This is how government deals with existential threats. No solutions for the growing demand for water but spending lavishly on a non high speed high speed train.

Rain, snow do little for drought-hit California

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A weather system that brought a smattering of rain and snow to California has moved on with little impact on the state's deepening drought.

Elsewhere, the weak cold weather system provided a few sprinkles of rain, but it amounted to only a few hundredths of an inch and "the chances of tipping any rain buckets is much closer to zero," a National Weather Service forecast said. The forecast for Friday and Saturday called for sunny skies with a chance of light rain on Sunday.

Though nearly 2 feet of snow fell in parts of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California this week, a snow survey there on Thursday found the snow water equivalent was just 12 percent of normal for this time of winter. The water in the northern and central Sierra snowpack provides about a third of California's water supply. Satellite photos from space show the tops of the towering peaks as brown instead of white.

"Make no mistake, this drought is a big wakeup call," Gov. Jerry Brown said on Thursday before meeting with local water district officials in downtown Los Angeles. "Hopefully it's going to rain. If it doesn't, we're going to have to act in a very strenuous way in every part of the state to get through."

"Every day this drought goes on, we're going to have to tighten the screws on what people are doing," Brown said.

Brown declared a state drought emergency earlier this month and called on Californians to reduce their water usage by 20 percent.

View gallery

California Governor Jerry Brown, left, talks with General Manager for the Metropolitan Water Distric …

On Thursday, he offered some practical advice, including avoiding long solo showers and cutting down on toilet flushing.

State climatologist Michael Anderson said only 1.53 inches of rain were recorded from October through December, the lowest aggregate total in records dating back to 1895.

Officials say 2013 was also the state's driest calendar year since records started being kept.

Southern California has been stockpiling water to deal with potential shortages but some places in the state are struggling.

State officials have said that 17 rural communities are in danger of a severe water shortage within four months. Wells are running dry or reservoirs are nearly empty in some communities. Others have long-running problems that predate the drought.

The TSA outed

Dear America, I Saw You Naked

And yes, we were laughing. Confessions of an ex-TSA agent.

By JASON EDWARD HARRINGTON

On Jan. 4, 2010, when my boss saw my letter to the editor in the New York Times, we had a little chat.

It was rare for the federal security director at Chicago O’Hare to sit down with her floor-level Transportation Security Administration officers—it usually presaged a termination—and so I was nervous as I settled in across the desk from her. She was a woman in her forties with sharp blue eyes that seemed to size you up for placement in a spreadsheet. She held up a copy of the newspaper, open to the letters page. My contribution, under the headline “To Stop a Terrorist: No Lack of Ideas,” was circled in blue pen.

Continue reading

Punishing kids because they're white...where and when is this going to stop?

NYC school cuts popular gifted program over lack of diversity: report

A popular gifted-student program at a New York City elementary school is getting the ax after school officials decided it lacked diversity.

PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald told parents in a letter Jan. 24 that Students of Academic Rigor, or SOAR, would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners, the New York Daily Newsreported.

“Our Kindergarten classes will be heterogeneously grouped to reflect the diversity of our student body and the community we live in,” Miss McDonald said in the letter posted on Flickr.com.

At least one parent described SOAR as largely white, while others disagreed, the report said.

One mother conceded the program did have a lot of white students, but worried gifted students now won’t be challenged enough.

“Where are they going to put the higher-level students? Sometimes, there are different levels, and teachers can’t handle all the levels in one class,” she told the Daily News.

In a follow-up letter sent to parents Monday, Miss McDonald wrote: “At PS 193, we believe that all children can learn and achieve high standards. We also know that we want all children at PS 193 to have equal access to high quality, challenging curriculum, and to have ample opportunities to master complex material and build academic and personal self-confidence. We also want our classes to reflect the diversity of our community. We believe we can have both: classrooms characterized by rigor and diversity.”

