Retro #9 - Could The Mexican Drug Cartels "Red Dawn" The United States?

Please note: do to the busy time of year and family commitments for the Thanksgiving holiday, we will be rerunning some of our most popular posts from the past year or so. We will return with fresh, new political class iinsanity the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Have a Happy Turkey Day!

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Many times in this blog we have talked about the exponentially growing threat and violence of the ever larger and richer Mexican drug cartels. Those times usually reviewed how the government of Mexico always seems to be fighting a losing battle against the cartels from a military and corruption perspective. We have pointed out numerous acts of violence and terror that the Mexican people are under from a cartel perspective.

And since our last such post, the situation has not gotten any better:

- According to an Associated Press report from March 31, 2011, Mexican drug cartels threatened to kill U.S. Border agents in March by firing AK-47 assault rifles across the border. Those targeted included members of the Texas Ranger and Customs Enforcement agents. Although this news was just made public by a U.S. Congressman, the article quotes law enforcement officials as saying this is nothing new, with one them saying: "We get almost periodic reports of some informant saying there is a bounty. We realize the potential is there, the threat is there." Since the drug cartels are directly or indirectly responsibile for over 35,000 Mexican deaths since late 2006, it should come as no surprise that the cartels might eventually take on cross border law enforcement officers.

- An April 3, 2011 Associate Press article reported that while Mexico City has been relatively free from drug cartel violence over the past few years, it appears that violent, cartel-like street gangs have become a significant problem within in the city as each gang fights for its share of the local Mexican drug market riches. Recently a spate of killings and decapitations have vividly illustrated how prevalent these new street gangs have become in the Mexico City area, adding just another level of violence and lawlessness to the Mexican people. Many of the gangs are either splinter groups off of the larger drug cartels or are just using the drug cartel business model to enlarge their turf war in the illegal Mexican drug market.

- The final Associated Press today was published on April 6, 2011 and addressed the two fold issue of 1) drug cartels recruiting common criminals (e.g. street drug dealers, robbers, etc.) and converting them into cartel hitmen and 2) the recruitment of former, highly trained Guatemalan soldiers into their ranks. The first issue strains the Mexican anti-drug law enforcement resources since rather than just having to go after the big drug cartel bosses, these resources now must also go after much lower ranking cartel employees to stifle the increased hitmen killing.

The second issue is even more distressing, professional soldiers being brought into the drug cartel fold. The article asserts that the cartels have even set up training camps inside of Guatemala. The Guatemalan government is currently investigating the possibility that these ex-soldiers somehow got their hands on official Guatemalan military weaponry and transferred it to the drug cartels. In 2009, the Guatemalan authorities confiscated 563 grenades and 3,800 rounds of ammunition from the cartels that were stolen from their military.

Nasty stuff, seems like the drug cartels are getting bigger and bigger by recruiting at the low end of lawlessness, street hoods and gangs, and the high end of lawlessness, professionally trained soldiers. The really scary thing is that the cartels have made so much money off of the illegal drug trade in the United States, there is probably very few weapons or government and police officials they cannot buy or take out with force.

Which brings us to the "Red Dawn" reference in the title. "Red Dawn" was a hokey, if entertaining movie from a few decades ago. The central premise is that the Soviet Union is able to invade and control the Rocky Mountains within the United States, effectively dividing the country into two non congruent parts. The Russians attack so quickly that they establish themselves before a counter attack can push them out, resulting in a military stalemate within our borders. The United States controls the coastal areas, the Soviet Union troops control a geographic strip through the center of the country.

"Red Dawn" did not receive any Oscars but it does bring up an interesting point. Given the wealth, violence, and ever growing reach of the drug cartels, their non-reluctance to shoot U.S. border agents, who is to say they would not come over the border in numbers at some point like the Soviets in "Red Dawn?" This strategy has a historical precedent when you consider the so-called Zimmerman Telegram from 1917 and the World War I era.

