China Making Long Range Missiles More Powerful

The New York Times
May 17, 2015

WASHINGTON — After decades of maintaining a minimal nuclear force,China has re-engineered many of its long-range ballistic missiles to carry multiple warheads, a step that federal officials and policy analysts say appears designed to give pause to the United States as it prepares to deploy more robust missile defenses in the Pacific.
What makes China’s decision particularly notable is that the technology of miniaturizing warheads and putting three or more atop a single missile has been in Chinese hands for decades. But a succession of Chinese leaders deliberately let it sit unused; they were not interested in getting into the kind of arms race that characterized the Cold War nuclear competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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Fitting in More Warheads

China has started arming its long-range missiles with multiple warheads, a Pentagon report says.
Nose cone
Warheads
The original missile design has a single warhead inside the nose cone.
The new model has multiple warheads that can be aimed independently.
Many of those steps have taken American officials by surprise and have become evidence of the challenge the Obama administration faces in dealing with China, in particular after American intelligence agencies had predicted that Mr. Xi would focus on economic development and follow the path of his predecessor, who advocated the country’s “peaceful rise.”
Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Beijing on Saturday to discuss a variety of security and economic issues of concern to the United States, although it remained unclear whether this development with the missiles, which officials describe as recent, was on his agenda.
American officials say that, so far, China has declined to engage in talks on the decision to begin deploying multiple nuclear warheads atop its ballistic missiles.
“The United States would like to have a discussion of the broader issues of nuclear modernization and ballistic missile defense with China,” said Phillip C. Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at National Defense University, a Pentagon-funded academic institution attended by many of the military’s next cadre of senior commanders.
“The Chinese have been reluctant to have that discussion in official channels,” Mr. Saunders said, although he and other experts have engaged in unofficial conversations with their Chinese counterparts on the warhead issue.
Beijing’s new nuclear program was reported deep inside the annual Pentagon report to Congress about Chinese military capabilities, disclosing a development that poses a dilemma for the Obama administration, which has never talked publicly about these Chinese nuclear advances.

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POPE CALLS PALESTINIAN LEADER ‘ANGEL OF PEACE’ DURING VISIT

Associated Press
May 17, 2015

Matheny's Note:
 "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."   - II Corinthians 11:13-15

Pope Francis praised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as an “angel of peace” during a meeting Saturday at the Vatican that underscored the Holy See’s warm relations with the Palestinians.
Francis made the compliment during the traditional exchange of gifts at the end of an official audience in the Apostolic Palace. He presented Abbas with a medallion and explained that it represented the “angel of peace destroying the bad spirit of war.”
Francis said he thought the gift was appropriate since “you are an angel of peace.” During his 2014 visit to Israel and the West Bank, Francis called both Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres men of peace.
Abbas is in Rome for the canonization Sunday of two 19th-century nuns from what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine. The new saints, Mariam Bawardy and Marie Alphonsine Ghattas, are the first from the region to be canonized since the early days of Christianity.

BREAKING: Special Forces Drill with Local SWAT for Domestic Raids

Next News 3
May 13, 2015





RICHLAND | In what appears to be the second such drill, Special Forces have been deployed domestically alongside local Sheriffs to train for midnight raids in Richland County South Carolina. 

The footage you’re seeing right now is the 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg conducting a nighttime raid during an exercise. This is the special forces unit deployed.

Sheriff Leon Lott stated that “Richland County is “an ideal location for training that cannot be replicated at Fort Bragg.”

Coordinating with the Special Forces will be the county’s Special Response Team - or SWAT to “provide simulated scenarios for the military”

What's more chilling than coordinated domestic raid training is that official reports state that live ordinance and gunfire will be employed.

To top it off the media has been restricted from any kind of embedded reporting to provide Transparency for the drills.

Now you can add this drill to the long list of domestic training exercises that have occurred so far this year. FEMA Camp Roundup drills in Florida, martial law training in California, Marines Prepping for Riot Control in Virginia and of course the mother of all drills JADE HELM. 

This is another glaring example of the militarization of local police nationwide who have received nearly half a billion dollars in military equipment from the department of defense.

So this begs the question. Who is training who? When local sheriffs receive military equipment and then the special forces train alongside SWAT the lines are blurred. The color of authority is transferred to local police as they become a militarized force. Local Law enforcement can’t violate Posse Comitatus… but they can use the same equipment and tactics as the military making them one in the same… just a different jurisdiction thus skirting the law and violating the constitution.

