It seems the Obama administration is either purposefully trying to start an economic world war or he’s just an idiot. Flip a coin, because which one it is won’t make a dimes worth of difference. According to a post from lewrockwell.com, Obama is using the Toyota recall as a weapon against Japan.

The Obama administration, according to WMR’s Asian sources, is waging an economic warfare campaign, coupled with industrial sabotage, against Japan through a pre-planned operation directed against the Japanese automobile manufacturer, Toyota.

WMR has learned that the Obama administration authorized the anti-Toyota campaign as a warning shot to Japan over its reformist government’s insistence that the U.S. pull its military troops out of Okinawa. WMR has learned that Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, have decided to turn the screws on Japan, not only for auto market leverage, but also to punish Japan over the insistence by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and the newly-elected anti-U.S. military mayor of Nago on Okinawa to move the U.S. military off of Okinawa.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former congressman from Peoria, Illinois, and who is owned and operated by Peoria-based Caterpillar, whose major competitor is Japan’s Kubota Tractor Corporation, kicked off the anti-Toyota campaign when he stated that all Toyoya owners should stop driving their vehicles and return them to the dealership for a fix. LaHood was referring to a problem with some uncontrolled acceleration problems with some Toyota vehicles. However, LaHood painted a wide brush in his comments about Toyotas when the problem, which resulted in a voluntary recall of millions of Toyota vehicles, including the popular Camry and Corolla, by the Japanese auto giant, affected only a small fraction of Toyota vehicles. LaHood has also threatened Toyota with unspecified civil penalties.

Asian intelligence agencies have discovered that LaHood was implementing a White House operation to grab a major portion of Toyota’s market share and hand it over the General Motors and Ford. The Obama administration, through its bailout of GM, has become a virtual auto company and, therefore, is playing economic hardball with Japan. Ford also benefited from the Obama administration’s stimulus package. The chief architects of the anti-Toyota campaign, according to our sources, are Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House Chief of Staff Emanuel.

By increasing GM’s viability at the expense of Toyota, Geithner sees a potential windfall when the federal government sells its share of GM stock to the public. The corporate media have played along with the Obama administration’s anti-Toyota and anti-Japan operation by hyping the safety issues with Toyota’s vehicles, especially the popular Prius hybrid vehicle. The Obama administration has decided on economic warfare against Toyota to restore GM as the world’s number one auto manufacturer, a position enjoyed by GM until 2007 when Toyota overtook it in sales.

via Obama Waging Economic Warfare on Several Fronts, Including Japan.

I’m so glad Obama is so good at the foreign policy stuff. I mean there has been so many great foreign policy achievements since he came into office. He got our troops our of Iraq as promised. What? He didn’t? OK, well at least we are not acting like a belligerent nation dropping bombs all over the middle east. Are serious? He’s had more drone attacks in one year than Bush did in eight? Yeah, but he sat down with Iranians and work out a peaceful solution to the tensions between our countries. What do you mean Hillary just turned up the heat saying Iran is a dictatorship?

Eh boy.

You mean with all the chills that went up people’s legs, Obama pretty much sucks at foreign policy? Now he is going to start an economic war with our biggest debt holders?

Under Obama we just sold weapons to Taiwan, which angered China. Obama and Hillary both keep sticking their fingers in the eye of the Chinese government about their censorship of the internet. Obama also imposed tariffs on steel and on tires from China.

China already dumped some of our debt, which made Japan our biggest debt holder. Just one of those countries dumping our debt could collapse our economy. What happens if they both do it?

Now we are instigating a fight with Japan using Toyota, because we don’t want to remove our base from Okinawa. I thought we weren’t an empire. Surely, if we weren’t an empire, we’d have no reason to use coercion against the Japanese. If they want us out, we should leave. Better yet, we should not even have waited to be asked. Considering our finances, we should have closed that base long ago.

Have you ever felt like politics in the US is just bumper bowling? The people bounce back and forth between the two parties, all the while moving down the lane towards tyranny. Everyone votes for Republicans when they preach the virtues of small government. Then when they realize Republicans want to use the fear of some foreign boogieman to take their civil liberties away and to maintain an empire, they bounce back to a liberal Democrat who claims to be against war and to be for civil liberties.

