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Obama Chews Gum During D-Day Ceremonies, Sparks Twitter Outrage

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Photo Credit: AP / Pascal Rossignol, PoolBy Kellan Howell.

President Obama was caught on camera chewing gum during the D-Day ceremonies in France as Queen Elizabeth II was welcomed, and Twitter feeds worldwide exploded with criticism.

“Obama and his chewing-gum. Classy” one French user tweeted sarcastically.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APObama and Putin Appear Simultaneously on Big Screen at D-Day Ceremony, CNN’s Confusion Is Hilarious

By Michael Hausam.

This one, where you can better hear the audience reaction, is from RT News:

And this, with comments from the announcers, is from CNN:

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China And Putin May Have Just Screwed America’s Future, And Your Retirement With It

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Photo Credit: flickr / ohkylelAlthough receiving relatively little attention from the mainstream media, the Bank of China (BOC) just signed a non-dollar settlement deal with VTB, one of Russia’s largest commercial banks. The agreement will allow VTB and BOC to pay each in their domestic currency, removing the need for the US Dollar to settle the trade. This might not sound like much; but in terms of international trade and finance, it is huge. Since the Bretton-Woods agreement after WWII, nations have used the USD in international business dealings. But reserve currency status does not last forever. The Dollar is losing this position, and it will have serious ramifications for the United States and everyone invested in the dollar.

As an ex bond/FX trader, I understand the benefits the United States receives as a result of the USD enjoying reserve status. There is a natural bid, or demand, for entities to own Dollars. Countries want to store their wealth in an instrument that will retain its value. For almost eighty years, this has been the United States Dollar. But we have squandered this position through our financial irresponsibility. As our sovereign debt approaches twenty trillion Dollars, nations and corporations can be forgiven for wondering if we will ever have the will or the means to pay back this astounding sum of money. They believe we will have to devalue our currency, i.e. print money, to settle what we owe as a country. Therefore, they are starting to look for other vehicles to store their wealth and settle their transactions in.

Even before signing this bilateral deal, China in particular has been one nation that has started to move its assets elsewhere to protect its interests. Vince Miller, senior market strategist at Birch Gold Group, believes that the Chinese are putting a staggering sum of their wealth into gold: “When China last reported their gold holdings in 2008, they had 1,054 tons. Since then, they’ve gone absolutely silent on how much they have, but if you start to add up the numbers – the reported imports flowing into the country each month, the estimated NON-reported imports on top of that, plus what the Chinese can mine in gold from within their borders – we wouldn’t be surprised if some recent reports that put the nation’s current holdings in the 3,000 to 5,000 ton range were accurate.”

As more nations make moves similar to the Chinese, the demand for Dollars will start to slide as this process unfolds. As there is less reserve currency demand, the value of the Dollar will fall. This will have a negative impact on the American consumer, as import prices will rise. The United States will be much more susceptible to economic crises; and the value of our currency will swing much more freely, making it much harder for businesses and individuals to manage their finances. Our standard of living will shrink further than it already has. No country has ever devalued its way to prosperity. Only banana republics try to do this. Americans also will have to pay much more when they travel overseas.

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Paris Arms Putin

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

France has decided to ignore pleas from the U.S. and its other NATO allies and go forward with a $1.7 billion contract to sell two helicopter carriers to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “The contract has been paid and there would be financial penalties for not delivering it,” a French official told Reuters on Monday. “It would be France that is penalized. It’s too easy to say France has to give up on the sale of the ships. We have done our part.”

The French decision makes a mockery of the attempt to impose sanctions on Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea in March, the first forcible shifting of borders in Europe in more than 60 years.

It’s not hard to figure out why the Russians want the carriers. They purchased them just after invading Georgia in 2008. Russia’s lack of a mobile platform for delivering troops had hurt it badly during that brief conflict. In a 2011 report on the invasion, the Strategic Studies Institute, an arm of the U.S. Army War College, found that Russia had used helicopters to insert Spetsnaz commandos in black uniforms behind Georgian lines to conduct subversion and espionage. Putin used the same tactics in Crimea this month. But Russia’s experience in Georgia, in which aircraft had landed on the coast, had “highlighted the need for improvements in the area of amphibious landing platforms,” the SSI report noted. “The limitations in this capability exposed by the war were certainly part of the reason for Russia’s recent decision to buy Mistral-class ships from France. The Mistral, a multi-role ship capable of transporting and deploying 16 helicopters, 70 armored vehicles, and up to 450 personnel represents a significant improvement over current Russian helicopter carriers and landing craft.”

