It’s Not Just Brian Williams Who Lies

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“When reporters forfeit their credibility by making up stories, sources, or quotes, we are right to mock them. When their violations are significant or repeated, they should be fired,” says Charles Lipson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “Demanding honest reporting has nothing to do with the reporter’s politics, personality, or personal life. It is about professional standards and our reasonable expectations.”

Writing at RealClearPolitics.com, Prof. Lipson concluded by saying, “It’s essential for our news organizations, and it matters for our democracy.”

Are we seeing a trend here? Dan Rather at CBS and now Brian Williams at NBC? Well, two news anchors are not a trend, but biased and bad reporting is. It’s not new, but it does seem to be gathering momentum and nowhere has it been more apparent than the millions of words written and spoken about “global warming” and now “climate change.”

It would be easy and convenient to lay the blame on America’s Liar-in-Chief, President Barack Obama, but the “global warming” hoax began well before he came on the scene. It was the invention of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dating back to its creation in 1988 when it was established by the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization.

The IPCC came to world attention with the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that committed the nations that signed it to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions” based on the premise that global warming—a dramatic increase—was real and that it was man-made. The Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997. The United States Senate rejected it and our neighbor, Canada, later withdrew from it. Both China and India were exempted, free to continue building numerous coal-fired plants to generate the energy they need for development.

Today, though, the President is an unrelenting voice about the dangers of “climate change” which he and John Kerry, our Secretary of State, have rated the “greatest threat” to the world. Obama’s national security strategy document was released just a day before he equated the history of Christianity with the barbarism of today’s Islamic State.

The national security document included terrorism to which it devoted one out of its 29 pages. Essentially Obama sees all the problems of the world, real and imagined, as challenges that require “strategic patience and persistence.” This is his way of justifying doing nothing or as little as possible.

Still, according to Obama, the climate is such a threat, his new budget would allocate $4 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency for a new “Clean Power State Incentive Fund” to bribe more states to close even more power plants around the nation. He wants to increase the EPA’s overall budget by 6% to $8.6 billion. The Republican Congress is not likely to allocate such funding.

As for the environment, there have been so many lies put forth by the government and by a panoply of environmental organizations of every description, buoyed by legions of “scientists” and academics lining their pockets with billions in grants, that it is understandable that many Americans still think that “global warming” is real despite the fact that the Earth is now 19 years into a well-documented cooling cycle.

Not only are all the children in our schools still being taught utter garbage about it, but none who have graduated in recent years ever lived a day during the non-existent “global warming.”

On February 7, Christopher Booker, writing in The Telegraph, a British daily newspaper, wrote an article, “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever.” You are not likely to find any comparable reporting in a U.S. daily newspaper.

Citing research comparing the official temperature graphs from three weather stations in Paraguay against what had originally been reported by them, it turned out that their cooling trend had been reversed by the U.S. government’s Global Historical Climate Network and then amplified by “two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center.”

Why should we be surprised that the national media continues to report on “global warming” when our government has been engaged in the deliberate distortion of the actual data? It is, however, the same national media that has provided virtually no investigative journalism to reveal what has been going on for decades.

What fate befalls Brian Williams is a mere blip on the screen of events. At this writing, I cannot see how NBC could ever keep him as the managing editor and news anchor.

What matters regarding much of the product of the mainstream media is the continuing torrent of “news” about “global warming” and “climate change”; the former is a complete hoax and the latter a factor of life on planet Earth over which humans have no control, nor contribute to in any fashion.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Fidel Castro’s Testament by Brian Latell

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Oddly, there is no mention in the letter of the release of the three convicted Cuban intelligence agents from American penitentiaries. The key figures of the large Cuban spy ring that operated in the United States had been heralded as national heroes by Fidel before his retirement. He was extravagantly associated with the protracted campaign to win their release. The regime’s propaganda and intelligence machines labored long and diligently, overtly and covertly. But Fidel has not taken a victory bow now that they are home.

Rumors of Fidel Castro’s precarious health may swirl again in the aftermath of a letter issued over his signature earlier this week. Addressed to the Federation of University Students, the retired leader is quoted briefly about the changing Cuban relationship with the United States.

After remaining silent for more than five weeks following the announcements by President Obama and Raul Castro of measures taken in pursuit of détente, Fidel finally weighed in. “I will explain,” he is quoted saying, “in a few words, my essential position.”

Ghost written or not, his message provides a hedged endorsement of the process, though not of any of the steps taken by either side to normalize relations. He says nothing, for example, about the impending restoration of diplomatic relations that he caused to be broken in January 1961.

Nowhere in the message does Castro express unambiguous approval for detente. Perhaps the nearest he comes is by stating that he does not reject a “peaceful solution to conflicts or threats of war.” Employing similar lofty language, the letter merely states.

  • “Defending peace is the duty of all.”
  • “Any negotiated, peaceful solution . . . which does not imply the use of force must be addressed in accordance with international principles and norms.”
  • “We will always defend cooperation and friendship with all the world’s peoples, and with those of our political adversaries.”

In short, the message can only be read as grudging. Castro is quoted saying, “I do not trust the policy of the United States, nor have I exchanged one word with them.” It recalls his militance and intransigence during decades of dealings with ten American presidents: “revolutionary ideas must always be on guard. . . . In this spirit I have struggled, and will continue to struggle until my last breath.”

All this sounds reliably like Fidel. But the odds are good that he did not actually contribute meaningfully to the drafting of the document. It is impossible to know of course, but it reads more like a skillful brief composed by Raul Castro’s designees.

They wanted Fidel’s stamp of approval for moving toward better relations with the United States. Emblazoned on the front pages of the major Cuban dailies, the letter got maximum exposure on the island.

After Fidel’s long silence it was also necessary for the regime to stifle speculation that he had died or was on his deathbed. And, for many, his extended silence left the impression that he was opposed to normalization with Washington. It was unacceptable for either of those impressions to persist.

Yet, no utterance attributed to Fidel would have been credible had he enthusiastically endorsed rapprochement. Since his university days –as he in fact mentions in the letter — he pursued radical, anti-American ideals. For him now, in his late eighties, suddenly to abandon decades of anti-American intransigence would not have made sense. After all, the American economic embargo remains fully in force. Other historic Cuban demands are also still unassuaged. How could he give unequivocal approval to a process still in its early stages?

Oddly, there is no mention in the letter of the release of the three convicted Cuban intelligence agents from American penitentiaries, or of the America contractor who served five years in a Cuban jail. The key figures of the large Cuban spy ring that operated in the United States had been heralded as national heroes by Fidel before his retirement. He was extravagantly associated with the protracted campaign to win their release. The regime’s propaganda and intelligence machines labored long and diligently, overtly and covertly. But Fidel has not taken a victory bow now that they are home.

Nor has he met with them as they are being lionized in the official media as representatives of a new generation of revolutionary heroes. If he is not on his death bed, or severely impaired, a photo op with them would have been a routine event. Other than for reasons of health, therefore, it seems inexplicable that he has failed to boast of the Cuban success in bringing them home.

Two days after the letter was aired in Cuba, the press reported that Fidel had met with his old friend and biographer, Brazilian friar Frei Betto. They engaged, it was reported, in a friendly conversation about national and international issues. Normally under such circumstances, a photo of the two would have accompanied the article.

But this time, the photo of them attached to the story was acknowledged to have been taken in February 2014 during an earlier meeting. The most recent photos of Fidel appeared in the middle of last year and he has made no public appearance in about a year. Will rumors of his imminent demise be stoked anew?

Brian Latell, Ph.D., is a distinguished Cuba analyst and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami. He has informed American and foreign presidents, cabinet members, and legislators about Cuba and Fidel Castro in a number of capacities. He served in the early 1990s as National Intelligence Officer for Latin America at the Central Intelligence Agency and taught at Georgetown University for a quarter century. Dr. Latell has written, lectured, and consulted extensively. He is the author of After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader and Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine. Brian Latell is a contributor to SFPPR News & Analysis.