Soon the people realize the Democrats are just another bumper keeping the people on the path towards tyranny. Of course, now the neocons over at HotAir are coming out against the possible civil rights violations that the Obama administration is considering. These are the same neocons who loved ignoring constitutional rights when they were in power. The truth is both parties would prefer to take your liberties all at once, but the chance of a revolution forces them to do it slowly.

After the people (No not me.) voted for Obama in hopes that he would end the wars and bring the troops home, they quickly found out that Obama expanded the wars, increased bombings and is now looking to make indefinite imprisonment the law of the land. Don’t worry though, Lindsey Graham, who believes himself representative of the real Republican party, backs Obama.

From HotAir.com.

As Allahpundit noted last night, the push to create an indefinite-detention law to allow the government to hold al-Qaeda terrorists is not a new idea, but it is a bad idea. It springs from a return to the law-enforcement model and the desperation of an administration that has begun to feel the limitations of their approach. That’s why the White House has once again begun floating trial balloons to which it hopes Congress will react with legislation, and unfortunately some on Capitol Hill — including one prominent Republican — want to provide that cover:

The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.

Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a “preventive detention” statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general “law of war” principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.

However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C. Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Indefinite detention law a bad idea.

Wonder if Allahpundit was saying it was a bad idea when Bush was ignoring the fourth, fifth, six and eighth amendments of the Bill of Rights? Oh, that’s right. It doesn’t apply to enemy combatants. The founders believed these to be natural rights, but to neocons it must mean natural born citizen’s rights. Wait. Wait.

Andy McCarthy tries to do a snow job on Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh al-Marri:

Jose Padilla (who, unlike Abdulmutallab, is an American citizen) was designated an enemy combatant and held without trial after being arrested inside the United States; so was Ali al-Marri. Ultimately, both were prosecuted in the civilian system — but only years later, after the intelligence community had ample opportunity to exhaust their capacity to provide useful information.

In fact, they were put back in the criminal justice system because the courts were about to wipe the floor with the Bush administration over Padilla, and as I’ve reported before, the Obama administration over al-Marri. They weren’t put back in because their capacity to provide useful information had been “exhausted.” What I love about this line of argument is that it directly contradicts the ones Republicans make in favor of detaining Umar Abdulmutallab in this manner. Republicans argue that military detention allows the government to get otherwise “perishable” intelligence quickly, but Padilla was held for three and a half years in military custody, al-Marri for nearly eight. That’s some pretty non-perishable intelligence.

via TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect.

I forgot. They aren’t even meant for all citizens. All that has to happen to take away these natural rights is for anyone in the government to claim you have terrorist connections.  I guess under Republicans it’s up to neocons to decide who gets rights and who doesn’t. Under Obama is it Holder, Van Jones, SEIU or some other socialist group?

So everyone thinks Obama has already blown his re-election. Republicans have been stacking up wins so far, and it’s expected for them to have a great year this year. What is the main issue voters are worried about? I think it’s safe to say the deficit and the economy, so although neither party cares or will do anything about either, who actually says something about it?

President Barack Obama praised lawmakers for restoring a measure that aims to bring federal spending under control in his weekly radio address Saturday, but expressed concern that politics may still get in the way of reducing the massive deficit.

Mr. Obama also vowed in his weekly speech to press ahead with an executive order to create a new bipartisan fiscal commission charged with recommending ways to reduce the deficit–a measure that has faced opposition from some Republicans.

“After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” Mr. Obama said.

“It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that’s what we must do.”

via Obama Touts Return of ‘Paygo’ – WSJ.com.

Lol, I know. Obama seriously must be the most arrogant human alive. To believe  you can spend deficits, which I think would have been unimaginable just two years ago,  and then expect people to believe you actually care or will do something about deficits, has to be the height of arrogance.

Well, at least we can count on the Republicans right? They’ll really go after the deficits.

Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) in the GOP’s weekly address on criticized the Obama administration’s push to prosecute the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other co-defendants in a Manhattan civilian court.

Eh boy. Really guys? Everyone is worried about the economy and either the job they have or don’t have, and you are trying to ride this pony to victory again? Sorry, it is not going to work. This boogieman isn’t as scary as it once was, and it will not get you back into power. What do you think scares Americans more? The fact that our entire country is going to collapse under debt, or that the next underpants bomber might sneak through the strip show at the airport?

Yesterday, I was very disappointed with Glenn Beck’s smear of Debra Medina, who is running for Texas Governor. Apparently, Beck would rather have Obama or any other progressive in the White House as well as the majority in congress, as long as they say all 9/11 Truthers are whack jobs and should be publicly castrated.

Today, my mood was lightened by a great post by the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. Click over to the Tenth Amendment Center for the full post. It’s definitely worth your time.

But, you know what? I’m not a detective, and I don’t have time to study the science, the clues, the mystery behind global warming or the global warming swindle as many people call it. So, if you had me on your TV show (sorry I wasn’t available when your producers asked last year, but I think my recommendation for a substitute worked out great!), and asked me:

“Michael – do you believe in this global warming scam, do you believe what the mainstream scientists are telling us about global warming – yes or no!?”

I’d have to answer this way:

“I’ve heard a lot of reports from reputable people on both sides of that issue. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that. What I do know is this, I don’t trust the government to tell me the truth.”

In response, would you then say that you’re “writing me off” and “writing the Tenth Amendment Center off” because I haven’t taken a position on this – and that a better source for state sovereignty information is now the Huffington Post?”

Well, that’s basically what you did with Debra Medina on your program this week. The one person in the Texas campaign who’s had the courage to speak out about the Constitution, about nullification and interposition, about the founders, about the principles of liberty that this country was founded upon. That one person is “written off” by you because she hasn’t “taken a position on” a conspiracy theory that may or may not be of interest to her or her campaign?

Wow. Obviously the Constitution isn’t very important to you. A person’s stance on a conspiracy theory is. Or maybe this is just your way of trying to marginalize one of the few candidates in the entire country running their whole campaign on the original view of the Constitution.

Is that it, Glenn? Because it sure seems that way.

Maybe the real conspiracy isn’t 9-11 or Global Warming or anything of the sort. Maybe it’s all about the establishment media, and people like yourself – is this your way of letting the hardcore constitutionalists out here know that you really prefer the establishment candidates?

What should be more important is a person’s stance on the Constitution. In fact, that’s ALL that voters should care about. Not their race, their background, their religious views, their positions on conspiracies or anything else. People are elected to follow the constitution – and nothing more.

What’s more important to you, Glenn – a person’s stance on the Constitution or their view of a conspiracy theory?

Don’t bother answering. You already have.

via A Question for Glenn Beck on Global Warming and Conspiracy | Tenth Amendment Center Blog.

Back in December I posted an article from Tony Blankley, where he talks about how Eisenhower sunk the British Empire by trashing the pound. You can view it here. In it I said Obama going to China talking tough about their government reminded me of the old Eazy-E lyric, “you come talkin that trash, we’ll pull ya card”. Well, last night, I saw this post on the EconomicPolicyJournal. Sounds like that card may get pulled.

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust People’s Liberation Army deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan, reports Reuters.

Interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine, published on Monday.

“Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease,” said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences.

“Just like two people rowing a boat, if the United States first throws the strokes into chaos, then so must we.”

Luo said Beijing could “attack by oblique means and stealthy feints” to make its point in Washington.

“For example, we could sanction them using economic means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds,” Luo said

via EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Chinese Military Waving the Dump U.S. Bonds Threat..

Then, as I was creating this post, I stumbled across this Business Insider post.

It appears that this time China’s posturing is for real.

Following up on our earlier post that Chinese military officials want to “punish” America by selling Treasuries, Asia Times Online is reporting that an explicit directive by the Chinese government has notified reserve managers to sell all risky US assets, including asset backed and corporates, and just hold on to explicitly guaranteed Treasuries and Agency debt.

via The Dumping Begins: Chinese Reserve Managers Notified That Any Non-USG Guaranteed Securities Must Be Divested.