Lies, distortions, and radical ideology the hall mark of the Left's by any means necessary strategy

Four Pinocchios for ‘Jingoistic’ Steyer Ad

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer / AP

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
January 31, 2014 10:29 am

NextGen Climate Action, the activist group run by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, fudged the facts in a new ad attacking the Keystone XL pipeline, according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler.
Kessler said he “takes no position on whether the Keystone pipeline would be good or bad, but this ad does not even meet the minimal standards for such political attack ads.”
“It relies on speculation, not facts, to make insinuations and assertions not justified by the reality,” he wrote.
The ad in question claims that oil shipped via the proposed Keystone pipeline from Canadian oil sands will be primarily exported the China. It cites Chinese investment in the Canadian oil sector and shows a Canadian flag morphing into a Chinese one.
Kessler notes that Chinese investment is actually minimal compared to that from other countries.

For all the jingoistic images, China at the moment is actually a small player in this game. The Globe and Mail chart shows that Royal Dutch Shell currently has three times as much production in the oils sands as Nexen. Perhaps the ad should have turned Canadian flag into the Dutch flag?

The ad also includes a statement from Alexander Pourbaix, a TransCanada executive in charge of the company’s pipeline projects, saying that he cannot guarantee that American oil imports will match the amount of crude exported from Gulf Coast terminals to which Keystone will carry Canadian oil.
The NextGen ad completely misrepresents the statement, Kessler notes. “The ad simply highlights [a portion of his answer] and then invents a question he was not asked.”
Kessler concludes:

Chinese state investment in the Canadian oil sands is an interesting development, but not worthy of the jingoistic treatment given here. While depending on market conditions some refined products may be exported, there is no evidence that every single barrel of oil would simply pass through the pipeline on the way to overseas shores. The twisting of [TransCanada executive Alexander] Pourbaix’s remarks is especially disturbing, even by the standards of attack ads.

Dissecting leftism: intolerant of other views and an anti American racial supremacist. Obama is a uniter? Bloody delusional.

State Dept. Webcast Features Guest Who Called Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice 'Uncle Toms'

Jeryl Bier

The State Department is presenting a global webcast on February 4, titled "From the Street to Mainstream: The Evolution of Rap/Hip Hop Music."  The host of the webcast, rapper and State Department Music Ambassador Toni Blackman, will be joined by Pras Michel, a founding member of the hip hop group the Fugees, to discuss "how rap and hip hop have increased social awareness of the African-American experience — and raised even broader issues in contemporary society."  Some of Michel's more inflammatory comments in the past raise questions about the appropriateness of his appearance with the U.S.'s music ambassador on a government-sponsored webcast representing America to the world.
In 2008, Michel was interviewed by Katie Halper about Michel's documentary Skid Row, which chronicles the rapper/filmmaker's experiences "undercover for 9 days and nights as a homeless person in downtown LA's notorious Skid Row." Michel lamented in the interview that the "African-American generation is lost.  They're not being represented correctly." He found fault with Bill Cosby and Oprah for just "point[ing] fingers." He called Michael Jordan a "sell-out." But he saved his harshest words for some well-known black conservatives as he contrasted them with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama:

Somebody said to me you only like Obama because he's black. Well I can think of a couple black people I wouldn't vote for. I'm not into black power. And on the other end of the spectrum, you got the Uncle Toms, the Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice ... I'm not into that either. Obama is a uniter. He's perfectly comfortable with the skin he's in. He's not gonna sell out. That's a man of great principle.

Michel added, "By the way, I don't formally support Obama. I just want people to know I really like him."  However, according to the Washington Free Beacon, Michel did go on become an Obama supporter, was a White House guest, and even became a founding member of Organizing for Action with a $20,000 donation.
Besides Barack Obama, Michel noted in the interview some other African-Americans he admires:

I love Cornel West. I respect him. But a black kid on the street don't have a clue who he is. Look, When Muhammed Ali came out ... the reason he's "the people's champ" ... is because he was defiant, he went against the U.S. government when they wanted to ship him to Vietnam. And he stood by it and people stood by him.

