The first two Presidential primary debates are behind us but before Election Day there will be many, many more to come.
Typically the news media not only broadcast the debates but are quick to report on the statements and responses made by the candidate participants.
However, what receives little attention are the questions that were asked and the questions that were not asked by the journalist-moderators. This is a new version of “don’t ask – don’t tell!”
The importance of questions cannot be underestimated. My dad sagely told me that the only “dumb” question is the one you don’t ask.
The French philosopher Voltaire famously opined that you should judge a person’s intelligence by the questions he asks.
As an agent, my ability to ask the right question at the right time was a vital skill and one that I worked at for my entire career.
The questioning of an individual in a formal setting comes in two forms, the initial question and the follow-up question(s). I compare this to boxing. The initial question is not unlike the jab while the follow-up question is like the punch to the jaw and may actually score the knockout.
During the first two Democratic Primary debates many issues were raised that actually have relevance to the immigration crisis, yet this connection was never made.
Inasmuch as the “war on terror” continues and the “all clear” has not sounded and is not likely to sound for quite some time, I would want to start out by asking each and every candidate for any significant political office, but particularly for the Presidency, if he/she had read the 9/11 Commission Report and the companion report,9/11 and Terrorist Travel in their entirety.
The 9/11 Commission was convened specifically to learn from our mistakes to protect America and Americans from future terror attacks.
The President of the United States is also the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces and is also of all federal law enforcement agencies.
Any serious candidate for the Presidency must consider those reports to be “required reading.”
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
It went on to state:
Although there is evidence that some land and sea border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at airports.
In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11 attack.
Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.
Here is yet another excerpt:
Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.
This then lays the groundwork for these followup questions:
Given the above-noted, how could any serious candidate call for permitting aliens to enter the United States without vetting and then permit them to apply for political asylum?
How could you insist on a massive amnesty program to provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status even though there are no resources to interview all of these aliens, let alone conduct field investigations?
We have seen terrorists easily commit immigration fraud, what would you do to address this vulnerability. Indeed, the candidates who demand the dismantling of ICE need to be pointedly asked how they could justify such a dangerous tactic?
During the debate Bernie Sanders stated that there are individuals fleeing from Honduras because of gangs. He made it clear that he would permit all of these aliens to enter the United States and apply for asylum. He was never challenged as to how he would prevent the gang members from Honduras or any other country, for that matter, from entering the United States where they easily ply their violent, sociopathic “trades” often targeting the members of the ethnic immigrant communities.
Mr. Sanders should read the transcripts of several hearings on the issue of transnational gangs:
On November 21, 2013 the Washington Times reported, Mexican drug cartels exploit asylum system by claiming ‘credible fear.’
The report quoted Bob Goodlatte, the then-Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee:
It’s outrageous that members of Mexican drug cartels and others involved in illicit activity are so easily able to exploit our asylum laws and live in the U.S. virtually undetected,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican.
Our asylum laws are in place to help individuals who are facing truly serious persecution in their country,” he said. “However, dangerous criminals are gaming the system by claiming they have a ‘credible fear’ of persecution when often they’ve been the perpetrators of violence themselves.
Concerns about the lack of integrity to this system were the focus of two House Judiciary Committee hearings conducted as a result of Chairman Goodlatte’s concerns:
Of course while one of the hearings focused on how asylum abuse was overwhelming our borders, in reality, asylum abuse is overwhelming the entire immigration system throughout the entire United States of America.
At the conclusion of my recent interview on Fox & Friends First to discuss the border crisis, I asked the rhetorical question that should be asked of all of the candidates:
“Would you board an airliner if you saw several of your fellow passengers sneak past the TSA at the airport?- Why then are we being forced to live among millions of aliens who ran our borders and evaded a similar vetting process conducted at ports of entry?”
At the conclusion of my recent interview on Fox & Friends First to discuss the border crisis, I asked the rhetorical question that should be asked of all of the candidates, “Would you board an airliner if you saw several of your fellow passengers sneak past the TSA at the airport?- Why then are we being forced to live among millions of aliens who ran our borders and evaded a similar vetting process conducted at ports of entry?”
EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2019-07-09 16:28:032019-07-09 16:34:06QUESTIONS THE CANDIDATES MUST ANSWER: And the one question that will expose those who actually hate you.
Firearms registration facilitates firearms confiscation. This fact has been demonstrated in recent weeks, as the New Zealand authorities have lamented that the country does not have a firearms registry to assist them in their gun confiscation efforts.
Following a high-profile shooting in Christchurch, the New Zealand government enacted the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Act 2019. The legislation prohibited the sale and civilian possession of all centerfire semi-automatic rifles. Further, the bill banned semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns “that are capable of holding more than 5 cartridges commensurate with that firearm’s chamber size” or capable of accepting a detachable magazine. All detachable centerfire rifle magazines were also prohibited.
Otherwise law-abiding individuals found in unlawful possession of a newly-prohibited firearm face up to five years in prison. Those found in possession of a newly-prohibited magazine face up to two years imprisonment.
In order to enforce the new firearms prohibitions, New Zealand has undertaken an Australian-style confiscatory “buy-back” program that will run from June 20 through December 20. The use of the term “buy-back” is improper, as the government never owned the firearms is seeks to confiscate.
During the amnesty, owners will be forced to turn over their firearms to the government for fixed compensation. New Zealand police have announced a calendar of “local collection events” where gun owners can relinquish their property. Further, police have asked previously law abiding gun owners to use an online portal to notify law enforcement of their prohibited firearms. The government has published a confiscation price list based on make/model and condition of the firearm. Curious U.S. gun owners should note that as of July 3, 2019 the New Zealand dollar was worth approximately $0.67.
In order to possess most rifles and shotguns in New Zealand an individual is required to obtain a firearms license. However, the country does not require all rifles and shotguns to be registered. Pistols and firearms categorized as “military-style semiautomatics” (MSSAs) are subject to registration.
[For more information on New Zealand firearms law, readers are encouraged to visit the Library of Congress website]
This has created a policy dilemma for New Zealand’s gun control advocates. Without knowing how many newly-prohibited firearms are in the country or who owns them, there is no effective way for the anti-gun officials to enforce their ham-handed edicts.
Complaining that the lack of a registry would hamper enforcement, New Zealand Police Association President Chris Cahill told the press in May, “We really have no idea how many of these firearms are out there in New Zealand… Which really points to how bad our firearms legislation has been, that we have let this get out of control.”
Gun Control NZ co-founder Philippa Yasbek admitted that the lack of a registry will make the firearms confiscation plan she supports difficult. Yasbek was quoted by the Washington Post as stating, “These weapons are unlikely to be confiscated by police because they don’t know of their existence… These will become black-market weapons if their owners choose not to comply with the law and become criminals instead.” However, Yasbek and her anti-gun cohorts don’t plan to make this mistake again. At present. Gun Control NZ is advocating for a registry of all firearms and ammunition sales.
Without knowing how many firearms they might need to forcibly purchase, the New Zealand government has allocated NZ$208 million ($139.5 million) to the confiscation scheme. Some pro-gun advocates have placed the necessary funding at closer to NZ$500 million ($335 million).
Even with the massive sum allocated to the confiscation effort, it appears that the fixed compensation prices will not entice many gun owners. Council of Licenced Firearms Owners spokeswoman Nicole McKee told the New Zealand Herald that “Some of the offered prices for higher-end firearms are well out of kilter. We’re talking thousands of dollars.” Mckee went on to add, “The Government kept saying they weren’t going to rip us off. They said they would pay full value. They’re not, and 250,000 [firearms licence holders] are starting to feel ripped off.” Gun store owner David Tipple was quoted by the paper as calling some of the offered prices “horrible robbery.” New Zealand MP Christopher Bishop was quoted by Radio New Zealand as stating, “Because we’re asking thousands of people to turn up to these mass collection events and hand over their firearms to the police and if they don’t believe they’re getting a fair price people simply won’t do it… That will undermine the whole intent of the buyback scheme itself.”
EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2019-07-09 07:59:042019-07-09 08:00:04New Zealand Experience Further Proves Registration Facilitates Confiscations
Our defeat was all but inevitable, yet the transgender activists still showed up in matching shirts and waved multicolored flags. Their speakers outnumbered ours 4 to 1, but they still hissed and muttered ugly names at our side while we spoke.
We had gathered for the Arlington County School Board’s meeting on June 18. For four months, the Arlington Parent Coalition had worked tirelessly to get our liberal school board and administrators to reconsider or delay the implementation of policies that would expand accommodations for transgender-identified students.
Those policies were passed four years ago during the summer, when nobody was paying attention. Their timing was not unintentional.
The steady and focused efforts of transgender activists over the last 20-30 years are now bearing fruit. Some of the policy changes coming to Arlington County include biological boys and girls being allowed into each others’ bathrooms and locker rooms, girls having to compete against transgender boys in sports, and schools compelling speech in favor of transgender pronouns.
Parents are seen as a potential threat to transgender students, and any opposition to transgender accommodations is perceived as hateful bigotry.
Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance for Defending Freedom, estimates that hundreds of school systems across the country are now fighting the roll out of transgender ideology.
Communities are woefully unprepared for the impact this will have on our children. There is no road map for grassroots groups to follow as they fight this radical agenda and cultural shift.
However, several lessons emerged from our efforts that might be helpful to other grassroots groups.
1. Courage is contagious.
While some hesitate to engage for fear of being called a “hater” or “bigot,” we must push back on those who want to reshape our children’s understanding of biology, personhood, privacy, and the primary role of parents.
Often, people have an intuitive discomfort with transgender ideology, but need direction on how to act. Give people specific ways they can take one small risk (e.g. write a letter, meet with officials, have a hard conversation), then nudge them to take another risk. Celebrate every act of engagement and resistance. It puts school officials on notice and slows down the rate at which the system accommodates the transgender agenda.
