A new governing aristocracy made public deception acceptable

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We live in unprecedented times: With both conventions behind us, roughly three months to the November elections, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the political landscape has radically changed; and not only because both big parties selected highly flawed, even in their own parties relatively unpopular presidential nominees.

Disruptions of traditional American politics goes far beyond that point, and the selection of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as standard bearers of their respective parties, indeed, increasingly looks like only the last step in a decades-long process of declining morality in public policy and politics. It also coincides with a rapidly expanding government, the concomitant growth and ever increasing power of a government-funded administrative “aristocracy,” made up of professional politicians and largely unaccountable government bureaucrats, who no longer listen to the people but believe to have the right to make choices on behalf of the people, while in actuality self-servingly expanding their own interests rather than those of the people.

Administrative “aristocracies” existed throughout history, from ancient Egypt, China and Japan to later European nation states, at times, indeed, similarly to current circumstances in the European Union (i.e. BREXIT) and the U.S. (ratification of the agreement with Teheran by the U.N. rather that the U.S. Congress), more loyal to their “aristocratic” cast members across-borders than to their own nations. This is how, for example, a German rather than British aristocratic family ascended to the British throne creating the House of Windsor or, as recently as in 1921, when a Saudi Arabian “aristocratic” family from Mecca was chosen by the British as rulers of Jordan, creating the Hashemite dynasty that has been in power ever since. Though formal aristocracies lost power in many countries, new administrative “aristocracies” almost always followed. Though, for example, end of aristocratic rule was a declared goal of the French Revolution, Napoleon established elite schools for future government administrators (and politicians), not too dissimilar to how Chinese emperors had ruled their vast empire already in early Chinese dynasties, and thus created a new ruling class (i.e., administrative aristocracy).

Napoleon’s schooling concept has survived in the so-called Grandes écoles of France over a number of French Republics, with the École national d’administration till today seeding governments and the nations administrative as well as business elites, whether from the left or right of the political spectrum. Post WWII, similar administrative “aristocracies” also developed in most other Western European democracies and, when the European Community was established, found its ultimate expression in the Union’s Brussel Bureaucracy, which can be viewed as the principle cause why the BREXIT vote led to the pending departure of the UK from the EU.

Primarily driven by an ever expanding federal government with increasing powers, and by diminished independence of individual states, such a federal administrative “aristocracy” has also been evolving in the U.S. Especially the last 30 years have witnessed exponential growth in the power of this ruling class, at least partially driven by the power of incumbency, offering politicians a high likelihood of reelection, and due to lifetime employment (with practically no legal option of dismissal) for government employees. United by common self-interests of incumbency and ever expanding financial as well as political power, politicians and government bureaucrats now represent our country’s administrative “aristocracy,” not dissimilar to the EU’s administrative “aristocracy” in Brussels. This is why, by income, some of the suburbs of Washington, DC, now are the richest counties in the nation.

Convinced of intellectual superiority, these “aristocratic” bureaucracies create self-perpetuating and self-serving government structures from the ground up by determining what is and what is not politically correct language (and, of course, politically correct thinking); by establishing educational curricula for schools and colleges that “educate” the young, following the old Jesuit dictum, “give me a child until age seven, and I’ll give you the man;” by interpreting laws in thousands of rules and regulations, many never intended by congress; in other words, by removing the administration of the country further and further from the direct will of the people.

Since ideologies throughout history never were able to co-exist with traditional religious believes, it is not surprising that these “aristocratic” bureaucracies are usually agnostic, and often even overtly hostile to the exercise of free religions. The empty space of religion is filled with “modern religiosity,” best defined as abstract concepts of thought, which share with religions the indisputable conviction of absolute and, therefore, indisputable truth; yet, like religions, they are also characterized by absence of all provability and, at times, are empirical illogical.

A good example for such illogical thinking is, for example, the laudable insistence on equality of all religions (i.e., Islam with Christianity and Judaism) while, at the same time restricting the ability of Christians to practice their religion freely. A good example for the results of such illogical thinking is that currently over 50% of U.S. college students allegedly favor socialism over capitalism, even though every student of history would know that in innumerable incarnations socialism has without exception always failed as an economic model, and more often than not, ended up leading to dictatorships and economic misery (see the current Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world). This statistical fact is, however, also a good example how radically this new American “aristocracy” has changed America in recent decades. Even President Obama in his first election campaign, only eight years ago, still categorically rejected the label of being a “socialist” for fear of becoming unelectable. Only eight years later, Bernie Sanders, a declared Socialist would, likely, have become the elected Democratic presidential candidate, had the party leadership not undemocratically conspired against his election.

Looking back in history, considering the more recent political climate in the country, it is really quite remarkable that when the Watergate Scandal broke in the 1970s in the second Nixon administration, Republicans were on the forefront of those demanding his impeachment. Contrast that to what happened during the second Democratic Clinton administration, when the truth no longer mattered and relativity of values, suddenly, ruled the day.

Can anybody imagine that an earlier U.S. president would have politically survived a Lewinsky- like Scandal? And, yet in 1997, only a little over 20 years following Watergate, Bill Clinton not only survived, but became one of the country’s most popular ex-presidents. The political value system of the country in those short years had, obviously, radically changed: Doing the right thing for the country was out; and self-preservation of the ruling “aristocratic” class, based on the relativity of human values, was in. Not one Democratic member of the Senate supported Clinton’s impeachment, and many Republican politicians who had pushed for it, saw their political careers destroyed.

After Watergate, the Lewinsky Affair, likely, became the most decisive political event in recent American history because, for the first time, an American president in a televised broadcast literally looked into the eyes of the nation and outright lied, when stating “I have never had sex with this woman.”

Many, maybe even most presidents before Clinton, of course, also have on occasion been less than truthful; but nobody, except of course Nixon (“I am not a crook”), has in recent history so blatantly lied to the American people as Bill Clinton and, yet, gotten away with it, in the process changing American politics for ever by demonstrating that the modern multimedia world practically always offers the opportunity to relativize the truth of the message (to quote Bill Clinton, “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”).

