All posts by thenewbostonteaparty

LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT – GREECE IS A DEADBEAT

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D Day is coming on Monday, a day that will live in infamy; the day Greek banks close their doors. 

A classic quote, “There was a general sense of euphoria — you could get a job with the government, real estate prices kept going up,” said Vourloumis, who has run banks and telecommunications companies and battled unions along the way. “And then, with the European debt crisis, the whole thing was revealed — our economy was built on protectionism, on borrowed money.”

A typical duo income family has on average $75,000 gross income; not a whole lot of money in today’s fast paced world. Demands come from all angles, cable, cell phones, vacations, automobiles, more vacations, gambling, Christmas presents, birthday presents- constantly bombarded by the marketing folks on Madison Avenue enticing you to spend more and more.

Putting aside the daily responsibilities of food, mortgage payments, utility bills, insurance, clothing, taxes, education costs and the numerous necessities that eat away the take home cash is a challenge. It’s tough out there, to alleviate the pressure without a visit or two to the psychiatrist a simple remedy is the plastic – a  trip to the casino or vacation is all it takes to clear the head of today’s mundane daily responsibilities and the constant pressure that jolts your scull 24-7.  But family fun always come first. And that is where the banks come in, willing to lend on the good name of John and Jane Q who are a swipe away of incurring a mountain of debt.

An extra thousand on the card starts the ball rolling? But before long those swipes add up – and reality begins to set in when a mountain of debt is staring you in the face. “We want our money now” says the bank.  Bill collectors sing the chorus over the phone, pay up or we will beat you up. Bankruptcy is at hand, everything is gone as your life flashed in front of you.  That is how the Greeks feel right now.

We bring this happy tale to remind the responsible people in the world of what Greeks actually did; they ran up debts on their credit cards using other people’s money, now is the time to pay and they say, “wait a minute, you are humiliating us – we are not dead beats.”

Pardon us for being rude, but a couple of centuries ago, a debtor was sent to debtor’s prison. Greece should be punished just the same. Greece, with a population of eleven million and location in the envious blue waters of the Ionian and Aegean Sea, blue skies and turquoise waves abound. The seat of once was democracy Greece turned socialist in a large way. Their new prime minister Tsipras dons the cloak of Marx and Lenin. Forget meeting the terms of past agreements says he – we won’t pay, our people are not slaves, they will not bow to unreasonable demands. In other words, well we can’t say it here, but you get the gist of what he telling the EU, “go …. off.

The infamous Mike Milken, famous for selling junk bonds once said, “you can’t repossess a country.” Well now, we suggest that you can, if not a country how about an island or two. This will more than satisfy their debt and then some. So, EU it is up to you to bring it on. Send in the debt collectors with tanks and guns ablaze,  Debt reparations are the payoff – who said you can’t take land as a liquidated damage?

 

TEXAS GOES LARGE ON GOLD

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Whether you call them visionaries or call them chuckleheads–or anything in between–you should tip your hat to the Texas legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott, who have now written fears of a fiscal Armageddon into state law.

Late last week, the Republican governor signed a bill establishing the first state-run gold depository in the nation. The Texas Gold Depository will position itself as an alternative to the U.S. government’s Fort Knox and the vault beneath the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

When people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver… it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.
– Mises Institute
Its ostensible aim is to safeguard what its supporters say is $1 billion in state-owned gold bars once they’re retrieved from the Fed’s Manhattan vault, protecting them from seizure by outside forces, like the federal government. (More on that supposed $1 billion in a moment.) It will also hire itself out as a depository for private investors looking for a place to store their bullion, pending the collapse of civilization. in the meantime, they would be able to write checks on an account tied to their holdings.

The initiative, which was launched two years ago by a Dallas-area state legislator, has gold bugs everywhere vibrating with anticipation. These are people convinced that the Fed and other central banks are consistently “debasing” the value of money by running their printing presses; only a return to the intrinsic value of gold can preserve the economy.
“When people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money,” the right-wing, Alabama-based Mises Institute wrote on its website Monday, heralding the possible launch of “a system of gold and silver ‘certificates’ that could be traded as a type of money.”