This telegram originated from the German government and was sent to the Mexican government. The telegram proposed that Mexico invade the United States from the south and take over lands that originally belonged to Mexico. In return, the Germans would provide logistical and military support to the effort. The deal never went down but it was proposed.

Now, there is no longer a Soviet Union. There is no longer a German Kaiser or German military threat to the United States. But who is to say that the cartels could not come over the border and drive up U.S. Interstate 25 and cause all sorts of violence and problems? If they moved quick enough they could cut off the main east/west main arteries of Interstate 40, Interstate 70, Interstate 80 and Interstate 90. They could start further east and come up Interstate 83 and accomplish the same thing. They would not have the forces the Soviets had in "Red Dawn" to take and hold ground but a guerrilla warfare style attack would be a disaster.

With U.S. troops stationed all over the world, mostly serving no purpose at all, who is to say a rich, well armed force of drug cartel employees, which now include professional soldiers, could not at least cause a significant amount of havoc and mayhem? Let's throw an added wrinkle into the scenario. Given the chaos being caused by the cartels in Mexico and Central America, I would think it would be quite easy for the cartels to import some of Bin Laden's boys and join up with them. The cartels and Bin Laden may have different goals but together, they would get a lot closer to attaining each of their goals.

Likely? Probable? Probably not. But was it probable the Middle East would be afire for freedom just six months ago? Was it probable that the igniter of this fire would be a single individual in Tunisia of all places? Five years ago how probable was it that the United States would collapse not from an outside conquest from the likes of Hitler, the Kaiser, Mussolini, etc. but from the simple fact that our political class cannot stop spending money it does not have? How probable was it two months ago that the third largest economy in the world would be so brutalized by Mother Nature? How probable was it eleven years ago that 19 people from halfway around the world would kill about 3,000 Americans on American soil on September 11, 2001? None of these were very remotely probable yet they happened.

One of my favorite sayings is "Never say never." "Red Dawn" and the Zimmerman Telegraph give the drug cartels the strategy, who is to say they cannot find any use for it. This threat and the related threats of the heavily armed cartels will remain in place until the Washington political class finally finds some courage to actually come up with sane, enforceable strategies and policies to deal with our drug addiction problem in the country and our leaky borders/illegal immigration problems. Until then, nothing is off the table as regarding how far the drug cartels will extend their reach, wealth, and violence.

If the political class is not up to the task of such endeavors, they should reviews Steps 26 and 29 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," to see what a possible process would look like to finally resolve these issues. Lord knows what ever processes they are using now are not working. Although "Red Dawn" was a pretty bad movie, it had much more value than the current paralysis that is Washington and our political class.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.



Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendmen.com/

The Disgrace That Is Washington - A Quick Rant

I had not expected to blog this week, given visiting friends, family and Thanksgiving. I also wanted  to take a break from the sickness and disgrace that is the political class in Washington. However, given another failure by the political class, this time the failure of the Congressional "Super" Committee to come up with a coherent deficit reduction plan, I have to speak up.

First, though, let me apologize up front. I try to run a fact based, logical, forward looking blog. I hate it when bloggers use their blog to rant and rave only about their opinions, without facts or data or logic to back up their points of view. Personal rants and emotion-based blogs do nothing to address the underlying problems and crises facing the nation today.

Only by carefully understanding the underlying root causes of our problems and using all available information and data to apply against them for a solution, can we hope to have a passionate but sound approach to problem solving.

However, I may not be as logical and unemotional tonight as I strive to be and so I apologize up front for what might degenerate into a rant.

