News - Dr. Rich Swier

How Harry Reid Is Abusing His Power

March 13, 2014/in Government Transparency, News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

Hans von Spakovsky in his column “How Harry Reid Is Trying to End Debate in the Senate” writes, “The latest salvo in the Senate’s procedural war was fired yesterday when Senator Chuck Grassley (R—Iowa) introduced a resolution to limit abuse of the cloture rule—a practice frequently employed by Sen. Harry Reid (D–Nev.). Grassley was joined by at least 25 other GOP senators in sponsoring the “Stop Cloture Abuse Resolution.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Zcaa5tCrimI[/youtube]

Most Americans have a limited understanding about the use of cloture in the Senate. Indeed, any familiarity with cloture comes from the claim that Republicans have been filibustering the president’s nominees. Taking advantage of this misconception, Reid recently barreled through a change in the cloture rule. As a result of Reid’s gambit, ending debate and a filibuster on executive branch nominees now only requires 51 votes; previously, 60 votes were needed.

In the past, cloture motions were usually filed only after a nomination or a bill had been debated on the floor of the Senate and members wanted to end the debate. Sen. Reid, however, has been filing cloture motions on bills and nominations the moment the Senate takes them up—before a single word has been spoken or any amendments have been proposed or discussed.

In other words, Reid has been filing cloture motions to prevent debate, not end it. The majority leader’s actions constitute both an abuse of the long tradition of extended debate in the Senate, and a warped attempt to mislead the public. Reid has made many speeches, both on the floor of the Senate, and outside its chambers, complaining about Republican obstructionism and bemoaning the large number of cloture motions he has been “forced” to file to supposedly end Republican filibusters.

“WHO AM I TO JUDGE?”

March 13, 2014/in Commentary, Culture War, News/by Willy Guardiola

Happy one year anniversary to Pope Francis. He has taken the world by storm, curbed the role of the Vatican Second-in-Command all the while holding a “Global Open House”.

It seems almost impossible to think that a full year has gone by that we witnessed that plume of white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling the election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, after the former pontiff abruptly resigned in early February. An entire year has gone by and the entire world has noticed.

From atheists to the liberals to the homosexuals to the media in every country, the 266th Roman Catholic pope has made a mark for himself and the Holy Catholic Church these past 365 days. I refer to his approach as a “Global Open House”. He has invited everybody to the banquet table and has gotten everyone’s undivided attention by using “5” simple words –

“WHO AM I TO JUDGE?”

Those are “5” simple words. Just a simple question…but, boy, has it garnered a ton of media attention all over the world. It basically stems from the Bible and the approach that Jesus, Himself, used in all that He did during his three years of ministry. He ate with the sinners, hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, and never judged anybody on how they looked, dressed or acted. Jesus simply accepted every person as they were. That is so beautiful and so noble.

Jesus walked the walk as twelve men followed him, with another 1.2 billion followers closely behind them.

Coat of Arms of Pope Francis.

Skip over Saint Peter, Pope John Paul II and fast forward to the Year 2014. We once again, find a charismatic person in the Catholic Church who seems to be walking very closely in Jesus’ footsteps. Meet Pope Francis – one year later. One year as the new Holy Father. One year after shaking up the entire Vatican, the Roman Curia, the liberal media and every person he comes into contact with. And, he has come into contact with millions. And, he has yet to “judge any of them”.

Come follow me and I will make you fishers of the less judgmental. It worked 2,000 years ago. Will it work today?

In this day and age, where the liberals and the immorals have taken center stage in our society, it is easier to listen to a very open pope who has invited them all to the banquet table – regardless of what their morals are; regardless of who they voted for; regardless of what gender they marry; and regardless of their views on the abortion. Only because Pope Francis uttered those world famous words on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome, the entire world has now used it to their advantage. It has become a defense mechanism. It has become a manipulator.

It has become a great cliche. It is a misguided way to deflect any type of pressure from one’s actions. It is basically, “the easy way out”.

After all, if you continue saying “Who am I to Judge” every time anybody asks you a question – how can you go wrong? Heck, Jesus started it and used it on a daily basis. Pope Francis is continuing it by carrying the baton. Could you imagine me, as a former NCAA Basketball Official, telling two irate coaches on the sidelines: “Who am I to Judge?”

But, how long can one continue to use this ambiguous phrase?

St. Paul statue in front of St. Peters Basilica (Vatican). Sculptor: Adamo Tadolini. Courtesy of Ang MoKio.

And, where is Pope Francis drawing that very thin red line? Again, is the Holy Father using “Who am I to Judge” as a way to show the entire population that the real Christians and Catholics in this world are not supposed to judge and are supposed to accept everybody, regardless? That we have nothing against the gay lifestyle. Does this simple phrase open up a can of worms and now demonstrates to the entire world that “anything goes”?

Is this going to be the new phrase to replace the old one – “I am taking the 5th”?

“Taking the 5th” is the easy way out. One does not have to answer the question – even in a court of law. “I am taking the 5th”. “Who am I to judge”? Are they not almost identical?

Is it almost a cop-out? Will those five simple words that the Holiest of all Catholics made famous, now going to become the slogan and battle cry for the liberals, unbelievers and sinners? For the blatant homosexuals? For the pro-Abortionists? Is this the phrase that they are now going to use in order to manipulate the rest of our “straight” society? The phrase that they will use to get their way and continue to cram down the homosexual lifestyle to all of America?

My prayer this Lenten Season is that the well-liked Pope Francis comes strong to the entire world some time this Year 2014 – maybe during the joyous Advent Season – and explains to 6.8 billion people in the world what he meant by “Who am I to Judge”?

Claiming to be a “Son of the Holy Catholic Church”, I can only pray that once he gets everybody’s undivided attention, he sits down in front of the chalk board and teaches all of these liberals, homosexuals and pro-Abortionists that “there is a lot more to those 5 words” that he was so famously quoted for saying.

Now, are you all ready to take notes? Lesson One.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Thierry Ehrmann and is of a Pope Francis graffiti in the “Abode of Chaos” museum of contemporary art, in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, Rhône-Alpes region, France. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Obama Golfs while Americans Job-Seek

March 13, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics/by Alan Caruba

A close relative of mine has been spending months job-seeking and the news from the White House in the first week of March was that the President was playing golf in Key Largo while Joe Biden was in the Virgin Islands soaking up the sun. It’s not that they don’t deserve some down time, but down time for the unemployed is full time. The U.S. has 866,000 fewer people employed today than when the recession began in the wake of the 2008 recession.

Since Obama became President in 2009, there has been a 3.5 million increase in jobs, but 12 million new working age people. This is supposed to be a “recovery” according to the White House but the job numbers are not keeping pace with the job-seekers.

It’s not widely reported, but the labor force participation rate of 63% remains stuck at or near its lowest point since the late 1970s. There are two million fewer Americans in the labor force today than a year ago. The number of long-term unemployed, six months or more, rose by 203,000.

While Obama keeps bloviating about income inequality, too many Americans have no income at all.