Others “go further in blowing the secessionist dog whistle,” observes Brian Murphy of New York’s Baruch College, writing at Talking Points Memo. Among them is Geoffrey Pike of Wealth Daily, who writes that the Texas depository “is symbolic in retaining some liberty, similar to gun ownership in this country.” To be sure, Pike isn’t advising his followers to dump their gold into the Texas vault quite as yet–after all, he writes, Texas is a government too, not entirely to be trusted.

Gold
Not the best investment strategy? Since Texas officials invested in physical gold in mid-April 2011, stock market has soared and the gold price (represented here by the SPDR gold shares ETF), have slumped. (Yahoo Finance)
Radical conservatives long have cherished the idea of gold as a hedge against Armageddon. The ownership of physical gold is seen as a bulwark against such violations of individual liberty as Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 order outlawing the hoarding of gold, part of his broader plan to take the country off the gold standard to give him more flexibility in crafting a recovery from the Great Depression.
The Texas measure reflects an outbreak of anti-Washington paranoia in the Lone Star State, which loves to picture itself as standing, well, alone. Gov. Abbott was among the politicians stoking conspiracy theories depicting the U.S. military’s Jade Helm training exercise, scheduled to start in Texas and other states this week, as a prelude to a federal takeover.

Former Gov. Rick Perry, who is again running for the GOP presidential nomination, has cited what he says is his state’s unique right to secede from the U.S., ostensibly granted as a condition of its joining the union in 1845. But historians say that right is mythical. In any case, Perry didn’t appear to have gone all the way toward advocating secession.

Texas also long has been a hive of hard-money fanatics. In 1979 and 1980 the Dallas-based brothers Nelson Bunker and William Herbert Hunt attempted to corner the silver market. Eventually they amassed one-third of all the privately held silver in the world, creating turmoil in the metals markets. But the price cracked, they wound up with a loss estimated at $1 billion, and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

It’s not unusual for financial advisors to counsel investors to keep some exposure to gold or other precious metals as a hedge against inflation, for their value tends to rise when inflation does, especially during sharp runups.

Owning physical gold, however, is another thing entirely: Bullion is expensive to store because it requires rock-solid security. It needs to be regularly assayed to establish its purity, especially if it’s moved, unless under painstaking chain-of-custody conditions.

How much gold does the state of Texas actually own, and where is it? Despite Abbott’s assertion that the depository law will “repatriate $1 billion of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve in New York to Texas,” the state doesn’t appear to own $1 billion in physical gold, and what it does own isn’t at the Federal Reserve.

The state’s holdings through the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or UTIMCO–UT’s $29-billion endowment fund–come to about $500 million or less. it’s held not at the New York Fed but a private bank vault in Manhattan. The holdings are the product of a policy created by a gold bug on the UTIMCO board, who persuaded his colleagues to convert UTIMCO’s investment in gold futures into nearly $1 billion in metal in April 2011.

Since then, the fund has cashed out of some of its gold bars; its current holdings, Murphy calculates, come to about 420,000 ounces worth about $500 million. As an investment, moreover, the gold bar ownership has been a bust since its inception; the price of gold has fallen from about $1,490 per ounce in mid-April 2011 to about $1,183 now. In the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index has gained nearly 60%.

Keep up to date with the Economy Hub. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see our Facebook page, or email [email protected].