The Washington Free Beacon also noted some of Michel's remarks about his experiences in Somali in 2009 when he was filming a yet-unfinished documentary about Somali pirates and his ship was hijacked by those very pirates.  Michel seemed to blame the U.S. Navy Seal rescuers for fueling anti-American sentiment:

Pirates invaded the ship he was on, the Maersk Alabama, during filming and took the ship’s captain hostage. 

The captain was rescued by Navy SEAL snipers, who shot three pirates in the process. 

Pras explained in an interview with CNN, that the Navy SEAL rescue actually foiled his plans to meet with the pirates, because it created anti-American sentiment amongst the pirates. 

“We were supposed to actually meet with a couple of the pirates, but the capture happened so we had to retreat,” Pras said.  “It has gotten worse because, you know, they rescued the captain, but then they shot three pirates, so now it’s a whole anti-American sentiment going on right now.”... 

“They feel compelled to protect what they feel like is their waters,” Pras said. “They feel like the ships that are coming through are polluting the water and affecting their fishing industry. They feel like this has been going on for centuries, and they feel like they are taking matters into their own hands.” 

“They have a compelling argument,” he concluded.

The State Department webcast is scheduled for February 4 at 8 a.m.  The description of the live video webchat says in part that Michel will discuss "how rap and hip hop have... bridged the socio-economic gaps among races," and is billed as part of the State Department's observance of Black History Month.

Post birth abortion? Bureaucrats to decide if you live or die.

Sick Kids Denied Specialty Care Due to Obamacare in Washington

Daniel Halper

In Washington state, some sick kids have been denied specialty care due to Obamacare, a local news outlet reports:

"Administrators at Seattle Children's today said they predicted this would happen, and it's even worse than they expected," says the local news anchor. "Patients being denied specialty treatment at the hospital by insurance providers on the Washington health benefits exchange. Children's filed request on behalf of 125 of their patients. Of those, they say they got only 20 responses, eight of which were denials. Dr. Sandy Melzer says all this comes after reassurances of certain unique specialty cases would still be covered."
Dr. Sandy Melzer says, "Well, some of the patients who were denied are ones who clearly would fall into that unique category. A two-year-old with new significant neck mass that was being evaluated for infection or malignancy, an older child with a chronic severe medical condition requiring multidisciplinary care here, a baby that had a skull abnormality."
The anchor explains, "Children's went ahead and treated those cases anyway, but Dr. Melzer said they can't afford to keep doing that it way."

An imperial President acts

Obama Will Take 'Executive Action' to Reduce Prison Population 

(CNSNews.com) - Congress can pass legislation giving judges more discretion in the sentencing of prisoners, but President Obama "also has the ability to take executive action" to commute the sentences of "low-level" drug offenders -- and that's just what he plans to do, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the New York State Bar Association annual meeting on Thursday.

"A little over a month ago, the President commuted the sentences of eight men and women who were sentenced under severe -- and out of date -- mandatory minimum sentencing laws," Cole said.

"But the President’s grant of commutations for these eight individuals is only a first step. There is more to be done, because there are others like the eight who were granted clemency. There are more low-level, non-violent drug offenders who remain in prison, and who would likely have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of precisely the same offenses today.  This is not fair, and it harms our criminal justice system.

"To help correct this, we need to identify these individuals and get well-prepared petitions into the Department of Justice. It is the Department’s goal to find additional candidates, who are similarly situated to the eight granted clemency last year, and recommend them to the President for clemency consideration."

Although commutation of sentence is an "extraordinary remedy that is rarely used," that's about to change.

Cole said the Justice Department wants state bar associations to "assist potential candidates for executive clemency" by "assembling effective and appropriate commutation petitions."

He described qualified clemency candidates as non-violent, low-level drug offenders who were not involved in gang or cartel activity; first-time offenders; and those without an extensive criminal history.

Qualified candidates should have a "clean record in prison," not pose a threat to public safety and  face life or "near-life" sentences that are "excessive under current law."

The goal is to give these prisoners "a fresh start," Cole said.

