What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Last Wednesday The Daily Caller posted an article about an event at Central Park School for Children in Durham, North Carolina. The teachers were allowed to opt out of the event, but parents did not have the option.

The article reports:

Stef Bernal-Martinez, a teacher of 6-year-old children, signed up all the children in her class for a “Black Lives March and Rally” to take place during the school day, at the city’s downtown Central Park and Farmer’s Market. Ms. Bernal-Martinez describes herself as a “Radical Queer Progressive Educator” and “white-passing Xicana.”

The event, like the Black Lives Matter movement itself, is less a spontaneous protest movement than a divide-and-conquer campaign by elite leftists. Two out of three African-Americans prefer the phrase “All Lives Matter” to “Black Lives Matter” according to a national August, 2015 Rasmussen poll. The grade school is predominantly Caucasian, but run by radical leftists. Naturally the school didn’t send the parents consent forms.

I believe all lives matter (including the lives of policemen), but I don’t like the idea that somehow black lives are any more or less important. The article states that some families that include policemen objected to having their children participate as marchers in this rally as some “Black Lives Matter” movement members have called for violence against police officers in the past.

The article concludes:

Black Lives Matter promotes antagonism against people of a different race based on their belief of the innate characteristics of the other race. This is the traditional, standard-dictionary definition of racism. Alveda King, the niece of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, says that the tactics employed by the Black Lives Matter movement do not represent the principles for which her uncle stood. Mrs. King recently said, “Of course black lives matter, all lives matter.”

The methods employed by Black Lives Matter have been racially polarizing. Parents at the school have asked for the Durham Police Department to be on hand for the children’s protection. Self-proclaimed radical educators dragging children into this ugly and sometimes deadly melee is wrong by any standard.

I have a few questions for the people who run this school. How well do the children do in the basic subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic? Are the children academically strong enough to spend a day away from their studies and not pay a price? Is this a good use of instruction time?

Our President Has Forgotten Who We Are

The Weekly Standard posted an article yesterday about President Obama’s remarks in Cuba.

The article reports:

“President Castro, I think, has pointed out that in his view making sure that everybody is getting a decent education or health care, has basic security and old age, that those things are human rights as well. I personally would not disagree with him,” Obama said.

“But it doesn’t detract from some of these other concerns. And the goal of the human rights dialogue is not for the United States to dictate to Cuba how they should govern themselves, but to make sure that we are having a frank and candid conversation around this issue. And hopefully that we can learn from each other.”

Obama made the comment at a joint press conference with the Cuban Communist dictator.

This is the video from YouTube:

Does anyone truly believe that the people in Cuba have freedom of speech,  the right to bear arms, etc.? President Obama needs to rethink his definition of human rights. It is a shame that the reestablishing of a relationship between the United States and Cuba did not include a demand for increased human rights in Cuba in exchange for the economic benefits Cuba will reap from the relationship.

Why American Voters Are Angry

The Washington Examiner posted an article today that represents the opening salvo of the establishment Republican effort to determine the Republican nominee for President without considering the will of the voters.

The article reports:

The Republican Party does not require a presidential candidate to win eight states to qualify to be placed in nomination at its upcoming Cleveland convention, GOP officials say.

The Republican National Committee’s “Rule 40(b)” makes eligibility for the GOP nomination contingent upon winning a majority of the convention delegates in at least eight states or territories, an achievement generally accomplished by winning at least eight primary or caucus elections. However, Rule 40(b) only applied to the 2012 Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., that nominated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

When the rules don’t agree with your wishes, change the rules.

The article explains:

Party officials and knowledgeable sources have confirmed over the past few days that Rule 40(b) doesn’t exist for the purposes of the upcoming convention. That means at this point, the three candidates left in the race, front-runner Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are all eligible for the nomination, as, possibly, are the Republican contenders who have since suspended their campaigns.

Rule 40(b) was put in place in 2012 to block the name of Ron Paul from being introduced as a presidential candidate in Tampa. The bigwigs interfered in the primary choice and came up with a candidate who lost. I believe Mitt Romney would have won the nomination even if Ron Paul was also running, and I think there would have been more voters willing to come out and support Mitt Romney. It would be nice if the party let the voters decide who the nominee is. The Democrats have a similar problem with the super-delegates. Those delegates came into existence to prevent the Democrats from choosing a candidate significantly outside the mainstream of American politics after the resounding defeat of George McGovern. We do live in a representative republic rather than a democracy, but I believe that in a representative republic, the voters get to choose the people who represent them.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences At Work

One of the political discussion of late has focused on the minimum wage. What it is, what it should be, and should it be raised. One thing that is often not considered in the debate is who are the people who work at minimum wage jobs.

