Vladimir Putin may have already won the battle for Crimea, without firing a shot.  Unless someone attacks his troops, there will be no bloodshed.  There will also be no democracy.  The government of Crimea will do whatever Putin wants and he will call it democracy.   If it just ended there it might not be that bad.  But it won’t end there.  He will now start looking at the Ukraine.  This is a different kind of war.  It is not the bloody tank invasion mowing down protestors in Hungary.  This is the rapid movement of highly armed special forces to take over key positions.  It is conquering by the mere threat of violence.  When you combine this with the recruitment of top officials sympathetic to Russia and enormous economic pressure the result is a perfect storm.  It would be insane for Crimea to rely on the United States for support in dealing with Russia.

Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union with his economic strategy, not his military strategy.  He saw that the Soviet Union’s economy was a house of cards.  When they tried to keep up with our defense spending their economy collapsed.

Vladimir Putin learned from that.  He is not making the same economic mistakes.  Russian has built real wealth by building pipelines and drilling for oil.  In addition, Putin understands the impact unfunded entitlements have on a nation’s economy:

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130614/181653890.html

While a modern state must honor its obligation “to take care of its population and ensure its social protection” or face the risk of collapse, European countries have been “living beyond their means” and are now “witnessing the rise of a dependency mentality …

 [that] endangers not only the economy but the moral foundation of society,” Putin said. “It is no secret that many citizens of less developed countries come to Europe specifically to live on social welfare.”

 In contrast, Putin praised Russia’s low unemployment and real wage growth, saying that these, plus the growth of consumer spending and bank lending, are the basic factors stimulating the country’s economy.

“We made our choice long ago. We will not renounce our social obligations,” Putin said of the Russian state.

Putin is a lot of things, most of them bad, but this sure sounds like someone who understands the value of capitalism over socialism.  He makes a lot more economic sense than President Obama.

The current strategy for the U.S. with regard to Russia is to apply economic pressure. My question is whether we threaten them or they threaten us?

The United States has done exactly what Putin warned about.  The United States has followed the European model of living beyond its means and developing a dependency mentality.  Obama has pretty much perfected the art of irresponsible economicy behavior.  It is pretty stunning when a Russian President lectures us on the moral foundation of society.  What makes this worse is that he is right.

The following article in the Wall Street Journal is sobering:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/03/03/rubin-says-feds-qe3-will-lead-to-trouble/

Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, gives a stark warning:

“Uncertainties could be far greater with the vast increases that have taken place in the balance sheet of the Fed,” which is now worth more than $4 trillion, up from pre-crisis levels around $800-900 billion.

The real threat from Russia may be worse than a military invasion.  Europe gets about 30% of its oil from Russia and about 25% of its natural gas.  Oil prices have already surged back over $105 per barrel and they may go higher.   Europe desperately needs Russian oil and gas.  Russian desperately needs the cash from selling it’s gas and oil.  Who is going to blink first?  My hunch is that Europe will do whatever it takes to keep warm.  Did anyone check the forecast?

In the meantime Obama has stopped deep water drilling, he has blocked drilling on public land and he is blocking the proposed pipeline.  The only reason we have significant oil supplies now is that he couldn’t stop drilling on private land.  The development of fracking technology moved too fast for him to respond.  We would have much higher domestic oil production if it wasn’t for the brilliant leadership of the first green President.

Obama took office in January 2009.  Now, a little more than five years later we have gone from the most powerful and respected nation in the history of the world to a nearly irrelevant spectator that can be safely ignored.  Liberals must be very proud!

TDM

The political situation in the Ukraine is very complicated.  For example, in 1944 Joseph Stalin deported about 200,000 Tartars from Crimea to the Ukraine.  He believed they were Nazi collaborators.  The Tartars have long memories and they have not forgotten.  The Tartars view the ethnic Russians Putin is trying to protect in the Crimea as illegal occupiers.

The following Wikipedia article provides some insight on the history of the tartars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatars

Technically the correct name for the Tartars is the Tatars.  One will note that the Tatars, like the Chechens, are Muslim.  One will also note that they have been raising havoc since the days of Genghis Khan.  The media, as always, is oblivious about this.  The other night I had the opportunity to talk to a young Russian couple.  I asked them about the Ukraine.  The husband surprised me by saving some of the protests were saying things similar to what the Nazis believed.  This couple was very pro-American and they were no fans of Putin.  But they were genuinely concerned about some of the people leading those demonstration.  So I did a little research and up popped the Tartars.  Suddenly his comments started to make sense.