The expanded use of clemency is necessary to alleviate what Cole described as the "crushing" federal prison population," which has increased 800 percent over the past 30 years and currently totals nearly 216,000 inmates, more than half of whom are drug offenders.  The federal prison system currently operates at 33 percent over capacity system-wide, Cole said.

"Every dollar we spend at the Department of Justice on prisons -- and last year we spent about $6.5 billion on prisons -- is a dollar we cannot spend supporting our prosecutors and law enforcement agents in their fight against violent crime, drug cartels, public corruption, financial fraud, human trafficking, and child exploitation, just to mention a few. In other words, if we don’t find a solution to the federal prison population problem, public safety is going to suffer."

Cole noted that commutations are not pardons, exonerations, or forgiveness. They reduce the length of the sentence, putting former convicts back into society.

In addition to getting low-level drug offenders out of prison, the Justice Department also is focused on "reentry" programs that prepare inmates for life on the outside.

"We cannot simply release more than half a million people back into society -- some of whom have limited skills and inadequate education -- and expect that, on their own, they will be able to put their lives together, obtain jobs paying a livable wage, obtain housing, and become supportive and productive members of their community," Cole said.

How many of these low level drug offenders had their charges reduced in a plea bargain?

Especially when others are paying.

Study: Liberals drink more alcohol than conservatives

A

Apparently, being liberal is thirsty work

sobering new study published by the Journal of Wine Economics — yes, there is a Journal of Wine Economics — finds that alcohol consumption in American states rises as the population’s politics becomes more liberal.

The study by Pavel Yakovlev and Walter P. Guessford of Duquesne University in Pennsylvania shows a direct correlation between political beliefs and the demand for alcohol. The study compares sales of alcoholic beverages against the political leanings of a state's members of Congress, as ranked by liberal organizations Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE).

The research reveals that states with more liberal representatives like Nevada tend to consume up to three times more alcohol per head than more politically conservative states like Arkansas and Utah:

The study concludes:

In this study, we show that liberal ideology has a statistically significant positive association with the consumption of alcohol in the United States even after controlling for economic, demographic, and geographic differences across states.

These findings are consistent with other recent studies in other parts of the world showing that people with socialist views tend to drink more.

One 2002 study found that Russian socialists were significantly more likely than anti-socialists to drink alcohol frequently. Another 2006 survey of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine found that adults with anti-communist views were less likely to drink, smoke, or take drugs than their pro-communist peers.

The authors of this latest study offer two theories to explain this divergence in behavior. One possibility is that people of a more liberal persuasion tend to be more open to new experiences, such as the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Another possibility is that people living in more liberal states or countries may feel more confident in government health care and social welfare to pick up the pieces if drinking leads to health or social problems.

Registration for Confiscation

How the Democrats have changed

I have a plan to destroy America [Richard D. Lamm, former governor of Colorado] 
WorlNet Daily ^ | July 11, 2006 | Richard D. Lamm 

Posted on July 11, 2006 6:47:08 AM PDT 

Editor's note: In 2004, Richard D. Lamm, former governor of Colorado, addressed a conference sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington. The following remarks are reprinted with his permission.

Richard. D. Lamm

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that "an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide." Here is my plan:
We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. History shows, in my opinion, that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon – all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans."
I would then invent "multiculturalism" and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.
We can make the United States a "Hispanic Quebec" without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently, "The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved, not by tolerance, but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically, and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together." I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor. It is important to insure that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America reinforcing their differences, rather than Americans emphasizing their similarities.
Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated – I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50 percent dropout rate from school.
I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was all the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.
I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would "celebrate diversity." "Diversity" is a wonderfully seductive word. It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they are not killing each other. A "diverse," peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia. Look at the ancient Greeks. Dorf's "World History" tells us: "The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus, and all Greeks venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet, all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors ... (local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions ...)" If we can put the emphasis on the "pluribus," instead of the "unum," we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.
Then I would place all these subjects off-limits – make it taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to "heretic" in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like "racist", "xenophobe" halt argument and conversation. Having made America a bilingual-bicultural country, having established multiculturalism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of "victimology," I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra – "because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good." I would make every individual immigrant sympatric and ignore the cumulative impact.
Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson's book "Mexifornia" – this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. So please, please – if you feel that America deserves to be destroyed – please, please – don't buy this book! This guy is on to my plan. "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and U.S. media and foreign policy critic.