At the same time, thanks to Obama, the U.S. debt, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Public Debt, has increased $6.666 trillion since he took office on January 20, 2009. As of January 31, 2014, the total debt stood at $17,293,019,654,983.61. While he has been President, the U.S. has accumulated as much new debt as it did in the first 227 years.

This is a President who has been pushing to raise the minimum wage, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, raising it to $10.10 an hour would cost the U.S. economy a half-million new jobs by 2016.

In an article by Michael D. Tanner that was published by the New York Post in August of last year, he noted that “The federal government funds 126 separate programs targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals.” In addition, state and local governments have welfare programs as well. Who funds these programs? Those with jobs. Welfare benefits are not taxed.

“There is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy,” wrote Tanner. “Indeed, surveys of them consistently show their desire for a job. But they are not stupid. If you pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many choose not to work.”

Former Presidents have encountered recessions when they entered office and those such as Kennedy and Reagan put an end to them. When taxes are lowered it puts more money into the economy and that stimulates it. There is no such talk from Obama and, indeed, his 2014 budget adds billions more that he wants to add to government revenue and spending.

A March 10th Rasmussen survey found that the President’s proposed new $3.9 trillion federal budget that includes $55 billion in new spending for fiscal 2015, is regarded by one-out-of-two voters (50%) who think the Obama administration has already raised spending too much.

Spending is controlled by the House of Representatives, but legislation to address the present economy has been consistently blocked in the Democrat controlled Senate. It’s the same one that enacted the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, which is playing havoc with the nation’s health system and impacting its economy by forcing businesses to either cut the number of people employed or reducing full-time workers to part-time status.

Other actions of the Obama administration are contributing to the unemployment roles as its “war on coal” has shut down more than 150 coal-fired plants that generate electricity and its loans to “green” industries have cost billions as many have declared bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, is telling everyone that “climate change” is the greatest threat to the planet and urging U.S. ambassadors to make it a priority. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is engaged in an orgy of regulation based on zero proof that carbon dioxide warms the Earth.

Obama and his administration is so detached from reality that it is afflicting millions of Americans who want to work while at the same time its policies are reducing the number of new jobs being created.

If this is a deliberate policy—as I believe it is—the only conclusion is that the President is intentionally inflicting a huge debt and impediments to our economy that are reducing the greatest nation on Earth to a third nation status. He opposed the view of American exceptionalism and is doing everything he can to kill it.

Wealth Inequality: Predictably Irrational by Max Borders

March 13, 2014/in Budget and Finance, Economy, Government Transparency, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Note: A new video on income inequality has gone viral. In this video, the authors want us to believe that wealth inequality is far away from our national “ideal” distribution.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM[/youtube]

The following is my response to the video and the study on which it was based:

Everyone knows the social sciences are fuzzy. Economists, political scientists, and anthropologists bring their moralistic baggage into the ivory tower as soon as they decide what to study and what not to. Social science is value-laden. But there is baggage and then there is a naked agenda. In the first case you might be a victim of selection bias or other unconscious human processes that cause you to misinterpret your data. In the latter case you simply start with a political agenda along with its (often dubious) premises, and go from there.

Michael I. Norton of Harvard and Dan Ariely of Duke fall into the latter category. In a 2010 study, Norton and Ariely appear to be engaging in a kind of democracy-by-proxy. They claim that Americans really want more “wealth redistribution,” and they have the evidence to prove it.

Here’s their own description of the findings from a Los Angeles Times piece, “Spreading the Wealth.”

We recently asked a representative sample of more than 5,000 Americans (young and old, men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative) to answer two questions. They first were asked to estimate the current level of wealth inequality in the United States, and then they were asked about what they saw as an ideal level of wealth inequality.

In our survey, Americans drastically underestimated the current gap between the very rich and the poor. The typical respondent believed that the top 20% of Americans owned 60% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% owned 10%. They knew, in other words, that wealth in the United States was not distributed equally, but were unaware of just how unequal that distribution was.

When we asked respondents to tell us what their ideal distribution of wealth was, things got even more interesting: Americans wanted the top 20% to own just over 30% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% to own about 25%. They still wanted the rich to be richer than the poor, but they wanted the disparity to be much less extreme.

What should we conclude from this? Norton and Ariely did succeed in proving that Americans don’t know who has how much money.

Strangely, Norton and Ariely proceed to ask the same Americans who are ignorant about the current wealth distribution what their “ideal” distribution is. Those surveyed then dreamed up what they thought would be a good breakdown, even though no such ideal exists in that great Tablet in the Sky. From all of this surveying, they conclude something that cannot readily be concluded:

[O]ur results suggest that policies that increase inequality—those that favor the wealthy, say, or that place a greater burden on the poor—are unlikely to reflect the desires of Americans from across the political and economic spectrum. Rather, they seem to favor policies that involve taking from the rich and giving to the poor. [Emphasis added.]

Notice “suggest” and “seem.”

You see, Norton and Ariely can’t claim those surveyed favor coercive redistribution. They merely infer it—and in curious fashion. Absent any context, the most ardent libertarian surveyed might wish that poor people had more resources and yet not support forced redistribution. I know I do. But even if they learned most people favor redistribution at some point, we cannot conclude such desires justify forced redistribution, much less prove that redistribution is a good thing.

And this is where Norton and Ariely’s malpractice really begins.

Academic socialists with bees in their bonnets are eager to point out which quintile has what at every turn, as if concern for the poor somehow automatically translates into worries about the assets of the rich. One reason they do this is they believe laypeople are ignorant: If they were enlightened, they would change their minds and want to alter the distribution.

Somehow, though, this self-same group of distribution-ignorant Americans—when polled about a complete abstraction like the distribution of assets over quintiles—suddenly becomes endowed with a magical insight. Again, Norton and Ariely want us to think this special insight provides justification for redistributionist policies. But why should we think that Americans factually ignorant in one area would have some sort of mystical authority on the timeless and intractable questions of justice?

In other words, Norton and Ariely conclude that asking Joe Sixpack, Jill Accountant, and Barb Waitress their thoughts about an abstraction like national income quintiles limns some great truth about right, wrong, and the good. Even the venerable soft egalitarian John Rawls would likely have bristled at this, for it is an intrusion into a discipline (philosophy) that demands more than what amounts to the naturalistic fallacy dressed up in finery of Gallup and Zogby.

I wonder: Did any of their respondents have the option of saying, “I don’t think there is such an ideal distribution”? To me the whole exercise is as meaningful as asking people what should be the ideal distribution of vehicle types. Suppose for simplicity there are five categories of vehicle: cars, pickups, buses, local trucks, and transfer trucks. Someone with no concept of the function of each vehicle might say each category should have 20 percent of all vehicles—i.e., 20 percent are cars, 20 percent are trucks, 20 percent are buses, and so on. But once we start to think about what each vehicle does, we might conclude that it makes sense for there to be a different, rather unequal, distribution. Similarly, the distribution of assets in quartiles just doesn’t tell us anything substantive about the function of wealth (e.g., opportunities, quality of life, upward mobility, or what is likely to make any given person better off). The “ideal distribution” is meaningless because it is completely divorced from much more important questions about the way wealth works, which may have much more to do with human well-being than some distribution at some slice in time.