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise.  Every revolution probably has some people who should be feared.  I wonder how many people realize that after the fall of the Tsars, Russia had a Republic.  But what happened is that the communists were not interested in sharing power, they were only interested in seizing power.  They continued fighting until ultimately they gained absolute power.

Regardless of the reason, the invasion of the Crimea by Russia is bad news.  It is clear that Putin is trying to increase power at the expense of the United States.  It is also clear that Putin does not respect Barack Obama.  Whatever happens it is unlikely to be in response to anything done by President Obama or Secretary of State Kerry.  We should keep in mind that the reasoning used by Putin to invade Crimea is nearly identical to what Hitler used to justify invading the Sudetenland.

But this is not 1938 and Vladimir Putin is not Adolph Hitler.  He may dream of reviving the old Soviet Union, but his military isn’t nearly strong enough to pull that off.  Today he may have gained control of the Crimea, but he made a lot of enemies in the process. The most likely result in the Crimea is a full-fledged-civil war.  Putin may soon discover that the cost of maintaining control in Crimea may be more than he can bear.

The only thing certain at this point is the biggest losers.  That would be Barack Obama and John Kerry.  They have been exposed as naïve, inexperienced and worthless.  The western countries, particularly those strong democracies who know full well the cost of being dominated by the Soviet Union will go to war with Putin.  This will not be a shooting war, but it will be war.  And in any war there will be casualties, lots of casualties.  They will take it on, but they won’t bother waiting for leadership from the United States.  The most powerful nation in the history of the world is now mostly irrelevant.  That may change in the future, but it won’t change until the President of the United States is someone other than Barack Hussein Obama.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy.  The world did not necessarily like us, but they respected us and they feared us.  Now they just laugh at us and ignore us.  In the meantime, whatever happens in Crimea, don’t over-look the Tartars.  People have been underestimating them for centuries.

TDM

In July, 2008 Sarah Palin said the following:

“After the Russian army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence – the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next,” 

The main stream media responded with horse laughs at such stupidity.  Turns out to be pretty darn accurate.  She is reminding people of that today and the main stream media has noticed:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/28/palin-on-ukraine-i-told-you-so/

It reminds me that Winston Churchill was despised by the main stream media in Great Britain when he was warning everyone about Adolph Hitler.  He was ridiculed for his warnings that the weak and indecisive response to Hitler would put the world in grave peril.  The most honored and respected man in Great Britain at the time was Neville Chamberlain.

All of a sudden, the silly and naïve hockey mom from Alaska looks pretty darn Churchillian and Barack Obama looks a lot like Neville Chamberlain.

I am also reminded that the actual trigger of World War II was a treaty that Great Britain and France signed with regard to Poland.  Keep that in mind when you read the following about the Budapest Memorandum.  Once again, we have to learn this from overseas because it doesn’t appear that anyone in the main stream media picked up on this:

The following article from the Daily Mail, UK is very scary:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2570335/Former-British-Ambassador-Moscow-warns-Russia-invaded-Ukraine-difficult-avoid-going-war.html#ixzz2ufwtOIiF

The Budapest Memorandum was signed on February 5, 1994.  Remember that the Soviet Union had disintegrated under President George H.W. Bush.  One of the big problems was that some of the former Soviet states, including the Ukraine, had nuclear weapons.  The Budapest Memorandum was an international treaty that required Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for certain promises:

1. Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
4. Seek United Nations Security Council action if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine.
5. Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine.
6. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.

This was signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma.   There are already some people claiming that this treaty would require the west to respond militarily if Russia invades the Ukraine.  Note that it specifically states within the borders as they existed in 1994.  That would include the Crimea.

According to this article, Kiev has demanded that the international community live up to the agreement.  This agreement really matters and to the best of my knowledge, no one in the main stream media, including Fox News, is even mentioning it.   If Putin is allowed to invade the Crimea with no threat of a military response will he be encouraged to challenge even more?  He has already sent a warship to dock in Havana, Cuba.  As Sarah Palin would say:  “you betcha.”  Maybe it’s time people stopped laughing at her long enough to listen.

TDM

In October of 1956 the citizens of Hungary initiated major protests against the communist government.  To the surprise of everyone the demonstrators prevailed and the communist government was overthrown.  The people rejoiced.  But in the meantime the Soviet Union was massing troops on the border.  Ultimately the Soviet Union decided that the United States would not intervene, so the troops were sent in and the revolution was crushed.  They were right.  The U.S. did not respond and Hungary paid a very high price as a result.

Now the people in the Ukraine have overthrown their government and once again Russia is massing troops.  There are reports that some Russian troops have already been deployed.

