Originally Posted by
WizardTrubbish
Personally, I think that this should be closed and replaced with a thread on the Obama administration.
I’m now under the impression that we’ve turned it into a sort of all-purpose thread discussing American – and international – politics, which oddly suits me, personally speaking. The vote on November 6 convinced me that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and the other Republican presidential candidates for this election had run out of time in seeking to carry the United States into an information society as smoothly as humanly possible, and on a different note, there may be some who increasingly suspect that Barack Obama is sounding more and more like… Woodrow Wilson during his second term. For my part, after everything I’ve tracked throughout this past year, I’m at a point at which I can state with certainty that I would pity either Obama or Romney, but at least one front in North America could become clear soon.:
Washington Post: Solar firms probed for possible ‘misrepresentations’ in getting public money
Wall Street Journal Washington Wire: Keith Johnson: Lugar Sees Natural Gas as Tool in U.S. Arsenal
Count SolarCity, SunRun, and Sungevity out of President Obama’s green energy initiative, and at a total of $500 million, they remind me of Solyndra by itself. They were based in California and Arizona, and they “collected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cash grants” for the purpose of building wind farms, solar panels, and other supposed sources of green energy in America. That said, some leaders within this industry had prices higher than the broader market rate, charging up to $7-8 per watt as opposed to $5 per watt. Barry Cinnamon, who used to lead Westinghouse Solar, was among those expressing concerns that some of these executives were using the program improperly, and among the companies partnering with these ones are Google, Credit Suisse, and Citigroup. SolarCity donated $579,000 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012, so if these energy projects fail, then any investors might not need long to clear out before the entire project implodes. Natural gas looks better by comparison, especially with the Russians and the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization squaring off. Richard Lugar has a new bill attempting to make American natural gas easier to export to NATO members who don’t yet have free trade agreements with America. Already, the British and the Spaniards signed up for this deal, and one other country cited as being likely to get sidelined is Iran. Another country may be on its way there soon enough, setting off even more dominoes across the Islamic Middle East into North Africa.:
Reuters: SocGen sells Egypt arm to QNB for $2 billion
Ahram: Diplomats ponder the good and the bad on Egypt’s constitution debate
As Qatar National Bank gets itself a new stake, Societe Generale is pulling back to attempt to build up its capital reserves, and the most likely reason for any disruptions is that constitutional referendum. For QNB’s part, its market value is somewhere around $26 billion, enabling it to expand across the region, if with a few setbacks here and there. A personal visit from Hamad Al-Thani would be all that Muhammad Morsi and Mohammed Badie would need to cement the view throughout the rest of the Middle East that Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood are far worthier of leadership than, say, the House of Saud, but they’d probably further split Egypt in the process. American and European diplomats will likely need contingency plans of their own to extract as many people as possible, as will Egyptian diplomats. The Muslim Brotherhood sought to rally Egyptians abroad in favor of the draft constitution, and I’d have to guess the Salafis are still waiting in the wings, precisely because they won’t have much of a choice left to them.:
Fox News Channel: State Department Preparing for Libya Bombshell?
New York Times: Members of Assad’s Sect Blamed in Syria Killings
Ambassador Susan Rice is no longer under consideration to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department, making the likes of Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz suspicious, especially about this upcoming report about that Benghazi attack. Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has scheduled a hearing this upcoming Thursday, leaving the rest of Congress to inquire further about American activities throughout the Islamic Community. They might need some additional questions to cover Syria as the Alawites start turning on each other. At least 125 civilians were killed in that massacre, believed to have been perpetrated by forces loyal to Bashar Assad himself, thereby elevating death over life. There may not be many practical differences left as the factions involved continue their rampages.:
British Broadcasting Corporation: Mali intervention by Ecowas: Refugee fears
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee has launched a warning about refugee floods and counterattacks by Islamists, drawing up four possible scenarios for which France and other countries coordinating any supposed intervention against Al-Qaeda would need to adjust their strategies and tactics.:
• Status quo: tensions between northern and southern Mali, with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad among the main armed groups; factional stress among military units; Sharia likely in northern regions, with 275,000 refugees and 1,562,000 at risk from cholera
• Intervention: war with Islamists, including sleeper cell activations; looted schools and clinics; revenge attacks in countries contributing to intervention; anti-United Nations sentiment, with 575,000 refugees and 1,952,000 at risk from cholera
• Internal rifts: intensified splits within Malian army; communal violence; closed borders; some evacuations, with 355,000 refugees and 1,952,000 at risk from cholera
• Attacks against southern Mali: civil war, with children among those forced to fight; reinforcements to jihad groups from worldwide, attacking Mopti, Sevare, and Bamako; Sharia spreading, with 725,000 refugees and 1,952,000 at risk from cholera
Could any of these scenarios combine? The overall point would be that even with American President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande attempting to coordinate activities to counter these Sharia terrorists, anarchy could be more likely to engulf West Africa, with at least some using it as a staging area for further attacks worldwide. I could welcome a new all-purpose thread on the Obama administration’s activities, but the rest of you probably won’t need to guess how optimistic I am.
Babylon 5, Codename: Kids Next Door, 24, and now, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I am many things at once, and many people might have different opinions about little, old me. If freedom is my main idea, then harmony, individuality, and modernization are the three attributes I now sense and track. Those three attributes and that idea combined to make the United States of America a great global superpower and Pearlshipping and Wishfulshipping great Pokémon couples, and now, they've combined to make those four shows truly great television programs to me. I will enjoy enthusiastically supporting the Equestrian ponies' adventures for peace, for humankind, for the future.
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