Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

COVER-UP: Hillary Scrubs State Department Memo Downplaying Threat of 9/11 Anniversary Attacks

Isn't this what Third World dictatorships do? That is: flush inconvenient reminders of their failings down the memory hole?

Wednesday night, one day after the 9/11 anniversary protests/attacks in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya, I wrote about a September 6, 2012 memo issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State...


...in retrospect the memo is an embarrassing reminder of how the United States and its overseas embassies were caught flat-footed on Tuesday.  The phrasing of the last sentence of the memo ("these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence" [emphasis mine]) could have even inspired complacency with its rather glib assessment of the potential threat.

There is now evidence that someone at the State Department drew the same conclusion about the memo, because as of today, it is no longer listed on the OSAC website.

Since then, of course, the Libyan government and other sources have indicated that the State Department was indeed warned of the possibility of 9/11 anniversary attacks.

It is plainly obvious that we have not been getting straight answers from Obama officials about what they knew and when they knew it about the dangers facing our consulate in Benghazi and throughout the region. It may be deception, or they may be so incompetent they still don’t know.

There is credible information that there were warnings of trouble to come, and 9/11 itself should have put a consulate in a dangerous section of Libya on high alert with substantial protection afforded the Ambassador. The story told by Susan Rice and Jay Carney the attack was spontaneous is becoming laughable.

There also is evidence emerging that the Ambassador was left with minimal protection... In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.

The cover-up is underway. It will be up to new media to continue to unpeel the layers of this story, since antique media is asleep at the wheel.



Alternate Newsweek Cover

News to me:

In case you missed it somehow, I’m riffing on the Newsweek “Muslim Rage” cover, which annoyed some and amused some and disgusted others. Yes, that is speck of spittle in his beard. No, I did not P’shop it in...


...And before you get too complacent, First Worldies, I’m totally not kidding — the McRib has been rolled back to December. It was scheduled to go out in October.

Fortunately, the Baconator is still available at many Wendy's restaurants nationwide.



Friday, September 14, 2012

A Map of Muslim Protests Throughout the Middle East

It's only chaos throughout the Middle East:


I'm wondering how Ari Shapiro and Jan Crawford can blame Mitt Romney for these attacks.


Idea for President Obama: perhaps Jay-Z and Beyonce can rap the daily intelligence brief

Since the president appears so enamored with fundraisers, especially those featuring entertainers @JayZ and @Beyonce, my idea is obvious: let Jay-Z and Beyonce do a little rap each day to keep the president's attention focused on, uhm, national security issues.

As the Mideast Goes Up in Flames, Obama Tweets About Beyoncé and Jay-Z


It really doesn’t get any more pathetic than this...


...Always the stickler for detail, he even makes sure to get that little accent thingy over the second ‘e’.

If only we happened to have a president more interested in American interests than partying and fundraisers.


If you're sick of this s***, please consider donating a few bucks to Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. These Jimmy Carter-Barack Obama Democrats need to be flushed from office, the sooner the better.


Crazy Obama-Middle East conspiracy theory? Or is it so sane that you just blew your mind?

Mark Langfan's detective work leads to some fascinating -- if not outright terrifying -- conclusions.

...in January 2011, before even a dozen demonstrators were killed, a small herd of camel-riding Mubarakists rode into Tahrir Square trampling some protesters underfoot, and Obama immediately flew into an apoplectic rage, gliding close to personally claiming that Mubarak was a war criminal for attacking peaceful "democratic" demonstrators...

...But in February 2012, after Assad has murdered over 10,000 Sunni mostly totally unarmed civilians by lobbing barrages of multiple rounds of artillery into Homs, why is Obama all but numbingly silent in-between his own barrages of multiple rounds of 18-hole golf?

The reason: the US President Obama has artfully and silently pivoted US Middle East Policy from a Pro-Saudi, Anti-Iran paradigm to a Pro-Iran, Anti-Saudi imperative.

