Monthly Archives: November 2015

This Is A Great Place To Cut The Federal Budget

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The Daily Caller posted a story today about Veteran’s Administration (VA) Secretary Robert McDonald’s policy regarding bonuses to employees.

The article reports:

For 2014, employees received a total of $140 million in performance awards. Almost 50 percent of the 340,000 workers at the VA took home bonuses. The sheer number of employees awarded has raised questions about low-bar performance standards.

Regardless, McDonald was quick to justify the bonuses in an op-ed in USA Today. First, the bonuses covered the time period of October 2013 to September 2014, meaning that they are not based on current scandals. Second, bonuses play a large role in retaining talent. Third, the huge majority of the 156,000 workers who did receive bonuses definitely put veterans first.

I don’t want to see the VA budget cut in the areas that provide services to veterans, but it seems to me that bonuses at this particular time might be a little over the top.

The article includes a few illustrations of how bad things are:

Kim Graves, a regional benefits director in St. Paul, who recently pleaded the Fifth Amendment at a congressional hearing, received an $8,700 bonus.

Dr. David Houlihan, infamously known as the Candy Man at the Tomah VA, took home a bonus fo $4,000 10 months before he was fired from his post.

We need accountability in government spending. This sort of thing is unacceptable. Congress needs to do a better job of oversight.

Getting Past The Rhetoric

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There is a lot being said right now about what to do with the Syrian refugees fleeing their country. The Center for Security Policy posted an article yesterday that shines a different light on the situation.

The article reports:

President Obama made headlines today in reaction to a question from the press regarding the possibility of taking in Syrian Christian and other religious minorities ahead or in place of Syrian Muslims (Syria is majority Sunni Muslim.) The President responded aggressively claiming such a policy was, “… not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”

The reality however is that the Refugee Resettlement system already has “a religious test of their compassion”, to quote the president. And that’s a test which actively disfavors Christians, according to figures released by the State Department:

Of 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, only 53 (2.4 percent) have been Christians while 2098 (or 96 percent) have been Muslims, according to State Department statistics updated on Monday. The remaining 33 include 1 Yazidi, 8 Jehovah Witnesses, 2 Baha’i, 6 Zoroastrians, 6 of “other religion,” 7 of “no religion,” and 3 atheists.

According to the CIA Factbook, Syria has a Christian population of 10%. Approximately between 500,000 and 700,000 Christians have fled Syria–about 16% to 23% of the estimated 3 million Syrians who have fled. Since Christians are one of the main targets of the Islamists, this figure makes sense.

So what is going on here? America does not get to choose her refugees.

The article reports:

As Nina Shea highlights at National Review, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is typically the deciding agency, and recommends to the United States which refugees will be resettled. So the selection process hits several snags. Firstly, Christian refugees almost overwhelmingly avoid United Nations refugee camps out of legitimate fears of possible violence against them. Reports of attacks on Christians refugees by their Muslim counterparts have been reported, such as when Christian refugees on a boat in the Mediterranean were thrown overboard, and German police have openly urged publicly separating Christian and Muslim refugees, due to attacks. In one case a Christian convert was beaten unconscious by a metal baton.

The second part of the problem is the fact that the United Nations is very much controlled by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC comprises the largest voting block in the United Nations. The OIC is headquartered in Saudi Arabia, where the practice of Christianity is illegal.

The article explains the third part of the problem:

Thirdly, and perhaps most largely problematic, is the appearance of overt anti-Christian bias by the State Department itself. As good friend of the Center, Institute for Religion and Democracy’s Faith McDonnell notes in her recent piece on the state of Christian refugees, the State Department has explicitly declared they, “would not support a special category to bring Assyrian Christians into the United States,” in response to a plan by a private aid group to fund, entirely free of taxpayer dollars, the transport of Assyrian Christians facing extermination by Islamic State.

In other words, even when its free, no cost to them, the State Department has preferred to snub Christians rather than save them.

There is a religious test for refugees. Unfortunately that test is not only against the best interests of America, it discriminates against a persecuted group of refugees.

Hopefully There Is A Harmless Explanation For This

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WBRZ is an ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The station posted the following on its Facebook page:

SyrianRefugeeMissingToday The Gateway Pundit also posted an article about the situation.

The Gateway Pundit states:

The news may seem alarming that neither state government nor the federal government track newly-arrived refugees who have just entered the country, but it is actually not uncommon at all.

So let’s get this straight–the government is bringing these people into the country, there is no real way of thoroughly vetting them, and neither the state or the federal government is tracking the refugees after they arrive.

Have we totally departed our senses?

 

Many Americans Want To Have The Ability To Protect Themselves When They Need To

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Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about a turn-in program for ‘unwanted guns’ in Greensboro, North Carolina.

On November 10, the Greensboro Police Department make the following announcement on Facebook:

Greensboro police are asking at least 1,000 residents of the Gate City to show their commitment to safety by signing a “Pledge of Nonviolence” this Saturday, Nov. 14 at Destiny Christian Center, 2401 Randleman Rd. from 9 am to 3 pm. At the same event, gun owners can safely turn in unwanted firearms from their homes. Police employees will be accepting handguns, rifles, shotguns, and ammunition at the event. This is not a buy-back program. No cash will be given in exchange for weapons voluntarily surrendered to police.

