United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Photo: Flickr/World Economic Forum)

The tea party has added another item to its list of reasons to fear the United Nations: Some in the movement say the U.N. is planning to intervene in the United States’ upcoming elections.

This week, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his speech on voting rights, the Texas group True the Vote called for a protest of the event because “Holder is for NAACP Plans to involve the United Nations in US Elections.” [Their emphasis.]

True the Vote, a voter integrity initiative launched by the Houston tea party group King Street Patriots, held a national summit this year featuring some of the right’s most incendiary speakers, such as Andrew Breitbart, The Texas Independent reported. According to the Independent, “representatives from more than 25 states attended the two-day national summit in Houston to receive training and information about the conservative organization’s efforts to combat voter fraud.”

The Independent reported back in March that the group was a 501(c)4 nonprofit and had applied for 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the president of King Street Patriots, said during the group’s summit that she was hoping to mobilize teams of three people to oversee each voting precinct in the country. That would add up to roughly 1 million right-wing tea party volunteers nationwide by the 2012 general election, the Independent reported.

Tea Party Manatee, based in Southwest Florida, sent out an email newsletter this week, echoing the King Street Patriots’ latest fight and warning that the U.N. is “trying to Intervene in 2012 Elections.”

According to group’s email:

• In November 2012 Foreign bureaucrats will appear at your polling station to ensure you adhere to their vision of a ‘fair’ election.
• Local polling officials who dare to enforce state clean election laws will be subject to lawsuits and arrest.
• Conservative political speech will be deemed hateful and be suppressed.
• Just enough voter fraud will be allowed to ensure a second term for Barack Hussein Obama.

This is not a fantasy – next week it will start to become reality when a delegation of leftist Obama supporters will meet with the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. And there they will lay the groundwork to ensure the United Nations takes action in time to save Barack Obama.

You see, the Democratic Left is terrified of the new clean election laws being passed across America. These laws have cleared our voter lists of the dead and the ineligible, require voter identification for everyone and insist that our military be allowed to vote.

And clean elections are the single greatest weapon we have to ensure an honest vote in 2012 and a single term for Barack Obama. And the Left can’t allow that to happen.

So they will make their case for action to the UN Human Rights Council – an international government origination so biased that even Hillary Clinton has denounced it.

Council members like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Mexico and China will review your election laws and judge if you measure up to their idea of democracy. How can we accomplish any of our goals, like repealing health care rationing, securing the borders and balancing our budget if we can’t even control our own elections?

That’s why we need to send a clear message to the UN – stay out of America’s elections and abandon Barack Obama to the judgment of the American people. I need you to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to send that very message to the United Nations – by any means necessary.

It’s difficult to trace the exact origin of this particular hysteria, but one of the earliest mentions of the NAACP’s plan to involve the U.N. came in a report by Fox News.

According to Fox:

The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to “block the vote” for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election — a charge those governments vehemently deny.

The nation’s biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures “designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color.”

…

Supporters of the laws describe them as common-sense measures meant to ensure the integrity of elections. In Tennessee, which is implementing a new photo ID law, elections coordinator Mark Goins dismissed the criticism and questioned why the NAACP would flag the United Nations over its concerns, calling that effort “a bit extreme.”

“I don’t know what the benefit of going to the U.N. would be,” he said. “I can’t imagine any authority whatsoever that they would have here in Tennessee.”

But the NAACP described the new measures as part of a “concerted” effort to drive down minority turnout and is planning a multi-stage campaign to attract international attention.

To start, the group is planning a “Stand 4 Freedom” rally this Saturday across from the U.N. headquarters. Supporters are being asked to sign an online pledge which, among other demands, calls on the United Nations to “investigate and condemn voter suppression tactics in the United States.”

Copies of the latest report are being sent to the United Nations, as well as attorneys general across the country and the Department of Justice. According to one newspaper report, the NAACP will follow up in March when it sends a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to present its case before the U.N. Human Rights Council — a group known more for its sustained criticism of Israel than its attention to voting rights.

An NAACP spokesman says the organization is just doing its duty as one of the 3,500 groups that “has consulting status” with the U.N. The group simply works with the international organization to make sure the United States is “living up to its commitment” to an initiative to eliminate discrimination, the spokesperson says.

He also says that the U.N. does not have the power to actually intervene in state matters, and can only interview people and create reports through the Human Rights Council.