Now, speaking of Rawls, Norton and Ariely actually start their paper by claiming their study is Rawlsian: “We take a different approach to determining the ‘ideal’ level of wealth inequality: Following the philosopher John Rawls (1971), we ask Americans to construct distributions of wealth they deem just (”Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 9 (2011), doi: 10.1177/1745691610393524).” People may have good reasons to disagree with the late Rawls, but his theory is elegant and sophisticated. Norton and Ariely have no business hitching their wagon to Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.

Rawls’s theory was a product of a philosophical reasoning. His theory requires people to think about what sort of society they would want to be born into if they didn’t know what their own circumstances would be. Rawls thought people would want a high degree of political freedom, but also security; they would want the least well off to be cared for lest they themselves be born as the least well off. Most importantly, perhaps, Rawls’s theory—right or wrong—was a product of philosophical deliberation, not about opinion polls in which people simply come up with a distribution and have academics point to the results as Utopian. So when it comes to Rawls’s work, one can only conclude that Norton and Ariely are shrouded in a veil of ignorance.

Norton and Ariely also never consider the possibility that some of their respondents might want to see a different wealth distribution carried out through means other than forced redistribution by the state. For example, might we rid government of all the favor-seeking schemes that protect the assets of banking CEOs and agribusiness moguls and shift costs onto the poor and middle class? If people had greater information about the circumstances of time and place—like the effect of taking X dollars from businessman B means B can afford to hire fewer people—would they think differently about matters? Ask people for idealized abstractions and you’ll get idealized abstractions. After all, aren’t people “predictably irrational”?

Maslow’s Covered

In his own critique of Norton and Ariely, George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux reminds us that money ain’t everything:

That Americans “drastically” underestimate the wealth of “the very rich” compared to the wealth of “the poor” reveals that the difference in the number of dollars owned by “the very rich” compared to the number of dollars owned by “the poor” translates into a much smaller—that is, far more equal—difference in living standards. In other words, differences in monetary wealth are not the same as differences in living standards.

Indeed, maybe the reason Americans misjudge the actual wealth distribution is that most consider themselves wealthy in Boudreaux’s more subjective sense—at least when it comes to the things that matter. (Bill Gates might be able to fly in a private jet, but we can both fly. He might be able to afford $10,000-per-plate caviar, but we can both eat well.) Standard of living is different in important ways from the measure of assets distributed over a population.

As far as “the gap” is concerned, one of the major themes of this book is: If your goal is to alleviate poverty or perhaps to raise the baseline for what constitutes a minimum level of income that would allow most everyone to escape distress, that’s something reasonable people can talk about.

But that is not the same thing as worrying about what assets the wealthy control.

Suppose you asked the same Americans in the Norton-Ariely study, “If you could guarantee that every poor person in America had their basic needs met, would you agree to abandon your ‘ideal’ wealth distribution?” Their answers might surprise you. That’s because many people conflate the distribution of wealth and concern for the poor. Indeed, we don’t find any upper limit on income anywhere in Rawls, either. Rawls’s only criterion was that the least advantaged benefit from inequality. If you’ve ever been to North Korea or Cuba, it’s pretty obvious that they do.

Max Borders

ABOUT MAX BORDERS

Max Borders is the editor of The Freeman and director of content for FEE. He is also cofounder of the event experience Voice & Exit and author of Superwealth: Why we should stop worrying about the gap between rich and poor.

If I Had a Million Dollars by Sarah Skwire

March 13, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy, Taxes/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Dorothy Parker. “The Standard of Living.” 1941.

From the very first sentence, Dorothy Parker’s “The Standard of Living” awakens not only admiration in the lover of literature, but attention in the lover of economics. “Annabel and Midge came out of the tea room with the arrogant slow gait of the leisured, for their Saturday afternoon stretched ahead of them,” she writes. In one simple sentence we are given a perfect picture of these young women. We know instantly, for example, that Annabel and Midge (and those names, when Parker was writing, were the equivalents of Brooklyn and Madison today) are not leisured. They have assumed the “arrogant slow gait of the leisured” because this is their afternoon off. And indeed, we are informed in the following paragraph that the young women are stenographers. “Annabel, two years longer in the stenographic department, had worked up to the wages of eighteen dollars and fifty cents a week; Midge was still at sixteen dollars. Each girl lived at home with her family and paid half her salary to its support.”

These are young, middle-class working women, about to enjoy a hard-earned afternoon off. And they will enjoy it by playing their favorite game.

Annabel had invented the game; or rather she had evolved it from an old one. Basically, it was no more than the ancient sport of what-would-you-do-if-you-had-a-million-dollars? But Annabel had drawn a new set of rules for it, had narrowed it, pointed it, made it stricter. Like all games, it was the more absorbing for being more difficult.

Annabel’s version went like this: You must suppose that somebody dies and leaves you a million dollars, cool. But there is a condition to the bequest. It is stated in the will that you must spend every nickel of the money on yourself.

…It was essential, of course, that it be played in passionate seriousness. Each purchase must be carefully considered and, if necessary, supported by argument. There was no zest to playing it wildly.

And so the young women window shop. But they do so with “a seriousness that was not only proper but extreme.” When Annabel declares that she would spend some of her money on a silver fox coat, “It was as if she had struck Midge across the mouth. When Midge recovered her breath, she cried that she couldn’t imagine how Annabel could do such a thing—silver-fox coats were so common!” The friends do not speak to each other or play their game again until Annabel revises her decision and elects to imagine purchasing a mink coat instead. (As Virginia Postrel reminds us in her book The Power of Glamour, “Glamour is subjective.”)

But the crisis of this particular episode of the game is a different one. On a hot September day when it is far too uncomfortable to think about fur, the girls pause outside the window of a Fifth Avenue jewelry store. (In my mental movie of this story, the store is Tiffany & Co., of course, because there is no more glamorous jewelry store.) In the window, Annabel and Midge spot a necklace, “a double row of great, even pearls clasped by a deep emerald.” Instantly, the fur coats are forgotten.

On a dare, Midge goes into the store to price the pearls. Told that the price is $250,000, the girls react at first with disdain:

“Honestly!” Annabel said. “Can you imagine a thing like that?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!” Midge said. “That’s a quarter of a million dollars right there!”

“He’s got his nerve!” Annabel said.

And then with despair they realize that their game of endless wealth has become subject to the chilling effects of scarcity.

But Parker knows that the effervescence of youth cannot be contained for long. And the final sentences of the story begin the game again. But this time:

Look. Suppose there was this terribly rich person, see? You don’t know this person, but this person has seen you somewhere and wants to do something for you. Well, it’s a terribly old person, see? And so this person dies, just like going to sleep, and leaves you ten million dollars. Now, what would be the first thing you’d do?

I don’t know about Annabel and Midge, but I’d buy that necklace.