The political “aristocracy” learned this lesson very quickly and, of course, nobody better than Hillary Clinton. She would never have dared to follow through with the absolute insane idea of establishing her own Internet server while serving as Secretary of State, had she not been convinced that she could manipulate the truth, should it be discovered. Piercing her words, as her husband had done so well during the Lewinsky Affair, she, indeed, has successfully avoided indictment by the Justice Department, even though a majority of Americans, likely, believe that she escaped because of special considerations by Obama’s Justice Department. Completely exposed in her deception by the FBI investigation, she, remarkably, still continues to lie in her statements to the public.

That Hillary Clinton was not indicted also explains why investigations of Fast and Furious and the IRS scandal never went anywhere, why six weeks before national presidential elections the first Obama administration could instruct senior administration officials to claim that the U.S. ambassador’s murder in Benghazi was not caused by terrorists but by a ridiculous irrelevant video produced in Los Angeles. This is also why Hillary Clinton is still a candidate for President of the U.S., even though common sense suggests that she should have been indicted, and why President Obama can with a straight face go on national television, telling the American people that sending 400 million dollars in foreign untraceable currencies on an unmarked plane in the middle of the night to Teheran represents just “routine” government relations between two governments, and had absolutely nothing to do with the concomitant release of four American hostages.

It has quite obviously become routine for senior government officials, including America’s current President, without fear of political or legal retributions, to blatantly lie to the American people. This, of course, does not happen by happenstance: it is a reflection of how much our country’s political morality has changed over the last three decades.

Within the ruling “aristocracy,” loyalty to the ruling class supersedes right and wrong, and even loyalty to the country is only, at best, second. This is why Ms. Lerner took the Fifth when questioned before Congress about the IRS scandal rather than inform Congress on who instructed her to discriminate against potential political opponents of the Obama administration. She knew that she could count on being protected, and that there would be no serious follow up investigation by the FBI. This is also why only one person was fired in the Veterans Affairs Scandal, the Justice Department decided not to defend a law suit this person filed about her dismissal, and the Obama administration announced that it would no longer implement a law Congress passed that allowed the Veterans Administrator to fire government employees for appropriate cause. And this is also why Hillary Clinton had no hesitation of appointing Ms. Wasserman-Schultz to the position of Honorary Chair of her campaign on the day she was forced to resign as Chair of the Democratic Party after public disclosure how the party under her leadership subverted the primary election process in favor of Ms. Clinton. One hand, of course, washes the other; the administrative “aristocracy” protects its own!

The public instinctively feels the growing divide between the ruling administrative “aristocracy” of both major parties and the American people. This is unquestionably a major reason why Congress and both parties have reached a nadir in popularity. The only question remaining is whether the public is upset enough about where the political “aristocracy” has taken the country to revolt, and take the risk in the upcoming election to consider the unknown over the unacceptable. If the answer is yes, then Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president; if the answer is no, then Hillary Clinton will not only be the first female president of the U.S. but, assuming the public’s anger with Washington continues to grow and finally boils over during her administration, she may end up being the first president since Richard Nixon not finishing a full term in the White House.

Are we in the midst of the biggest election charade in U.S. history?

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Down to four candidates, and with “the Donald” seeming increasingly inevitable as the Republican candidate in the November election, the country is consumed by the Republican race toward the nomination. While the performance of good old Bernie on the Democratic side to a degree is not less surprising than Trump’s among Republicans, Bernie creates much less commotion within party, media and the public because Hillary is, still, considered the shoe-in favorite to be the Democrat Party’s nominee for president in the fall.

Media, political pundits and the Republican “establishment” are fixated on the potential implications of a Trump nomination, while comparatively little attention is being paid to the Democratic race. Donald Trump commented a few times that Hillary should not be allowed to run because of her legal server problems; some Republican pundits on the FOX news channel have made similar comments, suggesting she may be indicted by the Justice Department; but the general consensus has been that President Obama’s Justice Department will “protect” Hillary, and that, like in past scandals, she once again will get away unscathed.

But here is a rumor, interestingly circulating in Democratic rather than Republican circles, which, if true, would suggest that we are in the midst of the most profound election charade in U.S. history, – all managed out of the White House.

It goes like this: The Obamas really hate the Clintons, and the last person Barack and Michelle would like to see in succession is Hillary. Senior White House Advisor and best Obama friend Valerie Jarret despises Hillary and, allegedly, leads the evolving cabal, after failing in her earlier attempts to recruit Vice President Biden to run in the primaries.

President Obama is, however, committed to supporting Hillary in her election bid, – a commitment he made to Bill Clinton when he desperately needed Bill’s support in his bid for reelection. Short of declaring open war on the Clintons, such a commitment is not rescindable. Obama’s hand, therefore, are tide unless, of course, unforeseen circumstances, involving interests of national importance arise.

A scenario, involving national interests is indeed what the White House is allegedly working toward, and it involves the following: As is widely expected, and despite stronger resistance from Bernie Sanders than had been anticipated, Hillary will become the Democrat Party’s nominee at the July 2016 convention in Philadelphia. Shortly after her crowning there, however, will be leaks to the media suggesting that the Justice Department is preparing indictments against Hillary on multiple grounds involving her private server but also conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation. While these leaks will initially be denied by government sources, other leaks will confirm that a grand jury has indeed been seated for months.

Behind the scenes a similar sequence of events will take place, just as The Canary described with the Petraous case in October 2014. The Justice Department and White House will offer Hillary a deal that she will not be able to refuse: she will announce her resignation as the Democrat Party candidate for the 2016 presidential election, considering “all the swirling rumors” and “in the best interest of party and nation,” at which point President Obama, “in recognition of her enormous sacrifice for party and country” will offer her an all-encompassing pardon, as Ford granted to Nixon. An indictment under this scenario will never be formally announced. Public announcement of an indictment, of course, would make it impossible for Hillary to continue a campaign for the presidency, and would, in addition, expose her to serious legal jeopardies.

