Headless fish comes back to life

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Think EMP attack would only cut power?

WND/ F. Michael Maloof

You’ve seen the warnings about an EMP attack, how it would shut down electronics so you couldn’t manage your bank account, fill your car with gas or go through the fast lane at the grocery store, but you’re prepared.

After all, you bought a generator, have a couple cans of gasoline, a few weeks’ worth of food and a plan to make sure your family is safe.

But what would you do when the explosions start?

Yes, explosions, as in the 1980s eruption of flames from a 36-inch natural gas pipeline in the Netherlands, the Bellingham, Wash., blaze in the 1990s when 250,000 gallons of gas leaked into Hannah and Whatcom Creeks and ignited, or the New Mexico blaze that killed 12 and left an 86-foot-long crater in the ground.

That danger would be very present should an electromagnetic pulse event or attack strike, according to experts on the issue.

In fact, a 2008 report from the nation’s EMP Commission specifically cited concerns about the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, or SCADA, systems that control large sections of American industry and commerce.

In the 1980s, there was a large explosion at a 36-inch natural gas pipeline in the Netherlands. A SCADA system about a mile from the naval port of Den Helder had been affected by a naval radar system when the radio frequency from the radar caused the SCADA system to open and close a large gas flow-control valve at the radar scan frequency, resulting in pressure waves that traveled down the pipeline and eventually caused the pipeline to explode.

Read the documentation behind the worry over EMP attacks and listen to the author discuss the threat facing America.

Then in Bellingham in the late 1990s, there was a similar event in which a SCADA malfunction caused a gas pipeline to rupture and explode. Some 250,000 gallons of gasoline from the pipeline entered the Hannah and Whatcom Creeks. The fuel in the water ignited, killing three people and injuring eight others. The explosions also collapsed the banks of the creek and destroyed over a 1.5-mile section, damaging many buildings near the creek.

Among the causes was the determination there were SCADA system discrepancies.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/think-emp-attack-would-only-cut-power/#5SUO5BgBoLKmZggC.99

Beate Gordon, Long-Unsung Heroine of Japanese Women’s Rights, Dies at 89

Beate Sirota Gordon in 1947

By MARGALIT FOX

Beate Sirota Gordon, the daughter of Russian Jewish parents who at 22 almost single-handedly wrote women’s rights into the Constitution of modern Japan, and then kept silent about it for decades, only to become a feminist heroine there in recent years, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 89.

Ms. Gordon at the Diet Building in 1998, the year Japan’s government gave her a high honor.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, her daughter, Nicole Gordon, said.

A civilian attached to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s army of occupation after World War II, Ms. Gordon was the last living member of the American team that wrote Japan’s postwar Constitution.

Her work — drafting language that gave women a set of legal rights pertaining to marriage, divorce, property and inheritance that they had long been without in Japan’s feudal society — had an effect on their status that endures to this day.

“It set a basis for a better, a more equal society,” Carol Gluck, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, said Monday in a telephone interview. “By just writing those things into the Constitution — our Constitution doesn’t have any of those things — Beate Gordon intervened at a critical moment. And what kind of 22-year-old gets to write a constitution?”
More on http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/world/asia/beate-gordon-feminist-heroine-in-japan-dies-at-89.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Cuba: Totalitarismo y "excepcionalidad"

cubistamagazine.com

esto que escribe corzo se inserta en la "teoria" de la excepcionalidad de la nacion kubiche que tanto dano ha hecho y continua haciendo a la comprension del tema cubano. ni somos excepcion a lo manso ni a lo brillante, mas bien a la picaresca bufa y al choteo. los mecanismos de control y coercion social vienen funcionando desde las mas primitivas formas de organizacion social como corrobora la historia.

---------------------

Los que vivimos 1959 sabemos que tuvo más de religiosidad, por su expresión fanática, que de política. Tal parecía que se inauguraba un tiempo nuevo con todo lo que implica de sectarismo e intolerancia.
1959, cincuenta y cuatro años transcurridos, es tiempo más que suficiente para reflexionar sobre la extrema facilidad con la que un amplio sector de la ciudadanía fue seducido y posteriormente voluntariamente sometido, a un liderazgo que generaba conflictos sociales, sectarismo y victimización.

Controlar la conciencia individual y colectiva de un sector importante de la nación cubana y lograr una adhesión total de una parte significativa de la ciudadanía, incluidos la mayoría de los dirigentes de la época, a la persona de Fidel Castro y el proyecto que este personificó, fue un objetivo alcanzado que estableció las bases para la destrucción de la nación cubana.

Quizá la idea de que lo que estaba ocurriendo era providencial,  fue debido a que el ciudadano promedio estaba desalentado, frustrado en sus proyectos como individuo y nación, consecuencia de los malos manejos gubernamentales y por lo tanto eran receptivos para un Mesías redentor, que purgara los errores y horrores de los que con vileza habían mancillado la República.

Pero el rasero con el que se analiza el pueblo llano y que podemos usar para excusarle en los excesos en que incurrió -eran quienes sufrían las arbitrariedades y tropelías del grupo que había regenteado la sociedad- no es válido para medir la conducta de aquellos que con responsabilidades en los asuntos nacionales, enceguecieron, prestaron, o facilitaron la mistificación de un individuo y su entorno en el que solo el Elegido decidía, mientras ellos, en una contemplación casi religiosa e indiferente ante el sufrimiento de las nuevas víctimas, le concedieron tiempo suficiente al Redentor para que éste afirmase y acrecentase el mito, mientras sus seguidores más fieles se apropiaban de la nación

Por iniquidad, oportunismo o conversión sincera, fueron muchos los políticos, empresarios, intelectuales, profesionales y líderes que, junto a una mayoría ciudadana, prescindieron de sus capacidades críticas y acataron sin objeciones al mensajero de Pan con Libertad.

