"If you were president of the United States, would you hire an alleged former spy for Fidel Castro to be ambassador to El Salvador, a country teetering on the brink of hard-core socialism?

"President Obama just did.

"On Dec. 9, Obama nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, despite the fact that in the late 1990s, the FBI discovered that she was working with Cuban intelligence officers. According to Insight Magazine, ‘When the FBI eventually questioned her about her involvement with Cuban intelligence, she reportedly refused to cooperate.’ "

"Why would Aponte escape the Obama administration’s scrutiny? Because she is a former board member of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Hispanic advocacy organization in the United States, with 300 affiliated community-based organizations, many of which run like local ACORN offices. In fact, the day before Obama nominated Aponte, NCLR-affiliate Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) was raided by the Phoenix Sheriff’s Office, which was investigating a kickback scheme between CPLC and indicted Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. CPLC allegedly gave Wilcox $297,000 in undisclosed loans in exchange for her votes to award over a million dollars in county contracts to CPLC."

"The Obama administration has consistently bent over backward to seek the approval of the NCLR. La Raza, by the way, means ‘The Race’; the organization’s founding document, el Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, rips the ‘brutal "gringo" invasion of our territories’ and urges Hispanics to ‘[reclaim] the land of their birth,’ while declaring that ‘the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.’ Then-Sen. Obama appeared at the 2007 NCLR national conference, where he pledged, ‘I will not walk away from the 12 million undocumented immigrants who live, work and contribute to our country every day.’

"The next year, Obama told the conference that Hispanic communities were being ‘terrorized by ICE immigration raids’ and said that ‘nursing mothers are torn from their babies.’ Even worse, he pledged to crack down on the First Amendment for the benefit of NCLR: ‘They’re counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves – rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation.’ "

"Obama’s La Raza appointments started early and often. One of Obama’s first appointments as president was Cecilia Munoz, a former senior vice president at NCLR. She describes anti-illegal immigration groups as ‘hate groups’ that promote ‘bigotry.’ She has also suggested that crossing the border illegally is ‘a civil offense, not a criminal one.’ President Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment was Sonia Sotomayor, a member of the NCLR."

"Virtually the entire Obama administration visited the 2009 NCLR annual conference: Obama’s brain, Valerie Jarrett; Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (winner of the 2008 NCLR Capital Award); Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan; Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. At that conference, the Obama honchos were joined by Bank of America President Ken Lewis – Bank of America has been a longtime supporter of NCLR, setting up a credit line to aid illegal immigrants. Other banking giants are in bed with NCLR, too."

"Wachovia, for example, routinely gave mortgages to illegal immigrants, which helped cement Wachovia’s financial collapse, leading to its acquisition by Wells Fargo. …

"And in late November, [NCLR President Janet] Murguia penned a personal letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, asking her to funnel $400 million allotted under the stimulus package toward ‘racial and ethnic minorities.’ Sebelius responded warmly, stating that she understood the importance of ‘priority patient populations, including racial and ethnic minorities.’

"The Obama administration’s consistent attempt to buy off a radical and in some cases quasi-criminal group demonstrates his continued adherence to the first rule of Chicago politics: Keep your friends close using taxpayer cash. He intends to do just that." Source: Ben Shapiro, www.townhall.com, 12/16/09

Charles Smith reports (WorldNetDaily.com, 7/10/00) that "The U.S. Air Force is running out of cruise missiles. ...

"[T]he U.S.A.F. arsenal dropped to an all-time low of 60 weapons. The Air Force missile shortage reportedly was caused by the Clinton administration, which used large numbers of the robot missile weapons for strikes against Iraq and Kosovo."

THE INTENTIONAL MISUSE OF U.S. ORDNANCE

"In 1996, Air Force officers were openly critical of the Clinton administration for wasting missiles, following strikes against Iraq. One specific example cited was the unsuccessful 'Desert Strike' operation, in which air-launched cruise missiles with fragmentary warheads were mis-targeted against hardened Iraqi bunkers on White House orders. The missile fragmentary warheads, designed to destroy 'soft' targets such as trucks, are ineffective against hardened concrete bunkers."

AIR FORCE ADVICE BYPASSED BY THE UNILATERAL DISARMER

"The White House reportedly bypassed the U.S.A.F. Air Combat Command and directly ordered airborne B-52s to fire the cruise missiles against the Iraqi bunkers. The missiles exploded harmlessly outside the Iraqi bunkers, causing no damage. The Iraqi bunkers were destroyed later by a second follow-on strike, using U.S. Navy Tomahawk missiles armed with conventional blast explosive warheads."

AMERICAN NUCLEAR STRENGTH SLASHED

"The U.S. Air Force is currently converting 322 nuclear-armed cruise missiles to carry conventional warheads in an effort to bolster stocks. The conversion to conventional warheads will leave the Air Force with less than 100 nuclear-tipped missiles for its strategic mission. The recent order of 618 new missiles is intended to boost the Air Force's total to nearly 1,000 conventional weapons. ..."

