AND... While We Are Watching North Korea, Obama Puts Entire Future of Social Security/Welfare at Risk!

Protesters deliver petition to the White House and warn president that cuts fatally undermine safety net for millions of Americans

Barack Obama will propose cuts to social security benefits on Wednesday that risk fatally undermining the safety net Democrats once fought so hard to protect, according to campaigners who have delivered a two-million name petition to the White House.

As officials confirmed that Obama's budget will include $1.2 trillion worth of spending cuts and limits on welfare, a small but noisy group of protesters gathered outside the White House to register their horror.

The president has offered up the cuts as a compromise to try to bring Republicans back to negotiations on a universal tax-and-spending agreement and break a fiscal deadlock that has paralysed Washington. So far the idea has been met with derision on Capitol Hill, making it highly unlikely that the White House budget proposal will be enacted.

But a growing number of Obama's supporters on the left fear the concession will act as a permanent line in the sand, making it impossible to resist future pressure to reduce spending on welfare. In particular, they are angry at the president's proposal to link further increases in social security to a less generous measure of inflation, known as the "chained" consumer price index, or CPI.

Damon Silvers, policy director at the union umbrella group AFL-CIO, described the chained-CPI approach as "Washington-speak for benefit cut".

"In fact, this is the worst kind of cut, targeted directly at what makes social security an effective safety net: namely, the protection against inflation," he added.

Speaking in the West Wing before demonstrators handed over their petition, White House spokesman Jay Carney defended the proposal, pointing out that Republicans proposed far more sweeping cuts to welfare entitlements.

"I think Democrats and allies understand that this budget the president will put forward tomorrow is not his ideal budget," he said. "It is a document that recognizes that to achieve a bipartisan solution to our budget challenges we need to make tough choices."

He also rejected criticism that Obama is only interested in middle-income Americans, not low-income Americans: "There will be investments in our budget that demonstrate the president's commitment to expanding the middle class by providing what he calls ladders of opportunity to those who are not in the middle class but aspire to be there."

But Silvers told the Guardian that conventional wisdom in Washington - namely that the budget proposal was just an elaborate dance, a kind of Japanese "kabuki" with Republicans - risked underestimating how significant a moment this will be.

"It is extremely dangerous to put this type of proposal on the table," he added. "We think the president ought to be fighting for a repeal of the sequester instead of replacing it with yet more austerity."

The implications of squeezing social security at a time of rising poverty were underlined by Phyllis Zolotorow, a campaigner in the crowd from Maryland, whose husband and son were reliant on social security when they fell ill.

"Over the two years there were no increases, my family suffered terribly as our rent went up by $100 a month," she said. "Chained CPI will force us to make the painful choice of buying food or paying rent - we will become like Dickensian England."

For groups on the left, the sense of betrayal is particularly strong because Obama was twice elected on a mandate of protecting social security and other welfare entitlements such as Medicaid and Medicare.

Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America's Future, which helped organise the petition, said: "We came together to stop the privatisation of social security by George W Bush, and we sent him back to Texas before he could do it."

"More than 70% of American people hate the idea of cutting back benefits and the president needs to keep the promise he made when he was trying to get our votes, and stop."

The White House argues that its balanced approach to the budget - involving spending cuts and tax rises - is the only way to reduce the deficit over the long term and maintain the economic growth needed to encourage job creation.

Wednesday's budget will actually propose slightly more deficit reduction than the current, and much-hated, sequester: targeting $600bn in new revenue from taxes and $1.2tn from spending cuts over the next 10 years.

Carney said: "The president's budget will replace the sequester, which was designed to be bad policy for everyone with not just $1.2tn in deficit reduction, but $1.8tn in deficit reduction. In other words, it will go further than the sequester."

Even if the Washington consensus is correct and chained CPI is an issue over-blown by the left, such a budget amounts to a sizeable serving of austerity.

For the growing number of Democrats who fear for the future of social security, this is not just a hypothetical debate but has touched a nerve at the very heart of Obama's political base.

