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The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920)
Progressivism is the term applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems rapid industrialization introduced to America. Progressivism began as a social movement and grew into a political movement.
The early progressives rejected Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest). In other words, they were people who believed that the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace.
Progressives lived mainly in the cities, were college educated, and believed that government could be a tool for change. Social reformers were powerful voices for progressivism. They concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant.
On a national level, progressivism gained a strong voice in the White House when Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901. TR believed that strong corporations were good for America, but he also believed that corporate behavior must be watched to ensure that corporate greed did not get out of hand (trust-busting and federal regulation of business).
The Founders believed that all men are created equal and that they have certain inalienable rights. All are also obliged to obey the natural law, under which we have not only rights but duties.
We are obliged “to respect those rights in others which we value in ourselves” (Jefferson). The main rights were thought to be life and liberty, including the liberty to organize one’s own church, to associate at work or at home with whomever one pleases, and to use one’s talents to acquire and keep property.
The Progressives rejected these claims as naive. In their view, human beings are not born free.
John Dewey, the most thoughtful of the Progressives, wrote that freedom is not “something that individuals have as a ready-made possession.” It is “something to be achieved.”
In this view, freedom is not a gift of God or nature. It is a product of human making, a gift of the state.
This brings us to the purpose of government.
For the Founders, thinking about government began with the recognition that what man is given by nature — his capacity for reason and the moral law discovered by reason — is, in the most important respect, more valuable than anything government can give him.
However, the Founders thought that civilization is indispensable for human well-being. Although government can be a threat to liberty, government is also necessary for the security of liberty.
As Madison wrote, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” But since men are not angels, without government, human beings would live in “a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger.”
For the Founders, then, Government is always and fundamentally in the service of the individual, not the other way around.
The purpose of government, is to enforce the natural law for the members of the political community by securing the people’s natural rights. It does so by preserving their lives and liberties against the violence of others. In the founding, the liberty to be secured by government is not freedom from necessity or poverty. It is freedom from the despotic and predatory domination of some human beings over others.
Government’s main duty for the Founders was to secure that freedom — at home through the making and enforcement of criminal and civil law, abroad through a strong national defense.

The Progressives regarded the Founders’ scheme as defective.
They rejected the Founders’ conception of freedom as useful for self-preservation for the sake of the individual pursuit of happiness. For the Progressives, freedom is redefined as the fulfillment of human capacities, which becomes the primary task of the state.

In accordance with their conviction that all human beings are by nature free, the Founders taught that political society is “formed by a voluntary association of individuals: It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good” (Massachusetts Constitution of 1780).
For the Founders, government was to be conducted under laws, and laws were to be made by locally elected officials, accountable through frequent elections to those who chose them. The people would be directly involved in governing through their participation in juries selected by lot.
The Progressives treated the social compact idea with scorn.
For the Progressives, it was of no great importance whether or not government begins in consent as long as it serves its proper end of remolding man in such a way as to bring out his real capacities and aspirations.
For the Founders, government had to be limited both because it was dangerous if it got too powerful and because it was not supposed to provide for the highest things in life.
A society like the Founders’ that limits itself to protecting life, liberty, and property was one in which, as Progressive President Woodrow Wilson wrote with only slight exaggeration, “all that government had to do was to put on a policeman’s uniform and say, ‘Now don’t anybody hurt anybody else.'” Wilson thought that such a society was unable to deal with the conditions of modern times.
Wilson rejected the earlier view that “the ideal of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with, except when he interfered with somebody else; and that the best government was the government that did as little governing as possible.”
He stated that a government of this kind is unjust because it leaves men at the mercy of predatory corporations. Without government management of those corporations, Wilson thought, the poor would be destined to indefinite victimization by the wealthy and that previous limits on government power must be abolished.
In Progressivism, the domestic policy of government had two main concerns.
First, government must protect the poor and other victims of capitalism through redistribution of resources, anti-trust laws, government control over the details of commerce and production: i.e., dictating at what prices things must be sold, methods of manufacture, government participation in the banking system, and so on.
Second, government must become involved in the “spiritual” development of its citizens — not, of course, through promotion of religion, but through protecting the environment (“conservation”), education (understood as education to personal creativity), and spiritual uplift through subsidy and promotion of the arts and culture.
The Founders thought that laws should be made by a body of elected officials with roots in local communities. They should not be “experts,” but they should have “most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society” (Madison).
The Progressives wanted to sweep away what they regarded as this amateurism in politics. They had confidence that modern science had superseded the perspective of the liberally educated statesman. Only those educated in the top universities, preferably in the social sciences, were thought to be capable of governing.
Politics was regarded as too complex for common sense to cope with. Government had taken on the vast responsibility not merely of protecting the people against injuries, but of managing the entire economy as well as providing for the people’s spiritual well-being.
Only government agencies staffed by experts informed by the most advanced modern science could manage tasks previously handled within the private sphere.
The Progressives did not intend to abolish democracy, to be sure. They wanted the people’s will to be more efficiently translated into government policy. But what democracy meant for the Progressives is that the people would take power out of the hands of locally elected officials and political parties and place it instead into the hands of the central government, which would in turn establish administrative agencies run by neutral experts, scientifically trained, to translate the people’s will into concrete policies. It is not hard to see the connections between the progressive movement of the past and our current situation.
Whether one regards the transformation of American politics over the past century as good or bad, the foundations of that transformation were laid in the Progressive Era. Today’s liberals, and the teachers of today’s liberals, learned to reject the principles of the founding fathers from their teachers, the Progressives.
So how did we get where we are today? The progressive movement taught our current liberals some simple step to follow. This is how it works:
Step One – Dramatize and Talk up the Problem
How many times have you heard that the problem is big business, corporate greed and Wall Street? The rich are getting richer while children are starving in the streets. We are constantly bombarded with this nonsensical narrative.
Step Two – Make sure that no proper debate happens
What we get are sound bites, nothing more. No serious debate ever takes place. Both sides immediately revert to mudslinging and name calling, then move on to the next issue.
Step Three – Use the Mainstream Media and Public Institutions –
Do I even need to go here? We see media bias today like we have never seen throughout our history.
Step Four – Use the Education System to Indoctrinate Children –
Our schools have become a breeding ground for the teachings of the progressive movement. Common core and the liberal takeover of our colleges and University have created an entire generation of young people who are totally clueless when it come to the founding principles of our great nation.
Step Five – Legislate and get the Government to spend more money.
Here, the Progressives outdid themselves. They were successful in pushing through four constitutional amendments in a short span of roughly 10 years: the Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing a direct income tax (This provided the money they needed); the Seventeenth Amendment, establishing direct elections to the United States Senate (This shifted power from the States to the Federal Government); the Eighteenth Amendment, imposing prohibition (This demonstrated the power now wielded by the Federal government in imposing social reform) ; and the Nineteenth Amendment, (Giving women the right to vote and progressives a huge of political activists willing to join their cause for social reform).
Step Six – Intimidate –
Get into a discussion with a modern progressive and see how long it takes before you are told you are ignorant or labeled as a sexist, a racist, a bigot or a homophobe.
The irony here is that in the name of tolerance progressives impose their intolerance and tyranny.
Everyone in society is to be treated fairly and with dignity – except those who don’t agree with the progressive agenda!

The census is part of the U.S. Constitution.
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution calls for an “enumeration” to be made of the populace “within every subsequent term of 10 years.” In some ways, this idea was nothing new. The ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians and Romans all conducted censuses, as did William the Conqueror, who in 1086 inscribed info about England’s landowners into the so-called Domesday Book.
Censuses are even mentioned in the Bible. However, the United States was one of the first modern countries to count all of its citizens and not just, say, military-age males. It was also the first country to constitutionally mandate a regular census and the first to use the census for apportioning political power. To this day, the number of seats each state holds in the House of Representatives depends entirely on census results.
Federal marshals used to carry it out.
Though best known for witness protection and hunting fugitives, U.S. marshals were also required by an act of Congress to count the inhabitants in their respective districts. As result, they hired roughly 650 assistants for the first census in 1790 and sent them door-to-door, more often than not in extremely rural terrain. Assistant marshals continued in this role for nearly a century.
One year after George Washington became president, Congress dispatched U.S. Marshals to visit every household in the 13 states, as well as a few areas that had yet to become states: the districts of Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, and the Southwest Territory, which later became Tennessee.
The Marshals knocked on doors throughout the country and spoke to the head of each household—each “master, mistress, steward, overseer, or other principal person therein.” In addition to the name of the head of household, the Marshals also recorded the number of people in each household in the following categories:

• Free white males over the age of 16
• Free white males under the age of 16
• Free white females
• All other free persons
• Slaves
And just as the Constitution had directed, numbers of delegates in the House of Representatives were assigned in proportion to each state’s population, calculated as the sum of free constituents and three-fifths of slaves.
The majority of Americans were not eligible to vote for any of these delegates, but they were all, in some way, represented. By this method, the Founding Fathers could convince themselves that theirs was truly a government “of the people.”
Later, in 1879, concerns over the census’ inefficiencies at last prompted Congress to replace the Marshalls with specially trained enumerators. Congress then further professionalized the count in 1902 by creating a permanent government agency, the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some Founding Fathers doubted the census’ accuracy.
The first census turned up only 3.9 million (non-Indian) Americans, including nearly 700,000 slaves, a result that President George Washington, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and other high-ranking government officials dismissed as an undercount.
“Our real numbers will exceed, greatly, the official returns of them,” wrote Washington, who put the blame on negligent census takers, as well as “the religious scruples of some…[and] the fears of others that it was intended as the foundation of a tax.” With so few people in the United States, he purportedly worried about looking weak in the eyes of the European powers.
During the first few censuses, the government essentially lumped the country into two racial categories: white and black. But from 1850 to 1920 (with the exception of 1900), it enumerated mixed-race “mulattos” as well. “Quadroons,” defined as those with one-fourth black blood, and “octoroons,” defined as those with one-eighth black blood, were counted in 1890 and then never again. Meanwhile, those of Chinese, Japanese and American Indian descent started being counted at various points in the late 1800s and still are to this day.
For three decades “Hindu” was a category, whereas a category for Koreans was added in 1920, taken out in 1950 and then added back in 1970. A category for Mexicans likewise appeared on the 1930 census, only to be dropped immediately thereafter following complaints from the Mexican government. The most recent major change occurred in 2000, when it finally became possible to select more than one race.
New York has always been the largest U.S. city.
The 1790 census documented 33,131 people in the Big Apple, which put it just ahead of Philadelphia as the most populous U.S. city. It has retained the top spot in all 22 censuses since, growing from a population of about 60,000 in 1800 to 515,000 in 1850 and then to 3.4 million in 1900. As of the last census in 2010, New York City had nearly 8.2 million people, more than Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia (the second, third and fifth most populous cities) combined.
The largest state, on the other hand, occasionally changes.
Virginia started out as the most populous U.S. state—back when there were only 13 of them—with a 1790 population of around 700,000. New York then claimed the top spot in 1810 and remained there until being overtaken by California in 1970. As of 2010, the California had 37.3 million residents, more than the 21 least populous states combined.
Only one state lost population during the last census period.
From 2000 to 2010, Michigan’s population fell 0.6 percent, from 9,938,444 to 9,883,640, a decline that experts largely attributed to job losses in the auto industry.
Every other state in the country grew that decade, led by Texas, which gained 4.3 million people, and California, which gained 3.4 million.
The census is not cheap for taxpayers.
Though the first census cost just $44,000 to conduct, the price tag has since ballooned to an estimated $6.5 billion in 2000 and $12.9 billion in 2010.
Now all the latest controversy brought several questions to mind.
The first was, “Are we supposed to count everyone?” The answer is yes. The Constitution does not say to count citizens, it says to count “the populace”.
The second question I had was “Why was this information important?” Well, something called the Northwest Ordinance had to be on the minds of our forefathers.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, laid the basis for the government of the Northwest Territory and for the admission of its parts as states into the union. Under this ordinance, each district was to be governed by a governor and judges appointed by Congress until it attained a population of 5,000 adult free males, at which time it would become a territory and could form its own representative legislature. So we needed a census to determine when an area had reached 5000 adult free males.
Once the land became a territory, it had to grow to a population of 60,000 before it could petition Congress to be admitted as a state.
So again, you can see why the census data was necessary.
So now let’s turn to the current issue at hand.
Many social media sites claim that former President Barack Obama removed the citizenship question from the 2010 census. He didn’t. The citizenship question in 2010 was handled the same way it had been since 1970.
One popular version of the claim that Obama removed it is from Charlie Kirk, founder of the young conservative group Turning Point USA. His tweet has been liked more than 75,000 times. Kirk wrote: “If Barack Obama was able to remove the Citizenship Question from the census in 2010 without Supreme Court approval Why does President Trump need their approval to put it back on?”
But Obama didn’t remove the citizenship question from the census.
Explaining how the misconception developed requires some background.
Now in addition to performing the census the Constitution mandates that the U.S. population be counted every 10 years in order to determine the number of representatives each state should have and to distribute federal funds.
As the country’s population grew, the complexity of the census also grew. In 1940, the Census Bureau, for the first time, used sampling as a way to get more detailed information about the population without overburdening all residents with too many questions.
That year it sent additional questions to just 5 percent of the population and used statistical techniques to broaden the results. By 1970, the bureau was sending out a short-form questionnaire to every U.S. household and a long-form supplement with more detailed questions to a fraction of U.S. households. This is important. I will say it again.
By 1970, the bureau was sending out a short-form questionnaire to every U.S. household and a long-form supplement with more detailed questions to a fraction of U.S. households.
Now back in 1997, the bureau outlined a plan to eliminate the long-form questionnaire after 2000 and replace it with the American Community Survey, which would be sent out to a small sample of households every year instead of once every 10 years. In 2005, the bureau started using that survey — which U.S. residents are required by law to answer, just as they are required to answer the census.
That background is important for understanding where the citizenship questions have been asked.
Here’s how it has been handled since 1820, the first year that a citizenship question was included:
• 1820 — The country’s fourth census asked this question of each household in the U.S.: “Number of foreigners not naturalized.” The following census in 1830 included a variation on that question.
• 1840 — The citizenship question wasn’t asked this year. It wasn’t included in 1850 or 1860, either, although those questionnaires did ask about a person’s “place of birth,” a question that the government would continue to ask, in some form, through today.
• 1870 — The first census following the Civil War asked two specific citizenship questions: “Is the person a male citizen of the United States of 21 years or upwards?” and “Is the person a male citizen of the United States of 21 years or upwards whose right to vote is denied or abridged on grounds other than ‘rebellion or other crime?’”
• 1880 — The census did not include any citizenship questions.
• 1890 — The citizenship question returned this year, asking: “Is the person naturalized?” That question remained in the next four questionnaires, adding the phrase “or an alien” in 1910, 1920 and 1930.
• 1940 — The census included this question: “If foreign born, is the person a citizen?” The 1950 census included the same question.
• 1960 — This census did not include a citizenship question.
• 1970 — The short-form questionnaire sent to every household did not include a citizenship question, but the supplemental long-form questionnaire sent to some households asked: “For persons born in a foreign country- Is the person naturalized?” The 1980 census handled the question in a similar manner.
• 1990 — The short-form questionnaire sent to every household again did not ask about citizenship, but the long form sent to some households asked: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” The same was true for the 2000 census.
• 2005 — The first American Community Survey was sent out with this question: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
• 2010 — The census sent to every U.S. household did not include a citizenship question, like all of the short-form questionnaires since 1960. The American Community Survey, which had replaced the long-form census, included the same citizenship question as it did in 2005 and continues to today.
As the timeline shows, Obama did not remove the citizenship question from the census.
Plans to replace the long-form questionnaire with the American Community Survey were underway during the Clinton administration and the shift happened during the Bush administration. The 2010 census that occurred during the Obama administration handled the citizenship question the same way it had been since 1970; there was no citizenship question on the short-form questionnaire sent to every U.S. household, but a citizenship question was asked on the supplemental form sent out to a smaller sample of households.
So now that we have cleared that up, where do we stand on the issue today?
President Donald Trump stated last weekend that he will no longer pursue adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 US census questionnaire.
Instead, he said officials would obtain the information through an executive order for government agencies, as court challenges would have delayed a census.
The retreat follows a long fight over the inclusion of the question, which the Supreme Court blocked in June.
Critics called the question politically motivated and said it would lead to fewer immigrant households taking part.
The administration had argued that the question would bolster protections for minority voters.
President Trump’s reversal was celebrated by Democrats and civil liberties groups, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying she was “jubilant”.
What happens now?
On Thursday, President Trump said: “We are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population.”
“We will leave no stone unturned.”
He said his executive order would require other government agencies to provide the Census Bureau with documents regarding citizenship.
“As a result of today’s executive order we will be able to ensure the 2020 census generates an accurate count of how many citizens, non-citizens and illegal aliens are in the United States of America,” President Trump said at the White House.
Is this a new idea?
Not really – it is similar to plans that were announced last year.
Back in January 2018, the Census Bureau described taking citizenship information from government records as an option – saying it was cheaper and less disruptive than adding a question to the census.
So why is the citizenship question so controversial?
As we now know, the question – “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” – has not appeared on a US census for all Americans since 1950, though it has been asked to some subsets of the population between 1970 and 2000.
The government says the question would help them allocate resources and enforce voter laws designed to prevent discrimination, including the Voting Rights Act.
However, Democratic states with large immigrant populations argue a citizenship question will produce undercounts because fewer people will participate if they believe the information could be used against them.
Even legal citizens could be afraid to complete the census if it could expose noncitizen family members, media reports say.
Critics argued that states with high non-citizen populations would lose congressional seats and funding – even though many non-citizens pay taxes and use government services.
Last Thursday, President Trump said that citizenship information “is also relevant to administering our elections… some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts, based upon the voter eligible population.”
In response, Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said President Trump had attempted to “weaponize the census” to “sow fear in immigrant communities and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts by diluting the political influence of Latino communities”.
note: Gerrymandering (an unfair manipulation of an electoral area for political advantage).
President Trump’s administration proposed adding a question to the 2020 US census which would have asked: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Respondents would have five options, indicating that they were born in the US, born in a US territory, born abroad to US citizen parents, naturalized as a citizen, or not a citizen.
As I said earlier, opponents to the question believe many immigrants will not return their census forms if there’s a citizenship status question, out of fear the information could be used against them.
Again, that would have major political and financial ramifications: census counts are used to decide how many seats each state gets in the congressional House of Representatives.
An undercount of immigrants would especially hurt representation of states such as New York and California. The census numbers also determine how much federal funding states and cities receive. Those states have argued the question is unconstitutional.
So in closing, let’s go back to President Trump’s proposed question.
“Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Respondents would have five options, indicating that they were born in the US, born in a US territory, born abroad to US citizen parents, naturalized as a citizen, or not a citizen.
What do you think folks? Is that a fair question to ask people, “The Populace”, currently living in the United States?
Do you think it is unconstitutional to ask such a question? If so, why?
Is the opposition correct in saying the Trump administration is weaponizing the census by trying to determine who is a citizen and who is not? Or should we pursue an accurate count to determine the correct number of members of the House of Representatives and financial aid given to the states?

The Iran nuclear deal took another nasty turn on Sunday after Iran took a further step to ignore its rules by taking its low-enriched uranium limit over the agreed threshold.
It was the second Iranian breach of the agreement in a matter of weeks, although Iran took only a relatively modest step by increasing enrichment from the agreed 3.7% level – enough to generate to civil nuclear power – to 5%, still well below the 20% threshold that is seen as putting Iran on course to developing a nuclear bomb.
But Tehran, in a new development, said it would keep reducing its commitments under the deal every 60 days unless European signatories to the pact protected it from US sanctions imposed by Donald Trump.
“We are fully prepared to enrich uranium at any level and with any amount. In a few hours, the technical process will come to an end and the enrichment beyond 3.67% will begin,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, referring to the limit set in the 2015 agreement.
So folks, as usual I have watched the evening news and have been left, once again, scratching my head.
I have two major questions. First, could someone explain this enrichment business in terms I can understand?
And second? What happens if we go to war with Iran?
So let’s tackle the first question. What is this enrichment business?
Iran has announced plans to enrich uranium beyond the levels allowed under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. But how is uranium enriched?
Fresh out of the mine, uranium ore contains about 1% uranium oxide. This is the starting material and it needs some processing. It is treated with chemicals, often strong acids, to extract the oxide and make yellowcake, a powder that contains about 80% uranium oxide.
Before the uranium can be used in nuclear reactors or atomic bombs, it has to be enriched. This is because natural uranium contains too little uranium-235, the form of uranium that is easily split to release energy in the process known as fission.
Natural uranium contains only 0.7% uranium-235, with the remainder mostly made up of uranium-238.
To enrich uranium, yellowcake is first turned into a gas called uranium hexafluoride. This is pumped into centrifuges that spin so fast the ever-so-slightly heavier gas containing uranium-238 is forced to the outside, while the lighter gas containing uranium-235 stays in the middle.
In enrichment plants, thousands of centrifuges are connected in cascades. Each unit enriches the gas a little and then passes it on to the next centrifuge to enrich some more. The process produces two streams of gas: the enriched “product”, which is ultimately used to make fuel or bombs, and the “tails”, known as depleted uranium.
The uranium used in nuclear reactors is enriched to about 4% U-235. But for nuclear bombs it must be enriched to about 90%. Under the nuclear deal, Iran is permitted to enrich uranium to 3.67% but now intends to exceed that limit.
There is no technical barrier facing the Iranians. It is the early stages of enrichment that consume the most energy and the process becomes easier down the line.
Industry data shows that more than half of the effort needed to enrich uranium to 90% is spent getting from 0.7% to 4%. When enrichment reaches 20%, the threshold for what counts as “highly enriched uranium”, and a level Iran has produced at their facilities in the past, about 90% of the work towards weapons-grade uranium is done.
The process gets easier because less material has to be moved around at higher levels of enrichment. A plant that enriches uranium to 4% with 5,000 centrifuges may need only 1,500 to reach 20% enrichment.
From there, several hundred centrifuges are sufficient to reach the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb. Use 5,000 throughout and the rate of enrichment accelerates dramatically.
“It’s really hard at the start because you have very, very little of the uranium isotope you want. Natural uranium is almost all U-238 and initially getting that little bit of U-235 out is really difficult. But the more refined you make it the faster the refinement process happens,” said Anne Harrington, a lecturer in international relations at Cardiff University.
The more enriched the uranium, the less is needed for a weapon. At 20% U-235 enrichment, the critical mass is about 400kg, but at 90% enrichment the mass drops to about 28kg. The precise amounts depend on bomb design and that will be the bigger barrier should Iran want to become a nuclear state.
The three European powers that are signatories to the Iran Nuclear deal – Germany, France and the UK – all condemned the Iranian move, but it is likely that Europe will not yet put the alleged violation into the nuclear deal’s complicated dispute mechanism.
They are likely to wait until there has been a further chance for European diplomats to meet their Iranian counterparts to reassure Tehran itself wants to preserve the deal, also known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPoA).
That meeting is due to happen by 15 July. The EU – whose diplomats see the deal as the premier diplomatic achievement of the 21st century – will be looking for technical confirmation about the steps Iran is taking.
Tehran has long signaled that it had lost patience with Europe’s perceived failure to find an effective way to compensate Iran for the impact of secondary US sanctions as well as Washington’s attempt to block all Iranian oil exports.
The EU was expecting the breach of the enrichment limits, but did not know its scale until this weekend and had no knowledge of the plan to ratchet up the breaches further every two months.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, condemned the Iranian announcement, saying the decision was a “violation” of the agreement.
A German foreign ministry spokesman said: “We had called upon Iran not to take further measures that undermine the nuclear deal. We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all activities inconsistent with its commitments under the deal, including the production of low-enriched uranium beyond the agreed to stockpile limit.”
A British Foreign Office spokesman said: “Iran has broken the terms of the deal. While the UK remains fully committed to the deal, Iran must immediately stop and reverse all activities inconsistent with its obligations. We are coordinating with France and Germany regarding the next steps under the terms of the deal, including a joint commission.”
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said: “We would still like to find a way to make this deal work … We will wait for independent verification by the relevant international body before deciding what next steps [to take]. But obviously if Iran is breaching this deal, there will be very serious consequences.”
Trump has already accused Iran of nuclear blackmail, but Tehran counterattacked by accusing the US of economic blackmail and unilaterally tearing up the terms of the original deal signed by the former US president Barack Obama. On Sunday night, asked about the issue by reporters, Trump said Iran “better be careful”.
The Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, had earlier tweeted that all measures taken by Iran to scale back its commitments to the nuclear deal were reversible if the European signatories of the pact fulfilled their obligations.
Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, told a news conference in Tehran that European countries had failed to uphold their commitments and that they too were responsible. “The doors of diplomacy are open, but what matters are new initiatives which are required,” he said.
European diplomats say Tehran has so far been vague about the specific new commitments sought by Iran and claim that among the remaining signatories to the deal it is primarily China that has a responsibility to continue to import Iranian oil.
Some officials put Iranian oil exports down to 200,000 barrels per day, well below the level required to prevent the Iranian budget from going deep into debt.
The UK does not oppose other countries importing Iranian oil unless they are subject to separate sanctions.
But Iran would like the EU to set up a larger credit line for countries to buy Iranian oil, something Europe has so far resisted. Europe seems reluctant to put large sums into a any credit line designed to increase its trade with Iran.
The clearest condemnation of the Iranian move came, unsurprisingly, from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the step was extremely dangerous and called on Europe to impose punitive sanctions, raising the prospect of fresh regional tensions. “The enrichment of uranium is made for one reason and one reason only: it’s for the creation of atomic bombs,” he said.
So now to the second question I have. What happens if we go to war with Iran?
It would start with a deadly opening attack. Nearly untraceable, ruthless rivals spreading chaos on multiple continents. Costly miscalculations. And thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — killed in a conflict that would dwarf the war in Iraq.
A US-Iran war, would have the potential to be one of the worst conflicts in history.
Washington and Tehran have remain locked in a months-long standoff with no end in sight.
The US has imposed crushing sanctions on Iran’s economy over its support for terrorism and its growing missile program.
Iran has fought back by violating parts of the nuclear agreement and downing an American military drone.
To hear President Donald Trump tell it, that last incident brought the US within 10 minutes of launching warplanes and dropping bombs on Iran. Had Trump gone through with the planned strike, it’s possible both nations would now be engaged in a much more violent, much bloodier struggle.
Importantly, both country’s leaders say they don’t want a war. But the possibility of one breaking out anyway shouldn’t be dismissed, especially since an Iranian insult directed at Trump last month led him to threaten the Islamic Republic’s “obliteration” for an attack on “anything American.”
In other words, Tehran doesn’t have to kill any US troops, diplomats, or citizens to warrant a military response — it just has to try.
Which means the standoff between the US and Iran teeters on the edge, and it won’t take much to knock it off.
So to understand how bad it could get, I researched and found the comments of several current and former White House, Pentagon, and intelligence officials, as well as Middle East experts, how a war between the US and Iran might play out.
The bottom line: It would be hell on earth.
“This would be a violent convulsion similar to chaos of the Arab Spring inflicted on the region for years,” said Ilan Goldenberg, the Defense Department’s Iran team chief from 2009 to 2012, with the potential for it to get “so much worse than Iraq.”
US-imposed sanctions have tanked Iran’s economy, and Tehran desperately wants them lifted. But with few options to force the Trump administration to change course, Iranian leaders may choose a more violent tactic to make their point.
Iranian forces could bomb an American oil tanker traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the global energy trade aggressively patrolled by Tehran’s forces, causing loss of life or a catastrophic oil spill.
The country’s skillful computer hackers could launch a major cyber attack on regional allies like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Our ally Israel could kill an Iranian nuclear scientist, leading Iran to strike back and drawing the US into the conflict, especially if Tehran responds forcefully. Or Iranian-linked allies could target and murder American troops and diplomats in Iraq.
That last option is particularly likely, experts say. After all, Iran bombed the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and killed more than 600 US troops during the Iraq War.
Taking this step may seem extreme, but “Iran could convince itself that it could do this,” Goldenberg, now at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, stated.
At that point, it’d be nearly impossible for the Trump administration not to respond in kind. The recommendations given to the president would correspond to whatever action Iran took.
If Tehran destroyed an oil tanker, killing people and causing an oil spill, the US might destroy some of Iran’s ships.
If Iran took out another US military drone, the US might take out some of Iran’s air defenses.
And if Iranian-backed militants killed Americans in Iraq, then US troops stationed there could retaliate, killing militia fighters and targeting their bases of operation in return. The US could even bomb certain training grounds inside Iran.
It’s at this point that both sides would need to communicate their red lines to each other and how not to cross them. The problem is there are no direct channels between the two countries and they don’t particularly trust each other. So the situation could easily spiral out of control.
The US strategy would almost certainly involve using overwhelming air and naval power to beat Iran into submission early on. “You don’t poke the beehive, you take the whole thing down,” Goldenberg said.
The US military would bomb Iranian ships, parked warplanes, missile sites, nuclear facilities, and training grounds, as well as launch cyber attacks on much of the country’s military infrastructure. The goal would be to degrade Iran’s conventional forces within the first few days and weeks, making it even harder for Tehran to resist American strength.
That plan definitely makes sense as an opening salvo, experts say, but it will come nowhere close to winning the war.
“It’s very unlikely that the Iranians would give up,” Michael Hanna, a Middle East expert at the Century Foundation in New York, stated. “It’s almost impossible to imagine that a massive air campaign will produce the desired result. It’s only going to produce escalation, not surrender.”
It won’t help that a sustained barrage of airstrikes will likely lead to hundreds of Iranians dead, among them innocent civilians.
That, among other things, could unify Iranian society against the US and put it firmly behind the regime, even though it has in many ways treated the population horribly over decades in power.
There’s another risk: A 2002 war game showed that Iran could sink an American ship and kill US sailors, even though the US Navy is far more powerful.
If the Islamic Republic’s forces succeeded in doing that, it could provide a searing image that could serve as a propaganda coup for the Iranians. Washington won’t gain the same amount of enthusiasm for destroying Iranian warships — that’s what’s supposed to happen.
Trump has already signaled he doesn’t want to send ground troops into Iran or even spend a long time fighting the country. That tracks with his own inclinations to keep the US out of foreign wars, particularly in the Middle East.
But with hawkish aides at his side, like National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there’s a chance they could convince him not to look weak and to go all-in and grasp victory.
But the options facing the president at that point will be extremely problematic, experts say.
The riskiest one — by far — would be to invade Iran. The logistics alone boggle the mind, and any attempt to try it would be seen from miles away. “There’s no surprise invasion of Iran,” according to Eric Brewer, who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
Iran has nearly three times the amount of people Iraq did in 2003, when the war began, and is about three and a half times as big. In fact, it’s the world’s 17th-largest country, with territory greater than France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal combined.
The geography is also treacherous. It has small mountain ranges along some of its borders. Entering from the Afghanistan side in the east would mean crossing two deserts.
Trying to get in from the west could also prove difficult even with Turkey — a NATO ally — as a bordering nation. After all, Ankara wouldn’t let the US use Turkey to invade Iraq, and its relations with Washington have only gotten worse since.
“It’s almost impossible to imagine that a massive air campaign will produce the desired result. It’s only going to produce escalation, not surrender.” —according to Michael Hanna, a Middle East expert at the Century Foundation
The US could try to enter Iran the way Saddam Hussein did during the Iran-Iraq war, near a water pass bordering Iran’s southwest. But it’s swampy — the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet there — and relatively easy to protect. Plus, an invading force would run up against the Zagros Mountains after passing through, just like Saddam’s forces did.
It’s for these reasons that the private intelligence firm Stratfor called Iran a “fortress” back in 2011. If Trump chose to launch an invasion, he’d likely need around 1.6 million troops to take control of the capital and country, a force so big it would overwhelm America’s ability to host them in regional bases. By contrast, America never had more than 180,000 service members in Iraq.
And there’s the human cost. A US-Iran war would likely lead to thousands or hundreds of thousands of dead. Trying to forcibly remove the country’s leadership, experts say, might drive that total into the millions.
That helps explain why nations in the region hope they won’t see a fight. Goldenberg, who traveled last month to meet with officials in the Gulf, said that none of them wanted a US-Iran war.
European nations will also worry greatly about millions of refugees streaming into the continent, which would put immense pressure on governments already dealing with the fallout of the Syrian refugee crisis. Israel also would worry about Iranian allies targeting them.
Meanwhile, countries like Russia and China — both friendly to Iran — would try to stop the fighting and exploit it at the same time, the Century Foundation’s Hanna stated.
China depends heavily on its goods traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, so it would probably call for calm and for Tehran not to close down the waterway.
Russia would likely demand restraint as well, but use the opportunity to solidify its ties with the Islamic Republic.
So folks, there you have the answers to my two big questions. I’m sure you have questions as well.
So what do we do? Should we sit back and appease Iran while they continue to build their war machine like the Europeans did with Hitler?
Or should we step in now and risk a world war to put a stop to Iran once and for all?

