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Gary Edwards

Scribd: Obama Green Energy Investment Scam - Your money, his campaign funding - 0 views

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    The Solyndras are coming!  The Solyndras are coming!  Thanks to Republican congressman Darryl Issa, California, and his investigation into the Obama Energy Department, we now know that Obama has funneled $6.5 BILLION in taxpayer money into a growing collection of Solyndras.   The Solyndras are turning out to be bankrupt green energy companies headed by wealthy investors actively bundling and raising campaign finance funds for Obama.  Ex: Solyndra investor George Kaiser raised over $100,000 for Obama's election campaign, and got a kick back / bankruptcy bailout of over a half Billion Dollars from the Energy Department.  Not enough to save the already failed Solyndra, but enough to make the bundlers and fund raisers whole.  Lesser shareholders and over a thousand employees took the hit. Thanks to Rep Issa, we now know that the Obama - Solyndra scam was actually a formula for transforming (moving) taxpayer funds into private bundler investments.  Awful stuff.  Corruption on steroids in that the Energy Department knew far in advance of the bankruptcy filings that these companies were going down.  Yet the bailout funds were still approved.  Also note that Obama bundlers, banksters, and financiers have open access to the White House.  The visitor log is itself an explosive indictment of the corrosive crony socialism - banksterism that has become the hallmark of the Obama regime. Most of the money for the Solyndras comes out of the failed $1 Trillion Obamulous bill passed by his socialist party early on his administration - February of 2009.
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    Awful stuff. We are no longer a republic. This is fascism.
Gary Edwards

Works and Days » Zero Jobs 101 - the Psychology of Alienating Employers - 0 views

  • Here is the lament I heard: the near $5 trillion in borrowing in just three years, the radical growth in the size of the federal government and its regulatory zeal, ObamaCare, the Boeing plant closure threat, the green jobs sweet-heart deals and Van Jones-like “Millions of Green Jobs” nonsense, the vast expansion in food stamps and unemployment pay-outs, the reversal of the Chrysler creditors, politically driven interference in the car industry, the failed efforts to get card check and cap and trade, the moratoria on new drilling in the Gulf, the general antipathy to new fossil fuel exploitation coupled with new finds of vast new reserves, the new financial regulations, an aggressive EPA oblivious to the effects of its advocacy on jobs, the threatened close-down of energy plants, the support for idling thousands of acres of irrigated farmland due to environmental regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, the needlessly provocative rhetoric of “fat cat”, “millionaires and billionaires,” “corporate jet owners,” etc. juxtaposed, in hypocritical fashion, to Martha’s Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail First Family getaways — all of these isolated strains finally are becoming a harrowing opera to business people.
  • “This bunch doesn’t like me much and I’m going to hunker down, hoard my cash, and sit out the next year and a half until they are gone.”
  • And the administration’s efforts to counteract these symbols and impressions by courting a high-profile, hyper-capitalist Warren Buffett, or a GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt have proven even more ironic:
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  • the former calls for higher taxes that his firms seek to avoid, or targets his post-mortem wealth to (more efficient?) private foundations that rob the Treasury of billions in lost inheritance taxes, or knows higher taxes won’t much matter to his tens of billions in net worth;
  • the latter’s firm paid no 2010 U.S. income taxes on many of its profits and outsourced jobs overseas.
  • Borrow another $5 trillion?
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    Nobody lays it out so quickly and too the point as VDH..... awesome summary of sweeping reach.  I've been hesitant to apply the term "crony capitalism" to Obama even though his Bankster relationships and continuing bailouts scream loudly.  It seems to me that the term "crony socialism" better fits the full range of fascist power brokering Obama engages in.  Big Government, Big Banksters, Big Unions, Big Media, Big Education.  If anything, Obammunism is BIG! VDH excerpt: Here is the lament I heard: the near $5 trillion in borrowing in just three years, the radical growth in the size of the federal government and its regulatory zeal, ObamaCare, the Boeing plant closure threat, the green jobs sweet-heart deals and Van Jones-like "Millions of Green Jobs" nonsense, the vast expansion in food stamps and unemployment pay-outs, the reversal of the Chrysler creditors, politically driven interference in the car industry, the failed efforts to get card check and cap and trade, the moratoria on new drilling in the Gulf, the general antipathy to new fossil fuel exploitation coupled with new finds of vast new reserves, the new financial regulations, an aggressive EPA oblivious to the effects of its advocacy on jobs, the threatened close-down of energy plants, the support for idling thousands of acres of irrigated farmland due to environmental regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, the needlessly provocative rhetoric of "fat cat", "millionaires and billionaires," "corporate jet owners," etc. juxtaposed, in hypocritical fashion, to Martha's Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail First Family getaways - all of these isolated strains finally are becoming a harrowing opera to business people.
Gary Edwards

Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire | The Soros Files - 1 views

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    excerpt: Newly recently released tax documents reveal how billionaire "philanthropist" George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history. In 2010, tax records show that Soros, a convicted inside trader with extensive knowledge of the American financial system and government policies under Obama, deployed grantees from his Open Society Foundations1 to lobby for and acquire federal contracts for job training, green energy, and community redevelopment programs.  By gaining control over those resources, Soros advanced his agenda for "green economics," open borders, and increased government handouts. In short, he grew his empire, which includes much of the "progressive" movement in the U.S., as the federal government and Obama's political constituencies grew in power and influence. This report analyzes George Soros's grants to organizations in 2010.  The records show massive coordination of non-profit networks in the states and nationally.  Four powerful organizations and coalitions - The STAR Coalition, The Gamaliel Foundation, the Apollo Alliance, and Green for All - are given detailed scrutiny in this regard, with the involvement of Van Jones getting special mention. Jones is the former Obama "Green Jobs Czar" fired after information about his communist past surfaced through the work of anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon and then-Fox News personality Glenn Beck.  The lobbying power of such efforts ensured that stimulus funds flowed from taxpayers into union coffers and into the hands of other activists who had been instrumental in putting President Obama into office. This report, "Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire," includes an analysis of how Soros-funded organizations and networks
Gary Edwards

Liberty in the Breach - 0 views

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    Stick to the Constitution and your principles become a matter of individual liberty.  Put your personal principles ahead of the Constitution, and big government socialist and establishment trough feeders will paint your wagon with the tyranny of conservative social, Christian, and national security "values". So goes my response to the Red State article: "Principle as Political Liability - even as Reagan understood it".  The article was written at the height of Obama's assault on Santorum.  Pretty cheeky stuff, even for Obama.  With Romney, Obama went all out with a class warfare assault.  Even went so far as to marshal an army of brown and purple shirt anarchist occupying and protesting the very same Banksters who funded Obama in 2008, and have been taking huge bailouts and kickbacks at the taxpayers expense ever since.  Today Santorum is the threat, so Obama has switched to religious warfare and the supposed threat of conservative Christian values to socialist civil liberties.  Awful stuff.  Especially when Obama is busy trying to convince independents that not only is he a Christian, but Christ himself would support the peculiar social marxism - bankster crony corrupt corporatism combination that defines Obammunism. The point i tried to make is that of a recent discovery having a great impact on my own political, economic and philosophical identification; my conversion from that of a long time Reagan conservative to that of a Reagan libertarian.   My "discovery" was that the Constitution champions only one "value" - that of individual liberty and the necessary cornerstones needed for limited governance based on ordered liberty.  The threat any principled position based on conservative values holds is that conservatives will try to burn those values into Federal law, policy and regulatory practice.  
Gary Edwards

Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan - 1 views

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    Is the ObamaCare train wreck a wreck by design? Another notch in the Bankster belt marking another step in the bankrupting of America? Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan October 26, 2013  //  By: Eric Odom  //   The ObamaCare train wreck - it's awful, possibly purposeful, certainly useful for team Obama and its growing army of community activists and organizers. In a previous report, we explored the question, "What if the ObamaCare debacle is really a diversion, using a military term a "feint" - a tactical distraction to draw our attention, our focus and our fire away from the real point of attack on liberty?" Remember that horrible train wreck in Spain not long ago, captured on video? As tragic as it was, watching the crash and its gruesome aftermath was almost irresistible, wasn't it? Well, what if the disastrous rollout of the President's signature legislative achievement - what if this spectacular slow motion ObamaCare train wreck has been and is being allowed to happen so that what's going on around the bend from the fiery crash site gets little attention, from the public, from the media or from Congressional investigators? Think about it, friends. How could Barack Obama and his celebrated team of incredibly proficient, plugged in techies - the team that twice got him elected - be behind the utterly disastrous launch of the ObamaCare online storefront, healthcare.gov - arguably the biggest website failure in history? How could so much money have been spent to produce such a problem-plagued site that apparently was doomed in its developmental confusion? And how to fix this monumental mess, well, there doesn't seem to be any clear plan…other than hope. And now we learn that many, if not most, of the people actually signing up for ObamaCare through the website are enrolling in Medicaid, not signing up for private insurance policies they pay for, but adding their names onto government roll
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    There is no doubt in my mind that corporations (and their Chamber of Commerce boot licking lackys) believe that employer provided healthcare benefits was a HUGE MISTAKE. The key feature of ObamaCare is that of ENDING the HMO-Employee Healthcare profit draining quagmire these corporations somehow stumbled into. (Hint: they traded healthcare benefits for wide open government assisted Globalization - the new world order Merchantilism). IMHO, the insurance companies know full well that the entire HMO-Employee Healthcare bandwagon is going to end. Not because of socialism; because of profit hungry out of control mercantilism. So they are trying to cut the best deal possible with the government. The merchantilist doesn't care that their employees are going to suffer. They only care that this cost and the blame for losing the benefit is moved from their books to the government. Nor does the merchantilist care about protecting our borders. They want cheap labor. Even if the social cost of that cheap labor lands on the government and destroys the nation. That's why the merchantilist and his Bankster financiers support Open Borders. The merchantilist could care less about the trade deficit and the massive transfer of American manufacturing jobs overseas. As long as they can sell their junk back into the USA market without a 33% import tax these bastardos are happy to destroy their country. I wonder whose army and navy will secure their investments when the USA no longer can? Are their private armies enough? Just wondering.
Gary Edwards

Bruce Krasting: The Fed bombed the market - I ask, "Why?" - 1 views

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    This is an interesting post.  The WSJ published an article yesterday claiming that the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel was looking at European Banksters and assessing the quality of "funding positions" and asset status for their USA branch operations.  The Fed Banksters are also consulting with EU regulators about European Bankster concerns. The WSJ article (http://on.wsj.com/nugr7s) triggered a massive market crash on Thursday.  Over $2 Trillion was washed away in the panic following the publication of this WSJ story.  That's on top of the $6 Trillion lost following the Obama Debt-Man-Walking deal with Congress. But here's where it gets interesting.  Bruce Krasting contacted Zero Hedge's Tyler Durden and got this reply; "the story is a Fed plant". Tyler Durden believes that the Feds want to create a world economic crisis to justify a massive QE3 where tens of trillions of dollars would be created and distributed to the worlds Banksters.  This follows the $16.1 Trillion created and distributed to the world's Banksters in 2009 - 2010 under QE1 and QE2. Incredible.  Just a few days ago Republican presidential candidate Gov Rick Perry warned the Fed Banksters not to flood the market with a new QE3.  No doubt what Perry has in mind is that the Fed will flood the world's economy with dollars, debasing the currency even further, but providing a phony and very temporary veil of prosperity - just enough to get Obama into a second term.   Not a bad concept for the Banksters since Obam has proven himself time and again as the bes tfriend the Banksters have ever had.  Obama has overseen the transfer of over $23 Trillion of USA taxpayer debt to the world Bankster community.
Gary Edwards

» For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative - Big Government - 1 views

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    Whoa! Great read!   I think i've met my doppleganger. And he can write.  Funny but earlier today Marbux and i had a lengthy eMail exchange about this exact same topic.  Clearly we are not alone in wondering what has happened to the Tea Party?   I have been trying to get my thoughts together about the rope-a-dope of Rush Limbaugh, which predictably resulted in the fragmentation and total route of the Tea Party Patriot movement. Thirty three days into the election primary cycle and the hands down winner is, The Big Government Establishment".  How did the establishment of trough feeding repubicans, democrats and corporatist/banksters do this? And do it so quickly and efficiently? This article attempts to describe the gradual push towards big government socialism.  No doubt the democratic party is the party of socialism, running the gamut from liberals, to progressives, to Euro socialist, to Marxist, communists and hard core Stalinist. Obammunism itself is a rather unique blend of Marxist enviro socialism driven and funded by fascist crony corporatism/banksterism.    The article further describes what used to be moderates as big government social progressives with a strong dose of military merchatilist interventionism.  The artile also calls these types "neo conservatives"  I guess because the neo moderates are describing themselves as new conservatives. Which is an insult to any Goldwater - Reagan conservative.  Like me.  Or at least i was until this past summer when a kind group of libertarians educated me on the Constitution.  I was Federalist  style, social/militarist conservative.  Now i'm a Jefferson-Madison libertarian strict Constitutionalist. So i've been there.  And "neo conservative" is not conservative in any sense other than that of militarist-merchantilist make the world safe for democracy through big, really big, government social and military programs.  And oh yeah, the neo moderate is a Federal Reserve big corporatist/bankster ty
Gary Edwards