2. Put together a diverse coalition.
The transgender movement divides—the child against him or herself, children against parents, and neighbor against neighbor.
Use the power of common interest across the lines of faith, culture, and politics to create alliances. Christians and Muslims must coordinate. Immigrant parents need to be involved. Liberals and conservatives must find points on which they agree.
People must get out of their social and ideological comfort zones and present a united front on this issue affecting all children.
3. The gatekeepers have failed parents.
Despite significant internal disagreement, professional organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and the National School Board Association succumbed to pressure from the transgender advocates to endorse affirmation ideology.
Those entrusted with the job of vetting the research and best practices for treating kids with gender dysphoria have folded under financial or peer influence.
Pressure needs to be brought on these professional groups to retract and/or modify their positions, as local educators and elected officials are deferring to these groups’ statements of support.
However, local doctors and mental health professionals have a powerful voice when speaking about the dangers of affirming transgender children. Get them involved.
4. Spread the truth about gender-affirming therapy.
Educating people is essential, and information about the dangers of affirming gender dysphoria is being suppressed.
For instance, a simple internet search on “transgender children” provides lists of references from transgender advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign. It’s much harder to find the alternative point of view.
Parents should prepare talking points and source citations to use with school administrators, their school board, and other parents.
Much more research is needed, but ask school administrators if the scientific studies they use to justify new policies are peer reviewed, have a large sample size, and have tracked children for many years.
In some cases, the studies themselves have been underwritten by gender clinics or transgender advocates.
5. There are no opt outs for our kids.
Parents must understand that we now exist in a “post-opt out” world. You are misled if you believe pulling your children out of certain course units will protect them.
Transgender ideology is coming from the “bottom up” through social media and massive cultural changes.
Public school children are being indoctrinated in transgender ideology by posters on the wall, speakers in the library, books on the shelves, after-school clubs, school-wide celebrations, and politicized teachers. Vigilance and consistent engagement with principals and classroom teachers are critical.
Concerned parents are, to borrow from the musical “Hamilton?,” “out-gunned, out-manned, out-numbered, out-planned.” If you already are stretched in terms of time and attention, the situation can feel too big, too scary, and too inevitable.
At one point, I found myself looking for an exit from the fight when an activist from neighboring Fairfax County gave me a steely look and said, “It is far worse than you understand, and don’t you dare walk away.”
Only parents can demand accountability from school systems and set boundaries around their children. We can’t walk away.
RELATED VIDEO: Katie Hopkins video on the conflict between weaponized sexual identities, made in UK schools, and Muslim parents.
Dear Readers:
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-07-09 07:30:232019-07-19 18:45:05We Fought the Transgender Activists, and Lost. Here Are 5 Lessons for Every Parent.
The evolution of technology has given us more ways to implement it. Moreover, it has improved many of the things we know and use, which is the case with biometric guns. These smart guns have been specially created to make sure a household with a gun is safer to live in – past experiences have shown that accidents can occur if the gun is left unprotected. Moreover, there have been a lot of mass shootings in the US, so many people are suspicious to whatever involves guns.
Biometric guns have come as a way to prevent these incidents from happening, or at least decrease their number. That being said, here are some interesting facts about biometric guns that you may want to know.
They’re Unlocked with Fingerprints
The main goal of biometric guns is to make sure that only the rightful owner can gain access to the gun. Each person has a unique fingerprint, so those who have started working on improving gun safety have taken this into consideration. As a result, biometric technology has been implemented in these guns to ensure the weapon unlocks only when your fingerprint is detected.
They’ve Had Pushback
Debates about guns are nothing new, particularly in today’s world. After seeing the many tragedies that involved the use of guns, citizens are afraid of weapons, and would rather see them all gone.
But once smart guns have become a thing, gun control supporters were pushing the idea that smart guns should be the only ones sold on the market. That means any other traditional gun without smart technology should be eliminated.
However, the NRA opposed the law that prohibited American residents from purchasing guns without biometric mechanisms.
They’re Much Safer in a Household
The coolest thing about biometric guns is how they can provide safety on a whole new level. Not only that they provide you with a way to protect yourself in case of a threat such as a burglary, but they don’t allow anyone except the owner to use the gun. With fingerprint technology, these weapons only recognize the owner’s unique fingerprint – this means that nobody else would be able to unlock the gun. Pretty amazing, right?
You can also come up with multiple protection mechanisms, such as gun safes, even if you’re on a tight budget. You can find safes under 500 – these represent a great way to keep your biometric gun away from outside danger. So, you don’t have to break the bank for some additional security.
Reliability Is an Issue
Many people worry about the reliability of this technology. While improvements have been made over the years, it always comes in question whether the fingerprint always works or not. Of course, the fingerprints have issues if your hand is wet or dirty. Thankfully, improvements are made all the time.
They Can Protect Police Officers
We’ve seen many cases when police officers were dealing with a criminal, and their gun got taken away and used against them? This won’t be happening anymore as long as biometric guns are in their possession. Criminals may be able to snatch them but using them won’t be possible.
They May Not Always Be Good for Self Defense
Of course, self-defense is the main purpose of these guns, but in certain situations, they may be ineffective. If they are affected by temperature or moisture, they might not work properly. The same can be said if the battery is dead – in this case, you won’t be able to use the firearm. This could only endanger one’s life. It’s always important to take precautions and ensure nothing affects the gun’s performance.
Gun Control Advocates Support Them
As expected, those who value gun control are very happy with these inventions. Since traditional guns can lead to so many tragedies, smart guns are safer as they prevent an unauthorized person from gaining access to them. Some people who were affected by the Sandy Hook massacre have grouped with Silicon Valley technology members in order to launch a special campaign. This would offer prizes to those who work to improve guns’ safety.
Some Gun Rights Activists Oppose Them
If you thought nobody would be against them, you’d be surprised to know that there are, in fact, some gun rights activists that don’t like them. For example, the NRA said in the past that these items were not proven to increase safety. Moreover, they went to say that the fingerprint-reading features and many others are unreliable.
They May or May Not Be Hacked
People are unaware whether these systems can be hacked or not. Apparently, a glue-mold hack was used to show that the Galaxy S5 technology can be hacked, which means biometrics could also be unsafe too. This is not certain, though, considering it wasn’t tested.
They Are Not Really for Sale
It’s hard to think that after almost two decades, smart gun technology is not yet fully accessible to the public. Many US residents are interested in this safe gun ownership method, but apparently, the political pressure from gun rights activists, as well as the lack of investment in development, prevented these guns from being widely available. Moreover, some are still only in prototype form.
Former President Obama Encouraged Their Use
The former president of the US has pushed law enforcement agencies to adopt biometric guns, as a way to give people a secure method of using weapons for self-defense. To Barack Obama, it seemed very surprising that gun manufacturers weren’t focusing more on the idea of biometrics for gun safety. Although he is no longer leading the US, manufacturers may still try to consider his guidelines.
Final Thoughts
Biometric guns may help the US with mass shootings situations and can prevent accidents from happening. With fingerprint protection, it’s unlikely that someone else will be able to unlock your firearm. Hopefully, they will make their way on the market soon enough.
BOTTOM LINE: Biometric guns are something that the market should determine, not politicians.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jay Chambershttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJay Chambers2019-07-08 17:51:362019-07-09 17:45:4411 Interesting Facts about Biometric Guns
Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.” He’s right.
A week doesn’t pass without a mayor, governor, policymaker or pundit joining the rush to demand, or predict, an energy future that is entirely based on wind/solar and batteries, freed from the “burden” of the hydrocarbons that have fueled societies for centuries. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether, or why, an energy “transformation” is called for, the physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future. Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.”
He’s right. So, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,” I did just that.
Herein, then, is a summary of some of the bottom-line realities from the underlying math. (See the full report for explanations, documentation, and citations.)
Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand
1. Hydrocarbons supply over 80 percent of world energy: If all that were in the form of oil, the barrels would line up from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and that entire line would grow by the height of the Washington Monument every week.
2. The small two-percentage-point decline in the hydrocarbon share of world energy use entailed over $2 trillion in cumulative global spending on alternatives over that period; solar and wind today supply less than two percent of the global energy.
3. When the world’s four billion poor people increase energy use to just one-third of Europe’s per capita level, global demand rises by an amount equal to twice America’s total consumption.
4. A 100x growth in the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace five percent of global oil demand.
5. Renewable energy would have to expand 90-fold to replace global hydrocarbons in two decades. It took a half-century for global petroleum production to expand “only” ten-fold.
6. Replacing U.S. hydrocarbon-based electric generation over the next 30 years would require a construction program building out the grid at a rate 14-fold greater than any time in history.
7. Eliminating hydrocarbons to make U.S. electricity (impossible soon, infeasible for decades) would leave untouched 70 percent of U.S. hydrocarbons use—America uses 16 percent of world energy.
8. Efficiency increases energy demand by making products & services cheaper: since 1990, global energy efficiency improved 33 percent, the economy grew 80 percent and global energy use is up 40 percent.
9. Efficiency increases energy demand: Since 1995, aviation fuel use/passenger-mile is down 70 percent, air traffic rose more than 10-fold, and global aviation fuel use rose over 50 percent.
10. Efficiency increases energy demand: since 1995, energy used per byte is down about 10,000-fold, but global data traffic rose about a million-fold; global electricity used for computing soared.
11. Since 1995, total world energy use rose by 50 percent, an amount equal to adding two entire United States’ worth of demand.
12. For security and reliability, an average of two months of national demand for hydrocarbons are in storage at any time. Today, barely two hours of national electricity demand can be stored in all utility-scale batteries plus all batteries in one million electric cars in America.
