Pat Buchanan: Brief Lesson On Free Trade, Trade Deficit With China, Loss of US Jobs, Dying Cities

[From article]
Last year, China ran up the largest trade surplus in history, at our expense, $365 billion. We exported $116 billion in goods to China. China exported $482 billion worth of goods to us.
Using Census Bureau statistics, Terry Jeffrey of CNSNEWS.com documents how Beijing has, over decades, looted and carted off the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen.
In 1985, China’s trade surplus with us was a paltry $6 million. By 1992, when some of us were being denounced as “protectionists” for raising the issue, the U.S. trade deficit with China had crossed the $10 billion mark.
In 2002, it crossed the $100 billion mark. In 2005, the $200 billion mark. In each of the last four years, Communist China has run an annual trade surplus at the expense of the United States in excess of $300 billion.
[. . .]



Those trade deficits also explain the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Yet, with the exception of Trump, none of the GOP candidates seems willing to debate, defend or denounce the policies that eviscerated America — and empowered the People’s Republic.
Workers, however, know what our politicians refuse to discuss.
They are being sold out for the benefit of corporate elites who pay off those politicians with the big cash contributions that keep the parties flush.
[. . .]
Free trade is not a zero-sum game. The losers are the workers whose jobs, factories and futures are shipped abroad, and the dead and dying towns left behind when the manufacturing plants shut down.
America is on a path of national decline because, while we have been looking out for what is best for the “global economy,” our rivals have been looking out for what is best for their own nations.
[. . .]
Between the Civil War and World War I, under Republicans, the U.S. became the world’s greatest industrial power and a wholly self-sufficient nation. How? We taxed foreign goods entering the United States, but did not tax the profits of U.S. companies or the incomes of U.S. workers.
The difference between economic patriots and globalists who inhabit corporate-funded think tanks and public policy institutes is that the latter think of what is best for their corporate benefactors and the global economy. The former put America and Americans first.
[. . .]



Indeed, what great nation did free trade ever build?
As father of a united Germany, Chancellor Bismarck said, when he decided to build Germany on the American and not the British model, “I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying.”

http://buchanan.org/blog/trump-is-right-on-trade-124822

Trump Is Right on Trade
Friday - February 19, 2016 at 4:24 am
Patrick J. Buchanan

Israel Kills Convicted Terrorist Released In Exchange For Bodies Of Israeli Soldiers

[From article]
Samir Quntar, one of the most odious men on the planet, was blown to bits by the Israeli air force on Sunday in Damascus, Syria. We ought to cheer this development, and the Israeli airmen who braved advanced Russian antiaircraft missile systems to reach him (though whether the systems were active or not is unknown.) However, the fact that Quntar was alive and living free in Syria is very troubling.
[. . .]
at the age of 16, he led a four-man Palestinian terror team (all the other participants were older) that infiltrated the northern Israeli town of Nahariya by boat. The heavily-armed terrorists killed a policeman and attacked an apartment building
[. . .]
Quntar seized Danny and Einat and fled to the beach with the other members of his terror team. There they were stopped by Israeli soldiers and police who shot and killed a second terrorist. Quntar shot Danny Haran dead in front of his daughter, and then smashed the young girl’s head against the rocky beach with the butt of his rifle, killing her too. Then he and the other surviving terrorist, Ahmed Assad Abras, surrendered.
[. . .]
Israel doesn’t execute terrorists, no matter how vicious, and so Quntar and Abras were sentenced to four life sentences each, but that was meaningless. In 1985 Israel released Abras, along with more than 1000 other militants and terrorists as part of a controversial prisoner swap for three soldiers captured during the First Lebanon War. In 2008 Israel released Quntar and another great gaggle of militants and terrorists in a swap with Hizb’allah, in return for the bodies of two Israeli reservists killed at the outset of the Second Lebanon War.
[. . .]
Quntar returned to Lebanon and was celebrated as a hero. He returned to a life of terror, and actively and effectively organized terror gangs on the Golan Heights.
[. . .]
The refusal of Western nations like Israel and the United States to promptly and justifiably execute convicted terrorists is a security and moral outrage. By keeping these cruel unrepentant criminals alive, we not only devalue the lives of the people they kill or injure, but incentivize other terrorists to free them in hostage swaps.
[. . .]
There is nothing moral about allowing coldblooded murderers like to Samir Quntar to live on unrepentantly in jail, or even worse, freeing them, especially in return for dead bodies. I’m glad that he is finally dead, but it is a moral disgrace that it did not occur 36 year ago.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/israel_captures_releases_and_kills_a_terrorist.html

December 21, 2015
Israel Captures, Releases and Kills a Terrorist
By Jonathan F. Keiler

Donald Trump And The New Nationalism

[From article]
The crisis in world markets seems related not only to a sinking Chinese economy, but also to what Beijing is saying to the world; i.e., China will save herself first even if it means throwing others out of the life boat.
[. . .]