Federal Loans Fund Big-Ticket Energy Projects At Firms Outside Of U.S. | Fox News - 0 views

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    Solyndra II - The Spanish company, Abenoga has recieved a massive DOE taxpayer funded "investment".  Looks like another example of corrupt Obama crony socialism and blatant money laundering for the Socialist party, USA. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), such solar thermal power is far and away the most expensive option that it considered in projecting the cost of new electricity technologies over the next four years.Using a complex calculation known as "levelized cost," EIA says that solar thermal energy will weigh in at $311.60 per megawatt/hour, vs. $210.70 for more conventional solar paneling, and $113.90 for "advanced nuclear."Click here for the EIA cost estimatesCompared to more conventional energy sources, solar thermal is even pricier -- much pricier. The EIA says that natural gas-fueled energy plants, even using advanced techniques to remove carbon from their emissions, would cost $89.3 per megawatt/hour, while ordinary gas fueled natural gas generation would cost $66.10.A conventional coal-fired electrical plant -- anathema in green circles -- would provide energy at $94.80 per megawatt/hour, and one equipped with "clean" coal technology and sequestration of carbon emissions would provide electricity at a cost of $136.20 per megawatt/hour.The second-most pricey option on the EIA list, after solar thermal, is energy from wind turbines placed in the ocean, which comes in at $243.20 per megawatt/hour.In other words, even that difficult and costly-to-produce energy source is projected to cost only three-quarters as much. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/22/federal-loans-fund-big-ticket-energy-projects-at-firms-outside-us/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz1Zs0en100
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Sarah Palin's Declaration of Independence - 0 views

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    A declaration of War on the status quo ..... Excellent point-by-point summary of what has to be done to restore American liberty and prosperity, and the important role Sarah Palin can play. This article presents a conservative manifesto describing wha thas to be done to save America. The points are absolutely excellent. Excerpt: Mrs. Palin, you are now free of the Republican Party. The Party needs you more than you need it. To say that the Republican Party, on its own, has a charismatic void is a vast understatement. You are now free to wage all out war on the status quo. More importantly you are free to fashion a Reagan-esque Conservative alliance on your terms. At the risk of being presumptuous, I would suggest the following lines of attack for your war against the Democrats and the Obama/ Pelosi / Frank/ Dodd Economy. Free market capitalism must be emphasized as our only true hope for recovery -- not the crony capitalism of the Democrats..... Points include Energy Policy, Term Limit Congress, Repeal of government over-regulation, Taxes, the Judiciary, Border Protection, Abortion, Foreign Policy, and Dick "the Churchillian" Cheney
Gary Edwards

Roger L. Simon » Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th? - 0 views

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    As we approach July 4, 2013, is America in a pre-revolutionary state? Are we headed for a Tahrir Square of our own with the attendant mammoth social turmoil, possibly even violence. Could it happen here? We are two-thirds of the way into the most incompetent presidency in our history. People everywhere are fed up. Even many of the so-called liberals who propelled Barack Obama into office have stopped defending him in the face of an unprecedented number of scandals coming at us one after the other like hideous monsters in some non-stop computer game. And now looming is the monster of monsters, ObamaCare, the healthcare reform almost no one wanted and fewer understood. It will be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, an organization that has been revealed to be a kind of post-modern American Gestapo, asking not just to examine our accounting books but the books we read . What could be more totalitarian than that? Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal warns the costs of ObamaCare are close to tripling what were promised , and the number of doctors in our country is rapidly diminishing. No more "My son, the doctor!" It doesn't pay. And young people most of all will not be able to afford escalating health insurance costs and will end up paying the fine to the IRS, simultaneously bankrupting the health system and enhancing the brutal power of the IRS - all this while unemployment numbers remain near historical highs. No one knows how many have given up looking for work while crony capitalist friends of the administration enrich themselves on mythological clean-energy projects. In fact, everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered.  Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-exi
Paul Merrell