Impeachment is the first of several steps required to remove a government official from office.
The impeachment process has been used very rarely in the United States—at either the federal or state level—and even less so in Britain, where the legal concept was first created and used.
Nonetheless, impeaching a sitting president or government official is hardly new, and has happened several times in U.S. history.
After much debate among the attendees at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia—among them George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and other “Founding Fathers”—the concept behind the impeachment of government officials was approved.
Adapted from British law, the impeachment process was included in Article 2, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.
Some framers of the Constitution were opposed to the impeachment clause, because having the legislative branch sit in judgment over the executive branch might compromise the separation of powers they sought to establish between the three branches of the federal government,—executive, legislative and judicial.
However, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who would later serve in the House of Representatives and as Vice President under James Madison, noted, “A good magistrate will not fear [impeachments]. A bad one ought to be kept in fear of them.”
Impeachment Process
The process involved in the impeachment of the President of the United States, or any elected official at the federal level, involves both houses of Congress, each serving different functions.
Specifically, Article 2, Section 4 states that the “President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
It’s important to note that impeachment doesn’t refer to the removal of an elected official from office, but rather the initial step in removing that official.
The process includes the review and filing of formal charges, which at the federal level is performed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and the resulting trial, which is conducted by the U.S. Senate.
I will say that again. Think of an impeachment as an indictment. The House reviews the evidence and determines whether or not the charges are valid and should be brought to trial. If the charges have merit, the house impeaches the president and it is the Senate that then holds a trial to determine if the official should be removed from office.
So, a president can be impeached by the House (there is enough evidence for a trial), but may win at the trial in the Senate, and therefore remain in office.
In the House of Representatives, an individual representative can initiate impeachment by introducing a bill, or the House can begin proceedings by passing a resolution.
A simple majority of votes is enough to pass any articles of impeachment on to the Senate for trial.
The Senate then acts as courtroom, jury and judge, except in presidential impeachment trials, during which the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court acts as judge.
A two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict, and the penalty is usually removal from office, and sometimes disqualification from holding any future offices.
So think about that folks. Look at recent events with Congress just trying to pass an immigration bill. Sure, Nancy Pelosi and her gang could probably get enough votes in the Democrat controlled House to impeach the President.
But does anyone out there really think that a Republican controlled Senate could gather the necessary 2/3 majority of votes to remove the President from office?
Impeached Presidents
In all, eight U.S. presidents have faced possible impeachment—with very different results.
John Tyler was the first. On January 10, 1843, Representative John M. Botts of Virginia proposed a resolution that would call for the formation of a committee to investigate charges of misconduct against Tyler for the purposes of possible impeachment.
Botts took issue with Tyler’s handling of the U.S. Treasury and what he described as the president’s “arbitrary, despotic, and corrupt abuse of veto power.” After a short debate, however, the House of Representatives voted down Botts’ resolution.
Andrew Johnson wasn’t so lucky. Johnson, who rose from vice president to president following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was impeached in March, 1868, over his decision to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
Politics played a major role in this impeachment. Radical republicans felt that Johnson was obstructing the efforts of Congress to support freed slaves and rebuild the south the way they wanted it. They accused Johnson of being a supporter of the “Old South”, which he was.
Sect. Of War Stanton was commander of the northern occupying forces following the war and was carrying out the orders of Congress, not the President.
Congress argued that Stanton’s termination violated the Tenure of Office Act, which had been voted into law the year before and prohibited the President from removing officials confirmed by the Senate without the legislative body’s approval.
On May 26, 1868, the impeachment trial in the Senate ended with Johnson’s opponents failing to get sufficient votes (the Senate fell 1 vote short) to remove him from office, and he finished the rest of his term.
So Johnson was impeached, but not removed from office.
After Johnson, several U.S. presidents faced threats of impeachment, including Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.
All of these former commanders-in-chief had articles of impeachment filed against them in the House of Representatives; however, none of them were actually impeached—meaning, those articles of impeachment failed to gather the necessary votes to move them to the Senate for a hearing.
President Richard M. Nixon faced impeachment over his involvement in the Watergate scandal and its fallout. In fact, the House of Representatives approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon, making him the second U.S. president (after Johnson) to face a potential hearing before the Senate.
However, Nixon resigned in 1974 before Congress could begin the proceedings.
More recently, President Bill Clinton was indeed impeached in 1998 over allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from a lawsuit filed against him relating to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Although the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, he was ultimately acquitted in the Senate trial the next year and finished his second four-year term in office in 2000.
As these cases indicate, impeachment is considered a power to be used only in extreme cases, and as such, it has rarely been used.
It’s also important to note that the power of Congress to impeach is not limited to the president or vice president. Indeed, throughout history, senators and federal judges have also been impeached.
For example, U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana was found guilty of corruption and perjury during impeachment hearings by the Senate in December, 2010, and was subsequently removed from office and barred from holding future office.
So there you have it folks. Key things to remember about impeachment.
First, an official can be impeached and still remain in office.
Second, key to the results is what party controls the House and Senate when the charges are filed.

As we all know by now, Mexico and the US cut a deal last Friday.
Under the deal, in which Mexico agreed to take “unprecedented steps”, the tariffs that were due to come into effect on Monday have been suspended.
“Mexico will try very hard, and if they do that, this will be a very successful agreement,” said President Trump.
There were fears that the tariffs could hurt US businesses and consumers.
Under President Trump’s proposal, duties would have risen by 5% every month on goods including cars, beer, tequila, fruit and vegetables until they hit 25% in October.
I don’t know why people are surprised by this.
Before he even took office, President Elect Donald Trump had given hints as to how he would get America working again.
One of those hints was that if Ford wants to build cars in Mexico, that is fine, but he will slap a $3000 tax on them when they enter the country.
Another word for tax on imports is tariffs.
So President Trump used the threat of tariffs to bring Mexico to the bargaining table.
The deal was reached at the end of three days of negotiations which saw Washington demand a crackdown on Central American migrants.
What do we know about the deal?
In a joint declaration released by the US state department, the two countries said Mexico would take “unprecedented steps” to curb irregular migration and human trafficking.
But it seems the US did not get one of its reported key demands, which would have required Mexico to take in asylum seekers heading for the US and process their claims on its own soil.
Under the deal, Mexico agreed to:
 Deploy its National Guard throughout the country starting Monday, pledging up to 6,000 additional troops along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala
 Take “decisive action” to tackle human smuggling networks

The US agreed to:
 Expand its program of sending asylum seekers back to Mexico while they await reviews of their claims. In return, the US will “work to accelerate” the judicial process
Both countries pledged to “strengthen bilateral co-operation” over border security, including “coordinated actions” and information sharing.
The declaration added that discussions would continue, and final terms would be accepted and announced within 90 days.
Should Mexico’s actions “not have the expected results”, the agreement warned that additional measures could be taken but did not specify what these would be.
So let’s talk a little history when it comes to tariffs imposed by the US.
The new American tariffs emerging on foreign products, on Mexican, Chinese, and soon European goods as the administration indicated last week, may well serve their stated purpose.
This is to convince those countries that currently have trade barriers against American goods to take them down.
If this comes to pass, the cause of free trade will have been served.
However, at the moment what we have is a slew of new trade barriers on foreign goods offered for sale here.
One of the reasons we have gotten to this point has little to do with the hope of leveraging down foreign countries’ trade duties.
It is that there is a general sense, among the American public, that previously in history, when the American economy really grew at great rates in the period of time before the era of free-trade ideology after 1945, we had tariffs.
When the country was founded 95% of the budget for the federal government came from tariffs.
In July, 1909 Congress passed the 16th amendment which created the Federal income tax eliminating the need for tariffs to fund the government.
So the burden of funding the federal government shifted from imports on foreign goods, to the US taxpayer.
Today 70% of imports have no tariffs and tariff rates on the rest of the products are only 1 or 2%.
As such tariffs only bring in 2% of the federal budget.
Alexander Hamilton, was the main supporter of import restrictions.
Although Congress adopted the first tariff in 1789, its principal purpose was to raise revenue. Rates went from 5 percent to 15 percent, with an average of about 8.5 percent.
However, in 1816 Congress adopted a specific protectionist tariff, with a 25 percent rate on most textiles and rates as high as 30 percent on various manufactured goods.
In 1824, protection was extended to goods manufactured from wool, iron, hemp, lead, and glass. Tariff rates on other products were raised as well.
That first wave of protectionism peaked in 1828 when the average tariff rates rose to nearly 49 percent.