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The Grand Betrayal Has Arrived!

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Bob Pollin: Costs of Social Security and Medicare have NOTHING to do with rise in fiscal deficit

US, South Korea on High Alert in Anticipation of Pyongyang’s Missile Launch

South Korean soldiers ride a military truck on the road leading to North Korea at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju on April 10, 2013. (AFP Photo / Jung Yeon-Je)

The United States and South Korea have upgraded their military surveillance status in anticipation of a possible mid-range missile launch by Pyongyang, the latest escalation of tension in the war-weary peninsula.
The Combined Forces Command is effectively at Watchcon 2 status ready to tackle a "vital threat" from North Korea; Yonhap news agency reported citing an anonymous senior military official. If the next upgrade occurs, the nations will be in a state of war.

Seoul has also launched an emergency task force to analyze North Korea's preparations of a missile launch, the official said.

“There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles.”

To counter this “vital threat”, two Aegis destroyers with SPY-1 radar, have been placed on standby on the coasts of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean military is also operating early warning aircraft Peace Eye and ground-based missile defense radar system Green Pine to counter a potential rocket launch.

S. Korean and US intelligence believes that the North has completed all the necessary arrangements for an east coast mid-range missile launch after relocating two of the Musudan missiles last week and mounting them on mobile launchers, possibly to correspond with April 15 birthday celebrations of Kim Il-Sung.

These missiles have a 3,000-4,000 kilometer range, allowing them to potentially hit the US forces in the Pacific Ocean.

Furthermore, Seoul believes that the North may fire off several missiles from different sites, in case of an unsuccessful launch of the Musudan missile, which has never been tested before, as up to five TELs (transporter-erector-launcher) as seen in satellite pictures.

The TELs are perceived to be launch platforms for short-range (300-500 kilometers) Scud missiles and medium-range Nodong missiles, capable of hitting targets 1,500 km away, the source said.

On Tuesday, Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of US Pacific Command told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that US has the capability and is ready to tackle any threat emanating from Pyongyang.

“I believe we have the ability to defend the homeland, Guam, Hawaii and defend our allies,” Locklear said, adding “We have demonstrated to the people of the region, demonstrated to the leadership of North Korea, our ability and willingness to defend our nation, our people, our allies and our forward deployed forces.”

Lockland concluded that the US could intercept a missile even if it launched in the next several days.

"If the missile was in defense of the homeland, I would certainly recommend that action (of intercepting it). And if it was defense of our allies, I would recommend that action," Locklear told a Senate hearing in Washington.

But as Pyongyang tells foreigners to evacuate S. Korea after warning of ‘thermonuclear’ war, Japan, has authorized shooting down any threat coming from Pyongyang, and announced on Tuesday that it has deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors to key locations around Tokyo.

Meanwhile China, one of the only sympathizers of North Korea has closed its border with the North to tourists.
The Korean peninsula has seen tensions escalate since the North's third nuclear test in February, which resulted in toughened UN sanctions and drew much international condemnation.
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Iranian Military Chief Vows to Defend North Korea from U.S.

The Iranian commitment to stand with North Korea is another move in an escalating exchange of verbal hostilities - considered by many to be mostly posturing - and military maneuvers that North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. have engaged in over the past several months.

Iranian Armed Forces Deputy Chief Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri warns the U.S. that Iran will defend North Korea

The deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Masood Jazayeri announced that Iran will stand by North Korea and defend it in a war between the United States and North Korea.

Jazayeri made the statement on Friday, April 5.  He blamed increasing tensions in the Korean peninsula on “excessive demands by the United States,” which he said was “tightening the noose on North Korea.”  The Iranian military leader said that those aggressive activities on the part of the U.S. left the North Koreans with no option but to confront the “big Satan.”

“The nation and government of North Korea has always been subject to threat, despotism, and imperialism by the U.S, therefore they consider it their right to boost their own defensive power in order to inhibit their enemy,” said Jazayeri.  “The time is long past that the United States can bully other countries.”

