And the question remains... Is he or isn't he...

We're all intrigued by the debate in Mexico over whether the huge public stake in Citigroup means the bank is essentially owned by the U.S. government and therefore cannot legally operate in Mexico. The Financial Times reported on the issue Tuesday, saying Mexico could force ailing Citigroup, which "eked out" a $101 million profit in the third quarter, to sell its Banamex (Banco Nacional de Mexico) subsidiary.

Already, Citi is among "the banking system's weakest links," as Paul Krugman wrote Sunday. Banamex accounts for 15 percent of Citigroup's global profits and is estimated to be worth $20 billion, according to the FT. It also "makes up the biggest part of Citigroup's Latin American portfolio," Marketplace reported in a segment on the controversy aired Monday.


Apart from the implications for Citi shareholders, the dispute highlights the awareness abroad of the extraordinary government interventions in the storied American free market, a phenomenon, it seems to me, that many Americans haven't fully understood (or emotionally accepted). Mexicans, who still celebrate the nationalization of their oil sector, know a nationalization when they see one. But here in the U.S., few see President Obama as not only commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, but also CEO of its largest banks, automakers and insurers.

Like the saying goes, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck".... Is it a duck?

Brazil vows Olympic security following Rio violence...

At least 14 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, including two policemen who died when their helicopter was brought down by warring drug gangs.

When Rio de Janeiro was named the host of the 2016 Olympics earlier this month it seemed like a fresh start for one of the world's most vibrant, but violent cities.

But a weekend of gang battles that spilled out of favelas, or shantytowns, and onto streets just a few miles from where many of the Olympic events will be held is highlighting concerns over security during the Games.

At least 12 people were killed on Saturday, including two policemen who died when their helicopter was brought down by warring drug gangs after police tried to halt shootouts between the rivals. And the violence extended into Sunday when two men were killed by police exchanging fire with alleged gang members.

Rio authorities are acutely aware they need to improve their record on policing, especially now that the Olympic torch is shining on them, and they struck a defensive note on Saturday.

"We told the International Olympic Committee that this is not easy and they know that," said Rio Governor Sergio Cabral. "We don't want just to be ready for special days – for that we can put 40,000 police on the streets. I told them we want to get to 2016 and have a peaceful Rio de Janeiro before, during, and after the Games."

In other words, Mr. Cabral is aiming for marked improvement over the Pan American Games that Rio hosted in 2007, when tens of thousands of police and soldiers had to be deployed to help ensure there were no problems.

A new country?

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has boasted by 2016 Brazil will be another country, and that the favelas will be proper communities where residents have the same rights as everyone else – title deeds to their homes, running water and sewage, transport links and security, among them.

But few people here believe life in the 1,000 or so favelas that dominate large parts of the city will change thanks to the Olympics.

"I worked on a documentary in this favela five years ago and we spent a lot of time with the gangsters and nothing has changed since then," said Tom Phillips, the co-producer of Dancing With the Devil, a recent film about the relationship between traffickers and police. "Unless the police go in and stay in, instead of just going in when there is trouble, nothing will change."

Rio is attempting to bring community policing to favelas and their efforts, although in just a handful of areas, have been positive. By stationing officers inside the community rather than just storming it when problems break out, police have gained a measure of confidence and credibility.
But no one knows for how long. Previous attempts at community policing broke down when petty corruption and small infractions among officers undermined the effort.

In one experiment, also on the South Side, 70 percent of the participating officers were accused of wrongdoing and removed. The project eventually fell apart and violence returned.

Brazilian president Lula de Silva is walking a tight rope and tittering between capitalist and socialist reforms. With one of the top 10 economies in the world and an enormous and wealthy territory, the world wishes Brazil only the best. Hopefully Lula will be the man for the job.

And while we're on the topic, never should President Obama be compared with Adolph Hiter, remember that Hitler had the Olympics come to Berlin.

Nobel Peace Prize Called 'Left-wing Charade'

The Nobel Peace Prize has become "worthless" and should be overshadowed by an award named for a man who truly did achieve peace — Ronald Reagan, according to former White House official Jeffrey Lord.

Writing in The American Spectator after Barack Obama became the latest recipient of the Nobel, Lord observes: "The decision to give the award to Obama was made by a group of Norwegian parliamentarians dominated by socialists."

The prize "has become essentially worthless, a charade for left-wing Norwegian politicians to award like-minded liberals and liberalism under the guise that the award in some objective fashion determines an individual's contributions to peace," writes Lord, who was a political director in the Reagan administration.

"It's easy to cite the current story. Obama today, Al Gore yesterday, Jimmy Carter the day before that. . . Reagan? Thatcher? Pope John Paul II? George W. Bush? Of course not.

"It's time for the Reagan Peace Prize. Actually, it's past time."

Lord cites a number of Nobel recipients whose efforts at promoting peace ultimately resulted in failure, beginning in 1919 with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. He was honored for his work on the disastrous Treaty of Versailles ending World War I and the League of Nations, which Lord described as "an embarrassing failure."

"The hard cold facts of history illustrate that the peace through strength policies initiated by President Reagan were a success," says Lord, now a journalist and author whose works have appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal and National Review.

"His belief in the importance of human freedom, in directly opposing tyranny and protecting liberty, combined with the maintenance and, when needed, projection of a strong military, ended the Cold War and the 'evil empire' that was the Soviet Union.

"Reagan's strategy freed millions of East Europeans enslaved since the end of the Second World War, which in turn was brought on by the inexcusably wrong-headed, naive if well-intentioned policies of one Nobel Peace Prize winner after another."

Recipients of the Reagan Prize would be chosen by a panel of conservative Americans drawn from the worlds of politics, journalism, entrepreneurship and entertainment. And it would be presented in Berlin, a "symbol of Reagan's successes: the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union that built it, and the Cold War that made that Wall and all it stood for possible," Lord writes.

