Americans for Political Change

The Telegraph:

The fresh calculation – which includes the cost of spiralling veterans’ care bills and the future interest on war loans – paints a grim picture of how America’s future at home and abroad has been mortgaged to the two conflicts entered into by George W Bush in 2001 and 2003.

“There will be no peace dividend,” is the stark conclusion from the 22-page report from the Kennedy School of Government, “and the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be costs that persist for decades.”

The report comes as the US prepares for a final withdrawal from Afghanistan, a move that Barack Obama trumpeted in his State of the Union address as a sign that America was finally moving forward after a sapping decade of war.

However the working paper by Professor Linda J. Bilmes makes clear that the true legacy the two conflicts – which have cost $2 trillion in actual outlays so far – have not yet even begun to be appreciated.

Just another example of the threat to America from Cyberterrorists. And the government seems inept in dealing with the problem. It’s only a matter of time before America is devastated by an attack:

An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyberattack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.

Nothing has changed since 9-11:

Despite undergoing a pat-down search, a federal agent was able to sneak past Transportation Security Administration agents at Newark Airport last month with a simulated explosive device in his pant, an unnamed source told The New York Post.

“This episode once again demonstrates how Newark Airport is the Ground Zero of TSA failures,” the source reportedly said.

The TSA did not confirm whether the incident took place, telling the Post that it “regularly conducts covert testing” of security and does not disclose details about those operations. Newark Airport is the same place that a TSA agent in 2011 left a note for a woman who was carrying a vibrator in her luggage.

The most extensive study yet by the U.S. government on suicide among military veterans shows more veterans are killing themselves than previously thought, with 22 deaths a day – or one every 65 minutes, on average.

The study released on Friday by the Department of Veterans Affairs covered suicides from 1999 to 2010 and compared with a previous, less precise VA estimate that there were roughly 18 veteran deaths a day in the United States.

More than 69 percent of veteran suicides were among individuals aged 50 years or older, the VA reported.

“This data provides a fuller, more accurate, and sadly, an even more alarming picture of veteran suicide rates,” said Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, who has championed legislation to strengthen mental health care for veterans.

The news came two weeks after the U.S. military acknowledged that suicides hit a record in 2012, outpacing combat deaths, with 349 active-duty suicides – almost one a day.

via Military Suicides: One U.S. Veteran Dies Every 65 Minutes.

The nation’s top military leaders warned Congress in unusually stark terms that its failure to pass a 2013 defense budget — coupled with the threat of automatic budget cuts — has pushed the Pentagon to the brink of a crisis.

They wrote in a joint letter to congressional leaders that the readiness of U.S. armed forces is at a “tipping point.”

via Associated Press.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

via Revealed: inside story of US envoy’s assassination – World Politics – World – The Independent.

Can you imagine what will happen in a few years when China’s military because strong. They will intimidating us as if we were colony. Looks like we are heading backwards as a nation. China is already keeping financially afloat. Might they try blackmailing us when they don’t like the way we behave:

But the Chinese government is up in arms over a mural near the city’s main street.The giant mural, commissioned by Taiwanese-American businessman David Lin and painted above a storefront under renovation, depicts Chinese police beating demonstrators, other demonstrators apparently setting themselves on fire, as well as calls for independence for Tibet and Taiwan (I’ve posted photos that I took of it).

“It has caused strong resentment from local Chinese community [sic] and Chinese students studying in the U.S.,” said a letter sent last month from the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to Corvallis mayor Julie Manning. After praising ties between China and Oregon, the letter asked that to “avoid our precious friendship from being tainted by so-called ‘Tibet Independence’ and ‘Taiwan Independence’, we sincerely hope that you can understand our concerns and adopt effective measures to stop the activities advocating ‘Tibet Independence’ and ‘Taiwan Independence’ in Corvallis.”

The Admiralty complex is one of the trademarks of Hong Kong’s urban landscape. Overlooking the port, the complex used to house the soldiers of the British army and the headquarters of the Royal Navy in the region. Today it is part of the city’s business center. One building there houses a group of companies nicknamed the 88 Queensway Group (the address of the building), which the U.S. administration suspects is nothing more than a cover for activity conducted by the People’s Republic of China’s foreign intelligence. Wu Yang, one of the group’s senior directors, provided the Registrar of Companies in Hong Kong with an address that matches the address of Chinese foreign intelligence.

The suspicions were spelled out in a report recently compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000 in order to “monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.” The report noted, among other things, that the group of Chinese corporations has business ties with Israeli businessman and diamond magnate Lev Leviev.

via U.S. ties Israeli billionaire with Chinese intelligence – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

It’s like everything else. This President, and Congress, are putting off every decision until November. This is saying we are taking a break so we can spend all our time campaigning. And we don’t want to be accused of cutting the military. Even though there is so much waste in the budget. How about discussing the money being wasted in Afghanistan? That is also going to be put off until after the election. Meanwhile the President pays lip service to the those who are really fighting for our country:

President Barack Obama says he doesn’t believe Congress can reach a deal before the November elections that avoids deep cuts in military spending, but says he is optimistic that the reductions won’t occur.

In interviews Monday with news outlets from regions with a large military presence, Obama said he has made sure that service members don’t lose pay or benefits and that veterans continue to receive their benefits.

Source:

Soldiers killed themselves at a rate faster than one per day in July, the Army announced Thursday. There were 38 deaths either confirmed or suspected as suicides, the highest one-month tally in recent Army history, the service said.

The Army suicide pace this year is surpassing last year, particularly among active-duty soldiers where there is a 22% increase — 116 deaths so far this year vs. 95 during the same seven months last year, according to Army data.

Senate Republicans recently blocked cybersecurity legislation, but the issue might not be dead after all.

The White House hasn’t ruled out issuing an executive order to strengthen the nation’s defenses against cyber attacks if Congress refuses to act.

“In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in an emailed response to whether the president is considering a cybersecurity order.

via After defeat of Senate cybersecurity bill, Obama weighs executive-order option – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.

Reza Taghipour, the country’s telecommunications minister, said the step was being taken because sensitive intelligence was vulnerable on the worldwide web, which he said was untrustworthy because it was controlled by “one or two” countries hostile to Iran.

“The establishment of the national intelligence network will create a situation where the precious intelligence of the country won’t be accessible to these powers,” Mr Taghipour told a conference on Sunday at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University.

He described the move as the first phase of a project to replace the global internet with a domestic intranet system scheduled to be completed within 18 months.

Opponents have previously denounced the plan as a means of stamping out western influence on the internet while further tightening already stringent online surveillance of political activists and regime critics.

While Iranian officials have repeatedly spoken about creating their own alternative to the internet, the latest announcement follows the upheaval wreaked by Stuxnet and Flame, both of which are believed to have been developed jointly by the US and Israel.

via Iranian state goes offline to dodge cyber-attacks – Telegraph.