The Pew Research Center reported in 2014:

Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last year 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.

That group represents 4.3% of the nation’s 75.9 million hourly-paid workers and 2.6% of all wage and salary workers. In 1979, when the BLS began regularly studying minimum-wage workers, they represented 13.4% of hourly workers and 7.9% of all wage and salary workers. (Bear in mind that the 3.3 million figure doesn’t include salaried workers, although BLS says relatively few salaried workers are paid at what would translate into below-minimum hourly rates. Also, 23 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have higher minimum wages than the federal standard; people who earned the state minimum wage in those jurisdictions aren’t included in the 3.3 million total.)

People at or below the federal minimum are:

  • Disproportionately young: 50.4% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19).
  • Mostly (77%) white; nearly half are white women.
  • Largely part-time workers (64% of the total).

Often minimum-wage jobs represent an opportunity for someone with little experience or job skills to enter the workforce. Minimum wage jobs teach workers to show up on time, be responsible employees, and be reliable employees. These are skills that are valued at all levels of employment.

So what happens when you raise the minimum wage? On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article on the subject.

The article reports:

 

  • IBD’s Jed Graham surveyed six big U.S. cities that hiked the minimum wage in 2015 and found they took a serious jobs hit. “Wherever cities implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more last year, the latest data through December show that job creation downshifted to the slowest pace in at least five years,” Graham wrote.
  • During the 1970s, Congress forced Puerto Rico to adopt the U.S. federal minimum wage. The result, according to a 1992 study by economists Alida Castillo-Freeman and Richard Freeman: “Imposing the U.S.-level minimum reduced total island employment by 8%-10%.” So Puerto Rico lost 1 out of every 11 jobs to the minimum wage.
  • A study by the American Enterprise Institute looked at Seattle’s recent minimum wage hike. After it began phasing in a series of hikes in 2014, Seattle lost 10,000 jobs between just September and November, and its unemployment rate jumped a full percentage point. As AEI economist Mark Perry notes, Seattle’s minimum wage hike from $9.32 an hour to $15 an hour amounts to a $11,360 tax on every minimum wage job.
  • A 2014 Congressional Budget Office study estimated that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to just $10.10 an hour would kill half a million jobs. Worst of all, those who suffer most are the young, minorities and those with little education or training.

The article at Investor’s Business Daily focused on Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s CEO Andy Puzder, who has begun to automate his restaurants. Because the minimum wage has increased, his expenses have gone up, and he has used technology to keep expenses down.

Before anyone gets all up in arms about this, I would like to introduce a little history into the discussion. Back in the days of dinosaurs, I attended school in New York City. My family did not have a lot of money, but I did not have the option of taking lunch to school every day. We were expected to use our one hour lunchtime to find a place to buy and eat lunch near the school [which was located in the Pam Am Building (now the Met Life Building)]. Because my allowance was small, I often ate at the automat. I would put in 35¢ and get a ham and cheese sandwich. I would put in 10¢ and get a carton of milk. If I was feeling rich, I would spend 20¢ or so on a piece of pie or cake. No one was screaming about automation then. The automat eventually disappeared from the scene, but I am not sure why. It was a great place to eat lunch.

At any rate, actions have consequences. When you raise the minimum raise past the skill level of certain jobs, you eliminate people from the work place–generally those with limited skills or limited experience. Those are the people who with a little training and experience could go on to get good jobs that pay more than minimum wage. In trying to help them by raising their wages, you are actually preventing them from getting the foot in the door that they need to become successful.

 

This Man Is Not A Moderate

On Friday, Life News posted some information on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Obviously their issue is abortion, but the article sheds some light on the broader issue of religious freedom.

The article reports:

Garland joined in a unanimous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in November 2014, which concluded last year that the HHS mandate doesn’t abrogate the religious freedoms of Priests for Life or 11 other religious groups that also challenged the mandate.

Priests for Life was one of the earliest organizations to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its HHS mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control drugs and drugs like ella that can cause very early abortions. But Garland’s court ruled against the pro-life groups.