What makes this alleged scenario so believable is its timing. It has to play itself out after Hillary wins the nomination because, once delegates have voted and elected a nominee, should another election be required, they are free to vote their conscience. This, of course, gives the White House the opportunity to put forward the “most suitable” candidate, Vice President Biden.

This is, however, not where the conspiracy ends: The goal of the White House is, of course, to extend the Obama legacy for as long as possible. Because of his age, Biden is, at best, only a one-term presidential candidate. The choice of vice-presidential running mate, therefore, is of great importance, and here is where this alleged charade assumes real importance because the name we hear is, believe it or not, Michelle Obama.

Michelle as running mate would have significant electoral advantages in November since she would unquestionably solidify the old Obama coalition for the 2016 race more than any other vice presidential candidate. In addition, her nomination would be the ultimate slight to the Clintons since it would put Michelle into strong contention of becoming the first female U.S. president, a goal Hillary has been striving for for decades.

We hear that Michelle is allegedly still hesitant, and wants Valerie Jarret to be the running mate. If elected as vice president and later president, either would extend the Obama legacy by up to 12 years. Barack Hussein Obama would be viewed as one of the most influential U.S. presidents in history.

Why Trump Could (and Maybe Should) Be President

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Everybody can agree that Donald Trump’s persistent lead in the Republican presidential race creates potential conflicts within Republican Party ranks. Trump has shown himself to be rhetorically divisive. He sources his popularity to some degree from being divisive; yet, in our opinion, the Republican Party actually has a potential presidential candidate in Trump for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s successful initial presidential campaign, because he can make significant inroads into core Democratic constituencies.

The Republican establishment is increasingly horrified by the fact that Trump could really become the Party’s nominee. The same competing candidates who attacked him for threatening a third party bid during earlier stages of the campaign are now are suggesting that they may not support him should he become the duly elected Republican presidential candidate. Due to increasingly frantic leaks from the establishment, the idea that their convention may be deadlocked serves as reassurance and threat to those who believe that Trump would have little chance of becoming the Republican candidate in a back-room-brokered convention managed by the political establishment of the Party.

Such a brokered convention last occurred on the Republican side in 1948 when the Party elected Thomas Dewey, who failed to defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt in his fourth election cycle.

Too smart and too sophisticated a tactician, Trump immediately countered the threat of the party’s establishment, threatening to go rogue and run a third-party candidacy, which would doom not only the Republican presidential candidate but also Republican Senate and House majorities.

This leaves few options for the Republican Party establishment, because Trump would view any organized opposition against him as a cause-celebre to go to war. He could do that at almost no cost because more than enough of his loyal followers would vote third party to assure a disastrous Republican election experience in 2016.

If we know that, so does The Donald and so does the Republican establishment. Anybody who does not see Donald Trump as the principal Republican candidate to beat should return to reality.

Which brings us back to the original purpose of this column, which was to explain why Donald Trump could actually rebuild a dominant Republican majority in the country in 2016: one that has not been seen since the days of Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s electoral success was built on his unique ability (as a former Democrat and union president) to attract a core Democratic constituency, – the so-called “Reagan Democrats.” Those were mostly white, lower-middle class, blue-color workers without college education who had never voted for a Republican candidate (and have not since).

Trump appears to attract the same constituency: maybe more so than Reagan. There are good reasons for that, considering the disastrous economic effects of the Obama years on blue color workers and the middle class in general. Add to this Obama’s divisive race policy and disastrous foreign and security policy and one observes a huge block of traditional Democratic voters not only staying home, but also switching allegiance for the first time since 1981, when the choice was between reelecting Carter or electing Reagan.

But Trump’s and the Republicans’ opportunity looms even larger than that and, once again, Trump’s actions suggest that he is astutely aware of it: for the first time in decades, a significant block of African American voters is up for grasp by a smart Republican candidate, and nobody is rhetorically better suited to go after that vote on the Republican side than The Donald.

Like white, blue collar America, Black America experienced a rather disastrous times during the Obama years. Paradoxically, the county’s first Black president’s policies lead to the most significant economic deterioration within the American Black community in decades, with poverty reaching a new high, incomes declining, youth unemployment at record highs and race relationships the worst since the 60s. The Black community, which, based on their loyalties to the first Black U.S. president, voted almost 100 percent Democratic in the last two presidential elections, will not show the same allegiance to Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat candidate in 2016.

Increasingly, even liberal voices from amidst the African American community are reaching the conclusion that traditional liberal policies have not served their communities well.

And who can blame them?

If one looks around the country, cities under decade-long, one-party Democrat rule like Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore, African American communities are doing the worst. It is in those cities where most black youth are murdered every day, where schools are employment factories for union members but don’t offer even minimal education to children and the economic future of the youth is, therefore, the bleakest.

But the camel’s back was probably broken for the African American community with the apparent murder of the African American teenager Laquan McDonald by a white police officer in Chicago. It was not the murder itself that did it (after all, Chicago is the murder capital of the country for black youth), but the very obvious cover up by the decades-old Democratic administration of the city, which is run by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former Chief of Staff at the White House. Emanuel’s administration tried to silence McDonald’s family with a payoff of $5 million and attempted to hide an evidentiary video from the public for over a year out of fear that its disclosure could derail Emanuel’s reelection as major (does that sound like Benghazi deceptions before Obama’s reelection?).

The blatancy of this cover up demonstrated the decades-long abuse of Black America by the Democratic political establishment, which was never able to advance the community’s economic and social interests.

Mayor Emanuel’s administration’s behavior suddenly demonstrated to the world how little Democrats really cared about the African American experience. Just like classical Marxism, allegedly representing the best interests of the proletariat, they only used the proletariat to achieve ideological goals under a highly educated and privileged political elite. The liberal Democratic establishment always viewed African Americans as political fodder in their power struggles with the political right, guaranteeing them an almost unanimous voting block during election seasons.