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

STAR WARS – SCIENCE FICTION COMES TO LIFE

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Star Wars Logo.svg

There is a high probability that a laser weapon will be activated in the very near future. Long awaited since the time when Ronnie Reagan promoted the Strategic Defense InitiativeSdilogo.svg. The press coined it Star Wars, but it is no longer on the drawing board.  The development phase of a satellite mounted laser ray device is in the beta phase. Currently Navy ships have surface mounted laser weapons which have been activated in targeted warfare testing with great success. The Air Force has developed air mounted laser weapons whose mission is to destroy the enemy target.  (very impressive)

So it is not out of the realm of possibility that a real time display of laser power is close at hand. Targets could be anywhere, but the best bet is in the South China Sea or the skies above the Baltic nations. Many United States jets have been strafed by Russians fighters; an act of intimidation which may provoke more than a verbal skirmish.

China has upped the ante too and we will not be surprised if an incident results in a fire fight. Also, don’t rule out Israel, very secret when it comes to advanced weapons, but we do know that their weapons capability is  highly sophisticated, many of which have not seen the light of day, but are awaiting the opportunity to show their prowess.

THE GREEKS “TIME TO LET THEM EAT CAKE”

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One statistic will tell you how bad the embedded socialist criminals who cooked the books have gone; only one other country has come even close. Greece has to pay the pensions for 2,600,000 people and the salaries for 560,000 more. Annual spending, – 28%, yes 28% of their annual budget is spent on pensions. Greece’s population is only 11 million – 25%, as noted above are either receiving pensions or are on the government payroll. Another fact, Greece is one of the largest arms importers; certainly a dilemma in figuring that one out.Flag of Greece

 

The question arises whether the austerity measures are doing any good. The IMF, which admits havingunderestimated the impact of austerity on the Greek economy, calling it a notable failure (IrishExaminer 2013), has cut the growth outlook of the world economy from 3.5% from the Januaryforecast to 3.3% in April. The United States will grow by 1.9% instead of the predicted 2.1%. TheEurozone will shrink by 0.3% instead of by 0.1% (Thompson 2013). For Greece, the public debt stillstands at 157% of GDP at the end of 2012, and remains higher than sustainable (IMF 2013). Thehuman costs have also been enormous. About 20% of the Greeks live in poverty (Kouvoussis 2013).The suicide rates in the first four months of 2011 spiked by 40% from 2010 (Euro Health Net 2011).The 40% cuts in the national health budget since 2008 have thrown 35,000 doctors and nurses out of work, increased wait times and drug costs, increased infant mortality by 40%, doubled the increase in new HIV infections (due to an increase in intravenous drug use following cuts in needle-exchange programs), and increased the number of malaria cases (due to cuts in mosquito-spraying programs)(Stuckler and Basu 2013a

There But for the Grace of the Fed

The Greek people have been royally screwed over by their government and Wall Street. It didn’t have to be this way.

Greece had the fastest-growing economy in Europe between 2000 and 2007. Annual GDP growth was 4.2%. Output went up 40%.

Unfortunately, government spending went up 80%. In fact, Greece has run a budget deficit since 1973. Between 1981 and 2013, budget deficits were above 3% of GDP every year.

Greece’s debt is currently 160% of GDP. And if it hadn’t been able to refinance its debt and shaft bondholders, that debt-to-GDP ratio would be over 200%.

There’s just no way this money can get paid back.

And it’s mainly because Greece is in a monetary union called the EU. Greece uses the euro, a shared currency. It has no control over the euro itself. It has no printing press like the U.S.; t cannot devalue its currency by printing more in order to pay off debt.

Greece has suffered three distinct recessions in the last six years. Unemployment is over 20%. Youth unemployment is close to 50%. Around 80,000 businesses went bankrupt in 2010.

The Greek economy grew in 2014, reversing that six-year period where it lost 25% of GDP. But that ended when Alexis Tsipras was elected president in January. He pledged to end austerity and return Greece to its glory days. It just never ends well when governments operate on lies and theft.

The government of Alexis Tsipras came to power promising to roll back cuts to pensions. Creditors want Greece to slash even more. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on June 4 that it was “unthinkable” that Italians should help pay for a Greek pension system that’s more generous than their own.

Avoiding taxes was a part of the culture of Greece. It is estimated that tax evasion was costing the Greek government over $20 billion per year.