Greece Jumps from Scylla to Charybdis

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A new Socialist party has seized Greek power by Iain Murray:

Every Greek child reads Homer in school. So Greek children are familiar with the legend of Scylla and Charybdis, from Homer’s Odyssey. The sailor Odysseus, returning home after the Trojan War, is faced with a desperate choice in the straits separating Italy and Sicily. To one side is the monster Scylla, who will tear his ship and eat his crew. On the other is the whirlpool Charybdis, which will suck his entire ship down to the depths. He chooses to sail past Scylla, and loses only a few of his crew. Greece, in its recent parliamentary election, faced a similar choice. But unlike Odysseus, Greek voters chose Charybdis.

The whirlpool was represented by Syriza, a radical leftist party that sprang out of nowhere to fill the void created by the collapse of PASOK, the long-established Greek Socialist party. It was the last PASOK government, headed by George Papandreou (from a family that produced three Socialist prime ministers), that steered Greece into these straits in the first place.

Papandreou was presented with the boon of cheap money following Greece’s entry into the eurozone in January of 2001. At the time, the European Central Bank (ECB) pursued policies aimed at shoring up Germany’s then-flagging economy by borrowing heavily to finance public spending. The result was the debt crisis that began in 2010.

Greek voters came to regard PASOK as the party of nepotism and corruption, and shifted their support to the Coalition of the Radical Left, known as Syriza for its Greek acronym. Syriza positioned itself as anti-corruption, anti-bank, and (at least implicitly) anti-euro, and for increased levels of public spending and welfare.

Syriza narrowly lost to the center-right New Democracy party in the 2012 election, but was able to capitalize on increasing public discontent with that party’s policies afterward. A majority of Greeks perceived New Democracy to be governing at the behest of the “troika” — the European Commission, the ECB, and the International Monetary Fund — that set conditions for the Greek bailout.

The troika’s conditions were characterized as an austerity program intended to lower the country’s debt burden. It consisted of a combination of increased taxes and lower public spending by means of privatization, staff layoffs, and welfare cuts. But it did not include major structural reforms, so the Greek economy has yet to recover, with unemployment at 25 percent overall and 60 percent among young people.

Syriza’s platform rejected austerity. Instead, it offered a return to prosperity by lowering taxes on the working class and increasing spending to stimulate demand, while providing “free” electricity. How would it pay for this? By more heavily taxing “the rich” — of course! — and by diverting money from bond repayments to public spending following a negotiated debt restructuring. It also expects the ECB to steer its new quantitative easing program toward buying Greek debt.

This set of policies, described euphemistically as “mild Keynesianism” by its prime author, is precisely what got Greece into trouble under PASOK — spending financed by the rest of Europe. But this time the rest of Europe is unlikely to stand for paying Greece’s bills. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has already signaled that he expects Greece’s new government to abide by its international agreements.

All this sets Greece on a straight course for another whirlpool: default and a possible “Grexit” from the euro. The new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has said he wants to avoid both eventualities, but it is hard to see how he can achieve this without forcing the troika and Germany into a humiliating U-turn.

There is a strong argument that Grexit would actually be good for Greece, which should probably never have entered the eurozone in the first place, but the Greek people remain strongly in favor of the European project. They would likely blame Grexit on Germany, leading to even greater political tensions. The fact that Syriza’s coalition partner, the right-wing populist Independent Greek party, is militantly pro-Russian would just exacerbate this further.

Not all the blame for this terrible situation should fall on Greek voters. While the austerity program of New Democracy and the troika looks impressively Thatcherite at first sight, it includes very high taxes and misses out on one vital element: institutional and regulatory reform. Greece’s financial and labor markets are still hopelessly bureaucratic. New Democracy’s attempts at reform were half-hearted at best.

As long as Greece remains beset by a bureaucracy that promotes corruption as the best way around it, its economy will remain in the doldrums, regardless of how austere or profligate any one government may be.

Greece does not have to choose between Scylla and Charybdis. As the accompanying cartoon from 1790s England suggests, it is possible to steer between the rocks of anti-establishment populism (in Greece’s case, Syriza) and the whirlpool of an arbitrary executive (the troika). It can do so if its sets a straight course for the safe harbor of liberty.

ABOUT IAIN MURRAY

Iain Murray is vice president at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks’ Exposure to Armed Self-Defense

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On Wednesday, the Library of Congress made the Rosa Parks Collection available to researchers. The compilation includes 2,500 photos and 7,500 manuscripts pertaining to the civil rights icon. Among these documents is a short autobiographical piece highlighting some of Parks’ early experiences with armed self-defense.

A February 3 Washington Post article details the “biographical sketch.” According to the Post, Parks explains how her grandfather used a shotgun to protect the family home in Pine Level, Ala., from potential attack by the Ku Klux Klan. One excerpt states that her grandfather “would stay up to wait for [the Klansmen] to come to our house… He kept his shotgun within hand reach at all times.” Another portion notes that Parks’ grandfather “declared that the first to invade our home would surely die.”

Stories like Parks’, where firearms were used to protect against racially motivated violence before and during the Civil Rights Era, are common. At a time when law enforcement officials were sometimes indifferent to acts of violence perpetrated against African-Americans (or in some cases even complicit in them), those seeking any protection at all had few other options.

History could certainly have been altered in dramatic fashion had the Parks home been left undefended against the depredations of the Klan. Thankfully, Parks’ family had access to an effective means of self-defense, even as they strove to obtain other basic human rights.

Examples abound of the beneficial role arms have played in the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. Local NAACP leader Rob Williams, author of Negroes with Guns, notably chartered a National Rifle Association affiliated club in order to train and arm members of his Monroe, N.C., community to combat the Klan. Chapters of the heavily armed Deacons for Defense and Justice formed throughout the Deep South to protect their communities from racial violence. According to UCLA Professor Adam Winkler,  Martin Luther King Jr. unsuccessfully applied for concealed carry permit in Alabama after his home was bombed, and lived surrounded by what was described as “an arsenal.” In his book,  Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, Don B. Kates Jr. recalls his time spent as a civil rights worker in the early 1960s South, stating, “The black lawyer for whom I principally worked did not carry a gun all the time, but he attributed the relative quiescence of the Klan to the fact that the black community was so heavily armed.”

The story of armed self-defense revealed in the Rosa Parks Collection is a welcome and important addition to the already well-established history of the use of arms to deter and defend against racially-motivated violence.

EDITORS NOTE: This article and featured image of Rosa Parks originally appeared on NRA-ILA.com.

Christian horses found too high by President Obama

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Uppity Christian horsemen from the Crusades are still trampling modern-day Muslim pacifists.

As everyone knows, the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington is a yearly event designed to put Christians in their place and advance Islam as the national religion. At the February 5th prayer breakfast, President Obama once again met the expectations of the progressive movement by telling off those uppity Christians like a true Muslim would:

“Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Indeed, in these dark times of Christian Extremism, what we need is a president who can inform the world about all of the Christian atrocities throughout history for which currently living Americans are personally responsible. Having effectively airbrushed “Islamic Extremism” from the lexicon, Obama completed his sermon with a prayer towards Mecca.

Christians are hereby instructed to remove incorrect pages from their Bibles and replace them with the following corrected transcript of Jesus’ words: “Thou shalt murder gays; thou shalt enslave minorities; thou shalt bomb women and children.”

Since there isn’t an equivalent in the Quran of anything so hateful as this corrected version of Biblical history, Christians need to get off their high horses and admit that Jesus had personally instigated terrible atrocities, as proven by the Crusades and the Inquisition.

As if that weren’t enough, Jesus had the audacity to die but not stay dead, to walk around alive and kicking for forty more days, and then to fly up to heaven. Such antisocial behavior allowed Christians to start getting uppity around 33 A.D., which still continues unabated to this day.

The science is settled: there are no Islamic Extremists anywhere on Earth because President Obama has never uttered the words. Christians, on the other hand, are committing terrible atrocities daily, taking hostages, cutting off heads, blowing themselves up in public places, burning people alive, and otherwise terrorizing the peaceful and rapidly diminishing Muslim community. No verification of these facts is required simply because Obama is a genius who would never tell a lie.

Obama_Horse_Stick.jpg

President Obama is seen modeling a People-approved low-horse for those who are barely Christians, pretending to be Christians, or embarrassed by Christianity.  (Photo Credit: blurbrain.com)

It is known that President Ronald Reagan liked to ride horses – all of them high – for which he is revered among Christian Extremists. He was once even injured in a fall from his high horse. Let that be a lesson to all Christians to get off their high horses and stay off.