The next question is who is the intended target? I’ll leave that up to you in the comments section below the video… I’ll give you a hint. “You Train where you deploy”
http://www.wltx.com/story/news/milita...
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/u...
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/02/l...

Footage courtesy Department of Defense, Richmond County Sheriff's Office, and Maine National Guard. All footage resides in the public domain. 

7,231,000 Lost Jobs: Manufacturing Employment Down 37% From 1979 Peak

CNS News
May 13, 2015

(CNSNews.com) - The number of jobs in manufacturing has declined by 7,231,000--or 37 percent--since employment in manufacturing peaked in the United States in 1979, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The real median household income of Americans who have completed high school--but have not attained a higher degree--also peaked in the 1970s and has declined since then.
In fact, according to the Census Bureau (Tables H-13 and H-14), the real median household income of an American householder who has completed four years of high school peaked in 1973 at $56,395 in constant 2013 dollars. By 2013, it was down to $40,701. That is a drop of $15,694--or 27.8 percent. (The Census Bureau's Table H-14 publishes the annual median household income from 1960 through 1990 of householders who have "completed" four years of high school. Table H-13 publishes the annual median household income of householders who have 'graduated" from high school or its equivalency from 1991 through 2013.)
According to the BLS’s seasonally adjusted employment numbers, employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector hit a peak of 19,553,000 in June 1979. In April 2015, there were only 12,322,000 employed in the manufacturing sector. That is a decline of 7,231,000—or 37 percent.
The decline has even been greater as a share of the civilian noninstitutional population, which includes all U.S. residents 16 and older who are not on active duty in the military or in an institution such as a prison or nursing home. (This is the population number that forms the foundation of the BLS’s employment numbers.)
In April 1973, the year median household income peaked for householders who have completed high school but not earned a higher degree, there were 146,459,000 in the civilian noninstitutional population and employment in manufacturing was 18,359,000—or 12.5 percent of the civilian noninstitutional population.
In April 2015, there were 250,266,000 in the civilian noninstitutional population and employment in manufacturing was 12,272,000—or 4.9 percent of the civilian population.
In 1973, manufacturing employment as a share of the civilian noninstutional population was 2.5 times what it is today.

Media Perpetuating Racism to Divide and Conquer America

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! News
Mark Matheny
May 11, 2015


CONGRESS TELLS COURT THAT CONGRESS CAN’T BE INVESTIGATED FOR INSIDER TRADING

The Intercept
May 11, 2015

Featured photo - Congress Tells Court That Congress Can’t Be Investigated for Insider Trading









In a little-noticed brief filed last summer, lawyers for the House of Representatives claimed that an SEC investigation of congressional insider trading should be blocked on principle, because lawmakers and their staff are constitutionally protected from such inquiries given the nature of their work.
The legal team led by Kerry W. Kircher, who was appointed House General Counsel by Speaker John Boehner in 2011, claimed that the insider trading probe violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch.
In 2012, members of Congress patted themselves on the back for passing the STOCK Act, a bill meant to curb insider trading for lawmakers and their staff. “We all know that Washington is broken and today members of both parties took a big step forward to fix it,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, upon passage of the law.
But as the Securities and Exchange Commission made news with the first major investigation of political insider trading, Congress moved to block the inquiry.
The SEC investigation focused on how Brian Sutter, then a staffer for the House Ways and Means Committee, allegedly passed along information about an upcoming Medicare decision to a lobbyist, who then shared the tip with other firms. Leading hedge funds used the insider tip to trade on health insurance stocks that were affected by the soon-to-be announced Medicare decision.
Calling the SEC’s inquiry a “remarkable fishing expedition for congressional records,” Kircher and his team claimed that the SEC had no business issuing a subpoena to Sutter. “Communications with lobbyists, of course, are a normal and routine part of Committee information-gathering,” the brief continued, arguing that there “is no room for the SEC to inquire into the Committee’s or Mr. Sutter’s purpose or motives.”
Wall Street investors routinely hire specialized “political intelligence” lobbyists in Washington to get insider knowledge of major government decisions so that they may make trades using the information. But little is known about the mechanics of political intelligence lobbying, which falls outside the scope of traditional lobbying law, and therefore does not show up in mandatory lobbying disclosure reports.
There are occasional hints, though.
Personal finance forms reveal that from July of 2011 through May of 2013, David Berteau served as a consultant to Height Analytics, the political intelligence firm at the center of the SEC’s current probe. At the time of his work for Height Analytics, Berteau simultaneously worked as a vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent think tank in Washington. Berteau is now the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Materiel Readiness.
Congressional travel forms show that on December 12, 2012, Emily Porter, at the time an employee of Boehner’s office, traveled to New York on a sponsored trip to meet with JNK Securities for a group lunch with business clients. According to the Wall Street Journal, JNK “has emerged as one of the most aggressive” political intelligence firms on Capitol Hill.
This is hardly the first time Congress has moved to undermine its own ethics rules. In 2011, congressional Republicans quickly abandoned their promise to post the text of bills online “for at least three days” before voting on them.
Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A new world order? Putin and Xi put friendship on display