Virginia Postrel has observed that glamour “focuses preexisting, largely unarticulated desires on a specific object, intensifying longing. It thus allows us to imaginatively inhabit the ideal and, as a result, to believe—at least for a moment—that we can achieve it in real life.” She adds later that “glamour leads us to imagine ourselves in the other: another person, another place, and another life. . . . Glamour’s promise of escape and transformation can create an enjoyable but transient experience, provide a source of solace in difficult circumstances, or offer direction toward real-world action.” Highly unlikely ever to have the opportunity to spend $10 million, $1 million, or even, at their salaries, $100 on something glamorous and desirable, Annabel and Midge play their game to soothe their frustrations and escape their daily grind.

Guy de Maupassant’s story “The Necklace” must have been on Parker’s mind when she wrote “The Standard of Living.” Here Madame Loisel, the beautiful young wife of a middle-class Parisian clerk, is invited to an expensively elegant party. She borrows a diamond necklace from a wealthy friend and loses it. She and her husband must then borrow the money to replace the necklace. They spend the next 10 years in grinding poverty while they repay their debts. At the end of the story, we discover that the lost necklace was made of artificial stones, and Madame Loisel has destroyed her youth, beauty, and happiness to attain something that was never real.

All of this reminds me of my favorite economic fairy tale—the episode of the poor man’s son in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. This young man, “whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition,” is discontented with his poverty.

He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges, that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble.

The poor man’s son then labors his whole life to attain these luxuries, enduring “more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them.” After a lifetime of this work, and of toadying and obsequiousness to “those whom he hates,” he ends in despair and misery. “He begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquility of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys; and like them too, more troublesome to the person who carries them about with him than all the advantages they can afford him are commodious.”

We should not fault the poor man’s son for his ambition. We should, however, fault him for the technique he uses to pursue his ambitions. “For this purpose he makes his court to all mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises.” Caught up in the glamour of wealth and ease, he sacrifices his character and his comfort in order to procure it. As Postrel comments, “The young man’s picture of the good life—the glamorous vision that inspires his quest—omits important details. It leaves out years of laborious effort, showing only the result of hard work. . . .Glamour always obscures the difficulties and distracting details of life as it is really lived.” Chasing an impossible dream of wealth without work, the poor man’s son destroys his happiness.

Annabel and Midge are much wiser than Madame Loisel and the poor man’s son. Annabel and Midge know that wealth without work is a dream. They know they will almost certainly never have the necklace in the window. Their game—like my grandmother’s Depression-era trips to the movies—provides them with a brief time of fantasy and escape that allows them to return to their work with renewed energy and inspiration. Midge can hope to climb the ladder of the stenography pool the way that Annabel has. Annabel can hope to manage the pool one day. They can help make their families, and themselves, better off, bit by bit and by working hard. They understand how to balance their ambition with their reality. And they know that you can take a great deal of pleasure from fur coats and expensive necklaces without ever needing to own them.

ABOUT SARAH SKWIRE

Sarah Skwire is a fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. She is a poet and author of the writing textbook Writing with a Thesis.

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

New Study: President Obama a “member of the Flat Earth Society” on Climate Change

March 13, 2014/in Environment, Featured, Government Transparency, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

Who are the real deniers of global climate change? A new report sheds light on the science and facts about global climate change. After reading the report I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is President Obama and his administration who truly are members of the “Flat Earth Society.”

The March 10, 2014 Edition (1-2014) of the Global Climate Status Report (GCSR) is now available and is a must read. Go to Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) website to obtain a copy. In this the fifth edition, the US government climate policy is discussed in detail. John Casey in the forward to the GCSR states:

This edition of the GCSR comes at a unique time in view of yet another record setting cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere and additional confirmation from measured climate parameters of the ongoing transition from the past naturally caused globally warm period to the new cold climate epoch.

Regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we continue to see US governmental policy based on the now thoroughly discredited greenhouse gas theory and the insignificant role mankind’s industrial CO2 plays in the atmosphere. In what can only be classified as a nationwide fit of cognitive dissonance, many of our leaders, including the President and Secretary of State and members of the media have resorted to reinforcing the now disproved myth of man made global warming with outlandish claims and outright lies about the state of the Earth’s climate and where it is going. In an obvious, well known move to discredit those who rely on facts not the politics of climate change, these same leaders have taken to personal attacks and name calling like labeling those who reject the PC version of climate science as “members of the Flat Earth Society,” and “deniers,” attempting to classify these climate truth seekers like those who dispute the reality of the Holocaust.

Casey notes, “This GCSR research summary of potentially historic impact is included. This research, includes fellow researchers, Dr. Dong Choi, Dr. Fumio Tsunoda, and Dr. Leo Maslov. This summary outlines the existence of remarkably strong links between solar activity and earthquakes which are further tied to the coming cold climate epoch. A final paper will be posted at the SSRC website at a later date.”

This GCSR reviews each of the twenty four climate parameters monitored at the SSRC to determine global climate status. These climate indicators are then used to create a long range climate prediction through the 2040’s. The GCSR is the only authoritative, quarterly, non-governmental global climate report published in the United States. Using solar activity forcing models for climate prediction, the SSRC has amassed one of the best records for climate prediction accuracy in the United States.

If you wish to know what is really happening with the climate and not the politically correct version, please go to the SSRC website and download a copy of the Global Climate Status Report.

RELATED VIDEO: Barack Obama’s Weekly Address – “Confronting the Growing Threat of Climate Change” from June 29, 2013.

ABOUT THE EDITORS OF THE GCSR:

Editor of GCSR – Mr. John L. Casey, SSRC Founder and President. Mr. Casey is a former White House space program advisor, NASA Headquarters consultant, who served as an engineer on the space shuttle program with a major aerospace contractor. While doing climate research in early 2007, he independently discovered cycles of the Sun that drive climate change. He then became the first climate researcher to notify the White House, Congress and the mainstream media of the onset of the next climate change to a long cold era caused by a “solar hibernation.” Mr. Casey has since been conducting a nationwide campaign to inform the American people and its leaders of the need to prepare for this next climate era. He is one of America’s most successful climate prediction experts and is the author of the internationally acclaimed climate science book, “Cold Sun.” See at www.coldsun.net. In 2012, at the request of leading seismologists from around the world, he took on the added role of Chairman/CEO of the International Earthquake and Volcano Prediction Center (IEVPC). See at www.ievpc.org. In March 2013, he was named “America’s best climate prediction expert” by Watchdogwire.com.

Co-Editor – Dr. Ole Humlum, Supporting Researcher to the SSRC. He is also a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Oslo in Norway. A practicing glaciologist and geomorphologist, he is an expert in glacial and climate behavior for northern Europe, and the seas and oceans of the northeast Atlantic Ocean. He has spent many years in the field study of the glacial history of Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denmark, the island of Svalbard and of Norway/Sweden. He is the founder of the widely respected global climate web site Climate4you.com.

The Space and Science Research Corporation, (SSRC), headquartered in Orlando, Florida conducts important research into the causes and effects of climate change, based on the Sun being the primary driver of climate change. The SSRC is the leading climate research organization in the US advocating national and global preparedness for the coming cold climate era. The SSRC is a small, privately funded, climate research organization relying on the advice of many climate experts and its staff of Supporting Researchers for their contributed research, analysis, and peer review of SSRC products. The SSRC has one of the most successful climate prediction track records in the US for any climate research organization. See more about the SSRC at www.spaceandscience.net.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image taken on December 18th, 2009 is of President Barack Obama briefing European leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Danish Prime Minister Lars L. Rasmussen, following a multilateral meeting at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the background, behind French and US presidents, Frenchs ministers, Jean-Louis Borloo and Chantal Jouanno.