Horse_Reagan.jpg

President Reagan’s horse was so high that in order to fit it into his Presidential Library, workers had to chop off its legs. This picture gives a whole new meaning to “Reagan’s quarterhorse.” Too high a horse would not be a humble memorial for a Christian anyway.

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Here, President Reagan is seen assisting his wife Nancy off of her high horse.

In view of the above, our scientists at the People’s Cube Karl Marx Treatment Center have developed recommendations on how to get Christians off their high horses efficiently: hack off the high horse’s legs or replace them with miniature low horses.

A standard horse owned by a Christian should be no taller than 36 inches. All horse-riding Christians will be subject to measuring with a pole similar to those used on amusement park rides.

Pony_Girl.jpg

This Christian got off her high horse, and the world is a lot better off.

Compliance with these measures is expected to level the playing field, bringing Christians closer to the ground where the peaceful Muslim crowd congregates.

And finally, as we discussed the subject of Christian high horses at our latest meeting, we received a few questions from confused members of the audience. People wanted to know whether the horse in question was a Christian, what exactly the definition of “high” was, and what if President Obama really meant to say that the horse was high from marijuana and the Christian should get off to avoid contact.

We will make sure to ask the White House spokesperson, Josh Earnest, for clarification on what the President really meant. Until then, the debate gallops on.

Horse_Athlete.jpg

This Christian white male needs to get off his high horse. It’s offensive to Muslims.

RELATED VIDEO: Coverage of the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast. Video courtesy of CSPAN:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.

Terrorists and Our #@*%+ President

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obamacairYou know something is terribly wrong when three former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Madeleine Albright tell a Senate Armed Services Committee that the President of the United States is an idiot with no idea how to conduct foreign affairs. Well, they didn’t say it in those words, but that was pretty much the message. That was January 29.

Two days earlier retired 4-Star General James Matthis, former head of U.S. Central Command, former Army Vice Chief of Staff and 4-Star General Jack Keane, and Navy Admiral William Fallon, also a former CentCom chief, had also testified before the Committee. They had a similar message as the diplomats. Obama and the other idiots in the White House are completely clueless regarding the threat of radical Islam in general and a potential nuclear Iran in particular.

This is, after all, a White House that is trying to call those intent on taking over the entire Middle East and, after that, the rest of the world anything other than “terrorists.” They have used terms such as “insurgents”, “activists” and “militants.” Here at home, they are still referring to the killings at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.” Don’t any of these idiots understand that the terrorists, whether they call themselves al Qaeda or the Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas or any other name all constitute the same threat?

That’s what the generals addressed. They told the Senate committee that absence of a White House strategy makes the ISIS, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan wars “unwinnable.” I have been around since the end of World War II and that stretch of U.S. history is one in which we fought to a stalemate in Korea and a loss in Vietnam. After we won the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama pulled out and now they are lost too. There was a time when Americans and their leaders knew how to win wars.

Indeed, there was a time when Americans preferred to elect generals to be their President, starting with George Washington. Among those with that rank were Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Ruther P. Hayes, James A. Garfield. Chester A. Arthur. Benjamin Harrison, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. All the others had also served in the military in some capacity…except Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama not only doesn’t have experience in the military, he doesn’t seem to like them much. He has done everything he can to reduce our military capacity to fight a war anywhere or to show any genuine respect for the troops on active duty. The only uniform he ever wore was as an Indonesian Boy Scout.

Retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis told the Congress “America needs a refresh national security strategy. We need to come out from our reactive crouch and take a firm, strategic stance in defense of our values.” Apparently those values don’t matter to the White House or to those left-wingers who wet their pants over the popularity of “Sniper”, a film that pays tribute to our troops who fought the war in Iraq.

Obama - Failed Foreign Policy

Under Obama’s term in office, radical Islam has increased four-fold in the past five years, ISIS ten times since 2012 and Iran has masterminded control of the capitols in Beirut, Lebanon, Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq, and now in Sanaa, Yemen. It has been the power behind Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Gen. Keane described Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as an “absolute strategic failure.” He called radical Islam “the major security challenge of our generation.”

Regarding Iran, Gen. Keane said, “In 1980, Iran declared the United States as a strategic enemy and its goal is to drive the United State out of the region, achieve regional hegemony, and destroy the state of Israel.”

“Is there any doubt that Iran is on the march and is systematically moving toward their regional hegemonic objective?” asked Gen. Keane. “Iran has been on a 20-year journey to acquire nuclear weapons, simply because they know it guarantees preservation of the regime and makes them, along with their partners, the dominant power in the region, thereby capable of expanding their control and influence. Add to this their ballistic missile delivery system and Iran is not only a threat to the region, but to Europe, as well.” The U.S. in time will be in missile range.

“We have no comprehensive strategy to stop it or defeat it,” said Gen. Keane.

Thanks to Barack Obama, the United States of America can no longer be seen as the world leader, opposing the forces that seek to impose control. Former allies, particularly in the Middle East, no longer have any confidence that we would come to their defense if they were attacked.

Thanks to Barack Obama, our enemies have been emboldened and our allies confused, but it is not that confusing. He is an idiot who lacks any grasp of history’s lessons and he is a coward who cannot be expected to seriously respond to our own and our allies’ enemies.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

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World Hijab Day: A Rutten Experience

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NP3HighSchoolHijabDayJanuary 29, 2015, was Hijab Day at NP3 High School, in Sacramento, California.  One student who is interning for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gave a presentation on Islamophobia and in no time at all, the befuddled faculty, staff and students were “encouraged” by principal, Tom Rutten, to wear a hijab – a veil that covers the woman’s head and chest.

What began as the seventh century Bedouin woman’s attempt at privacy and protection from the desert has become a veil symbolic of a woman’s indignity and servitude.  As Nonie Darwish so aptly explained in her book, Cruel and Usual Punishment, women have come to represent the totality of evil and inferiority in Islamic teaching.

Considered lacking in intelligence and religion, women are seen as half the worth of men in a Shari’a court; in the case of rape, her accusation has no worth without four witnesses.  Women may be raped for wearing “indecent” clothing, and beaten by their husbands for leaving the house unaccompanied by a male relative.  If her behavior further irritates, he may imprison her without food and clothing, and arrange for stoning until dead.  In this despotic society, women bear the honor of the male, so that girls and women may be killed by a father who fears his esteem has been sullied.

The hijabs and burqas serve the purpose of enforcing women to obey Shari’a and submit to men.  Furthermore, they are obligated to defend this life of bondage or else risk their own destruction at the hand of their families.  It is because of such constant fear, that many women are defensive when challenged by non-Muslims.  Some may even try to earn honor and respect by joining the radicals for violent jihad (holy war against the infidel).

To cultures that enjoy freedom, these concealed women should be regarded  victims of sadism, forced to endure the insufferable heat of the subtropics under layers of clothing, and prevented from enjoying the summer sun and cool breezes. In fact, medical experts have noted that these covered women in northern climes, with less sunshine, are suffering disproportionately from osteoporosis due to the lack of Vitamin D, and experiencing an increased risk of pelvic fracture during childbirth. Their newborns are more prone to suffering  seizures from the same deficiency.

Islamic law is concerned more with raping, beating, flogging, and stoning women than with honoring them.  Shari’a law demands that women be covered from head to toe as a way of solving the male’s sexual temptations. Rather than teach the males self-restraint and respect, the woman shoulders the responsibility of hiding herself.  Tragically, because some women want to appear obedient to their god and men, other women bear the burden of ridicule and targets of fatwas (legal opinions that often lead to threats of death).

Tom Rutten, the principal, and Scott Dosick, president of the Board of Trustees of the Natomas Unified School District, appear to be gullible and ill-informed.   Whether somehow compelled or naively eager to please, they have, albeit temporarily, aligned the school to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood – both recognized as terrorist groups by the United States government.   The usual claims are trumpeted, that this is to promote a deeper understanding between different faiths, but the interchange will predictably be in one direction only.  The Muslims will not be required to don a Jewish kippah or a Catholic Sister’s habit, neither would they consider doing so this side of Paradise.