The pledge and the opportunity to turn in weapons are spurred, in part, by an increase in gun violence. This year compared to last, gun violence has increased 68%. The term ‘gun violence’ includes any crimes against people in which weapons were used, and shootings into occupied dwellings. An incident can be classified as gun violence even if no one was injured.

One knife and a BB gun pistol that resembled a real gun were turned in. Also, almost 1,000 people did sign the “Pledge of Nonviolence” which was made available to be signed during the event.

Remember, France has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, yet the bad guys were able to buy guns. The good guys followed the law and were unarmed. A few good marksmen carrying guns in the theater might have made a big difference.

 

As The Debate On Refugees Continues…

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Joe Fitzgerald posted a commentary in the Boston Herald yesterday about the current state of affairs in America. The title of the article was, “In desperate times, deception destroys.”

Here are a few very cogent points from the article:

In circles of recovery it’s sometimes referred to as “the gift of desperation,” that moment when it becomes crystal clear to an addict that a change must be made, that returning to the old ways is simply not an option anymore.

…Even the pope — who represents the Prince of Peace on Earth — seems to have embraced the spirit of the Old Testament’s “eye for an eye” credo, as if to suggest there are limits on how often we should turn the other cheek, because it’s obvious the barbarians at our gates view kindness as weakness.

It’s not complicated. If we’re not going to love them into the family of civilization, then we need to crush them into oblivion, and soon.

…Immigration is as American as the bald eagle. Ellis Island bore witness to that.

But now it’s no longer a conversation about our hospitality; it’s clearly become the Achilles heel of our nation’s security as millions take refuge in our populace without learning our history, speaking our language or giving any indication of affection for this country.

Mr. Fitzgerald reminds us that asking who the refugees are and why they are coming here is not ‘hateful, prejudiced, or xenophobic’–it is common sense. We are responsible for preserving the country our Founding Fathers left us.

It would do us well to remember what Ben Franklin said after the close of the Continental Congress in 1787 when he was asked the following:

“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

  “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

We need to welcome people who want to live in that Republic and send those who don’t want to live in that Republic somewhere where they will be more comfortable.

The Challenge Of Balancing Compassion And Safety

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We are faced with a flood of refugees coming out of the civil war in Syria and the advance of ISIS in other parts of the Middle East. These people need a safe place to go, but the situation is complicated. The nations where they would most easily assimilate are not willing to give them refuge. It is doubtful whether they would be willing to assimilate into western nations, and that fact comes with its own set of problems and concerns.

In evaluating this situation, we need to look at some of our history. The opening paragraph of the United States Constitution states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Our government is charged with providing for the common defense. Our Constitution is the Law of the Land. We are not open to another law. The people who have come here in the past have understood that and been willing to live under American law. I fear that the Syrian refugees, even those with totally peaceful motives, will want to establish Sharia Law. That is the history of Muslim immigrants. Also, the fact that we cannot vet these refugees because Syria is a failed state means that by admitting these refugees we are putting Americans at risk. That goes against our Constitution. It is also noteworthy that many of these refugees are military-age young men–not families.

Today’s U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about President Obama’s plan to bring Syrian refugees to America. The article reports that so far twenty-five Republican governors and one Democratic governor have stated that they do not want the Syrian refugees in their states.

There are enough stable Middle Eastern countries that could easily take in these refugees. One wonders why they have not stepped up to the plate. Meanwhile, the American President is responsible for the safety of the American people.

The Theater Was Sold

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The Times of Israel reported on Saturday that the Bataclan theater, one of the targets in the Friday night terrorism attack in Paris had been sold two months ago.

The article reports:

French magazine Le Point said early Saturday that the Bataclan, where at least 80 people were massacred by Islamic State gunmen on Friday night, has for years been the target of anti-Zionist groups as the Jewish owners often put on pro-Israel events. The publication quoted a member of the extremist group Army of Islam, who told French security services in 2011 that, “We had planned an attack against the Bataclan because its owners are Jews.”

Pascal Lalous and his brother Joel sold the theater on September 11. Joel recently immigrated to Israel.

I don’t believe that the theater attack was a random attack–I suspect the terrorists did not know the building had been sold. The article also mentioned that the band playing at the theater had played in Tel Aviv in July.

As the Muslim population of France has increased, the country has become less safe for Jews. A few years ago, Jewish men were advised not to go out in public wearing their yamakas because they might be targeted. The attack on the Kosher supermarket also targeted the Jewish population.

In January of this year, the U.K. Telegraph posted an article which stated the following:

A record 15,000 French Jews could emigrate to Israel this year amid fears of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, according to the official body overseeing migration to the Jewish state.

The figure – double the number who left France for Israel last year – has been forecast by Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, following last Friday’s deadly attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris by a French jihadist, which left four Jewish citizens dead.

Part of the problem is the anti-Semitism that is built into Islam. Arabic children are routinely taught that the Jews are descendants of apes and pigs and that Jews use the blood of Arab children in their religious ceremonies. This teaching has to stop.