By recently meeting with a group of African American ministers in New York City, Donald Trump demonstrated that he understands the political uproar that is currently ripping through traditional political relationships in Black communities all over the nation. Witnessing Black demonstrators in Chicago demanding the resignation of Obama’s prior Chief of Staff as mayor of Chicago is telling. Like everybody else, looking for a better future under true leadership, the African American community is ripe for the political picking by a Republican candidate who is convincing in persuading them that she/he offers new opportunities that will finally improve Black lives in America.

No Republican candidate is better suited to deliver this message than Donald Trump.

As we already noted in our last posting, barring completely self-destructive behavior by Trump or suicidal actions by the Republican establishment, it may be time to consider a Trump presidency a reasonable likelihood. As we also indirectly noted in our last posting, he would be well-advised to choose a female running mate. Considering Trump’s relative lack of foreign policy experience, we are increasingly betting on a Trump/Fiorina ticket. America could do worse than that!

The coming political revolution of 2016: Why the country is so fed up with politicians

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There is an unusual unanimity in the media and among political pundits about the level of distrust with which the country has come to view the political class. It appears on the verge of outright “disgust,” threatening in an almost revolutionary way to obliterate a whole generation of professional politicians among Democrats and Republicans alike.

Establishment politicians from both parties still hope that interruptions and disturbances generating from a-political outsiders will collapse. We think they will be disappointed, especially on the Republican side, where discontent with politicians (even in their own party) is even more pronounced than among Democrats.

And now, after the government, Federal Reserve, Wall Street and media forecast slow but consistent economic expansion into 2016, should the Canary’s prediction of further economic weakness (The Canary predicted a recession in late 2015 to early 2016) coupled with disappointing Holiday Season sales, become reality, the public’s trust in all of those traditional societal pillars will, undoubtedly, further erode.

The country’s system of governance is now increasingly perceived as incompetent, corrupt or both, with widespread consensus that nobody looks out for the best interests of the nation, its citizens and future generations anymore. It doesn’t matter whether the Veterans Administration (VA) represents incompetence, corruption or both. What matters is that, even under a new administration, the medical care our veterans receive continues to deteriorate.

The VA is, indeed, a good example for how much governance has deteriorated. It was established in 1930 by Congress during the Hoover administration and, since, has become the largest integrated health care system in the U.S. with a whopping 152 medical centers. What makes this explosive growth of the VA system even more remarkable is that it occurred despite VA’s persistent failure to offer comparable levels of health care to other non-government health care systems. The medical community has considered the VA system a second-class health care system for decades.

Lesson I: Growth of government institutions is independent of performance. Once government services become the subject of criticism, every bureaucracy’s self-preservation mechanisms are activated which, if necessary, will include deception of public and Congress. The VA scandal demonstrates this, as senior administrators were caught falsifying appointment schedules to cover up the VA’s failure to offer veterans timely medical appointments.

Lesson II: Government institutions will lie and cheat to self-preserve. A new VA administrator was appointed, but recent media reports suggest that despite Congress granting it a considerable budget expansion, waiting periods for medical appointments are longer than ever.

Lesson III: Government institutions are incapable of self-correcting. While some senior administrators who falsified records were “allowed” to retire, none was indicted and none ended up in jail.

Lesson IV: As we witnessed in the IRS scandal for which nobody went to jail, the political class protects its own. Whether Democrat or Republican, administrations understand that executions of their programs are dependent on the good will of the bureaucracy. Prosecution of senior bureaucrats, therefore, is never advisable.

One would expect government to at least learn from its failures, but lessons learned at the VA did not lead to congressional reorganization of the VA. In good Washington fashion, more money was thrown at the problem by both parties, without any attempts at reengineering a failing government agency. Under Obamacare, the country doubled and tripled down on this failure by creating an even larger VA on steroids. It barely took two years to see subsidized insurance exchanges go bankrupt and insurance premiums rise far beyond inflation rates all over the cuontry. Even earlier supporters of Obamacare have second thoughts.

Lesson V: The political class does not learn from past mistakes because ideological believe systems and political expediency always trump empirical conclusions. In pursuit of empirically unproven programs, and in attempts to get elected (or reelected over and over), politicians from both parties are spending the country into oblivion. For the first time in the country’s history our generation is on the verge of leaving our children and grandchildren a country financially worse off than the one we inherited from our parents.

Corruption in the current political system is also well-demonstrated by the unbecoming spectacle of politicians after retirement or in between government positions being paid absurdly excessive speaker honoraria by commercial and political (often foreign) interests. Since no speech ever is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, influence peddling, the real motivation behind these payments is too obvious. Nothing demonstrates this better than the donations and speaker honoraria received by the Clinton Foundation, Bill and Hillary’s personal worldwide kingdom of political corruption.

It allowed them to go from “being broke” a little over a decade ago when leaving the presidency (to quote Hillary), to controlling hundreds of millions of dollars of “donated” assets, which allows them (as a not-for-profit at tax payer expense) to finance their own and their daughter’s opulent life style and maintain a publically-financed political machine of political employees, salaried by the foundation.

Despite Hillary’s denials in her current election cycle, the Clintons are also the best practitioners of crony capitalism. Nobody has done more for the big Wall Street firms than the country’s leading political couple, and few have argued as successfully for the bailouts Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants received during the 2008 financial crisis.

Interestingly, just a few days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that major U.S. banks, almost all bailed out by taxpayer funds, significantly decreased their loans to small businesses in the third quarter of 2015 while increasing lending to Fortune 500 companies. Crony capitalism is, indeed, doing very well, and is more alive than ever after seven years of the Obama administration. It is the middle class (I.e., small business owners) that is suffering for lack of all advocacy in Washington at historically unprecedented levels of crony capitalism in the U.S. Small businesses just cannot afford Bill and Hillary Clinton’s speaker honoraria!

By exempting themselves from laws, the political class has also been highly successful in carving out special legal standing for themselves while rewarding themselves materially in ways other cannot. Examples abound: For example, five sons of the former Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid worked as lobbyists to Congress during his tenure and, amazingly, no law or congressional rule considers this an illegal conflict of interest. Yet, others under similar circumstances would end up in jail. For example, physicians are prohibited from utilizing laboratories or x-ray facilities for their patients if family members hold even minimal ownership in them.