Continuar leyendo en Marti noticias >>

Fiscal Cliff Showdown Postponed to March

Frontpagemag

Matthew Vadum

With a cocky President Obama no doubt grinning from ear-to-ear, federal lawmakers yesterday gave their blessing to legislation that boosts income tax rates and government spending while kicking many of the “fiscal cliff” issues down the road for several weeks.

The $1.2 trillion in scheduled spending cuts –falling largely on the Pentagon– have now been officially postponed for two months. The next manufactured crisis comes March 1, the day the cuts will take effect unless Congress intervenes again to stop them.

Putting off dire problems for another day is now becoming routine in Washington, D.C., commentator Jim Antle opined on Twitter. “We have reached the point where temporarily averting self-inflicted disasters at the last second is a political success.”

The Obama-approved fiscal-disaster procrastination bill received final congressional approval in the House last night with relatively little Republican support after a prolonged fight during a long lame duck session of the outgoing Congress. Obama and Democrats got almost everything they wanted, as many Republicans dropped their long-standing opposition to income tax rate increases. Now Obama comes across to many low-information voters as a kind of champion of the middle class, and Republicans, whom the media would have painted as villains no matter what the fiscal cliff outcome, look like stubborn obstructionists who had to be forced to do the supposedly right thing.

By insisting on tax hikes only for the wealthy, President Obama skillfully played Republicans off against each other, launching what some are now calling a civil war within the Grand Old Party. Republicans were afraid of being blamed by the public for allowing taxes to rise if Bush-era tax rates, which expired Dec. 31, were not extended, so they held their noses and gave Obama largely what he wanted.

Charles Krauthammer called the measure a “complete rout for Democrats.” Many House conservatives “hate the bill for good reason … This is a complete surrender on everything.”

Bill Kristol called the bill a mess that was “ridiculous in too many ways to count” but urged House Republicans to vote for it anyway to get the issue behind them. “The two month delay of the sequester [i.e. spending cuts] will make actual governance even more difficult (how is the Pentagon supposed to plan for the rest of the year?) … And we will face another cliff when we hit the debt ceiling and the sequester again in two months.”

The stage is now set for the approaching battle over out-of-control federal spending. The bill passed Congress hours after the U.S. government bumped up against the limit on federal borrowing. In theory the government could default on its debts two months from now if the debt ceiling is not raised further.

The national debt is now about $16.4 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009. But that $16.4 trillion figure is misleading. Government accounting tricks keep another $86.8 trillion in unfunded liabilities related to Medicare, Social Security, and federal employees’ future retirement benefits off the books and out of the public eye. The two figures added together produce the unimaginably large sum of $103 trillion. The U.S. government’s bond rating has been downgraded already and many more downgrades are on the horizon.

It is worth noting that the bill passed last night only because House Democrats supported it.

The measure was approved in a House vote of 257 to 167 after GOP leaders decided not to insist on government spending cuts. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) voted for the package, breaking with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who voted against it.

In total 85 Republicans voted for the bill and 151 voted no. On the Democratic side there were 172 votes in favor and 16 against.

After going against most of the House Republican conference on such a critical matter, Boehner’s speakership may be in jeopardy. Some conservatives are pressing GOP lawmakers not to reelect Boehner as Speaker when the new 113th Congress convenes on January 3.

American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News late yesterday that enough House Republicans have come together together in an effort to take Boehner’s gavel away. To be considered elected, a candidate for Speaker must receive a majority of the votes.

“At least 20 House Republican members have gotten together, discussed this and want to unseat Speaker Boehner–and are willing to do what it takes to do it,” Meyer said. “That’s more than enough to get the job done, but the one problem these guys face is they need a leader to coalesce behind.” Early discussion on a possible Boehner challenger has centered on House Majority Leader Cantor.

Before the House took action late yesterday, at 1:39 a.m. the Senate approved the bill by a vote of 89 to 8. The only Republicans to vote against the measure were Charles Grassley (Iowa), Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Kentucky), Marco Rubio (Florida), and Richard Shelby (Alabama). (Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mark Kirk of Illinois didn’t vote.)

Rubio said he couldn’t vote for the bill because he “wanted to be part of solving the long-term problems this country faces. Time and again, we’re given choices here that don’t involve that.”

“The real fiscal cliff is still there,” he said. “We’ll be back here again. In March, we’ll have a showdown like this all over again.”

Many Tea Party-backed Republicans opposed the legislation because it raises taxes without reducing government spending. According to an analysis by Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation, the bill raises taxes by $620 billion tax increase while cutting expenditures by a paltry $15 billion. That’s a ratio of $41 in tax increases for every $1 in savings.

While the legislation preserves the lower-income tax brackets from the Bush era permanently, it raises tax rates for joint filers earning $450,000 or more, phases out exemptions for high earners and limits the personal exemptions and itemized deductions they can claim. It also raises payroll taxes for all and discourages investment by raising the capital gains tax and dividends tax for high earners.

On the positive side, the legislation approved by Congress repeals the CLASS Act, a huge unfunded mandate promoted by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) that was part of Obamacare. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act would have created a new national long-term care insurance system.

Quite apart from the fiscal cliff, yesterday Americans were hit with $1 trillion in new taxes to be fully phased in through 2022 to support the president’s unpopular health care reforms.

Among the new job-killing Obamacare-related levies effective January 1 were: an excise tax on gross sales by medical device makers; a  surtax on investment income for households earning at least $250,000; and an increase in the Medicare payroll tax for married couples earning more than $250,000.

Many more tax increases are likely headed our way in President Obama’s second term in office.

Maduro sobre Chavez

Drug-resistant malaria in Thailand threatens deadly global ’nightmare’

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Fiscal cliff deal: House OKs proposal despite GOP objections

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Cronología de los problemas de salud de Chávez

Foto: Archivo

AFP

El estado de salud del presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, operado en Cuba el 11 de diciembre, presenta “nuevas complicaciones” y su tratamiento no está “exento de riesgos”, según el vicepresidente, Nicolás Maduro.