Crazy you say? The Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, attending at a recent Gulf security conference with US diplomats, “undiplomatically” for over 18 minutes calmly stated...:

1) “US Policy is the Number One threat” to the Gulf States;
2) America “has realized the dreams of Iran in Iraq;”
3) the US has “adopted the path and ideology of Khomeini;” and
4) the US “is no longer an ally” of the Gulf States.


To frame the instant question with a sharper point: Why did President Obama, in his 2009 Cairo Speech, pro-actively incite and reflexively, over Saudi Arabia’s infinite anger, support the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who was the US’ stalwart Sunni American ally for over 30 years and who acted as the sole-substantial Sunni Arab counterweight to Iran?

...How come the Nobel Prize-winning Obama unflinchingly allows Assad, a Shiite/Alawite, confirmed state-sponsor of terror, funneler of IEDs in Iraq which murdered thousands of US soldiers, and a stalwart ally of Shiite Iran, to cold-bloodedly massacre what is now over ten thousand unarmed Sunni Muslims?

...And why did President Obama anoint the Shiite Al Maliki, a known-Iranian stooge, as the omnipotent new-Shiite Saddam of Iraq, sideline the Iraqi Sunnis, and compound the decidedly pro-Shiite tilt by tacitly handing the keys of Iraq over to Iran...?

Why does Obama constantly refer to the ragtag, disjointed, barely-existing Sunni al Qaeda as the "greatest threat to the US" when the Shiite Iran and its Hizbullah and Iraqi based proxies have killed many times more US soldiers and US civilians in the past 20 years than al Qaeda has, - and Iran is nearing the acquisition of nuclear bomb and constantly claiming Israel is a "cancerous tumor" that needs to be "cut out" of the Middle East?

...The answer can be found in Obama’ first documented foreign "policy" speech in 2002 dubbed the "Iraq War Speech" where Obama unambiguously declared:

“You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality. . . .” - Barack Obama, Oct. 2, 2002


From Obama’s very first recorded words on US foreign policy, Saudi Arabia, and not Iran, was to Obama, America’s Number one enemy.

President Obama’s inimical abhorrence of the House of Saud was further codified in US President Obama’s May 19, 2011 major Foreign Policy speech where he repeatedly explicitly attacked Bahrain, Saudi’s key ally, as well as again clearly targeting the “elite” Saud Family when he stated:

Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress -– the corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect. –- New York Times, 5/19/11 “Obama’s Mideast Speech”


Obama, from his 2002 speech on a Chicago street to his 2011 speech at the State Department, sees the House of Saud as the very personification of Obama’s “elites who steal from their people,” and of “the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect.”

But Obama’s one act which symbolically crystallizes the essence of what has been, is, and will be the Obama Doctrine is Obama’s very first act as US President. ...he formally and publically returned the bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain that had long adorned the Bush Oval Office.

Obama viscerally rejected Churchill’s White House presence because it was Winston Churchill and his “Lawrence of Arabia” generation of British foreign establishment that, in effect, had “divided and conquered” the Muslim Ummah, and empowered the balkanized Sunni “elite” kingdoms at the expense of the Shi’ites and the Ottoman Empire. While empowering the local Sunni Kingdoms, Churchill disempowered a possible unified Muslim Caliphate, and the Shi’ites.

...With the Obama Doctrine, Obama’s entire foreign policy makes sense: It explains why Obama toppled Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s key Sunni ally. In a heartbeat, Obama rendered Egypt permanently paralyzed to assist the Saudis against Iran...

...In accordance with this doctrine, Obama obliterated the Sunni Qaddafi with hundreds of million dollar Tomahawk missiles, deleting the precious cache of Tomahawks (for possible use against Iran) where there was a truly heavily armed Libyan opposition who could fight for themselves and instead left an absolute Islamist maelstrom wrapped in chaos enveloped in bedlam and mayhem. As a result, Obama has mutely watched well over ten thousand Syrian Sunnis be massacred by Iran’s Shi’ite handmaiden, Assad, and hasn’t even shipped in one 5 kilometer range anti-tank weapon that would easily spay Assad’s rampaging tanks and artillery.