Is the Malaysian Air Flight MH370 tragedy like Egyptian Air Flight 990?

March 13, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News/by Jerry Gordon

I watched the confused early morning US live broadcast of press conference held by Malaysian military and civilian aviation authorities. They were endeavoring to answer questions of an international press perplexed by the conflicting information about the final moments and whereabouts of Malaysian Air Flight MH 370 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board departed Saturday, March 9th from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing. The Boeing 777 aircraft has redundant electrical and communications systems on board and a near faultless safety record, as does the operator Malaysian Air. Only three such aircraft have had accidents in an otherwise impressive airworthiness history. At today’s press briefing a Malaysian military spokesperson said that defense radars had last placed Flight 370 200 miles northwest of Penang Island. The search area has been extended to both sides of the Malaysian Peninsula covering 47,000 square miles .An international flotilla of more than 43 ships and 39 aircraft are involved in searching for the debris of the downed aircraft.

Watch this CBS News report on the disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH370:

The confusion that I witnessed must have further perplexed the relatives of more than 14 nationalities aboard, the majority were Chinese passengers. Both the families of Chinese passengers and Chinese government officials have badgered Malaysian airline staff in Beijing requesting information on the ‘disappearance’ of Flight 370. Doubtless that also would have been the response of the families of the other international travelers including Australians and three Americans on board the flight.

Regarding the matter of passengers with stolen passports, we know that neighboring Thailand is a major center for trafficking in such stolen documents. Two Iranian nationals had obtained these stolen passports. These Iranians were cleared by US counterterrorism authorities of having any nefarious terrorist connections. They were bound ultimately for destinations in Europe and were on not on any no fly or watch lists.. While Interpol maintains a data base of such purloined passports, it is not entirely fool proof. Thus, local photographic and biometric screening of departing passengers’ documentation is the only way to effectively identify and screen them for possible untoward missions.

Perhaps contributing to the confusion in locating Flight 370, is whether the impact occurred on land or more likely in the relative shallow depths of the Gulf of Thailand. There is also the matter of opacities in the international civil aviation radar coverage, especially in relatively undeveloped areas. Airline safety experts, both former National Transportation Safety Board officials and International Civil Aviation Organization and independent experts said that the sudden disappearance of Flight 370 transponder communications might be due to a possible criminal act, either from terrorist actions or a rogue pilot.

We know from a report of an Australian tourists that the co-pilot on Flight 370 had left the cockpit door open so that curious passengers on board might come up to the flight deck to see how the flight was being handled. If the case, that is a violation of international flight safety rules requiring the cockpit to be locked down s following the 9/11 skyjackings and suicide attacks in New York, Northern Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania.

One example of a plausible criminal act is what occurred with the loss of Egyptian Air 990 that went down 60 Miles off Nantucket in late August 1999 with 217 passengers aboard. As Flight 990, a Boeing 767, crashed in international waters the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) was the responsible for conducting the investigation. The ECAA initially denied that the relief pilot aboard might have deliberately plunged Flight 990 into the Atlantic. Cockpit recordings and recovery of the flight recorders, the so-called black boxes, verified the sudden deliberate violent changes in flight controls.

Note this Wikipedia report on Flight 990:

As the crash occurred in international waters, the responsibility for investigating the accident fell to the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) per International Civil Aviation Organization Annex 13. As the ECAA lacked the resources of the much larger US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Egyptian government asked the NTSB to handle the investigation. Two weeks after the crash, the NTSB proposed handing the investigation over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as the evidence they had gathered suggested a criminal act had taken place and that the crash was intentional rather than accidental. This proposal was unacceptable to the Egyptian authorities, and as such the NTSB continued to lead the investigation. As the evidence of a deliberate crash mounted, the Egyptian government reversed their earlier decision, and the ECAA launched their own investigation. The two investigations came to very different conclusions: the NTSB found the crash was caused by deliberate action of the Relief First Officer Gameel Al-Batouti; the ECAA found the crash was caused by mechanical failure of the airplane’s elevator control system.

Could Malaysian Flight 370 have suffered the same fate as Egyptian Air 990? That is, a rogue pilot seizing the controls plunging it into a steep dive and impact possibly at sea? If the case, then the aircraft debris including large sections of the fuselage constructed of honeycomb material and baggage would have floated free for evidentiary recovery. If the impact was on land, the aircraft could have crashed in tropical areas with impenetrable triple canopy jungle areas. Should the cockpit voice recorder and flight recorder ‘black box’ be eventually recovered, then we might learn whether a terrorist or criminal act occurred.

Recovery of the aircraft debris, voice and flights recorders may be problematic Nonetheless, an Egyptian Air Flight 990 scenario could be a plausible, yet disturbing scenario. The last voice transmission from Flight 370 was: “All right, good night”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

UPDATE: Given this morning news about the shutdown of the transponders and RR Engines telemetry data, it appears that MH370 was diverted by an experienced person on board the flight, whether, the Flight officer, co-pilot or terrorist passenger on board. The RR telemetry data indicates that the Boeing 777 flew on after transpornders were shut down manually for four to five hours. Therefore something akin to the Egyptian Aior flight 990 might be increasingly plausible, but with a difference; i.e., diversion of the flight to a forced landing location outside of the extended search area. those large objects in the relatively shallow South China Seas were judged to be too big for an aircraft broken up at sea on impact like Egyptian Air 990. The South China Sea is only 146 feet deep in that area. The Boeing 777 stands about 61 feet high.

FLASHBACK: Russian Newscaster Gives Obama the Finger

March 13, 2014/in National Security, News, Policy, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

As the American mainstream media works diligently to provide cover for President Obama and attempts to downplay the seriousness of the offenses perpetrated by the Obama Administration’s foreign and domestic policies, let’s take a look back at a piece of bold reporting that came from Russia in 2011. Is Putin giving the same gesture to Obama in the Ukraine?

[youtube]http://youtu.be/LlKLv4oq-ao[/youtube]

The TEA Party News Network states, “A newscaster in 2011, when mentioning Barack Obama, gave the U.S. Commander-in-Chief the finger. As tensions with Russia escalate, it’s important to remember one key fact: Russia doesn’t respect Barack Obama and nor should they.”

Senators4Sale: Cheap, Very Cheap

March 13, 2014/in Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Richard C. Savage, Ph.D.

The US Senate used to pride itself as “…the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Those days are gone. The US Senate is now controlled by a Senator from Nevada named Harry Reid, who puts on an allnight talkathon for money. Reid recently attacked millions of Americans, deprived of health care plans they had been assured of keeping (PERIOD!), as liars. Now Reid has turned the Senate floor over to a majority of its Democrats for an overnight exercise in global warming fantasy, March 10-11.