As early as 1832 Congress began to scale back tariffs with further reductions enacted the following year. In 1842, tariffs were again raised; but by 1846 they were moving downward, and further lowered in 1857. Following the 1857 act, tariffs averaged 20 percent.
Tariffs and American prosperity went together. Why not try to get that mix again?
It is a fact, in the period in which the tariff was the dominant form of taxation, the United States did great, better probably than it ever has. This country’s economy regularly grew at rates double ours today, when the tariff was in force from 1789 until early in the 20th century.
However, there was a condition in these years that is absent today. That condition is that the tariff was the only form of federal taxation.
There was no income or profits tax, no wage tax, no tax on investment gains—none of the things we see in our tax code today.
In fact, for one long stretch, from 1817 to 1861, the tariff was the only form of federal taxation. In the other periods prior to 1913 (when the income tax was enacted), the tariff was accompanied by a small list of sales taxes, mainly on alcohol.
When the American economy really boomed under the tariff, over the first half of our history, financiers and entrepreneurs plowed money, energy, and ideas into businesses knowing that the government would assure US businesses would recover costs and make a profit.
The sum an investor made from a business success was not taxed as a capital gain, like today.
A company’s pay rates did not have to exceed the wage needs of the employees so as to cover their income and payroll tax obligations, like today.
The money left to a company from sales after costs faced no corporate tax. And there was no inheritance tax.
In these circumstances, it was natural for entrepreneurs to move, investment to flow, jobs to proliferate, savings and standards of living to grow, businesses to succeed, and families to flourish.
When the tariff existed exclusive of essentially all other forms of taxation, the space for American enterprise to explore was huge.
The tariff supervised good old American prosperity—and no other form of taxation did along with it.
Interestingly, the extensive debates over tariff in the 19th century often focused on its effects on domestic businesses. In two ways, the tariff raised costs on domestic businesses.
The one way (as we are seeing today) is that it raised the cost of imported goods used in the processes of production.
These costs had to be added the final price of products made in the US.
The other way concerned domestic wage rates. Companies in every industry had to pay higher wages because the tariff raised the overall cost of living. Otherwise the supply of labor would not meet demand.
This country rarely saw any other form of taxation in the era of the tariff.
Before the tariffs currently coming on line succeed their desired result of eliminating world trade barriers, it would be nice if they had one other highly traditional effect: a steep reduction in domestic tax rates of all varieties.
Think about that. How many times in recent weeks have we heard that we are now collecting billions of dollars in tariffs?
That is money we didn’t have coming in prior to the Trump administration.
It only makes sense that if we are making foriegn countries pay our government billions in tariffs, the should be the opportunity to take the burden off of the US taxpayer and let the foriegn countries pick up the tab for running the federal government.
That is how we used to do it and I think that is where President Trump is headed with his new economic policies.
So with that history in mind, I think you can see, the tariff can be a very powerful tool.
So let’s go back to the recent Mexican deal.
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told journalists: “I think it was a fair balance, because they have more drastic measures and proposals at the start, and we have reached some middle point.”
Speaking at a separate news conference, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said “we couldn’t be more pleased with the agreement”.
It’s still unclear whether it was internal pressure within his party or the measures being offered by Mexico that dissuaded President Trump from implementing the plan, or perhaps simply an appreciation of its potential consequences. President Trump knows his history folks.
It became apparent during the talks just how intertwined the two neighboring economies are, and many argued that a 5% tax on all Mexican goods would hurt US suppliers and customers too.
Furthermore, damaging the already fragile Mexican economy could have pushed it into a full recession and created more migrants heading north in search of work.
Still, some considered the meetings were useful, in part to recognize that both nations are facing a steep rise in undocumented immigration.
The plan to deploy military personnel to Mexico’s southern border may well have helped bring this dispute to an end.
However, President Trump has now tied immigration to trade and could easily do so again in the future should the situation fail to improve.
Again, the tariff is a very powerful tool.

So what is the reaction in Mexico?
Mexico is currently one of the largest trading partners of the US, just behind China and Canada – two countries also locked in trade disputes with the US.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for office vowing to stand up to the US and once said he would not allow Mexico to be Mr Trump’s “whipping boy”.
But some Mexican politicians felt he had given too much, too quickly, and they demanded to see details of the deal.
Ángel Ávila Romero, a senior member of the left-wing PRD party, said the agreement was “not a negotiation, it was a surrender”.
“Mexico should not militarize its southern border. We are not the backyard of Donald Trump,” he tweeted.
Marko Cortés, leader of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), said the sovereignty and dignity of Mexico had been damaged.
So what’s the situation on the US-Mexico border?
On Wednesday, US Customs and Border Protection said migrant detentions had surged in May to the highest level in more than a decade – 132,887 arrests, a 33% increase from April.
The detentions were the highest monthly total since President Trump took office.
Still, Mexico is calling the deal a victory. Compared with crippling tariffs on all exports to the United States that President Donald Trump had threatened to impose, starting at 5% on June 10th and escalating to 25%, just about any deal was going to look good for Mexico.
News of an accord reached by Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign minister, to have the tariffs suspended indefinitely caused relief and celebration across the country—even before its contents became clear.
“Ebrard deactivates Trump,” screeched the front page of El Heraldo, a Mexican newspaper, the morning after the deal on June 7th. “Mexico wins,” ran another.
A saga that had threatened to cripple the still-young presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador became instead a crisis averted.
Mexico’s president announced that a rally he had planned in central Tijuana in “defense of national dignity” would now become a celebration of Mexico’s success at the negotiating table.

So lots of questions here folks.
Did we win or lose in the latest deal with Mexico?
In looking at the world economy, is a tariff on imported goods an effective tool?
If the cost of products rises as a result of tariffs imposed on goods from Mexico and China, are you willing to make the sacrifice and pay more knowing you are supporting the US and putting the hurt on foreign businesses?
Should the US lift all tariffs on foreign goods to keep consumer prices down while foreign businesses continue to impose tariffs on American goods?
Finally, what should be done with the money gained from imposing tariffs on foreign goods?

President Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom comes at a period of great uncertainty for Britain, in terms of both when—or if—it will leave the European Union and who will lead the country when it does. It also comes at a low point in U.S.-U.K. relations.
Both sides continue to work together on defense, and a senior U.S. administration official, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, insisted that Trump’s visit underscored that “the relationship isn’t just based on personalities. It’s based on long-shared service and shared sacrifice.”
Still, the “special relationship” between the two countries has seen better days. Currently, the US and Britain, are divided over how to deal with Iran (Washington has withdrawn from the nuclear deal with Tehran that London, along with its European partners, has struggled to keep alive), and they are split on Huawei and the implications of Britain’s decision to allow the Chinese company to build part of its 5G network.
They have even sparred over Britain’s domestic politics: Whereas a majority of British lawmakers oppose a scenario in which their country would leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement, Trump appears to have all but encouraged a no-deal Brexit.
The point of Trump’s state visit, seemingly, is to calm those divisions.
Anglo-American relations since 1776 have frequently been tense. The War of 1812 had left lasting resentment. A century of frigid diplomacy followed, fueled by disputes over territory, unease about whether Britain would intervene in the Civil War, and vocal Irish and German populations doing nothing to thaw the relationship.
So let’s look at a little history.
The War of 1812 was a conflict between the fairly new nation called the United States of America, and on the other side the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its North American colonies in Canada.
The war began in 1812 and ended in 1815.
Over 1,600 British and 2,260 American soldiers, marines, and sailors died in this war on both land and on the ocean. While at war with the United States, Britain was also fighting against France and her allies in Europe.
Due to their war with France, the British sought to restrict American trade with France, and imposed a set of restrictions which the U.S. considered illegal under international law.
The U.S. declared war on Britain on July 18, 1812 after years of suffering British restrictions and attacks on American shipping, the forcible impressment of thousands of American sailors into service with the British navy, increasing anger at British restraints on American trade with France and other European nations, and frustration at continuing British military support for Native Americans fighting against the expanding United States.
Also fueling the desire for war with Britain was a feeling that Britain never truly gave up thinking of America as a “lost” colony that should be punished. Many pro-war Americans saw a new war with Britain as a reaffirmation of American independence; in fact, the war became known as the Second War of Independence.
When war was declared by the United States in the summer of 1812, the American military was terribly unprepared for conflict with the world’s most powerful empire.
Even though the British were engaged in a life and death struggle with Napoleon’s France, troops were sent to reinforce British Canada and to battle the Americans.
The war that developed was a repeat of the American desire to invade and absorb Canada. Just as in the American Revolutionary War, British and Canadian forces beat back an American invasion.
As with many aspects of politics and public policy, this new war with Britain was popular in some regions of the United States, and vastly unpopular in others.
However, the British Burning of Washington on August 24, 1814, in which the White House and the Capital Building were burned by invading British troops, enraged all sections of the country towards the British.

Ironically, while many of the battles of the War of 1812 resulted in American defeat and humiliation, the greatest American victory on land came at the Battle of New Orleans, in 1815, which actually took place after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which would end the war.
The American victory at New Orleans produced a national hero in General Andrew Jackson, which would help propel him into the (rebuilt) White House in later years.
Who won the War of 1812?
Basically, the War of 1812 ended in a draw. Per the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, neither the U.S., nor Britain lost or gained any territory. The only real change was that American fishermen gained the right to fish in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
However, in the U.S., the war was seen as a victory due to the belief that the mighty British Empire had been held off.
The British view was basically that this pesky sidenote to the world war against Napoleon was finally over, and it had not adversely affected the outcome of their much more important war with France.
The real losers of this war were the Native Americans, whose lands were now more firmly in U.S. hands, and who could no longer rely on British aid against the Americans.