A few facts up front:

• Since Democrats Pelosi and Reid took over Congress in early 2007, joined by Democrat Barack Obama as President in 2009, the Washington political class has added almost $7 TRILLION to our national debt in less than five years. Up until that point, every other President COMBINED had accumulated only $8.4 TRILLION in debt.
• President Obama's long term budget plan that he submitted to Congress in the spring predicted that the Washington political class would add another $9 TRILLION to the national debt in the next ten years.
• Last week our national debt exceed $15 TRILLION.
• Thus, the track that these three Democrats have put us on as a nation would bring us to a national debt of over $24 TRILLION in ten years. This is the equivalent of a debt load of over $200,000 for EVERY American household.

Obviously, we will never reach $24 TRILLION in debt because the economy will crash and the nation will by destroyed long before we reach the end of the ten years.

And what do our politicians talk about? They cannot even get together to reduce the deficit by $1.2 TRILLION OVER TEN YEARS, the objective of the Super Committee. A pathetic, disgraceful effort. It is my understanding that the following is behind the failure:

• The Super Committee has not met as a group since November 1. How did they expect to do any work by not constantly meeting? They should have been locked away in a remote site until they got the real job done, the real job being defined as more than a paltry $1.2 TRILLION, an amount they could not even get to.
• This country has a spending issue, it does not have a "revenue" issue. You cannot solve this problem, or even come close to solving it, by raising taxes on the rich.
• We have reported many times in this blog that even if you confiscated the total wealth of the richest 400 Americans, you would reduce the deficit by less than 10% over the next ten years. Since nobody has suggested that we do that, or anything close to that, raising taxes on the rich will produce significantly less than a 10% reduction in debt.
• However, the Democrats insisted that taxes be raised and would not budge from their initial $1 TRILLION tax increase proposal, no compromise at all. The Republicans started with a no tax pledge, proposed a tax increase in $320 billion and the Democrats rejected it out of hand, refusing to negotiate. As a result of their intransigence, there is no Super Committee agreement..
• President Obama was nowhere to be found in this process over the past few months, but not too busy to campaign all around the country and play some serious golf. Talk about a lack of leadership.
• Obama just came on television tonight to speak about the failure and he is basically of no use. He blamed the Republicans for the failure, despite the fact that he has added more to the budget deficit and national debt in less than three years than any other President, EVER. Again, even if the Super Committee agreed to the outrageous $1 TRILLION increase in taxes, that would account for only about 4% of the $24 TRILLION national debt track we are on.
• I know of no way to say this gracefully, but the President does "misspeak." He claims that the majority of Americans favor increased taxes to balance the budget but we reported last week on a recent Reason magazine opinion poll that shows that is not true. The President says all kinds of economists say we need to raise taxes but that is also not true. Any fourth grader, never mind an economist, can tell we have a government spending problem, we do not have an under taxation problem.
• Two years ago, the President himself said that we should never raise taxes in a recession or poor economy, it makes no sense. If it made no sense two years ago. it makes no sense now. A few weeks ago, ex-President Clinton said no taxes should ever be raised when the economy is so weak. Did President Obama read those news reports?

In a total attempt to avoid blame for not getting government spending under control, Democratic members of Congress blamed Grover Norquist for the failure of the Super Committee. Mr. Norquist is not an elected official, he was not a member of the Super Committee, he is not the President of the United States, to my knowledge he has never held public office. He runs a conservative think tank that is against raising taxes in the face of excessive and wasteful government spending. Rather than accept the fact that Congress and the political class failed miserably to rein in spending, they blame a single, unelected American for their failure. How gutless can you be?


Did it have to come to this? Politics being used by both sides of the political class to kill the nation via excessive spending? A lot of smart Americans know how to do this job because they know how to solve problems and do a little math analysis, skills that are obviously lost on the people in Washington:

1. Obama had a commission that did an excellent job of finding ways to reduce spending and reducing the national debt by TRILLIONS of dollars. He chose to completely ignore their fine work.
2. The Cato Institute has gone through the Federal budget line by line and has come up with their own plan to reduce excessive government spending by TRILLIONS of dollars.
3. The Tea Party has come up with their own plan to get spending under control with TRILLIONS of dollars in expense reductions, which it tried to present to Congress last week but were denied access to Congressional members to make their presentation.
4. The Concord Coalition has come up with a comprehensive plan to reduce excessive government spending by TRILLIONS of dollars.
5. If I had some time, I could list at least another three sources who have already done the hard work in reducing excessive and wasteful spending and I will do that by combing through past posts if anyone is interested.
6. Using these above sources, in the spring I came up with over $6 TRILLION of expense cuts based on the above work. These cuts did not have a substantial impact on most ordinary Americans including the poor, the elderly, and the needy.