President Obama said any military movements taken by Russia inside of Ukraine would be deeply destablizing.  He said that the United States would stand with the international community and warned Russia that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.  I am sure Putin is shaking in his boots!   It’s too bad this didn’t happen a few weeks ago so we could have boycotted the Sochi Olympics!.  That really worked for Jimmy Carter.

This is not 1956 and modern day Russia is not the Soviet Union.  This is the age of the internet and the people in the Ukraine may put up more of a fight than you can imagine.  In addition, Russian troops may have a limit to what they are willing to do.  But this is all too similar to Hungary in 1956.  It is also too similar to the tactics used by Adolph Hitler prior to World War II.

I cannot possibly predict what will happen, but it is obvious that no one anywhere in the world will look to the U.S. for leadership.  Ted Cruz recently said that he feared massive loss of life because of the failed leadership of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.  I hope he got that wrong.  I fear he got it right.  The world is Hungary for leadership tonight.  This is not likely to end well.

TDM

President Obama is the worst President in my lifetime.  He has the potential to be the worst President in our nation’s history but he has competition.  But when he’s right he deserves credit.   This also applies to Michelle Obama when she gets something right she also deserves credit.  .

President held a meeting where he talked about growing up without a father and explained that this contributed to him experimenting with drugs and behaving irresponsibly.  It was a brave thing to do.  It was the right thing to do.

The scarcity of positive male role models in the black community is obvious.  We desperately need responsible black males to challenge other black males to act responsibly.  Nothing could have a bigger impact on the rate of poverty and drug abuse rampant in the black community.  There are a lot of things about Obama that I do not like, but he did marry Michelle and he has been a responsible parent.  Now, he is using the bully pulpit to help challenge more black males to choose to be responsible.  Good for him.  Way to go Barack!  I hope a whole lot of people stand up and applaud you for doing this.  I hope even more people follow your example.  When you’re right, you’re right.

Michelle Obama is beyond annoying, but her campaign to make food labels easier to read is just plain common sense.  She is absolutely right in pointing out that labels should make it easy to determine what matters.  I have tried to become more consistent in reading food labels and they are terrible.  The print is very small and there is tons of information that really doesn’t matter to me.  All I really want to know is the amount of Calories and the number of Carbs.  Michelle Obama is promoting an FDA regulation required food labels to display the number of calories is in bold print and in big print.  That is a brilliant idea that is long overdue.  Good for you Michelle.

I have not changed my opinion about either Barack Obama or Michele Obama.  The problems with both are all too obvious and all too real.  But we always need to be careful to give credit when credit is due.  Barack Obama is a good role model as a black male parent and he deserves credit for that.  He also is speaking out on the importance of black males being responsible parents and he deserves credit for that too.  Michele Obama has promoted some silly ideas regarding nutrition, including some idiot rules regarding school lunches.  But printing the number of calories in large print is smart, really smart.  And it is a great idea.  Good for her.

TDM

For years we have been reading dire predictions about climate change.  So I thought it would be interesting to go back a few years, read the predictions and see how things turned out.  Following is an article from the Independent.co.uk published in March of 2000:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. “It was a bit of a first,” a spokesperson said.

Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. “As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it’s few and far between,” he said.

Let’s see how that worked out.  Here is a link to the dailymail.co.uk article regarding today’s forecast for London:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096372/UK-weather-forecast-15cm-snow-way-Met-Office-issues-severe-weather-warning.html

Hmmmm.  Much of England under “Level 3” cold weather alert, which warns of ‘100% possibly of severe cold weather, icy conditions and heavy snow.’

This is also happening in parts of the U.S.  Check out the link to the International Business Times article about the weather this winter:

http://www.ibtimes.com/winter-weather-statistics-where-2013-2014-season-stands-so-far-snowfall-totals-temperature-records

Incredibly there are still a lot of people who actually believe the global warming alarmist crowd.  They think those of us who are skeptical are just afraid to acknowledge the science.  The reality is that the nearly all of the science is on the side of the skeptics.  Even the strongest global warming advocates have acknowledged that there has been no significant global warming for at least a decade.  The other day, Bill Nye, the science guy was televised in a mini debate with Representative Marsha Blackburn:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/bill-nye-the-science-guy-confuses-arctic-with-antarctic-at-global-warming-debate/

The Washington Post headline regarding this encounter said:  “Bill Nye Scolds GOP Congresswoman On Global Warming.”

The question is did the Washington Post write this headline because they didn’t bother to watch the show, or did they write this headline because they chose to lie about it?