“We are just working to make sure the U.S. remains a beacon of democracy,” the NAACP spokesperson says.

The NAACP will be giving a presentation in Geneva to the Human Rights Council in March 2012 as part of its consulting status.

Gingrich recently made a slew of appearances in Florida, appearing at a town hall meeting at Jacksonville Landing. Later that evening, Gingrich spoke at a private fundraising dinner in Ponte Vedra that was following by a meet-and-great at the Clubhouse of the Tournament Players Championship.

Though many have questioned whether to take Gingrich’s campaign seriously (some have called it nothing more than a glorified book tour), he has recently surged in the polls, despite garnering little media attention early on in his campaign.

Huntsman hasn’t fared as well. The former U.S. ambassador to China’s campaign manager, Susie Wiles, resigned early on — telling reporters in July that she had only signed up to get the campaign started and it was “just time” for her to go. Wiles, a Floridian, managed successful campaigns for two Jacksonville mayors and for Gov. Rick Scott.

Both Huntsman and Gingrich appeared at the Conservative Political Action Committee event in Florida, which took place in Orlando this September.

In a November appearance on Saturday Night Live, Huntsman poked fun at himself for his constant appearances in New Hampshire and his low numbers. “It is true [that I am polling in the single-digits],” he said. “But only a few months ago, I was polling at ‘margin of error.’ So to have any digit at all is a pretty big deal.”

The debate is set for Mon., Dec. 12 at the Institute of Politics in Manchester, N.H.

In a joint statement, Huntsman campaign manager Matt David and Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said that the two were looking forward “to debating in a substantive format that will allow both candidates to highlight their experience and view for the country.”

… As crop prices pushed toward record highs in 2011, farmland values have followed. After slowing somewhat during the 2007-09 recession, cropland has surged since 2010, with values jumping 20 percent or more compared to a year earlier. In some cases, fertile land that sold for $6,000 an acre in 2009 is now going for $12,000 an acre.

But, this surge in farmland values has raised some concerns about its sustainability. Recent figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that while farmland values have risen 40 percent since 2004, cash rents have risen only 17 percent. …

“The apparent decoupling of land values and rents suggests that other factors could be driving the farmland value surge,” said Jason Henderson, vice president and Omaha branch executive at the Kansas City Fed. “One of these factors could be interest rates, which remain at historically low levels and are likely helping drive the rise in land values.”

Despite strong export demands and tight supplies, corn and wheat prices have doubled since June 2010. According to the report, much of the export demand is due to countries such as China, “where rising incomes, improved diets and a weaker dollar are making U.S. agricultural exports more attractive.”

… For now, agriculture market observers don’t see a high probability that crop prices will fall soon. … As a result, aggressive bidding at land auctions appears to remain in play for at least the near term. …

The full report is embedded below:

Growing Value: Is the farmland boom sustainable?

The briefing paper, “Growing U.S. trade deficit with China cost 2.8 million jobs between 2001 and 2010,” by Robert Scott, reports all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have been affected by job loss and labor displacement due to trade with China. Since 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with the Communist nation has ballooned from $84 billion to $278 billion.

Some of the hardest hit states include Texas and California, losing some 232,000 and 451,000 jobs, respectively, mostly in manufacturing.

The report also identified job losses per congressional district, with the five most depleted in California. District 15 that includes portions of the Silicon Valley is said to have lost 12 percent of its labor force to the country’s trade deficit with China. California’s unemployment rate is above 12 percent, according to August figures.

From the report:

• Within manufacturing, rapidly growing imports of computer and electronic parts (including computers, parts, semiconductors, and audio-video equipment) accounted for more than 44% of the $194 billion increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2010. The growth of this deficit contributed to the elimination of 909,400 U.S. jobs in computer and electronic products in this period. Indeed, in 2010, the total U.S. trade deficit with China was $278.3 billion—$124.3 billion of which was in computer and electronic parts.

• Global trade in advanced technology products—often discussed as a source of comparative advantage for the United States—is instead dominated by China. This broad category of high-end technology products includes the more advanced elements of the computer and electronic parts industry as well as other sectors such as biotechnology, life sciences, aerospace, and nuclear technology. In 2010, the United States had a $94.2 billion deficit in advanced technology products with China, which was responsible for 34% of the total U.S.-China trade deficit. In contrast, the United States had a $13.3 billion surplus in ATP with the rest of the world in 2010.