Another example: Until very recently members of Congress were fully protected from insider trading rules, for which hundreds of regular citizens go to jail every year. When voting for legislation that may benefit commercial interests, politicians’ disclosure mandates are extremely porous. Yet, to go back to examples from the medical profession, physicians and scientists who receive just a coffee mug from a Pharma company have to disclose this fact before giving a lecture to colleagues, upon publishing a scientific paper or when applying for a federal grant. It is perfectly permissible for members of Congress and local politicians to accept luncheon and dinner invitation (aside of political contributions, of course), or go on all expenses paid junkets at luxury hotel resorts and golf courses; yet, physicians are no longer allowed to accept free meals at or paid trips to professional medical conferences.

It should not surprise that more and more of the country is increasingly convinced that the political class is up for sale to the highest bidder, whether it involves the country’s security and foreign policy (while his wife was Secretary of State, President Clinton seriously applied for a permit from the Department of State to give one of his highly paid speeches in North Korea), the economic wellbeing of its citizens, – especially of its middle class and, probably most importantly, the future of our children and grandchildren.

The people’s evolving disgust is also spreading to the intellectual leadership of the country, mostly concentrated in universities, Hollywood and media on both coasts. They are held responsible for many of the recent societal policy changes that have overtaken the country at surprisingly rapid pace, including the legalizing of Marijuana, gay marriage and increasing legislative secularism. The public does not understand why smoking cigarettes in public makes them outcasts yet smoking a joint is widely promoted and considered hip. They see one great social idea after another failing while consuming billions of the country’s treasury, and while poverty in the country is at its highest in decades. And after having elected the first black president to two terms, they find race relations at a tragic new low.

The intellectual leadership of the country is held responsible for all of these developments because it, with increasing arrogance, is propagating empirically untested social experiments of unprecedented size and cost (Obamacare, legalization of Marijuana, global warming, etc.), while the country is slipping into deeper and deeper economic and social malaise. Such moments of national malaise and lack of political as well as intellectual leadership have proven dangerous in history, as they have led to fascism and other forms of dictatorships in the past.

In the current election cycle, a record field of Republicans announced their candidacy for president and we at The Canary were pleased by their youth and apparent riches of talent. Concomitantly, we were disappointed by the lack of talent among Democrats, which made Hillary Clinton’s selection a foregone conclusion (unless she does get indicted by the Justice Department after all, which after the bail out of the IRS by Justice, appears much less likely than we had thought just a month ago). Unfortunately, the Republican candidates, have been disappointing and unoriginal until now, except for the three inexperienced political outsiders, Trump, Carson and Fiorina. On the Democrat side, Hillary has been Hillary: an untrustworthy, lying political operative, who will do and say anything to be elected.

Just weeks before start of the official primary season, the country faces rather bleak options for the 2016 election. We at The Canary, would have never thought the day would come that we wished Mitt Romney was running again. But that’s where we are at this point because the only other alternative appears to be a Trump/Fiorina ticket.

The Federal Reserve is Too Optimistic: This Looks More Like Another Recession

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Listening to official and off-the-record comments coming from the Federal Reserve, noting the government’s reports on declining unemployment and optimistic representations of the country’s economic outlook, one would be inclined to believe that the U.S. economy is finally on the upswing.

After years of minimal growth following the most severe recession since the Great Depression in the 30s, it would, indeed, be time to see real growth in GDP and a reversal in Americans’ average income declines over the last decade.

The Fed is allegedly serious about the first interest rate hike in years before year’s end, an enormous shift from an almost zero rate imposed at the height of the worldwide financial crisis. The media considers this further evidence of an expanding economy, since it is generally assumed that the Feds would not start raising rates unless they were convinced that the economy was expanding.

But excuse us here at The Canary for not giving too much credence to what the Federal Reserve believes. As we recall, their track record in assessing where the U.S. economy is headed was not too stellar before the last recession either. Why would we expect them to do any better now?

Let’s recapitulate on what is really going on. To do so, we have to start with a quick worldwide survey, which is relatively straightforward because practically the whole world, except for the U.S., India and a handful of other countries, are already in recession. The most important contributor to the likeliness of a worldwide recession is China. Widely reported by the media, China’s growth rate has started to decline. Economists had predicted that double-digit growth rates were unsustainable but had counted on the ability of the Chinese government to “manage” the slowing of national growth to avoid economic shocks around the world.

There were reasons to trust in the abilities of the Chinese government to manage the county’s economy proactively because it did so very successfully during the 2008 financial crisis. But this time, the Chinese government failed, as witnessed by the crash of the Chinese stock market and the sudden slowing of the annual national growth rate to even below the “promised” 7%. Latest reports suggest a likely 2015 growth rate of 6.5%, and since Chinese government data are untrustworthy, the real growth rate can be expected to fall below 6%.

For any country in the world, including the U.S., a 6% growth would be cause for celebration; for China however, it means almost unmitigated disaster because it suggests continuous uncontrollable declines. Significant economic growth is, however, required to continue improvements in living standards of their one billion peasants and maintenance of social peace.

Declines in economic growth in China have even more significant effects on the rest of the world because, as the largest consumer of raw materials, even relative small declines in Chinese raw material purchases exponentially exert down-pressure on commodity prices around the world, leading to worldwide price deflation and declining growth.

On top of this you can add most volatile political situation in the world since the 1930s, almost revolutionary levels of political dissatisfaction with the political class in most Western democracies (including the U.S.), a European Union in economic as well as political crisis, the largest refugee problem since WWII, and a revanchist and increasingly autocratic Russia with expanding military foot print. It becomes difficult to envision how the U.S. economy could remain an island of growth in an otherwise economically depressed world. Moreover, have you noticed the unprecedented number of empty stores available for rent, in most major U.S. cities?