Still counting on that Obama recovery? No matter which party you are in, you can thank your leaders for sinking this ship. If this is just posturing, it should be a blaring warning. China could sink us any time. It’s time people wake up and quit letting the two parties distract us by pointing fingers at each other.

We are trying to recover from a debt driven bubble, and Americans are cleaning up their personal debt. The problem is the government is borrowing 700% more than people are paying off. Makes you wonder why you should even get your house in order, when the government is mortgaging our futures away.

For every dollar in debt that Americans have paid off since they started cleansing their balance sheets in mid-2008, the U.S. government has borrowed more than $7. All the hard work by consumers to replenish their piggy banks may be for naught if big government budget deficits play havoc with the economy.

Last week’s federal budget didn’t provide much solace. The Obama administration projected that the federal debt could double over the next decade, prompting Moody’s Investors Service to warn that the pristine AAA credit rating of the U.S. “could come under downward pressure.”

Investors need to account for the burgeoning federal budget deficit as they save for retirement, college tuition or homes. Uncle Sam’s borrowing binge could set off a surge in inflation and push down the dollar, both of which would erode the value of savings. It could also push interest rates higher, hammering the value of the more than $1 trillion in Treasury bonds owned by households directly or through mutual funds. Income taxes, already set to rise, might have to climb further to help close the government’s budget gap.

The result could be what Laurence Siegel, director of the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute, calls a “triple whammy” of weak economic growth, higher inflation and higher tax bills. Inflation itself is a kind of tax; by driving up prices of assets like stocks and real estate, it triggers bigger capital-gains tax bills even when the assets barely keep pace with the higher cost of living.

via Protecting Yourself From the Giant New Deficit – WSJ.com.

This morning I was checking RT.com’s Youtube videos, and I saw that the Pentagon now is going to combat global warming. I guess this will be the “War on Climate Change” now. This is why Republicans are making a huge mistake when they think no military can be too big, not military budget can be too big, and no military policy can be a bad one.

Maybe Obama will now say to conservatives, “You don’t support the troops.”, when conservatives question money being wasted on a fake crisis. Believe me I used to think the same things when I was pro-war. I now realize that all government, whether domestic or military is looking to do one thing. That is to grow and gain more power. Like terrorism, global warming is the perfect boogeyman. This time they have the boogeyman for the left.

President Obama is hurrying to create military climate change command, apparently planning to spend a big chunk of increasingly scarce Defense Department funds on monitoring global warming. Obama and the Democratic Congress are setting the stage to focus the Pentagon on doomsday environmentalism.

via YouTube – RussiaToday’s Channel.

Update: I guess now that more proof is piling up that scientists have been manipulating data for 20 years, Obama is just going to use military to force global warming on us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwLL2Cjfed8

Just when you think the tea parties are having an effect, the Republican establishment shows how stupid they are.

Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street, trying to capitalize on an increasing sense of regret among executives at big financial institutions for backing Democrats in 2008.

In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks’ best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.

GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House’s populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.

Democrats have dominated Wall Street’s fund-raising circles in recent elections. Mr. Obama himself raised millions of dollars from employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other Wall Street firms.

Now, at least some Wall Street executives have reduced their political contributions to the Democratic Party and its candidates, according to fund-raising reports and interviews with executives at financial-services firms.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama’s efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

via Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors – WSJ.com.

Isn’t democracy grand? We have slime balls on all sides being controlled by Wall Street all the while plotting how they can deceive the average voter that they are trying to protect them. Obama’s White House is full of Wall Street insiders, so to believe they are going to hold Wall Street accountable is just silly. All that needs done to hold them accountable is allow them to fail.

Republicans are just asking to lose their momentum. They should not be begging Wall Street to allow them to be their laptop dogs. They should not be calling for caps on pay. They should be calling for the government to get out of the economy and out of the bailout business.