And just to make sure Americans understand he means business, Jazayeri warned that “America and her allies will suffer countless thousands of victims” should Iran and North Korea be provoked into a war with the U.S.

The Iranian commitment to stand with North Korea is another move in an escalating exchange of verbal hostilities – considered by many to be mostly posturing – and military maneuvers that North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. have engaged in over the past several months.

The regime of Kim Jung Un has been issuing increasingly threatening announcements, including its boast that it has authorized the nation’s military to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. After reports that the regime had moved its second missile to the country’s east coast, South Korea deployed two warships with missile defense systems.

Early last week the United States announced that it would deploy its advanced ballistic missile defense system  in the Pacific in a direct response to increased threats from North Korea.

While most countries with a diplomatic presence in North Korea expressed dismay over the escalating tensions, the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed its support for North Korea.

North Korea and Iran have been on friendly terms since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

In September of 2012, the two nations signed an agreement to cooperate on “science technology and education,” which many sophisticated observers understood to mean that North Korea will be – indeed already is – assisting Iran on its path to nuclear weaponization.

A 2011 United Nations report said Iran and North Korea are suspected of sharing ballistic missile technology, and both have been sanctioned by the UN Security Council for their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

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N. Korean Satellite Flies Over America Over And Over And Over Again In The Next 5 Days…

A reporter on Beforeitsnews posted this story on April 7th.  In the story is the map .jpeg he got from the NORAD site, and the page the information came from, within the NORAD site, was linked to, to show more about the map.  Story below:
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The North Korean satellite launched into space back in December of 2012 that is said to be for weather forecast purposes but is being widely portrayed in the West as a veiled ballistic missile test passes over the East Coast of America and as far west as just west of the New Madrid fault line over and over and over again in the next several days. You can check out the flight path of KMS 3-2 yourself right here. Be sure to click the 'show all passes' button...

....You may be able to see it yourself if you're in its flight path with a telescope; where the green lines are below, the satellite is illuminated by the sun and may be visible if the sky is dark enough. Why so many times over the population hubs of America? Why are they leaving the Western half of America alone?

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I honestly don't know what to make of this report, but felt it needed to be shared.

The Massive Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) is MUCH MORE Than Just a Ballistic Missile Radar!

It's No Wonder China is Upset about the SBX coming to their area...  

China Will Support North Korea If Military Action Is Taken By The United States

This is not only about N. Korea, but includes China, Russia, and the United States.  Watch this below...

April 7th 2013

North Korean General Staff: 'Grave Situation' Looming

Former ambassador says long-range missile shift raises specter of EMP attack

WASHINGTON – As the North Korean government cautions staffers at British and other Western diplomatic missions that it can’t guarantee their safety after “April 10,” the North Korean General Staff is warning the United States again that it had “better ponder over the prevailing grave situation.”

The statement threatened to unleash “cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means” against what the North Koreans believe are U.S. preparations to wage a nuclear war against them.

“The merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified,” the General Staff statement said, indicating that in addition to the threat of a missile attack, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, may deploy its million-man army.

“The responsibility for this grave situation entirely rests with the U.S. administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK’s sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic,” it said.

The General Staff announcement was referring to recent flights by nuclear-capable B-52s and B-2 bombers from the United States mainland and Guam. They were dispatched on practice bombing runs on targets in South Korea, just 50 miles from the Demilitarized Zone separating North Korea from South Korea.

The statement pointed to the practice flights that simulated “conditions of a nuclear strike at the DPRK,” along with formations of F-22 stealth jet fights which took off from Japan and Okinawa to deploy to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea “to watch for a chance to make a surprise strike.”

North Korea EMP attack could destroy U.S. – right now

'Red Dawn' scenario is kid's play compared with this scenario

(01/01/2013) North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States, as demonstrated by their successful launch and orbiting of a satellite on Dec. 12, the Washington Times reports.

In fact, the Times report says, “North Korea is a mortal nuclear threat to the United States – right now.”