Memories of the White House in flames were still generating resentment four years after the British set it ablaze in 1814.
100 years ago, it was Western Europe ablaze in the First World War as German forces led a full scale assault tipping the balance against the allies.
In 1918 the Germans launched a Spring Offensive, a last-ditch effort to defeat the Allied powers before the American Expeditionary Force arrived in France in force.
The British and American alliance, so much a feature of the previous hundred years, was a joint sacrifice in the trenches, fighting against this ferocious German assault.
President Wilson saw the U.S. interest at the beginning of WWI as best served by ensuring that neither of the combatants gained a decisive victory.
But as the fighting ground on, neutrality became more difficult to sustain. Slowly, the tide of public opinion turned against Germany, notably after the infamous loss of 128 American lives after a German U-boat sunk the British liner Lusitania in May 1915.
Wilson suspended diplomatic relations with Germany in February 1917.
A German message intercepted by British code breakers, known as the Zimmerman telegram, proposing a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. The U.S. press published the telegram in March and public opinion could no longer be ignored.
On April 6, 1917, 3 years after the war started, Congress voted to declare war on Germany.
When the first major shipment of 120,000 American soldiers sailed to France in March 1918, they were tasked with holding quieter areas of the line, giving them their first experience of trench warfare and releasing French and British soldiers to halt the advancing Germans elsewhere.
American military impact may have been initially limited, but the economic and psychological effects were huge.
In the summer the Allies began a counter-attack, fortified by U.S. troops who had now swelled to over one million in number. By November the war had been won, the U.S. emerging from it a global power, and forged a strong bilateral relationship with Britain.
The last 100 years have seen peaks and valleys in the relationship. The relationship during the Second World War, for all the differences between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between 1940-45, marked the highest point in the whole U.S.-UK relationship.
Roosevelt had been re-elected in 1940 on a pledge to keep America out of “Europe’s war”; 80% of Americans wanted no part in it. While sympathetic to Britain’s plight, FDR was determined to restrict US involvement to supplying arms and aid.
Churchill tried every tactic he knew to draw the US in. He warned Roosevelt that if Britain were forced to capitulate, the Axis powers would target America next.
British agents in Manhattan waged a covert black propaganda and disinformation campaign to discredit American isolationists and appeasers.
Churchill sold British assets at knockdown prices and offered leases on overseas military bases in exchange for worn out US naval destroyers – a fateful step in the transfer of strategic power from Britain to the US.
“No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt,” Churchill wrote after the war. Swallowing his pride, he even styled himself a “loyal lieutenant”.
But Churchill had no illusions about American altruism. In the darkest hours of 1940-41, he knew Britain needed the US and must pay Roosevelt’s price.
Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, followed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, finally forced Roosevelt off the fence. Churchill knew then that Britain would survive. America “was up to the neck and in to the death”, he said.
As victory neared, Churchill used his influence with Roosevelt to shape the post-war order, binding the US into a new great power system where Britain would remain a pivotal player.
The two men co-authored the Atlantic Charter, embodying principles later adopted by the fledgling United Nations. Churchill ensured Britain kept a seat at the top table. He also argued that a strong transatlantic alliance was essential in confronting a new global threat – Stalin’s victorious Soviet Union.
What explains the peaks and valleys, and what light does it shed on how the relationship might evolve over the next 100 years? Personal chemistry is the first factor.
A shared ideological outlook and common domestic agenda binds both countries together, never more so than in the partnership demonstrated by Thatcher and Reagan.
Thatcher’s arrival in Downing Street, and the personal rapport she established with Reagan, president from 1981, changed the US-Britain power dynamic, though not the underlying realities.
The two conservative leaders shared a strong dislike of the Soviet Union, which Reagan dubbed the “evil empire”, and a passion for free market capitalism.
For these “ideological soul-mates”, it was love at first sight. “Your problems will be our problems and when you look for friends we shall be there,” Thatcher stated.
In 1985, celebrating the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations, she declared: “Our relationship … is special. It just is, and that’s that.”
On one occasion, Thatcher was on the phone from London, berating Reagan over his 1983 invasion of Grenada, when he put his hand over the receiver and said: “Gee, isn’t she marvelous!”
Mutual admiration did not prevent deadly serious disputes, not least over Reagan’s unhelpful response to Thatcher’s pleas following the 1982 Argentinean invasion of the Falkland islands.
Luckily for Thatcher and British forces, Caspar Weinberger, Reagan’s defense secretary, secretly authorized crucial assistance.
But in a sign Britain could still make its voice heard in the Oval Office, Thatcher’s favorable appraisal of the new Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev as a man with whom she could “do business” helped to convince the hawkish Reagan that a peaceful end to the cold war was possible.
In 1987 Reagan went to Berlin and demanded: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Two years later, Gorbachev complied.
This brings us to the present situation.
Theresa May & Donald Trump
Succeeding David Cameron in 2016, May inherited a relationship that had cooled significantly during Barack Obama’s presidency. Obama was no fan of the British.
He held strong views about British colonialism in Kenya, where his father was born, and imperial-era slavery – though he and Michelle enjoyed hobnobbing with the Queen.
Unsentimental and cautious, Obama saw Germany, not Britain, as America’s principal European partner. He drew down US forces in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan, refused to intervene in Syria, and wooed China in a geopolitical “pivot to Asia”.
If American disengagement posed a problem for May, it was nothing compared with what was to come.
Trump’s 2016 election victory opened up a whole new world of pain. On Russia, Nato, the UN, Israel-Palestine, Iran, trade tariffs, climate change, migrants, Muslims and multilateralism, Trump noisily advanced a position directly at odds with established British beliefs and interests.
The Thatcher-Reagan years marked a high point. The personal chemistry between the two was never replicated again.
Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party, is stepping down as Prime Minister this Friday, June 7th, 2019. So now what?
The Prime Minister is an MP (Member of Parliament) and head of the government.
The leader of the party that wins the most seats in a general election is appointed Prime Minister by the Queen.
The Prime Minister is officially responsible for choosing the other members of the government.
The leader of the largest opposition party is the Leader of the Official Opposition, which for the Commons and Lords is currently the Labour Party.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour party, is the current Leader of the Official Opposition.
The Leader of the Official Opposition picks a ‘Shadow Cabinet’ to follow the work of government departments.
Cabinet
The Cabinet consists of a maximum of twenty-two paid government ministers chosen by the Prime Minister. They can be Members of either House of Parliament. The Cabinet develops government policies and some members head government departments

.
Shadow Cabinet
The Shadow Cabinet consists of members from the main opposition party in the House of Commons and Lords, currently the Labour party. Its role is to examine the work of each government department and develop policies in their specific areas.
So you can see the significance of determining who will replace Theresa May in setting the direction of Great Britain and its future relationship with the United States.
Britain’s 75-year balancing act is close to collapse. Brexit means Europe is no longer a viable strategic alternative to the US alliance, while the US is ceasing to regard Britain as an important European or global player. Trump’s words and actions, and the nationalist and unilateralist forces he represents, suggest the shared values and interests that bound Britain and the US together for 75 years are dissolving.
It’s a commonplace to say that Britain needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs Britain. Commonplace, and wrong. The relationship, grounded in a long standing history of common interests in economic, military, cultural, and intelligence fields, will continue to matter to both the U.S. and Great Britain.
This whole situation is a story we all need to follow.

Tomorrow, the world will recognize the 75th anniversary of D Day.
Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II.
‘D-Day’ is a general term for the start date of any military operation – the ‘D’ stands for ‘day’. It is often used when the exact date is either secret or not yet known.
Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east.
With Hitler’s armies in control of most of mainland Europe, the Allies knew that a successful invasion of the continent was central to winning the war. Hitler knew this too, and was expecting an assault on northwestern Europe in the spring of 1944.
He hoped to repel the Allies from the coast with a strong counterattack that would delay future invasion attempts, giving him time to throw the majority of his forces into defeating the Soviet Union in the east. Once that was accomplished, he believed an all-out victory would soon be his.
On this date June 5, in 1944, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history.
On his orders, 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels carrying 176,000 troops began to leave England for the trip to France. That night, 822 aircraft filled with parachutists headed for drop zones in Normandy. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.
Cross Channel Invasion, At Last – “D” Day
In November 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Tehran. This was the first face to face meeting of what was known as “The Big Three.” It took place in the Capital of Iran, a country that Soviet and British troops had occupied jointly in the summer of 1941.
At the meeting, Churchill continued to push for operations in the Mediterranean and postponing the Cross Channel invasion. Stalin supported the Americans and insisted that they need to launch the offensive as soon as possible.
Confronted by the opposition of both Roosevelt and Stalin, Churchill reluctantly agreed that the Cross Channel invasion would have top priority in 1944.
It was also decided at Tehran that Eisenhower would become supreme commander of the allied expeditionary forces that would carry out the invasion on “D” Day.
The Allies chose the coast of Normandy for the invasion site. Normandy contained two important ports: Cherbourg (to the west) and Le Havre (to the east), either of which would be valuable for supplying the invading troops.
Until the Allies were successful in capturing these two ports, the invasion force would rely on prefabricated concrete harbors called Mulberries.
Allied ships would tow the Mulberries across the channel in sections and put them into place off the Normandy coast. They also had to lay pipeline to provide badly needed fuel to shore.
The Germans had expected the invasion to come at the Pas de Calais, 200 miles to the northeast and only 20 miles from England across the Strait of Dover.
Preparations for the invasion took many months including transportation of 1.5 million American soldiers across the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean.
600 war ships and over 4000 transports and landing craft also had to be moved into position. In addition, we utilized 12,000 planes providing support for the operation.
In the meantime, Germans made preparations to resist the invasion. In charge of the resistance and the defense was Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. Rommel created as powerful a combination of obstacles as he could and this became known as the Atlantic Wall.
His biggest problem was not knowing for sure where the Allies would actually land. As a result he had to order defenses built on every beach where landing might be made. This thinned out his resources considerably.
The Germans laid almost 4 million mines and built huge amounts of underwater obstacles, thousands of bunkers encasements, some housing 155 millimeter guns. The underwater obstacles were especially important because they forced the Allies to land at low tide to prevent landing craft from snagging them.
The allied leaders went to great lengths to convince the Germans that an American Army under Patton’s command was present in Southeast England. Here they constructed dummy headquarters and utilized blow up replicas of tanks and artillery.
The German leaders were convinced they had nothing to fear for the foreseeable future. Rommel, on the day of the invasion, had actually gone home to Berlin to celebrate his wife’s birthday.

The Invasion Begins
The Germans were so convinced that the attack would take place at the Pas d Calais, that even after the initial invasion took place at Normandy the commanders, including Hitler, still contended it was simply a diversion and that the real attack would take place to the north.
As a result the German leaders, at first, refused to divert forces from the northern territory, south to Normandy. The Allies planned to carry out Operation OverLord in three stages: Break In, Build UP, and Break Out.

Break In included the actual landings on the beach head.
Build up focused on expanding the beachhead and increasing the size of the force
Break out was when the Allies were to execute when the Build Up was complete by punching through the German defenses around the beachhead and breaking out in the direction of the German border.
Allied forces executed the Break In stage successfully starting on D-Day, June 6th.
Before the amphibious landings took place, the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions dropped inland to control the approaches to the beaches. They made their drops under cover of darkness and the paratroopers were badly scattered, but groups of them caused confusion among the Germans and distracted their attention from the beaches.
In another preliminary action, three companies of rangers scaled Pointe-Du-Hoc (pronounced, “point de hook”), a sheer 100 ft cliff, 10 miles west of Omaha Beach.
Their mission was the destruction of a battery of 155 millimeter guns. Despite heavy casualties they made it to the top, only to find that the guns were not there.
The Germans had moved them. The rangers later discovered the guns as the fought their way inland and disabled them, the price had been high, all but 50 of the 200 rangers had either been killed or wounded.
The amphibious landings at Omaha Beach had all kinds of problems, the navy launched many landing craft too far out and the choppy sea swamped them, taking a heavy toll of men, tanks, and artillery.
Once they reached the shore the men encountered devastating enemy fire, many never made it out of their landing craft. 2500 Americans lost their lives on Omaha Beach that day.
The Americans that landed on Utah beach, to the west, encountered fewer obstacles and far fewer casualties, although; here too they moved inland more slowly than expected.
British and Canadian troops landed at Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches to the east of Omaha Beach. Slightly over 100,000 Allied troops reached shore during the first two days of the invasion.
Within 10 days Allied manpower at Normandy had increased to over 500,000 and by July 1st almost 1 million men were inside the beach head.
The buildup of Allied strength, in Normandy, led to the creation of two army groups: the 21st Army Group was under British General Montgomery’s command. The 12th Army Group was under US General Bradley’s command.
Adding to the Germans’ problems Rommel suffered injuries when a British plane attacked his staff car on July 17th ending his role in the defense at Normandy.
Now while all of this was happening, there was an attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944. When the tide turned against Germany in Russia a small group of officers on the eastern front concluded it was necessary to end the war and this would be possibly only if Hitler were eliminated.
Six attempts to kill Hitler had taken place in 1943 and all their efforts failed.
Colonel Klaus Von Stauffenburg would lead the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. Von Stauffenburg had lost his right hand and two fingers on his left hand and an eye in Tunisia.
Von Stauffenburg, with the help of officers in Berlin and on the western front, put together a plot to kill Hitler. The plot took place at Hitlers’ Wolf’s lair.
Von Stauffenburg had attended a planning meeting with Hitler and had placed a briefcase containing a bomb under the conference table and then excused himself to go to the restroom.
When the bomb exploded a few minutes later, it killed 4 men and wounded 20 others, but the tables’ heavy oak top absorbed enough of the blast to spare Hitler. In addition, the bomb had been placed into a room that was a screen porch as opposed to traditional bunker where the meetings were previously been held.
Stauffenburg and his fellow conspirators had planned to follow the assassination by seizing control of the government in Berlin and seeking an end to the war.
The officers who remained loyal to Hitler received word that Hitler was still alive and quickly arrested Stauffenburg and several others. They shot Stauffenburg and his immediate associates shortly thereafter.
Hitler now sought out everyone involved in the plot, high ranking officers and civilians were drug before a kangaroo court set up by Hitler, many of the condemned were hanged by piano wire suspended from meat hooks.
Hitler ordered the executions be filmed so he could view the victims’ deaths at his leisure. Rommel himself was implicated in the conspiracy and was forced to commit suicide. The attempt on Hitler’s’ life increased his suspicion of even generals who remained loyal to him.
In the meantime, back at the front, the Americans took Saint-Lo on July 18th and the British captured Caen (pronounced “con”) two days later. We were now in a situation where we had troops to the north and south of the Germans at a place known as the Falaise (pronounced, “Fa lez”)Gap.
Unfortunately, our troops both to the north and south, could not close the gap quickly enough and almost 35,000 Germans were able to escape to the east. Nevertheless 10,000 Germans died in the Falaise Gap and another 50,000 surrendered.
While the battles raged along the beaches of Normandy, Allied forces landed on the French Mediterranean coast as well. The invaders to the south met little resistance compared to those who landed at Normandy and very quickly made progress inland.
French troops joined up with the Allies. At this point, the Allies received word that Hitler had ordered all German troops in southern France to withdraw northward. This information enabled them to pursue the enemy up the valley of the Rhone River. The progress was so quick, that on September 12th they made contact with the US 3rd Army north of Dijon in Eastern France.
American troops now marched into Paris on August 25th liberating the city. Soon after the liberation of Paris, the British moved into Belgium, while Patton drove into Lorraine and by September 15th most of Belgium and Luxemburg had fallen into Allied hands and the German border was only a few miles away.
The big problem now, became logistics. The Allies had outdistanced their supply lines and were experiencing shortages of fuel as well as all the other necessities needed to keep such a huge force moving forward in the attack.
The Push to Cross the Rhine
General Bernard Montgomery, British commander, came up with a plan to have a massive airborne operation aimed at crossing the Rhine in the Netherlands. The key to this was to land paratroops behind German lines, who would then capture most of the Bridges crossing the Rhine River.
Montgomery gained Eisenhower’s approval for this plan, which was given the code name, “Operation Market Garden.” The plan called for the US 101st Airborne division to capture the bridge across the Maas River. They would also take a number of bridges over lesser streams and canals. The 82nd Airborne division was to seize the span over the Waal River, a branch of the Rhine.
The British 1st Airborne division drew the most difficult assignment of all and that was to capture the northern most bridge across the lower Rhine at Arnhem.
“Market Garden” began on September 17th with daytime landings, but soon encountered bad weather that delayed the dropping of some of the paratroops. The British added to the problem by dropping their forces too far from the objective, this enabled the Germans to split them into two segments and prevent the capture of the bridge.