But here is the real reason why we forecast an economic recession in the U.S. in the very near future (we, indeed, may already be in its early stages): It has been known for decades that birth rate declines are a consequence of a recession. According to national U.S. Birth Registry data, the 2008 recession resulted in the largest recorded decline in national births (of course, nine months later) reported since the 1930s. More recently, a related prognostic “index” was reported when a group of fertility specialists reported that the demand for their services declines significantly during recessions. Indeed, declines in demand for fertility services abruptly declined a number of months before the 2008 recession officially began.

Our friends in the infertility industry are telling us that after continuous growth over recent years, they suddenly encountered a similar downturn similar to those experienced in 2008. Following the 2008 timeline, this would suggest the beginning of a recession not later than November/December of this year.

It will be interesting to see who is a better predictor of U.S. economic activity: The Federal Reserve or the natural instincts of human beings, who automatically reduce reproductive activities when they intuitively sense hard times ahead. We put our money on human intuition and, in full disclosure, have gone into cash.

The World is a Mess, and Nobody Seems to Care

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CANARY IN THE MINE BLOG - The world is a mess and nobody seems to care

The world is a mess, and getting worse every day. Truly earthshattering events will reverberate for decades to come. Yet, too busy with its self-perpetuation, our political class doesn’t appear to be moved.

The fish always stinks from the head, and for almost seven years, the country’s head has been President Obama. When observing his foreign policy, one has to wonder whether this man ever took a 20th Century history class. Does he know anything about the world between WWI and WWII? Has he ever heard about the Weimar Republic, the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler or of course, WWII and the Cold War that followed?

Looking at what he appears to prioritize in his presidency, one has to wonder. Aside from playing golf, attending fundraisers and sticking his finger in Republicans’ eyes (not necessarily in that order), he clearly engages on domestic issues such as income inequality, immigrants’ rights and the environment. He becomes particularly emotional when raising the issue of racism and discussing gun control (though, interestingly, has not addressed the extraordinarily high black-on-black murder rate in his home town of Chicago).

Yet, the primary responsibility of government, the national security of the nation, never seems to be of particular interest or to elicit emotions from this president. Defense and State, traditionally considered the two most important government departments, appear to be mere afterthoughts, frequently characterized by delays in decision-making or outright inaction. Not surprising, he stumbles from one foreign policy disaster to the next, yet does not appear to care.

Obama and his national security team’s inability to interpret recent history and draw appropriate conclusions is staggering.

But shouldn’t our government be able to recognize the similarities between now and the 1930s, when downtrodden Germany found a dynamic, devilish new leader in Hitler, who promised reconstitution of the greatness of the German Reich, beaten down by the Versailles Agreement after WWI, and socially eviscerated by the Great Depression.

Now it is Putin’s Russian Federation, like Hitler’s German Reich in the 1930s a powerful military machine that feels denigrated by the rest of the world, and is determined to proof her political relevance. Like Hitler’s Germany, the political insanity starts with unopposed expansion of the motherland with military force (sic. Crimea and the Ukraine) testing one’s military and projecting military capabilities by initiating a proxy war with “the other side” (sic. Syria).

The many analogies are truly eerie: Hitler organized the 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin as a demonstration of Germany’s re-ascendance. In 1936 the Spanish Civil War started as a proxy-war between Europe’s Fascist right and democratic left. By siding with the Fascist Franco regime, Hitler used Spain’s civil war as a testing ground for his military. By 1938, Austria was annexed into The Reich, by early 1939 the Czech Sudetenland was conquered and shortly thereafter Poland was attacked, which started WWII.

Russia’s 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi were not only called Putin’s Olympics but were to demonstrate Russia’s re-ascendance as a political, military and economic power in the world. Only weeks later, Russian troops occupied the Crimea and invaded the eastern parts of the Ukraine. Over the last few weeks, Russian military forces have become actively involved in the Syrian civil war and, certainly not on our side. Senior U.S. military strategists have started to call Putin’s intervention in Syria a proxy-war against the U.S., while the Russian military leadership openly acknowledged to the international press that “the Syrian intervention represented a good opportunity to test Russia’s weapon systems.”

And then there is the famous Chamberlain episode, when the British Chancellor triumphantly returned to London after meeting with Hitler, claiming to “have achieved permanent peace in Europe” by ceding to Hitler the Sudetenland. Nobody in those days listened to Winston Churchill, who strongly opposed the agreement, and correctly foresaw its consequences.

The contemporary analogy is Obama’s infamous Iran deal, which not only released 250 billion U.S. dollars to Iran, but also ended all economic sanctions. Like Chamberlain from Hitler, Obama received nothing in return for his graciousness from the Iranians. Indeed, within days it became apparent that Russia (one of the countries that negotiated the Iran deal) and Iran, behind Obama’s back, had formed a political and military alliance with Iraq and the Syrian government against the limited U.S. efforts in Syria (it was announced days after Obama met with Putin at the U.N.).

There, however, is one big difference between Chamberlain’s and Obama’s deals: Chamberlain had the overwhelming support of Parliament and the British people when he signed his now infamous agreement with Hitler. In contrast, two-thirds of the American public and clear majorities in both houses of Congress opposed Obama’s Iran deal. Despite obvious lack of public support, Obama concluded the agreement, likely the most consequential national security agreement reached between the U.S. and a hostile nation since WWII.

Even the economy mimics circumstances in 1930 to some degree: While we are fortunate to have avoided a second worldwide depression in 2008, the International Monetary Fund just warned of yet another pending worldwide recession. One wonders how well the world would withstand a second devastating recession after the anemic recovery in history from the last one. With interest rates in most of the developed world already at or close to zero, federal reserves have few options left to stimulate collapsing markets and economies.

Seven years of Obama foreign policy have brought the world close to a political and military abyss. Russia’s Putin understood President Obama’s message loud and clear when, while running for his second term, he whispered into Dimitri Medvedev’s ear that “after his reelection he would be able to be more flexible.”