Estas son las fechas más relevantes que han marcado sus problemas de salud a raíz de un cáncer detectado en 2011:

2011:

-9 de mayo: Chávez suspende gira que le llevaría a Brasil, Ecuador y Cuba por una lesión en la rodilla izquierda.

-10 de junio: El canciller venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, anuncia que Chávez fue sometido a una operación de urgencia en La Habana tras habérsele detectado un absceso pélvico.

-30 de junio: Chávez anuncia desde La Habana que sufre cáncer y afirma haber sido nuevamente operado con éxito de un tumor.

-16 de julio: Vuelve a Cuba para iniciar el primero de cuatro tratamientos de quimioterapia, de los cuales tres en La Habana y uno en Caracas.

-1 de agosto: Chávez aparece con la cabeza rapada y dice que la quimioterapia está haciendo efecto.

-20 de octubre: Chávez da por superado el cáncer tras el tratamiento.

2012:

-21 de febrero: Chávez anuncia que nuevos exámenes médicos detectaron la presencia de una “lesión” en el mismo lugar donde le fue extirpado el tumor. Afirma que se operará de nuevo en Cuba para extraérsela y determinar si es benigna o maligna.

-4 de marzo: Chávez confirma que en la operación le fue extirpado “un tumor” y dice que se trata de “una recurrencia del cáncer”. Anuncia asimismo que deberá someterse a sesiones de radioterapia en Cuba.

-24 de marzo: Viaja a La Habana para iniciar el primero de cinco ciclos de radioterapia.

-12 de mayo: Chávez anuncia el fin “exitoso” del tratamiento.

-9 de julio: Chávez asegura estar “totalmente libre” del cáncer y niega que su salud pueda incidir en la campaña para las presidenciales del 7 de octubre, que termina ganando cómodamente frente al líder opositor Henrique Capriles.

-20 de octubre: Chávez admite que su salud afectó su desempeño en la campaña para lograr su reelección para un tercer mandato.

-27 de noviembre: A través de un comunicado dirigido al Parlamento, Chávez solicita viajar a Cuba para iniciar un “tratamiento especial” de “varias sesiones de oxigenación hiperbárica”, sin detallar su fecha de retorno.

-29 de noviembre: El vicepresidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, asegura que Chávez “está muy bien” y “atento” al desarrollo de los planes de gobierno.

-7 de diciembre: Chávez regresa a Caracas tras pasar nueve días en Cuba.

-8 de diciembre: Chávez anuncia una nueva recurrencia del cáncer y explica que deberá ser sometido a una nueva operación en Cuba. Designa a Maduro su heredero político en caso de quedar “inhabilitado” para gobernar.

-11 de diciembre: Chávez se somete a su cuarta operación contra el cáncer en La Habana.

-13 de diciembre: Maduro afirma que el proceso postoperatorio de Chávez será “complejo y duro” y pide a los venezolanos estar “preparados” y “unidos” en estos días “difíciles”.

-30 de diciembre: tras visitar a Chávez en La Habana, Maduro informa que el estado de salud del mandatario presenta “nuevas complicaciones”, cuyo tratamiento no está “exento de riesgos”.

Was the US fiscal cliff manufactured or a real crisis?

aljazeera

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Cuba Resumen 2012/ Noti-Katungo

Luis Alberto Ramirez

Happy New Year! Democrats’ $1 TRILLION Dollar ObamaCare Tax is Now in Full Force

timeforchoosing

Gary P Jackson

Happy New Year .... suckers!
While most of the country has been focused on the "fiscal cliff" kabuki theater, a new set of taxes have quietly become law. ObamaCare, the most evil piece of legislation yet devised by Congress, raises taxes on all Americans by $1 TRILLION. This doesn't count all of the new taxes the Obama regime wants, and the feckless Senate voted to pass last night.
I blame Chief Justice John Roberts for all of this. Evidently more worried about how the Court would look, rather than keeping to the Constitution, he and he alone, made all of this possible. He was the Republic's last line of defense from such tyranny and failed miserably.
Here are but a few of the taxes you'll now pay:

Obamacare contains twenty new or higher taxes. Five of the taxes hit for the first time on January 1. In total, Americans face a net $1 trillion tax hike for the years 2013-2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The five major Obamacare taxes taking effect on January 1 are as follows:

The Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive.

The Obamacare Flex Account Tax: The 30-35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Currently, the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap.)

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:
.... Capital Gains .... Dividends .... Other ......

2012 .... 15% ............ 15% ........ 35%

2013 forward 23.8% ..... 43.4% ....... 43.4%

The table above also incorporates the scheduled hike in the capital gains rate from 15 to 20 percent, and the scheduled hike in dividends rate from 15 to 39.6 percent.

The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases.

Read more here >>

Besides being immoral, ObamaCare will bankrupt many Americans at the very same time Obama and his democrat party are bankrupting America itself. Liberals mean to destroy the United States, tear down her very foundation brick-by-brick. This vile, Un-American legislation puts them well on their way.

Joven cubano denuncia intento de reclutamiento por la policia politica

UNPACU

Video de detencion de Damas de Blanco Holguín

UNPACU

Total News Agency: Chávez habría muerto

Según pudo confirmar Total News, por una fuente de Naciones Unidas estrechamente ligada al presidente venezolano, Chávez habría fallecido el día domingo, pero el vicepresidente Maduro y las FFAA venezolanas lo informarían pasadas las fiestas. La misma especie fue comentada por fuentes de inteligencia venezolanas a esta agencia.

Cuesta creer que la información no sea real, porque son dos las fuentes que lo aseguran, pero podrían tener un mismo origen, las internas que se desataron en Venezuela tras el nombramiento de Nicolás Maduro como “heredero” de Chávez por el, en ese momento convaleciente presidente Chávez.En este sentido, el poder en juego es tan grande que todo podría ser, pero Total News tiene la obligación de dar la información. 

 

No fue muy creíble la carta que Maduro leyó días pasados al ejercito, supuestamente redactada por Chávez, pero sin ser reconocido el estilo muy personal del ex hombre fuerte de Venezuela. 

