government continues spending way beyond its means. If approved by Congress, FoxNews.com reported yesterday, the president’s budget proposal will increase the government’s already unfathomable burden of debt by 63 percent in the next two years. And as long as the flow of credit continues, Washington will go right on borrowing to pay for its binge-spending habits.

But what happens once the flow of credit runs dry? Well, look at what’s happened to many households and businesses in the private sector since September.

Washington’s debt bomb is set to explode.

Trouble Abroad

Those who insist that America’s power and influence is not in rapid decline often argue that we’re in a global recession and that other nations are hurting just as much as the United States—if not more so. But as Paul Kennedy pointed out in a recent opinion piece, the taller you stand, the further you fall. “So while today’s Russia, China, Latin America, Japan and the Middle East may be suffering setbacks, the biggest loser is understood to be Uncle Sam,” Kennedy wrote.

And as America desperately sells record amounts of debt in hopes of borrowing its way out of bankruptcy, its enemies are hard at work testing the mettle of the new administration, just as Joe Biden predicted while campaigning for Barack Obama last year.

The Iranian regime, for example, has tested the new president by “preemptively scorning his overtures, mocking his weakness, and assuring the world its nuclear program is nonnegotiable,” William Kristol recently wrote.

Russia too has seized its opportunity to “test the mettle” of Obama. Earlier this month, Kyrgyzstan, under pressure from Moscow, told the U.S. it would no longer be allowed to use an air base that coalition forces had relied on for the Afghanistan operation.

Then there is North Korea. Having scrapped all its agreements with South Korea, Kristol wrote, it is “preparing to test a new ballistic missile, the Taepodong-2, which is intended to eventually have a long enough range to hit U.S. territory.”

And it’s not just America’s sworn enemies that are testing the new president’s mettle, as Charles Krauthammer noted in his column last week:

With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a “kick me” sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital.

Some may consider these to be minor tests. But they portend much more difficult challenges ahead, which is why, Kristol wrote, “Obama had better focus on the commander in chief part of his job, not just on his domestic concerns.”

But domestic concerns, as the president outlined before Congress this week, clearly dominate the new administration’s agenda. “The only way this century will be another American century,” President Obama said in his speech on Tuesday,

is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care; the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.

In other words, in addition to “stimulating” the stagnating economy, bailing out lending institutions, and providing financial relief for homeowners, the new administration also intends to spend trillions more on alternative forms of energy, universal health care and public education.

“The only measure of my success as president, when people look back five years from now or nine years from now,” President Obama told cnn earlier this month, “is going to be, did I get this economy fixed?”

But as Kristol correctly notes, the primary measure of Obama’s success or failure as president will be his foreign-policy performance, not his economic strategy. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, for example, is primarily measured against the backdrop of his wartime leadership in the 1940s, even though he became president during the Great Depression.

Roosevelt also neglected U.S. foreign policy during the difficult years of economic hardship in the 1930s. And the United States, as well as the rest of the world, paid dearly for this negligence.

Could history be repeating itself? “Is our new commander in chief fully aware how dangerous the world can get, and how fast, when America is weak or distracted?” Kristol asked.

As bad as it was for America in 2008, could 2009 be the year the debt bomb explodes in Washington even as America sustains numerous strategic blows from dangerous forces abroad?

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By: Ben Johnson
Presidential Science Adviser John P. Holdren is a frequently mistaken alarmist who has endorsed world government, worldwide wealth redistribution, and compulsory abortion for American women. More>
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