...And as a final policy puzzle piece, Obama’s noisy objection to an Israeli attack on Iran is, in reality, a deafeningly silent total rejection of Saudi Arabia’s push for America to militarily attack Iran. The Saudis know Iran is infinitely more of a threat to Saudi Arabia than to Israel.

Obama has publically amped up the five-alarm fire-fight with Israel to make the Iran issue appear to be an “Israel only” issue, thereby preemptively embarrassing the Saudis out of even asking for the US to strike... So for Obama it’s a win-win-win, actively attack Israel, blame Israel for destabilizing the Middle East, attack Israel’s American supporters as dual loyalists, and passively pre-reject the Saudis request for an attack on Iran’s facilities before the Saudis even ask for one.

What all this means is Obama has quietly turned 50 years of US Foreign policy on its head without even a single congressional hearing... Obama’s true foreign policy objective seems to be nothing less than the full nuclear weaponization of Iran. Anything else is a smoke-screen for Obama to look like he’s doing something, but in reality he is doing nothing to stop Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

In conclusion, Obama is actively "democratically" toppling all U.S. Middle East allies, and soon a nuclear-armed Iran will control 70% of the World's Oil Reserves, charging $500 a barrel for oil.

...And in the short-term, Obama and the world will watch Assad commit a holocaust against the unarmed Syrian Sunnis, and, of course, Obama’s golf game will see some improvement.

Just after Obama was elected in 2008, Time Magazine published an article entitled "Baghdad Scuttlebutt: Pssst! Obama's a Shi'ite".

For what it's worth.


Note: Originally published March 1, 2012. Hat tip: Dan from NY.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Arab Spring: Government-Approved Muslim Brotherhood Mob Assaults U.S. Embassy in Egypt, Rips Down Flag on 9/11

Another completely predictable result of The Obama Doctrine: ever-increasing chaos in the Middle East.

Egyptian Protesters Breach U.S. Embassy

In response to ‘insulting’ film, Egyptians tear down American flag

A frustrating and infuriating situation is unfolding in Egypt today where protestors have scaled the walls of the United States embassy, torn down the American flag, ripped it apart when they couldn’t burn it, and replaced with a black flag with an inscription of the Shahada on it.


According to reports, the mob is venting its frustration about the Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones, who has made a film (along with some Egyptian Copts) that reportedly vilifies Muslims and their prophet Muhammed...


The timing is also worth pointing out, not only for its obvious and insulting resonance today, but because as Eric Trager mentions, the attack comes as Egypt is seeking aid–which the United States has provided a billion dollars of annually since 1979.

Yes, by all means, let's ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood gets $1.2 billion of our money. I'm sure very little could go wrong.



Monday, August 27, 2012

Oh, my: new SEAL PAC ad blisters Obama for bowing to foreign leaders

Well, you could call it "swift-boating" -- except... there are millions and millions of incriminating images depicting President Obama's unprecedented acts of submission when greeting world leaders:

The controversial super PAC Special Operations for America, led by former Navy SEALs, is set to release a blistering new ad against President Obama Tuesday at the Republican National Convention.

The ad, titled “Bow to Nobody,” depicts Navy SEALs in combat situations; it then proclaims that they fight so that America will not have to bow to anybody.

Then the punch line: the infamous photo of Obama bowing to the Saudi king.


The ad is sure to provoke massive consternation on the left, which has been in a frenzy ever since Special Operations for America launched. The event at which the ad launches, “Defending Our Defenders: A Salute to the United States Military,” will feature a tribute by Congressman Louie Gohmert, former members of SEAL Team Six, Army Rangers, Gold Star parents, and a few surprise guests.

Ryan Zinke, the former Navy SEAL who started the super PAC, spoke exclusively with Breitbart News today. “The ad itself accurately portrays where this President is,” said Zinke. “It accurately portrays his core belief that America should not lead. This president is shaping America to be one of the followers, to relinquish our role as a world leader. I didn’t fight 23 years as a Navy SEAL to watch America bow to anybody.”