 

El ejercito venezolano se siente el verdadero sucesor del caudillo caribeño y no reconocerían a un sindicalista como Maduro, que para ellos, le falta hacer honor a su apellido para poder llevar a cabo la revolución bolivariana inventada por Chávez. Revolución que hoy se pone en serias dudas. Preocupación de Cristina F de Kirchner. 

http://www.totalnews.com.ar/content/view/386041/104/

Text Messages Direct to Your Contact Lenses

MidweekPolitics

A New Year in America: Will We Continue Down the Road to Decline?

frontpagemag

thepeoplescube.com

Bruce Thornton

Looking back over 2012, one could be forgiven for thinking that if America goes on at this rate, the nation must be ruined. But as Adam Smith replied to a young man who said those same words about British losses during the American Revolution, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” A mighty power will not collapse overnight, and the course of decline can always be halted by a renewal of patriotic vigor. But absent that, ruin will eventually come. As we look ahead to 2013, signs abound that we may be reaching the point where decline accelerates.

Indeed, the slow pace of national ruin is itself insidious, creating the illusion that the problems are not that great or can be solved later. The first cracks in the British Empire were starting to show even before World War I, but it wasn’t until about 1960 that the empire was gone and England had declined from a world power to a regional power at best. But for those like Churchill and Orwell with eyes to see, all the signs were there years earlier, many of them similar to the conditions in America today that point towards our own retreat from global dominance.

First and most obvious is the willingness to expand the national debt in order to finance entitlements. A liberal democratic and capitalist great power must be fiscally sound in order to afford the military assets necessary for maintaining the order required for a global economy. Yet the ever-expanding entitlement state creates competition for those funds, starving military budgets when the public demands that the state increase social welfare spending levels. All through the 1920s England drastically reduced its military spending––the defense budget was cut by four-fifths between 1919 and 1921–– partly in order to increase welfare transfers and service the national debt. By the crisis of 1938-39 that precipitated World War II, Germany was spending five times more on its military than England. The fruits of such shortsighted reductions became obvious in 1940 with the debacle of the British Expeditionary Force in France, which escaped annihilation at Dunkirk only because of Hitler’s whim.

Today America is lucky that it doesn’t face a military power as lethal as Nazi Germany––at least not yet. But there still remain numerous threats not just to our interests and security but also to the globalized economy. An increasingly aggressive Russia, an expansionary China growing it military spending by at least 10% every year, and an increasingly Islamist Middle East sitting on vast reserves of oil all will require a robust U.S. military power. Yet for decades we have been cutting military spending at the same time we have expanded social welfare transfers. As of 2010, 3 times more money was being spent on entitlements than on defense. As a result, Nicholas Eberstadt writes in A Nation of Takers, “Our seemingly insatiable national hunger for government transfer payments to individual citizens stands to compromise our present and future capabilities for military readiness.” Thus despite our responsibilities to patrol and protect the 9 critical waterways through which global trade passes, our number of Navy vessels has shrunk to 285, compared to 529 in 1991.

Under Obama, this disparity between defense and entitlement spending has widened and promises to increase further. Between Obama’s cuts and those to come triggered by the 2011 Budget Control Act’s  “sequestration” mechanism, defense faces a $1 trillion reduction in the next decade. Nor are these reductions going to be inflicted on a bloated defense budget eating up our wealth. In 2010, the national defense budget was 4.8% of current GDP, half as much as in 1961. So the point is not that we can’t afford a defense budget commensurate with our global responsibilities, but that we have other spending priorities. During the current budget crisis, Democrats have taken off the table any meaningful cuts in entitlement spending no matter how modest, even though the monstrous yearly budget deficits, the $16 trillion and growing debt, and the $75 trillion in unfunded liabilities, not defense, are driving our economy into the fiscal abyss. As Eberstadt comments, “By the calculus of American policymakers today then, U.S. defense capabilities seem to be the primary area sacrificed to make the world safe for the unrestrained growth of American entitlements.” Meanwhile rival claimants to global power continue to expand their military capabilities and reach, and new threats like a nuclear-armed Iran loom on the geopolitical horizon.

If America continues down this road and surrenders its dominance, we can expect a more disordered and dangerous world, with dire consequences for our economy and way of life. Here we find the great difference between England in the ’50s and America today: the British knew that it was handing over the role of global policeman to a free government of laws and human rights. But what country, if any, can be trusted to take our place? At that point America’s decline, and its disastrous consequences, will be obvious.

Yet misplaced spending priorities are themselves symptoms of deeper causes for national decline––the loss of faith in the rightness and superiority of one’s country and its principles that justify its global preeminence and the sacrifices necessary to sustain it.  This crisis of confidence and decline in patriotism was apparent in England among the elites even before the horrors of World War I. Churchill saw this collapse of patriotism as early as 1933: “Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians.” These defeatist attitudes also spread beyond intellectuals, writers, and politicians to ordinary citizens. In 1941 George Orwell wrote, “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution.” As the ’30s progressed, Orwell went on, “left-wingers were chipping away at English morale,” and attacking the principles and values of the patriotic middle-classes, whom the elites scorned as “Blimps.” England’s enemies saw this self-loathing as signs the British were “decadent,” and the “systematic Blimp-baiting affected even the Blimps themselves and made it harder than it had been before to get intelligent young men to enter the armed forces.”

The parallels with America today are obvious. Guilt over America’s historical crimes and loathing for its institutions and principles permeate school curricula, popular culture, the media, and many churches. In those venues the sense of loyalty to and affection for our own country and its beliefs, and the willingness to sacrifice on its behalf are derided and considered “morally dangerous,” as academic philosopher Martha Nussbaum has said. Examples of these attitudes are legion, but none is as revealing as the comments President Obama has made on various trips abroad, when he has accused our country of being “arrogant, dismissive, derisive,” admitted the need for the U.S. to work “through some of our own darker periods in our history,” confessed that “we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms,” and dismissed American exceptionalism as a parochial prejudice.