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Crony Capitalism Keeps the US Dependent on Vladimir Putin

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The latest news to come out of Ukraine doesn’t involve Vice President Joe Biden, European natural gas supplies, or Vladimir Putin’s insatiable appetite for the resurrection of the Soviet Union. In fact, it hits a bit closer to home. America’s spy satellites, as it turns out, is dependent upon Russian provided technology to reach orbit.

That’s right… Not only are our astronauts hitching rides to the Russian-run “international” space station, but even our spy satellites have to hitch a ride via Putin’s Russian Military industrial complex. And any sanctions that could come out of the situation in Ukraine, may just put the future of those missions in some peril. And the worst part is that American built technology, from American Companies, is being denied the opportunity to replace the Putin approved tech upon which our space missions depend.

At issue is the engine for the Atlas V rocket that places our satellites into orbit. The RD-180 is sold to the United Launch Alliance (a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin) for use in the Atlas V. And while the ULA claims to have enough engines in stock to last the agency roughly 2 – 3 years, they may soon be buying up more engines from Vladimir before sanctions are put in place, according to Capitol Hill insiders.

According to ULA, American made replacement engines are several years away… Which begs the question, “are we really that far behind” in space age technology? Well… No. It seems that ULA simply enjoys their monopolistic handle on American space technology. Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, has developed all American-made alternatives to the Russian engines. And just like a good old-fashioned capitalist, Musk’s technology is significantly cheaper. (But, I guess saving the taxpayers some expense isn’t a real concern unless we’re talking about soldier pay, or foreign aid.)

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Ex-Russian Alaska ‘Too Cold’ to Annex, Putin Jokes

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Photo Credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

In a patriotic fervour, Russians are asking President Vladimir Putin to bring back the US state of Alaska, sold off to the United States in Tsarist times. Putin’s answer? It’s too cold.

During Putin’s annual marathon phone-in session Thursday, when Russians pose questions to the Russian leader, a pensioner asked him to possibly follow the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine with the taking of Alaska.

“Faina Ivanovna, dear, why do you need Alaska?” Putin asked the pensioner.

“We have a northern country — 70 percent of our territory are in the north and the far north,” he noted.

“Alaska is cold too,” he said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

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Putin’s New Kind of War

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

In the Western imagination, the words “war” and “invasion” carry clear connotations. From books, movies, and television, we know that such events involve tanks, airplanes, and artillery, as well as soldiers in uniform, advanced weaponry, and sophisticated communications. They look like the invasion of Iraq or, to go back in time, D-Day.

So far, the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine looks nothing like these battles. This war involves not soldiers but local thugs and volunteers, some linked to the ex-president, Viktor Yanukovych, some from criminal gangs, and some who mistakenly think they are fighting for some form of benign local autonomy.

They are being led not by officers in uniform but by men from Russian military intelligence and special operations forces, some wearing camouflage without insignia, some communicating with “activists” by telephone. They are supplied with Russian logistics and a few Russian automatic weapons, but not tanks or planes. There is no “shock and awe” bombing campaign, just systematic, organized attacks on police stations, city councils, airports.

Unlike the planners of D-Day or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Russians organizing the invasion of Ukraine also have flexible goals. They are prepared to adjust their strategy, depending on how much resistance they encounter. In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine; maps to that effect have begun to circulate.

But in the meantime, the Kremlin may settle for disrupting Ukraine’s presidential elections, scheduled for May 25, or for destabilizing Ukraine’s shaky provisional government, perhaps forcing an economic crash. The Russians may hope to provoke a civil war, or something that appears to be a civil war, which would then require a Russian “peacekeeping mission.”