Indeed, with Marxism-Leninism dead, nationalism is the Communist Party’s fallback faith.
[. . .]
On issues from mass migrations from the Third World, to deeper political integration of Europe, to the EU’s paltry contributions to a U.S.-led NATO that defends the continent, nationalistic resistance is rising.
Enter the Donald. If there is a single theme behind his message, it would seem to be a call for a New Nationalism or New Patriotism.
[. . .]
They took our jobs and factories; now we are going to take them back. And if that Ford plant stays in Mexico, then Ford will have to climb a 35-percent tariff wall to get its trucks and cars back into the USA.
Trump to Ford: Bring that factory back to Michigan!
[. . .]



Asked by adviser Dick Allen for a summation of U.S. policy toward the Soviets, Ronald Reagan said: “We win; they lose.”
That it is not an unfair summation of what Trump is saying about Mexico, Japan and China.
[. . .]
He has not joined the Republican herd that says it will cancel the Iran nuclear deal the day they take office, re-impose U.S. sanctions and renegotiate the deal.
Trump says he would insure that Iran lives up to the terms.
[. . .]

Whatever becomes of Trump the candidate, Trumpism, i.e., economic and foreign policy nationalism, appears ascendant.

http://buchanan.org/blog/is-trumpism-the-new-nationalism-16413

Is Trumpism the New Nationalism?
Tuesday - August 25, 2015 at 12:03 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Big Business Contributions Influenced Secret Trade Agreement Votes

[From article]
Fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments, was only possible after lots of corporate money exchanged hands with senators. The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – the fast-tracking bill – by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close.
Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate:
Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.
The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.
The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.
[. . .]
In just 24 hours, Wyden and five of those Democratic holdouts – Michael Bennet of Colorado, Dianne Feinstein of California, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Patty Murray of Washington, and Bill Nelson of Florida – caved and voted for fast-track.
Bennet, Murray, and Wyden – all running for re-election in 2016 – received $105,900 between the three of them. Bennet, who comes from the more purple state of Colorado, got $53,700 in corporate campaign donations between January and March 2015, according to Channing’s research.
[. . .]
“How can we expect politicians who routinely receive campaign money, lucrative job offers, and lavish gifts from special interests to make impartial decisions that directly affect those same special interests?” Gidfar said. “As long as this kind of transparently corrupt behavior remains legal, we won’t have a government that truly represents the people.”

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations-paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp

Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill
Critics of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership are unlikely to be silenced by an analysis of the flood of money it took to push the pact over its latest hurdle
C Robert Gibson and Taylor Channing
Wednesday 27 May 2015 08.30 EDT

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Warns of Loss of Trust After Passage of Secret Trade Agreement

[From article]
“Americans increasingly believe that their country isn’t serving its own citizens. They need look no further than a bipartisan vote of Congress that will transfer congressional power to the Executive Branch and, in turn, to a transnational Pacific Union and the global interests who will help write its rules.
"The same routine plays out over and again. We are told a massive bill must be passed, all the business lobbyists and leaders tell how grand it will be, but that it must be rushed through before the voters spoil the plan. As with Obamacare and the Gang of Eight, the politicians meet with the consultants to craft the talking points—not based on what the bill actually does, but what they hope people will believe it does. And when ordinary Americans who never asked for the plan, who don’t want the plan, who want no part of the plan, resist, they are scorned, mocked, and heaped with condescension.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sessions-they-won-vote-lost-trust-american-people_976870.html

Sessions: They Won the Vote, But Lost the 'Trust of the American People'
'Washington broke arms and heads to get that 60th vote'
2:27 PM, JUN 23, 2015

BY DANIEL HALPER

Dangerous Secret White House Trade Deal Would End Supremacy of US Constitution

[From article]