• Other industrial sectors hit hard by growing trade deficits with China between 2001 and 2010 include apparel and accessories (178,700 jobs), textile fabrics and products (92,300), fabricated metal products (123,900), plastic and rubber products (62,000), motor vehicles and parts (49,300), and miscellaneous manufactured goods (119,700). Several service sectors were also hit hard by indirect job losses including administrative, support, and waste management services (204,300) and professional, scientific, and technical services (173,100).

The author points the finger at currency manipulation as the culprit for U.S. labor lacking a competitive edge. While most foreign currencies fluctuate freely against the dollar based on market dynamics and treasury yields, the Chinese have pegged their currency, the yuan, to the dollar, explains the report.

This is evident due to the stagnant value of the Chinese currency, despite the country’s impressive spike in production since the start of the new millennium. The currency manipulation is explained further:

But the yuan has instead remained artificially low as China has aggressively acquired dollars and other foreign exchange reserves to further depress the value of its own currency. (To depress the value of its own currency, a government sells its own currency, which increases its foreign reserves.) China had to purchase $450 billion in U.S. treasury bills and other securities between December 2009 and December 2010, alone, to maintain the peg to the U.S. dollar (International Monetary Fund 2011).

The country’s foreign exchange reserve purchases increased dramatically to $728.8 billion, for a total reserve chest of $3.2 trillion, 70 percent of which is made up of the dollar.

“This intervention makes the yuan artificially cheap relative to the dollar, effectively subsidizing Chinese exports. The best estimates place this effective subsidy at roughly 28.5% of the U.S. dollar, even after recent appreciation in the yuan,” the author writes.

The alliance for American Manufacturing released a statement following the report’s release, stating in part:

“This report offers conclusive evidence that immediate action by the Administration is needed to curb China’s currency manipulation, which, along with China’s blatant trade violations, are having the same devastating impact on high-tech production that they’ve already had on the nation’s longstanding industrial base,” said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a partnership of America’s leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.

“And if President Obama won’t name China a currency manipulator,” Paul said, “then Congress will have no choice but to pass legislation that will hold them accountable.

“I think without a doubt that we have a problem with drug safety in this country,” Harkin said Thursday morning by phone. “Forty percent of our finished drugs come from overseas, mostly from China and India, and 80 percent of the ingredients that go into our drugs — both over the counter and prescription drugs — come from overseas. We just have an inadequate inspection system.”

The GAO found inspections of foreign drug manufacturers have improved since its similar 2007 report indicated only 8 percent of foreign establishments were subject to inspection. At the initial rate, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would need 13 years to inspect all foreign facilities. The FDA’s inspection efforts in fiscal year 2009 represent a 27 percent increase in number of inspections it conducted previously. The GAO also notes that FDA officials understand that they remain far from achieving foreign drug inspection rates comparable to domestic inspection rates.

In addition, current types of inspections by the FDA do not generally include all parts of the drug supply chain, and holding such inspections abroad continues to pose unique challenges — including the authority to require such facilities to undergo FDA inspection.

For example, when tainted Haparin, a blood thinner often used in dialysis treatments, was distributed in the U.S. in 2007, leading to at least 81 deaths and numerous injuries, the problem was traced to a Chinese manufacturing facility that had never been inspected by the FDA. Although Herapin was made by an American company, the active ingredient had been sourced from the Chinese manufacturer, which had relied on other smaller suppliers. The tainted aspect of the drug, according to FDA reports, was likely added in China as a way to cut manufacturing costs.

And, according to FDA estimates, the number of drug products made outside of the U.S. has doubled from 2001 to 2008. In 2010, nearly 20 million shipments of food, drugs and cosmetics arrived at U.S. ports of entry — a decade earlier that number was closer to 6 million. According to the FDA, foreign facilities have grown by 185 percent, while inspection rates have decreased by nearly 57 percent.

In order to combat the existing problem and stem compounding problems that are sure to surface in future years, Harkin says the government needs to revamp old laws governing FDA inspection so that it is better equipped to secure a global supply chain — an effort very similar, he said, as to what Congress passed last year in relation to food safety.

Congressional Hearing

On Wednesday, Harkin and the full HELP Committee held hearings on government oversight of the drug supply chain, gathering testimony from FDA and GAO officials as well as advocacy groups and corporate interests.