Nye held up a chart of the Arctic and tried to claim that it showed how much ice is missing in the Antarctic.  There is a good reason for that.  An actual chart of Antarctic would show more ice.  Like about 25% more ice.  If we truly had global warming, wouldn’t it be “global?”

You can learn everything you need to know about the science by reading what both people had to say:

The actual statements by both were as follows:

Marsha Blackburn:

“Neither (Bill) nor I are climate scientists. He is an engineer and an actor, I am a member of Congress. And what we have to do is look at the information that we get from climate scientists,”

Bill Nye:

“We have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing,” said Nye. “There is no debate in the scientific community. I encourage the congresswoman to really look at the facts. You are our leader. We need you to change things, not deny what’s happening.”

Ms. Blackburn is more than willing to evaluate the science.  Mr. Nye is only interested in silencing critics.  My response is:   Mr. Nye, if you have so much overwhelming evidence, why did you have to use a chart from the wrong pole?

The global warming crowd is screaming at the top of their lungs in a desperate attempt to drown out the sad reality that they are holding up the wrong charts.

TDM

Several years ago I was at a dinner meeting with more than a few liberals.  The subject came up about women in the workplace.  I made the comment that not all woman dreamed of working outside the home and that I personally knew women whose dream job was to be a house wife and a stay at home mom.  Some of these liberals became very angry and said that this was absurd.  They couldn’t even imagine how any intelligent woman would feel that way.  That is one of the biggest problems for liberals.  They often can’t even fathom how someone could disagree with them.

The real war on women has been waged primarily by women.  The following chart shows exactly what the feminist agenda has accomplished:

I don’t really see how this trend is benefiting women.  There is no question that more women are working.  There certainly are more options for a woman who doesn’t dream of being a stay at home mom.   But there are also a lot of women working full time while trying to manage a single parent household.

There was a time when men quickly learned that there were two kinds of women.  The kind you married and the kind you didn’t.  There were “good girls”  and “bad girls” and men treated them very differently.   Bad girls might appear to have more fun, for a while, but history taught us that in most cases things didn’t end up all that well for the bad girls.

The feminist movement wants a world where every girl can be a bad girl with no consequences.  That is why Sandra Fluke is a heroine for demanding free contraception so she will have no restraints on promiscuous behavior.  That is also why the feminist movement is so pro-choice.  Abortion frees a woman from the responsibility of bearing a child.

The rarest thing in the movies or on television is a girl saving herself for marriage.  A girl like that is portrayed as hopelessly naïve.  Girls can now be just as sexually irresponsible as men, with no consequences.   This is great, for the guys.  But, I have to wonder if it is all that great for the girls.

A woman today is nearly 4 times more likely to find herself the primary source of income while trying to raise a family.  She is over 3 times more likely to end up raising the children alone.   The numbers are much worse for many minorities.   Congratulations feminists, you have really helped women on the path to a happier life.

Suppose that men started treating women the way it used to be?  Just think how terrible this would be for women.  Fewer women would learn the joy of being a single parent.  More men and women would sacrifice excitement for the dullness of being merely being responsible parents.  Fewer children would have the opportunity to watch their parents split up.  More women would be stuck with the terrible prospect of being a stay at home mom.  Why we might even go back to a time when a vast majority of men felt an obligation to provide for their family.   How very demeaning to women.

TDM

The debt ceiling was raised with no spending cuts.  There were only 27 Republicans who voted for that in the House and no Republicans who voted for it in the Senate.  The Republicans lost this battle, but they didn’t necessarily lose the war.

Let’s take a closer look at what was lost and what was gained.  Democrats wanted Republicans to vote against the debt ceiling so they could blame them for shutting down the government.  They did not even attempt to negotiate in good faith.  The main stream media would have hammered Republicans for shutting down the government without regard to the actual facts.  For better or worse, Democrats “own” the debt ceiling just like they own ObamaCare.  If you check out the opinion polls, raising the debt ceiling is not really that popular.

I think Democrats may have made a huge mistake.  How are they going to spin this when running for re-election?   Republicans have stockpiles of video, including clips from Obama, saying that raising the debt ceiling is irresponsible.  Even the main stream media can’t blame Republicans on this one.

The debt ceiling was going to be raised anyway.  Republicans would have caved.  They just would have incurred a lot of casualties in a failed effort.  I would have preferred that they put up a fight, but only if they were prepared to stay the course until they won.  With the current Republican leadership that was highly unlikely.

I think this will really hurt both Boehner and McConnell.  But I also think this may be a huge problem for Democrats in 2014.  They were already in trouble because of ObamaCare.  It is going to be very difficult for Democrats to explain voting to increase the debt ceiling, again, without cutting anything and this time they can’t even blame Republicans.