Rather than guide the new immigrants in becoming Americans, as previous ethnic groups have done, the school has accepted the customs from those who refuse to assimilate.  When an intruder or invader makes demands (no matter how subtle) that are met with compliance and submission from the host, it is conquest, not assimilation.  I am concerned about how the school will handle future requests, such as visiting the local mosque, installing footbaths in the restrooms, removing foods from the cafeteria that Muslims find offensive and demanding for halal foods, removing animal pictures they consider distasteful, removing Israel from a map, eliminating all historic information about the Ancient Israelites, and allowing a room and time for Muslim prayer..  These are among the many incremental adjustments to result in a gradual change of America as we know it.

The student,  a representative  of CAIR, whose motto is, “We are not here to be equal to other religions; we are here to dominate,” also conducted a discussion on Islamophobia, a term used to curb our freedom of speech by teaching non-Muslims to refrain from language they find offensive, including the violent history of Mohammed and Islam, the brutality of Sharia law, the truths about the treatment of women and sexual slavery,  the 1400 years of Islamic savagery perpetrated by Muslims against all others, jihad and terrorism, studying democracy, and learning about Israel.   By curbing our children’s free speech, behaviors, and dress choices, they are destroying our own cultural thoughts and behaviors, producing submissive adults.  They have eliminated from the history books all Islamic violence, and the history and founding of America, including the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  As our freedoms of thought and discussion are eroded, so are our cultural enthusiasm and growth.  They are working to transform Americans into their image – one of a backward, destructive desert people.

CAIR has “engaged in more than 100 political influence operations on behalf of foreign principals in the United States.”  I am deeply concerned that the school authorities knew that the student was an intern for the Hamas-linked terror organization, CAIR, the worldwide organization that is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, supports terrorism, and seeks to implement Sharia-based governance globally.  I am concerned that they could not or would not protect themselves and their students from the stealth cultural onslaught.

Therefore, in all fairness and in the interest of equality and mutual understanding, I ask Mr. Rutten and Mr. Dosick to please inform me when they will schedule the next days of honor for other religions, and precisely how they’ll equalize the programs.   In that way, all the students may learn to appreciated each other and grow to be proud Americans with their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness intact, each in his/her own way.

Hijacking a Tribute to Pioneering Black Republicans

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A year ago, I went to see Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), who happens to be a good friend. I wanted his approval for an idea that I had. The previous year, the GOP had just come off of a disastrous election cycle with Mitt Romney losing his bid to become president. Barack Obama had beaten him in every demographic except White males. Reversing recent inroads into the Black community, Romney received only 4 percent of the African American vote.

Rather than simply bemoan that setback, I suggested that we create an annual Black History Month honor to be called the Black Republican Trailblazer Award. Essentially, it was a luncheon to recognize, pay homage to, and to honor African American Republicans who have paved the way for people like me and others to be active in our party while making a major contribution to America along the way.

Priebus immediately saw the value of my idea and gave me the greenlight to move forward, though some staffers were not enthusiastic about the idea. I offered to raise money to underwrite the event, but Priebus insisted that the RNC pay for it.

The 2013 honorees were William T. Coleman and Robert J. Brown. Our keynote speaker was David L. Steward. Coleman was the brains, along with former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, behind the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. He was Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald R. Ford.

Bob Brown was the highest ranking Black staffer for former President Richard Nixon. Coleman and Brown were both civil rights icons who never forgot their obligation to fight on behalf of Blacks. The keynote speaker was Dave Steward, head of World Wide Technology in St. Louis. He operates the largest Black-owned business in the U.S. with annual revenues in excess of $ 6 billion.

I was able to organize and execute the event in less than 30 days, despite people trying to sabotage me every step of the way. We had more than 250 people in attendance, probably 40 percent of them were Democrats who appreciated our honorees’ trailblazing contributions.

Fast forward to 2014 when the honorees were former Assistant Secretary of Labor Bill Brooks, former Ohio Supreme Court Judge, Sara Harper and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Louis Sullivan. The keynote speaker was former Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams.

Though Priebus didn’t know it, members of his staff had unilaterally decided that they no longer needed me and organized the event without me or my input. Just looking at the names of this year’s awardees, you can tell that I had nothing to do with it: Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Congressman Will Hurd (R-Texas), and Congressman Mia Love (R-Utah). They are good and honorable people whose election to Congress as Black Republicans were historic – but not trailblazing.

An award is something you are given; an honor is something you have earned. They deserve an award, but not this honor.

In my view, a true trailblazer should be like a candle: they should consume themselves to serve as a light for others. The more light a candle gives, the less noticeable it becomes. Without a doubt, Bill Coleman, Bob Brown, and Sara Harper are trailblazers. They not only helped change America, but they also opened doors within the Republican Party for Blacks like me.

Because the RNC staff has prostituted and perverted the clear intent of the annual Black Republican Trailblazer luncheon, I cannot, in good conscious, attend this year’s event. To all my supporters who packed the first two events, I apologize. This was not of my making and I regret I am just finding out about this gross betrayal of trust.

To those who have asked whether I am leaving the party, the answer is an emphatic no. I can’t walk away because of petty staff jealousies over my personal relationship with the chairman. To walk away now would be a betrayal to everything these Black Republican trailblazers endured.

To avoid being placed in this position again, however, I am going to narrow the scope of my work strictly to party organizations and elected officials who are going to treat me with the respect that I deserve and have earned over the past 25 years. No longer will I be so quick to reflexively roll up my sleeves when the party is in need.

I am determined to walk the path that Bill Coleman, Bob Brown, Sara Harper, and Dave Steward have blazed before me. To do anything less we make me unworthy of their sacrifices.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on BlackPressUSA.com. The featured image of black Republicans is from the National Archive.

The Anti-Capitalist Children of Capitalism by Alex Moseley

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The Market Economy Gives Anti-Capitalist Rioters the Means to Protest. 

The irony of the anti-capitalist protests that have plagued gatherings of world leaders in Seattle and Prague, and that threaten to disrupt any future such meetings, is that despite the atavism of the activists’ ideology, their means depend on the very economic system they profess to hate. Essentially, the rioters are the spoiled surplus population of growing and healthy economies: men and women freed from the production process by the market economy who thus have time on their hands to express their own dissatisfactions with the world.

Protests against the market system are not new. Historically, local riots have often targeted unfair practices, which unknowingly were generated by locally enforced legislation that hampered the market, or by the undeveloped state of those markets, or by an inflation promoted by more distant authorities bent on clandestinely securing more funds for their treasuries without having to raise taxes.

In the present extension of the division of labor, which transcends most of the world’s nations and production areas, ruptures in the market system are more often created by governments bent on short-term enrichment or financial gain than by international companies setting up new production centers. Rather than exploiting workers, multinational companies generate new opportunities and often raise local living standards. The addition of any new company into a market involves attracting workers from other industries by offering higher wages or better working conditions. This in turn produces beneficial changes in the older industries to keep workers from leaving. Where trade is free, the locals generally benefit (depending on their own capacity to integrate into extended commercial activities). But sometimes governments engage in collusive activities that hamper the free flow of resources, and thereby create their own homegrown injustices that may rightly be criticized—yet the fault there lies with government policies and not trade practices.

Riots may have a variety of local subplots. That is, they may possess a plurality of motives involving locals’ prejudices toward foreign merchants, the unfair application of local laws, inefficient government, existing protected industries, and so on. Nonetheless, the global plot should not be forgotten. As the market economy expanded so phenomenally over the last two centuries, it dawned on many intellectuals, critics, and reformers that local industries might indeed be affected by increasingly distant or diffuse sources. Wars in distant nations, the opening up of new markets thousands of miles away, and technological changes on the other side of the world could impose benefits, or costs, on people who were hardly aware of the existence of such places. (A good example is the effect of the American Civil War on the British textile industry.) Some critics reacted as strongly to this realization as previous thinkers did when watching foreign merchants entering the local markets or harbors; such fears were prompted by both disdain for the foreigner and fear of what changes might be forthcoming.