Infinite Arrogance

Fred Reed on the bloated, out-of-control government in the US.

Oh lord. Oh lord. Can the government do anything right? There is no evidence for it. None. Everything it touches turns to grotesque failure. It hurts me to contemplate the federal reigning monstrosity in the Yankee Capital. I may have to send out for a bottle of Padre Kino red to get me through it. The Great Purple Father is the worst wine known to man, thirty-nine cents a trainload. Never mind. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Nothing works, government-wise. Ponder healthcare, if you can stand it. One approach to keeping people alive and healthy is national healthcare, which many countries, such as France, have and it works. It’s because grown-ups run it. Or you can have private healthcare, which the US had and, though it was way overpriced and unwieldy, strangled by paperwork and corruption, more or less worked, sort of. 

So the gummint comes up with Obamacare, that doesn’t work at all. The feds can’t even write the freaking computer program. Yes, here in the world’s greatest technological power. We ought to contract the software to Guatemala, which couldn’t do it either but would cost less.
The War on Drugs—another disaster. A half century, billions of dollars, countless stupid laws, Mexico a war zone. Result? Every drug known to man, woman, or hermaphrodite is for sale at great prices in every high school in America. Another triumph of private enterprise over governmental regulation. If Washington tried to provide free drugs, it couldn’t come close. No one would be able to get so much as an aspirin. 

Race relations. Another charred ruin. Better than a half century into the Great Society, huge numbers of blacks live trapped in urban Bantustans, Newark, Detroit, Birmingham, Philadelphia, barely literate if at all, unemployed and unemployable, bastardy almost universal, utterly dependent on federal charity, without the slightest hope that any of this will change. If Washington had deliberately tried to make a greater mess, it couldn’t have. 

Open borders. Another train wreck started, stage-managed, and supported by Washington. The merest glance at the outside world would show that mixing immiscible peoples regularly results in strife, division, decline, and, often, civil war. Coming to a theater near you. Merry Christmas. 

The military. A trillion withering green ones a year and we get forces that can’t beat a few pissed-off goatherds with AKs. Which actually is a good thing since they shouldn’t be trying. A chronicle of unmitigated failure, and always for the same reason: trying to use shiny toys to whip whole countries that don’t want us there. Hey, if it doesn’t work, let’s do it again.
And now Washington wants wars with Iran and China when it can’t beat Yemen. You have to concede a certain logic here: If you can’t defeat Afghanistan, a billion Han Chinese will be a cakewalk. 

Economic policy. If any. Washington drives the country bankrupt, colludes with Wall Street, to the extent that there is a distinction between Washington and Wall Street, and brings on the subprime crash. The swine tell us that we are the greatest economic powerhouse known to creation, while unemployment is ghastly, college grads have to live with their parents, food stamps spread, and the middle class lives paycheck to paycheck. Oh thank you, thank you.
Constitutional government. Gone. Some of us remember it, as a trembling octogenarian remembers ardor in the back seat of his ’53 Chevy. The young will know it only as an exotic idea. Bush II began the serious bleeding. Obama, the first African-American president and much more African than American, opens the larger veins. 

Unfettered surveillance of absolutely everything, militarized police, the military as private presidential army, searches without probable or indeed any cause, photo ID required to buy train tickets, on and on. 

Perhaps worse, the endless regulation by Washington, either directly or by federal pressure, of everything anybody ever does. The country was founded on the idea that most things were none of the government’s damned business. Today, everything is the government’s business. There is virtually nothing that cannot be controlled by some level of government. 

