Operation Bald Eagle is a new spy fiction book from author Kyle Bell. It tells the thrilling story of a CIA agent investigating a potential cyber-attack on U.S. soil. The book begins with a Chinese businessman attempting to purchase an American technology company with sensitive government contracts. An exciting car chase that leads them to the Golden Gate Bridge ends with their target dead and few leads to go on. All is not as it seems, though, as Ethan Clark will soon find out.

Who is Ethan Clark?

Ethan Clark is a middle-aged veteran of the CIA. He’s tough around the edges, sarcastic; some would even call him an asshole. His decades of experience have led to doubts about the role that America plays in the world. Things are not black and white. He sees the world in shades of gray.

Why should I care?

Fans of spy novels, movies and video games will find that Operation Bald Eagle draws inspiration from familiar franchises. While Ethan Clark is in many ways an anti-Bond hero, Operation Bald Eagle’s larger-than-life villains will challenge even the most memorable bad guys in the Bond universe. Operation Bald Eagle goes back to the roots of the spy genre and makes it relevant to a 21^st century world.

Where can I buy?

Operation Bald Eagle is available at multiple online retailers for $3.99 including Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo. Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore and Sony will soon follow. See the links below!

Amazon
Smashwords
Kobo

South Bend, Indiana - January, 25, 2012 – Operation Bald Eagle has launched on Amazon.com and Smashwords for $3.99 with Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore and Kobo to follow in the weeks to come. A paperback version will be released later in 2012.

http://amazon.com/Operation-Bald-Eagle-ebook/dp/B0070TQEYA/
http://smashwords.com/books/view/102184

Agent Ethan Clark faces one of his most daunting challenges yet in this spy thriller that sends the CIA veteran from San Francisco to Taiwan. The Chinese attempt to acquire a highly valued American technology company with sensitive U.S. government contracts. Intelligence suggests that a possible cyber-attack is in the works, but all is not as it seems.

“Operation Bald Eagle is a story of resolve in the face of adversity,” said author Kyle W. Bell. “The world of Ethan Clark is dominated by overwhelming corporate power and government corruption. Politics gets in the way of the job. Fortunately, people with good intentions still work on behalf of the American public – even when everything seems hopeless.”

Fans of the book are encouraged to “like” the Operation Bald Eagle page on Facebook at http://facebook.com/pages/Operation-Bald-Eagle/185568411534991

About the Author

Kyle W. Bell holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Indiana University South Bend. He calls South Bend his home where he was born and raised. He has always been an avid writer. At the age of twenty-three, he likes to think that his youth gives him the freedom to write openly and refrain from being overly cynical.

Kyle’s main interests include writing, reading books, keeping tabs on the news, watching sports and being with both friends and family. In 2003, he founded the video game news and review website Game Freaks 365. His interest in politics drove him to create KyleBell.com in 2007, a political blog meant to generate ideas and debate on policy, as well as current events.

He is the recipient of the Indiana Black Expo’s Martin Luther King Junior Award. It was won in an essay contest in 2002 writing about the perils of racial profiling in the wake of 9/11. The following year he was awarded with the Presidential Award for excellence in education. In 2011 his writing on sports development appeared in Indiana University South Bend’s Undergraduate Research Journal.

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Feel free to send an e-mail to kwb at kylebell dot com if you are interested in a review copy for your website, newspaper or blog. Available formats include PDF, Kindle, ePub and more. I am also available for interview upon request.

Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the president would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Senator Carl Levin (Democrat, Michigan) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.

The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the president. The “American way of life” is defined by our constitution and specifically the bill of rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.

Obama is not going to indefinitely detain American citizens, at least abusively to target political opponents. However, could you imagine this kind of power in the hands of a man like Richard Nixon? Obama will only be in office for – at the most – five more years. Do Democrats mean to say that they trust this kind of power with a Republican president? Would they be defending George W. Bush if he had signed this into law? The hypocrisy is astounding. Signing this bill is the single biggest mistake of President Obama’s career.