Yet as globalization continues apace the disruption to the local economy diminishes. Compared to the famines and economic devastation of wars, local piracy, and whimsical government intervention, the cost of continual adaptation to international markets is small—and increasingly fluid. Local interventions may hamper the process, but on the whole the pouring of capital and resources into hitherto undeveloped or relatively undeveloped areas has only been beneficial. And not just in higher wages either. The expansion of a locality’s capital base also deepens and broadens the local skill base, so if the markets should change, the population would be more able to adapt and would certainly be less dependent on one industry or specialization.

Fear of Change

From Martin Luther’s bombastic and ascetic Protestantism (his notion that rough woolen clothes should be good enough for his native sixteenth-century Germans) to Marx’s general critique of capitalism as a phase of class warfare, the fear of change remains a perennial concern in many intellectuals’ derision of the developments wrought by global markets. Fear of change and of unknown principles that circumscribe human life motivates rituals, superstitions, angst, in response to one’s own perceived fragility in the world. What better solution than to seek to impose one’s will—one’s reason—on the unseen forces that frame one’s destiny?

For a few centuries now, such a conclusion regarding the principles of physics has been rightfully regarded as ludicrous. Yet many have yet to understand the principles that guide man’s most important aspect of social life—the principles of trade. Market forces, cry the socialists, ought to be harnessed or eliminated—profit should be abandoned in favor of people. But what is interesting today is that the present protesters who come together do so on the back of capitalism’s own and highly technological implements—the Internet, the mobile phone, or at least the fax or the newspaper—all products of the market system of private enterprise they wish to overthrow. Do they seriously believe such products can be produced where there are no profits and losses to indicate where resources can best meet consumers’ needs? No centrally planned society, never mind an anarchic community of “New Age Travelers” or Internet socialists, has produced anything of value to the rest of humanity. Yet in their myopia, they do not see the glorious but silent removal of the fears and prejudices that have traditionally gripped men’s minds for thousands of years as the market system expands.

Anti-capitalist crusades may complement local senses of disorder or economic vulnerability. They may offer rationalizations providing a sense of universality or comprehension—that the local issues are in effect part of a global conspiracy against them, which, of course, they can change through local, direct action: the new revolution begins here! And the shop window becomes an easy iconic scapegoat to be smashed.

The rhetoric of the organizers rings with the words of Lenin’s fury against the industrialization of the nineteenth century—which then was gradually but noticeably improving life in his adopted Russia. The leaders of the communist revolution were then able to harness the profits of capitalism for their crusade against the nascent economic freedoms bubbling across Russia. Today, their intellectual descendants have once again harnessed the very products of capitalism that have increased productivity and hence the wealth of millions, and which most certainly have brought the world closer together.

Leisure Commonplace

A principle of wealth production is that it enables us to pursue more leisure activities than our ancestors, for whom leisure, if experienced at all, remained a luxury. The massive transformations generated by increasingly global markets have produced undreamed-of products and freed time for leisurely pursuits—and not just for the lucky few. The industrious poor of the Western nations, whose numbers were once particularly vulnerable to local famines and plagues, may now enjoy conveniences and pursuits not even the richest Victorians could have imagined. They do so because they are able to reap the rewards of increased productivity and concomitant wage increases—because they are part of the international market, and not subject to the vagaries of local market changes.

Globalization, when it can flourish in the absence of local, arduous restrictions, fosters stability: companies may come and go or change name, but the trained and educated skill base remains for others to tap into.

Back to numbers: the capitalist world has produced a massive increase in the numbers of people the world’s economies can support. As productivity increases, the growth in population reflects a successful expansion of man’s ability to survive. Unemployment, which once would have meant a deleterious impoverishment and corresponding malnourishment with reduced life expectancies, in the West at least can now be supported by the general pool of wealth residing in families and in state budgets (for better or worse!).

The intellectually infused mobile-phone Marxists and Internet intelligentsia, the new dot-com socialists of the 21st century, are certainly a spoiled bunch of idealistic youth brought up on the ideals of a free education and a free life: of computers and games for all—viva la revolución! they cry over the Internet (and it is worth checking some of the sites out). Smash the capitalist system, they scream in songs produced in hi-tech recording studios, played over radio and Net communications—well, why don’t they begin with their own wireless phones, personal organizers, computers, Internet sites, and e-mails? Give them up! Show the world the way back to the true nature of communism, and of course to poverty. Give up designer clothes, printed books even, and hair dyed by virtue of the complexities of the free market that offer fixing chemicals and dyes unheard before the revolution. Pick up your hand-carved wooden implements and inscribe your messages in your homemade inks from the natural dyes found in the weeds by the sides of the road, and oh, by the way, walk to the next IMF meeting on the other side of the world as the ancient Christian pilgrims used to do.

Not many takers? Not surprising: few would wish to give up their Internet-induced revolution, their trappings of luxury and wealth they take for granted. Few would wish to truly give up modern housing with constant water and heat on demand—but that’s what their demands entail.

ABOUT ALEX MOSELEY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.

Yakov Smirnoff solves the People’s Cube on second try

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Last night I went to see Yakov Smirnoff at the Lakeland Center in Florida. In addition to having discovered America, Yakov has now also discovered personal relationships, and presents his findings the way you never looked at it before. And now he has also discovered the People’s Cube.

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I spoke with Yakov before and after the show. He was very warm and friendly, and when I gave him the Cube, he immediately figured out the concept and tried to solve it, but failed on the first try. But then, with the words “What would Putin do?” he finally got it right.

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When I told him that his name and his jokes frequently come up on our website, he asked me for the URL and promised to check it out. We also exchanged a few words in Russian, but since he hasn’t used that language in a very long time (he came to the U.S. in 1977 at the age of 26), we continued the conversation in an equally accented English.

At some point in his life Yakov took a break from comedy to get a degree in applied positive psychology, and now he teaches a course on The Business of Laughter at Missouri State University and Drury University. He also runs his own Yakov Smirnoff Theater in Branson, Mo., and goes on occasional comedy tours.

The show was hilarious, but also informative and heart-warming; not openly political, but with a rather conservative, pro-American vibe. During the show Yakov spoke of his friendship with Ronald Reagan, and how he was asked to write jokes for the speech Reagan gave in Moscow.

On a large screen, a picture was projected of Reagan and Yakov laughing together, followed by a picture of Reagan and Gorbachev laughing together, and Yakov said, “That was how the Cold War ended.” The next picture was of Putin and Obama frowning, as Yakov said, “And this is how it started again.”

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The venue holds 2,296 seats (we’ll have to trust the theater website on that), and when I scanned the room, I saw no empty chairs. Afterwards there was an impressively long line to buy Yakov’s signed DVDs.

The demand quickly exceeded the supply and then a new line formed, in which those who didn’t get the DVDs waited to give their phone numbers to Yakov’s assistant, so that they could get them in the mail later.

Long lines and shortages! It felt like the old country all over again. But I was happy to see Yakov’s continued popularity with the audiences. He very well deserves it.

In the end he and I exchanged emails and agreed to stay in touch. I haven’t sent him anything yet; I first wanted to post this story with pictures so that I could email him the link. You know what that means: if you leave a comment, chances are that Yakov will read it.

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Why Does Obama Get Job Performance Approval?

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It is one of the great mysteries. How does Barack Obama continue to generate job approval ratings that say he’s doing a good one?

On a recent weekend Rasmussen Reports rated him at 51% while Gallup gave him a 49% rating. At the Pew Research Center, his rating was at 47%, but they noted that at this time in his presidency, George W. Bush had a job approval rating of 33% while Bill Clinton was rated at 63% approval.

Of course, Bush and Clinton were President at different times dealing with different factors but metaphorically Obama’s ratings suggest that close to half of the voters polled still thought he was doing a good job or, at the very least, not a bad one.

Are the voters that are being polled simply not paying that much attention to the White House and its occupant?

Consider some aspects of his record in office to date:

As 2014 came to a close, Tyler Durden, writing on Zero Hedge, addressed the U.S. debt, noting that it had “just hit a new historic level…which also means that total U.S. debt had increased by 70% under Obama, from $10.625 trillion on January 21, 2009 to $18.005 trillion most recently.”

The level of debt led to the first downgrade of the U.S. credit rating in the nation’s history. At the same time federal spending (25% of Gross Domestic Product) was the highest since World War II.