Just the other day I was having a discussion with my dad, where I said I don’t trust either party. I  said both parties want to take our liberties and control us. They are both bought and paid for by some special interest group. To this, my dad said I was becoming too cynical. In typical Neo-con fashion, he told me how evil the Democrats are and how Republicans are so much better.

A couple days later, I come across Bob Murphy’s post highlighting how George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a Republican and a “anti-war” Democrat, can care less about our Constitution. Despite the Bill of Rights, they believe all they have to do is label someone a terrorist, and they have the right to imprison the person without cause or trial. Now to take it one step further, they have the right to kill that person (could be you one day) based on their judgement alone. All they have to do is label you a terrorist or say you are helping terrorists and put you on their “hit list”. Considering how horrible they are at the no fly list, I hate to see how this list pans out.

Here’s Bob’s post.

What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?

I was having lunch with someone today (name being withheld in case he doesn’t want this broadcast) and we were musing over the contradiction in the average American’s mind. On the one hand, if you asked Americans to rate professions in terms of their morality or decency, politicians would come in at or near dead last, and if they beat out lawyers, that wouldn’t be much help–most politicians are lawyers.

But at the same time, when it comes to the life-and-death decisions that U.S. politicians make, most Americans give them the benefit of the doubt–often ridiculously so. Sure, they might have made a mistake in, say, invading Iraq, but it really was always about protecting Americans and freeing Iraqis from a brutal thug. The CIA guys just goofed, that’s all.

So anyway, my buddy asked something like, “At what point are Americans going to wake up and realize they can’t trust their government?”

My answer, “When it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”

Note that I wasn’t just trying to say something dramatic, at which point the snare drums kick in and lightning cracks in the background. I meant it quite seriously: The people in charge have to keep up appearances so long as it’s necessary for the overwhelming majority to actually trust that the system basically works. In contrast, in more totalitarian regimes, a large portion of the population knows full well that the rulers are evil, and they are kept in place by fear and helplessness. (They also might think there are no better alternatives.)

So with that in mind, let’s quote from today’s post by Glenn Greenwald. We have already learned that Americans won’t revolt–heck, won’t even vote against an incumbent–just because of worldwide CIA secret prisons and systematic torture of POWs. OK fine. What about this?

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest today reports that “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people.”…

But buried in Priest’s article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret “hit list” of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed…

Read the full post at Free Advice: What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?.

So back to the question Bob posed in his title, “What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?”  I am hoping that people are waking up to what our government has become, a corrupt, over grown, oppressive government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers.

It’s funny how people like my dad (his counterparts on the left do the same thing) will ascribe the most horrendous intentions to Democrats (some are justified), but he does not see the intentions of the Republicans. When I mentioned this article to him today and how easy it would be to label anyone a terrorist, he said, “Yeah, I can’t see that ever really happening.” Do you think it is just coincidence that our government found the perfect boogie man to get US citizens to give up their liberty, condone the suspension of habeas corpus and now kill off Americans at the President’s behest?

Like I said in my post about us living in the real world Matrix, this Democrat vs Republican scam is setup to get people to ignore what is really happening. By cheering on your team, you become too invested in winning to notice your team has the same intentions. Both teams want to take your liberty, enslave you to Washington and Wall Street, and all the while make you think it’s your choice.

So are you really free just because you get to choose between one party or the other, but you get the same result from both? Imagine if I said the following to you.  “You are free, baby. I don’t want to take your rights away. You are free to choose. I don’t care what three days a week you work for me, it’s your choice. Oh, and don’t worry about this gun pointed at you. It’s here to protect you from those evil people trying to harm what we got going on here. You sure are a lucky sum bitch to have me here protecting you like this. Ok, decide which days and get to work. I know I had to shoot one of our workers, but he was helping those evil people. I just know it. It was completely justified. Trust me.”

Would you still think you are free?

This is from a lecture Tom Woods gave about his book, Meltdown. Tom is an awesome presenter and makes boring topics entertaining. By the end of the lecture, you will understand exactly who caused the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and our current recession.

This is a Youtube playlist, so the next part will automatically start. It’s a little over an hour for the full lecture.