These declinist comments, moreover, are consistent with his foreign policy of “leading from behind,” his mad haste to exit Iraq and Afghanistan, his failed “reset” with Russia that has emboldened that country’s aggression, his feckless handling of Iran’s rush to obtain nuclear weapons, his delusional push for nuclear disarmament, and of course his willingness to reduce defense expenditures and continue running trillion-dollar deficits in order to keep expanding entitlement spending. The combination of retreat from global responsibilities and debt-funded social-welfare spending is the classic recipe for great-power decline.

If Obama and the Democrats continue down this road, America’s decline is assured––unless in the coming years there arises a critical mass of Americans who still believe a powerful America is a force of good in the world, and so are willing to make sacrifices to protect its deserved preeminence.

The Truth About The Fiscal Cliff In Simple Terms

NoisyRoom
By: AJ

FISCAL CLIFF, OH NOES!!

Many either don’t know what the “fiscal cliff” is, or believe this problem is something that it’s not.

Although America ’s economic crisis is not rocket science, the media and politicians have done a good job of keeping the truth hidden so that our focus isn’t on the real problem. After all, if we, the people, understood the real problem, we would demand that they fix it and we are smart enough to know the real fix that’s needed.

To prevent this from happening, politicians and media conjured up this catchy phrase called “the fiscal cliff.” Then they established a narrative that gave us a false target to blame – the so-called “rich.”

In other words, keeping the people’s attention on class warfare directs our anger and rhetoric onto the false target they’ve fed us and off of ‘what’ and ‘who’ created the problem in the first place. This distracts us from formulating and voicing the real solution to the true problem.

So, what is the real problem that created this crisis?

In a nut shell, our elected politicians have continued to spend trillions more in the past four years than taxpayers have given them. Thus, they have brought America ’s economy to the point of near collapse. It’s that simple.

Three of the broader consequences of what they’ve done are:

• For the first time in the history of our nation, America ’s credit rating has been downgraded – twice.
• Our national debt now exceeds its yearly gross domestic product (GDP).
• The value of the dollar continues to decline, which makes prices rise on the things we need and want (i.e. inflation).

Right now on Capitol Hill, politicians claim to have a deal in the works whereby they will:

“…raise the tax rates on family income over $450,000 and individual income over $400,000 from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, the same level as under former President Bill Clinton. Also, estates would be taxed at 40 percent after the first $5 million for an individual and $10 million for a couple, up from 35 percent to 40 percent. Unemployment benefits would be extended for one year.”

While politicians and media are in lock-step focusing everyone’s attention on whom the government can take more money from, who realizes that this simply allows the politicians to continue to spend trillions more at our expense?

Taking more money from the people will result in less growth of the economy, which leads to greater loss of jobs, which leads to increasing the number of people plunged into poverty.

For those buying into the class warfare narrative, know that you are supporting your own demise. How so? The trickle down effect most people don’t realize is that, whether you’re a car mechanic, a retailer, a construction worker, a car dealership, a waiter, a grocery store cashier, etc., these businesses are negatively impacted when customers have less money to spend; therefore, employers will have less income with which to pay employees. Jobs will be eliminated and some businesses will have to shut down altogether.

It’s not rocket science, it is economic reality.

So let’s cut through the political spin, false narratives and diversions and give you the simple truth about the economic crisis and the real solution, which can be found in a “real world” example of what people have to do when they’ve created this same kind of financial mess for themselves.

This might be a helpful way to explain it to family and friends who aren’t aware.

We already know that when a person, family or business continues to spend a lot more than they take in, eventually they find themselves in pretty serious financial trouble. Why? Because they’ve amassed an unsustainable amount of debt that they cannot realistically repay. (Same goes for a country, and that’s exactly what our politicians have done.)

Think of a family that takes home $50,000 a year. If they spend 25% more than they take in each year (say they’re spending $62,500 each year even though they only bring home $50,000 a year), after four years, they’ve accumulated $50,000 in new debt, plus interest, which they owe to creditors.

What happens to this family? Interest on the debt continues to accrue, their FICO score (credit rating) declines and their creditors warn that action will be taken against them to recover what is owed.

The family now has to solve the financial mess they created for themselves.

If they’re serious about solving the problem, what’s one of the first things they have to do? Cut spending.

In addition to cutting their spending down to what they take in ($50K/year), they’ll cut even more spending so they can begin to pay off the debt and interest they racked up.

In most cases, when creditors start receiving regular monthly payments on the debt, things will stabilize as long as the family continues to pay. It becomes apparent to creditors that the family has created a budget that reduces spending and frees up money to start paying down their debt.

When we look at the typical things this family will cut, first to go are luxury purchases, trips, gifts, costly entertainment/hobbies, sending money overseas… basically, non-essentials that they couldn’t afford to be spending on in the first place. Next might be things like having meals at home instead of eating out at restaurants, sack lunches for the kids instead of the daily school cafeteria expense, trading in the fancier car for one that’s half the cost, driving less, using less in utilities, etc.

If that’s not enough, they may start selling non-essential possessions/assets to raise more cash to pay toward their debt. Taking on another job would be good, but in this Obama-economy it’s probably not a realistic possibility. Some families may even need to downsize their residence; move to a two-bedroom apartment instead of maintaining the cost of the four-bedroom home they’ve been renting.

Bottom line is the family has to cut their spending “with a chainsaw,” as Jim Roger’s said when referring to what the government needs to do to solve the financial mess they created for our country.

But politicians refuse to cut spending. They want to continue spending trillions more than they take from us each year.

What is their solution?

• Create a faux fight over how much MORE they will take from us so they can keep over-spending.
• Keep spinning it as class warfare to give us a false ‘target’ to blame.
• Keep us fighting among ourselves as we get behind one of the political party’s ‘plans’ (so that we’re actually rooting for their solutions to take MORE from hard-working taxpayers).
• Divert our attention away from the real problem and the politicians who actually created the problem.
• Remain blind to the fact that politicians want to perpetuate the problem, not solve it.