No matter how you cut it, this is a disgrace. The stock market took a major hit today and it is probably a good bet that the nation's credit rating is going to take another hit. All because every politician in Washington, from the President down to the freshmen in Congress need to be shamed into oblivion at the next election. They are are so worried about their personal political careers that they are incapable of showing any kind of courage or sanity when it comes to getting government spending under control.

At $15 TRILLION, we, as a nation, do not have much time left. We are officially a leaderless nation right now, the people in the White House and Congress are without a doubt, incapable of governing efficiently, wisely, and unselfishly.

We are about to waste another year of a leaderless government with the scavengers in Congress and the White House busy collecting their campaign funds and planning their continued reign over a sinking ship. We need a new crew that will right the ship, fix the spending leaks, and send Obama, Reid, Pelosi, the Super Committee and the rest of them out to sea and retirement in a life boat.

Sorry if this comes off as a rant, I promise to do better in the future of sticking to facts and logic. But I am convinced we are currently leaderless and that scares the life out of me.

Retro #8 - U.S. Navy Ships For Sale! Cheap, Never Used, Act Now

Please note:  Due to holiday week festivities, activities and family events, this week we will be rerunning some of our most popular posts from the past year or so. We will return with fresh, new political class insanity  after Thanksgiving. Have a happy Turkey Day!

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Just when you think that you have identified the latest government waste of taxpayer money, some big new wastes jump into your face. Consider some recent news reports that reported on how the U.S. government was scrapping two of its Navy ships even though they had never seen one day of service. Details of the waste include:

• Two large Navy ships, that have never been used, are headed for the scrap yard even though they are almost completely finished and ready for duty.
• Work began on the USNS Benjamin Isherwood and the USNS Henry Eckford in 1985 at the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company and were intended to carry fuel to the Navy's ships around the world.
• When the company defaulted on their Navy contract in 1989, the 600 foot ships were sent to Florida for completion. At the length of two football fields, these were not insignificant ships.
• The ships were eventually moved to the James River Navy yard and have sat there at 95% and 84% complete the past 18 years.
• A British company considered buying the ships and completing their build out for sale to a NATO country.
• However, since the ships are single hulled and double hulls are required for today's fuel carriers, the British company decided not to complete the construction and instead, settled on a $10 million contract and taxpayer expense to scrap the ships altogether.
• This week the ships are being towed to Texas to be cut up for scrap iron and scrap steel for recycling.

Thus, after spending $300 million to begin building the ships, almost finishing their construction, getting absolutely no use out of them, and paying to tow the ships from port to port, the taxpayers will get hit with one last insult and be charged $10 million to destroy the never used ships.



Where to start on this insanity:

• Who is responsible for ordering the construction of these ships but never getting any use out of them? In the private market, if a business person was to incur that big of a screw up they would be out of a job.
• Was there nowhere in the world that these ships could have been sold in order for taxpayers to get some money back rather than incurring another $10 million cost to have them destroyed?
• Even though the could not be used to haul fuel, was there no company in the world who would not want a sturdy Navy ship to ship other goods in its hold that was not fuel related? There must be a Chinese shipping company who could use a new ship or two, especially since China's exports in the first half of 2011 was a record level of $874 billion, 20% higher than in 2010 (The Week, July 22, 2011). Thus, not only should the people responsible for building $300 million worth of ships be fired, the people who could not get anything in return by selling the ships should also be fired.