Allan Coukell, director of medical programs for the Pew Health Group in Washington, D.C., lamented the fact that no one had yet been held accountable for the earlier incident involving the tainted Herapin.

“This incident represents a clear breach of the security of the U.S. pharmaceutical supply,” he said, adding that Congress has yet to act to update statues that govern drug manufacturing. “Numerous experts have asserted that, absent changes to the system, another such event is inevitable.

“In the case of Herapin, it appears that criminals deliberately introduced a substandard active ingredient into the supply chain. At other times, consumers may be at risk because of failures by manufacturers to comply with quality standards. Poor adherence to quality standards has been observed both in the U.S. and abroad, but the shift of manufacturing to low-cost environments with reduced oversight creates an increased risk. According to one estimate, ignoring Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) can save up to 25 percent of a factory’s operating costs. The expectation of inspections is an incentive for compliance with quality standards.”

In 2008, he noted, an Indian manufacturer was cited by the FDA for alleged falsification of stability testing records and use of active ingredients made at unapproved sites, according to a U.S. Department of Justice subpoena motion. And, in 2010, another Indian manufacturer was found to have falsified batch manufacturing records for an anti-platelet medicine. European Union inspectors discovered at least 70 batch-manufacturing records in the plant’s waste yard, all of which had been rewritten, and in some cases original entries changed.

In fact, Coukell added, in 2006, dozens of people in Panama died after taking cough medicine that had been made with diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting poison solvent. It had been wrongly labeled in China and pass through a series of international brokers, who repeatedly re-labeled it, presumably without performing independent testing. Remarkably enough, it was a diethylene glycol poisoning in the U.S. in 1937 that prompted the government to enact the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which is the document that so many pharmaceutical experts and industry watchdogs now believe needs to be updated to reflect the circumstances of the 21st century.

Kendra Martello, assistant general counsel for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which represents researched-based pharmaceutical and biotech companies, said her organization favors granting FDA discretion to set routine inspection intervals for foreign and domestic facilities according to risk and in lieu of the agency’s current rolling two-year schedule.

“We support providing FDA with the flexibility to prioritize inspections of foreign establishments based on the risks they present, and believe in relying on set criteria such as compliance history, time since last inspection, and volume and type of products produced, will enhance the FDA’s ability to target its inspection resources efficiently and effectively,” Martello told the lawmakers.

She also suggested that the FDA should recognize and utilize foreign inspection reports or those from accredited third parties to facilitate the often difficult task of oversight of those manufacturers.

“These inspections would not take the place of FDA inspections, which are a necessary and important part of the agency’s mandate; however, they would provide FDA with the flexibility to leverage the work of foreign regulatory bodies and maximize its resources, all without foreclosing its ability to inspect any facility.”

Deregulatory Climate

Amid national discussions on how to spur job creation and enhance the economy, calls for reviewing or eliminating government oversight and regulation of private industry have become common both in Iowa and throughout the nation as part of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination process.

In fact, while U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican and ranking member of the HELP Committee, noted the need for concessions in U.S. policies regarding the globalization of the pharmaceutical supply chain, he also added a caveat that such increased oversight shouldn’t hinder private industry.

“We want to make sure FDA has the tools it needs to ensure supply chain security,” Enzi said. “At the same time, I am concerned about FDA over-regulating in a way that threatens jobs and patient access to therapies.”

When Congress moves forward to address the problem, Harkin said he will push for strengthened FDA inspection authority for foreign products and facilities.

“We do need legislation and we are working on that. That’s what the hearing was about yesterday. Next year, when we turn to the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, we’re going to have something in there about FDA’s authority and ability to ramp up inspections of important drugs and components,” he said.

Companies, he said, including pharmaceutical companies, have begun reaching out to lawmakers about increasing foreign inspections and oversight.

“They want this. Why? Because many of them who have sourced their goods in this country have been placed at a competitive disadvantage. They want a level playing field. If we are going to inspect here, then the drugs that come in should also be inspected,” Harkin explained.

“I think this is an area that cries out for some form of regulation and support for a leveling of the playing field. If there are Republicans that say they don’t want to regulate on this are they telling people that this is a just a case of buyer beware? When you give medicine to your kids, you don’t know if it is safe or not? Is that what they want to say?”