The facts are not on his side. Right-to-work states like South Carolina have a considerably higher unemployment rate than Indiana (10.5% vs. 9%) and their workers have lower wages. Daniels should get his talking points straight before he makes false and misleading claims about the jobs situation in Indiana. Unions are not the problem, Indiana Republicans’ willingness to sacrifice wages and workplace safety is the problem.

Daniels goes on to claim that, “I’d be completely opposed to this if it affected the right to organize. But every right-to-work state has unions and some of them have a higher percentage of union members than Indiana does. I’d be completely against anything that reduced the right to organize. This is only about whether you have to pay the dues or don’t.”

I’ll give the governor credit, he knows how to weasel out of his positions – at least rhetorically – even while still maintaining them. The bill has nothing to do with jobs and everything to do with killing unions. Right-to-work is a way to drain a union’s resources. If you can benefit from a union and not have to pay for it then who would offer up their dues? It’s called free-riding. For a party that would love to see all resistance to corporate power crushed, right-to-work makes a good deal of sense.

As the description says, “Ozzy is the short story of a cat and his master. After losing his beloved wife, the man struggles to cope with a lonely life, a troubled son, and the nightmares of his past.” That man is my grandfather. It’s an honor to be able to write a story about my now-deceased grandparents.

The sale should be reflected at Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore and other retailers in the coming week or two when it ships to them.

Unfortunately, too often the government has proven to be slow to respond to the needs of its citizens. The unemployment crisis is a good example of this. The Recovery Act (also known as the stimulus) was passed with mostly Democratic support in 2009. The result was over 3 million jobs created. Many Republicans will have you believe that it created no jobs, including elected officials that know better, especially since many of these same people (Michele Bachmann for instance) were lobbying for money to go to their districts.

Now that the stimulus has run out the economy has slowed. A new round of economic measures were proposed by President Obama and rejected by Republicans who control the House. Democrats should rightly condemn their obstructionism as purely political. Their top goal, as stated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is to defeat President Obama. The American people deserve better than that. But to ignore the Recovery Act’s mistakes would itself be a mistake.

Looking back at the Recovery Act there are a few things that we can say that today is obvious. For one, it was too small in size. The United States economy was nearly $15 trillion in 2010. The Recovery Act – extended over the course of roughly two years – pumped the economy with spending that equated to only 2.6 percent of GDP. Compounding this problem was the fact that the Recovery Act was a smorgasbord of spending that Democrats had sought for a long time after over 12 years of Republican rule in Congress, but was not necessarily the most effective way at reducing unemployment. Republican plans that focused solely on tax cuts were even less likely to cause a boost to the economy.

We need more signs like this on the road.

As they say hindsight is always 20/20 yet it should have been clear at the time that what was being done would not nearly be enough. The federal government was essentially paying to fill the budget holes of states like Texas, which cut funding to schools only to replace that money with stimulus money. The stimulative result was minimal since they were essentially swapping state money for federal money. This could have easily been predicted and rectified, perhaps by adding provisions requiring the states to maintain current funding levels if they were to accept federal dollars.

Other problems included a high-speed rail network that gave out grants to states rather than directing the funding through the Department of Transportation. After Republican governors took control of states like Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, they quickly rejected the money, putting major gaps in the future rail network. If President Obama really believed in the future of high-speed rail and the economic opportunities that come with it, why were the details left to the states? Like much of the Recovery Act this reliance on state government, often run by inefficient and politically hostile officials, hurt the prospect of job growth.

Ultimately, fixing America’s broken economy will take cooperation. Republicans will have to assume responsibility instead of sitting on the sidelines and attacking the president. Democrats will have to demand more efficient programs. A bipartisan coalition of left-leaning unions and the right-wing Chamber of Commerce came out in support of infrastructure spending. This would be a good start. Providing tax credits for small businesses that hire workers would also be a good idea that should win broad support. I would even advocate reducing America’s corporate tax rate, making American business more competitive, if it were met with an increase in the tax rate for the top 1% to offset the lost revenue. It’s time to get smart and efficient with government.