He continued, “It’s not just the king of Saudi Arabia. My friends from WWII that fought in the Pacific theater -- when they see the president bow to the emperor of Japan, I’ve seen veterans cry. This is about the fundamental belief in American exceptionalism, the notion that America should reign supreme. We are a country of values, and we fought hard to be exceptional, and we are.”

Those who need an explanation of the president's, uhm, unique habits need only catch a viewing of the movie 2016.


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Inclusive: Democrat National Convention Welcomes Radical Islamists

Please tell me you're not surprised by this outrageous development.

The leaders of [the “Jummah at the DNC”] event – Jibril Hough and Imam Siraj Wahhaj as advertised are no moderates. They are radicals. These individuals embrace Islamist supremacy and have demonstrated support for radical ideologies... M. Zuhdi Jasser M.D., Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy [describes] Siraj Wahhaj [as someone] "who I saw with my own eyes in 1995 seditiously say it his duty and our duty as Muslims to replace the US Constitution with the Quran"...


...Imam Siraj Wahhaj is imam of a mosque in Brooklyn, New York, the leader of The Muslim Alliance in North America, a member of CAIR, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing...

...As a character witness for Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheik) who was convicted of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center and other New York City landmarks, Wahhaj described him as a “respected scholar,” and “bold, as a strong preacher of Islam.”

...Wahhaj is also a Board of Trustee member of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF)(who’s website currently features an anti-Jewish, anti-black rant), a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, who (coincidentally) held a conference in Charlotte last year on Islamophobia...

...Like Hough, Wahhaj is also connected to NAIT by way of his membership in the Islamic Society of North America(ISNA), which was also found by the government to be a front for HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood. While Hough has been careful to play politics in Charlotte, Wahhaj has not hidden his hatred for America. He is quoted as calling America, “a garbage can… filthy, filthy and sick.”

...As an imam, he has stated, “Where ever you came from, you came to America. And you came for one reason – for one reason only- to establish Allah’s deen (a complete way of life).” He believes that the only reason to get involved in politics is to use it as a weapon in the cause of Islam. By his own admission, the question of why Wahhaj would be interested in hosting events at the DNC is obvious.

All of these organizations are connected in one way or another to the Muslim Brotherhood, the new leaders of Egypt and proud heirs to the legacy of the Third Reich.


We interrupt the kerfuffle over Missouri's senate candidate to bring you a spreading Middle East conflict already in progress

Not that you'll have any of these dots connected for you by vintage media -- they have an idiotic rape statement to hype -- but there happens to be a far more important story brewing in the Middle East. Yes, that's right, The Arab Spring™ is now spreading from Syria to neighboring countries and beyond like a deadly wildfire.

UN military observers abandoned Syria as fighting intensified in several key cities. As many as 20,000 have been killed in the conflict thus far; the Assad Regime also admitted it "maintains a large stockpile of chemical weapons".

Clashes in Tripoli "is a clear sign that Lebanon has been pulled further into the orbit of violence from the Syrian crisis" as at least five have been killed and 40 wounded in clashes between pro- and anti-Assad forces.

About 2,500 Syrians have fled to Turkey in the last 24 hours, joining tens of thousands of others who sought refuge from the violence. In addition, a car bomb killed eight in southeast Turkey.

• In a clear violation of the Camp David Accords, Egypt's new Islamofascist government is moving heavy weapons into the Sinai Desert, another worrying sign for Israelis already concerned with Iran's growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

So.

Which is more important: some guy in Missouri saying something idiotic or the Syrian conflict spreading to neighboring countries?

Just wondering.

And isn't it just a bit hypocritical that a convicted, impeached pervert -- who actually admitted to molesting an intern and was accused of rape or molestation by Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Brodderick (to name but a few) -- is an honoree and keynote speaker at the Democrat National Convention?


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Nothing says "Arab Spring" like a crucifixion or two, eh, Hillary?

The ludicrous RINO hack Bill Kristol -- who joined Democrats and vintage media in celebrating 'democracy' in the Middle East -- hardest hit.

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of newly installed President Mohammed Morsi.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

Raymond Ibrahim, a fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the crucifixions are the product of who the Middle Eastern media call “partisans.” ...Ibrahim also says the victims can be anyone, including Egyptians and Christians.

...Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine, and are required by the Quran. The time and other details about the crucifixions were not readily available.

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez cited chapter and verse from the Quran to explain that crucifixions are not simply normal for Islam; they’re demanded.

“Crucifixion is a hadd punishment, stipulated in the Quran, Sura 5:33, and therefore an obligatory part of Shariah,” Lopez said. “It’s been a traditional punishment within Islam since the beginning, even though it’s not exclusively Islamic. The Romans used it too.

...Lopez includes a warning for Egypt’s Christians and compares the coming treatment of the Christians to the Jews in Germany... “The Copts must get out of Egypt as soon as possible – for the many millions who will not be able to get out, I expect things will continue to deteriorate – just as they did for Germany’s and Europe’s Jews from the 1930s onward,” Lopez said.

Former Muslim Brotherhood member Walid Shoebat has additional details from Egypt.

Suffice it to say that this -- along with a nuclear Iran -- is the price of President Obama's infamous "leading from behind" doctrine.


Hat tips: Reaganite Republican and BadBlue.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Today begins the mad rush by illegal aliens to take advantage of Obama's illegal amnesty order

"No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them." --Frédéric Bastiat, The Law, 1850

Over the past five decades, no laws in the United States have been more abused by the political class than immigration laws. And no administration has been more breathtakingly lawless than the Obama White House, which has directed the federal bureaucracies to ignore immigration laws altogether.


Through an Executive Order, President Obama recently implemented the so-called DREAM Act by fiat, when it could not pass muster in Congress, even with a Democrat supermajority.

The result: millions of illegals began entering the workforce today without fear of punishment and millions more are certain to enter the country in violation of federal law to take advantage of Obama's lawless actions.

Obama’s lawless bypass of Congress in granting blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens began this morning across America.

Tens of thousands of illegals lined up early, and flooded into DHS centers to apply for nearly automatic 2-year stays from deportation and work permits, with far looser provisions and requirements than were ever imagined in any version of the 3-times defeated ‘Dream Act’ in Congress.

Thanks to Obama’s decree on June 15th, blanket amnesty for illegal aliens under 30 begins today as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) begins accepting applications for “deferred action” and work authorization.


To soften the public relations blow, the White House estimated that about “only 800,000″ illegal aliens would be covered under this amnesty, when Obama issued his edict – a complete fiction that he knew the media would not challenge. However, the figure was disputed by the Pew Hispanic Center, which estimated about 1.4 million beneficiaries. Then last week, the pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute estimated that 1.76 million illegal aliens will be eligible.

In reality, the numbers will be higher – FAR higher. Why? Because, as House Judiciary chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told DHS Secretary Napolitano in an August 13th letter, there are no mechanisms in place to detect, deter, or to punish fraud.

Well, that should do wonders for unemployment.

No country is guaranteed to survive from generation to generation. And with political hacks like these in office that actively promote lawbreaking -- against the will of the people, Congress and the law itself -- the very fabric of the civil society is beginning to tear.

I will say it again: if we don't vote this pathetic excuse for a political party -- the entire Democrat machine -- out of office in November, this country could well be lost forever.


Saturday, August 11, 2012

10 Photographs from the Democrat Utopia of North Korea

Behance has an entire gallery of spooky, posed photographs from the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) aka North Korea.

How do you photograph one of the most secretive countries in the world?
For Charlie Crane the answer was simple, photograph what they want you to see. If there is no possibility of getting underneath the surface then the answer was to photograph the surface itself. This series is taken from a larger body of work in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea... Although not commonly thought of as a holiday destination all these photographs have been taken at tourist sites throughout the city.











Remember: this is the inevitable endgame for the Democrat Party's incessant, eight-decade drive for ever more centralized, authoritarian government. Their various mandates -- governing energy, health care, retirement, automobile design, shower heads, you name it -- must be enforced through compulsion. That is: they must use force over the individual to compel adherence to their unconstitutional dictates.

That is what the Democrat Party's failed policies must inevitably devolve into: tyranny.