Obama has presided over a terrible economy for the past six years and, while other Presidents came into office facing a comparable recession, Obama’s failed policies turned it into the Great Recession. Employment sank to the lowest since 1983 at 58.1% of the working population and long-term unemployment (45.9%) was the highest since the 1930s.

One might think that so many people either out of work or who had given up seeking it would be unhappy enough to credit Obama with the economy’s sluggish state. He is currently taking credit for any improvement, but much of it is attributable to the energy sector and he has taken steps to harm it since 2009 with “a war on coal”, restricting any exploration or drilling for oil and natural gas on federal lands, and most recently, attempting to put one of the most energy-rich regions of Alaska off-limits to any access.

AA - Poll of DropoutsAs we begin to work on our tax returns, it’s worth noting that only 49% of taxpayers will be paying an income tax, the lowest level in the modern era and, predictably, government dependency (47%), defined as the percentage of people receiving one or more federal benefit payments, is now the highest in American history.

There was a time when being on welfare was something people tried to avoid. That suggests that something has changed in the American character, but we know that all too well as we watch our society accept a range of conduct that includes demands for same-sex marriages, legalization of marijuana, a growing population of single-parent families, attacks on the saying of prayers at public ceremonies, hostility to the police who protect us, and a host of other behaviors that undermine the moral values that previous generations of Americans passed on to their descendants.

Another mystery is the way facts about Obama seem to stir so little interest. He allegedly has a Social Security number from a state in which he has never lived. Many of the records of his life that other Presidents have made public have been kept sealed from examination. A birth certificate has been deemed a forgery by document experts. Whole books have been devoted to the disparities between his two memoirs and facts that have raised many questions.

At the least, one might assume that Americans know that he lies all the time. The typical television news program includes video of something he said previously that clashes with whatever his recent version is. Why would voters grant a 50% approval rating to someone who so consistently lies to them?

The fact is that his namesake legislation—ObamaCare—has been a disaster from the day it was passed. It was sold to the public with a series of outrageous lies told by the President. Passage was based solely on the votes of a Democratic Party that controlled Congress but the recent election did shift control of Congress to the GOP, so the voter’s actions do speak louder than words.

The then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, summed it up saying they had to pass the 2,000-plus page monster “in order to find out what’s in it.” That is not how government is supposed to function, but worst of all, ObamaCare requires Americans to purchase a product, health insurance, they may not want or may not need. That is a lot closer to a dictatorship than a democracy.

How many scandals have occurred during the President’s six years in office? The short answer is “too many”; the most recent being the exchange of five Taliban generals for one American soldier deemed by those with whom he served to have deserted his unit. In the same fashion it has taken months to pry information from the White House about the Benghazi attack that took the life of a U.S. ambassador and three others. As is frequently the case, it is the cover-up that rivals the event.

In the end, one must conclude that Obama’s job performance approval ratings say as much about the mood and outlook of the voters who were polled as the facts cited above would suggest. A lot of Americans continue to express their anger and frustration with Obama, myself included, but that is not showing up in the ratings that suggest that a least half the voters think he’s doing, if not a great job, at least a good one.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

CLICHÉS OF PROGRESSIVISM #42 – “Jesus Christ Was a Progressive Because He Advocated Income Redistribution to Help the Poor”

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You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate the deceit in this canard. You can be a person of any faith or no faith at all. You just have to appreciate facts.

I first heard something similar to this cliché some 40 years ago. As a Christian, I was puzzled. In Christ’s view, the most important decision a person would make in his earthly lifetime was to accept or reject Him for whom He claimed to be—God in the flesh and the savior of mankind. That decision was clearly to be a very personal one—an individual and voluntary choice. He constantly stressed inner, spiritual renewal as far more critical to well-being than material things. I wondered, “How could the same Christ advocate the use of force to take stuff from some and give it to others?” I just couldn’t imagine Him supporting a fine or a jail sentence for people who don’t want to fork over their money for food stamp programs.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “Didn’t He answer, ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’ when the Pharisees tried to trick Him into denouncing a Roman-imposed tax?” Yes indeed, He did say that. It’s found first in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 15-22 and later in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verses 13-17. But notice that everything depends on just what did truly belong to Caesar and what didn’t, which is actually a rather powerful endorsement of property rights. Christ said nothing like “It belongs to Caesar if Caesar simply says it does, no matter how much he wants, how he gets it, or how he chooses to spend it.”

The fact is, one can scour the Scriptures with a fine-tooth comb and find nary a word from Christ that endorses the forcible redistribution of wealth by political authorities. None, period.

“But didn’t Christ say he came to uphold the law?” you ask. Yes, in Matthew 5: 17-20, he declares, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In Luke 24: 44, He clarifies this when he says “…[A]ll things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” He was not saying, “Whatever laws the government passes, I’m all for.” He was speaking specifically of the Mosaic Law (primarily the Ten Commandments) and the prophecies of His own coming.

Consider the 8th of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not steal.” Note the period after the word “steal.” This admonition does not read, “You shall not steal unless the other guy has more than you do” or “You shall not steal unless you’re absolutely positive you can spend it better than the guy who earned it.” Nor does it say, “You shall not steal but it’s OK to hire someone else, like a politician, to do it for you.”

In case people were still tempted to steal, the 10th Commandment is aimed at nipping in the bud one of the principal motives for stealing (and for redistribution): “You shall not covet.” In other words, if it’s not yours, keep your fingers off of it.

In Luke 12: 13-15, Christ is confronted with a redistribution request. A man with a grievance approaches him and demands, “Master, speak to my brother and make him divide the inheritance with me.” The Son of God, the same man who wrought miraculous healings and calmed the waves, replies thusly: “Man, who made mea judge or divider over you? Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man’s wealth does not consist of the material abundance he possesses.” Wow! He could have equalized the wealth between two men with a wave of His hand but he chose to denounce envy instead.

“What about the story of the Good Samaritan? Doesn’t that make a case for government welfare programs, if not outright redistribution?” you inquire. The answer is an emphatic NO!” Consider the details of the story, as recorded in Luke 10: 29-37: A traveler comes upon a man at the side of a road. The man had been beaten and robbed and left half-dead. What did the traveler do? He helped the man himself, on the spot, with his own resources. He did not say, “Write a letter to the emperor” or “Go see your social worker” and walk on. If he had done that, he would more likely be known today as the “Good-for-nothing Samaritan,” if he was remembered at all.

What about the reference, in the Book of Acts, to the early Christians selling their worldly goods and sharing communally in the proceeds? That sounds like a progressive utopia. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that those early Christians did not sell everything they had and were not commanded or expected to do so. They continued to meet in their own private homes, for example. In his contributing chapter to the 2014 book, “For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty,” Art Lindsley of the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics writes,

Again, in this passage from Acts, there is no mention of the state at all. These early believers contributed their goods freely, without coercion, voluntarily. Elsewhere in Scripture we see that Christians are even instructed to give in just this manner, freely, for “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). There is plenty of indication that private property rights were still in effect….

It may disappoint progressives to learn that Christ’s words and deeds repeatedly upheld such critically-important, capitalist virtues as contract, profit and private property. For example, consider His “Parable of the Talents” (see one of the recommended readings below). Of several men in the story, the one who takes his money and buries it is reprimanded while the one who invests and generates the largest return is applauded and rewarded.

Though not central to the story, good lessons in supply-and-demand as well as the sanctity of contract are apparent in Christ’s “Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.” A landowner offers a wage to attract workers for a day of urgent work picking grapes. Near the end of the day, he realizes he has to quickly hire more and to get them, he offers for an hour of work what he previously had offered to pay the first workers for the whole day. When one of those who worked all day complained, the landowner answered, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

The well-known “Golden Rule” comes from the lips of Christ Himself, in Matthew 7:12. “So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do unto you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” In Matthew 19:18, Christ says, “…love your neighbor as yourself.” Nowhere does He even remotely suggest that we should dislike a neighbor because of his wealth or seek to take that wealth from him. If you don’t want your property confiscated (and most people don’t, and wouldn’t need a thief in order to part with it anyway), then clearly you’re not supposed to confiscate somebody else’s.