Insidiously brilliant, isn’t it? It is masterful propaganda and it’s what they always do.

Investopedia explains what will happen if politicians don’t act, but don’t forget that all the ‘expirations,’ sequestration and triggers were put in place/enacted by them.

“If Congress and President Obama do not act to avert this perfect storm of legislative changes, America will, in the media’s terms, “fall over the cliff.” Among other things, it will mean a tax increase the size of which has not been seen by Americans in 60 years.”

So you see, it is our elected politicians who set the stage for this crisis in order to dupe the American people and carry out the political theater now on display so they can get away with taking more from taxpayers, continue the massive over-spending and avert the possibility of torches and pitchforks outside the Capitol.

When these politicians conclude this round of theater, American’s will unwittingly breathe a sigh of relief that they reached a ‘deal’ and saved us.

In reality, the cold hard truth is that we, the taxpayers, continue to serve at the feet of these politicians. As long as they can take more from us – and they surely can – that’s exactly what they’ll continue to do until we have no more for them to take.

The truth about the fiscal cliff, in simple terms, is that the President and Congress deliberately created the economic crisis our country faces. Their massive spending is intentional and, clearly, it hasn’t helped us; it has hurt us. Their intention all along was to continue to take more and more from the people, thereby increasing their power and wealth – and extinguishing ours. How better to expand the ranks of the poor, further de-industrialize America and destroy, from within, a once-great and prosperous nation?

After all, isn’t that what the Progressives’ hundred-year journey to institute “social justice” in America, from both sides of the aisle, has been all about? Of course it has.

Tyranny comes when the people of a nation can no longer do what they did when they were free. Are we there yet?

Obama Seizing Control of the US Military – Potential Cataclysm Ahead

TrevorLoudon

Barack Obama has worked with pro-Moscow Marxists including Frank Marshall Davis and Alice Palmer, and pro-Cuban radicals like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his entire life.

Their number one priority has always been the destruction of the US military, the only significant block remaining, to global revolution.

Now that the Davis/Palmer/Ayers/Dohrn protege has the reins of power, President Obama is working hard to destroy US military superiority, consciously or unconsciously, to the advantage of the Russia/China/Cuba/North Korea/Iranian/Islamic alliance.

From William Bigelow at Breitbart.com:

In an attempt to seize total control over national security and bypass congress, a frightening new step by the Obama Administration is coming into play. As noted in Friday’s Wall Street Journal in an op-ed by John Bolton and John Woo, a State Department advisory group that is run by former Secretary of Defense William Perry is advising that the U.S. and Russia both reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, as a treaty would require ratification by Congress. This would allow Obama and his executive branch to unilaterally cut our nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution.
As Bolton and Woo point out, the US has a greater global responsibility than Russia; Iran and North Korea, neither of which is far from Russian interests, can only be countered by U.S. military strength. In addition, they note that Russia is not a trustworthy partner in weapons reduction; it has violated many arms-control agreements, such as the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.
Some of the inherent problems in the seizure by this executive branch of decision-making power is Barack Obama’s desire to deeply cut our nuclear forces. A joint decision with Russia would place long-term limits on our cache of arms, thus placing constraints on us catching up if Russia decides to go ahead and build and the blurring of the lines deliberately drawn by the Constitution’s Framers separating the executive and legislative branches power.
Obama has made no secret of his desire to dismantle our nuclear capacity; the New Start Treaty he championed in 2011 forced the U.S. to observe a ceiling of 700 strategic delivery vehicles and 1,550 strategic warheads, and this past March he stated his desire to cut our arsenal further:
“ … a step we have never taken before – reducing not only our strategic nuclear warheads but also tactical weapons and warheads in reserve.”
It is naïve to assume that Obama is simply blind to the results of his actions and trusts the world around him to act with generosity. There has been too much evidence of Russia’s support of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and Russia has cunningly avoided supporting sanctions on North Korea for its rocket launches; in December, Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Research at the Institute of Economics, simply said:
“In Russia we believe that resolutions must be observed and UN decisions must be implemented. We think that North Korea has the right for space explorations but only after all the issues linked with the UN sanctions banning rocket launches with the use of ballistic technologies are settled. It is necessary to divide two aspects – we support the discussion of the rocket launch issue by the UN Security Council but we don’t think that this must automatically mean tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.”
Obama knows all this. His step-by-step evisceration of the United States is not confined to its economic system but its national defense as well.

I go a little further. I say that Obama is happy to wreck the US economy, because this will enable him to completely destroy US military defensive capability. This is the REAL agenda of the left. The people Obama has worked with his entire life.

Four more years of Obama may well bring America to the point of no return.

If Obama is allowed to realize the Davis/Palmer/Ayers/Dohrn vision of a militarily impotent America, Americans will be faced with two very harsh choices.

Lay down your arms and give up your sovereignty to a United Nations world superstate.

Or face the combined military might of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, possibly Pakistan, Indonesia and Brazil, and several other countries… with hardly a friend in the world to come to your aid.

This won’t be a one or two front conflict. This will be a multi-polar, all out attack on the US homeland.

Americans need to wake up. And fast.