Let’s be clear. This was not a debate on the Nation’s business. These Senate Democrats can’t be bothered to fulfill their Constitutional duty of passing a budget. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget for several years, and there will be none this year. There is no legislation planned to address climate change, though several senators insisted it is the most important issue facing the country.

This was not a reasoned debate by informed advocates of differing opinions on a matter of national importance. In a Gallup poll released 11 March, global warming or climate change ranked 14th of 15 issues considered. Small wonder, after the Winter of 2013-2014, which will undoubtedly make Florida one the most desirable states in the Union. Although we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, we are 60% below normal reserve levels [Fox News, Cavuto]. We may start next Winter behind the power curve.

This was not a debate on legislation to address a national problem of extreme weather, caused by “climate change”. 2013 was an all-time record low for tornadoes. There were two Atlantic hurricanes in 2013, neither of which threatened landfall. Tropical storms are at record lows around the world (according to Professor Ryan Maue of Florida State.) We are at a record number of years between landfall of major hurricanes (cat 3-4-5). Wildfires and drought were at a very low level.

The IPCC issued a report in 2012 on extreme weather, denying any link between these phenomena and climate change. But Senate Majority Leader Reid says:

“Every day that goes by, every week that goes, every month that goes by, every year that goes by … there’s more evidence of the dangers of climate change,”

Reid said Tuesday afternoon, in response to a question from the Weekly Standard, “The more climate changes, the more extreme the weather gets, and we’ve seen that in spades.”

Why is the US Senate conducting an overnight talkathon on a non-problem, when Democrats control the agenda? Answer: money for Democrat senators who cursed the American people with ObamaCare. They need campaign money offered by a climate change fanatic named Tom Steyer. The hedge fund billionaire has promised $100 million in campaign funding for any Democrat who opposes the Keystone XL pipeline. Even Dana Milbank, a liberal commentator of the Washington Post, is disgusted.

“Look back at the planet from the window of a spacecraft.”—Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)

Does Florida have an entry in the Senators4Sale? Yes indeed, the last Senator to speak was Bill Nelson:

The senators saved the best for last. Florida has the most to lose, the fastest, of all the United States. Bill Nelson showed a map with a frightening area of the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines in red, submerged.

Nelson spoke of seeing the silt-laden river mouths of Madagascar and a storm in the Indian Ocean from 203 miles up. He presented shocking predictions with reason and calm, though he freaked out his audience. Nelson said 28 million people could be underwater by the end of the century. Recreation, baseball spring training, and the sunsets seen from the country’s southernmost eastern beach would be things of the past, pauperizing a $67 billion tourism industry. Miami, currently linking up with the Netherlands for technical help.

Senator Nelson, a Mission Specialist in 1986, serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. One would think he’s well-informed on science and the most controversial topic in science today, climate change. One would expect that he knows sea level is rising at a rate of eight inches per century, as it has for the last 80 centuries. Instead he predicts 28 million Floridians to be underwater by 2100. Nelson is almost as big a liar as Harry Reid, a high bar.

Ironically, just last week, a group of retired NASA scientists and engineers called “The Right Climate Stuff” put out their independent report on the “threat” of climate change. These are the men who put Neil Armstrong on the moon, and Bill Nelson into space.

So, what did they say? “The planet is not in danger of catastrophic man made global warming. Even if we burn all the world’s recoverable fossil fuels it will still only result in a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.”

And why did they say it? “It’s an embarrassment to those of us who put NASA’s name on the map to have people like ~~James Hansen~~ Bill Nelson popping off about global warming,” says the project’s leader Hal Doiron [text edit by RCS].

Bill Nelson is not just a disgrace to the Senate – like thirty of his fellow Senators – he’s a disgrace to the science that made him “the right stuff.”

“Pro-Abortionist” Nancy Pelosi to Receive Planned Parenthood’s Highest Award

March 13, 2014/in Commentary, Culture War, News, Policy, Science/by Willy Guardiola

Just when we thought we had heard it all – along comes the “Annual Planned Parenthood Awards Banquet” – where on March 27th these infamous “murders of the innocent” gather together to hand out and award the person who exemplifies their mission statement best – that of promoting and endorsing the murder of the innocent at any cost. And, the winner of the 2014 Margaret Sanger Award goes to – Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. What is interesting is that Rep. Pelosi graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. in 1962. Over a century ago, Trinity College was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as the nation’s first Catholic liberal arts college for women.

Margaret Sanger (1883-1966), Editor of The Birth Control Review from 1917 to 1938. Founder of Planned Parenthood. Click on the image to read quotes from Sanger.

Yes, Pelosi is a Catholic who endorses abortion as much as President Obama, perhaps even more so. Nancy will step up to the podium on March 27th to accept this “prestigious” Sanger award. But who was Margaret Sanger?

Margaret Sanger’s purpose is best illustrated by this quote:

“More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.” – Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12

Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and strong supporter of Eugenics. Edwin Black, author of War Against The Weak, writes, “The global effort to help women make independent choices about their own pregnancies was dominated by one woman: Margaret Sanger… Motherhood was to most civilizations a sacred role. Sanger, however, wanted women to have a choice in that sacred role, specifically if, when and how often to become pregnant.”

Black notes, “… Sanger vigorously opposed charitable efforts to uplift the downtrodden and deprived, and argued extensively that it was better that the cold and hungry be left without help, so that the eugenically superior strains could multiply without competition from ‘the unfit.’ She repeatedly referred to the lower classes and the unfit as ‘human waste’ not worthy of assistance, and proudly quoted the extreme eugenic view that human ‘weeds’ should be ‘exterminated.’ Moreover, for both political and genuine ideological reasons, Sanger associated closely with some of some of America’s most fanatical eugenic racists.” Sanger stated, “My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the ‘failure’ of philanthropy, but rather at its success.” [Emphasis added]

Sanger’s Eugenics efforts inspired Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann and Dr. Mengele. They knew each others ideas, methods and ideals quite well in the late 1930’s, which was intended to create a “a race of thoroughbreds“. Hence, the Holocaust was born in America and transhipped to Germany where it was elevated to the extermination of enemies of the state to an industrial level. The result was 20 million people systematically murdered – including 6 million Jews. Then Sanger and Hitler, today Pelosi and Obama. Two matches made “Far from Heaven”.

Winning the “Margaret Sanger Award” is the equivalent of Hitler winning the Nobel Peace prize.

So, on this “8th Day of our ever-sacred Lenten Season and 40 Days for Life read about how deranged our society has gotten since Obama took office only five years ago. The evermore-progressive Democrat Party is not the same party as we knew and respected under President Grover Cleveland. They are now the “Party of Satan” as everything that this group is affiliated with has to do with the intrinsic evils that they have single-handedly brought into our present culture. When one embraces the likes of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood and thinks it is an honor to win an award that recognizes you as a person of immoral character, of liberal thoughts, and of promoting the killing of innocent babies – you must be deluded at best and at the worst deranged. It hurts me even having to read this article, let alone, write about it.

But, if we are to do something about this “culture of death” that the Sangers, Obamas and Pelosi’s of this world embrace, we better do something to try to reverse this curse and do it swiftly. We can complain all we want. We can curse at the wall. We can write emails all day long to vent our anger and frustration. We can criticize all we want until the “cows come home”. Or, we can try to do something about it.