Christian doctrine cautions against greed. So does present-day economist Thomas Sowell: “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.” Using the power of government to grab another person’s property isn’t exactly altruistic. Christ never even implied that accumulating wealth through peaceful commerce was in any way wrong; He simply implored people to not allow wealth to rule them or corrupt their character. That’s why His greatest apostle, Paul, didn’t say money was evil in the famous reference in 1 Timothy 6:10. Here’s what Paul actually said: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Indeed, progressives themselves have not selflessly abandoned money, for it is other people’s money, especially that of “the rich,” that they’re always clamoring for.

In Matthew 19:23, Christ says, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to get into the kingdom of heaven.” A progressive might say, “Eureka! There it is! He doesn’t like rich people” and then stretch the remark beyond recognition to justify just about any rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme that comes down the pike. But this admonition is entirely consistent with everything else Christ says. It’s not a call to envy the rich, to take from the rich or to give “free” cell phones to the poor. It’s a call to character. It’s an observation that some people let their wealth rule them, rather than the other way around. It’s a warning about temptations (which come in many forms, not just material wealth). Haven’t we all noticed that among the rich, as is equally true among the poor, you have both good and bad people? Haven’t we all seen some rich celebrities corrupted by their fame and fortune, while others among the rich live perfectly upstanding lives? Haven’t we all seen some poor people who allow their poverty to demoralize and enervate them, while others among the poor view it as an incentive to improve?

In Christ’s teachings and in many other parts of the New Testament, Christians—indeed, all people—are advised to be of “generous spirit,” to care for one’s family, to help the poor, to assist widows and orphans, to exhibit kindness and to maintain the highest character. How all that gets translated into the dirty business of coercive, vote-buying, politically-driven redistribution schemes is a problem for prevaricators with agendas. It’s not a problem for scholars of what the Bible actually says and doesn’t say.

Search your conscience. Consider the evidence. Be mindful of facts. And ask yourself: “When it comes to helping the poor, would Christ prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army or at gunpoint to the welfare department?

Christ was no dummy. He was not interested in the public professions of charitableness in which the legalistic and hypocritical Pharisees were fond of engaging. He dismissed their self-serving, cheap talk. He knew it was often insincere, rarely indicative of how they conducted their personal affairs, and always a dead-end with plenty of snares and delusions along the way. It would hardly make sense for him to champion the poor by supporting policies that undermine the process of wealth creation necessary to help them. In the final analysis, He would never endorse a scheme that doesn’t work and is rooted in envy or theft. In spite of the attempts of many modern-day progressives to make Him into Robin Hood, He was nothing of the sort.

Summary

  • Free will, not coercion, is a central and consistent element in the teachings of Christ.
  • It is not recorded anywhere that Christ called for the state to use its power to redistribute wealth.
  • Christ endorsed things like choice, charity, generosity, kindness, personal responsibility, and voluntary association—things that are irreconcilable with coercively-financed redistribution schemes.
  • For further information, see:

“For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty,” Anne Bradley and Art Lindsley, editors

“Socialism: Spiritual or Secular?” by Francis Mahaffey

“The Parable of the Talents: The Bible and Entrepreneurs” by Robert Sirico

“Lawrence Reed on The Platform” – a short video interview on income redistribution, the welfare state and Christianity

“Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Economics” by Doug Bandow

Cliché #20: “Government Can Be a Compassionate Alternative to the Harshness of the Marketplace” by Lawrence W. Reed

ABOUT LAWRENCE W. REED

Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. Prior to becoming FEE’s president, he served for 20 years as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. He also taught economics full-time from 1977 to 1984 at Northwood University in Michigan and chaired its department of economics from 1982 to 1984.

EDITORS NOTE: The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government. See the index of the published chapters here. As an organization unaffiliated with any particular faith, FEE encourages other perspectives on such matters. Mr. Reed wishes readers to understand that his personal perspective is not intended to proselytize for any particular faith or church but to illuminate his interpretation of the moral and economic dimension of Christ.)

What Does a Warm 2014 Say about Climate Change?

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The answer to this important question depends on which of the three camps in the global warming (a.k.a. climate change) debate one belongs.

The first camp is comprised of those like Al Gore, the Obama administration, the United Nations, major environmental organizations, and lastly, the main stream media that has helped this camp communicate its message so comprehensively. Their well known theme is that mankind controls changes in climate by the emission of industrial greenhouse gases, primarily CO2.

The second camp is the rapidly growing opposition to the science and the politics of everything the first camp is doing. It includes the courageous Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), his new ally Senator Ted Cruz, the Heartland Institute, CFACT, and a host of truth-seeking scientists and meteorologists. Their own theme has been the exposing of the deep flaws of the greenhouse gas theory and the first camp’s attempts to take CO2, a minor though beneficial trace gas, and turn it into a dangerous global threat.

However, in their battle against each other, both groups have missed what a third and smallest camp, the ‘global cooling camp,’ says about the climate. This group is one to which I and a number of international climate researchers belong. We believe we have proven over many years, that the best climate science and best track record in climate prediction comes from following how the Sun, not mankind, controls climate variations.

So was 2014 the warmest year on record as the President and the U.S. government’s “best” science organizations, NOAA and NASA, say?

According to the results from several leading climate data bases that we follow at the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC), 2014 was DEFINITELY NOT the warmest ever recorded, as we have been told by the US government. The SSRC uses multiple data sets to compile its bi-annual Global Climate Status Report (GCSR). Two of those most reliable data sets show that 2014, though unusually warm, was still somewhere between number three and number six warmest since 1979. However, at the SSRC we did note a small but important temperature spike from 2013 through 2014. In any case, the record of eighteen-plus years without any significant growth in global temperatures remains intact. I will restate for those who have not yet heard it; there is no global warming. Additionally, in the GCSR, fifteen of twenty-four climate indicators now say the world has entered a new cold climate. Only three are still displaying a warming trend.

The two scenarios for the Earth’s climate for the next three decades determined from using the best science and most accurate climate theories available, predict a much colder world ahead. They will be either a dramatically colder climate similar to the period of 1793 to 1830, or one even worse like the “Little Ice Age” from 1615 to 1745. Both scenarios forecast massive global crop losses, civil strife, and substantial loss of life. Our Russian colleagues say the Little Ice Age is the more likely future. If they are correct, the global upheaval and loss of life will be ‘biblical’ in scale! The milder scenario predicted by the SSRC will be bad enough.

Still, the first two camps are at a loss as to an explanation for why 2013 to 2014 produced the warming spike that it did. To the global cooling camp, it is no mystery at all.

The December 10, 2014 edition of the GCSR discloses the details including charts that compare the previous past solar cycles that presaged a coming cold climate with our present 11-year solar cycle. The Sun has sent us an important message via a brief period of warmth during this particular solar cycle #24, that it is about to “pull the rug out from under” the planet, sending it into decades of extreme cold.

The climate camp of the U.S. government and the United Nations and the well intended members of the camp that oppose them, both continue to avoid using the best science and climate models available.

The long history of science advises that sometimes the ‘smallest’ voice can have the most important message.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Weak sun could offset some global warming in Europe and U.S. – study

Britain faces FREEZING winters as slump in solar activity threatens ‘little Ice Age’

No, 2014 wasn’t the ‘warmest year in history’ – By Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe

RELATED VIDEO: The Sun Dictates Climate Change Not Man – John Casey Lecture at the Greater Orlando TEA Party:

The Hot Air Administration

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President Obama is very proud of his achievements. Who can blame him? After all, he said he would set out to fundamentally change America and he has. For example, it wasn’t until he became president that an overall loss of jobs, higher taxes and more anti- business regulations could be dubbed an economic recovery. He said that certain terrorist groups were weakened. But despite his hot air bloviating, the Taliban, Hezbulla, Isis and other destructive organizations are stronger than they have been in quite some time.  The president has touted the strength of our military while ferreting out any patriotic or principled General to end their military career.  But along with being the Hot air Administration, one cannot neglect the fact the Barak H. Obama is technically a traitor in chief as well. Not only to America, but to our valued allies throughout the world.