THE LIBERAL BASTION BALTIMORE SUN SHINES A LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT

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“The Baltimore Sun” is definitely not known as a Conservative newspaper, s this very well written assessment
 of the situation in USA comes as something of a surprise..
Some great thoughts about other races that have come to the USA and successfully integrated into our society.
This will obviously be called racist, and will upset the liberals, but they should really think about the message and
but think about the message and this interesting point of view.
The Black Dilemma
 
“For almost 150 years the United States has been conducting an interesting experiment. The subjects of the experiment: black people and working-class whites.
 
The hypothesis to be tested: Can a people taken from the jungles of Africa and forced into slavery be fully integrated as citizens in a majority white population?
 
The whites were descendants of Europeans who had created a majestic civilization. The former slaves had been tribal peoples with no written language and virtually no intellectual achievements. Acting on a policy that was not fair to either group, the government released newly freed black people into a white society that saw them as inferiors. America has struggled with racial discord ever since.
Decade after decade the problems persisted but the experimenters never gave up. They insisted that if they could find the right formula the experiment would work, and concocted program after program to get the result they wanted. They created the Freedmans Bureau, passed civil rights laws, tried to build the Great Society, declared War on Poverty, ordered race preferences, built housing projects, and tried midnight basketball.
 
Their new laws intruded into peoples lives in ways that would have been otherwise unthinkable. They called in National Guard troops to enforce school integration. They outlawed freedom of association. Over the protests of parents, they put white children on buses and sent them to black schools and vice-versa. They tried with money, special programs, relaxed standards, and endless hand wringing to close the achievement gap. To keep white backlash in check they began punishing public and even private statements on race. They hung up Orwellian public banners that commanded whites to Celebrate Diversity! and Say No to Racism. Nothing was off limits if it might salvage the experiment.
 
Some thought that what W.E.B. DuBois called the Talented Tenth would lead the way for black people. A group of elite, educated blacks would knock down doors of opportunity and show the world what blacks were capable of.
There is a Talented Tenth. They are the black Americans who have become entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and scientists. But ten percent is not enough. For the experiment to work, the ten percent has to be followed by a critical mass of people who can hold middle-class jobs and promote social stability. That is what is missing.
 
Through the years, too many black people continue to show an inability to function and prosper in a culture unsuited to them. Detroit is bankrupt, the south side of Chicago is a war zone, and the vast majority of black cities all over America are beset by degeneracy and violence. And blacks never take responsibility for their failures. Instead, they lash out in anger and resentment.
 
Across the generations and across the country, as we have seen in Detroit, Watts, Newark, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and now Ferguson, rioting and looting are just one racial incident away. The white elite would tell us that this doesn’t mean the experiment has failed. We just have to try harder. We need more money, more time, more understanding, more programs, and more opportunities.
 
But nothing changes no matter how much money is spent, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how many black geniuses are portrayed on TV, and no matter who is president. Some argue its a problem of culture, as if culture creates peoples behavior instead of the other way around. Others blame white privilege.
 
But since 1965, when the elites opened Americas doors to the Third World, immigrants from Asia and India people who are not white, not rich, and not connected have quietly succeeded. While the children of these people are winning spelling bees and getting top scores on the SAT, black youths are committing half the country’s violent crime, which includes viciously punching random white people on the street for the thrill of it that has nothing to do with poverty.
 