It’s not just the threat of conventional nuclear attack that has experts worried. Nor is the North Korea invasion scenario in the new remake of “Red Dawn” a realistic risk.

The real concern is that North Korea now has miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and armed missiles with nuclear warheads that could destroy the U.S. in a single blow with an EMP attack that would send the U.S. back to 19th century technology a la the NBC TV show “Revolution.”

And North Korea is hardly the only threat to destroy what some other nations and rogue players call “the Great Satan.”

Imagine if all the lights in America went off – never to come back on again.

Imagine if all the computers in America got fried – never to come back on again.

Imagine if all the cars in America dependent on fancy circuitry wouldn’t start – ever again.

Imagine if the grocery stores and the gas stations had to close up – for good.

As an indication of intelligence-gathering on the part of the North Korean General Staff, it also referred to the U.S. deployment of the Aegis destroyers USS John S. McCain and the USS Decatur, equipped with interceptor missiles and SBI-1, along with the introduction of the nuclear submarine, USS Cheyenne, into Korean waters.

The USS Cheyenne is capable of launching Tomahawk missiles from vertical launch tubes.
“The U.S. is now hurling its latest nuclear war hardware into South Korea, pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a war,” the statement said.
 
“The U.S. and the South Korean puppet group are getting ever-more frantic in their reckless moves to ignite a nuclear war against the DPRK by mobilizing huge armed forces for aggression,” it said. “This is a vicious challenge to the DPRK’s step for self-defense to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the nation and a revelation of a wild ambition for igniting a nuclear war at any cost.”

Meantime, U.S. intelligence has confirmed the transfer of long-range missiles to the East Coast of North Korea.

As WND previously reported, U.S. officials, particularly from the intelligence community, are concerned about any movement of North Korea’s “space launch vehicles,” which are assessed to be able to reach the West Coast of the U.S.

If North Korea were to engage in a suicidal undertaking with the launch of one of these vehicles, the concern is that it could explode a high-altitude nuclear device over the United States, creating an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy major portions of the U.S. electrical grid system as well as the nation’s critical infrastructures.

These officials point to the three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could have been a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be deorbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and exploded at a high altitude, creating an EMP effect.

North Korea’s continuing threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against U.S. targets suggest to U.S. officials that its military is confident in its missiles and that its recent nuclear testing for miniaturization of a warhead to be placed on a missile similarly was successful.

These officials are looking at the prospect that upon launch of the missile and a potential nuclear payload, it would take a polar path.

The fact that U.S. military officials are expressing quiet but increasing concern that North Korea could launch an EMP attack has raised alarms over the preservation of the U.S. national grid and such critical infrastructures as communications, energy, food and water delivery and space systems.

In addition to elements within the U.S. intelligence community, retired Ambassador Henry F. Cooper has warned of the prospect of an EMP attack from North Korea.

He pointed to the recent orbiting of a North Korean satellite which weighed a few hundred pounds. When a nuclear weapon payload that fits that weight constraint is joined with its recently successful three-stage missile, he said it could be detonated above the atmosphere over any place on earth, including the U.S.

“Since this attack configuration would be above the earth’s atmosphere, the nuclear device would not require heavy shielding to survive re-entry and when detonated it would produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could have devastating consequences,” he said.

A founder of High Frontier, a non-governmental authority on missile defense issues, arms control and nuclear weapons, Cooper developed the framework for President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and was director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, or SDIO, during the Bush administration.

Given the news that the North Koreans have moved some of their ballistic missiles closer to the East Coast from the West Coast of the country, Cooper said this will shorten their range and flight time to hit potential targets.

“North Korea’s threats deserve greater weight than they have been given thus far,” he said. “The EMP from a high altitude burst over the U.S. could collapse the electric power grid…and within a year lead to the death of hundreds of millions of Americans for lack of food, medicine, etc.

“The resulting chaos could reduce our society from its just-in-time economy for most if not all of the essentials of life to the ways of the 19th century, without local support from the agrarian society of that era,” he said. “In effect, it would level the playing field with the despotic North Koran economic situation – an ideal asymmetric attack strategy if ever there was one.”