The court case and  others like it are part of a move to keep the practice of religion inside the walls of the church and take away the influence of religion in everyday life. Although the Constitution makes clear that the state has no authority to set up a national religion, our Constitution assumes that we will be government by a God-fearing moral people and protects the right of Americans to practice their religion. John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Religion does belong in the public square–not as a denomination–but as the foundation of our values. Our legal system is based on a Judeo-Christian ethic, and is not designed to work for an amoral people. Unfortunately the political left in America is attempting to move us away from traditional morality to a place our government was not designed to go. Political correctness is one way the left is attempting to overcome America’s religious roots, and using a very loose definition of ‘hate speech’ is another way.

The article further reports:

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

The court ruled that the contraception mandate violated the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, a 1993 law and it held that the mandate “substantially burdens the exercise of religion” and that HHS didn’t use the “least restrictive means” to promote this government interest, tests required by RFRA.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy joined in the majority decision. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Garland’s decision would put him squarely against the then-majority of the Supreme Court and would have someone who oppose religious liberty for pro-life groups replace a champion of it in Justice Scalia.

…Garland has praised the author of Roe v. Wade and said his court paper are “the greatest gift to the country.” And information has surfaced showing that his former clerks have gone on to serve liberal judges by a 3-1 margin.

Unfortunately, if Hillary Clinton is elected President, chances are that her nominee for the Supreme Court will be even further to the left. Meanwhile, we all need to remember and follow the Biden Rule.

The Numbers Tell The Story

According to Wikipedia:

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures and grants nine exemptions to the statute.[1][2] This amendment was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his misgivings,[3][4] on July 4, 1966, and went into effect the following year.[5]

The Freedom of Information Act works well as long as the people in power respect it. Sometimes getting information is a bit of a challenge.

Hot Air posted the following today:

Speaking of Hillary and her top aides, one guess which agency within the Obama administration had the very worst record when it came to responding to FOIA requests. If you guessed the State Department under Hillary Clinton, you are correct. A report published in January by the State Department Inspector General found that out of 240 FOIA requests for information connected to Secretary Clinton, 177 were still outstanding more than a year after she left office. Here’s a chart from the report showing that:

State FOIA responseIf Clinton wins the 2016 election, the Obama administration will look like the most transparent administration in history by comparison.

The article reports that the Obama Administration has broken the record for not being able to find documents requested in FOIA requests. Miraculously, when a court order is involved, the documents mysteriously appear. As I said in the beginning of this article, when people on both sides of the request respect FOIA requests, the system works. If an administration or member of an administration thinks they are above the law, FOIA requests do not always get honored.

More For Me But Less For Thee

Yesterday Fox News reported that President Obama has requested an increase in the appropriations for expenditures of former presidents, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service published Wednesday. In other words, he wants an increase in the amount of money allotted to him to pay for his retirement.

Meanwhile, in October of last year, The Washington Post reported:

Tens of millions of seniors will see no annual cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security checks in 2016, the government said Thursday, unwelcome news that also will flatten benefit payments for retired federal workers and service members.

It is only the third time in 40 years — all of them during the Obama administration — that the Social Security Administration has not increased its payments. The raises are tied to the consumer price index (CPI).

Lower gasoline prices have kept the CPI low. At the same time, medical costs for senior citizens are going up, but for some reason, the increase in Medicare expenses for seniors did not get factored into the equation.

Also, USA Today reported in January of last year:

The plan calls for Congress to create a hybrid system that includes a smaller defined-benefit pension along with more cash-based benefits and lump-sum payments. A significant portion of troops’ retirement benefits would come in the form of government contributions to 401(k)-style investment accounts, those familiar with the report told Military Times.

Specifically, the proposal calls for automatically enrolling each service member in the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP, an investment account that accrues savings. Individual troops will be responsible for managing their accounts, and the money is typically not available for withdrawal without penalty until age 59.5.

The proposed change to military retirement makes my blood boil. Our military relocates their families approximately every three years, puts their lives in jeopardy, and makes unbelievable sacrifices, and the government wants to change the rules of the contract they signed up under. Military benefits for retirees and their families have already been cut in terms of their healthcare. Changes have also been made to the commissary system that have made it less economical for our military to shop there. Budget cuts have already been made at the expense of our military.  Any further changes should not apply to those currently serving.

At any rate, before we raise the retirement benefits of our Presidents, we need to consider our military and our senior citizens. Our past Presidents seem to do very well with speaking fees, and I am sure they will find a way to make ends meet. For further information, check the net wealth of the Clintons before and since they occupied the White House.

The Last Surviving Member Of The Terrorist Team That Attacked Paris Has Been Arrested

Yahoo News is reporting today that Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving member of the team that carried out the terrorist attack on Paris, has been captured.

