IRAQ & SYRIA...THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS REVISITED AGAIN...(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2013)

North Korea was on the front pages just a few months ago.  Obviously the Chinese, who are the major suppliers of everything to North Korea, told them in strong terms to cease and desist.  There is no possible way the North Korea leadership would or could stand up to the Chinese.
Crisis resolved, off the front pageS, on to the next thing...

As Russia is the major supplier to Syria, you would suspect that they could have very significant influence on the Syrians behavior.

Russia's economy is extremely dependent on energy prices.  Crisis in the Mideast causes prices of oil and related commodities to rise.  Russia's economy is able to sustain itself on the higher energy prices.

As a general rule, the United States doesn't like energy prices this high and would like to see the chaos in Syria come to a halt.

President Obama goes to the Russians and says; "Hey you can bring a stop to this so please do it".  The Russians know the Americans can't stand confrontation.  They foresee the chaos in that part of the world potentially leading to increased influence of the Russians over the entire Mideastern oil supplies.

Here is the "real story";  what we are witnessing in Syria has little to do with the sociopathic Assad and the rebel terrorist organizations.  It is totally a confrontation between the United States and Russia and has the potential to move in the direction of the Cuban Missile crisis, not just a Mideast conflict.

Russia could easily bring an end to what we see going on in Syria by joining with the US and western nations.  They see little need to do that because so far President Obama is neither President Kennedy, President Reagan, President Roosevelt or Churchill.  He is hiding behind his "bodyguards", the "CONGRESS", and is afraid to confront the real perpetrators of the catastrophe in Syria.  

THE TERRORISTS OF THE IRS...(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 5/17/13)

It was during the Abraham Lincoln administration that the first federal income tax program was legislated.

It was also the beginning of the progressive tax, where the more you made the higher percentage you paid.  In effect, if you made more you were TARGETED to pay a higher percentage of your income.

Since then each political party has targeted one thing or another to benefit one constituency or another.  We have special tax programs homeowners, investors, municipalities, charities, stocks, solar energy, education, natural resource discovery, etc. etc. etc. Its the American way to use the tax system for both political and economic purposes.

Consequently, as repulsive as it is, it should not be surprising that people in the current administration may have been involved in targeting groups that they may have wanted to penalize.  The IRS does not have a random lottery system approach to its auditing program.  It targets based on specific criteria, which in many cases have nothing to do with breaking any laws.

We really don't want to get into a long dialogue about the IRS. Unfortunately the question now is; has a rogue group of left wing politicians, so hell bent on destroying political forces that do not support agendas other than theirs, been able to use the office and powers of the IRS to achieve their goals.

Some very evil people have come to power world wide using the force of corrupt government to wipe out opposing views.

GAS ATTACKS & SYRIA.."400,000 DEAD"...(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 8/29/13)

When the Syrian insurgency began President Obama was given a "one time only" opportunity to quickly prevent escalation.  Inaction was followed by inaction and well over 100,000 people have been killed, wounded or misplaced.

The complexity of facilitating an end to the carnage now, creates a much more difficult, expensive. risky and limited set of options.

As we wrote in an earlier blog, the cost of ending atrocities early would have been much less than the cost is today and the longer term implications of inaction are not any clearer.

The character of any President is most tested when issues of life and death for many take over the landscape.