Why is the use of steroids by baseball players of concern to Washington? Are bulked-up hitters a threat to the commonweal?

Read the rest here  http://takimag.com/article/infinite_arrogance_infinite_incompetence_fred_reed/print#ixzz2russHgFU

The proof will be in the crime/murder statistics.

City set to drop stop-frisk appeal

Mayor de Blasio is poised to drop the city’s appeal of a federal court ruling that found the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices violated the rights of minorities.

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg filed the appeal last fall before leaving office.

Rev. Al Sharpton, a stop-and-frisk critic, confirmed de Blasio’s move.

“This is a big breakthrough. We should not be using any police tactics to masquerade racial profiling,” Sharpton said.

De Blasio is expected to announce the withdrawal of the suit at a noon press conference at City Hall, sources said.

The left often says when confronted by opposition to a intrusive law that if you did nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about, right? 

Who is willing to bet that there will be no spike in murder in the black communities?

The Russians saw the weak horse coming back in 2008

US briefs Nato on Russian 'nuclear treaty breach'

By Jonathan MarcusBBC diplomatic correspondent

Russia has been accused by the US of breaching a key arms control treaty banning medium-range nuclear missiles.

According to reports in the New York Times, citing US officials, Russia has been conducting flight tests since 2008 of a ground-launched cruise missile.

Such a test would fall under the treaty's parameters.

The US has not publicly stated that Moscow is in breach of the treaty but it has now briefed its Nato allies on the issue.

Washington is also reported to have raised concerns with the Russians several times during the past year but has been told that there is no issue to be resolved.

'Key component'

A Nato official contacted by the BBC responded to the reports by noting that "compliance with arms control treaties is a serious matter".

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the official said, was "a key component of Euro-Atlantic security, and compliance with arms control treaties is fundamental to building mutual trust and confidence, as is increased transparency in our dialogue with Russia".

The 1987 INF Treaty was one of the key arms control agreements of the Cold War years.

It eliminated an entire category of nuclear-armed weapons; land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges of between 500km and 5,500km (310 miles and 3,400 miles).

This encompassed US Pershing and Cruise missiles based in Europe, along with the then Soviet Union's SS-20 systems.

Today Russia's missile inventory is complex, often with versions of land, sea and air-launched missiles that bear strong family resemblances.

Some experts believe that the cruise missile in question is the R-500; derived from the land-based Iskander-K.

Douglas Barrie, aerospace analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, said that "if the weapon is nuclear-capable, then its range is likely to drive a large coach and horses through the INF Treaty's restrictions".

He added: "There's no doubt that the Russians can package a nuclear warhead in a weapon of this diameter, as they've done it before."

However, he noted that "open source reporting has so far associated this system generally with a conventional non-nuclear payload".

There have been persistent reports that the Russians are in some way breaching the terms of the INF Treaty.

Up to now these have focused on the testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles at much shorter ranges that would fall within those covered by the INF Treaty.

Arms control experts have tended to dismiss these allegations.

This latest controversy, though, relates to a different sort of missile; a cruise type weapon.

This episode also demonstrates the complex technical, diplomatic and political aspects involved.

The Russians are no great fans of the INF agreement which they believe - some 26 years after it was signed - reflected a very different world.

It only eliminated these weapons from the US and Soviet/Russian arsenals and, since then, several countries have developed missiles within this range.

The issue is a sensitive one diplomatically, with the US struggling to try to craft a better relationship with Moscow.

The so-called "re-set" in ties between the US and Russia has come and gone.

They can work together on issues like Syria and Iran, although with very different perspectives and goals.

Further progress on arms control looks unlikely but the last thing the US wants to do now is to call the Russians out publicly for cheating.

However, there are also domestic US political aspects to this row.

More conservative elements in Congress have been pushing on the issue of Russian non-compliance with the INF Treaty, seeking to introduce legislation to compel the administration to report on Moscow's behaviour.

One of the great arms control successes of the Cold War era is fast becoming an irritant in relations between Washington and Moscow.