Details of Tentative Deal

 

foxnews

WASHINGTON –  Highlights of a tentative agreement Monday between the White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at averting wide tax increases and budget cuts scheduled to take effect in the new year. The measure would raise taxes by about $600 billion over 10 years compared with tax policies that expire at midnight Monday. It would also delay for two months across-the-board spending cuts otherwise set to begin slashing the budgets of the Pentagon and numerous domestic agencies.
   Highlights include:
   --Income tax rates: Extends decade-old tax cuts on incomes up to $400,000 for individuals, $450,000 for couples. Earnings above those amounts would be taxed at a rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 35 percent. Extends Clinton-era caps on itemized deductions and the phase-out of the personal exemption for individuals making more than $250,000 and couples earning more than $300,000.
   --Estate tax: Estates would be taxed at a top rate of 40 percent, with the first $5 million in value exempted for individual estates and $10 million for family estates. In 2012, such estates were subject to a top rate of 35 percent.
   --Capital gains, dividends: Taxes on capital gains and dividend income exceeding $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for families would increase from 15 percent to 20 percent.
   --Alternative minimum tax: Permanently addresses the alternative minimum tax and indexes it for inflation to prevent nearly 30 million middle- and upper-middle income taxpayers from being hit with higher tax bills averaging almost $3,000. The tax was originally designed to ensure that the wealthy did not avoid owing taxes by using loopholes.
   --Other tax changes: Extends for five years Obama-sought expansions of the child tax credit, earned income tax credit, and an up to $2,500 tax credit for college tuition. Also extends for one year accelerated "bonus" depreciation of business investments in new property and equipment, a tax credit for research and development costs and a tax credit for renewable energy such as wind-generated electricity.
   --Unemployment benefits: Extends jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed for one year.
   --Cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors: Blocks a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors for one year. The cut is the product of an obsolete 1997 budget formula.
   --Social Security payroll tax cut: Allows a 2 percentage point cut in the payroll tax first enacted two years ago to lapse, which restores the payroll tax to 6.2 percent.
   --Across-the-board cuts: Delays for two months $109 billion worth of across-the-board spending cuts set to start striking the Pentagon and domestic agencies this week. Cost of $24 billion is divided between spending cuts and new revenues from rules changes on converting traditional individual retirement accounts into Roth IRAs.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/details-tentative-deal-that-would-avert-fiscal-crisis/#ixzz2Gl5FAXwt

Republican House leaders voice serious concerns over fiscal bill

Foxnews

Washington –  House Republican leaders voiced serious concern Tuesday afternoon about the Senate's just-passed fiscal crisis bill during a closed door meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers, sources told Fox News. The response raised questions about how the House would handle the deal, which was highly touted by bipartisan officials in the Senate just hours earlier.
Doubts that the GOP-controlled House would pass the plan intensified Tuesday afternoon. Lawmakers have just two days to go before a new Congress convenes which limits the House’s options. The House can reject the plan, pass it as written by the Senate – which is unlikely given strong GOP opposition – or amend it. If the House amends it, the legislation goes back to the Senate where time constraints would likely kill it for the current Congressional session.
GOP lawmakers privately met midday Tuesday to gauge support for the accord. While Republican lawmakers expressed concern about the plan they did not directly speak out against it. Instead, Fox News has learned that House Speaker John Boehner held a venting session where members of his party voiced their concern about the legislation. Members also offered up options on what they’d like to see added in or taken out of the bill.
As Boehner listened to Republicans, Vice President Joe Biden listened to what House Democrats had to say. The outcome of Tuesday’s mini-meetings are not yet known. What is known is that time is running out for lawmakers to approve the plan or make meaningful changes to the one passed by the Senate this morning.
The Senate’s plan would prevent taxes from going up on the poor and middle class but would raise rates on households making more than $450,000 a year. It also would also put off for two months more than $100 billion in automatic spending cuts that were set to hit the Pentagon and domestic programs starting this week, and it would extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.
The Senate voted 89-8 in favor of the package two hours after midnight.
Senate leaders hailed the deal as an “imperfect” but vital solution to the fiscal crisis.
“The president wanted tax increases, but thanks to this imperfect agreement, 99 percent of my constituents won’t be hit by those hikes,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.
Obama praised Senate lawmakers for passing the bill and implored the House to do the same.
"There’s more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I’m willing to do it," Obama said in a statement. "But tonight’s agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans."
Senate leaders assembled the vote after a marathon weekend of talks during which Vice President Biden and McConnell did much of the hard bargaining. After the White House and Senate Republicans agreed to the framework, Biden was brought in once more to sell the deal to reluctant Senate Democrats Monday night.
The late-night deal ironed out the last major sticking point between the two sides -- what to do about the $110 billion in automatic spending cuts set to kick in starting in January.
Officials said the two sides agreed to postpone the cuts by two months, in exchange for a 50-50 mix of revenue increases and spending cuts. Of those cuts, half would come from defense and half would come from other budgets.
Fox News has also learned the deal contains a repeal of an ObamaCare program called the CLASS Act. The provision, which would set up a government-run long-term care program, was never actually implemented amid concerns that it couldn't generate enough revenue to sustain itself.
Fox News' Ed Henry, Chad Pergram and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/senate-leaders-aim-for-vote-on-fiscal-crisis-deal-as-congress-misses-deadline/#ixzz2Gl3muF5R

ABC: Hugo Chavez en coma inducido

Hugo Chávez ha entrado en los últimos días en un coma inducido, con las constantes vitales muy debilitadas, mantenidas gracias a la asistencia artificial procurada el hospital de La Habana en el que fue internado. Fuentes consultadas por ABC aseguraron el lunes que se había programado una próxima desconexión de la asistencia artificial que prorroga la vida del presidente venezolano. Esa desconexión, con resultado previsible de fallecimiento, podía producirse en cualquier momento.

Las autoridades venezolanas aseguran que Chávez sigue con vida, aunque parecen estar preparando al país para la noticia de la muerte del líder bolivariano. Su yerno y ministro de Ciencia y Tecnología, Jorge Arreaza, dijo que Chávez había llegado al final del año «tranquilo y estable». Por su parte, el vicepresidente venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, indicó el domingo que su situación era «delicada».

Desde hace varios días, el estado de salud de Chávezse considera crítico, con sus funciones vitales asistidas artificialmente a raíz de la operación a la que fue sometido el 11 de diciembre debido al avanzado cáncer que padece y de las complicaciones del postoperatorio provadas por una infección.