13. Batteries produced annually by the Tesla Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory) can store three minutes worth of annual U.S. electric demand.
14. To make enough batteries to store two day’s worth of U.S. electricity demand would require 1,000 years of production by the Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory).
15. Every $1 billion in aircraft produced leads to some $5 billion in aviation fuel consumed over two decades to operate them. Global spending on new jets is more than $50 billion a year—and rising.
16. Every $1 billion spent on data centers leads to $7 billion in electricity consumed over two decades. Global spending on data centers is more than $100 billion a year—and rising.
Realities about Energy Economics
17. Over a 30-year period, $1 million worth of utility-scale solar or wind produces 40 million and 55 million kWh respectively: $1 million worth of shale well produces enough natural gas to generate 300 million kWh over 30 years.
18. It costs about the same to build one shale well or two wind turbines: the latter, combined, produces 0.7 barrels of oil (equivalent energy) per hour, the shale rig averages 10 barrels of oil per hour.
19. It costs less than $0.50 to store a barrel of oil, or its equivalent in natural gas, but it costs $200 to store the equivalent energy of a barrel of oil in batteries.
20. Cost models for wind and solar assume, respectively, 41 percent and 29 percent capacity factors (i.e., how often they produce electricity). Real-world data reveal as much as ten percentage points less for both. That translates into $3 million less energy produced than assumed over a 20-year life of a 2-MW $3 million wind turbine.
21. In order to compensate for episodic wind/solar output, U.S. utilities are using oil- and gas-burning reciprocating engines (big cruise-ship-like diesels); three times as many have been added to the grid since 2000 as in the 50 years prior to that.
22. Wind-farm capacity factors have improved at about 0.7 percent per year; this small gain comes mainly from reducing the number of turbines per acre leading to a 50 percent increase in average land used to produce a wind-kilowatt-hour.
23. Over 90 percent of America’s electricity, and 99 percent of the power used in transportation, comes from sources that can easily supply energy to the economy any time the market demands it.
24. Wind and solar machines produce energy an average of 25 percent–30 percent of the time, and only when nature permits. Conventional power plants can operate nearly continuously and are available when needed.
25. The shale revolution collapsed the prices of natural gas & coal, the two fuels that produce 70 percent of U.S. electricity. But electric rates haven’t gone down, rising instead 20 percent since 2008. Direct and indirect subsidies for solar and wind consumed those savings.
Energy Physics… Inconvenient Realities
26. Politicians and pundits like to invoke “moonshot” language. But transforming the energy economy is not like putting a few people on the moon a few times. It is like putting all of humanity on the moon—permanently.
27. The common cliché: an energy tech disruption will echo the digital tech disruption. But information-producing machines and energy-producing machines involve profoundly different physics; the cliché is sillier than comparing apples to bowling balls.
28. If solar power scaled like computer-tech, a single postage-stamp-size solar array would power the Empire State Building. That only happens in comic books.
29. If batteries scaled like digital tech, a battery the size of a book, costing three cents, could power a jetliner to Asia. That only happens in comic books.
30. If combustion engines scaled like computers, a car engine would shrink to the size of an ant and produce a thousand-fold more horsepower; actual ant-sized engines produce 100,000 times less power.
31. No digital-like 10x gains exist for solar tech. Physics limit for solar cells (the Shockley-Queisser limit) is a max conversion of about 33 percent of photons into electrons; commercial cells today are at 26 percent.
32. No digital-like 10x gains exist for wind tech. Physics limit for wind turbines (the Betz limit) is a max capture of 60 percent of energy in moving air; commercial turbines achieve 45 percent.
33. No digital-like 10x gains exist for batteries: maximum theoretical energy in a pound of oil is 1,500 percent greater than max theoretical energy in the best pound of battery chemicals.
34. About 60 pounds of batteries are needed to store the energy equivalent of one pound of hydrocarbons.
35. At least 100 pounds of materials are mined, moved and processed for every pound of battery fabricated.
36. Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).
37. Carrying the energy equivalent of the aviation fuel used by an aircraft flying to Asia would require $60 million worth of Tesla-type batteries weighing five times more than that aircraft.
38. It takes the energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil to fabricate a quantity of batteries that can store the energy equivalent of a single barrel of oil.
39. A battery-centric grid and car world means mining gigatons more of the earth to access lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earths, cobalt, etc.—and using millions of tons of oil and coal both in mining and to fabricate metals and concrete.
40. China dominates global battery production with its grid 70 percent coal-fueled: EVs using Chinese batteries will create more carbon-dioxide than saved by replacing oil-burning engines.
41. One would no more use helicopters for regular trans-Atlantic travel—doable with elaborately expensive logistics—than employ a nuclear reactor to power a train or photovoltaic systems to power a nation.
Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a McCormick School of Engineering Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University, and author of Work in the Age of Robots, published by Encounter Books.
EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2019-07-08 12:48:482019-07-08 12:48:4841 Inconvenient Truths on the “New Energy Economy”
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, long-secret archives of the Communist International were thrown open to western researchers for the first time. Many previously unknown details of communist history have been revealed–including the 1935 Comintern orders directing Communists to begin work in Hawaii. These were uncovered by veteran researcher Herbert Romerstein in Moscow.
The transcription is below, the pdf of the original as recovered is HERE (p 35-36).
Many of the names of the Comintern’s “Anglo-American Secretariat” members meeting about Hawaii on February 17, 1935 are aliases of British, Russian, and other European communists. Some are unidentifiable. But one, “Sherman”, was much closer to Hawaii and in a position to begin carrying out the Comintern dictates contained in this document.
Romerstein, author of The Venona Secrets, describes “Sherman” as:
“William Schneiderman, who, in the 1930s, was an agent of the Soviet foreign spy agency NKVD, code-named “Nat” (Venona transcripts), with an alias of “Sherman.”
He was later made head of the Communist Party of California, where he would come into contact with individuals as significant as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the chief scientist at the Manhattan Project. (Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets, Washington, DC: Regnery, 2000, pp. 258-68.)
The Comintern’s February, 1935 discussion was followed by a July 7, 1935 “Letter to the CPUSA on Hawaii.” That led to quick action on the part of American communists. Bob Krauss, in his book, “Johnny Wilson, First Hawaiian Democrat” (p 170) writes:
On the Honolulu docks, a tough little German-Hawaiian from Kalihi, Maxie Weisbarth, spoke for seamen as business agent for the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific. A six-page, free-swinging, semi-weekly newspaper called the Voice of Labor began publication on November 4, 1935.
One week before this date, a rawboned young seaman named Jack Hall landed in Honolulu from the Mariposa to begin a career as a union organizer that would make him the most powerful labor leader in Hawaii. He eked out a living on less that $20 a week working for Weisbarth distributing pamphlets….
Communist infiltration of labor unions apparently did not worry Johnny (Wilson), although Hall’s friends said Hall read nothing but Communist literature. Johnny said later, “I knew as far back as 1936 that there were Communists here in Hawaii….”
It was 3 ½ months from issuance of the Comintern’s “Letter to the CPUSA on Hawaii” to the arrival of Jack Hall in Honolulu. Koji Aiyoshi, who would go on to assist Mao Zedong as a spy in China during WW2, describes in his memoir “From Kona to Yenan” (p27), the beginnings of his recruitment to communism (without acknowledging it as such) in 1936 Honolulu.
Hall would eventually lead the ILWU which was controlled by the Communist Party and which would in turn control the Democratic Party. Ariyoshi would edit the ILWU’s communist-line Honolulu Record from 1948-58. Both Hall and Ariyoshi would be among the 1953 “Honolulu Seven” Smith Act defendants. In 1948 Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis would arrive from Chicago and become[s] a Honolulu Record columnist under Ariyoshi. Davis would from 1970-79 become a mentor to the young Barack Obama.
In 1954 the Democrats took control of the Territorial Legislature. Between the 1950 beginning of the Korean War and 1959 Statehood, most Hawaii Communists would leave the Party, but not necessarily leave behind Stalinist organizational methods or socialist economic ideas.
As Hawaii’s first elected Democrat State Governor Jack Burns would point out later:
“Every guy in the ILWU was at one time or another a member of the Communist Party of America. This is where they got their organizational information and how to organize, and how to bring groups together and how to create cells and how to make movements that are undetected by the bosses and everything else…I know what they were about. I said this was the only way they are going to organize.”
The document is transcribed below. Embedded links have been inserted to provide more information about organizations and individuals named in the document. Sections in [brackets] are not visible on the original and a presumed text has been inserted when possible based on context and spacing.
QUESTIONS DISCUSSED:
1. Hawaiian question.
Reporter: Flake.
Speakers: Shermann, Nehring, Mingulin, Naumann.
DECISIONS:
1. To discuss the question with the American and Japanese comrades. To draw up a document which analysis the situation and the revolutionary tasks in Hawaii.
Responsible: Commissor composed of comrades Flake, Mingulin, Porter, Sherman, representative of Eastern Secretariat.
Responsible for Commission: Com. Sherman.
Signed,
(Illegible)
July 7, 1935 LETTER TO THE CPUSA ON HAWAII
The growing discontent of the masses of the population in the Hawaiian Islands with the regime of colonial oppression and the exploitation of American imperialism with its policy of militarization of the Hawaiian Islands makes it essential for the CP USA to give every possible assistance to the development of the mass revolutionary movement in Hawaii, so that the foundations will be laid for the formation off a Communist party as the leader of the emancipation movement in Hawaii. Due to the altogether insufficient information at present available, it is not possible at present to completely formulate all of the tasks of the revolutionary movement, which further investigation and discussion of this question should be conducted by the American Party.