He has indeed become more flexible vis-à-vis the newly expanding Russia but also vis-à-vis Teheran, the leading terrorist government in the world, as well as toward Cuba, which still incarcerates more political prisoners than even much larger totalitarian countries. Indeed, this increased flexibility is being offered to practically every government that expresses hostility toward the U.S., while Obama clearly distances himself from longtime allies like Egypt and Israel.

The Canary predicted Obama’s policies before his reelection because they match his ideological geopolitical world view (Obama’s foreign and security policies are not based on history lessons but on an internationalist, Marxist, third-world ideology. I say this because it is almost incomprehensible to maintain a Marxist ideology after studying 20th century history. As we previously noted, Obama grew up surrounded by proponents of a multi-centric, anti-colonialist world in which the U.S. is no longer the dominant nation but one among many. It is defanged in its abilities and no longer able to impose her will upon the rest of the world.

What happens out there in the world, therefore, does not matter much to Obama; the weaker the U.S. becomes strategically and militarily the better, because this means it is less likely that the U.S. will be strong enough to intervene in other parts of the world militarily. Like Ronald Reagan became a highly consequential president by rebuilding America’s military might after a disastrous Carter presidency, Obama is striving to become a consequential president for having eliminated the country’s overwhelming might, which made it the only “superpower” in the world.

No longer the world’s lone “superpower,” Obama’s second policy goal is to make the country turn inwards toward all domestic problems that make his heart beat faster. Considering these ideology-driven priorities, his disinterest in foreign policy and the dismantling of U.S. military strength during his two administrations should not surprise. The 250,000 Syrians who have perished, and millions of refugees now flooding Western Europe with irrevocable consequences for decades to come, are hardly worth his attention, unless, of course, they come to the U.S. as potential political supporters of future Democratic administrations.

One would think that this level of ideological blindness would be met by a thoughtful Republican strategy. But Republican policy makers are preoccupied with trying to launch successful primary campaigns for 2016, a suggestion that is laughable at best. When it appeared that things could not get any more bizarre, the Republican leader of the House resigned and his second-in-command revealed himself as an even less competent party spokesman. He did not even make it to the succession vote for the Speaker position, although only days earlier, it was projected that he would easily win this vote.

And then there is the Democratic political farce surrounding the “inevitable Hillary Clinton,” increasingly unpopular with the public, and outright hated by the Obamas and Valerie Jarret (Obama’s female Rasputin). Anybody who still believes that Hillary will be the Democratic candidate in 2016 does not understand the modus operandi of the current White House.

The Canary explained this modus operandi over a year ago, when we asked where General David Petraeus had disappeared to at a time when this country was in desperate need of his tactical military genius. Shortly before our piece appeared, the FBI had initiated an investigation against him, and he was forced to resign as CIA Chief.

Does that sound familiar?

The ongoing Hillary investigation by the FBI will allegedly be completed by the end of the year. Isn’t it amazing how quickly the FBI can and will get an investigation completed when it suits a good political purpose, like preventing Hillary from ever setting foot into the White House (compare this to the IRS investigation, for which not one victim was interviewed)?

Yes, this is how much the Obamas and Jarret hate the Clintons; Like Petraeus before her, Hillary will receive a settlement offer from Justice that she will not be able to refuse. The offer will be to retire from politics prior to the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in early February in exchange for staying away from the White House or she will be formally indicted and, likely, go to jail. It’s not hard to guess which option she will choose. And since Vice President Biden already knows that this settlement is in the works, expect his announcement that he will join the campaign for the presidency soon.

With all of this going on in Washington, who can be surprised that our political elite doesn’t seem to care that the world around us is crumbling. It’s the 1930s all over again, and more chaos is on the way, with no political leadership visible anywhere in the Western world to resist the forceful spread of authoritarianism by the Russian Federation, China, Iran and other powers hostile to the U.S. and Western democratic values.

Obama is succeeding in becoming a very consequential U.S. president, with unfortunate consequences for the next generations. And he still has another 14 months to go.

God help us!

The Left’s Increasing Trend toward Authoritarianism

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CANARY IN THE MINE BLOG - The Left’s Increasing Trend toward Authoritarianism

The world was easy to understand during the Cold War: The evil power of Nazism had been defeated, but the other evil ideology of Bolshevik Communism had to be dealt with. While Stalin did not murder innocent people as viciously as Hitler did, his regime was still responsible for the death of millions, as was Mao Zedong’s in the People’s Republic of China, and as were other Communist leaders’, from Cambodia to North Korea and Cuba. For half a century, the struggle between Western democratic-capitalism and Soviet-style Communist dictatorship defined the two principal eco-political options in the world.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, the ideology of Communism appeared largely defeated. In 1992 the prominent political scientists Francis Fukuyama published his now infamous book The End of History and The Last Man, in which he concluded that Western liberal democracy had “won” the culture war and likely “represented the final form of human government.”

Only 14 years later, it appears rather obvious that his conclusion was as premature as Karl Marx’s prediction that Communism would replace capitalism in his version of the end of history in his book Das Kapital, between 1867-1894.

During the years of Communist-capitalist ideological confrontations, Western capitalist societies were anything but homogenous. While united in support of a capitalist economic model, liberal democracies developed distinctly different social ideologies from the left (democratic socialism) to the right. Indeed, clearly influenced by Marxist principles, left-leaning, social-democratic parties all over Europe very quickly entered mainstream politics, establishing themselves as alternatives to right-leaning conservative/religious political parties.

In the U.S. a similar constellation evolved, with the Democratic Party representing the left and the Republican Party the more conservative and/or religious right. But until relatively recently the Democratic Party maintained a broad variety of opinions, including a distinctive “right wing” of the party. Since Bill Clinton’s presidency, this right wing of the party has progressively shrunk, and completely disappeared with the ascendancy of President Obama and his allies. As a consequence, the Democratic Party of today is practically indistinguishable from Europe’s social-democratic party model, with different degrees of Marxist leanings.