Yes he let out some hot air during a strong sounding statement when Putin unleashed his military on Ukraine, but the hope of any help from the United States quickly evaporated along with Obama’s hot air.  Of course along with Mr. Obama’s practice of spouting hot air is his dutiful following of the Saul Alinsky’s rules for Radicals playbook.  One thing is for sure, the Alinsky followers like Obama consistently utilize a real or imagined problem to harp on until everyone is nauseated.  Then they will create the illusion that the problem they complained about is gradually being solved.  Of course they eventually admit the problem they knew would never be solved was not solved and demand more money and attention. Thus to their sick pleasure, bigger problems arise so they have more issues to condemn America about.  Neither civil or bastardized rights, the current application of welfare, the war on poverty, free cell phones or drivers licenses for illegal immigrants have improved the quality of life for Americans.  But the progressive Hot Air Administration and all Alinsky inspired progressives insist on such burdens which they present to the ignorant masses as solutions.

One has to wonder, why after nineteen trillion dollars most American haven’t demanded an end to the costly poverty elimination  programs that have had a minimal effect on the poverty rate and have helped bring to tatters, the fabric of American society.   According to the Cato Institutes policy analysis, the United States poverty rate was nineteen percent in 1964.  After decades of wasted capital, that should have been left in the private economy to provide opportunities via jobs and new businesses, the multi decade redistribution of wealth produced a meager recent poverty rate of 15.1 percent. Clearly the government has been allowed to enact the wrong things for a long time.

As a result, America has been reduced to an entitlement you owe me society.  I could go on at this time about that orchestrated drain on the economy, but will resume at another time.  Turning our attention to the Obama administration’s pride over the United States being number one in the world in wind power.  Recently the president gleefully told a cheering crowd at the University of Kansas about his vision of middle class economics.  In fact he bragged about America being number one in the world in the production of wind power.  Please forgive me for envisioning him blowing hot air like a six foot tall tea pot, but I could not help it.

According to the Department of Energy, wind power now accounts for a “whopping” four percent of American electricity production.  It is more important to know (according to a CNS News report) that the increase of wind generated energy electricity over the past six years does not even come close to making up for the loss of coal generated electricity.  Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 2014 was the most expensive year for electricity ever in the United States.  Of course, Mr. Hot Air has touted the wonders of solar power.  “It has grown by leaps and bounds since 2007.”  But to date it only supplies about 0.23 percent of the nation’s electric power.

Now despite the increases in both solar and wind energy in the United States, they still do not make up for the reduction of energy production from coal.  That is due to draconian government regulations that has hampered coal extraction and production.  This practice of misrepresenting the wonders of wind and solar energy? At the same time taking major credit for lower prices per gallon at the local gas station, which is purposely misleading.  Mr. Hope and change America has been waging a not so subtle war against coal production. In addition he has refused to allow any increase in off shore drilling areas or acreage on federal lands.  The major reason The United States has been blessed with any increase in oil production in recent years is two-fold with nothing to do with president Obama.

One is a small increase of federal lands allocated for drilling during the George W. Bush administration. But more importantly, private lands in North Dakota have been opened up for drilling. As a result, America’s stature as an oil production nation has risen substantially.  Thus the real reason for lower petrol prices. Obama’s buddies in Saudi Arabia is not happy with America’s oil production increase and has been flooding the world market with oil with the goal of putting upstart United States oil producers out of business.

I find it ironic that the President would even take credit for something he does not even desire to happen. Which is American families saving money on fuel prices due to increased American energy capacity.

But despite Obama’s Saul Alinsky, George Soros inspired goals for the United States, I am firmly convinced that president Obama will not succeed in the complete overthrow of greatness here in America.  Not through his support of wasting our republic’s wealth on non-solutions like wind energy windmills that kill migratory birds by the ton.  Not through his refusal to approve the Keystone pipeline.  Not allowing the reduction of our nations corporate tax rate (the highest on earth) will Obama realize his goal of collapsing our way of life.  Of course Mr. Obama and certain establishment republicans want to jack up gasoline taxes, because they cannot stand the slight economic relief the public has experienced at the gas pump.

In other words, Obama and other big government stiffs prefer to saddle you and I with an equal burden economy as opposed to an equal opportunity economy.  Thus you have the Hot Air Administration of President Obama that has caused the United States to tumble to number twelve according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Economic Freedom down from number six when pro American George W. Bush resided in the White House. Despite the dire nature of the goals and actions of the current regime and their cronies, America’s days of doom shall be overcome through the restoration of the principles that made her great and providential guidance. Like Ronald Reagan said decades ago, we win, they lose.

Sarah Palin Is Right: Go on Offense, Tout Conservatism

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Forty years ago when my Aunt Nee was the pastor of the Holy Temple Church of Truth, an east Baltimore storefront, during testimony service Sister Davis or Sister Clearly would spontaneously lead the tiny congregation in singing, “We’re Livin’ In the Last Days.” “They’re calling wrong right. They’re calling right wrong. Surely, we’re livin’ in the last days!”

As I listened to Sarah Palin’s speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit, I was elated that she once again displayed her exemplary leadership by not joining the chorus of those on our side who believe touting true conservatism is a loser. Palin said we should expose the Left’s false premises and educate the public to the benefits and virtues of Conservatism. Wow! How simple and right on target is that?
Many Republicans believe we have lost the argument and the only way to win votes is to abandon core principles, surrender and campaign according to the Left’s/Democrats’ false premises. In essence, they want the GOP to call wrong right and right wrong.

For example: Dems argue that requiring a photo ID to vote disenfranchises blacks. A GOP presidential contender suggested that the GOP drop the requirement to show a photo ID to vote, citing that it offends African Americans. Well, as an American who happens to be black, I find the absurd assumption that it is too challenging to ask blacks to find their way to the DMV to acquire a photo ID extremely insulting and offensive. Showing a photo ID is a reasonable common sense solution to combating rampant Democrat voter fraud. The GOP line should be the same for all Americans. If you want to vote, show a photo ID. Period.

Some on our side are pandering to Obama’s lie that raising the minimum wage will help fix income inequality; once again calling wrong right and right wrong. As Palin suggested in her speech, the GOP should be educating voters to the truth; explain why free market solutions are most beneficial to all Americans and the right thing to do.

Some GOP presidential contenders have embraced Common Core, big government overreaching control of the education of our kids.

I get a bit queasy when members of the GOP start using liberal lingo and embracing premises such as man-made climate change, income inequality and white privilege. My “danger Will Robinson” alert goes off when GOP members start talking about fixing Obamacare, despite winning the election on their vow to repeal it. Shockingly, many in the GOP secretly want to allow Obama’s outrageous executive amnesty to stand.

Man-made climate change is a hoax. Period.

Allowing absurd evil liberal Democrat premises to gain momentum have dire consequences. Their lie that white cops routinely murder blacks lead to the assassination of two NYPD officers. White privilege is another Democrat made-up crisis.

Remarkably, a St Paul, Minnesota school district spend $60k of taxpayer dollars attending “White Privilege” conferences. Talk about the bigotry of lowered expectations, the conferences suggest that black students should not be expected to be on time or work hard because neither concept are a part of their culture. Give me a break.

It is vital that our 2016 presidential candidate be over the “Obama is black thing”, unafraid to deal with Obama as an arrogant lawless tyrant.

Terrified of being called racist, the GOP has allowed Obama to act like a far left radical kid in America’s candy store; insulated from criticism and rebuke by his black-skin coat of armor.

Over the past six and a half years, a socialist/progressive zealot has crept out of the Left’s handsome well-spoken black man Trojan Horse. His mission is to destroy America as founded from within; the Constitution, the law, congress, the senate and the American people be damned. Obama’s strategy is to federalize as much of our land, economy and lives as possible, thus repealing as many of our freedoms as possible.

From the beginning, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party tried to warn America about Obama, only to be marginalized in the minds of many by the mainstream media. They branded Palin and the Tea Party stupid, crazy and a bunch of redneck racists hating on our first black president.

The mainstream media game plan to defeat us in 2016 is quite simple. First they hammer us with the notion that any GOP candidate who defends the Constitution and advocates for limited government is extreme. Thus, to win, we must embrace liberal Democrat false premises.

The MSM then selects a “moderate” candidate which they praise to the hilt. But once we fall for their con and make the moderate RINO our official presidential nominee, they launch a vitriolic campaign portraying our candidate as the devil incarnate.

As Palin has stated, in 2016 only a presidential candidate who inspires, pleasantly educates and boldly articulates Conservatism will do.