Terrorists commit terrorist attacks. That’s what they do. That’s who they are. Until the Muslim community stands united against these attacks, we have to conclude that they are in agreement. I understand that the Muslim community is afraid to take a stand, but they need to get past that fear. This is not unlike dealing with the Mafia. Someone needs to talk so that the entire thing can be unraveled. The western world has to take action against the philosophy that terrorism for the sake of Islam is acceptable. I think it is time to retaliate by removing Mecca and Medina from the planet. The only thing terrorists understand is force, they need to experience some force directed at them.

I Can’t Believe He Said That

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I watched some of the Democratic Party presidential debate last night. I will confess that I did not last very long. I did, however, hang around long enough to hear the following statement as reported in The Daily Caller:

Sen. Bernie Sanders stood by his claim that while he wants to rid the world of ISIS, climate change remains the “greatest threat to national security.”

Sanders said this to CBS debate moderator John Dickerson who had just asked the candidates their thoughts on the recent terror attacks in Paris.

“Do you still believe that?” Dickerson asked.

“Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism and if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to see countries all over the world,” Sanders said.

Admittedly,  limited resources can cause international conflicts. However, if the free market system is allowed to function freely, innovation can overcome shortages. For instance, Iceland has a rather limited growing season. As you drive through the country, you see greenhouses everywhere. The greenhouses are heated by the geothermal energy that is so abundant in Iceland. That is an example of overcoming a climate-related problem. Since many scientists now believe that global cooling is more likely than global warming, this may be valuable information in the future. America does not have vast amounts of geothermal energy, but given a free market without interference, I suspect we could find a way to feed people despite global cooling.

At any rate, climate change is inevitable. It has been a part of the history of the earth since there was a history of the earth. As some of the scandals in the climate data have come to light, it has been revealed that the earth suffered a period of global warming during the Middle Ages. Carbon emissions were not an issue during that time, but people in Greenland were farming.

At any rate, climate change is not an immediate threat, and there is some real question as to how much we could impact it if it were. I strongly suggest that we focus on ISIS. They are a proven danger that demands an answer.

This Is The Way To Respond To A Terrorist Attack

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ABC News is reporting today that French jets have begun bombing ISIS targets in eastern Syria.

The article reports:

The French Ministry of Defense said it targeted a command post and a terrorist training camp, dropping 20 bombs on ISIS’s de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria. The first target included a command post, jihadist recruiting center and a weapons warehouse, the ministry said.

Ten fighter jets were launched simultaneously from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The operation was coordinated with the U.S. military.

Several people in France and Belgium have been detained by the police in connection with the terrorists attacks in Paris. Authorities believe that at least ten people were involved in the attack or its planning.

The article reports a rather troubling statistic:

More than 500 Belgian nationals have left to fight in Syria, according to a Belgian database. Belgium has provided the most foreign fighters in Syria, per capita, of any European country.

In September of 2014, The Daily Beast reported:

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told CNN more than 100 Americans have pledged themselves to the group that declared itself a Caliphate in June after conquering Iraq’s second-largest city. Hagel added, “There may be more, we don’t know.” On Thursday, a Pentagon spokesman walked back Hagel’s remarks, saying the United States believes there are “maybe a dozen” Americans who have joined ISIS.

…(In an appearance on Meet the Press this weekend, Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said that hundreds of Americans were affiliated with the group.)

The problem for the U.S. intelligence community in part is that Syria itself is a bit of a black hole. Syria remains what’s known as a “denied area” for U.S. intelligence agencies, meaning any military or intelligence officer that operates inside Syria does so at great risk of being killed or captured.

I don’t know how many Americans have joined ISIS, but one is too many. We need to agree as a country as to what to do with these men if and when they return. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the same situation as Paris.

Where Some Of The Terrorists Came From

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Yahoo News is reporting today that one of the men involved in the Paris attacks registered as a refugee with Greek authorities in October. Another man involved had registered as a refugee in Greece in August.

This is the danger of taking in Syrian refugees. Syria is a failed state–there is no way to vet the refugees. Also, the number of refugees seeking asylum makes it very difficult to check anyone thoroughly. This is a terrorist network’s dream.

Meanwhile, last week CBC News reported that President Obama is seeking to speed up the vetting process of allowing Syrian refugees into the United States. I hope what happened in Paris last night will cause him to reconsider.

All Muslims are not terrorists, but given the current state of things, it would be much safer to allow the Christian refugees from the Middle East to enter America. They would be much more adaptable to our customs and much more likely to assimilate. I think the time has come for the peaceful Islamic countries in the Middle East to take in the Islamic refugees from Syria. It would be a much more comfortable fit. The refugees would assimilate easily into the Muslim culture in Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., etc. It is time those countries stepped up to help their fellow Muslims.

When We Ignore The Words Of Those Who Know…

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PJ Media posted an article by Andrew McCarthy today about last night’s events in Paris. Mr. McCarthy references an article he wrote after the Charlie Hebdo attacks called Islam and Free Speech which is part of a series published by Encounter Books.

The following is from that article:

How did we get to this historical anomaly in France where, as the estimable scholar Daniel Pipes observes, “a majority population accepts the customs and even the criminality of a poorer and weaker community”? It is the result of a conquest ideology taking the measure of a civilization that no longer values its heritage, no longer regards itself as worthy of defense.