The Telegraph
May 11, 2015

Echoes of the past as Moscow's Victory Day parade stirs memories of a previous anti-American alliance


At first sight, things look very different now. When President Xi Jinping ofChina took pride of place next to Vladimir Putin of Russia on Saturday, they looked like any other modern world leaders: pragmatic men-in-suits, full of smiles, temporary possessors of power rather than dictators-for-life.
Back in 1949, when Chairman Mao Tse-tung paid his first visit to Moscow to celebrate Comrade Joseph Stalin's 70th Birthday, it was a paean of old-school Communism.
Children in Young Pioneer uniforms paraded through the Bolshoi Opera House telling of their ambition to become tractor drivers. Mao wore a "Mao suit" and Stalin military uniform. Both men looked grumpy.
From left: LM Kaganovich, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, NA Bulganin, Joseph Stalin, Walter Ulbricht, J cedenbal, NS Khrushchev and I Koplenig (Getty)
But the two events, six decades apart, have a clear parallel. Once again, the Russia-China axis is the main threat to the West's vision of peaceful and prosperous international relations.
The line-up of leaders alongside the two men was a walking representation of a new anti-American alliance that has formed bit by bit since the invasion of Iraq demonstrated the frightening ease with which Washington could destroy hostile leaders far away.
Alongside Mr Xi were Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Raúl Castro of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela: standouts against what Mr Putin called a unipolar world, his code phrase for the spread of western-style democracy.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, centre, and Cuban President Raul Castro, centre right, after the parade (EPA)
In itself, there isn't much new to this. China has been railing against a "unipolar world" for a decade. Mr Putin and his allies all have their reasons for disliking the West's tendency to set a high store on open elections, a free press and "cooperative" foreign policies.
What is stark is that Russia and China are now openly stating their intention to stand together to lead such an alliance.
The history is a patchy one. In 1949, Mao felt snubbed by Stalin, who regarded him as just another leader of a Soviet-backed Communist satellite rather than an equal.
Mao's subsequent falling-out with Stalin's successors led to the US-China rapprochement following President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972. The new détente helped defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Chairman Mao Tse-tung, left, welcomes US President Richard Nixon at his house in Beijing (AFP)
Twenty years ago, when both Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin of China stood alongside Boris Yeltsin at the 1995 Moscow Victory Day parade, the power relations were self-evident.
A self-confident America knew that Russia was no longer a threat, while China was dependent for its economic growth on American spending power and investment.
Yesterday in Moscow there was no America – something Washington may come to regret – and there was no doubt whose smile was most confident.
Mr Xi finds himself in a diplomatic sweet spot. It is Mr Putin who gets the flak for standing up to Nato in Ukraine, for supporting the Assad regime in Syria, for threatening to sell air defence systems to Iran.
The Victory Day parade at Red Square in Moscow, Russia (Reuters)
But it is China who is the ultimate winner, as America's attention is diverted from Beijing's expansion across the South China Sea.
China is openly developing a naval strategy aimed at challenging American dominance of the western Pacific, including in the waters around Japan and Taiwan.
Unlike Chairman Mao, Mr Xi is happy to be seen to play second fiddle on the podium in Moscow. With China now the rising power, he has no doubt as to where the balance of power will lie between China and Russia in years to come. Shows of Russian strength like yesterday's serve his interests, as much as Mr Putin's.
ends