The experiment has failed. Not because of white culture, or white privilege, or white racism. The fundamental problem is that American black culture has evolved into an un-fixable and crime ridden mess. *They do not want to change their culture or society, and expect others to tolerate their violence and amoral behavior. They have become socially incompatible with other races by their own design, not because of the racism of others – but by their own hatred of non-blacks.*
 
Our leaders don’t seem to understand just how tired their white subjects are with this experiment. *They don’t understand that white people aren’t out to get black people; they are just exhausted with them. They are exhausted by the social pathologies, the violence, the endless complaints, and the blind racial solidarity, the bottomless pit of grievances, the excuses, and the reflexive animosity.*
The elites explain everything with racism, and refuse to believe that white frustration could soon reach the boiling point.”—
 
“You can’t legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government doesn’t first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they don’t have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Ian Duncan
The Baltimore Sun, May 30, 2015

OBAMA HAS GONE YELLOW PANTS

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President Obama has contributed to the disarray that now covers most of the known world. In three words you can say that he has “gone yellow pants.” The Crimea slipped into the hands of Czar Putin during a midnight auto theft adventure. Ukraine is still a tinder box. Shake rattle and roll is Putin’s modus operandi.

The Middle East has imploded with ISIS hegemony beginning to emerge in far off places. No country is safe from their sword. China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea; building an airstrip in the Spratly Islands. This threatens not only the U.S. but the Philipines, Viet Nam, Taiwan, Maylaysia and Brunei. File:Spratly Is since NalGeoMaps.png

Obama is still doing the bidding for IRAN, another misstep in the United States foreign policy. Don’t forget he also went yellow pants in Syria and Libya.  And now POTUS has second thoughts about his decision to pull out of IRAQ – the void invited ISIS in in a flurry. This week he announced that another 450 advisers will be sent to Baghdad soon.

The defensive establishment has had it, they no longer trust the anointed one who finds it imperative to feed social welfare programs rather than defending the homeland.

History will not be kind when it comes to writing the Obama legacy.

FORGOT ONE – NUMBER FOURTEEN: ELIMINATE HUD

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We have talked about HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) before, they can best be described as a socialist organization bent on destroying middle class neighborhoods. HUD’s objective is to build housing in middle class neighborhoods thus bring inner city families closer to the suburban environment. But studies have shown that successful Blacks who have moved out of the hood into these middle class bastions of safety are the most out spoken when in comes to relocating those eligible for Section 8 housing next door. And who can blame them; they left the hood, but the hood followed them.

A taste of HUD’s political agenda follows:

June is LGBT month according to HUD secretary Castro.

Celebrating LGBT Month and Breaking Barriers

Written by: Secretary Julian Castro

This week marks the beginning of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Month, 2015 — a time to recognize the lasting contributions that these Americans have made to our nation, and to honor the progress that’s been achieved in securing equal opportunity for all.

But let’s not get into specifics just yet. HUD has an agenda, one that does not sit well with most Americans. They have seen the destructive power of this agency. Keep in mind that HUD has capitalistic supporters whose lifeline is low income housing. These entities get tax credits, state and federal funds to build housing for the poor or better said, for those who meet HUD criteria on income. It is a money tree for them, shaking the government for funds to build housing that costs on average twice as much if it not for government bidding, building compleance and hiring procedures.

The present governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo who defeated Rob Astorino in the last election gave us a taste of his neighborhood breaking tactics. (click)Cuomo’s rant on Rob Astorino, the chief executive of Westchester County.  Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday criticized Westchester County’s refusal to comply with a federal housing settlement, knocking Rob Astorino, the county executive and GOP gubernatorial candidate, for disregarding the federal mandate. “I used to bring these cases as HUD secretary,”  said Cuomo. Yeah he sure did, suing everyone in his path.

Astorino said Westchester has submitted eight studies to HUD that show “the only barrier to housing in many Westchester communities is income. Anyone can live anywhere they can afford in this county, just as in any other county.”

So again, Cuomo has the nerve to tell a county that its housing policies discriminate. Correct us if we are wrong here; Cuomo wants to build low income housing in the middle of neighborhoods where $2 million dollar houses are the norm. Cuomo wants to import drug dealers, MS-13 type gangs, murders, felons and muggers into stable neighborhoods. Taxes would be impacted, firefighters and police would need to be hired to fight the crime that results.

Before he became Governor he was the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.Cuomo has to accept responsibility for the debacle.

