Friday, April 29, 2011

This really is a win for The Donald

And it will be a total triumph if it turns out to be a forgery. What sort of copy is it anyway? Is the copy certified by a notary? If it were a straight photocopy it would be black and white so why is it green?

Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump took credit for pressuring President Barack Obama into releasing the long-form version of his birth certificate. "I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish," Trump, a prominent investor and possible White House contender, told a New Hampshire press conference.

He was speaking after the White House released the full version of Obama's birth certificate in a bid to scotch allegations that the president was not born in the United States.

Trump said the newly-released document still had to be vetted for authenticity, but acknowledged it may finally show that Obama is indeed a natural-born American. Under the US Constitution only natural-born citizens can hold the nation's highest office.

"We have to see is it real, is it proper, what's on it," Trump said. "I want it look at it, but I hope it's true, so that we can get on to much more important matters," he said, adding the president "should have done it a long time ago."

"I am really honored frankly to have played such a big role in getting rid of this issue," Trump said in New Hampshire, a key state for contenders planning to launch a presidential bid.

In an extraordinary political moment, Obama told reporters at the White House that he was bemused over the conspiracy about his birthplace and chastised Republican opponents for their continued focus on the issue. "We don't have time for this kind of silliness," Obama said, adding that he was puzzled that the controversy had rumbled on for two-and-a-half years.

Trump, who is flirting with a White House run, has been one of the chief fomenters of the speculation over Obama's birth certificate.

Just last week, Trump proposed on ABC television that he and Obama swap disclosures, suggesting he would release documents on the financial viability of his ventures and his overall wealth, if Obama released his birth records.

Obama's 2008 presidential campaign had previously released a shorter regular birth certificate issued by Hawaii authorities after conservative critics and pundits fanned rumors that he was not American born.

The version released by the White House on Wednesday was a copy of a long-form, original document made at the time of his birth and kept since in official records in Obama's native state. The document lists Obama's birthplace and birthdate as "Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii" on August 4, 1961 at 7:24 pm.

SOURCE

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Trump Strikes Chord with America Because He Exposes Anti-Americanism at the Top

So, dear readers, what's the matter with Donald Trump? Well, apparently, just about everything. According to everyone who's anyone in the entire Country, on every stage, from both sides of the aisle, in every news outlet, from every prominent mouth this side of Timbuktu, Donald Trump has no business whatsoever even considering a presidential run.

Why, the nerve of this Donald Trump! It's positively galling. It's The Audacity of Hope on steroids. It's a national embarrassment, I tell you. So there.

As President Eloquent himself might opine -- with drooling faux sophistication, no doubt -- Donald Trump certainly has the whole commentariat class all "wee-weed up." Honestly, I don't think I've seen this many oh-so-prestigious people wet their pants since Romper Room went off the air.

Trump's a "clown," a "joke candidate," a "vulgarity," and the "Al Sharpton of the Republican Party." Trump's just throwing a "publicity stunt." Trump is a "sideshow." Trump is making everyone who's anyone "somewhat uncomfortable."

But, wait, it gets better. According to Glenn Beck's new author sidekick, Dr. Head-Shrink Albow, Trump's candidacy could be "psychologically debilitating for the American people." Now folks, even the most sophisticated among you must admit that's rich. That's pushing the we-prominent-people-know-what's-good-for-you envelope just a bit far for me to stomach without a barf bag.

So, please allow me to enlighten the oh-so-sophisticated crowd. Donald Trump is striking all-American chords during an anti-American presidency, and the supposedly very smart people don't get that? Oh, I think they do get it, but are scared down to their little woolies over what national calamities might ensue if The Donald is "allowed" to continue rattling the presidential goal posts.

Sentient observers have known since Election Day 2008 that Barack Obama is the pinnacle affirmative-action statement. Mickey Kaus finally came right out and said this in the Daily Caller, while parrying Jay Cost's column on Obama's outright failure at American politics:

"Cost doesn't go into why Obama managed to get to the top of politics without being all that good at it. The answer is distressingly obvious: Obama's the biggest affirmative action baby in history. When other pols are trying, failing, learning, while climbing up the middle rungs of the ladder, he got a pass."