The political slogans of the Hawaiian revolutionary movement should be based on the developing of the agrarian, anti-imperialist revolution, the struggle against the yoke of American imperialism, and the bourgeois landlord system, and for a workers’ and farmers’ republic. Although the slogans of the national liberation struggle cannot be exactly predetermined and will have to grow out of the creation and development of the national liberation movement itself, it is the first and foremost task of the American party to assist this process and raise the slogan of “Right of Self-determination of the Peoples of Hawaii, up to the Point of Separation”, to demand the withdrawal of the US armed forces, and to expose the policy of the militarization of Hawaii as part of the war plans of American imperialism.
The CP USA should discuss with the Hawaiian comrades what are the basic tasks of the agrarian anti-imperialist revolution, especially the solution of the land question, which, according to the material available, presents itself as the task of destroying the semi-feudal remnants, the confiscation of the big plantations which predominate in Hawaii (and are mainly owned by foreign imperialists), and the division of the land among the people.
In addition to the main political slogans of the national liberation struggle, the Hawaiian revolutionary movement should consider raising the following immediate partial demands, the struggle for which should receive the full support of the CP USA:
1) Full democratic rights for the people — against the terror; freedom of speech, press, assembly, and the right to organize and strike; full electoral rights [for] the disenfranchised masses and the American soldiers and sailors.
2) Equal rights for all [nationalities and an end to] discrimination against the coloured people (Hawaiian, [Japanese], Filipino, etc.)
3) Eight hour day for industrial and agricultural workers
4) Abolition of the con.. .. ..labour.
5) Establishment of a .. .. ..ay for
…. the coloured .. .. ..
6) [Une]mployment and .. .. ..
7) Cancellation of [the debts of small farmers] and sharecroppers.
8) Reduction or can[-cellation of re-]nt for small farmers and share-croppers.
The CP USA should [make a prior]ity of establishing a central newspaper (by [combining] the central organs publish by various groups, or making one [of the existing newspapers into the] central organ),
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Hawaii Free Presshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngHawaii Free Press2019-07-08 08:19:112019-07-08 08:26:19July 7, 1935: Moscow orders first Communists to Hawaii
Jennifer Zeng grew up admiring the Communist Party of China and adhering to its stringent rules. But her life changed forever when she embraced religion and was swept up in a government crackdown on Falun Gong. Arrested four times as a young adult and held in as a prisoner in a labor camp, she quickly woke up to the horrors of living in a socialist state. After being subject to brutal torture, Zeng managed to escape China and now tells about the evils of socialism and communism.
At a time when more Americans are embracing Karl Marx’s teachings, Chris Wright has helped Zeng share her story as part of a network called the Anticommunism Action Team. They recently spoke to The Daily Signal along with Darian Diachok, who escaped from Soviet-era Ukraine as an infant and has helped former Soviet satellite states democratize and overcome their failed communist systems.
The full audio is below, along with a lightly edited transcript. Some of the content is graphic and not suitable for small children.
Rob Bluey: We are joined by Chris Wright, Darian Diachok, and Jennifer Zeng. Darian and Jennifer both have experience with communism and have graciously agreed to share their stories. Chris Wright is doing phenomenal work in getting the message out about the horrors of communism through the Anticommunism Action Team. Welcome to all three of you, and thank you for being with us.
Chris Wright: Thanks for having us, Rob.
Bluey: Chris, I’d like to begin with you. Can you tell us about the Anticommunism Action Team and the work that you do?
Wright: In 2013, my Alexandria Tea Party had a big program and Dr. Lee Edwards from The Heritage Foundation was one of our speakers, and it was all about survivors of communism.
I went on to form a separate entity, the Anticommunism Action Team, in 2014 to formalize the activity. We added the speakers bureau in 2016. We have survivors of communism from Cuba, Bulgaria, Vietnam, China, Ukraine, as well as subject matter experts who now appear on the radio in several states.
We’ve been in front of classrooms and groups, and my speakers have a very powerful message. We’ve been down the socialist road, and we know what’s at the end of it, so Americans better wake up.
Bluey: Chris, we are living in a time when socialism is getting a lot of attention, or democratic socialism is, as some people prefer to call it. You have described to me Marxist theory and how socialism fits in the realm of that theory, and how it is the step before communism. Can you explain?
Wright: Marx saw stages of history, inevitable stages of history, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Socialism is the stage before the final stage. Socialism is characterized by the common ownership of the means of production.
Communism is when the state withers away because there’s no more dominant class, no more private property. You don’t need a state because there’s no more economic exploitation, and so that’s a great fantasy, but it’s never happened anywhere.
One of our speakers from Ukraine has a joke about all this. He says, “What comes after socialism? Communism. What comes after communism? Alcoholism.”
Bluey: We have with us two people who have told incredibly personal stories. They are, in many cases, heart-wrenching and tragic. I really thank you both for being willing to share and talk about your experiences.
Jennifer, I’d like to begin with you. You’re somebody who was born in China. You were arrested four times. You were held as a prisoner in a labor camp. You were able to escape that camp and leave China.
Can you tell our listeners what it was like, that experience, how you ended up in that camp? Then we’ll get to your ability to escape and now share your story with millions of people across the world.
Jennifer Zeng: I was arrested, like you said, four times and sent to the Beijing Female Labor Camp for practicing a spiritual practice called Falun Gong. It is a spiritual practice based on truth, compassion, forbearance, and plus five sets of gentle exercises, including meditation.
Because it’s very obvious health benefit, within seven years, there were more Falun Gong practitioners in China than Communist Party members.
At that stage, in 1999, the party decided to crack down on it. So, I ended up in the Beijing Female Labor Camp.
The first day was feeling like going directly into the hell.
For the first moment, we were forced to squat under the baking sun for 15 hours, and whenever someone couldn’t endure it and fainted away, they were shocked by electric batons so that they could wake up.
Every day, in the camp, it was a battle between life and death.
On June 17, I was in London at the Independent China Tribunal. They handed out their final judgment about this organ harvest and transplant, and they gave the verdict that the Communist Party is guilty of anti-humanity crime.
I only realized that I had a very narrow escape from being a victim of this organ harvesting because I had Hepatitis C.
While I was in the camp, apart from torture every day, apart from hard, forced labor, we were also given repeated physical checkups so that if anyone need an organ we could be killed on demand if we were a match.
Fortunately, I told the doctor I had Hepatitis C before I practiced Falun Gong. I was able to be exempted from becoming a victim of organ harvesting.
Bluey: In the camp you experienced both brainwashing and mental torture and physical torture. Many of the people in the camp were sexually assaulted and raped. Can you share what some of those things that you observed and endured were like?
Zeng: Yes. Actually, on the second day of me in the camp, two police officers dragged me from the cell to the cold, threw me on the ground, and applied two electric batons all over my body until I lost consciousness.
The torture I experienced and I saw was beyond description.
I saw a female Falun Gong practitioner tied to a chair, and she was shocked by four or five male police guards on her head and on her private part until she lost control of her bowel movement. As a result, she couldn’t walk for several months.
They also would tie four toothbrushes together and with the sharp end outside and push this inside the vagina of female Falun Gong practitioners and twist it, twist it until they saw blood came out.
The police would also throw females into the male prisoners’ cells to have them repeatedly gang-raped. So, this kind of thing happened in the camp.
I think the worst part for me in the camp is the brainwashing part. Because the police made it very clear, the only purpose for you to be sent there is to get you reformed, which means to change our minds toward Falun Gong.
So, we were forced not only to give up our beliefs in truth, compassion, and tolerance, but also to help the police to torture our fellow Falun Gong practitioners in order to prove that we were transformed.
After I think I spent six months in the camp, I suddenly developed such a strong desire to write a book to expose this all because when I was there, I couldn’t believe this was happening in the 21st century.
I thought this could only happen in a Nazi concentration camp. This should have already become part of the history. It couldn’t be present, but it is still happening.
To write a book, I have to get released. But, if I don’t prove to the police I had been transformed, I couldn’t be released.
So, every day, the struggle was in my mind of whether to transform or not to transform nearly killed me for another 1,000 times.
Little by little, I was forced to do all these things the police asked me to do in order to prove that I have reformed.
Little by little, I feel like becoming empty in a human shell. Actually, it was my very essence of a human being being taken away like your thoughts, your soul, your free will, and your human dignity. I feel like a non-human being and doing whatever they force us to do.
That was a very, very disgraceful process. Worst deal, after I was released, they still expected me to go to the brainwashing centers to be used as example of reform and to continue to help them to do their reform job. So, I had to escape from my own family only five days after I was released.
Bluey: It’s just terrible. You were able to get asylum, though. How were you able to flee China and escape this terror?
Zeng: I think in this regard I was luckier than many of my fellow practitioners. I had a very good education. I graduated from Peking University with a master of science degree. I spoke good English.
I met an Australian couple who went to China to teach English. I told them how terrible my situation was and how terribly I needed to leave China. They were able to help me to get out of China, so I sought asylum in Australia and was granted refugee status.
Bluey: We are so blessed that you’re with us today. We’re going to get back to your book and the movie and the work that you’re doing.
I do want to ask Darian to share his story. Darian, you were able to escape from Ukraine as an infant. You’re somebody who’s also witnessed communist governments through your work with USAID. Tell us about your own experience and what it is that helped you to understand about communism.
Darian Diachok: Actually, I have two sources of experience with communism.
The first one was through my extended family. We escaped from the Red Army as the Red Army was closing in toward the end of World War II.
We were extremely lucky to have made it to the United States because I think the statistics are that only one out of about 12 people who were escaping from eastern Europe actually made it to the West. They were picked up everywhere.
The [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD] had forward units waiting for people. Matter of fact, my parents ran into a forward NKVD unit but were able to give them the slip. So, we were extremely fortunate to have made it to the states.