France’s population of 66 million is now approximately 10 percent Islamic. Estimates are sketchy because, in a vestige of its vanishing secularist tradition, France does not collect census data about religious affiliation. Still, between 6 and 7 million Muslims are reasonably believed to be resident in the country (Pew put the total at 4.7 million back in 2010 – other analysts peg it higher today). To many in France, the number seems higher, due to both the outsize influence of Islamist activists on the political class and the dense Muslim communities in and around Paris – approximating 15 percent of the local population. An online poll conducted by Ipsos Mosi in 2014 found that the average French citizen believes Muslims make up about a third of the country’s population.

When refugees assimilate, there is no problem. When refugees refuse to assimilate, there is a problem.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, A Qatar-based Egyptian octogenarian, is a Muslim Brotherhood icon. He is considered the world’s most influential sharia jurist. He has stated:

Were we to convince Western leaders and decision-makers of our right to live according to our faith — ideologically, legislatively, and ethically — without imposing our views or inflicting harm upon them, we would have traversed an immense barrier in our quest for an Islamic state.

The article at PJ Media states:

The key to the conquest strategy is to coerce the West into accepting a Muslim right to resist assimilation, to regard sharia as superseding Western law and custom when the two conflict. For precisely this reason, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – a bloc of 56 Muslim countries (plus the Palestinian Authority) – has decreed that “Muslims should not be marginalized or attempted to be assimilated, but should be accommodated.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist president of Turkey who has systematically dismantled that country’s secular, pro-Western system, similarly pronounces that pressuring Muslims to assimilate in the West “is a crime against humanity.”

Free expression is the gateway to assimilation. Consequently, radical Islam cannot tolerate it.

France has had “no go zones” for years–places where non-Muslims are not welcome. These zones are places where jihadist activity can flourish without restraint.

The article concludes:

Some of these zones inevitably evolve into hotbeds of jihadist activity. As the Gatestone Institute’s Soeren Kern notes, there has been no shortage of Internet traffic suggesting, for example, “the killing of France’s ambassadors, just as the manly Libyan fighters killed the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi.” In a low-intensity jihadist thrum stretching back several years, the torching of automobiles has become a commonplace – as many as 40,000 cars burned annually. Perhaps most alarmingly, over a thousand French Muslims, more than from any other Western country, are estimated to have traveled to Syria to fight for ISIS – meaning many will return to the country as trained, battle-hardened jihadists. Beyond the direct ISIS participants, moreover, the Washington Post has reported that a recent poll found 16 percent of French citizens expressing some degree of support for ISIS – an organization whose rule over the vast territory it has seized is best known for decapitations, rapine, the execution of homosexuals, mass graves, and the enslavement of non-Muslim communities.

Once one grasps the voluntary apartheid strategy, it becomes obvious why radical Islam’s inroads in France, and elsewhere in Europe, seamlessly translate into demands for the enforcement of sharia’s curbs on speech and artistic expression. What is not so obvious is just how profound a challenge to the West this constitutes.

Western civilization is in a war for its survival. The question is whether or not we will fight that war. Whether we fight that war or not, the jihadists will fight it.

We need to pray for France, but we also need to pray for western civilization. That is what is on the line.

Today’s Academic Standards Review Commission Meeting

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Today I attended the meeting of the Academic Standards Review Commission in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Commission was established by Senate Bill 812 which went into effect on July 1, 2014. The short title of the bill is, “Replace Common Core To Meet NC‘s Needs.” During the meeting, Representative Larry G. Pittman, District 82, Cabarrus, read a letter he had written to the commission.

This is the text of the letter:

The report from the ASRC should include a copy of the bill, SB 812, that created the ASRC.

Next, there should be a summary of the process followed by the Commission.

There should be a summary of the input from all parties who presented to the Commission.

There should be a summary of all the alternatives to Common Core that were examined by the Commission.

The report should conclude with the recommendations of the Commission for replacing Common Core. In the title of the bill, it plainly says that the purpose of the Commission is to replace Common Core. This means removing Common Core and replacing it with something else. It does not mean rebranding, “tweaking,” or rewriting Common Core. It means getting rid of it. So that is what the recommendations from the ASRC should be.

The meeting included a discussion of the reports of the progress students have made in mathematics and English since Common Core was implemented. Some scores show some improvement, and in many cases, the scores have gone down. The ‘experts’ had many excuses for this. but the fact is that Common Core has not been the magic bullet the education establishment claimed it would be. The main success of Common Core has been to set up a data collection system on our children that makes the NSA look like pikers. Common Core has also put technical platform requirements on our schools that will amount to large amounts of unfunded liabilities in future years.

On September 27, 2013, The Washington Post reported the following statement by Bill Gates, the force behind Common Core, “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.” I

I have a question for parents in all parts of America. Are you willing to turn your children over to an education system that invades your and your children’s privacy, is totally unproven, and tells them that their parents don’t know how to do things? If not, it is time for you to get involved. Begin at your local school board. If that doesn’t work, go to your state legislator. If that doesn’t work, write a letter to the editor of the newspaper. If you want your child to grow up to be a knowledgeable, contributing member of society, I strongly suggest that you begin to speak out against Common Core.