The article includes a timeline of Salah Abdeslam’s life:

ParisBomberThis man was born in Brussels. He was considered a French national. The article reports that he had evidently planned to blow himself up with a suicide vest, but changed his mind at the last moment. A suicide vest was found in Paris after the attack in an area Abdeslam’s cell phone indicated that he had been in.

The article reports:

The ringleader of the attacks, IS member Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was also from Brussels. He was killed in a raid in Paris in November.

Another of the Paris attackers, Bilal Hadfi, was last week buried quietly in the same cemetery as Abdeslam’s brother.

Both had links to Molenbeek, a largely immigrant district which has been a hotbed of Islamist violence for decades.

Abdeslam and his brother had run a bar in the area until it was shut down by the authorities a few weeks before the Paris attacks.

It is frightening to think that ISIS is successfully recruiting western-born terrorists for suicide attacks in Western countries. This man would have easily been able to come to America on a French visa. That thought is troubling.

Hiring The Best Talent

Newsmax reported yesterday that Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has chosen his national security team. The team includes former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent and former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy.

The article lists other members of the team:

  • Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Health and Human Serves and general counsel of the National Security Agency.
  • Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council.
  • Retired Army Lt. General William Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council.
  • Fred Fleitz, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.
  • Randy Fort, who has served in senior intelligence positions in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations.
  • Frank Gaffney Jr., president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy.
  • Nile Gardiner, a former aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
  • Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Katharine Gorka, president of the Council on Global Security.
  • Steven Groves, a senior research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Mary Habeck, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
  • Kristofer Harrison, a co-founder of the China Beige Book who once served in the George W. Bush White House.
  • Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain.
  • Michael Ledeen, an author who serves at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
  • Clare Lopez, a vice president at the Center for Security Policy.
  • Robert O’Brien, a partner at the Larson O’Brien LLP law firm in Los Angeles.
  • Michael Pillsbury, who was a Reagan campaign advisor in 1980.
  • Charles Stimson, the senior legal fellow and manager of National Security Law Program at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Daniel Vajdich, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
  • Christian Whiton, a former State Department senior advisor in the Bush administration.

There are a few of these team members I have personally met, and I am totally impressed by this team. I am impressed by the fact that this team is knowledgeable and pro-Israel. The relationship between America and Israel has been strained under President Obama, and I believe this team will work to repair that relationship. I am also impressed with the inclusion of Frank Gaffney, Jr., Clare Lopez, and Retired Army Lt. General William Boykin in this team. All of them are well-versed on the Middle East and the threat of radical Islam. This national security team would do an excellent job of handling threats to America. They are all amazing people.

Is This Really What Democratic Voters Want?

The American Thinker posted an article today that includes the following quote from Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea was answering a question as she campaigned for her mother:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Is she planning on expanding Obamacare as people know it, ACA, to include people who are not fully documented? Because when you get ill, your illness will not ask you if you are a permanent resident or not.”

CLINTON: “It’s such an important question. Thank you for supporting my mom. My mom has very strong feelings that we must push as quickly as possible for comprehensive immigration reform, and this is a real difference between her’s and Senator Sanders’ record, she supported comprehensive immigration reform at every possible chance and she was one of the original supporters and sponsors of the DREAM Act. She does not believe that while we are working towards comprehensive immigration reform we should make people wait, like the families you are talking about. Which is why she thinks it’s so important to extend the Affordable Care Act to people who are living and working here, regardless of immigration status, regardless of citizenship status. While we’re pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and reminding Republicans who are currently running for president that a couple of years ago they actually supported comprehensive immigration reform – something they seem to have forgotten during this election cycle – that we do whatever we can to solve challenges in the education system and the health system and elsewhere.”

Okay. Let’s back up a little. Emergency rooms are not allowed to turn away people who need medical attention–regardless of whether or not they can pay for it and regardless of their legal status. To open up national health care to everyone who is here whether they are here legally or not is to commit financial suicide. This is not just about healthcare–this is about the financial survival of America. If this is done, America will lose the middle class. The middle class will be expected to bear the additional debt and tax burden that this will entail. Upward mobility in America will be a distant dream of the past. Eventually it will not only hurt the people who come here seeking a better life–they won’t find one; it will hurt the people who live here now. If you are planning to vote for Hillary, you might also plan to apologize to your children and grandchildren in the future as you explain why you didn’t do something to prevent the bankruptcy of America.