Once we got here, people started telling stories, I guess, every Christmas, every Easter, escapees would get together and just talk to anyone about their experiences, how lucky they were, how something happened like they got on the last train or a pistol didn’t fire or something, how they were all able to escape.
My brother and I listened to these stories over the years, and my wife, who’s not Ukrainian, as I told her one of the stories, she said, “You should write a book about this.” So, I decided to do that.
Bluey: Your book is called “Escapes,” for those listeners who might be interested.
Diachok: Right, and the book is interesting in that my extended family … were represented pretty much in every aspect of World War II.
My father was a Polish officer fighting against the Germans. I had two uncles who were in the Red Army. I had another uncle who was picked up by the Reds and tortured and all of that. So, we have direct experiences with the communist takeover.
There was one particular day in which everybody was invited or actually ordered into the town square for a major announcement. No one knew what it was for. I hadn’t been born yet. My parents didn’t know what it was for.
They brought out all of the town leaders, the postmaster, the mayor, the vice mayor, everybody who was in the town council, and they shot them in front of everybody.
They announced the new era where all of your bourgeois tormentors have been taken care of, and now we will live in a new communist system. So, they had experienced things like that.
That’s one aspect. The other aspect is returning to the former Soviet Union later as part of the reform effort from USAID and other international agencies, and to discover what the devastation was and what the Soviet system left behind after it collapsed.
Not only in the infrastructure that didn’t work, not only in the environment that was ravaged, but also in people’s thinking, and also in the lack of institutions, the daily institutions, which we take for granted, all of which were broken and destroyed under communism, just the total human devastation in a way.
We saw the effects of what it was, of what the communist system actually did. We were faced with what do we do next, what do we do first.
Bluey: The picture that sometimes we see on the outside that’s painted by the state-run media or that those communist countries like to project is quite different from what you have experienced up close and personal. Can you share with us an experience that may come to mind that would help us better understand why it’s not so rosy, the picture that sometimes is painted?
Diachok: At USAID, we had counterparts. We had local counterparts. I was in energy, so I had an energy counterpart.
One day, he was called off. He got a phone call that his daughter was bitten in school. … We were very concerned that she was hurt.
He left, and we later learned that he had to apologize and to pay a huge fine because obviously, in a communist society, dogs represent power. They represent the authority, and if the dog bit the girl, she must have been misbehaving.
That was such a shock. We couldn’t imagine this.
On a more professional level, what we were discovering was that there was an overall pervasive sense of corruption. It came from the system, which didn’t work, and so people had to be corrupt in order to satisfy their daily needs.
In a centrally planned economy, everybody’s needs are supposed to be taken care of, and the central authorities cannot make any mistakes. They are infallible. So, you have to make do with what they have planned for you.
The centrally planned economy always has difficulty in finding out exactly what people’s needs are, how many people need what, what people’s shoe sizes are, everything else. In a centrally planned economy, all those kinds of things simply cannot be done efficiently.
Consequently, people do not get what they need, and they have to learn to barter for things. They have to do things under the table.
You’re not allowed to barter for anything because that’s going against the state. If you barter for anything, that means that you are a private entrepreneur who is working against the state.
So you’re not allowed to barter, but you have to provide for your family. Your family needs milk. They need food, and it’s not available, so you have to wheel and deal.
The whole system became completely corrupt. People learned to be corrupt. That’s on a daily consumer level. People learn to be corrupt.
On a more professional or a more, let’s call it, a more industrial level … every company, every firm had quotas that they had to reach. If they didn’t reach those quotas, the consequences were horrendous. They could be sent to Siberia. They could be shot, so meeting your quotas was … life and death.
The central planning system never gave you exactly what you needed to make the quotas, for the same reasons I had discussed earlier.
The central planning system couldn’t foresee the needs of every single, let’s say, radio manufacturer. They didn’t get it right, but yet you had the quota.
So, people learned to wheel and deal, to barter under the table in order to make the quotas.
The whole system also became corrupt in the sense that they were working against the communist system to satisfy the communist system. It got to the point where people just found shortcuts in order to satisfy the system.
If you were supposed to produce things in tonnage, like you had to produce a certain number of tons of irons or radios or any kind of household equipment, they would add huge amounts of metal to it just simply to increase the weights so that they would meet the quotas.
Everybody knew that they were producing junk, but yet the quotes were made. No one really took their job that terribly seriously. The object was to make the quota and not to produce anything of value.
There were really weird examples, too, in the Soviet Union where people would have quotas to produce certain kinds of trucks, and the next factory over needed broken-up trucks, needed wrecks.
So, they would take these trucks straight off of the assembly line, drive them a mile, and then destroy them, and deliver them to the next factory, which needed junked trucks.
People did not question that. If you question that, you were questioning the wisdom of the party, and that was punishable by all sorts of things.
The whole system became crazy, and this is what people learned. This is the environment in which people learned to operate so that when we got there, the ex-Soviets that we were working with were very, very attuned to what the party wanted because missing that was life and death.
So when we were talking to them, they were very attuned to what they thought we wanted to hear. They pretended to be on board with us, but then, at the first opportunity, they would go around us and try to exploit the system for everything it was worth.
Bluey: Darian, thank you so much for sharing those real-life experiences. That is just incredible to hear, and it’s disheartening on some level that the generational effects are still there.
I want to ask both of you about the books that you’ve written. And, Jennifer, in your case, also the documentary. Can you tell us about those books, and not only what is contained in them, but how we can go about learning more about them?
The U.S. version is available on Amazon, so people can search for that. I also have a Chinese version. … It’s also available on Amazon.
The Australian version is available on my publisher’s website, Allen & Unwin.
There is also a documentary about my story called “Free China.” It’s at freechinamovie.com. You are able to watch the documentary on the front page of that website.
I think, up to now, my book is the only available one in English to detail what happened to Falun Gong practitioners inside the labor camp.
Actually, this year marked the 20th anniversary of what’s happening in China, and the scale of the persecution is so huge, 100 million Falun Gong practitioners, plus their families.
Now, we are hearing about millions of Uighurs also be detained in Xinjiang camps.
Because, I think, the world failed to stop the persecution of Falun Gong, now the party has the ability to expand that to other minority groups and to the entire nation. The entire nation is under very strict monitoring of the party.
I think my book has a very significant importance to be the firsthand account of what’s really happening inside the camp. It is current, and it is helping the world to know what’s really happened.
For example, several days ago, I saw a program by BBC. They and several other major media were allowed after many years of calling to go inside one of the reeducation camps in Xinjiang to film. They ended up making a film of about eight minutes.
After watching that movie, as someone who had been in one of very similar places, I knew how fake that program was and how you should look at them.
I did a YouTube program about myself to discuss three small stories, especially about how the police managed to fake everything inside the camp.
When I was there, no foreign reporters were allowed inside the camp, but they even deceive their fellow police officers from other camps.
So, if they are even deceiving their fellow police officers and their supervisors from the neighbor camp system, would you expect them to show you the real thing of the neighbor camp to a foreign journalist?
I think my book and my story is still very, very relevant because this is still happening on a very large scale in China.
I hope more people can learn my story, and understand how serious this situation they are. It’s really millions of people’s lives at stake. I hope the world can stop this.
Bluey: Thank you for having the courage to share it and to tell that story. It is incredibly powerful.
Darian, I want to ask about your book. It’s called “Escapes.” Tell us about why you chose to write it.
Diachok: Yes, thank you.
We were passing a building that reminded me very much of the train station from which my parents escaped, and I began reminiscing to my wife on the way to a New Year’s Eve party about how my parents had to stand four days and four nights [for] the last train that was available before the Red Army closed in, and how the train was attacked by a Red fighter.
Some of the wagons were actually caught on fire. I was telling her this story, and she said, “My goodness. Don’t let that go to waste. That has to be put down. That has to be recorded for history.” That’s how it started.
Bluey: Let me ask you, at a time when it seems that there is an increasing interest in socialism, particularly among young people here in the United States of America, what is your message to them based on your own experience?
And what would you like them to know and think about and reflect upon as you’ve experienced these horrors of communist governments that embrace the principles of socialism?
Diachok: My father once said that communism is like a bouquet of flowers with a hidden dagger.
I think it discussed many phenomena of how the specter of communism is using both violent ways and nonviolent ways to try to rule this world. In the West, they are trying to change their names into different names, but the essence is the same.
As someone who was a victim of the communism, I really want people to know if you really adopted communism what life could be. That is what I had experienced.
I think in the early days when the Communist Party was just founded in China, they also talked about freedom, talked about equality, talked about everybody living in heaven-like communities and society.
Many young people also got deceived. They went to … the sacred place of communism.
If you look at the history, many of them ended up being killed by the party, and all their families, all their children, they all suffered for generations, after generations they suffer.
Under the Communist Party in China, 80 million people died of unnatural death. That’s all the result of communism.
Like Chris said, socialism is only the primary stage of communism. Actually, officially, or theoretically, China now is not a communist country yet. It’s still socialism with Chinese characteristics. Officially, China is now a socialist society.
If you look at what the people have suffered there … This year is the 70th anniversary of the CCP came to power in China, so the 70 years were full of killing, full of tyranny.
If you want communism or socialism, I think you should read more about China. You should read my story first to know what the socialism really is.
I think many young people, they are very easy to be attracted by those rosy, empty words, or the rosy description of how beautiful those things are, but the reality is just the opposite.
If they know what those damage or how people have suffered, more than, I think, one-half of the population of Chinese people have suffered one kind of persecution or another, they would stop having those rosy dreams about communism or socialism.
I think it is exactly because what they already have in this society, actually ensured not by the socialism, but by the fundamental principles of a free society, they forgot how cherishable, how valuable this is, and they start dreaming of those very unfortunate, I think, elusive things.
I hope people can learn the reality of communism and socialism.