The GAO’s statement before the HELP Committee is embedded below:

FDA Faces Challenges Overseeing the Foreign Drug Manufacturing Supply Chain

“There are those who want to tell us that our day as a free world’s leader has passed,” Bachmann told the legionnaires. “I don’t believe that statement, and when we conduct our foreign policy, leading from behind, I believe that weakens the United States’ credibility across the world.”

But Bachmann also made some charges that are contradicted by reports from non-partisan congressional offices, for instance, that “Obamacare” would undermine veteran health benefits and that interest payments on the national debt will grow larger than defense spending, .

Like many of the other politicians who spoke at the convention this week, including Pres. Barack Obama, Bachmann vowed to support and strengthen veterans’ medical care, which she said could be undermined by changes to doctor reimbursements and taxes on medical devices by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that will largely go into effect in 2014.

“As president I will assure that those who serve today, as well as in the past, have the highest access to the best care,” Bachmann said. “That begins, I believe, by repealing ‘Obamacare’ which I not only believe, but know, will have terrible consequences for you, our veterans.”

But contrary to Bachmann’s assertion, a 2010 study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found that the health care plan wouldn’t impact VA or TRICARE programs that serve veterans.

Bachmann also said that U.S. security was threatened by the growing national debt: “By 2020, the interest on repaying our debt will be larger than U.S. entire military budget—that’s sobering.”

But a June report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showed that isn’t exactly the case.

The CBO charted two scenarios for the growth of the debt. One possible outcome features the expiration of tax cuts created by former Pres. George W. Bush in 2001, which Bachmann opposes. Under that scenario, the interest payments in 2021 would account for 3.4 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while defense spending, not counting veterans’ benefits or retirement, would account for 3.6 percent of the GDP in the same year. If the Bush tax cuts are maintained, as Bachmann supports, the portion of GDP taken up by the interest payments would rise to 4.4 percent.

Bachmann also said the country’s role as a debtor to China threatens the country militarily.

“The interest on the payments on the debt are going to the Chinese and those payments are going to build up Chinese military efforts,” she said. “The Chinese military, as you know, recently purchased their first aircraft carrier—the U.S. is now sending money to build up the Chinese military.”

China accounts for eight percent of the country’s total debt, much of which is owed to public programs like Social Security, which means the U.S. government owes the public eight times as much as it owes China.

Bachmann pointed repeatedly in the address to Great Britain, which she said was as an example of a country that was restored to its role of world leader after electing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who pursued an aggressive foreign policy, including the Falklands War (which she inaccurately said happened in 1992, rather than 1982).

“We find ourselves today in search of another Margaret Thatcher to restore our great country to the thriving nation I believe we can be again,” Bachmann said. ”The good news is we can take our country back because the principles that make our country great lie here in this hall today.”

While economists have taken it as a foregone conclusion that China is set to dominate the world economy eventually, Arend reports that they tend to use figures with little mooring in the real world of international markets. The biggest difference in the IMF data versus traditional forecasts is that the IMF is using gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity (PPP), as opposed to GDP based on official exchange rates.

GDP (based on PPP) is assessed by looking at a country’s earnings and spendings in fixed, standard terms — usually using the U.S. dollar as a metric, as it remains the world’s reserve currency and the benchmark currency for the world economy. Earlier forecasts have been off the mark, according to the IMF and Arend, because they’ve failed to use these figures, which paint a more accurate picture of a country’s economic power relative to the rest of the world than do GDP figures based on official exchange rates.

China has for years enforced price controls to keep the value of its yuan renminbi (RMB) artificially low. This has allowed it to manufacture and export goods at prices irresistibly cheap to global consumers. By seizing upon cheap Chinese goods, the U.S. ultimately sealed its own fate, delivering the purchasing power of the world’s largest economy to Chinese manufacturers.

Arend reports that the attendant rise of the Chinese economy will have major effects very soon:

The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

Later, Arend reports that the rise of China has already quietly been one of the driving factors in growing income disparity in America:

“There are two systems in collision,” said Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU’s Stern business school. “They have a state-guided form of capitalism, and we have a much freer former of capitalism.” What we have seen, he said, is “a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That’s very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages.”

The U.S. saw $34 billion in private equity invested in the sector last year, a 51 percent jump from 2009, but China received $54.4 billion, increasing the lead it’s held over the U.S. since 2008. Germany last year passed the U.S. with $41.2 billion invested in clean energy.