Just a note. While I was working the polls Tuesday, a woman came up to me and said that she thought ‘the rich’ should pay for new roads and bridges and new college buildings. I wonder if she realizes that because ‘the rich’ have tax accountants and people who help them legally avoid taxes, the burden will fall on the middle class. Ultimately, she will be paying for these things. Class warfare is a useful political tool, but it is not an honest one.

And The Buck Stops Here

As President Obama’s term of office winds down, some of the background information on some of his really bad foreign policy decisions is beginning to come out. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is speaking out about the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which was encouraged by the Obama Administration.

The Blaze posted an article today about Secretary Gates’ comments in an upcoming Fox News special.

The Blaze reports:

According to Gates, Obama called for Mubarak’s immediate removal despite his national security team urging him to be cautious.

“Literally, the entire national security team recommended unanimously handling Mubarak differently than we did,” Gates said. “And the president took the advice of three junior backbenchers in terms of how to treat Mubarak. One of them saying, ‘Mr. President, you gotta be on the right side of the history.’ And I would be sitting there at the table, and I’d say, ‘Yeah, if we could just figure that out, we’d be a long way ahead.’”

It matters who sits in the White House and who is on his team. Please remember that when you vote in November.

A Few Notes On The Nomination Of A Supreme Court Justice

This is the quote from Joe Biden on confirming Supreme Court Justices during a campaign season (taken from The New York Post):

“Once the political season is underway,” Biden said, “action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over. That is what is fair to the nominee . . . Otherwise . . . we will be in deep trouble as an institution,” stuck in “a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is nominated by the president.”

Yesterday Heritage Action released the following statement from chief executive officer Michael A. Needham:

“Nothing has changed. Senate Republicans deserve credit for using their ‘Advice and Consent’ authority to ensure the American people’s voices are not ignored as they are in the process of selecting their next president.  The next president —  Republican or Democrat — should be in the position to fill the Court’s vacancy with the advise and consent of the Senate.

“President Obama and Senate Democrats will no doubt call Judge Garland a ‘mainstream Federal judge’ and promise his ‘approach to deciding cases on the law and the Constitution, not politics or an ideological agenda.’ Of course, they said those exact words when liberal Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were nominated. We are one liberal Justice away from seeing gun rights restricted and partial birth abortion being considered a constitutional right. The Republican majority exists to block these type of nominees.”

Yesterday Townhall.com reported the following:

Back in 2007, Judge Garland voted to undo a D.C. Circuit court decision striking down one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. The liberal District of Columbia government had passed a ban on individual handgun possession, which even prohibited guns kept in one’s own house for self-defense. A three-judge panel struck down the ban, but Judge Garland wanted to reconsider that ruling. He voted with Judge David Tatel, one of the most liberal judges on that court. As Dave Kopel observed at the time, the “[t]he Tatel and Garland votes were no surprise, since they had earlier signaled their strong hostility to gun owner rights” in a previous case. Had Garland and Tatel won that vote, there’s a good chance that the Supreme Court wouldn’t have had a chance to protect the individual right to bear arms for several more years.

Moreover, in the case mentioned earlier, Garland voted with Tatel to uphold an illegal Clinton-era regulation that created an improvised gun registration requirement. Congress prohibited federal gun registration mandates back in 1968, but as Kopel explained, the Clinton Administration had been “retaining for six months the records of lawful gun buyers from the National Instant Check System.” By storing these records, the federal government was creating an informal gun registry that violated the 1968 law. Worse still, the Clinton program even violated the 1994 law that had created the NICS system in the first place. Congress directly forbade the government from retaining background check records for law-abiding citizens.

This is something to think about. I am not a gun person. I didn’t grow up in a hunting family, and until I moved to North Carolina I had never been around guns. That has changed since I have been here, and I will be taking a gun safety course in the near future. I believe it is necessary to have a population that has the freedom to bear arms. I believe that is the intent of the Second Amendment. I am also convinced that the Second Amendment will protect us from government takeovers from both internal and external sources. It is important to the preservation of our freedom and it protects the other Amendments.

I realize that if Hillary Clinton becomes President, a more liberal judge will be nominated, and we will probably lose our Second Amendment privileges. However, I still believe the nomination process should be put on hold until after the election.

This Is Long Overdue

Happy Saint Patrick‘s Day. As we celebrate the life of Saint Patrick, our State Department, led by John Kerry, has finally acknowledged that there is a genocide going on against Christians in the Middle East.

Fox News reported the following today:

Secretary of State John Kerry declared Thursday that the Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, after facing heavy pressure from lawmakers and rights groups to make the rare designation.

“In my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in territory under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims,” Kerry said at the State Department. Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.