You can see the whole album here.


Thursday, August 09, 2012

Wonderful: Facebook moves into online gambling

I didn't think running an electronic gambling establishment (even for other countries) was legal in the U.S., but what do I know?

Facebook has launched a bingo game that uses real money, only for users over age 18, in the UK. The "Bingo & Slots Friendzy" app has 90 slot machine and bingo games that take real money, not Facebook Credits.

The move could be a money maker for the company as Facebook takes 30% of the revenue. UK-based Gamesys, the app developer, will take the other 70% of revenue. Certainly it seems a positive move given all the negative attention the company has recieved.

In true Facebook fashion, activity on the app will appear in users' timelines, but Facebook's age-gating and geo-location technology will restrict those posts from appearing to underage users and those outside the UK.

Kewl! And maybe the app will automatically update the player's status to read, "I've got a serious gambling problem... please arrange an intervention for me!"



Saturday, August 04, 2012

Photo: Female Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen looks perfectly natural to me

Oops. My bad. This is a photo of Vera De Milo.


On the other hand, this is Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen:

More than a few eyebrows were raised when Ye Shiwen, a 16-year-old Chinese swimmer, knocked five seconds off her personal best in the 400-meter individual medley. She even swam the last lap faster than [male] U.S. medal winner Ryan Lochte.

Commentators watching the race called it "unbelievable." But John Leonard, head of the American Swimming Coaches Association, went a big step further, saying her race "was reminiscent of some old East German swimmer."


... "If there are suspicions, then please lay them out using facts and data," Xu Qi, head of the Chinese swimming team. told the state news agency Xinhua. "Don't use your own suspicions to knock down others. This shows lack of respect for athletes and for Chinese swimming."

The final world from Olympic officials cleared the Chinese swimmer's name.

"She's clean. That's the end of the story," said Colin Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association reporting on the results of official drug tests.

She looks perfectly natural to me, though she was reportedly ejected from a Tesco store for carrying around a six pack and two guns.

I'll be here all week. Remember to try the roast beef special... and to tip your waitresses.


Friday, August 03, 2012

Don't Cry For Me, America



In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain's maritime power and its far-flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world's industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world's second-most powerful economy.

It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace.

In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party called The Radicals under the banner of "fundamental change" with an appeal to the middle class.

Among Irigoyen's changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country's operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts.

With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government's payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers' contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like the United States' Social Security and Medicare programs.

The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Perón. Perón had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation's rich.

This targeted group "swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated."

Under Perón, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions.

High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Perón had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and "contempt for economic realities" lived on. Argentina's federal government continued to spend far beyond its means.

Hyperinflation exploded in 1989, the final stage of a process characterized by "industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy..."

The Argentinian government's practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos.

And by 1994, Argentina's public pensions -- the equivalent of Social Security -- had imploded. The payroll tax had increased from 5% to 26%, but it wasn't enough. In addition, Argentina had implemented a value-added tax (VAT), new income taxes, a personal tax on wealth, and additional revenues based upon the sale of public enterprises. These crushed the private sector, further damaging the economy.

A government-controlled "privatization" effort to rescue seniors' pensions was attempted. But, by 2001, those funds had also been raided by the government, the monies replaced by Argentina's defaulted government bonds.

By 2002, "...government fiscal irresponsibility... induced a national economic crisis as severe as America's Great Depression."

* * *

In 1902 Argentina was one of the world's richest countries. Little more than a hundred years later, it is poverty-stricken, struggling to meet its debt obligations in the midst of droughts and economic malaise.

We've seen this movie before. The Democrats' populist plans -- their inane class warfare arguments -- can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches. History teaches us that ObamaCare and unfunded entitlement programs will be utter and complete disasters.

Today's Democrats are guilty of more than stupidity; they are enslaving future generations to poverty and misery. And they will be long gone when it all implodes. They will be as cold and dead as Juan Perón when the piper must ultimately be paid.

November is the last chance we may have to save this precious country.


References: A tear for Argentina's pension funds; Inflation in Argentina; The United States of Argentina.