Like attending “America’s Finest Hour” on Tuesday evenings at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius at 6:00 p.m. You may also pick up the phone and call Jane Brill at (561) 889-9212 or Melanie Hill at: (561) 676-2337 to join “40 Days for Life” at either of their two locations. You may also come out twice a month to demonstrate at abortionist, Dr. Daniel Sacks’ office on the corner of Okeechobee and Benoist Farms Road, West Palm Beach, FL.

You can do so many things to “make a difference” in our society – but, if one just simply reads this column and feels a bit guilty that you are indeed, not doing a damn thing about our dire situation in our country and just hit the “DELETE” button – you might as well hit the “DEFEAT” button. How many times are you going to replay this same scenario? And, if you do hit that “Defeat” button – where does that take you?

Do yourself a favor and come out one Tuesday night for our prayer group at 6:00 p.m. at the Cathedral so that we can pray for you and give you some sense of hope. As it is hope that keeps us “Pro-Lifers” going. With all the madness that we see on a daily basis in our country, it is hope that gives us that added intangible that allows us to keep doing what we are doing, day after day.

Is today the day that you are going to “break that mold” and do something different? Something for somebody else? Something to make our world a better place to live in? Something for the most vulnerable in our society? Speak up, folks – for our precious unborn babies cannot.

RELATED VIDEO: Breaking the language barrier – 40 Days for Life in Croatia

[youtube]http://youtu.be/U0nGdXOusw4[/youtube]

Obama suggests people cancel cable and cell phones to afford Obamacare

March 13, 2014/in Featured, Healthcare, News, Policy/by Allen West

According to President Obama, low-income families may have trouble affording Obamacare premiums because they simply do not know how to spend their own money. Last week, during a town hall meeting for Spanish language media where Obama was promoting enrollment, a viewer challenged the economics of it for low-income Americans now forced to buy health insurance, according to Hot Air.

The president responded that “if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill… it may turn out that, it’s just they haven’t prioritized health care.” He added that if a family member gets sick, the father “will wish he had paid that $300 a month.

Not that the father has any choice in the matter, considering the government is forcing him to buy it.

No Sir, it just means they haven’t prioritized spending on the health care you’re shoving down their throats. The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze. While the “era of austerity is supposedly over,” it’s clearly over for the federal government only.

Once again, President Obama finds someone else to blame for the failures of his own policy — which is so unappealing he keeps delaying it piece be piece. Ironically, cell phones are okay if they’re given away “free” at the expense of the hard-working American taxpayer, but not if you want to buy one yourself.

Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBRE Initiative said of Obama’s remarks, “If the president actually believes that a family earning less than $40,000 per year can afford nearly $4,000 in health insurance premiums, then he truly does not understand middle-income families. Americans do not need the President to tell them how to budget their households. People are already cutting back on things like cable television and cell phones, just to compensate for an awful economy. This president promised he would deliver on affordable health care. Instead, premiums are up, out-of-pocket expenses are up, and overall cost of living is up. The president simply doesn’t get it. And his condescending attitude adds insult to injury.”

Once upon a time, families had the choice of using Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSAs) to spend pre-tax money on routine care and smaller emergencies, while using so-called catastrophic insurance to deal with serious illness requiring hospitalizations. But as part of Obamacare, HSAs are now taxed as well. So much for freedom of choice.

Perhaps we should take away Obama’s cell phone (and pen, while we’re at it) so the politicized executive orders will stop.

Obama is trying to convince Americans that the unaffordability of the Affordable Care Act isn’t his fault. It’s the fault of the states (run by those rascally Republicans) that won’t expand Medicaid. And it’s the fault of those selfish, irresponsible folks who’d rather have cable and cell phones.

If you like your iPhone, you can’t keep it. Period.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ijQIJAK0NFA[/youtube]

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

American Flag Buffoonery in the 9th Circuit Court

March 12, 2014/in Courts & Law, Culture War, News, Video/by Bill Finlay

The 9th Circuit Court of Buffoons has done it again…made a ruling so blatantly unconstitutional the Supreme Court will have to spank them…again.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/WLjfwDmAsBM[/youtube]

The featured photo is of Patriotic old women making American flags. They were born in Hungary, Galicia, Russia, Germany, Rumania. Their flag-making instructor, Rose Radin, is standing. The photo was taken circa 1918

The Clear and Present Danger of Terrorist Drones

March 12, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News/by Jerry Gordon

Israel Air Defense Chief Maj. Gen. Shachar Shohat. Source: Israel Hayom

Today’s Israel Hayom published a report on IAF Gen. Air Defense chief Maj. Gen. Shachar Shohat citing the threat of terrorist drones, “IAF officer: Israel will face terrorist drones in next war”. Shohat noted:

Israel fears terrorists in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip will deploy exploding drones in a future war, in addition to their main rocket arsenals, the chief of Israeli air defense said on Monday.

“We will have to cope with dozens of pilotless aerial vehicles on both the northern and southern fronts,” Israeli Air Force Maj. Gen. Shachar Shohat said at a Tel Aviv security conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies think tank,

[…]

Uzi Rabin, an Israeli aerospace expert, said Israel’s Iron Dome and Patriot missile interceptors are capable of shooting down most drones. Israel is separately developing the Iron Beam, a laser system for vaporizing short-range mortar bombs and says it also will be able to destroy small drones.

Shohat said the terrorists’ drones would range from radio-controlled model airplanes weighing a few kilograms to large drones with payloads of hundreds of kilograms.

[…]

Shohat told the conference that drones were now part of enemy guerrilla strategies.

Ababil Iranian UAV - launch ready[1] (2)

Itanian Ababil Launch Ready UAV in Possesion of Hezbollah

Drones flew into Israeli airspace from Lebanon on at least two occasions in 2012 and 2013, apparently on photography missions and bids to probe air defenses. Israeli jets shot them down.

After the 2012 incident, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged sending a drone that flew some 25 miles (40 kilometers) into Israel.

While Gen. Shohat’s comments focused on the use of heavier drones capable of carrying conventional explosives, Dr. Jill Bellamy in a prescient June NER article focused on more plausible use as a possible biowarfare threat,”Hezbollah’s UAV Biological Weapon Capability: A Game Changer?”

Bellamy commented:

Syria’s biological weapons programs run out of the Syrian Scientific Research (SSRC) in Damascus have not been the focus of much media attention. That despite these weapons are far more dangerous and more likely to be deployed. Perhaps less clear is Syria’s close relationship and support of Hezbollah and Hezbollah’s arsenal of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The merging of Syria’s biological weapon program with Hezbollah and/or Iran’s UAV programs could create an international public health emergency more catastrophic than a natural outbreak.

Iran is believed to have supplied Hezbollah with 12 Ababil UAVs.³ The Ababil carries an 88 pound conventional payload, with a range of approximately 150 miles. Given the unique characteristics of UAV’s it is conceivable that Hezbollah, under orders from Iran, and provided with advanced technology could deploy biological weapons utilizing this platform.