He accused ISIS of “crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing.”

The announcement was a surprise, at least in terms of the timing. A day earlier, a State Department spokesman said they would miss a congressionally mandated March 17 deadline to make a decision. Yet as the department took heat from lawmakers for the expected delay, the department confirmed Thursday morning that Kerry had reached the decision that Christians, Yazidis and Shiite groups are victims of genocide.

This is not anything new, and it is time we admitted that it was going on. On of the tenets of Islam is conversion by the sword. Under Sharia Law, Christians have three options when their countries are taken over by Muslims–be killed, convert to Islam, or pay the jizya (a tax on Christians and Jews that can be as much as or more than half of their assets). Paying the jizya involves a submission ritual including a blow to the neck where the infidel acknowledges the mercy of the Muslims who have allowed him to live.

Note that this announcement applies to ISIS. If it were done correctly, it would apply to most of the countries in the Middle East. The only country in the Middle East where freedom of religion is allowed is Israel, and our State Department (and the United Nations) has spent years condemning them for various imaginary human rights violations. At least this move by the State Department is in the right direction.

The Spin Begins

It is no secret that the Republican establishment and the media do not want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee for President. It is also very obvious that if Donald Trump wins a majority of the state primaries and does not get the nomination, there will be many angry Republicans. I am not a Trump supporter, but I would be angry if that happened. Somehow the establishment Republicans and the press have not understood how angry the voters are. This lack of understanding was illustrated by an article that was posted at CNBC today.

The article reports:

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support for any one candidate because their states and territories don’t hold primaries or caucuses.

Even with Trump‘s huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination before the convention.

I think the voters might have other ideas about this. The rumors are already flying. The press has until July to convince the average Republican that it will be okay to take the nomination away from the candidate who gets the most votes. Somehow I doubt that will happen. If the Republican establishment decides to choose a candidate other than the one the voters choose, it will be the end of the Republican party.

Nothing Was Posted On Election Day – I Was Working The Polls

Yesterday was spend working the polls (and unfortunately getting a sunburn). Some of the candidates I supported won, and some lost. However, I learned a few things. If the American voter really wants to get rid of the political class, there are three steps they can take that will get results. It will take a year or two, but it can be done.

The first obvious step is to get informed. You need to know when you are being lied to. Until we have informed voters, we will have a political class. When people begin to pay attention two weeks before an election, a lot of what they hear is simply distorted or not true. There was a situation locally where a candidate’s party affiliation and ethnic background were misrepresented in a flyer aimed to get the votes of a particular ethnic group. Because the lies were believed, the man got the votes. The voters involved were not informed enough to know that they had been lied to. It will be interesting to see what happens if they ever meet the man. First hand information is always the best, and since change will begin at the local level, being locally informed is fairly easy. Go to the meetings of the various official boards in your community. If you can’t go, talk to the people who do go. Don’t believe everything you read in your local paper or hear on the news–investigate for yourself.

The second step is to share your knowledge with your friends. Your immediate circle of friends may not be as informed as you are, and there is nothing wrong with telling them the things you have learned. I had a number of friends come to me with questions about the primary election, particularly the state offices that are somewhat under the radar. I had information that was useful to them and in one case changed someone’s idea of how to vote on a particular issue.

The third step, which I saw in action yesterday, is the most effective. There were a few private citizens at my precinct handing out information about the conservative candidates. In that precinct, all those candidates won. It is possible that all my neighbors think like I do, but I find that highly unlikely (and not necessarily a good thing). It is also possible that many of my neighbors went to vote for President and saw a bunch of other offices on the ballot that they had not planned to vote for. Those that wanted conservative candidates had the information in their hand about the candidates, and the voters looked at their papers and voted accordingly. Those voters who did not want conservative candidates also had the information–they simply voted for the people not marked as conservative.

If you are happy with the political class continuing to grow the government and demand more of your money, then there is no reason to get involved or informed–they will continue to run things until the voters stand up and say ‘no.’ If you are ready for change, the three steps above will bring change.

Is This Something We Want?

This video was posted on YouTube yesterday:

There is such a thing as clean coal. We need to look at the economics in using coal as an energy source and the way that we can make the use of coal more environmentally safe. However, to shut down the coal industry is to throw the baby out with the bath water. The position Hillary Clinton voiced is extreme and is not good for America.

The Move To Shut Down Free Speech

For a number of years, we have had a problem on our college campuses with free speech. Conservative speakers have been shouted down or prevented from giving commencement addresses. This is not new; it goes back a few years. In 1992, Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey was prevented from giving a speech at Cooper Union.