There were less than 20 people observing the meeting today. Common Core will not go away unless more parents make noise and get involved. Find out what your state is doing about Common Core and fight for your child’s future.

Removing Common Sense From The Small Business Loan Department

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about a new regulation on small business lending. Before leaving office, President Obama is attempting to recreate the mortgage bubble that led to the crash of 2008. This time the crash will be created in the area of commercial loans to small businesses.

The article reports:

The White House complains minority-owned firms don’t have the same access to credit as others. But the result of this new political scrutiny is easy to see: Commercial lenders will be pressured to lower standards, leading to riskier lending and higher defaults (see: mortgage bust, ’08).

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has carved out a new executive-level position: “assistant director of small-business lending markets,” which will lead an unprecedented collection of race-based data about loans to “minority-owned businesses.”

Meanwhile, CFPB Director of Fair Lending Patrice Ficklin said the bureau is starting its first fair-lending-focused exams of business lenders. Specifically, regulators will look at “small-business loan underwriting criteria” to see if it has a discriminatory “disparate impact” on minority business owners applying for credit. Marketplace lending will also be under the microscope.

The move is a result of a letter written by 84 House Democrats and 19 Senate Democrats (comprised mostly of Congressional Black Caucus members) to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Cordray asking him to require all lending institutions to disclose the race of small-business owners who apply for loans and the outcome of loan applications. The supposed outcome of this is to remove ‘barriers to small-business creation.’ The actual outcome of this will be that risky loans will be required and banks and institutions that make small business loans will begin to lose money and threaten the economic health of the nation.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked Director Cordray to collect the data to make it easier to enforce fail lending laws. Again, we are going to be divided according to race rather than encouraged to work together.

Statistically African-American business owners are more likely to default on business loans. Banks and commercial lenders have to consider that when they make loans. This sort of interference with free market economics can only hurt the economy–not help it. I am against denying anyone a loan because of their race, but I am also against giving someone a loan because of their race. There can be some flexibility in granting these loans, but there also has to be some common sense in protecting the lenders and the people who finance the loans.

The article concludes:

Yet as with mortgages, the assumption is that underwriting standards are racist and must be made more flexible, risks be damned. Since business loans default at higher rates than mortgages, another government-sponsored financial crisis won’t be far behind.

Hold on to your hat.

The Part Of The Story I Hadn’t Heard

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The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about the recent bombing of a Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) ( MSF) hospital in Afghanistan. Evidently, all was not as it seemed to be at the time.

The article reports:

International law experts are blasting Doctors Without Borders for forcibly removing civilian patients from the aid group’s Kunduz, Afghanistan, hospital and replacing them with wounded Taliban fighters when the city fell to the rebel control in late September.

Alan Dershowitz, an acclaimed Harvard constitutional lawyer and authority in international law, said that he was not surprised that the group, known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, favored Taliban fighters over civilian patients, telling The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview that he regards Doctors Without Borders as “Doctors Without Morals.”

Dershowitz charged the group with having a long history of anti-Western political stances and of not being neutral. He says MSF “is a heavily ideological organization that often favors radical groups over Western democracies and is highly politicized.”

Now this makes sense. One of the strategies in the war against Israel is for the Arabs to place rocket launchers and store ammunition in hospitals and civilian homes. Then they scream that the Israelis are targeting hospitals and civilian homes. This is a very similar situation. Our troops bombed a Taliban center. There were no civilian patients–they had already been kicked out to make room for Taliban soldiers.

The article further explains:

Yet MSF itself may have violated a whole host of humanitarian laws by its own admission that Kunduz hospital administrators agreed to discharge Afghan civilian patients at the behest of Taliban officials and replace them with wounded rebel soldiers.

The acknowledgement was buried inside a Nov. 5 “interim” report released by MSF that traced the internal activities at their hospital leading up to the attack.

As usual when dealing with terrorists, things are not what they appear to be.

Thank God For The Freedom Of Information Act

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The government’s Freedom of Information Act website describes the act as follows:

What is FOIA?

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law that gives you the right to access information from the federal government. It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government.

I suspect there are more than a few politicians that really despise this law.

The Washington Examiner reported today that a federal judge has ordered the State Department to release 700 new pages of records from Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State. In November of last year, Jason Leopold of Vice News had filed a FOIA request for virtually all written records from Hillary Clinton and her staff. This was long before we knew anything about her private server.

The article reports:

That FOIA case eventually prompted the court’s high-profile decision to force the State Department to publish all of Clinton’s emails in batches at the end of every month.

Now, the agency could be compelled to prepare thousands of additional documents for release in order to satisfy other aspects of Leopold’s FOIA request, which was narrowed after he and his attorney, Ryan James, sued the State Department.

Remember, Hillary Clinton deleted all of her emails that she deemed personal. This FOIA request may shed some light on how many of those deleted emails were actually personal. Stay tuned. This does not seem to be going away.

This Global Warming Thing Is Just Not Working

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The Nation posted an article today about some scientific information that is causing some problems for those who believe in global warming.

The article reports:

The sun will go into “hibernation” mode around 2030, and it has already started to get sleepy. At the Royal Astronomical Society‘s annual meeting in July, Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University in the UK confirmed it – the sun will begin its Maunder Minimum (Grand Solar Minimum) in 15 years. Other scientists had suggested years ago that this change was imminent, but Zharkova’s model is said to have near-perfect accuracy.