We are (click)moving forward now says President Obama faster than a bullet train. New executive orders will hasten the destruction of quiet suburban neighborhoods.  A report published this morning by The Hill says President Barack Obama is pressing forward with new Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations that will withhold block grants to communities if they don’t build enough “affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods.” The executive order, known as the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act,” was issued by the president last year and will be used to promote racial quotas in white suburban neighborhoods. It will also force thousands of communities to house the nation’s burgeoning population of new immigrants.

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET FOLKS. Wait for the bodegas, massage parlors, vape lounges, after hours parties, drug dens, drive by shootings, gang recruitment comes to your neighborhood. Wow, we can’t wait! Bet none of these HUD projects are located next door to any Senators. Get those AK-47’s today, tomorrow may be too late.

MESSAGE TO THE REPUBLICANS “WAKE UP NOW THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANG’N”

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The Republican Kentucky Derby is about to start; expect ten or more entrants when the gates open. Trouble is that most of these non winners of previous races are back, running in a Grade 1 stakes when they are most suited for a claiming race. Don’t get us wrong here, they have their good qualities, but when it comes to 2016 they will be up against the Democrat Secretariat. You see the problem with the R’s are multitude – before the race starts they have beat themselves up so badly that Ladbrokes morning line places them in the 1000:1 category.

A look south in Mexico and another look across the pond will not give these also-rans any solice. Turkey for instance went radical sweeping the power of Erdogan out from under his rug. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is rolling over laughing in his casket. Down south the tables were turned on the ruling party as a long shot came home first. A sweeping victory for people power. One voter offered this reason for the win, “the major political parties are made up of crooks, criminals and liars.” Seems like they were describing our government. On second thought hey were.

So let this be a warning for the Republican wannabees, you are all losers sans one. We will leave that to the voter to decide, but in order to put a nose in front at the wire and it will be a photo finish, he will have to go radical. Clean house, bring out the guns of radicalism for all to see. One more bit of advice, tell it like it is. (thirteen point manifesto follows) Tell the public that when you are elected the first priority is to bring charges against Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner. Second, you must tell the Americans that America is for the rule of law and your justice department will enforce the law of the land. Third, tell America that you will eliminate fraud in government that even a stolen safety pin is theft and those responsible will be brought up on charges.

Fourth, you will prosecute those bankers who cooked the books leading to the financial crisis. Fifth, that you will prosecute those who have swindled the government, either by filing false disability claims, tax returns and welfare and medicaid claims.  Six, you will eliminate the IRS code and set two rates, one at 10% and the other at 25%, seventh you will dissolve the Department of Education, Commerce and Agriculture, Eighth you will immolate the ethanol subsidy and all agriculture subsidies to boot. Ninth, you will eliminate the exempt status on the Clinton foundation while bringing charges of income tax evasion against it. Tenth, withdraw from the World Bank, Eleventh, quit the United Nations, twelve , legalize drugs – this might be very controversial, but will bring down the drug cartels from their fifty year highs.  And  thirteen, last but not least shout from the top of your lungs that you will cut government employment by 50%. That is just for starters.

If we can find a candidate to do all of the above, then we can win in 2016, if not expect more of the same.

MEXICAN ISIS COMMANDOS FIRE ON U.S. HELICOPTER

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Operating on the Texas-Mexican border drug gangs have shot at an American helicopter  patrolling the the Lone Star State’s border. This operation is the start of an ISIS type campaign where they will bring their long arm into the United States. President Obama, thus far, has not commented on the firing. If there is not an equal reaction by us the Mexican-ISIS connection will continue to penetrate our air space.

However, the question that is on everyone’s mind is, will the traitor-in-chief actually make a response for this incident. I’m guessing not, but even more than that, it does cause one to wonder whether or not the Islamic State and/or Mexican drug cartelsare involved. However, at this point, shouldn’t we consider the two one in the same?muchasgraciasamigo