Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen has discovered CIA files that document the agency’s connections to institutions and individuals figuring prominently in the lives of Barack Obama and his mother, father, grandmother, [grandfather], and stepfather. The first part of his report highlights the connections between Barack Obama, Sr. and the CIA-sponsored operations in Kenya to counter rising Soviet and Chinese influence among student circles and, beyond, to create conditions obstructing the emergence of independent African leaders. [Later] Dunham Soetoro worked for the elitist Ford Foundation, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Bank Rakyat (the majority government-owned People’s Bank of Indonesia), and the CIA-linked USAID while she lived in Indonesia and later, Pakistan. There is a strong reason to believe that Armour Dunham worked in the 1950s for the CIA in the Middle East.There is a photographic clue that the Dunhams may have been assigned by the CIA to Beirut, Lebanon in the early 1950s.

BP's most recent energy outlook report predicts that the United States will become almost self-sufficient in energy by 2030, thanks to exploitation of its shale oil and gas resources.[...] Specifically, the geopolitical implication is that, if the United States does not need the Middle East for energy security, it will lose much of its motivation to meddle in the region, at least in the immense nation-destroying, budget-busting tradition of the Iraq wars.

The US president repeated this demand when he called the Israeli prime minister Thursday night Jan. 13. Netanyahu replied that, in view of their disagreement on this point, he preferred to cancel the biggest US-Israel war game ever staged due to have taken place in April.[...] The prime minister was concerned that having large-scale US military forces in the country would restrict his leeway for decision-making on Iran. [...] Panetta went on to say that Defense Minister Barak contacted him and asked to postpone the joint US-Israeli drill "for technical reasons."

After 2012 [the world’s dominant powers of before-the-crisis] power will be weakened too much to still be able to claim maintaining this privileged situation. The recent S&P downgrade of the majority of the Euroland countries is a typical example of these last chance attempts: pushed by Wall Street and the City, and because of their insatiable financing needs, the United States and United Kingdom have arrived at the point of engaging in open financial warfare with their last allies, the Europeans. It’s geopolitical suicide because this attitude obliges Euroland to reinforce and integrate still more and whilst dissociating itself from the United States and United Kingdom; whilst the vast majority of the Eurozone leaders and the populations have finally understood that there really was a transatlantic and cross-Channel war being conducted against them.

And I fear we are headed down the road toward the end of the United States as a traditional nation, which is one people, one nation, under God, indivisible.

Here in the United States, according to the same survey, 60 percent of Americans over 50 believe “our culture is superior.” I’m not sure what’s more terrifying: the new French modesty or an old U.S. delusion.

America has more than 50 formal military allies, while China has none.

US officials speculated as to what might be done to block this vital corridor, but it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who surprised them by saying that the solution was to harness Islamic forces. The Americans were intrigued, but could not deal with such people. Leave that to me, Bandar retorted. Hannah noted that "Bandar working without reference to US interests is clearly cause for concern. But Bandar working as a partner … against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset." Bandar got the job.