Bluey: In some respects, it seems like it’s on display in Hong Kong, that resistance to China’s aggression and what it is trying to do. What are your observations about what’s taking place there now?
Zeng: I think the West, I hope all the young people can choose to really pay more attention to what’s happening in Hong Kong.
The young people in Hong Kong, they really experienced what life was really about when the Communist Party tried to erode their own freedom.
Some of them got so desperate up to now in these several days that there were three suicide cases of young people jumping out of the building to protest against this so-called extradition bill, and, I think, essentially, against the Communist Party’s erosion of Hong Kong’s freedom. They knew what life was like.
So, the Hong Kong people are really waking up to the illusion of this so-called one country, two system society, and they knew how valuable their initial freedom and the rule of law was.
They are really fighting with their life against the Communist Party’s erosion of Hong Kong. I think they deserve more help from the West, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom. We owe them support.
Bluey: Chris, I want to finish this with a comment from you. There may be some who say, “Why are we having this conversation? Why is it relevant to all of the things that are going on today?” Can you share with us why it is important that we focus on these stories?
Wright: Why is communism still relevant today? It’s just all in the dustbin of history.
We’ve reached the end of history and communism lost, so why are we still talking about this? Well, there are still five captive nations in the world, starting with China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea. That’s 1.5 billion people. It’s still relevant to them. That’s a lot of people.
Also, there’s an elected communist government in Nepal. Things are not going well there. The intelligence agencies are being weaponized. The press is being shot down. Communists are doing what they do everywhere. So, it’s relevant to the people in Nepal.
There have already been 300 people who have attempted to escape from Cuba on rafts so far this year. It’s relevant to them. It’s also relevant because, in the 2018 elections, there were 50 openly socialist candidates running for political office in the United States.
Also, there’s an openly declared socialist candidate running for president this year. The Denver City Council, there was just a woman elected there who promised that she would bring in common ownership. There it is, the quintessential definition of socialism, common ownership by any means necessary.
So, we’re entering into a period in the United States where socialism is on the rise again.
Bluey: Chris, how can our listeners find more about the work that the Anticommunism Action Team does? If a college student wants to bring some of these speakers to their campus, how do they get in touch with you?
We have a weekly roundup of anticommunism news that people can sign up for through the email address or through the website. Our Speakers Bureau speakers, wonderful speakers like Jennifer and Darian.
We have both subject matter experts and people who have survived communism who are available all over the country through video conferencing.
We’ve been on four college campuses so far this year, and we’re happy to do this anywhere in the country to a group that you think could benefit from this message.
Bluey: Chris, thank you for the work that you’re doing. Jennifer and Darian, we appreciate you sharing your stories with us.
Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.
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Pete asks what happened in the 60s to bring such chaos to the USA.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Bill Finlayhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngBill Finlay2019-07-07 17:47:492019-07-07 17:47:49VIDEO: Asbestos Pete and The 60’s Revolution
“A higher minimum wage is sold as a way to help millions out of poverty. The reality is that it only benefits a small minority to the cost of everyone else.” – Paul Boyce
If wages for those at the bottom are high, you may naturally expect low poverty rates. No matter how you define it, higher wages would most logically relieve poverty levels. This is also the argument made by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). An increase in the minimum wage may very well reduce poverty in the short-term. However, there will be adjustments. In reality, a higher minimum wage changes the types of people living in poverty rather than the overall number.
Effect on Economic Mobility
A higher minimum wage will help those who have a job but not those who are unable to find employment. This favors more skilled and experienced employees who are generally more productive. To an employer, it is more justifiable to employ someone with experience. They are generally able to produce a greater level of output with a higher degree of quality. At the same time, this creates a trap. To the employee, there is less incentive to move on to more productive and higher paid positions.
What we see is the employee getting paid more. What we don’t see is the loss of their potential output. Not only is there reduced incentive, but there is also reduced opportunity. Many businesses are already moving to flatter business structures. This means fewer opportunities to progress to managerial positions. We are already seeing the likes of Walmart and McDonalds moving toward this kind of structure.
Though employees on the minimum wage are getting paid more, social mobility suffers. For example, research by Neumark and Nizalova found negative long-term effects from the minimum wage. Their study concluded that the minimum wage had two restricting effects. First, it restricts teens and young adults by deterring their employment. This means they are unable to acquire the necessary employment skills at a young age. Second, employers compensate for the higher wage by reducing their investment in training. Once again, this reduces the long-term skills that teens and young adults gain. Consequently, the ability to move onto more meaningful employment is restricted.
Furthermore, research by Clemens and Wither also found significant declines in economic mobility as a result of the minimum wage. Their study reiterates the conclusions of Neumark and Nizalova. The reduction in upward mobility is largely due to the reduction in opportunities for accumulating work experience.
Declining Poverty
The minimum wage reduces social mobility, but does it reduce poverty? Media outlets like CNBC are quick to highlight that the minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation. If it had, it would be nearly $11. So the minimum wage has lost much of its value since its peak in 1968. If there were a link between the minimum wage and poverty, we would expect higher poverty rates today. However, the opposite is true.
The African-American poverty rate declined from 34.7 percent in 1968 to 21.4 percent in 2016. For whites, it declined from 10 percent to 8.8 percent in the same period. The main contributing factor to this decline is economic growth and the availability of jobs, not a higher minimum wage.On occasion, the minimum wage has been negatively correlated with poverty. If the minimum wage increases in real terms, poverty also decreases. If we look at the increases in 1997, the minimum wage increased in real terms. The poverty rate subsequently fell from 13.3 percent to 11.3 percent in 2000. This was surely a win for the minimum wage argument, right? Well, this came during a period of remarkable economic growth. When people are employed, they generally escape poverty. When jobs become more available, poverty decreases. The economy grows despite the minimum wage—not because of it. In fact, the empirical evidence provides little support for claims that minimum wages boost economic growth or alleviate poverty during downturns.
Working Poverty Minimum Wage Workers
Data from the US Census Bureau stated that 12.3 percent of the population lived in poverty in 2017. That’s roughly 39.7 million people. Of those, 17.2 percent, or 6.9 million people, were considered “working poor.” However, when only those who were continuously employed over the previous year were included, it fell to 5.3 million. Of those, 3.2 million were in full-time work below the poverty level.
The minimum wage was raised three times between 2007 and 2009. However, this came during one of the worst recessions on record. The last economically stable period where the minimum wage increased was 1996 to 1997. It increased to $5.15 in 1997, equal to $7.87 in 2017 prices. While the inflation-adjusted rate declined, the rate of in-work poverty also declined. The number of workers who were employed all-year round but still in poverty fell from 1.96 percent of the population in 1998 to 1.64 percent in 2017.
The percentage of people in working poverty is at record lows despite the minimum wage remaining stagnant at the federal level. This has not detracted from the prominence of the debate. Over the last 20 years, however, there has been an adjustment among the “working poor.” That adjustment has been a shift toward part-time work. While 30 percent of the working poor worked part-time in 1998, 40 percent did in 2017. The majority of this has come through voluntary means, which is to say that people are classified as suffering from “in-work poverty” through their own free will. Usually, this is because their household income is actually in excess of the poverty level. The minimum wage job is therefore but a supplementary income.
Raising the minimum wage won’t help those on part-time work out of poverty. It won’t help the other 34.4 million, either. Many of those are either disabled, unemployed, or children. In fact, it may very well make the situation worse. Employment is the best way out of poverty, but raising the minimum wage makes it that much more difficult for low-skilled workers to obtain that employment.A higher minimum wage is sold as a way to help millions out of poverty.
Single-mothers and their children are most at risk of falling into poverty. Many require job flexibility to fit around child care. Raising the minimum wage will make it easier for businesses to pick workers who are more able to fit around their working hours, leaving single mothers without employment.What’s more, many of those 3.2 million in working poverty include tipped workers. The trouble with this is that it overestimates the figure. All tipped workers earning below the minimum wage will be included, but so will those who are actually earning above the poverty rate. The number of people in working poverty falls further when we include tips. Furthermore, such statistics do not include cash transfers such as tax credits or housing benefits. Once these are included, the actual figure falls further. So, the statistics provided are often misleading and drastically overstate the problem. This is an important point because a higher minimum wage is sold as a way to help millions out of poverty. The reality is that it only benefits a small minority to the cost of everyone else. Even then, that small minority will see their hours reduced as a result, leaving everyone worse off.
EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2019-07-07 15:49:312019-07-09 07:11:31Why the Minimum Wage Can’t Solve the Poverty Problem [+Video]
Princess Haya, the sixth wife of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, fled Dubai and her marriage to start a new life. She took her seven-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, along with $31 million dollars.
According to reports on June 29th, 2019, Princess Haya, 45, traveled first to Germany then London. She is said to be staying at her a home near Kensington Palace, with tight security, and is intent on fighting the legal battle brought by her husband from the UK.
In the meantime, Sheikh al-Maktoum, 69, who accuses her of betraying their marriage with her British bodyguard, has taken to social media in poetry and prose, condemning her flight and “disowning” his wife.
Princess Haya’s story gives hope to other women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who have dreamed of escaping the country. She’s now being called on to help free Sheikha Latifa of Dubai, a daughter of Sheikh al-Maktoum.
Princess Latifa made headlines in April of 2018 when she fled Dubai via a yacht in order to escape “years of torture and imprisonment by her father.” Her yacht was intercepted and she was dragged back home.
Insight into conditions for women in Dubai are often difficult to come by. The question of what women are dealing with can be speculations or a story of he-said/she-said.
However, a related story coming out of London offered some clarity into what it’s like to live under the billionaire Dubai ruler as a part of his family.
In January of 2019, Sheikh al-Maktoum turned his UK estate into what neighbors describe as a “prison camp,” with the installment of a high fence more suitable for a prison than a home. This despite the fact that security presence at the estate was already in place with guards, CCTV and layered fences.