Well, of course, he got a pass. Actually Obama got far more than a pass. He was allowed by an ideologically-driven, white-guilt-motivated media to hop, skip, and jump his way to the pinnacle of world power without ever producing one single shred of verifiable evidence that he could do anything whatsoever but run his full-of-utter-BS mouth -- even that, constantly enabled by a teleprompter. And Republicans winked and nodded and permitted the whole Orwellian spectacle due to their fear of being forever outcast as racists.

Now, in any real world, that is not just affirmative action, folks. That's rolling the dice on the future of civilization, which is exactly what Bill Clinton told them it would be. Clinton made this prescient observation in 2007, long before the current die was cast.

The whole 2008 election is being experienced by the vast American middle-class as a huge, cruel joke, one that has dire consequences to our standard of living and our standing in the world. But the media elites on both sides of the aisle seem to believe that having turned American politics into a joke of a fools' parade, they can now somehow bring the whole thing back to a level of respectability by circling the wagons around Barack Obama and uniformly denouncing the guy now rattling the cage with increasing popularity.

One thing the political class seems to have forgotten is that there are few living white Americans who have not had some personal experience with an affirmative-action co-worker and/or collegiate peer. For decades now, we Mainstreet dwellers have borne the brunt of this liberal two-wrongs-really-can-make-a-right folderol, and now we stand, mouths agape at those who still pretend this isn't what happened in 2008.

Awarding the pinnacle of world power to a guy on the basis of eternally-aggrieved skin color is quintessentially anti-American and the people know it. It was playing with fire and we're getting burned. The people know this. The people are saying it in private.

Black voters are saying it, too. They own small businesses and pay income taxes and raise families and go to church every Sunday and are not the one-size-fits-all underclass herd imagined by the condescendingly-racist liberal media. Congressman Allen West says it best.

Those who honestly believe they can squelch the people's demand to know all the things hidden until now by this cosmic-joke president are just whistling Dixie and whizzing in the wind -- which does not really strike me as intelligent.

The truth will out eventually. And mounting this wholly anti-American gambit of shaming those seeking the verification, which was so childishly foregone by the media "verifiers" in 2008, is itself anti-American. Trump strikes this chord among the people with pure aplomb.

Secondly, there is Trump's unabashed America-first barrage. Trump's resonance has far less to do with his actual ideas than with his stand-up-straight pride of our Country, and his willingness to say "America First!" loudly, proudly, and without an ounce of apology.

At the very least, Trump does seem to realize that our Republic is genuinely on the line. He seems to understand that the affirmative-action presidency may have temporarily made Americans feel better about themselves, but that it has been very destructive for our economy and for the overall safety of the entire world. Trump may have outside-the-box ideas for how to reestablish America's preeminence after the American-apology presidency, but people have the sense that outlying bad guys would be really scared of what Trump might do if his crazy finger were on the nuke buttons. And they know that bad guys scared of you are better than bad guys running roughshod over you.

Trump has done one thing that no other presidential contender has, in my oh-so-humble opinion. He has tapped into decades of pent-up frustration among the vast middle-class of the taxpaying public.

Among the businessmen I know -- most of them socially liberal, but fiscally conservative -- Trump's willingness to talk straight is striking a genuine chord. These men identify with Donald Trump on what seems a quite visceral level. They, too, have forged similar, albeit smaller, paths through America's growing quagmire of federal regulations and strangleholds on entrepreneurs. These men have grown sick and tired of seeing metrosexual foreign policy (Peter Schweizer's brilliant phrase) that leaves them holding the bag on expense, but getting sucker-punched by nations they've financed. They are fed up with hearing how greedy and unfair they are, after giving so much of their incomes to alleviate the pain of the lower classes.

As those who actually pay the government bills and create more than half of all the jobs in this country, small-business owners hear Donald Trump's willingness to declare that our mealy-mouthed politicians have made us the "laughingstock" of the world and cheer him on. They've believed this for ages now, but have been denied the public platform to say so.

Which brings us to another all-American chord Trump is striking with pure agility. Trump is in-your-face, unapologetically and aggressively manly. Even the ridiculous, vanity-inspired comb-over seems to shout "I couldn't care less what you think of me." This itself strikes a welcome off-tune macho chord in a political-class orchestra playing in pure metrosexual harmony.

Trump is giving voice to the all-male side of our collective American psyche. Our John-Wayne genes have been shoved into an outlying corner of socially-unacceptable shame for a long time now. Despite G.W. Bush's being labeled the "cowboy," his collegiate style was anything but pure macho.