Only after a bloody crossing of the Waal, in flimsy canvas boats, was the 82nd Airborne able to secure their bridge. The British 30th Corp, comprised of relief forces had to move through swampy terrain along one narrow road that the Germans bombed with artillery fire. Ultimately the relief force came to the rescue of all the airborne troops except those at Arnhem.
After 9 days of heavy fighting only 2400 of the original 9000 troops managed to break through enemy lines and escape. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied hopes of crossing the Rhine in 1944.
The End of the 1000 Year Reich
As the Allies prepared to make their final thrust into Germany, Hitler had one final counter attack to play. This was strictly Hitler’s idea, and even his Generals didn’t agree. He chose to strike in the Ardennes Forest.
The Germans had done so in WWI and had an amazing victory. Hitler realized this was a weak point in the Allied line again, the main reason why was that the Allies figured there was no way that Germany could maneuver its tanks though the heavy forests.
Hitler now planned to crash through the Ardennes Forest and drive all the way to Antwerp. If he could do this he would isolate the British Army under Montgomery to the north and the American armies to the south.
To do this, Hitler now pulled troops from the eastern front to provide a striking force to the western front.
The Allies simply did not see this coming and thought there was no way Hitler would be able to launch this force through the forest.
There were only 4 American divisions (10,000 to 30,000 in a division) under General Hodges who held the Ardennes Front, the Allied leaders were oblivious to the counter attack coming.
Hitler had also insisted on complete radio silence in connection with the operation, therefore ULTRA was unable to read any messages indicating that the assault was coming.
Hitler also had another trick up his sleeve. He had placed English speaking German commandos behind US lines who caused great confusion. Dressed in American uniforms they cut telephone lines, changed road signs and killed military policemen in charge of directing troop convoys.
Americans now began to suspect everyone and subjected strangers to informal questioning. They asked them everything from major league batting champions to the names of state Capitols. At one point General Bradley had to confess he didn’t know the identity of the husband of the popular movie star Betty Grable.
The SS Panzer division inspired more fear by murdering Americans who fell into their hands. The most notorious massacre occurred near the town of Malmedy, where German machine gunners killed 86 Americans, these Americans had surrendered as prisoners of war only to be slaughtered.
German armor did push through the Ardennes forest and badly outnumbered the American forces along the 70 mile front. The Americans fell back and eventually set up defenses at two road junctions in eastern Belgium. St. Vieth and Bastogne. Although St. Vieth fell on December 22nd Bastogne continued to hold out.
Eisenhower, seeing that Bastogne was surrounded, now ordered the 101st Airborne division to reinforce the towns’ garrison. German troops, who surrounded Bastogne, sent a note to the defenders to surrender. General Anthony Mccollough, the American commander in charge, sent a note back with one word “Nuts!”
When the skies finally cleared on December 23rd Allied fighter bombers came in and lay waste to the enemy armored spearheads.
The Germans would also experience a severe fuel shortage and had no choice but to break off their offensive. Hitler’s dream of reaching Antwerp had been way too ambitious and his counter offensive had simply created a bulge in the allied line, thus the Battle of the Bulge.

Allied forces soon struck against the flanks of the Bulge. Patton executed one of the most remarkable feats of the war when he pivoted two of Third Armies three corps 90 degrees from Lorraine to Bastogne.
Despite intense cold, snow, and icy roads, his Fourth Armored division arrived in Bastogne on December 26th to save the day.
By January the Allies had eliminated the Bulge. Hitler had used up his last reserves and his greatest concentration of armor in an enterprise that never had a chance to win. By January 25th the Germans broke off their offensive and began to transfer some of their best divisions back to the eastern front.
By early July the Allied armies had captured 41,000 German troops while sustaining 60,771 casualties, including 8,975 dead. French losses in the Normandy campaign have been calculated at fifteen thousand civilian dead.
The total number of casualties that occurred during Operation Overlord, from June 6 (the date of D-Day) to August 30 (when German forces retreated across the Seine) was over 425,000 Allied and German troops. This figure includes over 209,000 Allied casualties:
• Nearly 37,000 dead amongst the ground forces
• 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces.
• Of the Allied casualties, 83,045 were from 21st Army Group (British, Canadian and Polish ground forces)
• 125,847 from the US ground forces.
The losses of the German forces during the Battle of Normandy can only be guessed. Roughly 200,000 German troops were killed or wounded. The Allies also captured 200,000 prisoners of war (not included in the 425,000 total, above). During the fighting around the Falaise Pocket (August 1944) alone, the Germans suffered 90,000 losses, including prisoners.
Now folks, if you learned nothing else today, I hope that you can now see why this group of people is called “The Greatest Generation”.
It was none other than Tom Brokaw who coined the prase “Greatest Generation after attending the 40th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day invasion of mainland Europe.
There are no precise dates that define when the Greatest Generation was born, though many give a range of the early 1900s to the mid-1920s. The common theme of the Greatest Generation is that its members lived through and experienced the hardships of the Great Depression and later either fought in World War II or worked in the industries that contributed to winning the war.
We owe them everything. There are few of them left, but if you have the opportunity to meet someone from that period, take the time to stop and thank them. Every last one of them played a part in gaining you the freedoms you enjoy today.
Callers, Do you agree? Were they the Greatest Generation?
Better yet, do we currently have what it takes to match their achievements?

Known as Persia until 1935, Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979 after the ruling monarchy was overthrown and Shah Mohammad Reza PAHLAVI was forced into exile.
Conservative clerical forces led by Ayatollah Ruhollah KHOMEINI established a theocratic system of government with ultimate political authority vested in a religious scholar referred to commonly as the Supreme Leader who, according to the constitution, is accountable only to the Assembly of Experts (AOE) – a popularly elected 88-member body of clerics.
As we all know, US-Iranian relations fell apart when a group of Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held embassy personnel hostages until mid-January 1981.
On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages.
The trigger for this action was President Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow Iran’s deposed Shah, a pro-Western Iranian leader, who had been expelled from his country several months before, to come to the United States for cancer treatment.
However, the real cause of the situation was that it provided a dramatic way for the student revolutionaries to declare a break with Iran’s past and to put an end to American interference in its affairs.
It was also a way to raise the worldwide profile of the revolution’s leader, the anti-American cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The students set their hostages free on January 21, 1981, 444 days after the crisis began and just hours after President Ronald Reagan delivered his inaugural address. Many historians believe that hostage crisis cost Jimmy Carter a second term as president.
The Iran hostage crisis started with a series of events that took place nearly 50 years before it began.
The source of tension between Iran and the U.S. came from the conflict over oil.
British and American corporations had controlled the bulk of Iran’s oil reserves almost since their discovery following WWI.
This ties back to the mandate system set up as a result of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI that allowed Great Britain to occupy Iraq and Iran following the war.
This was a very profitable arrangement that they had no desire to change.
However, in 1951 Iran’s newly elected prime minister, a European-educated nationalist named Muhammad Mossadegh (moo sa day), announced a plan to retake control of the country’s oil industry.
In response to these policies, the American C.I.A. and the British intelligence service devised a secret plan to overthrow Mossadegh and replace him with a leader who would be more receptive to Western interests.
Sure enough, Mossadegh was overthrown and a new government was installed in August 1953.
The new leader was a member of Iran’s royal family named Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi.
The Shah’s government was nonreligious, anti-communist and pro-Western. In exchange for tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid, he returned 80 percent of Iran’s oil reserves to the Americans and the British.
For the C.I.A. and oil interests, the 1953 coup was a success.
However, many Iranians bitterly resented what they saw as American intervention in their affairs.
The Shah turned out to be a brutal dictator whose secret police tortured and murdered thousands of people.
Meanwhile, the Iranian government spent billions of dollars on American-made weapons while the Iranian economy suffered.
By the 1970s, many Iranians were fed up with the Shah’s government.
In protest, they turned to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a radical cleric whose revolutionary Islamist movement promised a break from the past and a turn toward independence for the Iranian people.
In July 1979, the revolutionaries forced the Shah to disband his government and flee to Egypt. The Ayatollah installed a militant Islamist government in its place.
The United States, afraid of stirring up hostilities in the Middle East, did not come to the defense of its old ally.
President Jimmy Carter, aware of the Shah’s brutality to his people, refused to defend him.
However, in October 1979 President Carter agreed to allow the Shah to enter the U.S. for treatment of an advanced malignant cancer.
His decision was said to be humanitarian, not political.
However, it was like throwing “a burning branch into a bucket of kerosene.” Anti-American sentiment in Iran exploded.
This triggered the storming of our Embassy and the seizing of the American hostages.
Diplomatic maneuvers had no effect on the Ayatollah’s anti-American stance.
President Carter’s efforts to bring an end to the hostage crisis soon became one of his greatest priorities. In April 1980, frustrated with the slow pace of diplomacy (and over the objections of several of his advisers), Carter decided to launch a risky military rescue mission known as Operation Eagle Claw. The operation was supposed to send an elite rescue team into the embassy compound.
However, a severe desert sandstorm on the day of the mission caused several helicopters to malfunction, including one that veered into a large transport plane during takeoff. Eight American servicemen were killed in the accident, and Operation Eagle Claw was aborted.
The constant media coverage of the hostage crisis in the U.S. served as the backdrop for the 1980 presidential race. President Carter’s inability to resolve the problem made him look like a weak and ineffectual leader.
The Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, took advantage of Carter’s difficulties.
On Election Day, one year and two days after the hostage crisis began, Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide.
On January 21, 1981, just a few hours after Ronald Reagan delivered his inaugural address, the remaining hostages were released. They had been in captivity for 444 days.
Now during the period 1980-88, Iran fought a bloody, indecisive war with Iraq that eventually expanded into the Persian Gulf and led to clashes between US Navy and Iranian military forces.
Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism for its activities in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world and remains subject to US, UN, and EU economic sanctions and export controls because of its continued involvement in terrorism and concerns over expanded military development of its nuclear program.
Now to the current situation:
The US is sending hundreds of additional troops and a dozen fighter jets to the Middle East in the coming weeks to counter what the Pentagon has said is an escalating campaign by Iran to plan attacks against the US and its interests in the region.
And for the first time, Pentagon officials on Friday publicly blamed Iran and its proxies for recent oil tanker bombings near the United Arab Emirates and a rocket attack in Iraq.
President Trump told reporters Friday that the 1,500 troops would have a “mostly protective” role as part of a build-up that began this month in response to what the US said was a threat from Iran.
The announcement tops three weeks of elevated tensions with Iran, as the administration hurled accusations of an imminent attack and abruptly deployed navy warships to the region.
The moves alarmed members of Congress, who demanded proof and details, amid fears the US was lurching toward open conflict.
Adding to the uncertainty, President Trump alternated between tough talk and a more conciliatory message, insisting he is open to negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
Last Friday he stated, “Right now, I don’t think Iran wants to fight and I certainly don’t think they want to fight with us.”
In response, a senior Iranian military commander has said he hoped “rational Americans” would rein in Washington’s “radical elements” and prevent a war.
“We believe rational Americans and their experienced commanders will not let their radical elements lead them into a situation from which it would be very difficult to get out, and that is why they will not enter a war,” Brig Gen Hassan Seifi, an assistant to Iran’s army chief, told the country’s semi-official news agency Mehr on Saturday.
Australia also weighed in, saying it was deeply concerned by Iran’s recent comments, but backed the Iran nuclear deal – officially called the joint comprehensive plan of action – which Trump has heavily criticized.
Tension had been rising with Iran for more than a year. The Trump administration withdrew last year from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reinstated American sanctions that have badly damaged the Iranian economy.
The president has argued that the deal failed to sufficiently curb Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons or halt its support for militias throughout the Middle East that the US argues destabilize the region.
In a related move, the Trump administration on Friday used an emergency legal loophole to move ahead with the sale of $7billionn in precision-guided munitions and other military support to Saudi Arabia, citing threats the kingdom faces from Iran.
Vice-Admiral Michael Gilday told Pentagon reporters that the US had “very high confidence” that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were responsible for the explosions on four oil tankers, and that Iranian proxies in Iraq fired rockets into Baghdad. He said Iran also tried to deploy modified small boats that were capable of launching cruise missiles.
The deployments announced Friday include a squadron of 12 fighter jets, manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, and a number of military engineers to beef up protection for forces.
“We are going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” the president said at the White House, before setting off on a trip to Japan. “Some very talented people are going to the Middle East right now and we’ll see what happens.”
Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, Gilday, the joint staff director, did not provide direct evidence to back up claims tying Iran to the attacks. He told reporters the conclusions were based on intelligence and evidence gathered in the region, and officials said they were trying to declassify some of the information so that it could be made public.
The announcement of additional forces was met with mixed reviews.
The chairman of the House armed services committee, Democrat Adam Smith of Washington, called the build-up “unsettling”.
“Leaders from both sides of the aisle have called for de-escalation. At first blush, this move does not fit the bill,” Smith said in a statement Friday. “Without a clearly articulated strategy, adding more personnel and mission systems seems unwise, and appears to be a blatant and heavy-handed move to further escalate tensions with Iran.”
Earlier this week, officials said military planners had outlined options that could have sent up to 10,000 military reinforcements to the region. The acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, later said planners hadn’t settled on a figure. The US currently has about 70,000 troops across the Middle East.
Now according to British news sources, the US military went on alert after Iran released a disturbing video revealing a secret underground base which has a huge stockpile of missiles – amid fears of an attack on American troops.
The footage of the secret military base in Iran shows the Islamic Republic testing a Qiam-1 missile – a weapon based on a North Korean scud missile.
This may explain why the US administration recently accused Iran of preparing to launch an attack on the American forces in the Middle East.
A leading American lawmaker, Rep. Michael McCaul, who is the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, revealed the intelligence pointing to an imminent attack late last week.
He said: “One of the Hezbollah cells is known for its kidnapping and killing operations, and their directive was to go in and kill and kidnap American soldiers.”
Amid all the tension, a senior Iranian military official claimed on Saturday that Iran could sink US warships sent to the Gulf region using missiles and “secret weapons”.
General Morteza Qorbani, an adviser to Iran’s military command, told semi-official news agency Mizan: “America.. is sending two warships to the region. If they commit the slightest stupidity, we will send these ships to the bottom of the sea along with their crew and planes using two missiles or two new secret weapons.”
The State Department has since ordered all “non-emergency” personnel to immediately leave Iraq.
President Trump responded by warning the Iranian leaders that, if they threatened the US, Tehran would meet its “official end.”
Earlier this month, General Qassem Soleimani, the head of an elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told Iran-aligned Iraqi Shiite militias to “prepare for proxy war.”
So let’s not forget, Russia, China and North Korea, all have ties to Iran.
The outbreak of a full scale conflict would not be limited to US and Iranian forces alone.
Tehran has also said that its Navy is prepared to target the American ships should a conflict break out at any moment.
Despite this, President Trump insisted he was not looking for regime change during his trip to Japan this week.
He said: “I do believe that Iran would like to talk, and if they’d like to talk, we’d like to talk also.”
Now the latest development is Iraq offered to mediate in the crisis between its two key allies, the United States and Iran.
Iraqi foreign minister, Mohammed al-Hakim, made the offer Sunday during a joint news conference in Baghdad with visiting Iranian counterpart Mohammad Zarif.
“We are trying to help and to be mediators,” said al-Hakim, adding that Baghdad “will work to reach a satisfactory solution” while stressing that Iraq stands against unilateral steps taken by Washington.
Al Hakim is referring to President Trump’s withdrawal last year of the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that capped Iran’s uranium enrichment activities in return to lifting sanctions. Washington subsequently re-imposed sanctions on Iran, sending its economy into freefall.
So what you are seeing here is the sanctions are indeed affecting not only Iran, but Iraq as well.
Trump has argued that the deal failed to sufficiently curb Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons or halt its support for militias throughout the Middle East that the U.S. says destabilize the region.
Healso said the deal fails to address the issue of Tehran’s missiles, which can reach both U.S. regional bases and Israel.
Zarif, who was been on a whirlwind diplomatic offensive to preserve the rest of the accord, insisted that Iran “did not violate the nuclear deal” and urged European nations to exert efforts to preserve the deal following the U.S. pullout.
Speaking about the rising tensions with the U.S., Zarif said Iran will be able to “face the war, whether it is economic or military through steadfastness and its forces.” He also urged for a non-aggression agreement between Iran and Arab countries in the Gulf.
The Shiite-majority Iraq has been trying to maintain a fine line as allies Tehran and Washington square off.
The country also lies on the line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a battlefield in which the Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out.
Iranians make up the bulk of millions of Shiites from around the world who come to Iraq every year to visit its many Shiite shrines and holy places and their purchasing power has slumped after Trump re-imposed the sanctions.
“The sanctions against sisterly Iran are ineffective and we stand by its side,” al-Hakim said.
Folks, what should we do?