Cooper called for an augmentation of U.S. missile defenses.

“In particular, we (High Frontier) recommend our sea-based missile defense capabilities be improved as quickly as possible to ‘be all they can be’ to borrow an Army phrase,” he said. “The Aegis BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) system has an excellent test record – 26 hits out of 31 attempts, including shooting down a satellite in outer space, above the atmosphere.”

In this connection, the Aegis systems which are being deployed off of Korea would be essential to intercept any nuclear package the North Koreans could push into orbit to prevent the potential for a high-altitude nuclear explosion that would have devastating EMP results on the U.S. homeland.

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North Korea: US Deploys Spy Plane To Japan

The US brings forward its drone deployment to Japan after North Korea moves two missiles on mobile launchers to its east coast.

Tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula amid reports the US has deployed an unmanned spy plane to Japan to boost its surveillance after North Korea readied missile launchers on its east coast.

The Global Hawk will be stationed at the US airbase in Misawa, northern Japan, in the first ever deployment of the aircraft in the country, the Sankei Shimbun reported, quoting government sources.

The US military informed Japan last month about plans to deploy the plane between June and September but has brought the date forward.

It comes after North Korea warned foreign diplomats they may not be safe in the country if war breaks out.

The spy plane will be stationed at the US airbase in Misawa, northern Japan

Pyongyang asked foreign embassies whether they were considering evacuating staff, saying the government could not guarantee their safety in the event of conflict from April 10.

The British Foreign Office dismissed the warning as "rhetoric".

However, an urgent international effort to defuse the situation is under way.

The heads of EU missions are to meet to hammer out a common position on the crisis, while the US works its diplomatic channels to resolve the stand-off with Pyongyang.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has been holding talks with officials in South Korea, as well as China - historically North Korea's ally - to see if the Chinese can put any more pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to back down.

Reporting from the South Korean capital Seoul, Sky's Asia Correspondent Mark Stone, said: "In the skies above the Korean Peninsula there are spy planes operating.

"There will be drones - American drones - operating before long from a base in Japan.

"They are trying to get as much of a sense as possible of what it is that Kim Jong-Un is doing on the ground with his weaponry.

"We know he has some pretty sophisticated weaponry.

"There are artillery rounds just over the border. They could in theory hit Seoul. That's a big concern for South Korea.

"That's why they are trying to put these intelligence reports together, as well as the diplomacy behind the scenes, to try and work out what Kim Jong-Un might be up to."

He continued: "The diplomats were warned by Pyongyang to leave by April 10 - no one quite knows why that date should be significant.

"It seems pretty clear, certainly speaking to western diplomats based in Pyongyang, their belief is this is just the latest round of rhetoric from North Korea.

"You would assume that if North Korea was planning some sort of war, it would actually want the diplomats from foreign countries to remain there so that they could be used as some sort of a bargaining chip - not kicked out of North Korea.

"I think it is alarming, but I think it's also probably just more rhetoric," he added.

Most governments have made it clear they have no immediate plans to withdraw personnel from the area.

A rally in support of Kim Jong-Un's order to put missiles on standby

Western tourists returning from organised tours in Pyongyang - which have continued despite the crisis - said the situation on the ground appeared calm, with life going on as normal.

"We're glad to be back but we didn't feel frightened when we were there," said Tina Krabbe, from Denmark, arriving in Beijing after five days in North Korea.

The embassy warning on Friday coincided with reports that North Korea had loaded two mid-range Musudan missiles on mobile launchers and hidden them in underground facilities on its eastern coast.
The Musudan have never been tested but are believed to have a range of around 3,000km (1,860 miles), which could theoretically be pushed to 4,000km (2,485 miles).

That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even reach US military bases located on the Pacific island of Guam - which Pyongyang has threatened to strike.

Tensions have soared on the Korean peninsula since December, when the North test-launched a long-range rocket. In February, it conducted its third nuclear test and drew fresh UN sanctions.

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