TDM

NOTE: Kevin Faulconer, Republican was elected Mayor of San Diego.  He now becomes the ONLY Republican Mayor of a major city.  Just last Sunday political polls showed this race to be very close.  The Democratic Party put in the typical last minute get out the vote drive, fueled with union money, and they expected to win. It didn’t work.  It wasn’t even close.  In addition, the voter turnout was actually higher than it was during the November election.  If this is a trend of things to come, 2014 is going to be a very bad year for Democrats.

According to Drudge today, the NSA has been providing targets for all those drone strikes so highly praised by the Obama administration.   Following is a link to an article in The Intercept:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/

According to this source, if the NSA identifies a target phone, they just wait for the phone/sim card to show up on the GPS and its bombs away.  There doesn’t appear to be any requirement for confirmation that the actual person targeted has the phone.  Even if they have the right person, apparently they don’t worry much about collateral damage.

It is unclear where or when this started.  President Bush definitely ordered drone attacks, but he appeared to have focused on al Qaeda leaders.  President Obama expanded the program and used it to kill a lot of lower level combatants.  He even bragged about it.  The following report from CNN in 2012 explains this in detail:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/opinion/bergen-obama-drone/

When you combine the willingness to kill almost anyone with the targeting of people based solely on the location of a cell phone it paints a very ugly picture.  This is particularly true when our troops in Afghanistan have highly restricted rules of engagement specifically designed to avoid civilian casualties, even if it puts our own troops in jeopardy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/26/rules-of-engagement-bind-us-troops-actions-in-afgh/?page=all

I don’t see how anyone can justify this.  This borders on insanity.  It sure looks like President Obama was lying, again.  Here is what he said last May:

 “before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set.”   

“by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.”

His statement that drones are only used where there is “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured” is absurd.  There is no possibility that this is accurate.  It is even less true than the crap about how you can keep your current health plan and you can keep your current doctor.  Only this time the phrase “Obama lied, people died” is all too accurate.

One has to wonder how bad it has to get before the main stream media becomes concerned.  If there had been a hint that George W. Bush was ordering drones to kill people solely because they were holding the wrong cell phone the main stream media would have gone postal.  They would have been justified to do so.  They went nuts because he was listening to people who were calling known terrorist associates overseas.  We already know that being a liberal Democrat justifies a President lying under oath.  We know that being a liberal Democrat justifies a President lying to the American people and arbritarily changing the law.  Now are we to assume that being a liberal Democrat justifies a President ordering numerous assassinations without even bothering to find out if we are getting the right guy?  Liberals must be very proud.

TDM

Some of you are probably wondering how the unemployment rate continues to drop when the economy is clearly not adding enough jobs and fewer people are actually working.  The answer is really quite simple.  It all depends on how you keep score.

I am a San Francisco Giants fan, so I adopted this formula to help insure that the Giants win the National League West this season.  It is really simple and easy to understand.

Any inning where outside influences unfairly affect the outcome must be discarded.  That is only fair.  Let me explain.  Supposed the dreaded Los Angeles Dodgers score 5 runs in the first inning.  The Giants do not score any runs.  During the second inning the Giants score 2 runs and the Dodgers are held scoreless.  The Dodger runs from the first inning are discarded under the formula, because the Giants were tired after flying back home from the East Coast.  The Dodgers only had to travel from San Diego, giving them an unfair advantage.  The only rational thing to do here is to ignore the first inning, so that the score is more reflective of actual performance.  Once we eliminate the unfair inning, we get a much better measurement of results.  Thus while some naïve people who do not understand the scoring rule might foolishly think the Dodgers are ahead 5 – 2, in reality the Giants are ahead 2 – 0.

These kinds of adjustments continue throughout the game.  After all, what is fair in the first inning is fair throughout the rest of the game.  Some incredibly naïve and biased folks may complain that only innings where the Dodgers score are ignored under this system, but that is unfair.  San Francisco is more accepting of gay people than Los Angeles, so any criticism of this system is clearly the direct result of anti-gay prejudice.   It is totally unfair to criticize San Francisco just because the city is more tolerant.

With this minor change in scoring the Giants are destined to go from last place in the National League West to winning the pennant by a large margin.  It is only fair, because the Giants players are working really hard and they deserve to be considered winners.  In addition, we all benefit from living in a society free from prejudice.

I would like to take credit for creating this approach but in reality I borrowed the concept from the Obama administration.  This new and better system is remarkably similar to the way the Obama administration measures unemployment.

TDM