04/19/16

Forum: China And Russia – Enemies or Potential Partners?

Every week on Monday, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: China And Russia – Enemies or Potential Partners?

The Razor: Neither of these nations are America’s natural enemies, but it doesn’t matter what we think. What matters is what they think, and they both perceive us as their enemies so we would be foolish not to respond accordingly. And that’s what we’ve been for the past dozen years or so, responding foolishly.

The problem with our response is that it confuses Beijing and Moscow. They see us as an enemy in zero-sum terms, so perceive our statements as indicating weakness. This has emboldened them to expand, Russia in Eastern Europe and China in the south China Sea. The more they expand the more we talk and the less we act. They therefore perceive this as further weakness.

Eventually the are going to push too far and cross a line where the US will have no choice but to act. For Russia that may be against Poland or possibly one of the Baltic states, and in China it could be against Taiwan or through supporting North Korea. From their perspective our action will be unexpected, which is why it is important that we respond in kind with each and every move they make. We must speak their language and ratchet up the actions each time they press us in order to prevent them from overplaying their hands. It’s a form of real-politic that the ancient Roman emperors would understand (or their descendants the Italian mafia), but that the geniuses at Foggy Bottom have missed in their diversity training.

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04/19/16

Rush Limbaugh: ‘BEST DIRTY TRICK I’VE EVER SEEN!!’ Ted Cruz Silenced in New York

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

I didn’t catch Ted Cruz’s speech in New York last week at a candidate’s forum. But Rush Limbaugh listened to it and was shocked with what he heard, or didn’t hear as the case may be. He said it was literally the best dirty trick he’d ever seen. Limbaugh has been in this game a long time, so that’s saying something. First Trump spoke and there were no issues… then Kasich came on and that went smoothly… finally, Cruz spoke and it started out fine. But after a few minutes, his audio went loud and then was drowned out by people eating and clinking silverware.

The dinner was a New York Republican black-tie event. Rush was watching Fox News where this happened. According to other listeners, the audio was fine on CNN. It took Limbaugh about 30 seconds to figure out what was going on. Cruz’s microphone had been cut at the podium and they had replaced it with what sounded like microphones at five or six tables. All you could hear were people eating and the clinking of knives and forks on plates. People were drinking and chatting. You could even hear them smacking their lips while eating. That wasn’t a technical glitch… that was on purpose.

At first Limbaugh thought it was an audio glitch and waited for Fox News to fix it. But that didn’t happen. Rush waited and waited and it never got fixed. Finally there was silence and then the same noise came back. Ted Cruz had no idea all this was going on. He sounded normal to the audience and from what I heard, they were riveted by him. All that could be heard was normal eating and waiters bustling around.

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04/19/16

Vote Leave is a Vote for Democracy

By: Chris Knowles

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Great Britain’s Ancient Tradition of Parliamentary Democracy – Don’t Let It Come To An End! Source: Commons.Wikimedia

Forget the lists of figures, the lies, damn lies and statistics, the desperate cobbled together equations purporting to represent a future reality, the propaganda leaflet published at public expense and even the childish name calling that has now started. The main question that people need to ask themselves in this referendum is whether they want to live in a democracy.

If you want to live in a democracy then the EU is not for you. The executive (ruling) institution of the EU is the unelected, anti democratic European Commission. If you want to live in a democracy where you elect your leaders then you need to vote to leave. The European Commission is the elephant in the room that the Bremainers want to hide. People complain that the House of Lords should be elected, but they ignore the unelected European Commission which has far more power and influence on our daily lives.

Cameron’s so called renegotiation deliberately ignored this elephant and tried to blind us with irrelevance instead. If Europe is to be genuinely reformed the European Commission would either become an elected institution or be abolished. Neither option is on the cards and never will be!

A vote to remain in the EU is therefore an unrepeatable experiment, you will never be able to truly choose the actual decision makers ever again. The real rulers will remain the remote and unknown men in black, skulking in the shadows and pulling the strings. The Bremainers will try to frighten you with short term fears but those pale in comparison to the dangers of the long term inside the EU.

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