The New York Times reported on October 3, 1992:

Knots of demonstrators in the college’s Great Hall, where Abraham Lincoln spoke on slavery in 1860, prevented Governor Casey from delivering his speech, “Can a Liberal Be Pro-Life?” at the Cooper Union School of Architecture. Nat Hentoff, a writer for The Voice who introduced Governor Casey, repeatedly begged and scolded the demonstrators to let the Governor speak. “Murderers have no right to speak,” demonstrators shouted back, referring to arguments that women will die in illegal abortions if abortion is outlawed.

Because Governor Casey was pro-life, he was shouted down by demonstrators. He was also blocked from giving his pro-life views at the Democratic convention which nominated Bill Clinton in July 1992.

Now the anti-free-speech people are trying to shut down the Republican presidential primary.

Yesterday The Washington Times reported the following:

Moveon.Org is conducting fundraising activities from the Chicago protests against Donald Trump that prompted the Republican presidential front-runner to cancel a rally there Friday, and promises that more disruptions are on the way.

“Last night, without consulting local police, Donald Trump abruptly cancelled a rally in Chicago in the face of massive and overwhelmingly peaceful student-led protests,” MoveOn.org wrote in an email Saturday to members. “We’re being flooded with aggressive emails and social media posts from Trump supporters. Some of them are threatening. We refuse to be intimidated by Donald Trump, Fox News, or anyone else.”

So let me get this right–Moveon.Org is promising more disruptions and then accusing Donald Trump and Fox News of threatening them?

The article further quotes the email:

“We’ve been ramping up our efforts for months — from the ‘We Are Better Than This’ ad we helped organize in The New York Times in December, to our collective advocacy for refugees under attack from the GOP, to the support we provided students in Chicago last night by printing signs and a banner and recruiting MoveOn.org members to join their peaceful protest. We need to double-down in the face of direct attacks on our community,” the email read.

There is nothing peaceful about these protests. They are orchestrated by the same people who put together Occupy Wall Street and the anarchists that routinely disrupt economic summits. This is an effort to shut down free speech that the protesters disagree with. Because our colleges no longer practice free speech, it doesn’t occur to our young people that other people have the right to speak. The roots of this problem go back to the failure of our educational system to teach our rights under the U.S. Constitution and also to instill basic values into our children.

Voter Fraud Is A Problem In America

The Arizona Daily Independent posted a story yesterday about voter fraud in Ohio.

The article reports:

True the Vote (TTV), the nation’s leading voters’ rights and election integrity organization, today announced details surrounding its effort to help Cuyahoga and Franklin County officials in Ohio remove more than a thousand duplicate voter registrations ahead of voting in 2016.

Upon receipt of True the Vote’s research, 711 duplicate voter registrations were removed in Cuyahoga County, while 465 sets were processed in Franklin County.

“Because of Ohio’s consistent role as a decisive swing state in America’s elections, it has a duty to ensure that its voter records are in the best shape possible,” True the Vote Founder Catherine Engelbrecht said.“Having duplicate voters in Ohio’s poll books not only creates confusion at the polling place, but raises the possibility of fraudulent double voting. The Buckeye State has recently seen first-hand just how far some are willing to go to see their candidate or cause win.”

The article lists one of the organizations responsible for the problem:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) held a well-established track record of supplying local election officials with questionable voter registration forms across Midwestern and other political battleground states for years. The organization boasted more than 1.3 million voter registrations submitted in 2008 alone. After its formal dissolution, 18 employees were convicted or admitted guilt to committing election crimes. Significant amounts of their work were officially questioned:

  • In Ohio, a Cleveland man claimed he was given money and goods to register to vote dozens times, resulting in subpoenas;
  • In Indiana, more than 2,000 applications were falsified as part of a batch delivered hours before the registration deadline; and
  • In Florida, 11 ACORN workers were arrested after submitting roughly 1,400 applications with approximately 900 of those falsified.

True The Vote originally sued the State of Ohio in August 2012 over allegations of voter roll maintenance failures. Three counties had more registered voters than voting-age residents. The suit was settled in 2014, and duplicate registrations removed. This moves Ohio closer to an honest election in 2016.

Truth Is Always The First Casualty Of An Election Campaign

President Obama is not running for office this year. However, he has not hesitated to tell anyone who will listen what a great President he has been. Some of us aren’t convinced.

On Friday, The New York Post posted an article about President Obama’s recent claims about the economy.