Con fiebre constante, pérdida de conciencia y sin responder a los antibóticos, el presidente venezolano llegó a final de año en cuidados intensivos, sin ingerir nada sólido desde que fue operado hace tres semanas, con «ano contra natura» y alimentación intravenosa debido a la extracción de casi medio metro de intestino, de acuerdo con fuentes de inteligencia con acceso a su equipo médico. También sus funciones respiratorias se encontraban asistidas artificialmente tras la traqueotomía a la que fue sometido por una infección que motivó la retención de líquido en los pulmones. Ese cuadro se completa con insuficiencia renal.

En la operación llevada a cabo el día 11 para extirparle cuatro cultivos cancerígenos de pelvis e intestino, al presidente venezolano le fueron extraídos 43,4 centímetros de intestino delgado. Una biopsia llevada a cabo durante la cirugía también detectó células cancerígenas en las paredes internas del intestino y en la vejiga.

La operación, realizada por un equipo médico llegado expresamente de Rusia, con asistencia de médicos cubanos, también comprobó que la metástasis en hueso y médula espinal seguía progresando a paso constante. En condiciones normales esto hubiera requerido probablemente un próximo trasplante de médula, pero su estado ya tan deterioradono ha permitido más actuaciones.

http://www.abc.es/internacional/20130101/abci-chavez-coma-inducido-201301011903.html

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offers olive branch to South in rare address

By NBC News wire services

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.

The address by Kim, who took over power in the state after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers.

But North Korea has offered olive branches before and Kim's speech does not necessarily signify a change in tack from a country that vilifies the United States and U.S. ally South Korea at every chance it gets.

North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December that it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.

North Korea, which considers North and South as one country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.

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Cumpleaños 54 de la dinastía

diariodecuba 

Roberto Álvarez Quiñones

Cuando hace apenas unas horas se celebró en todo el mundo la llegada del día de Año Nuevo de 2013, en Cuba hubo poco que festejar. Hoy se cumplieron 54 años de la dictadura más prolongada y nefasta en la historia del país y de toda América Latina.

En sus bunkers y mansiones alejadas de la vista pública, Fidel, Raúl Castro y la élite de la nomenklatura celebraron la toma del poder manu militari hace más de medio siglo y el haber impuesto y mantenido férreamente un régimen ilegítimo, pues ninguno de los dos ha tenido jamás el decoro de someterse al escrutinio popular.

Como postuló Jean-Jacques Rousseau en su Contrato Social, 27 años antes de que estallase la revolución francesa, el único gobernante legítimo es el que ha recibido su mandato por voluntad popular. La soberanía de un país, afirmaba el pensador franco-suizo, radica en el pueblo, que elige y legitima mediante el sufragio universal a los gobernantes que estarán a su servicio.

En Cuba esa soberanía del pueblo no se ejerce desde 1948, cuando fue electo presidente Carlos Prío Socarrás, derrocado en 1952 por Fulgencio Batista. De eso hace 64 años. Son pocos los cubanos con 85 años de edad, como mínimo, que participaron en aquel ejercicio democrático.

El poder político actual en la Isla es patrimonio familiar de un par de iluminados, sustentados por generales y coroneles que viven como millonarios con el dinero del erario público.

Muy pocos recuerdan ya —ha pasado demasiado tiempo— que semanas después de Castro hacer su entrada triunfal en La Habana (8 de enero de 1959) al frente del Ejército Rebelde, al asumir el cargo de Primer Ministro, declaró que lo hacía solo provisionalmente. "Yo no soy un aspirante a presidente de la República... no me importa ningún cargo público, no me interesa el poder", dijo el 16 de febrero de 1959 en el Palacio Presidencial.

Aparentemente despojado de cualquier ambición personal, Castro anunciaba que no participaría en las elecciones presidenciales a celebrarse pronto, tal y como había prometido desde la Sierra Maestra.

Poderes absolutos

Pero la hipocresía de sus palabras afloró con fuerza unas semanas más tarde, cuando puso en práctica la Ley Fundamental, redactada por él mismo el 7 de febrero de 1959, con la cual echó abajo la Constitución de 1940, una de las más avanzadas del continente. Convirtió en ornamental el cargo de presidente de la República y arrebató al Congreso las funciones legislativas, que puso en manos del Consejo de Ministros que él presidía. Es decir, Castro devino verdadero emperador omnipotente, a cargo de los tres poderes del Estado y de las Fuerzas Armadas. Entonces lanzó la consigna de ¿elecciones para qué? Nunca las hubo.

Paralelamente, desde mediados de enero de 1959 ya había dicho que si "algo" le sucedía, su sucesor sería su hermano. O sea, estaba adelantando que iba a instaurar una dinastía. Para institucionalizarla, el 13 de febrero —tres días antes de asumir como Primer Ministro— designó a Raúl como segundo hombre más poderoso del país, al nombrarlo Jefe de la Comandancia General de las FAR.

Con tal encumbramiento, Raúl Castro le pasó por encima al comandante Camilo Cienfuegos, el héroe más destacado en la guerra contra la dictadura batistiana, quien tomó el emporio militar de Columbia y consolidó la victoria militar del Ejército Rebelde, del cual era su Jefe de Estado Mayor. Por sus méritos y cualidades, su carisma y capacidad de liderazgo, era a Cienfuegos a quien le habría correspondido asumir tal responsabilidad.

También fueron ignorados el Che Guevara y otros comandantes con más capacidad política e intelectual y más méritos que Raúl, quien en la Sierra Cristal realmente no combatió, sino que se dedicó a cobrar "impuestos de guerra" a los campesinos. (Por cierto, tras la victoria rebelde, Ramiro Valdés le echó en cara más de una vez al Castro menor su falta de historial combativo.)

Estaba claro que para afianzarse en el poder de forma vitalicia Fidel necesitaba como guardián y eventual sustituto a su hermano, inepto, pero siempre sumiso a su voluntad, mangoneado desde niño, tal y como sigue siendo.

Monarquía marxista

Continuar leyendo en diariodecuba >> 

House reviews Senate fiscal cliff compromise; timing on vote unclear

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