On Friday, Congress disrupted President Obama’s plan for a sweeping transfer of U.S. sovereignty to an unaccountable group of foreign busybodies. Hurray for the stalwart Americans who resisted the demands of Obama, the Republican leadership and the big-donor claque – but Speaker Boehner plans to give Congress another chance this week to make this dangerous mistake.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would turn over to globalists the power to issue regulations about U.S. trade, immigration, the environment, labor and commerce. It’s called a “living agreement,” which means the globalists can amend and change the text of the so-called agreement after it has gone into effect.
That reminds me of our supremacist judges who invented the term a ‘living” Constitution, which they can rewrite to comport with their own updated ideology. The globalists claim that this “living” document (TPP), now called Obamatrade, has all the powers of a treaty to commit the U.S. to new foreign obligations, although it certainly did not comply with any U.S. constitutional provisions for treaty ratification.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has frankly warned about this giveaway of U.S. sovereignty. Not only would Congress give up its powers to negotiate and write the terms of a treaty, but Congress also gives up its power to debate and amend the deal, to apply a cloture vote in the Senate, and to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
The secrecy wrapped around TPP is appallingly un-American. Whatever happened to Obama’s promise of “transparency”? TPP was negotiated and agreed to by Obama’s trade representative and a bunch of foreigners in a secret room, and the American people are not allowed to know the details until after it’s a done deal.

[. . .]

TPP is separating us from the U.S. Constitution and from national sovereignty and replacing both with a global governance superstructure. TPP has wrapped its audacious global governance plan in the mantle called “free trade,” which is a misnomer if there ever were one.

[. . .]

Sen. Sessions says TPP will give Obama a backdoor to increase immigration, and the same lobbyists who are pushing for Obamatrade are demanding open borders.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/no-wonder-obama-wont-let-us-read-tpp/

NO WONDER OBAMA WON'T LET US READ TPP
Phyllis Schlafly: Deal would separate us from Constitution and national sovereignty
Phyllios Schlafly
June 15, 2015

US Sen. Jeff Sessions Warns of Deception By US Rep. Paul Ryan on New Secret Trade Deal. Another Attempt To Diminish Sovereignty of US

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), right, says U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, left, (R-WI), is deceiving Americans About Secret Trade Legislation

[From article]
Sessions’ final “critical alert,” one of several he’s issued throughout the Obamatrade process, shows House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been engaged in deception as he attempts to guide Obamatrade’s passage through the House.
“Promoters of fast-track executive authority have relied on semantic obfuscation in an effort to deny the obvious: the President’s top priority is obtaining fast-track authority because he knows it will expand his powers and allow him to cement his legacy through the formation of a new political and economic union,” Sessions said.
[. . ]
If, as promoters amazingly suggest, the President had more powers without fast-track, he would veto it. The authority granted in “Trade Promotion Authority” is authority transferred from Congress to the Executive and, ultimately, to international bureaucrats. The entire purpose of fast-track is for Congress to surrender its power to the Executive for six years. Legislative concessions include: control over the content of legislation, the power to fully consider that legislation on the floor, the power to keep debate open until Senate cloture is invoked, and the constitutional requirement that treaties receive a two-thirds vote. Legislation cannot even be amended.
[. . .]
Without granting Obama fast-track authority, Sessions notes that Congress remains in charge of trade policy and negotiations. Congress would keep the ability to amend trade deals and the Senate would still have power to filibuster against them—but that’s only if the House shoots down TPA on Friday. If the House passes TPA, there’s no telling what President Obama might do with the new power Congress would be ceding to him.
[. . .]
In other words, Ways and Means is intimating that this new secret Pacific Union would function like a third house of Congress, with legislative primacy, sending changes to the House and Senate under fast-track procedures (receiving less legislative procedure than, for instance, Post Office reform). Moreover, this legislative fast-track, Ways and Means implies, is limited to that which requires a ‘change in U.S. law’—meaning if this President (or the next) argues it is simply an executive action, not a legal action, the Executive could have a free hand to implement the Commission’s decrees without Congress. This is not merely a loophole; this is purposeful delegation of congressional authority to the Executive and to an international body. The fast-tracked implementing legislation would have the ability to make these delegations binding as a matter of law.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/11/jeff-sessions-issues-final-critical-alert-obamatrade-just-like-amnesty-obamacare/