The added security may have been a response to a 2000 incident where the sheikh’s other daughter, Sheikha Shamsa (Princess Latifa’s younger sister) escaped the estate. Latifa has since claimed that Shamsa “was being kept in a drugged state. … in Dubai and was ‘like a zombie.’”
There are a significant number of stories coming forward of women from privileged families desperately looking to escape. However, Princess Haya’s case is exceptional, fleeing with a hefty purse and her children, while negotiating diplomatic channels for asylum.
It’s unlikely Princess Haya will be dragged back kicking and screaming because of who she is outside of her marriage to the Dubai ruler. Princess Haya bint Hussein is the half-sister of the King of Jordan, King Abdullah II. However, that fact also ties more knots into an already fragile diplomatic entanglement between the UK, Jordan, and the UAE.
A recent survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute indicates that 71% of registered Jewish voters disapprove of the way President Trump handles anti-Semitism and 73% feel less secure since he took office. Clearly, many associate him with bigotry in spite of his staunch support for Israel, warm relationships with Jewish colleagues and family members, and policy of challenging Jew-hatred at the United Nations and around the globe.
Though Jewish Democrats can disagree with Mr. Trump’s politics, personality, or confrontational style, he has no known connections to anti-Semitic or anti-Israel organizations, churches or ideologues – unlike Barack Obama, whom they pronounced “good for the Jews” despite a questionable background that would have disqualified any Republican in their eyes. Curiously, they expressed little concern when thousands of anti-Semitic acts and hate-crimes were committed, and violent assaults against Jews nearly doubled, during Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The fears voiced by Jewish Democrats regarding Mr. Trump’s supposed bigotry seem disingenuous considering their party’s tolerance for anti-Israel advocacy and progressive anti-Semites. And in advocating a partisan agenda that impugns Israel’s national integrity and rationalizes ancient stereotypes as political expression, they betray heritage, tradition, and common sense. Many define themselves through identity politics, but the identity they assert is not really Jewish. Instead, they espouse a grievance-based platform that glorifies radicalism, devalues Jewish history, and fosters hatred against their people and ancient homeland.
Democratic Party membership today includes BDS activists and classical conspiracy theorists who are not shy about pushing their anti-Israel agenda, and yet liberal Jews continue sitting in the same tent. They were ambivalent during the 2016 election cycle as party radicals burned Israeli flags, and they remain so today when Congressional Democrats spew hateful or ignorant rhetoric.
True, some expressed outrage when Ilhan Omar asserted classical stereotypes against Jewish organizations, Rashida Tlaib questioned the allegiance of pro-Israel legislators and claimed Palestinians gave “safe haven” to Holocaust survivors, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asserted the Israeli “occupation” myth and praised anti-Semitic British politician Jeremy Corbyn. But their umbrage was short-lived, and there was no outcry when Democrats stripped a House resolution of language solely and specifically condemning anti-Semitism. Party leaders have only compounded the problem by labeling as racist, Islamophobic, or misogynistic those who criticize House Reps. Tlaib, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and others for such egregious comments.
Though liberals accuse Trump of prejudice, today’s epidemic of Jew-hatred began under Obama, who pandered to anti-Semitic progressives and validated the BDS movement. In contrast, claims of pervasive conservative bias have been exposed by surveys indicating far less Jew-hatred – and far greater support for Israel – among Republicans than Democrats. Consistent with these findings, Congressional voting patterns reflect solid support for Israel from House and Senate Republicans. Conversely, there is no dispute that anti-Israel movements, programs, and events (e.g., BDS, Israel Apartheid Week) are endorsed by Democrats, progressives, and Islamists, but spurned by conservatives and Republicans.
Those who accuse Trump of anti-Semitism are hard-pressed to corroborate their claims. His relationships with Jews and Jewish institutions over the years have been positive, and his treatment of Israel exemplary. In contrast, Barack Obama had a troubling record that Jewish Democrats simply ignored. He sat in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty-two years, reportedly hobnobbed with members of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam in Chicago, counted among friends and colleagues people like Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said, and treated Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu disrespectfully throughout his presidency.
The tendency of liberals to ignore Democratic anti-Semitism suggests they are not serious about confronting it. If they were, they would make a priority of denouncing bigotry on the left as conservatives have done on the right since the 1990s. Their obsession with phantom Republican prejudice stems from their flawed understanding of Jewishness as progressive metaphor and endorsement of ideologies that contravene traditional Judaism as authentically Jewish. The resulting absurdity is exemplified by their reluctance to condemn Democratic bigots the way British Jews have denounced Corbyn and the Labour Party. They prefer to blame Republicans for anti-Semitism – much of which comes from the left – over putting their own house in order.
Jewish progressives cannot tolerate Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu, whom they despise, but this disdain reflects the projection of their political values onto an Israeli society that has far different priorities. Likewise, though the Reform and Conservative movements elevate “social justice” over traditional observance, most Israelis question their relevance. And whereas Americans believe that excoriating Trump and adulating Obama are Jewish mandates, Israelis tend to disagree. In fact, many appreciate Trump’s admiration for Israel and stance against global anti-Semitism, but wonder how US Jews could have supported Obama despite his relationships with Israel haters, apologetic views on radical Islam, and apparent disdain for the Jewish State. More fundamentally, many are baffled that American Jews would trade ancestral loyalty for political causes that are extraneous to or inconsistent with traditional Judaism (e.g., transgender activism, Palestinian advocacy).
As observed by the late Prof. Daniel J. Elazar more than twenty years ago, most non-Orthodox Israelis, whether identifying as traditional or secular, incorporate observance into their lives to varying degrees. And while some might not oppose official recognition of liberal Judaism, “except for a minuscule handful, they do not seek it for themselves nor do they respond to it positively,” he wrote then, noting further: “It is not just that the religiously Orthodox Jews in Israel have not found satisfaction in those two diaspora-originated movements [i.e., Reform and Conservative], but, perhaps especially, neither have the religiously moderate traditional or secularist Jews.” (“Why Reform and Conservative Judaism have Not Worked in Israel.”) Though not all Israelis are stringently observant, most seem to accept the validity of Jewish tradition.
These observations are no less relevant today, as American liberals and their movements have distinguished themselves by (a) seeking to impose sociopolitical standards on Israel that most Israelis find irrelevant and (b) promoting causes that many believe threaten their country’s sovereignty and Jewish character. Nothing illustrates this more than the liberal American propensity for dialoguing with Islamist front groups posing as moderate, supporting organizations like J Street, and legitimizing Palestinian national claims that negate Jewish history – all while demanding that Israel kneel before the altar of progressivism.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis reject liberal Judaism for its ethical relativism as much as its lenient ritual orientation.
Unlike their Israeli counterparts, US Jews seem to suffer from identity erosion influenced by declining observance, substandard Jewish education, and the sacralization of liberal politics. Though many claim their Jewishness requires them to reject Trump, they conflate identity with secular ideals that defy Jewish tradition. Liberals can dislike Trump for any reason or none at all, but they cannot claim their disdain is Judaically-mandated. Nor can they ignore how Trump has reversed his predecessor’s course of demeaning Israel, enabling Islamic radicalism, empowering Iran, and whitewashing leftist anti-Semitism.
Jewish history is replete with examples of those who rejected heritage and community. During the Hellenistic period, many emulated Greek culture and repudiated their ancestors, while during medieval times some accepted baptism and sought to lead others astray. The apostate Nicholas Donin in 1240 denounced the Talmud to Pope Gregory IX, inflamed Dominican ire, and instigated public disputations and Talmud burnings. Similarly, Johannes Pfefferkorn in 1509 advocated expelling Jews from German lands, kidnapping and baptizing their children, and burning Hebrew texts. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many joined European radical movements, abandoned Judaism, and discouraged education and observance.
Whereas yesterday’s apostates renounced religion and culture, today’s progressives claim fealty to tradition while falsely equating Jewish identity with non-Jewish priorities. They misuse terms like “tikkun olam” and “Mussar” to imply Judaic authenticity, though doing so only illustrates their distance from tradition. True tikkun olam involves the promotion of societal harmony through Halakhic observance, while authentic Mussar calls for ethical character development through Torah study, mitzvah observance, and personal introspection. Neither promotes ideals that are alien to Judaism.
Many American Jews today know little of their heritage and attempt to fill the gaps with agendas that bear no resemblance to the Judaism of their ancestors. Though Jewish voters can certainly support any policies their consciences may dictate, tradition does not require them to be liberal Democrats – or conservative Republicans.
As for President Trump, they can support or oppose him for any reason. But they cannot claim that hatred for the man reflects Jewish virtue – and certainly not in light of his support for Israel and condemnation of global anti-Semitism. Nor can they oppose him based on dubious claims of prejudice, especially when they ignore or excuse flagrant anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party. Whatever moral authority they claim to possess is only diluted when they condemn Jew-hatred where it doesn’t exist but grant a pass where it does.
EDITORS NOTE: This Israel National News column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
We had our own people (thank you Darlin|<) check the translation from the soft coded titles in the YouTube version of this and it checked out. It is too important an interview to get this wrong. So here it is:
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2019-07-07 07:24:292019-07-07 08:29:20VIDEO: Vladimir Putin on Liberalism and Mass Migration to the West
The death of the so-called Gang of Eight bill in the House of Representatives in 2014 marks the point at which the Democratic establishment dropped any pretense of support for immigration enforcement. The last week in June 2019 will almost certainly mark the point at which the party’s leaders declared not only their unconcealed hostility to immigration enforcement, but their rejection of the very notion that the United States should even have immigration laws.