Germany Concerned about Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

  • It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding. On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day." German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
  • The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO. The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.
  • But Breedlove hasn't been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats. Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel's diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove's bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.
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  • German foreign policy experts are united in their view of Breedlove as a hawk. "I would prefer that Breedlove's comments on political questions be intelligent and reserved," says Social Democrat parliamentarian Niels Annen, for example. "Instead, NATO in the past has always announced a new Russian offensive just as, from our point of view, the time had come for cautious optimism." Annen, who has long specialized in foreign policy, has also been frequently dissatisfied with the information provided by NATO headquarters. "We parliamentarians were often confused by information regarding alleged troop movements that were inconsistent with the information we had," he says. The pressure on Obama from the Republicans, but also from his own political camp, is intense. Should the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine not hold, it will likely be difficult to continue refusing Kiev's requests for shipments of so-called "defensive weapons." And that would represent a dramatic escalation of the crisis. Moscow has already begun issuing threats in anticipation of such deliveries. "Any weapons deliveries to Kiev will escalate the tensions and would unhinge European security," Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's national security council, told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Wednesday.
  • The German government, meanwhile, is doing what it can to influence Breedlove. Sources in Berlin say that conversations to this end have taken place in recent weeks. But there are many at NATO headquarters in Brussels who are likewise concerned about Breedlove's statements. On Tuesday of last week, Breedlove's public appearances were an official item on the agenda of the North Atlantic Council's weekly lunch meeting. Several ambassadors present criticized Breedlove and expressed their incredulity at some of the commander's statements. The government in Berlin is concerned that Breedlove's statements could harm the West's credibility. The West can't counter Russian propaganda with its own propaganda, "rather it must use arguments that are worthy of a constitutional state." Berlin sources also say that it has become conspicuous that Breedlove's controversial statements are often made just as a step forward has been made in the difficult negotiations aimed at a political resolution. Berlin sources say that Germany should be able to depend on its allies to support its efforts at peace.
  • A mixture of political argumentation and military propaganda is necessary. But for months now, many in the Chancellery simply shake their heads each time NATO, under Breedlove's leadership, goes public with striking announcements about Russian troop or tank movements. To be sure, neither Berlin's Russia experts nor BND intelligence analysts doubt that Moscow is supporting the pro-Russian separatists. The BND even has proof of such support. But it is the tone of Breedlove's announcements that makes Berlin uneasy. False claims and exaggerated accounts, warned a top German official during a recent meeting on Ukraine, have put NATO -- and by extension, the entire West -- in danger of losing its credibility.
  • Although President Obama has decided for the time being to give European diplomacy a chance, hawks like Breedlove or Victoria Nuland are doing what they can to pave the way for weapons deliveries. "We can fight against the Europeans, fight against them rhetorically," Nuland said during a private meeting of American officials on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of February.
  • In reporting on the meeting later, the German tabloid Bild reported that Nuland referred to the chancellor's early February trip to Moscow for talks with Putin as "Merkel's Moscow stuff." No wonder, then, that people in Berlin have the impression that important power brokers in Washington are working against the Europeans. Berlin officials have noticed that, following the visit of American politicians or military leaders in Kiev, Ukrainian officials are much more bellicose and optimistic about the Ukrainian military's ability to win the conflict on the battlefield. "We then have to laboriously bring the Ukrainians back onto the course of negotiations," said one Berlin official.
  • uland, who is seen as a possible secretary of state should the Republicans win back the White House in next year's presidential election, is an important voice in US policy concerning Ukraine and Russia.
  • She is also very direct. She can be very keen and entertaining, but has been known to take on an undiplomatic tone -- and has not always been wrong to do so. Mykola Asarov, who was prime minister under toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, recalls that Nuland basically blackmailed Yanukovych in order to prevent greater bloodshed in Kiev during the Maidan protests. "No violence against the protesters or you'll fall," Nuland told him according to Asarov. She also, he said, threatened tough economic and political sanctions against both Ukraine and the country's leaders. According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public.
  • Nuland has also been open -- at least internally -- about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said "Fuck the EU" during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus. When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe's resistance to arming Ukraine
  • On the seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the heart of Munich, it was Nuland who began coaching. "While talking to the Europeans this weekend, you need to make the case that Russia is putting in more and more offensive stuff while we want to help the Ukrainians defend against these systems," Nuland said. "It is defensive in nature although some of it has lethality."
  • Breedlove complemented that with the military details, saying that moderate weapons aid was inevitable -- otherwise neither sanctions nor diplomatic pressure would have any effect. "If we can increase the cost for Russia on the battlefield, the other tools will become more effective," he said. "That's what we should do here." In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals. Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow.
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