The first democratically elected president of Venezuela was Rómulo Betancourt, prior to that the country was ruled by dictators. Betancourt was a communist-turned-social democrat. In fact, while he was in exile, he founded the Communist Party in Costa Rica and helped found the Communist Party in Colombia as well.
You heard me right. The people elected him based on his promises of creating a socialist utopia.
Not surprisingly, as president, he started destroying the economic institutions Venezuela had by implementing price controls, rent controls, and other regulations they hadn’t had before. On top of that, he and his allies created a new constitution that was hostile to private property.
In spite of this — or perhaps because of it — Betancourt is almost universally revered in Venezuela as “the father of our democracy.” This remains true even today as Venezuela collapses.
Of course, compared to today, Venezuela had far greater economic freedom under Betancourt than it does in today’s Venezuela.
But, all of the presidents who came after Betancourt took similar positions and continued to chip away at economic freedom.
Over time, the destruction of economic freedom led to more and more impoverishment and crisis. This in turn set the stage for the rise of a political outsider with a populist message. This, of course, was Hugo Chávez.
He was elected in 1998 and promised to replace moderate socialism with more radical socialism.
He was able to pass through an even more anti-private-property constitution.
Since Chávez’s death in 2013, the attacks on private property have continued, and Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, has turned to outright authoritarian socialism.
So, what are the results of socialism in Venezuela? Hyperinflation, people eating garbage, schools that do not teach, hospitals that do not heal, long and humiliating lines to buy flour, bread, and basic medicines and the militarization of practically every aspect of life.
The cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years.
In March 2007, the largest denomination of paper money in Venezuela was the 100 bolivar bill. With it, you could buy 28 US dollars, 288 eggs, or 56 kilograms of rice. Today, you can buy .01 dollars, 0.2 eggs, and 0.08 kilograms of rice. You now need five 100-bolivar bills ($2800) to buy just one egg.
So, socialism is the cause of the Venezuelan misery. Venezuelans are starving, eating garbage, losing weight. Children are malnourished. Anyone in Venezuela would be happy to eat out of America’s trashcans. It would be considered a gourmet meal.
Yet Maduro still commands more than enough state resources to avoid a coup. For years, the president has purchased the loyalty of Venezuela’s armed forces by giving the military loans and control over state-run enterprises.
The Ministry of Defense is now in charge of importing, producing, selling and distributing all food in Venezuela in a country where people are starving.
So why have things escalated?
In May 2018, Maduro was re-elected to a second term in elections which have widely been dismissed as rigged. He was sworn in on 10 January.
At the prospect of another six years of Maduro government and with the economy in freefall, the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself interim president on 23 January.
Mr Guaidó argues that Mr Maduro is a “usurper” and that the presidency is therefore vacant, in which case the constitution calls for the head of the National Assembly to step in.
The US and more than 50 other countries have recognised Mr Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela but Maduro’s key allies, Russia and China, have stuck by the latter.
The two sides have been locked in a stand-off since January with Guaidó trying to sway the military, a key player in the country, to switch its allegiance.
On 30 April, he called on the security forces to join him in the “final phase” of the removal from power of Maduro, a move the government said was “an attempted coup”.
A government like Maduro’s might not last long in, say, France, because neighboring countries and the European Union would exert sufficient diplomatic, political and economic pressure to punish the rogue regime for its actions.
International pressure can have some positive effect under two conditions.
First, the target country must be heavily dependent on international economic exchange, without other strong allies.
Second, the sanctions must be multilateral.
Neither condition is true of Venezuela.
The Organization of American States has tried for two years to expel Venezuela because it is no longer a democracy. But member countries like Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua – all of which have strongman leaders allied with Maduro – oppose the initiative.
In any case, its Latin American neighbors are not Venezuela’s main international financial partners. China and Russia are largely keeping Maduro’s bankrupt regime afloat by buying oil concessions and extending the repayment period on loans.
Therein lies the greatest problem we face in trying to help the Venezuelan people.
Sending American troops in to aid in overthrowing the Maduro regime could create a proxy war pitting the US against China and Russia.
I know what you are thinking. We have already been in that situation many times throughout our history.
The big difference here is that this war would be in our own hemisphere, and would require a completely different set of alliances than those we counted on in previous conflicts.
Could we count on our European allies to come to our aid in such a conflict? I doubt it.
China and Russia both hold seats on the UN Security Council with veto power.
The Middle East is deep in turmoil and I doubt our allies there could spare any resources to help us, not to mention the political ramifications of them joining us in such an effort.
So who does that leave?
Russia and China, have warned the US not to intervene in support of the opposition leader Guaidó’s attempt to lead the country.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone with Maduro and offered him strong support in a political crisis he said had been “provoked from abroad”, a Kremlin statement said.
“Destructive interference from abroad blatantly violates basic norms of international law,” Putin was quoted as saying.
The Kremlin press release did not mention the US by name but matched earlier statements by other senior Russian officials targeted at Washington.
Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, described the US support for Guaidó as a “quasi-coup” and accused the US of hypocrisy, asking how Americans would react if the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, declared herself president.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said a US military intervention in Venezuela would be catastrophic.
Russia is an important source of financial support to the Venezuelan government, providing billions of dollars in loans, some as pre-payment for future deliveries of oil.
Last month Russia dispatched two nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to the country in a further show of support.
Russia has said it is ready to facilitate talks among political forces in Venezuela. “We will stand, if you’d like, together with this country in defense of sovereignty, in defense of the inadmissibility of encroaching on the principle of nonintervention in internal affairs,” Ryabkov said.
Franz Klintsevich, a Russian senator and retired colonel, said Moscow could increase its military cooperation with Venezuela if Maduro, who he said was the legitimately elected president, was ousted.
Other Russian officials criticized US actions. “The US is trying to carry out an operation to organize the next ‘colour revolution’ in Venezuela,” said Andrei Klimov, the deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, using a term for the popular uprisings that unseated leaders in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
China said it supports the Venezuelan government’s efforts in preserving the country’s sovereignty, independence and stability.
“I want to emphasize that outside sanctions or interference usually make the situation more complicated and are not helpful to resolving the actual problems,” a foreign affairs spokeswoman said.
Venezuela has been one of Beijing’s closest allies in Latin America, and the largest recipient of Chinese financing, taking as much as $38 billion in loans by 2017.
China is also Venezuela’s largest creditor, prompting concerns that as Venezuela’s economy collapses, state assets could fall into Chinese hands.
It is in Beijing’s interest to support Maduro, given that a new government could refuse to honor Venezuela’s debt obligations to China.
Maduro met China’s president, Xi Jinping, last year and toured Mao Zedong’s mausoleum in Beijing, and the countries agreed on an additional $3.8 billion in loans and more than 20 bilateral agreements.
Turkey’s president, Recep Erdoğan, phoned Maduro to offer his support, later telling a press conference he was shocked that the US had backed Guaidó.
“You will respect the results of elections. Trump’s remarks shocked me, as someone who believes in democracy,” he said. “I called Maduro on the way back from Russia. I told [him] very clearly: ‘Never allow anti-democratic developments. Stand tall,’” he said.
Turkey’s foreign minister issued a warning about Guaidó’s declaration. “There is an elected president and another person declares himself president, and some countries recognize this. This may cause chaos,we are against the isolation of countries. I hope the situation will be solved peacefully.”
Mexico, part of the 14-member Lima Group, departed from the regional bloc’s call for democratic transition and said it would stick to its “constitutional principles of non-intervention”.
It joined Uruguay, the only other prominent Latin American country still recognizing Maduro, in calling for additional talks between the government and opposition to find a peaceful solution. Previous talks brokered by the Vatican on the Venezuelan situation broke down.
Mexico had previously criticized Venezuela but its new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has returned the country to its traditional foreign policy of not weighing in on the internal affairs of other countries and expecting the same silence in return.
Iran denounced events in Venezuela, saying the opposition’s claim there that it held the presidency was a “coup” and an attempt to take power unlawfully.
The foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said: “Islamic Republic of Iran supports the government and people of Venezuela against any sort of foreign intervention and any illegitimate and illegal action such as attempt to make a coup d’état.”
Cuba expressed its support for Maduro, with the state newspaper Granma saying that by recognizing Guaidó as interim president, Donald Trump was “directing a coup d’état”.
Cuba is hugely dependent on Venezuelan petroleum paid for with doctors.
The UK broke European ranks on Thursday and sided with the US. “This regime has done untold damage to the people of Venezuela, 10% of the population have left Venezuela such is the misery they are suffering,” the foreign secretary Jeremy Huny said in a statement issued in Washington.
“So the United Kingdom believes Juan Guaidó is the right person to take Venezuela forward. We are supporting the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina to make that happen.”
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said talks in Venezuela were needed to avoid the political crisis spiraling out of control.
“What we hope is that dialogue can be possible, and that we avoid an escalation that would lead to the kind of conflict that would be a disaster for the people of Venezuela and for the region,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“Sovereign governments have the possibility to decide whatever they want. What we are worried about with the situation in Venezuela is the suffering of the people of Venezuela.”
Now folks, this is all well and good, but we can indeed make our own argument that we have explained our position in the Americas in the past. I am referring to The Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine , was the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy spoken by President James Monroe in his annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823.
In that address, Monroe stated that, “Any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States”.
Trust me, you will hear the Monroe Doctrine bantered about on the national news constantly in the next few weeks.
I find this amusing, since the Monroe Doctrine is not a law. It is merely a statement a President made to Congress 196 years ago.
So there you have it folks.
Hopefully you can see just how grave the situation is surrounding the conflict in Venezuela.
It is much larger than who will rule Venezuela, and it could very easily escalate into an international conflict that could trigger a world war.
You say that will never happen?
I take you back to Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, triggering WWI.
Within two months, Austria-Hungary and Germany (the Central Powers) were at war with Russia, France, Great Britain, and Italy (the Allied Powers).
By the end of the conflict, 32 countries worldwide were involved.
20 million people had been killed (including 113,000 U.S. soldiers) and 20 million people wounded.
So folks, let me ask you. Should we stand idly by and watch China and Russia secure a foothold in the America’s, or should we stand firm and use our military to secure democracy within our hemisphere?