The week began with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the party’s highest ranking elected federal official, declaring “A violation of status is not a reason for deportation. That’s just not so.” 8 U.S. Code Section 1325 says otherwise, but why let a little thing like a federal statute stand in the way of a political agenda? Pelosi went on to tout a House supplemental appropriation to deal with the humanitarian fallout from the border crisis, “We have legislation to go forward to address those needs,” and also stated clearly her view that anyone who makes it into the country, however they got here, should be allowed to remain. “[I]n terms of interior enforcement, what is – what’s the point?”
But Pelosi’s musings were just the Democratic locomotive approaching the sharp curve at high speed. Just a few days later, the two dozen or so presidential contenders who hope to supplant her as the nation’s highest ranking elected Democrat held their first debate over two nights. That’s where their positions on immigration really went off the rails in the opinion of some high profile opinion columnists whose opinions tend to lean toward the Democrats’ world view.
Andrew Sullivan, writing in New York Magazine, and Jeff Greenfield in Politico, were both left wondering whether the Democrats had lost all touch, not just with reality, but with voters outside of the bubble of the party’s increasingly radical base. “I suspect that the Democrats’ new position — everyone in the world can become an American if they walk over the border and never commit a crime — is political suicide,” wrote Sullivan. Similarly, Greenfield noted, “These candidates aren’t explicitly advocating open borders, but taken together, the policies advocated amount to almost the same thing.” And not just advocating for open borders, observed Greenfield, but also all manner of “’free stuff’ to millions of people who broke the law to get here in the first place.”
Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, Julian Castro, who apparently is familiar with Section 1325 openly called for its repeal. He also conceded that many of the people who are now violating Section 1325 are really economic migrants. “A lot of folks that are coming are not seeking asylum — a lot of them are undocumented immigrants,” who should be allowed to remain here anyway, Castro said.
While there was some disagreement among the presidential wannabes about whether we should care if people cross our borders without permission, there was none when it came to the question about what expensive benefit programs illegal aliens should be entitled to. All. When the debate moderator asked the candidates on stage if they agreed with South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttitieg’s suggestion that illegal aliens be made eligible for federal health insurance benefits, every hand went up. The cost of such a plan? Apparently it would be crass to even calculate the cost of allowing everyone who shows up here to exercise their “right” to health care at the American taxpayer’s expense.
Whether last week’s assertions by the Democratic leadership amount to “political suicide,” as Sullivan suggests, will be determined by the voters in 16 months. What is clear is that the week was a definitive turning point. As Greenfield conclude, “Right now, it seems clear that if either of the past two Democratic presidents had shown up Thursday and advocated their positions from five or 20 years ago—the ones that helped them win a general election—they would have been booed off their own party’s stage.”
Ira joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1986 with experience as a journalist, professor of journalism, special assistant to Gov. Richard Lamm (Colorado), and press secretary of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His columns have appeared in National Review, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and more. He is an experienced TV and radio commentator.
EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column is republished with permission. All rights reserved
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Federation for American Immigration Reformhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFederation for American Immigration Reform2019-07-07 07:14:162019-07-08 07:21:55The Democrats’ Positions on Immigration Are Starting to Worry a Lot of Democrats
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” George Orwell, 1984
The algorithmic Memory Hole has arrived.
In doing some research recently, I found that I could no longer quickly locate items on Google that were at the top of the first page in the past year or so. These topics, such as the Obama administration keeping children separate from adults, are almost impossible to locate now. Articles “debunking” Obama’s policies being similar to Trump’s are everywhere.
And when looking for a current news item, I got a litany of first-tier and second-tier news and commentary outlets, all on the left, such as CNN (frequently the first option on news) the New York Times, Slate, Salon, BBC, London Guardian and so on — page after page and some repeated several times, before getting to even one on the right, usually Fox News.
I’m a reasonably advanced searcher. I was using the concept of Boolean string searches before Google. So I understand at 30,000 feet how their algorithm works. And yet I cannot find items at all that I previously found quickly.
There’s a good reason for this and you probably know what it is: They have changed their algorithm to emphasize “trusted” sources, by which they mean left-wing sources that reflect Google’s leftwing worldview.
There was last week’s news from Veritas interviewing whistleblowers at Google and leaking documents showing that Google is intent on not letting another Trump ever happen again. We know they’ve been placing their thumbs the scales for awhile, but this is a whole new level.
If you search “google whistleblower” you get all the appropriate results. Today. But what will be the results in six months or a year? Will you get the Daily Wire, Newsmax, the Spectator? Will you find Dave Rubin’s take? Or will it be Slate and Salon and CNN spinning Veritas as acting illegally and using controversial methods? Methinks think the latter.
And I realized with sudden clarity that here sat before me what we all have been reading about, but in an entirely new light: This is the algorithmic version of the Memory Hole made infamous in George Orwell’s dystopian 1984 novel. This is the modern step in how you erase history and alter people’s opinions in real time. Eventually, many things will just never have happened.
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” George Orwell, 1984
Google employees become a little army of Winston Smiths coding away to fill up the memory hole.
They are not alone, of course. The social media giants of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (owned by Facebook) Pinterest and Youtube (owned by Google) have all been squeezing out conservatives through shadow-banning, demonetizing, de-platforming and outright banning. It’s not just whackadoodles like Alex Jones. When it gets to comedians like Steven Crowder who was actually trying to follow all of YouTube’s rules and the mainstream pro-life outfit Live Action, you know the digital noose is tightening.
Banks and credit card companies have begun closing the accounts of people based on those people’s opinion. It starts with the awful Proud Boys group and the neo-Nazi Stormfront site, but it never stops there.
Here’s my prediction on the final step, which may start before 2020 or after, but it sure feels as though it will eventually happen.
Once the noose has been tightened around conservatives, forcing them off social media and onto only their own websites, WordPress, Godaddy and other web hosting sites will eventually just start pulling the plug because of offensive this and offensive that.
And then they will have totally shut up conservative voices, and we will have a totalitarian leftist country.
But it won’t end there. Not really. Heed the wise words of Martin Niemoller:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
In the end, as in 1984, liberals and progressives will also become the victims, because only the state will matter. They think that is what they want. They don’t.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-07-06 15:58:302019-07-06 16:00:28Welcome To The Algorithmic Memory Hole
Recently, the American rap musician A$AP Rocky visited my home country of Sweden to perform a concert.
Walking around the streets of Stockholm together with his crew, a couple of what seems to be immigrants (likely Afghans. Most of them originate from Iran, not Afghanistan, which really makes them economic migrants, not refugees) started to stalk him, obviously looking for trouble, perhaps trying to rob him or at least force him to give them something they were asking for.
This is very common in Sweden today. Immigrants from Northern Africa, Afghanistan, and other non-European places, roaming around the streets stealing and robbing as well as harassing and raping women (in 2017 a couple of Afghan migrants living in Sweden live-streamed a rape on Facebook), threatening those who are weaker than themselves.
Swedes are generally not used to this kind of behavior. Additionally, Swedes in general also prefer to calm the situation down by taking a step back or agreeing to some sort of compromise in order to avoid a conflict. Therefore, these kinds of people usually know that they can get what they want from Swedes.
What they apparently didn’t understand was that A$AP Rocky and his friends weren’t Swedes. They were Americans, probably raised in even rougher neighborhoods than the immigrants in question. As such, when the immigrants continued their stalking of the rap artist, A$AP Rocky and his crew kicked their asses.
Here is the clip when the Swedish immigrants stalk them:
And here is the clip where they get beaten:
In a speech February 18, 2017 President Trump made an offhand remark about Sweden. He said:
“We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris. We’ve allowed thousands and thousands of people into our country and there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing. So we’re going to keep our country safe.”
The Swedish establishment politicians and journalists laughed at him. What did he know about Sweden? Former Prime Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: “What has he been smoking?”
The American journalist Tim Pool visited Sweden to conduct some research. At first, Pool came to the conclusion that Trump was wrong. But eventually he realized that Trump probably was right and that Swedish media covered up the increasing violence and unsecurity in Sweden following mass immigration, primarily from Muslim majority countries. Here is a clip where Pool visits Rinkeby, an immigrant suburb of Stockholm.
Most recently, it was the American rap artist A$AP Rocky, who without any intention of doing so, proved that Donald Trump was right about Sweden.
Sweden is changing rapidly.
This is a fact and something a lot of us here in Sweden know despite our politicians refusing to admit it. However, it’s time for the world to know the truth.
The romantic northern country of Sweden that most Americans would think of when they hear the name of this nation, is appearing less and less like Sweden. Instead, Sweden looks and feels increasingly more like the Middle East.
That’s the reality no one wants to talk about.
About a week ago, an illegal Afghan refugee murdered a 69-year-old Swedish woman. Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, commented that ”We need to allocate more resources to our mental health system.”
However, the problem is not the mental health system; the problem is the overwhelming legal and illegal immigration that drain the resources. And political leaders who do not understand that their main mission should be to protect their own citizens.
This is Sweden. Welcome to Democratic Socialism, America!
After the latest incident, A$AP Rocky was arrested, because that’s what Swedish authorities do: they arrest law abiding citizens for not adapting to our new multicultural reality. However, A$AP Rocky and his team should really be given an award. He did what most Swedes would have wished they had the courage to do, but never would have done.
So thank you America for raising this issue: from Donald Trump to Tim Pool to A$AP Rocky.
Ronie Berggren is a Swedish Conservative who runs Sweden’s most active podcast about American politics:American News Analysis. His lifelong ideological inspiration is Thomas Jefferson. This article is cross-posted from Ronie.se.
RELATED VIDEO: Lopez Moment: Erdogan’s Turkey and U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Alliance.
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column with videos is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2019-07-06 06:47:432019-07-06 06:57:37VIDEO: A$AP Rocky proves that Donald Trump was right about Sweden