The article states:

‘Anybody who says we are not absolutely better off today than we were just seven years ago, they’re not leveling with you. They’re not telling the truth,” Obama said last week. “By almost every economic measure, we are significantly better off.”

The article then goes on to report some of the actual statistics:

  • The labor force participation rate over that period has slid from 65.7 percent to 62.9 (the lowest reading since March 1978) — down 4.3 percent.
  •  On Obama’s watch, the percentage of Americans below the poverty line has grown, according to the most recent Census data, from 14.3 percent to 14.8 percent in 2014 — up 3.5 percent.
  •  Real median household income across that interval sank from $54,925 to $53,657 — down 2.3 percent.
  • Food Stamp participants soared in that time frame from 32,889,000 to 45,874,000 — up 39.5 percent.
  •  Meanwhile, from Obama’s arrival through the fourth quarter of 2015, the percentage of Americans who own homes sagged from 67.3 percent to 63.8 — down 5.2 percent.

I don’t think we can afford another four years of this sort of economic success.

Behind The Story

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted a list of the groups that were responsible for the riots that happened in Chicago in relation to the cancelled Trump appearance there.

Some highlights from the article:

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Chicago is the Chicago franchise of an international network started in the wake of 9/11 and among the first to protest against a response in Afghanistan; since then the group is involved in most of the radical left’s favorite causes: anti-capitalist, pro-union, open borders, anti-war, anti-police causes. The day after the Trump rally the group was holding a forum entitled “Taking Action to Support Palestine.”

Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Rights Reform (ICIRR)

This radical leftist group, specializing in immigration, is a more extreme version of the far left version of National Council on La Raza in Illinois.

The group was featured in an article profiling some of the groups intending to protest Trump’s rally in the left-wing website, Progress Illinois on March 8 entitled “New Americans Hit The Polls In Chicago As Immigrant Advocates Gear Up For Anti-Trump Protest.”

…La Raza Chicago

 The Chicago branch of the notoriously radical pro-illegal immigration group had people on site and detailing the events in a post on its site.

Donald Trump canceled its event Friday night at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for safety reasons, including the thousands of protesters who gathered inside and outside the venue,” read an English translation of the post, “protesting his presence, which has already caused confrontations with supporters of Trump and the authorities.”

I have no problem with protesting anyone’s presence, the problem occurs when the protests prevent someone from exercising their First Amendment rights. These protesters were similar to the anarchists who routinely disrupt international economic meetings. When they cross the line between protest and violence, they need to be arrested. These groups do not add to our representative republic, they undermine it.

This Can’t Be A Good Thing

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is spending $300,000 to develop technology that they believe will save energy in office buildings.

The article reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $300,000 to develop technology that will track the energy and water use of office buildings, with a colored light bulb system that will send “visual messages” to employees when they are using too much.

Lucid Design Group, a California-based software company, received the funding from the agency with the goal to “change the habits” of Americans at work.

First of all, note that the EPA is saying they are tracking the energy use of buildings–not people. That is supposed to make the idea more acceptable. The idea of paying the government to change my habits just does not sit well with me.

The article further reports:

The funding went towards the development of “Building Orbs” to “encourage behavior-based energy conservation in commercial buildings.”

“Building Orbs” are a system of light bulbs that change color when energy use is too high.

“The project team, which includes original members of the Oberlin College P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) team, will begin by completing development of and testing novel, low-cost software tools that allows off-the-shelf, multi-colored, internet-connect LEDs such as the Philips Hue and the LIFX to be transformed into ‘Building Orbs,’” according to the grant for the project.

The system will provide “ambient color-based feedback to building occupants,” and use “visual messaging.”

The “Building Orbs” will “tap the demand response potential of behavior-driven electric loads through visual messaging during demand response events,” and try to get office workers to reduce their electricity use through “visual messaging by enabling behavior-based peak demand management.”

The company has now received $395,091 for the technology including the latest $295,507 grant.

Let’s look at this for a minute. How much control does the average office worker have over his individual energy use? The company involved sets the heating or cooling to a temperature that is most acceptable for all employees. Is the machine going to complain about energy use during hot or cold spells? Computers and printers generally have sleep modes that shut down when not in use. Generally, a computer is not using much more energy than a light bulb. Speaking of light bulbs… Do energy saving policies encourage the use of Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFL’s)? These bulbs have health risks while in use and when they break.

This expenditure is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. Most companies monitor their energy consumption in order to cut down on overhead. Government intrusion is neither necessary nor welcome in telling offices how to use energy.