The first Sinhalese (native Sri Lankans) arrived in Sri Lanka late in the 6th century B.C., probably from northern India.
Buddhism was introduced 250 B.C., and the first kingdoms developed at the cities of Anuradhapura (on eh rod a puor ah) (from circa 200 B.C. to circa A.D. 1000) and Polonnaruwa (polon ah ruwa) (from about 1070 to 1200).
In the 14th century, a south Indian dynasty established a Tamil (tah meal) kingdom in northern Sri Lanka. The Portuguese controlled the coastal areas of the island in the 16th century followed by the Dutch in the 17th century.
The island was ceded to the British in 1796, became a crown colony in 1802, and was formally united under British rule by 1815.
It became independent country of Ceylon in 1948; its name was changed to Sri Lanka in 1972.
Prevailing tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil separatists erupted into war in July 1983. Fighting between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil continued for over a quarter century. Although Norway brokered peace negotiations that led to a ceasefire in 2002, the fighting slowly resumed and was again in full force by 2006. The government defeated the Tigers of Tamil in May 2009.
During the post-conflict years under President RAJAPAKSA, the government enacted an ambitious program of infrastructure development projects, many of which were financed by loans from the Government of China.
In 2015, a new coalition government headed by President SIRISENA of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party came to power with pledges to advance economic, governance, anti-corruption, reconciliation, justice, and accountability reforms; however, progress on many of these reforms has been uneven.

Population:
22,576,592 (July 2018 est.)

Religion
Buddhist (official) 70.2%, Hindu 12.6%, Muslim 9.7%, Roman Catholic 6.1%, other Christian 1.3%.

Government type
Presidential Republic
9 provinces; Central, Eastern, North Central, Northern, North Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Uva, Western
Independence
4 February 1948 (from the UK)
Terrorism in Sri Lanka
A decade since the end of its civil war, Sri Lanka had been enjoying a period of relative peace and a boom in tourism. It was even ranked as the top country for travel in 2019.
However, the Easter Sunday bombings have been described by Sri Lankan officials as “a brand new type of terrorism”, while the death toll puts the attacks on a par with the deadliest atrocities since 9/11.
During its civil war (1983-2009), many terror attacks in Sri Lanka were attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil or the Tamil Tigers.
According to the Global Terrorism Database, among the deadliest were an attack on Buddhist worshippers in May 1985 (146 killed), an ambush of three buses in April 1987 (126 killed) and an attack on two mosques in August 1990 (112 killed).
In 2006 the number of deaths from terrorism in Sri Lanka peaked, as 371 people were killed during the course of six terrorist incidents.

Sri Lanka’s demographics
Sri Lanka has a population of 20.3 million, according to the 2012 census. The majority ethnic group is Sinhalese, who make up almost three-quarters of the population (74.9%). Sri Lankan Tamils make up the largest minority group, with 11.1%.
Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, followed by just 7.6% of the population. The majority of the population are Buddhist (70.1%), with other minority religions being Hinduism (12.6%) and Islam (9.7%).
Christians, who were targeted in the attacks, tend to live mainly in the northern, north-western and western provinces of the country.
The attackers struck at three churches around the country and three luxury hotels in the capital, Colombo, early on Easter Sunday.
In the afternoon, as police hunted suspects, there were two more explosions near Colombo, one in a guesthouse and the other in what appears to have been the attackers’ safe house.
The deadliest attack was in the church of St Sebastian in Negombo, a satellite town just north of the capital. In the eastern town of Batticaloa, the bomber was prevented from entering the church by worshippers but killed at least 28 outside, many of them children. The third church hit was St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo.
The three hotels hit in the first wave of attacks were the Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri-La and the Kingsbury.
The prime minister of Sri Lanka said a fourth hotel was also targeted, but the attack failed. He did not give further details, but sources said the man checked in to the hotel the day before the attack.
Sri Lankan authorities say least 253 people were killed and many were injured, some critically. The United Nations said at least 45 of the victims were children.
On 25 April, authorities revised the death toll down from an earlier estimate of 359, giving a grim explanation for the change: the force of the explosions had done so much damage to the victims’ bodies that it had been hard to get an accurate number of dead at first, health officials said. Forensic experts were dealing with “very complex” human remains.
The vast majority of the dead were Sri Lankan, but there were also at least 38 foreigners. They included British, Indian, Danish, Dutch, Swiss, Portuguese, Spanish, American, Australian and Turkish citizens.
So who did this?
The Islamic State claimed responsibility, with several days’ delay, but the attacks appear to have been organized by a previously obscure Sri Lankan extremist group, National Thowheed Jamath.
Investigators are now trying to determine the extent of any connections between Isis and the attack cell, looking at whether Isis mostly provided violent inspiration or whether its members or former fighters helped coordinate the attacks.
At least 32 Sri Lankans are known to have joined Isis in the Middle East. Most, like the Easter attackers, came from prosperous families.
Sri Lanka’s defense minister said there were nine suicide bombers in total. Eight have been identified, though Sri Lanka has not formally named them. One was a woman.
Two of the hotels were targeted by Inshaf and Ilham Ibrahim, two brothers who were the sons of one of Sri Lanka’s wealthiest spice traders. Ilham’s wife may have been the female suicide bomber.
One of the attackers has been identified as Abdul Jameel Mohamed, who studied in London and Australia.
The leader of the attacks was named as Mohammed Zaharan, a Sri Lankan Islamist preacher who had been expelled from his community for extremist views but who reached followers through video sermons on YouTube.
Zaharan was the only figure identifiable in a video of the Sri Lanka bombers pledging loyalty to Isis, released by the group’s news agency as it claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Investigators are looking into any international connections or support the bombers may have had, including whether they travelled to neighboring countries such as India or the Maldives for training.
Sri Lankan authorities have come under severe criticism for what appear to have been multiple and systemic intelligence failures before the attacks.
Indian security agencies warned their Sri Lankan counterparts more than four months ago that a network of violent Islamic extremists was active in the country and likely to commit terrorist attacks. At least some of that information came from a suspected Isis member detained in India.
More specific warnings that extremists were planning to attack churches, even including the names of some attackers, were circulated two weeks before the attacks. Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister have both said they did not see the warnings.
When the remnants of Al Qaeda were driven from Afghanistan in 2002, the group was also forced to become more decentralized, turning to foreign franchises in places like Yemen, Iraq and northern Africa to regenerate.
But unlike Al Qaeda then, the Islamic State already has numerous affiliates around the globe, an influential media ministry and thousands of fighters still underground in the group’s home base in Iraq and Syria.
As early as 2015, ISIS began instructing recruits to migrate to territory held by its overseas affiliates. And in a development sometimes missed by local officials abroad, it began signing up kindred local groups in distant outposts.
“Rather than building up membership from scratch, the group poaches members from existing hard-liner groups, or oftentimes the entire groups themselves,” wrote Rita Katz, a co-founder of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist propaganda.
In the Philippines, ISIS recruited insurgents from Abu Sayyaf to create what it considers its East Asia Province, which carried out an attack on a cathedral in January, killing 23 people. The ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan has swallowed whole units of Taliban fighters.
More recently, it cobbled together a new “province” in the Democratic Republic of Congo by recruiting members of the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group, which received cash transfers from an ISIS financier.
These groups have felt little impact from the loss of territory in Iraq and Syria, and need no direct communication from the Islamic State to understand its objectives, which the terrorist group broadcasts in regular audio messages.
They understand that the mission within their countries is to conduct operations against law enforcement, military and, yes, non-Muslim groups.
They also have local knowledge that can help identify holes in a country’s defenses — like the fact that after a 26-year military campaign against ethnic Tamil insurgents, most of whom are Hindu, Sri Lankan security officials were more focused on them than on Islamist extremists.
That blind spot may have contributed to Sri Lankan officials’ failure to act on warnings by Indian intelligence of a plot to bomb churches.
“When combined with ISIS’ technical know-how and expertise, the combination with the local knowledge of local groups can have devastating effects,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a research organization for global security issues.
The Islamic State remains a serious, violent threat.
And now that it has lost its safe haven in the Middle East, the Islamic State may be increasingly relying on the model it perfected abroad.
The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has gone underground and is believed to communicate only by personal courier, but its fighters communicate freely by encrypted apps.
Despite the declarations of victory, the Islamic State’s insurgent campaign is steadily gaining momentum across Iraq and Syria, according to a new report by the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
The report found that ISIS was ramping up attacks in parts of northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan as well as in major cities that were once under its control, including Raqqa, Syria — its former capital — and Mosul and Falluja, Iraq.
Last week, in its biggest operation since losing its Syrian stronghold, the group carried out attacks against the Syrian Army and allied militias in central Syria, killing 35 soldiers over two days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain.
As it has decentralized, ISIS has increasingly depended on its mass-media operation, which continues to spread its message around the world.
Every day since officials of the American-led military coalition touted the end of the caliphate, the group’s media operatives have issued claims of responsibility for attacks around the world.
On the same day as the Sri Lanka attack, for instance, ISIS issued a video showing Saudi jihadists pledging allegiance to Mr. al-Baghdadi before carrying out an assault near Riyadh and it published details of an attack by its Afghan affiliate on the country’s Ministry of Communications.
Because ISIS’s media machine capitalizes on every single sphere of operation, it looks to many of its followers as still a strong, global group. Followers wholeheartedly believe that the breakdown of their caliphate in Iraq and Syria is nothing but a temporary setback.
While the group’s production of high-end videos has declined, the constant stream of propaganda published around the clock in multiple time zones and languages suggests that ISIS’ media unit has a global network of editors and writers.
It is a redundancy that has allowed the operation to survive.
The Islamic State can still tap a large war chest to finance its global operations. It has $50 million to $300 million in cash either hidden in Iraq and Syria or smuggled into neighboring countries for safekeeping, according to a United Nations report released in February.
The terrorist group is still engaged in kidnapping for ransom, and is believed to have invested in legitimate businesses, including fish farming, car dealing and cannabis growing. Stealthily distributing the money abroad is a skill that the group has developed over the years, using proxies, cutouts and known middlemen, he said.
Decentralization makes it difficult to know the extent of the group’s involvement in attacks like the one in Sri Lanka.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but experts and the local authorities have yet to determine the extent of its ties to the local group said to have carried them out.
Until this week, the group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, was an obscure organization best known for defacing Buddhist statues.
American intelligence officials have so far characterized the Sri Lanka attacks as having been inspired by the Islamic State, as opposed to having been executed directly by the group. But analysts say there may be some middle ground.
A video released by ISIS on Tuesday, showing members of National Thowheeth Jama’ath pledging fealty to Mr. al-Baghdadi, shows at the least that the group had a means of communicating with core ISIS operatives and was able to transmit video to them.
“The fact that the attackers knew the right people in ISIS to send the video to so that it would be released through its official media channel, shows that it’s more than mere inspiration,” an expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said on Twitter on Wednesday. “That’s just one of many pieces of info emerging pointing to a more directed attack.”
So far, there is no public evidence that ISIS played an active role in guiding or otherwise aiding the Sri Lanka attack.
The attack was among the deadliest ever carried out by Islamic State followers outside Iraq and Syria.
That the group responsible for it existed so far below the radar of international intelligence agencies troubles counterterrorism officials, who wonder how many similar groups are active or operating secretly in North Africa, South Asia and elsewhere.
Current and former counterterrorism officials warned that the Sri Lanka bombings may be a harbinger for a new phase of ISIS attacks.
“Former ISIS fighters and sympathizers are rebranding themselves ideologically with other terrorists,” said Christopher P. Costa, who was a senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council under the Trump administration. “It’s not just a question of the loss of a physical caliphate so much as considering exactly what ISIS will look like as it tries to reconstitute itself.”
“We will see more of these kinds of attacks in the future,” he said.
Now I’ve told you where Sri Lanka is located and a little of its history. So when you watch the evening news coverage of this, you will have a better idea of what they are talking about.
However, the big story behind all this is the branching out of ISIS and its ability to recruit worldwide.
Look at the dissention we currently face within our own country. Are we fertile ground for a generation of home grown terrorists to follow in the footsteps of the Tamil Tigers? If so, What can we do about it?
In a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, are you willing to sacrifice some of your privacy on the internet, twitter, or cell phone? I am.
Obviously, ISIS is using the world of high tech media and communication to further their cause.
Can you imagine how the Confederate guerillas in Missouri during the Civil War could have utilized such a vast communication network to recruit members and further their cause?
Maybe they could see what the future held, since they spent a tremendous amount of time tearing down wires and burning telegraph poles connecting the various Union forts throughout the state.
Just like those guerillas, ISIS has no major military base of operations. No forts to capture. They are highly mobile. They recruit from the area of operations and they both blend silently into the local community.
Most importantly, they learned to adapt as conditions changed.