So what is a “solar minimum”?

Our sun doesn’t maintain a constant intensity. Instead, it cycles in spans of approximately 11 years. When it’s at its maximum, it has the highest number of sunspots on its surface in that particular cycle. When it’s at its minimum, it has almost none. When there are more sunspots, the sun is brighter. When there are fewer, the sun radiates less heat toward Earth.

But that’s not the only cooling effect of a solar minimum. A dim sun doesn’t deflect cosmic rays away from Earth as efficiently as a bright sun. So, when these rays enter our atmosphere, they seed clouds, which in turn cool our planet even more and increase precipitation in the form of rain, snow and hail.

This does not sound like fun. Global cooling has a negative impact on agriculture, it increases the need for fossil fuels (to keep people warm), and it generally makes life uncomfortable in many areas of the earth.

The article further reports:

The last time we became concerned about cooler temperatures – possibly dangerously cooler – was in the 1970s. Global temperatures have declined since the 1940s, as measured by Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The PDO Index is a recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability centred over the Pacific Ocean. Determined by deep currents, it is said to shift between warm and cool modes. Some scientists worried that it might stay cool and drag down the Atlantic Decadal Oscillation with it, spurring a new Ice Age. The fear was exacerbated by the fact that Earth has been in the current inter-glacial period for 10,000 years (depending on how the starting point is gauged).

If Earth were to enter the next Ice Age too quickly, glaciers could advance much further south, rainforests could turn into savannah, and sea levels could drop dramatically, causing havoc.

The BBC, all three major American TV networks, Time magazine and the New York Times all ran feature stories highlighting the scare. Fortunately, by 1978 the PDO Index shifted back to warm and the fear abated.

Climate science vs the sceptics

By the 1990s the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had formed the “97 per cent consensus”. The consensus was that Earth was warming more than it should, not just due to natural causes but also human activity. This was termed Anthropogenic Global Warming. The culprit was identified as carbon dioxide generated from the burning of fossil fuels.

I wonder if burning more fossil fuels would prevent global cooling. The bottom line here is simple–we don’t know everything we think we know. My solution is simple–do all you can to keep pollution levels low, and live your life in the best way possible. Don’t allow government officials selling panic to take more of your freedoms. There is nothing wrong with conserving energy, but we don’t have to be slaves of the government in doing it. Americans live in a free country, and it is up to us to keep it free. As I said, live with a reasonable carbon footprint, but don’t go into panic mode. When was the last time you saw someone screaming “the sky is falling–it’s global warming” give up their private jet, their limousine, or buy a small, energy efficient house? When that happens, I will pay attention.

Someone Needs To Explain The Logic Of This To Me

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Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon reported that America, China, France, Germany, and Russia have agreed to supply advanced equipment for the Arak nuclear reactor in Iran. The goal of the United States is to refit the reactor so that it can no longer produce weapons grade nuclear material.

The article reports:

Nuclear experts from the Department of Energy will be tasked with helping to accomplish this goal, according to Secretary Ernest Moniz.

“Under the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], one step that Iran must take is to redesign its Arak Heavy Water Research reactor, including removing its existing calandria and rendering it inoperable,” Moniz said in an Oct. 18 statement. “To support this effort, the Department of Energy’s nuclear experts will lead the U.S. effort to work with our P5+1 partners and Iran to modernize the Arak reactor, effectively eliminating a potential source of weapons-grade material.”

U.S. nuclear experts also will provide Iran with “technical advice” on nuclear issues, Moniz said.

“In addition to co-chairing the Arak Modernization Working Group, the Department of Energy’s technical experts will also continue to support President Obama, Secretary [John] Kerry, our P5+1 and EU partners, and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] through technical advice and expert consultations on nuclear matters,” he said.

This sounds great, but I think we are nuts. I can’t help but think that any new technology used to refit the plant will be carefully studied by the Iranians. Does anyone really believe that after we update the plant and leave the area, the plant won’t be quietly refitted by the Iranians for their purposes.

I am probably one of the world’s least scientific people. However, I can’t help believe that there are more than a few thorns included with the roses in this deal.

People Are Paying Good Money To Have Their Children Exposed To This Garbage

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Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about the protests at the University of Missouri. The football team at the University will be boycotting future football games until their concerns about alleged campus racism are addressed.

The article reports:

Among the items on the list, which can be read in full here, was a demand for the (now-former) president, Tim Wolfe, to hold a public press conference to read out a “handwritten apology” to students, and publicly “acknowledge his white male privilege.” Now that he’s set a precedent for chickening out immediately in the face of thuggery, the campus social justice warriors everywhere will be emboldened to challenge their superiors.

There were also demands for more affirmative action. The group wants the university to pledge to increase black staff and faculty members to 10 per cent by 2017-18. They also want a greater focus on hiring “persons of color” at the school’s mental health and social justice centres. Because never mind who’s the best qualified to help: what matters is that nurse is a black woman.

Indoctrination is also on the agenda. The group demands that the University of Missouri “creates and enforces comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum throughout all campus departments and units, mandatory for all students, faculty, staff and administration.”