JEFF SESSIONS ISSUES FINAL ‘CRITICAL ALERT’: OBAMATRADE JUST LIKE AMNESTY, OBAMACARE
by MATTHEW BOYLE

11 Jun 2015

Washington, DC

US Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Wants Benefits to Americans In Trade Agreements

[From article]

“It is time to begin a vigorous analysis of our conduct of trade,” Sessions said. “Do our policies and TPP concede too much to our mercantilist competitor allies?”
According to the Alabama lawmaker, there has not been enough consideration of the impact of trade agreements on the American worker and American incomes — so long as consumer prices decline with the deals.
“At bottom, we must ask whether or not our aggressive trading partners, using a mercantilist philosophy, may be gaining unfair advantage. These countries—good nations, good allies—are not religious about free trade,” Sessions said. “In general, while they assert their desire is for expanded free trade, their actual policies seek fewer U.S. exports to them using non-tariff as well as tariff barriers. Our trade competitors use currency manipulation, subsidies, and other actions to expand their exports to us. Their goal is, naturally, to seek full employment in their countries while exporting their unemployment to the United States.”
[. . .]
“This refusal by many to acknowledge the mercantilist policies of our trading competitors has gone, it seems to me, from promoting healthy trading relationships to an ideology, even to the nature of a religion,” he said.
Sessions pointed out that while he too is in favor of less expensive products and has voted for trade agreements in the past, the trade deal before Congress is unsettling to him.
[. . .]
Overall, Sessions concluded trade agreements should benefit the American people.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/19/sen-sessions-more-skepticism-of-trade-pacts-needed-should-not-lose-one-job-to-trade-deal/

SEN. SESSIONS: MORE SKEPTICISM OF TRADE PACTS NEEDED, SHOULD NOT LOSE ONE JOB TO TRADE DEAL
by CAROLINE MAY

19 May 2015

White House Secret Deal Giving Away American Jobs, Businesses

[From article]

In a letter to the president, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions expressed deep distrust that the deal is good for America, citing past free-trade deals that he said led to job cuts and didn't deliver on promises that trade deficits would be cut.
Sessions, quoting a former steel industry executive, said that U.S. free trade policy has become "unilateral trade disarmament and enablement of foreign mercantilism."
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would be one of the biggest trade deals in U.S. history, and would be among the first that could zip through Congress after it passes the controversial Trade Promotion Authority, or "fast track" legislation.
Sessions and others are worried that not enough is known about TPP. The agreement is being kept in a room only for visual review by those cleared to see it, leading Sessions and others to call it a "secret." He raised questions earlier last week.

He wrote Obama that TPP "will be kept a closely-guarded secret until after Congress agrees to yield its institutional powers and provide the administration with a guaranteed fast track to adoption."
Sessions drew special attention to a clause calling the treaty with Asian nations a "living agreement." Foes believe that those words will allow it to be changed and added to after Congress signs off. Sessions wants a promise that none of that will happen.
[What good are promises? The White House Never keeps them.]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2564101

Sessions hits 'secret' trade deal: 'Unilateral trade disarmament'
BY PAUL BEDARD

MAY 6, 2015 | 4:52 PM
* * *

[From article]
“Baltimore was once a city where tens of thousands of blue collar employees earned a good living in industries building cars, airplanes and making steel. … In 1970, about a third of the labor force in Baltimore was employed in manufacturing. By 2000, only 7 percent of city residents had manufacturing jobs.”
Put down blue-collar Baltimore alongside Motor City, Detroit, as another fatality of free-trade fanaticism.
[. . .]
And since Bill Clinton took office, the U.S. trade deficits have totaled $11.2 trillion.
An astronomical figure.
It translates not only into millions of manufacturing jobs lost and tens of thousands of factories closed, but also millions of manufacturing jobs that were never created, and tens of thousands of factories that did not open here, but did open in Mexico, China and other Asian countries.
[. . .]
Our political and corporate elites sold out working- and middle-class America — to enrich the monied class.
And they sure succeeded.
[. . .]
Though, like the alcoholic who does not realize his condition until he is lying face down in the gutter, it may be a while before we get out of the empire business and start looking out again, as our fathers did, for the American republic first. But that day is coming.

http://buchanan.org/blog/on-a-fast-track-to-national-ruin-15962

On a Fast Track to National Ruin
Friday - May 8, 2015 at 12:30 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

US Labor Secretary Brings His Relaxed Rectitude to West Coast Labor Dispute

Container ships wait at the dock to be unloaded at the Port of Oakland Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015, in Oakland, Calif. Companies that operate marine terminals didn't call workers to unload ships Thursday that carry car parts, furniture, clothing, electronics, just about anything made in Asia and destined for U.S. consumers. The partial lockout is the result of an increasingly damaging labor dispute between dockworkers and their employers. The two sides have been negotiating a new contract, and stalled talks have all but paralyzed 29 ports that handle about one-quarter of U.S. international trade, around $1 trillion worth of cargo annually. 