The Real State of the Union

From Simon Black:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens:

This summer we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.

This senseless, destructive war was started and championed by politicians who cared nothing for the 9 million people who lost their lives.

And in doing so, they began a century of warfare which continues to this day.

Our military industrial complex is larger than ever. We have nearly 2 million troops and national guardsmen, plus 3.5 million civilians employed in the defense sector.

With such awesome capabilities, we continue to resort to violence and death to exact political goals which benefit a tiny elite.

All of this has created a police state in the Land of the Free that is a far cry from the country we all grew up in.

Your government has spawned a culture of fear and intimidation. Nearly every federal agency, including the Fish and Wildlife Service, has its own gun-toting police force to pistol-whip citizens into submission.

And we’re stocking up. Your government has recently procured 1.6 BILLION rounds of hollow-point ammunition to supplement our existing supplies.

But frankly, we don’t need guns to harass citizens.

Our tax authorities have become more threatening than mafia warlords. The plunder is so severe that record numbers of Americans are renouncing their citizenship and leaving the country.

There are now dozens of federal, state, and local agencies and courts which have the power to confiscate your assets without any due process.

In addition to your house, your business, and your savings, we also have the authority to take your children away from you as if they are property of the state.

We are here to tell you what you can and cannot put in your own body, or whether you can collect rainwater that falls on own property.

In fact, on any given business day, the federal government issues hundreds of pages of new ‘rules’, proposed regulations, draft bills, executive orders, and/or regulatory notices.

And if you are not compliant with these rules, you may be committing a crime. Whether you know it or not.

When this nation was founded, there were four federal crimes on the books. Today there are THOUSANDS. Plus we have millions of government employees at all levels to enforce the penalties.

All of this, of course, is financed by you the tax slave.

You (plus unborn generations) are the poor suckers charged with paying off the national debt we politicians have created.

Officially the debt is just north of $17 trillion. But if you include Social Security and pension shortfalls, the figure is several times higher.

You’ll never know for sure because we have become masters of deceit regarding official statistics, whether inflation, unemployment, or our liabilities.

But the situation is so dire that the Congressional Budget Office projects the Social Security Administration’s disability insurance trust fund to RUN OUT by 2017.

We get by year after year by increasing the debt. And at well over 100% of GDP, we have truly reached the point of no return.

We are now in a position where we must default. Either we must default on our national debt, or we must default on our obligations to you the citizens.

We may end up stealing your savings. Robbing your Social Security. Taxing you to death. Or simply inflating away the value of our debt.

Naturally, we’re going to screw you in the process somehow… so be prepared for that. Especially the inflationary tidal wave that’s coming.

Our central bank has expanded its balance sheet at an unprecedented pace, creating massive asset bubbles in its wake. These asset bubbles have disproportionately benefited the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Such wanton money printing has also been tremendously destructive to our credibility. Other nations worry about our reckless irresponsibility. That’s why we keep spying on them.

Make no mistake: the consequences of our actions are here. And the days of the United States as the world’s dominant superpower are finished.

As the decline hastens, we will struggle to sell our debt to the world and to ship our dollars abroad. Fewer nations will be interested in our empty promises.

And without the generosity of other nations loaning us money at record low interest rates that fail to keep pace with inflation, you will really be screwed.

When this happens, you can absolutely count on us to clamp down even harder on the economy and control even more of your lives. For your own good, of course.

No, this may not be the country that you all grew up in. But it is the state of our union… whatever remains of it.

And so my fellow Americans, I urge you to grab your ankles and get ready for a little ‘shared sacrifice’.

But don’t worry about me, or my senior staff. We will leave government with cushy pensions, $750,000 speaking fees, board seats on public companies, and top positions in the industries that we have accommodated at your expense.

And of course I will be paid handsomely for the arrogant memoirs I will write in which I deny any responsibility for the shit I’ve gotten you all into.

So when I say “shared sacrifice”, I really mean “your sacrifice”.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless these United States of America.