I hate to be difficult here, but it is known that many universities add points to SAT and other test scores of minorities to make them more competitive when applying to universities. Isn’t that minority privilege? This is so ridiculous it is unbelievable. At this stage of the game, I don’t think I would be willing to send a child to college if this is what is being taught. Martin Luther King, Jr. got it right when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The protest at the University of Missouri is moving away from that concept–not toward it.

I have one last comment. No one should be discriminated, mistreated, denied a job, or looked down upon because of their race, sex, or religion. We should not make the mistake of elevating people based on the fact that they are black just because we have made mistakes in the other direction in the past. The only way to stop discrimination is to begin with forgiveness and move forward. Holding a grudge against supposed ‘white male privilege’ accomplishes nothing. When people are willing to put down that grudge, we can all move forward together.

What does it say about our educational system that a football team threatening to boycott can force a University President to resign from his position?

The Lies Begin To Add Up

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Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill, have never had a strong reputation for honesty, but sometimes it is a good idea to remind ourselves why they have such a miserable rating in that area. Last week The Hill posted an article by A. B. Stoddard about Hillary Clinton’s rather distant relationship with the concept of truth.

The article notes:

In the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, even though Clinton beats most GOP candidates, Sanders performs better against them, and she loses independents in every match-up. Her numbers on honesty and trustworthiness, according to Qiunnipiac, are 36 percent to 60 percent — worse than for any candidate in either party.

It is a sad reflection of the values of American voters that a candidate who has such a low rating on honesty and trustworthiness is leading the fight for the presidential nomination of the Democratic party.

The article goes on to list some of Hillary Clinton’s more recent lies:

Clinton said she was transparent, yet her emails were under congressional subpoena for years while she kept her private server a secret. 

Clinton said she used one device at State for convenience, but she in fact used several. 

She said her email server was destroyed, but it was not. 

She said she handed over all work emails to the State Department, but then congressional investigators turned up others. 

She said she responded to a routine records request from the State Department and turned over her emails when several other secretaries of State did, but State officials were asking for her emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional investigations months before that.

Clinton said the State Department affirmed that 90 percent of her work email was captured on the State.gov accounts of other employees — a statistic department officials conceded, after she repeated it under oath in her Benghazi Committee testimony, they know nothing about. 

Clinton claimed in March “there is no classified material,” yet indeed there was. 

Clinton has repeated numerous times that the arrangement was “allowed,” though no one in the administration has ever said they approved her server. So Democrats — like Republicans — assume she is making a misleading statement about her own unorthodox decision to do something no Cabinet secretary had ever before done.

When asked on NBC’s “Meet The Press” whether she deleted any emails to hide information from future investigations, Clinton said the idea “never crossed my mind.”

America is a representative republic. We elect our leaders. We get the leaders we deserve. If that is the degree of honesty that we expect from our President, we are in serious trouble.

 

Using State Agencies For Personal Purposes

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Hot Air posted an article today about some recent actions by California Governor Jerry Brown. It seems that Governor Brown used state resources to survey his family’s ranch to see if there was any fossil fuel underground.

The article reports:

In case you missed it, Hizzoner apparently took it upon himself to direct the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency to do a survey of his extensive ranch and find out if there was anything under the ground worth tapping. This effort included satellite imaging and all the other scientific tools to estimate the potential fossil fuel reserves which might be found there. When pressed for an explanation, all the Governor’s office managed to come up with was a claim that the agency does that for regular people all the time. (That came as a surprise to the folks at the Department of Conservation.)

It seems that the Governor was unhappy about seeing this news in the headlines and a whistleblower from the regulatory agency is now crying foul, implying that some sort of retaliation toward her may be in the works. (NewsMax)

I don’t even want to think about how much it would cost a private citizen to have such a survey. The woman who filed a whistleblower’s complaint about the state’s resources being used for the survey has hired a lawyer because she fears retaliation.

The article concludes:

The GOP in California has already called for a full investigation and Brown deserves a chance to clear his name. But the statements from the Governor’s office thus far seem to be admissions that it happened, with the only quibbling being over whether or not it’s allowed business as usual. If the findings show that this was precisely what it looks like thus far, this could very well be the beginning of the end of Jerry Brown’s governorship.

As taxpayer’s become more concerned about how their tax money is being spent, we may see more scandals like this. State and federal governments include a lot of waste and a lot of pork.

Part of the spending problem in the federal budget is the concept of ‘baseline budgeting.’ This is the concept that explains how Congress can claim to cut spending while the actual amount spent increases. The way the federal government computes its budget is to begin the process at the current spending level. Then, Congress will plan to increase the spending in a department maybe 5 percent. Then, they will ‘cut’ their spending by increasing the spending in that department by only 3 percent. Despite the fact that they actually increased spending by 3 percent, they will claim that they have cut the spending in that department by 2 percent. People who are not paying close attention will believe that spending has actually been cut by 2 percent. The solution to this practice is to educate the American voters as to what is going on.

Meanwhile, let’s see how much of Governor Brown’s current problem is reported in the mainstream media.

Unfortunately They Are Not All Refugees

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Breitbart.com posted an article today which illustrates the problem with the refugees fleeing the Middle East.