This is a classic example of Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 34 would remove politicians from any Congressional committee that does not do its committee job to at least to minimum standards. Whatever Congressional committee or subcommittee members were responsible for flushing $310 million of taxpayer wealth down the drain need to be removed from their committee or subcommittee posts.


The article contains a quote from Joseph Keefe from www.maritimeprofessinal.com who stated that the scrapping the ships will "close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding history and for that matter, Federal fiduciary folly." In other words, what a waste of taxpayer money. Very well said, Mr. Keefe.


Another scary aspect of this story is the thought that this may not be an isolated incident. What other $300 million wastes are hanging around the Pentagon closets? With Pentagon resources deployed in three war zones, dozens of foreign countries, and probably most of the fifty states, I find it hard to believe that this is the only wasted money in the Pentagon budget. Eliminating this type of despicable behavior would reduce the Pentagon budget without further endangering the defense of the United States.

While we are on the topic of waste, let's move out of the Defense Department domain and move to another area of gross government waste. According to USA Today article, that was highlighted in the July 7, 2011 issue of The Week, the Federal government wastes about $17 billion of taxpayer wealth every year in the operation of its unemployment benefits program. Almost 12% of the program's budget is paid out fraudulently to Americans who are either collecting benefits they are not entitled to or are those people that have gotten a job but are still accepting unemployment benefits.


Compare these figures to the politically motivated ramblings of President Obama over the past few weeks. He has made a big deal about closing tax loopholes for oil companies and corporate jet users. Now, while I agree these loopholes should be closed, they are a pittance compared to the unemployment fraud.

Over ten years, the oil company loopholes would amount to about $20 billion and the corporate jets loophole would amount to about $3 billion, a total of $23 billion or so over 10 years. Ten years worth of this type of unemployment benefits waste comes out to $170 billion, which is almost eight times more than the political gamesmanship loopholes of Obama.


It never ends. The government cannot plan its Navy needs, resulting in wasting over $300 million on just two of its ships. The government cannot efficiently run a simple unemployment benefits program, wasting 12% of its budget and $17 billion a year. The politicians worry about the smaller, trivial wastes of taxpayer money while the bigger wastes go on and on every year.


The worst part of all, there is no apparent accountability. No one ever seems to be held responsible for all of the waste. Politicians continually get re-elected in the face of the waste. Government bureaucrats never seem to lose their jobs despite inefficiency and waste.


You wonder what kind of world those in DC live in where how well or bad you perform your job has no ramifications on your monetary reward and career paths. Its the kind of world I would like to live in where performance is unrelated to reality. But first, I need to see if any of those ships are still available, they are too good a deal to pass up.




Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/

Fannie and Freddie Execs - Losing Billions For The Taxpayer, Earning Millions For Themselves

If the Federal government had a public relations chief, this would have been a very, very bad week for him or her:

- On Sunday, a story on the "60 Minutes" television show revealed that Congressional members, and only Congressional members, are exempt from stock market insider trading laws and regulations. This allows them to do something that enriches themselves but which is not available to any other U.S. citizen: use insider information and Congressional actions for their personal financial benefit without repercussions.

We reviewed the many instances of such corrupt and immoral behavior earlier this week when we reviewed the "60 Minutes" revelations, and other acts of government insider trading from previous posts, to illustrate how corrupt these Congressional politicians have become. Not a dream assignment for a public relations chief, trying to prove that sitting politicians are not treated better and differently than the rest of America in the face of such overwhelming immoral evidence.

- Yesterday, we reviewed how many, many government agencies and regulators were again delinquent, ignorant, or incompetent when it came to not foreseeing the collapse of MF Global, a financial industry company, headed by ex-politician Jon Corzine.