As for who might win the award, Lord suggests likely candidates would be "the three Iranian dissidents known only by their initials in current news reports, all identified as being sentenced to death for protesting Iran's rigged elections."
Lord concludes: "It's time to award real prestige to those who achieve real peace. It's time for the Reagan Prize."

It's about time we stop playing the guilt trip and go by what's right instead of what some slack jawed leftist may consider politically correct. It's time we push back... Hard!

For Love of our Freedom, Some give All...

Thank you.... God Bless you.

... and for apologizing our President received the Nobel Peace Prize?

If he truly feels the need to apologize, he should go to each of these 20 cemeteries and apologize to each and every man and woman interred on foreign soil for embarrassing his office.

American Arrogance in alphabetical order

1. The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne , France . A total of 2289 of our military dead.

2. The American Cemetery at Ardennes , Belgium . A total of 5329 of our dead.

3. The American Cemetery at Brittany, France . A total of 4410 of our military dead. Excuse us.

4. Brookwood , England American Cemetery. A total of 468 of our dead.

5. Cambridge , England . 3812 of our military dead.

6. Epinal , France American Cemetery. A total of 5525 of our Military dead.

7. Flanders Field , Belgium . A total of 368 of our military.

8. Florence , Italy . A total of 4402 of our military dead.

9. Henri-Chapelle , Belgium . A total of 7992 of our military dead.

10. Lorraine , France . A total of 10,489 of our military dead.

11. Luxembourg , Luxembourg . A total of 5076 of our military dead.

12. Meuse-Argonne. A total of 14246 of our military dead.

13. Netherlands , Netherlands . A total of 8301 of our military dead.

14. Normandy , France . A total of 9387 of our military dead.

15. Oise-Aisne , France . A total of 6012 of our military dead.

16. Rhone , France . A total of 861 of our military dead.

17. Sicily , Italy . A total of 7861 of our military dead.

18. Somme , France . A total of 1844 of our military dead.

19. St. Mihiel , France . A total of 4153 of our military dead.

20. Suresnes , France . a total of 1541 of our military dead.

Apologize to no one. Remind those who call us arrogant of our sacrifice and don't confuse arrogance with leadership. If I added correctly the count is 104,366 dead. And we have to watch an American elected leader who apologizes to Europe and the Middle East that our country is "arrogant"!

HOW MANY EUROPEANS ARE BURIED ON OUR SOIL, DEFENDING US AGAINST OUR ENEMIES?? WE DON'T ASK FOR PRAISE ... BUT WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE!!

Five Rules for Men to Follow to a Happy Life...

1. It's important to have a woman, who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.

2. It's important to have a woman, who can make you laugh.

3. It's important to have a woman, who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.

4. It's important to have a woman, who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.

5. It's very, very important that these four women do not know each other.

NATO ... Paying for Peace in Afghanistan...

NATO officially denies that any of its members pay insurgents in Afghanistan for peace, but military sources said Thursday that the practice is widespread among foreign forces fighting the Taliban.

The Times newspaper said 10 French troops killed in Sarobi, near Kabul, last year had not properly assessed the risks, because their Italian predecessors never told them they paid the Taliban not to attack them.

The Italian government described the British daily's report as "totally baseless" and said it had "never authorized any kind of money payment to members of the Taliban insurrection in Afghanistan". But a senior Afghan official suggested otherwise. "I certainly can confirm that we were aware that the Italian forces were paying the opposition in Sarobi not to attack them," he stated on condition of anonymity. "We have reports of similar deals in (western) Herat province by Italian troops based there under NATO umbrella.

"It's a deal: you don't attack me, I don't attack you," he said, adding that the practice was passed on between foreign forces and it was likely that senior commanders were either involved or turned a blind eye to it. "It is simply a matter of buying time and surviving," he added. A French Army spokesman in Kabul, Lieutenant Colonel Jackie Fouquereau, said that: "The French do not give money to insurgents."

NATO spokesman in Afghanistan General Eric Tremblay said he was "not aware" of such practices and had no information about the Italian case. "It's not a counter-insurgency tactic. But the Afghan government can sometimes make local arrangements. If it's done, it's more by the Afghan government than the international forces," he added.

But according to a number of Western and Afghan officers, all speaking on condition of anonymity, the politically sensitive practice is fairly widespread among NATO forces in Afghanistan. One Western military source told of payments made by Canadian soldiers stationed in the violent southern province of Kandahar, while another officer spoke of similar practices by the German army in northern Kunduz.

"I can tell you that lots of countries under the NATO umbrella operating out in rural parts of Afghanistan do pay the militants for not attacking them," the senior Afghan official said. He added that it "seems to be the practice with military forces from some NATO countries, excluding the US forces under NATO, the British forces and the whole coalition forces" under the US-led "Operation Enduring Freedom".

"I think more than 50 percent of NATO forces deployed in rural Afghanistan have such deals or at least have struck such deals" to ensure peace, the official said. He said he did not want to say precisely how many but one Western officer said: "As it's not very positive and not officially recognized, it's never spoken about openly.

It's a bit shameful. "Consequently, it's sometimes not communicated properly between the old unit and the new unit that comes in to relieve them," which may have happened between the Italians and the French. According to The Times, the Italian secret service gave tens of thousands of dollars to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the peace in the Sarobi region.

The French soldiers had been deployed there for less than a month when 10 of them were killed and 21 others injured on August 18, 2008 in one of the deadliest ambushes by insurgents against foreign forces.

Where wars have no mission and no defined goals, money is a good alternative to wasting so many lives. We need to stop playing games and wasting our precious national treasure. Let's declare victory and get out of Afghanistan.