Trump has brought one heck-of-a-lot of yang into this all-yin modern political class. And believe it or not, most Americans prefer their presidents to be somewhat more pit-bull or mama grizzly than likeable lapdog -- especially in perilous times. General Patton is still beloved in the heartland.

Love him or hate him, Trump's style is hitting a huge nerve among a had-it-up-to-here public. Those who refuse to read the angry American tea leaves, at this point, ought be called anything but "smart."

Ignore this reality to your peril, Republican and Democrat hot-shots. You're starting to look like King George, and we all know how that one unfolded.

SOURCE

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Is China Preparing to Dump its $1 Trillion of U.S. bonds?

China may be preparing to cut its foreign exchange reserves by about two-thirds, down to about $1 trillion from its current $3.04 trillion level, according to Chinese news service Xinhua.

Why? China simply has too much money, according to Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of the People’s Bank of China. “Foreign-exchange reserves have exceeded the reasonable level that our country actually needs,” he recently said.

Zhou noted that China’s stockpiling cash is “feeding inflation and becoming difficult to manage”. To be certain, China is suffering from an inflation problem, already up over 5 percent, not to mention a tremendous real estate bubble that threatens its very financial system. It needs to figure out a way to restore price stability.

So, Zhou wants to diversify the country’s assets of foreign exchange holdings, an obvious target.

Zhou’s sentiments were echoed on April 23 by Tang Shuangning, chairman of China Everbright Group, who wants the reserves be restricted to between $800 billion to $1.3 trillion and the rest of the money reinvested.

Tang “suggested five channels for using the reserves, including replenishing state-owned capital in key sectors and enterprises, purchasing strategic resources, expanding overseas investment, issuing foreign bonds and improving national welfare in areas like education and health,” writes Xinhua.

Zhou and Tang were not alone. Xia Bin, another Chinese central banker suggested that $1 trillion of foreign exchange reserves would be sufficient. He too called for the reserves to be used more “strategically” to acquire hard resources and technology for the Chinese economy.

This would be a marked change in Chinese policy, which has been to stockpile these reserves, in particular dollar-denominated assets. It currently holds about $1.154 trillion of U.S. treasuries — the debt securities that constitute U.S. debt.

Now it may be planning to dump those U.S. treasuries on the market. If China wants to diversify its holdings by reducing its gross reserves by two-thirds, that would necessarily mean a drastic reduction of its share of the $14.3 trillion U.S. national debt.

This would have severe consequences, mostly for the American people.

Because the U.S. has racked up so much debt among foreign creditors like China, we have become increasingly vulnerable to their whims. China dumping a significant portion of its U.S. treasuries could spark a run on the dollar, uprooting it as the world’s reserve currency. How?

It would cause a rush to the exits on the treasuries market, robbing the ability of the U.S. to borrow from other creditors, who would not want to risk having the value of their assets devalued. Suddenly, a frenzy would occur by financial institutions to cash in dollars for something — anything — of value.

A dollar run would in turn cause hyperinflation here at home, super-high interest rates, and a complete default on U.S. debt. Without borrowing, we lack the ability to repay principal and interest owed on the national debt. We really are that vulnerable.

But, wouldn’t China be devaluing its own assets? Zhou does not seem to think so. He thinks his country needs to stop stockpiling money to get domestic inflation under control. But even if the Chinese were not looking to dump current holdings — they may still be signaling that they won’t be looking to buy any more.

With the Fed supposedly out of the Treasury market come June and with them now buying 70 percent of the issues, who will buy this junk? Barack Obama sees trillion dollar deficits for the next decade. At best, China can just sit back and do nothing and seriously injure us.

At worst, China may want to get out while the getting’s good from what amounts to nothing more than a useless paper trade.

After all, the alternative may be to wait for somebody else to start cashing in their dollars first. In this high stakes game of musical chairs, China may not want to be left without a chair when the music stops.

SOURCE

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Among the businessmen I know -- most of them socially liberal, but fiscally conservative -- Trump's willingness to talk straight is striking a genuine chord. These men identify with Donald Trump on what seems a quite visceral level."

You have *no* idea how seductively delightful the idea of Emperor Trump is to this owner of a small high tech factory.

-=NikFromNYC=-