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Obama Warns of “Consequences” for Russian Actions Destabilizing Ukraine

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U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin talk before the first session of the G20 Summit in Los CabosPresident Obama put Russian President Vladimir Putin on notice Wednesday evening, warning that further actions to destabilize the interim Ukrainian government will result in consequences from both the United States and Europe.

In an interview with CBS News White House Correspondent Major Garrett , Mr. Obama said it was “absolutely clear” that Russia had violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by annexing Crimea last month, and they continue to do so by supporting “non-state militias” in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Still, the White House has not abandoned diplomatic solutions. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Geneva Wednesday evening to prepare for four-party talks with European, Russian and Ukrainian officials. Ukraine is willing to offer amnesty to the armed separatist groups who have carried out violence and seized buildings in the east, if Russia agrees to pullback support for those pro-Russian groups and withdraw the 40,000 troops that it has positioned on Ukraine’s border, CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan reports.

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Doubts About Recent Ukraine Referendum: ‘Legitimate Concerns’

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Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

Photo Credit: NEWSCOM

A new Gallup poll of Ukrainians undermines the main rationale for Russia’s aggression towards its neighbor and calls into question the U.S. approach to diplomacy with the Russians, which treats some of the Russian claims as legitimate. The findings of the national survey also cast further doubt on the results of the recent referendum on Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Ukrainians of all backgrounds and from every corner of the country reject Vladimir Putin’s decision to send Russian troops to Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians, with 81 percent of those surveyed expressing opposition to the move and 13 percent in favor. The skepticism is largely explained by the fact that Ukrainians don’t buy Putin’s claim that ethnic Russians need protection at all. Eighty-five percent of Ukrainians said that Russian-speaking citizens are not threatened, an opinion shared by 66 percent of ethnic Russians themselves. Seventy-four percent of Ukrainians living in both the south and the east, regions where Russians claim protection is most needed, responded that Russian-speaking Ukrainians were not under threat because of their language.

The survey of 1,200 Ukrainians from all regions of the country, including Crimea, was conducted March 14-26 by Gallup and Baltic Surveys for the International Republican Institute. IRI—which describes itself as a “nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide”—has extensive experience polling overseas, and U.S. policymakers often rely on its findings. The interviews were conducted in person at respondents’ homes.

“These results show that east and west Ukraine are not as divided as Moscow would like you to think,” says Ambassador Mark Green, president and CEO of IRI. “Ukrainians across the country, including Russian speakers, believe in democracy and want closer ties to Europe.”

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Krauthammer: Obama vs. Putin – The Mismatch

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U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin talk before the first session of the G20 Summit in Los Cabos<“The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.” — Barack Obama, March 24

Should. Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy.

The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game.

Obama thinks otherwise. He says that Vladimir Putin’s kind of neo-imperialist thinking is a relic of the past — and advises Putin to transcend the Cold War.

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Obama Tells Europe that Conservatism is Coupled to Putin

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

By Neil Munro.

President Barack Obama used his set-piece speech in Europe on Wednesday to couple Vladimir Putin’s crudely nationalist takeover of Crimea with the increasingly popular opposition to his big-government, progressive agenda.

“Casual indifference [to President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Crimea]… would allow the old way of doing things to regain a foothold in this young century,” he declared.

Progressive “ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power… Often this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others and that individual identity must be defined by us versus them,” he claimed.

Throughout his speech, Obama contrasted progressives’ supposedly universalist ideals with conservatives’ ideal of smaller governments that are tailored to the preferences of their unique populations.

The progressive ideals include the “United Nations and a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international law and the means to enforce those laws,” he said.

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Lindsey Graham: Russia’s a Gas Station Acting Like a Country

By Todd Beamon.

Russia is merely “an oil and gas company masquerading as a country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an attack Wednesday on both Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

“The value system of Mr. Putin is that of a KGB colonel,” the South Carolina Republican said on the Senate floor, Politico reports. “I understand where he is coming from because of his value system. I just don’t agree with it.”

Graham was joined by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire in accusing Putin of manipulating Moscow’s vast oil resources to expand its power throughout the world.

Read more from this story HERE.