CRUISE MISSILE PRODUCTION LINE SHUT DOWN

"Boeing has offered to the Air Force to re-start a new air-launched cruise missile production line. However, Boeing sources told WorldNetDaily that most of its cruise missile manufacturing equipment has been sold or was dismantled after the Cold War ended. Other leading candidates include missile proposals from Lockheed/Martin and Raytheon. Air Force funding for the new cruise missile program was not included in the 2000 fiscal year budget. The service hopes to field the new missile by 2005 and plans to start development in 2001."

RED CHINA AND COMMUNIST KOREA BUILD UP AS AMERICA DRAWS DOWN

"The Clinton administration has been criticized previously for the cruise missile shortage. In 1999, Senator Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, blasted the Clinton administration for the current air-launched cruise missile shortage and warned that a shortage of the Navy's ship-launched cruise missiles also is looming. Murkowski said potential adversaries, such as North Korea, 'are beefing up their own missile capability.'

"The missile shortage appears just as the People's Republic of China is developing a new cruise missile reported to be nearly identical to the U.S. Navy Tomahawk. In an article published early this year by Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems editor Duncan Lennox, 'China's new cruise missile programme "racing ahead,"' the People's Liberation Army is already testing a copy of the U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile."

ADVERSARIES USE OUR TECHNOLOGY

"'The use of Western RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles since 1991 against six countries has allowed China opportunities in reverse engineering,' noted Lennox. 'More than 600 Tomahawk missiles were launched in attacks against targets in Iraq between 1991-98, in Bosnia in 1995, in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, and in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999. As there are at least six reported cases when these missiles landed more or less intact without the warhead exploding, some were believed to have been recovered and transported to China.'

"'A wide range of advanced technologies associated with cruise missile design may therefore have been made available to China,' wrote Lennox. 'These include: INS/GPS guidance; computer hardware and software; electronics; power supplies; airframe; wings; fuel system; and small turbofan engines.'"

RED CHINA HAS NUCLEAR CRUISES

"China's development of a nuclear-armed cruise missile was first reported in a 1995 Russian document that suggested that a complete production facility was transferred to Shanghai. According to Lennox, China is already deploying this new long-range nuclear-tipped cruise missile."

2000km TARGET RATING

"'Recent developments within China's new cruise missile programmes, although not confirmed officially, indicate that rates of progress have been faster than anticipated,' wrote Lennox. 'Reports suggest that an improved engine became available in 1992, and that an HN-2 version entered service in 1996 with a range increased to between 1,500 and 2,000km.'

"'A warhead weight of 300 to 400kg is expected with this design, which could be nuclear with a yield of 90kT or high explosive submunitions,' wrote the Jane's defense editor. 'Guidance in mid-course is inertial, with terrain comparsion and possibly GPS updates. Terminal guidance is believed to be by terrain comparison, using a TV camera to view the target area and refine the aim point.'"

U.S. IS VULNERABLE FROM LAND, SEA, AND AIR

"In contrast to the Jane's article, the new Chinese cruise missile program received little interest in a June 2000 Pentagon report on the future course of military-technological development in the People's Liberation Army.

"'China also is developing LACMs (land-attack cruise missiles),' states the June 2000 Defense Department report. 'These missiles appear to have a relatively high development priority. Chinese research and development of LACMs is being aided by an aggressive effort to acquire foreign cruise missile technology and subsystems, particularly from Russia. The first LACM to enter production probably would be air-launched and could be operational by mid-decade.'

"Yet, a newly published report shows that dangerous cruise missile inventories held by potential U.S. adversaries are actually at an all-time high. According to a just-published article in the U.S. Naval Proceedings by Brigadier Gen. Bruce Byrum U.S.M.C., 'Cruise Missile Defense From the Sea?' the airborne robot bomb is the 'weapon of choice' for future dictators.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness warns (CMR Notes, June 2000) that promotion of feminist and homosexual egalitarianism as the highest priority for the military over the objective of military readiness "inevitably leads to women in all combat positions, and open homosexuality in the military. It also leads to collateral policies that detract from readiness and the needs of the military."

About mounting pressures, Donnelly observes that there is "reason for concern...about mounting pressures from international courts and mandates associated with the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations. Demands for 'consistency' with our allies could force America to adopt problematic policies that potential adversaries would never accept."

CANADA'S EXAMPLE IS A WARNING

Donnelly points out that "Recent budget cuts have created severe shortages and hardships in the Canadian Forces (CF), but the Advisory Board has nevertheless insisted that 'The goal of diversity in the CF should not and must not be compromised by budgetary limitations.' Hence the push for a hugely expensive proposition, the assignment of women to submarines, and a number of costly luxuries that are collateral to social change. Examples include a tax-funded 'gender-reassignment' sex-change operation for a homosexual soldier, $2.4 million to design a 'combat bra' and other items for pregnant combat soldiers, all-inclusive sensitivity training programs, and recruiting posters that show images of 'people working together' instead of pictures of tanks, ships, and fighter jets."