“The United States’ position as a leading destination for clean energy investment is declining because its policy framework is weak and uncertain,” Pew Clean Energy Program Director Phyllis Cuttino said in a release.

“We are at risk of losing even more financing to countries like China, Germany and India, which have adopted strong policies such as renewable energy standards, carbon reduction targets and/or incentives for investment and production. In today’s global economic race, the United States can’t afford to be to be a follower in this sector.”

The new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives – including Colorado’s four GOP lawmakers – has been systematically trying to dismantle U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clean air standards in recent weeks while simultaneously pushing for further deregulation of domestic fossil fuel production.

Calling EPA regulation of greenhouse gases a backdoor attempt at cap-and-trade, there’s a growing wave of climate change skepticism among Republicans and Tea Party newcomers. Even some moderate Republicans have warned such attitudes will further erode global investment in U.S. clean energy industries.

Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pointed out the U.S. still leads in areas of innovation but is lagging in investment headed toward actual deployment of renewable energy.

“The United States remains the global leader in clean energy innovation, receiving 75 percent of all venture capital investment in the sector — a total of $6 billion in 2010,” Liebreich said in a release. “But the U.S. has not been creating demand for deployment of clean energy. As a result it is losing out on opportunities to attract investment, create manufacturing capabilities and spur job growth. For example, worldwide, China is now the leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels.”

Congress is still fighting over how to fix the federal budget, and as a form of inspiration, perhaps, conservative “taxpayer watchdog” group Citizens Against Government Waste is resurfacing a video ad it created a year ago that went viral.

The ad is set in Beijing, China, and features a middle-aged professor lecturing a room full of students about what makes a great empire fall. The year is 2030, and America has “fallen” as an empire.

The Chinese professor goes on to explain that this happened because “America tried to tax and spend itself out of a great recession,” and blamed President Obama’s stimulus and health care packages as reasons why America is now working for China.

According to Roll Call, this ad will be running for two weeks all over Cable TV, including CNN, Fox News, Headline, CNBC, the Weather Channel, and AMC, as well as on broadcast television in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Though many people have simply watched it on the Internet — the video has been seeing by more than 1.6 million viewers on the CAGW YouTube channel.

CAGW has reportedly spent millions on the video but is transparent about its own finances.

The ad:

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was the first to reject the invitation citing scheduling conflicts. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also jumped on the bandwagon and will not be attending the black tie event.

Boehner and Reid will be meeting the Chinese president on Thursday in a separate private meeting. But the meeting is unlikely to be filled with backslapping camaraderie — during an interview with a Las Vegas radio station on Tuesday Reid, described Hu Jintao as a ‘dictator’ –- though he quickly backtracked on his comments:

“He is a dictator. He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have,” said Reid, before quickly continuing, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said dictator, but they have a different type of government then we have, and that is an understatement.”

The atmosphere on the hill was far from friendly ahead of the Chinese delegation’s arrival with the promise of forging greater cooperation between the two economic superpowers. At a briefing on Wednesday morning, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) questioned whether China was a “responsible stakeholder” on the global stage, rhetorically citing China’s trade policy, relations with the Koreas and military action in the South China sea.

“We are back with a new energy from our newly-elected Members who are determined to take back America’s economy and are committed to a foreign policy that stands with our allies and holds accountable those who threaten our Nation’s security interests,” Ros-Lehtinen concluded her address.

Eighty-four lawmakers from both parties wrote a letter to Obama demanding that he takes a strong stance against alleged unfair competition by China. “America’s patience is near an end,” said the group, “We can no longer afford to tolerate China’s disregard [for international trade rules].”

Human rights is another contentious issue on many people’s minds as Obama and Hu meet for talks. A number of lawmakers have called for Obama, as a Nobel Laureate, to clearly voice his disapproval of China’s treatment of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who remains under house arrest.

Obama did make a thinly-veiled reference to human rights as he welcomed Hu to the White House on Wednesday morning:

“The world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being,” the president said.

Hu countered Obama comments, saying that both powers should “respect each other’s choice of development path and each other’s core interests.”

At a press conference held Wednesday afternoon, Hu did concede that “a lot still needs to be done” on human rights in China.

These comments have put political commentators on tenterhooks as the meetings between the leaders move into the second day.