(AP Photo/Ben Margot) The Associated Press

Tom Perez indicated his relaxed rectitude when he was chief of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. He and his staff attorney acolytes refused to enforce laws in a race neutral manner. It will be interesting to see how he works with unions who have strong leaders. See his history in J. Christian Adams book, Injustice; and John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky's, Who's Counting? 

[From article]
A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, said the president is getting Secretary Tom Perez involved because of concerns about the economic consequences of further delays.
Perez's mission is to meet with the parties and press them to quickly settle their differences at the negotiating table.
The waters off Los Angeles, Oakland and Washington state's Puget Sound have become parking lots for dozens of ships awaiting space at the docks.
Employers are locking out dockworkers who man the cranes that lift cargo on and off ships, saying they have slowed work as a bargaining tactic.
The union denies that.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/14/labor-secretary-to-press-2-sides-in-west-coast/

Labor secretary to press 2 sides in West Coast port dispute
By Associated Press

1:24 P.M.FEB. 14, 2015

Taxpayers Gave $5 billion To Free Suspected Traitor, Bergdahl

[From article]
Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer, author of The Last Line, and Ret. Col. David Hunt joined Bill O’Reilly to give an update on the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap. Lt. Colonel Shaffer told Bill the Obama administration paid $5 billion and released five top Taliban Gitmo detainees in exchange for deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/12/shock-report-us-paid-5-billion-released-5-taliban-prisoners-for-deserter-bergdahl-video/

SHOCK REPORT: US Paid $5 Billion & Released 5 Taliban Prisoners For Deserter Bergdahl (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft
on Monday, December 22, 2014, 7:40 AM

Secret Trade Agreement Revealed By WikiLeaks

[From article]
Fifty countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in Service Agreement, or TISA, including the United States, Australia and the European Union. Despite vast international ties, however, details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and largely ignored by the press.
In a statement published by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks said “proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets,” and have participated in “a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre” by working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68 percent of world trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research.
[. . .]
Amendments from the US are seeking to end publicly provided services like public pension funds, which are referred to as 'monopolies' and to limit public regulation of all financial services,” she said. ''They want to freeze financial regulation at existing levels, which would mean that governments could not respond to new developments like another global financial crisis.''

http://rt.com/usa/167088-wikileaks-tisa-secret-trade/

Secret trade agreement covering 68 percent of world services published by WikiLeaks
Published time: June 19, 2014 15:55

U.S. Soldier Accused of Desertion, Traded For 5 Terrorists

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645354/A-mass-killer-Bin-Ladens-friend-opium-drug-lord-Anger-grows-release-hardened-terrorists-Americas-POW-Hagel-insists-Bergdahls-life-danger.html

Taliban declare 'victory' as Obama lets a mass killer, Bin Laden's friend and an opium drug lord walk free : Fury at release of hardened terrorists for last US POW
Five senior Taliban members are to be handed over to Qatar as part of deal
Obama criticised for sidestepping law that requires him to alert Congress to release of terror suspects
One detainee is accused of presiding over a mass killing
Qatar has agreed to to host the detainees for at least one year
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 09:34 EST, 1 June 2014 | UPDATED: 04:05 EST, 2 June 2014

* * *

[From article]
Bergdahl, 28, is believed to have slipped away from his platoon’s small outpost in Af­ghanistan’s Paktika province on June 30, 2009, after growing disillusioned with the U.S. military’s war effort. He was captured shortly afterward by enemy ­forces and held captive in Pakistan by insurgents affiliated with the Taliban. At the time, an entire U.S. military division and thousands of Afghan soldiers and police officers devoted weeks to searching for him, and some soldiers resented risking their lives for someone they considered a deserter.
[. . .]
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, speaking to reporters Sunday in Bagram, Afghanistan, declined to talk about any possible action by the military against Bergdahl. A senior defense official indicated that punitive action was unlikely, no matter what the circumstances were. “Five years is enough,” he said.