Despite all of the economic pain caused by dozens of government agencies missing the coming onslaught of the Great Recession and all of the hot air the political class huffed and puffed when they implemented the Dodd-Frank financial industries reform legislation, none of these past events were enough to foresee the collapse of MF Global and the potential loss of $600 million of investor assets that executives of the company may have illegally used and lost.

Not a dream assignment for a public relations chief. Such a person would be stuck trying to prove that all the kings' horses, i.e. the many, many agencies of the Federal government, are no better off regulating and minimizing economic danger today then they were three years ago when the markets crashed in 2008, with MF Global being the latest unforeseen economic disaster.

And, as an aside, according to news reports today, the collapse of MF Global is the 8th largest financial institution to collapse in the history of the United  States. Thus, this was not a little mom and pop operation that went sour somewhere out in the boondocks. This was a major financial services institution and it collapsed, possibly taking $600 million worth of client assets with it, before anyone in the Federal government was aware of what was happening. Imagine trying to spin this situation from a public relations perspective.

- Which brings us to the latest theoretical disaster and headache a Federal government public relations chief would have to deal with. Congressional hearings were held this week that involved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives testifying before enraged members of both House of Representatives and Senate committees.

Because of lax accounting procedures, rampant political patronage, risky and unsafe investment practices, and pure incompetence in manging their business, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operations have already cost the American taxpayer about $170 billion. These billions are never going to be recovered and are likely to grow steadily if nothing else changes as these two entities need regular infusion of more taxpayer money to stay solvent.

However, despite losing billions and billions of dollars every month n the past few years, the management of both government entities recently rewarded their top ten executives with $13 million in bonus money. Please note this was not their salary, it was their BONUS rewards beyond their salary. Only in government work can you waste away billions dollars of taxpayer money and get rewarded with millions of dollars of more taxpayer money.

According to an Associated Press report from November 18, 2011, these top executives in both Fannie and Freddie received over $35 million over the past two years in both bonus and regular salary payments. They received this despite the fact that the Federal government expects the $170 billion loss to grow to $220 billion within three years and the fact that in October, Fannie asked for another $7.8 billion in more bailout money while Freddie asked for an additional $6 billion.

What would have made a chief public relations really crazy, beyond this disgraceful waste of taxpayer money, was a quote from one of those testifying, Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie. He testified that the Federal taxpayer support does not mean the Fannie and Freddie are government entities: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees are not government employees and these are not government agencies. They remain private corporations."

Excuse me, but if you have already cost the American taxpayer $170 billion (about $1,500 per U.S. household), if you require billions of dollars of additional taxpayer support every month, and if without this past and ongoing support you would have collapsed long ago, you are not a private company, you are a public albatross and burden on the American taxpayer.

The theoretical public relations chief could not even hide behind the bailout of private sector financial companies on this one. The $170 billion dwarfs the bailout sum any other private company or bank received, most of which were paid back. Fannie and Freddie are never paying us back. A public relations nightmare.

But those testifying before Congress are not the only ones to hold at fault. The political class knew long ago that Fannie and Freddie were a corrupt shell game where taxpayer assets were used to fulfill selfish political class needs and ambitions. That is why they were never serious candidates for reformation, the political campaign money that flowed from them to the politicians running for re-election was too lucrative.

It is only when they collapsed and starting becoming a public relations nightmare did the political class work up some outrage. While this outrage is a good thing, I predict two bad things will eventually occur. First, the outrage will subside and these ten executives will walk away with and be allowed to keep the millions of dollars bonus paid for their nickel-dime results.

Second, once the outrage subsides, the political class will never get around to doing the real hard, but necessary, work that needs to be done: find a way to efficiently terminate both Fannie and Freddie and also terminate the Federal government's interference in the U.S. housing market.

The historical political class interference in the housing market has cost us at least $170 billion and the Great Recession, it is now time to go in a completely different direction. It could not get any worse than the expensive jams our politicians have gotten us into today, just ask any public relations chief.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respectfreedom for both yourselves and others everyday.



Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/