The article reports:

A convicted terrorist has been caught trying to smuggle himself into Europe by posing as an asylum seeker, in a stark event proving correct those who warned of terrorists taking advantage of the European Union’s lax border controls.

Ben Nasr Mehdi, a Tunisian who was first arrested in Italy in 2007 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for plotting terror attacks with an Islamic State-linked group, was caught trying to re-enter the country last month.

Authorities discovered him among 200 migrants who were rescued at sea and taken to the island of Lampedusa. Although he gave a false name, migration officers identified him through finger print records, the Independent reports.

German channel n-tv claims the Italian government initially tried to hide the story to avoid “panic” and “scare tactics”. The news did not emerge until several days after Mehdi had been detained last week.

The good news is that the people on the island had the wisdom to fingerprint the refugees and thus were able to catch Ben Masr Mehdi. The bad news is the claim that the Italian government tried to hide the story.

The article further reports:

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has until now insisted there is no evidence that Islamist terrorists are smuggling themselves into the country among the thousands of migrants, but his ministry has admitted that Ben Nasr Mehdi is exceptionally dangerous.

When police arrested him in 2007, they found explosive detonators, poisons and guerrilla warfare manuals. Prosecutors said he had been part of a group that was setting up militant cells that had recruited potential suicide bombers.

Authorities intercepted phone calls in which he indicated he had supplied instructions and contacts to terrorists in Damascus, thus marking him out as a senior operative.

I hate to say this, but I am wondering if it would be wise to allow only women and children under the age of twelve to migrate for the time being. There is simply too much danger from young men (and unfortunately, young women) who have been fed hatred of the west and believe it is their religious duty to kill westerners. I truly believe that if we do not find a way to vet these refugees carefully, we will  pay a very high price in the near future.

The Argument For Keeping Guantanamo Open

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Tim Scott, a South Carolina Senator, posted an article at the National Review on Wednesday. In the article he reminds us that President Obama recently vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act because it blocked the transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo to American soil. Senator Scott recently visited Guantanamo and feels that it is the best place on earth to keep terrorists. I would like to add that generally countries don’t release prisoners of war (which terrorists are not, but that is the closest I could come) until the war is over. I don’t think the war on terrorism is over.

Senator Scott points out:

The propaganda war: Opponents of keeping the detention facilities open at Guantanamo believe that by closing it, we can stop terrorist groups from using it as a recruiting tool. This requires you to also believe that any new facility built would not be held up as a recruiting tool. And if you believe that, I have a nice, new bridge to sell you. Here’s what is actually occurring at Guantanamo: 250 assaults on our guards in the past year and a half . . . and absolutely zero retaliations. Our troops are highly disciplined and dedicated to serving our nation, and this proves it. This number is rarely reported on, but it tells you more about what is happening at Guantanamo Bay than anything else.

The Senator also reminds us that compliant detainees have portable DVD players, headphones, satellite TV and PlayStations. Well-behaved prisoners can be out of their cells for 22 hours a day.

The Obama Administration claims that keeping prisoners at Guantanamo is more expensive than it would be to keep them on American soil. The Administration cites a cost of $2.4 million per prisoner per year. Well, not so fast. This supposed cost includes the salaries of the troops guarding the terrorists. These troops will still exist–they will simply be sent elsewhere. The savings are greatly exaggerated. There is also the rather important fact that about 30 percent of the prisoners released have gone back to terrorism. Not a pleasant thought.

There are a number of American facilities that the President feels could accommodate the prisoners, including Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, the Naval brig outside Charleston, S.C., and the supermax facility in Colorado. However, does anyone actually believe that if these prisoners were moved to these locations, terrorists in America would not find a way to get them out? Terrorists have attacked elementary schools, held hostages in order to make prisoner exchanges, blown up things, and generally threatened civilian populations on a regular basis. Why would anyone think they would not do this to free their comrades?

Closing Guantanamo has always been a bad idea. It will continue to be so until the world is free of terrorism. Unfortunately, I am not expecting that to happen in the near future.

 

President Obama As A Democratic Party Leader

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Some interesting statistics.

ObamaDemocrats1ObamaDemocrats2So what is going on here? This picture might help.

ObamaDemocrats3This is the 2012 presidential election map by county. President Obama won because his support was in areas that were densely populated and had a large number of electoral votes. As you can see by the map, in non-urban America, a large number of American voters did not support President Obama. I still believe (contrary to what the media tells us) that America is politically a center-right country. The reason Democrats prevail in urban areas is that many of the people who live in those areas are dependent on the government for some sort of financial aid. Many of the people who live in urban areas fear that if government grows smaller, their financial aid from the government will also grow smaller. Many of the people in these areas could easily be described as ‘low-information voters‘ who are often lied to and manipulated by candidates. Urban areas are also the places where you will find the highest amount of voter fraud. It is much easier to cast a fraudulent vote in a large precinct than in a precinct where everyone knows everyone else.

I have no suggestions on how to put a Republican in the White House in 2016. I am also more interested in what a candidate stands for than his party label. If a truly conservative Democrat ran for President, I would vote for him. I just wonder if America has reached a point of no return in federal spending and if this runaway spending train can be stopped.