Compare Marc Schiller's experience after begin kidnapped, beaten and left for dead. The killers were convicted. But the victim was also sent to jail for theft of taxpayer funds and fraud. Story here 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10263530/Pain-and-Gain-the-true-story.html

Pain & Gain: the true story
Twenty years ago, Marc Schiller was kidnapped, robbed and almost killed by a gang of idiotic bodybuilders. Now his story has been made into a comedy starring Mark Wahlberg. Why isn't he laughing?
By Paul Kendall
12:45PM BST 28 Aug 2013

* * *

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mixed-reaction-to-bergdahls-recovery-by-service-members-who-consider-him-a-deserter/2014/06/01/3713e3ce-e9c5-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html

Mixed reaction to Bergdahl’s recovery by service members who consider him a deserter
BY DAN LAMOTHE AND KEVIN SIEFF 

June 1 at 8:32 PM
Washington Post

* * *

[From article]
The six men reportedly killed while searching for Bergdahl were identified as Staff Sgt. Clayton Bowen and Pfc. Morris Walker on Aug. 18, 2009; Staff Sgt. Kurt Curtiss on Aug. 26; 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews and Pfc. Matthew Michael Martinek on Sept. 4; and Staff Sgt. Michael Murphrey on Sept. 5.
“He walked off,” said another comrade of Bergdahl’s, former Pfc. Jose Baggett.

Pictures of the soldiers who were killed as depicted on the Facebook page
Facebook

“He left his guard post. Nobody knows if he defected or he’s a traitor or he was kidnapped. What I do know is he was there to protect us and instead he decided to defer from America and go and do his own thing.

* * *

http://nypost.com/2014/06/02/six-soldiers-died-searching-for-deserter-pow-fueling-backlash/

6 soldiers killed searching for ‘deserter’ POW, fueling backlash
By David K. Li
June 2, 2014 | 10:31am

* * *

[From article]

Colonel David Hunt told Bill O’Reilly tonight that Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter.
“Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter. Bergdahl on June 20, 2009 crawled underneath a wire at his fire base with water, food, a change of clothes, a knife and a cell phone. He called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted… Bill, we lost 14 soldiers, killed, searching for a deserter. He left his unit in combat. It’s non-arguable… We don’t know yet if he joined the Taliban or not. But, there’s no question he deserted

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/col-david-hunt-we-lost-14-soldiers-searching-for-deserter-bergdahl-video/

Col. David Hunt: US Lost 14 SOLDIERS Searching for Deserter Bowe Bergdahl (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft

Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 12:22 AM

Obama Spins Himself Dizzy

[From article]
The bottom line is that the president settled on a controversial, high- risk strategy here in a difficult and problematic manner — and then sought to use his mastery of pop culture to change the story to a more palatable one. But some stories just can’t be gussied up.
More important for the president’s future fortunes is this lesson: You can only spin for so long before you start spinning yourself. Spin and spin and spin and soon you have a whirlwind to reap.

http://nypost.com/2014/06/07/obamas-well-honed-media-strategy-unraveled-with-pow/

How Obama’s media strategy unraveled with recovered POW
By John Podhoretz
New York Post
June 7, 2014 | 11:41am

Samoa Skips Day to Leap Over Dateline

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/1229/Samoa-to-skip-Friday-lose-December-30th-2011-forever

Samoa to skip Friday, lose December 30th 2011 forever
As China’s influence in the Pacific rises, Samoa is planning to cancel Friday, going directly from Thursday to Saturday, to synchronize trade with China.
By Peter Ford, Staff writer
December 29, 2011

Israel To Trade 1,000 Palestinians for One Israeli Prisoner

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hamas-was-forced-to-compromise-to-reach-a-shalit-swap-deal-1.389472

Hamas was forced to compromise to reach a Shalit swap deal
Netanyahu: Gilad will be home within days; 1,000 prisoners to be freed for kidnapped soldier.
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
Published 01:54 12.10.11
Latest update 01:54 12.10.11

Shipping Industry Shows Recession is Not Over


[Picture of fleet of 550 idle ships included]
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/recession_anchors_trade_eohbcwvfqxToYll4MdcZgL

Recession anchors trade
Vessels' valet parking
By PAUL THARP
New York Post
Last Updated: 7:45 AM, September 16, 2009
Posted: 12:57 AM, September 16, 2009