As long as Communist regimes ruled a significant part of the world, social-democratic political parties found it essential to differentiate their Socialist-Marxist ideologies from dialectic Communism/Marxism. With the defeat of Communism, this distinction became less important and less relevant for political success at the ballot box. As memories of Communist-run nations faded into history, the public’s short historical memory allowed for a rebirth of Marxist utopianism, especially among the young, who have never witnessed the catastrophic failures of the Socialist/Marxist economic model.

Even in the U.S., Socialism is no longer considered a “dirty” word, as so well demonstrated by the surprisingly successful current campaign of Bernie Sanders, a declared Socialist from Maine, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Other examples demonstrating a clear shift to the more radical left are very obvious all around the world in the election of Jeremy Corbyn, a radical Marxist outsider, as new head of the British Labour Party, and by explosive growth of radical leftish political parties in Greece, Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

Shifts toward the Marxist left are, however, rarely only dialectic. Indeed, likely the crucial step for Karl Marx’s transition from Socialism toward Communism was his conclusion that the world will not change simply based on ideas, and that any desired change requires proactive interventions. In other words, an inherent component of Marxist Socialism is the forceful intervention into the democratic process, because setbacks in personal freedoms are a small price to pay for the ultimate “good” of a Socialist utopia. An example of this is Castros’ Cuba, admired as a model for Socialist states across the globe.

So, any shift toward Marxist dialectic will automatically be accompanied by increasing trends toward authoritarianism. And this does not only apply to what we observe in third world countries, like Venezuela, where the political shift toward Marxism has led to a de facto dictatorship. Increasing authoritarianism can also be seen in democracies like Argentina and even in the U.S., where President Obama attempts to legalize hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens by decree, even though, as a constitutional lawyer, he must have known that such a step without Congress’s approval is likely unconstitutional (he, indeed, had made statements to that effect in public, and a judge’s temporary restraining order has halted the process).

An even more authoritarian political step was the agreement that the Obama administration signed with Iran, in which Obama circumvented Congress by inappropriately declaring it an Executive Agreement between governments rather than a “treaty” (only treaties require congressional approval). Then he also had his allies in Congress block a debate of a disapproval motion with only a minority of votes in both houses. In doing this, the president imposed what may turn out to be the most consequential international agreements for the nation’s security in decades, even though a majority of Congress in both houses opposed the agreement (and, indeed, based on opinion polls, two-thirds of the U.S. population did as well).

But, likely the most egregious evidence of authoritarianism is the selective interpretation of prosecutorial powers under the Obama administration. Not even under the Nixon and Clinton administrations was the Justice Department as politicized and corrupted as in the Obama administration in failing to prosecute very obvious abuses of power and in using the criminal justice system in pursuit of political goals. None of the scandals that have come to light during the administration were ever pursued by the Justice Department: not the IRS scandal, not the Veterans Affair Scandal, and not the Bengasi scandal (where, totally overlooked by the media, the real question is not where was Hillary Clinton and the degree of her involvement but where President Obama was, and the degree of his involvement). And yet on the other extremes, perfectly-timed threats of prosecutions or actual prosecutions have silenced political opponents more than once (General Petraeus and Senator Menendez are good examples, and Hillary Clinton may become one).

In order to equalize economic conditions for the underclass, the ultimate aim of all permeations of Socialism, of course including Marxism, has historically been “revolution.” Only a revolution of the masses can against the capitalist system can end their discrimination (under Communist dogma, the masses are represented by the “proletariat” under a professional leadership), and initiate the masses’ ascent to power. Since the power of the masses represents the ultimate achievement of any form of Socialism, it should not surprise that such revolutions rarely voluntarily transfers government power back to opposition forces. As contemporary Venezuela well demonstrates, once in power, Socialist/Marxist governments become increasingly authoritarian. They are supportive of liberal democracy as a tool to obtain power but, once in power, quickly dispose of democratic pretense.

Though these movements are often corrupt and outright anti-democratic within their own areas of power, even within the Western capitalistic system, political parties on the left demonstrate strong allegiances to revolutionary movements (see new York’s openly Socialist Mayor de Blasio, a longstanding supported of the Marxist Sandinista movement in Nicaragua or the new Labour Party’s Chief in the U.K., Jeremy Corbin, an avowed supported of Hamas, which is not only radically anti-democratic and homicidal, but also religiously fanatical). Allegiance to the internationalist Marxist view of worldwide solidarity between Marxists and poor, mostly brown and black exploited people, very obviously supersedes any defense of humanitarian and/or democratic principles on the extreme left. As class warfare all around the world appears to come into fashion again, the world will, therefore, witness increasing authoritarianism, while liberal democracies will find themselves under increasing siege.

Though in his upbringing and belief system he is very clearly a Marxist Socialist, President Obama avoided these labels in his election campaigns, and on multiple occasions even went so far as to demean opponents who described him as a Socialist. But in his very obvious contempt for Congress and especially the Republican opposition, he increasingly demonstrates the authoritarianism of his Marxist ideology, characterized by the dictum that ultimate goals have to be achieved by whatever means. His party appears to support him. The party discipline Democrats have exhibited in support of Obama’s policies is indeed remarkable, but better fits Soviet than U.S. parliamentary history. This country can expect considerable authoritarian tendencies from the president in his last 14 months in office.

Is Michelle the Real Change this Administration Needs?

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Canary in the Mine: Michelle Obama

In Chapter Five of The Canary’s look at Obama’s origins, family and past, we looked at his relationship with his wife, Michelle. Now that midterm elections have occurred, we want to look at this relationship in light of the American people’s growing frustration with President Obama.

What role does Michelle play in sculpting Obama’s image? Is Obama unpopular because of her influence, or in spite of it?

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Midterms 2014: Why The Republican Party Has Yet to Prove Itself

Posted on by in Blog, Domestic Politics, Elections and tagged , , , , , .

So, it has happened! Republicans captured the Senate, secured governorships in states that nobody ever imagined could turn red and further expanded the majority in the House. Obama, to quote a New York Times headline “vowed to cooperate within limits,” and the new Senate Majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, also promised a “spirit of compromise.”

All of this, of course, sounds promising, but when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

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