As regarding the credibility of the UAV drone threat, Bellamy commented:

Biological and nuclear weapons fall into the highest level of WMD threat, because their effect, for a given low weight, is far greater than for chemical and radiological weapons.⁶ As a consequence, they were given a priority, comparable to that given nuclear weapons.⁷ Hezbollah has acquired almost every type of conventional weapon Iran has ever produced and works closely with Syria. As Hezbollah is considered by some to run their own laboratories in Lebanon, it is likely that Syria has already transferred weaponized biological agents to these labs.

To put the threat Hezbollah’s potential BW program poses and the possible use of their current UAV stockpile as a deployment platform into clearer focus, in 2005, France’s Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, at an Interpol bio-terrorism conference held in Lyon, emphasized that nowadays terrorists are highly likely to use weapons of mass destruction including biological weapons. Given Hezbollah’s possible laboratories, they could easily maintain an advanced BW capability. Hezbollah’s state sponsorship by both Syria and Iran vastly increase their ability to successfully deploy BW using UAV’s.

Note the ominous threat posed by Hezbollah drone equipped with BW payloads:

Should Hezbollah decide to arm their arsenal of Ababil UAV’s¹⁸ or other drones, with biological warfare agents and target Israel, perhaps using a swarm of UAV’s, the likely and unfortunate casualties will be populations in nations who do not possess a bio-defense infrastructure. These are states that do not have the economic means to stockpile vaccines and medical counter-measures, who do not have the laboratory capacity or the health care capacity to conduct mass casualty care. With several BW agents such as smallpox, incubation periods can be lengthy. Some incubation periods would be over three weeks, transmission could occur several kilometers downwind given good meteorological conditions. This means a drone could lay down BW in an unpopulated area. The BW payload, should the drone be destroyed, could go undetected until populations become symptomatic. Lengthy incubation periods mean silent transmission which would come in waves. As A-symptomatic civilians travel to other regions of Israel and internationally. A war game, called Atlantic Storm, illustrates the existential risk to the global community from BW verses chemical or nuclear weapons.

Perhaps, IAF Gen. Shohat focused his public remarks on the terrorist UAV threat purposefully on aerial platforms equipped with conventional ordnance. That may deflect attention from probable covert developments by the IDF to combat Hezbollah and other Iran proxies resorting to potentially more catastrophic BW and other non-conventional UAV payload threats to Israel and the World.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review. The featured image is of an Yasir UAV – Iranian copy of Scan Deagle drone courtesy of Enstent. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Legal Attack on “Buffer Zone” Protecting Planned Parenthood Abortion Facility

March 12, 2014/in Healthcare, Must Read, News, Policy, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, stepped-up its legal attack on a Portland, Maine city ordinance, designed to restrict pro-life speech, by adding an additional plaintiff and filing a motion yesterday for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the enforcement of the City’s ordinance.

At issue is Portland’s Ordinance 17-108 which establishes a 39-foot “buffer zone” around the City’s only abortion facility. Pro-life counselors are subject to a $100 fine if they enter the 39-foot radius around the facility’s entrances, including the public sidewalk. Consequently, the ordinance creates a free speech dead zone which effectively prevents pro-life counselors from compassionately reaching out to women who are contemplating an abortion or who have already had one.

The Thomas More Law Center filed the original federal lawsuit on February 12, 2014, on behalf of Marguerite and Daniel Fitzgerald, as well as two of their teenaged children. The Fitzgerald family are Evangelical Christians who have been participating in pro-life activities outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic for over a year. The buffer zone prevents them from engaging in pro-life activities motivated by their religious belief that abortion is the deliberate destruction of innocent human life.

The newly added plaintiff, Leslie Sneddon, has engaged in sidewalk counseling at the abortion facility for over a year. The compelling and compassionate reasons for her actions as a sidewalk counselor are revealed to the court in an affidavit: She had four abortions and now feels compelled to peacefully counsel other women against making the same life-altering, life-ending decisions she made. She understands what they are feeling and why they are contemplating abortion. She attempts to counsel them so they may choose life for their baby. However, with the 39-foot buffer zone she can no longer have an intimate, more private conversation.

Click here to read entire motion and brief for the Preliminary Injunction

TMLC Senior Trial Attorney Erin Mersino, one of the attorneys handling the case, commented: “One of the saddest parts of this case is that Leslie who has had four abortions herself and wishes to help other post-abortive women through gentle conversation and discussion of counseling options can no longer do so. The so-called ‘buffer zone’ makes this impossible as our client is forced to stand across a busy city street, and yell to have her message heard. In her case, the ‘buffer zone’ has made her efforts to help women, for whom she shares a great deal of empathy, unlawful.”

The Palestinians’ Real Enemies

March 12, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy/by Alan Caruba

As the crisis in Ukraine unfolded, President Obama met with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel while John Kerry, the Secretary of State, continued to flog Obama’s push to get Israel to grant the Palestinians a state of their own. At their meeting Netanyahu was far more concerned with Obama’s failure to stop Iran from making its own nuclear weapons. He repeated that Israel will do whatever it must to protect itself.

Within days, the Israeli Navy intercepted a ship, the Klos-C, that contained rockets with a range up to 160 kilometers. It had left Iran loaded with 181 M-302 rockets intended for use by Hamas, the terrorists who control the Gaza. It also had 400,000 rounds of 7.62 ammunition. Does anyone think that either Iran or the Palestinians want anything less than Israel’s destruction?

At some point, interest in the Middle East will reassert itself because, while Obama has been in office, it has become an increasing threat to ours and the world’s concern as a hotbed of Islamic fanaticism. Other than Israel, Jordan, and some Gulf states, the U.S. has few allies there.

What is rarely, if ever, reported in the mainstream media, the Palestinians have refused to engage in any serious discussions that would lead to the establishment of their own state since the founding of Israel in 1948.

They have preferred their “refugee” status that, at 66 years, makes them the oldest such group in the world. Since 1949 the United Nations has an entire agency, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, that has been devoted to maintaining the camps in which many live.

Recently, in the spring edition of the Middle East Quarterly, Efraim Karsh had an extraordinary review of how their Arab “brothers” in Arab states have treated the so-called Palestinians. It’s worth recalling that “Palestine” was the name the Roman Emperor Hadrian used to try to replace “Israel”, but there never was such a nation. Karsh’s article was titled “The Palestinians’ Real Enemies” as it looked back over the years since Israel reemerged as a nation.

“For most of the twentieth century, inter-Arab politics,” writes Karsh, “were dominated by the doctrine of pan-Arabism, postulating the existence of ‘a single nation bound by the common ties of language, religion and history…behind the façade of a multiplicity of sovereign states;’ and no single issue dominated this doctrine more than the ‘Palestine question’ with anti-Zionism forming the main common denominator of pan-Arab solidarity and its most effective rallying cry…nothing has done more to expose the hollowness of pan-Arabism than its most celebrated cause.”

The Arabs distrust each other more than they are distrusted by the rest of the world. Arab states in the Middle East and in northern Africa are more united by the threat of being taken over by the Islamic fascists of al Qaeda and comparable groups. Both Egypt and the Saudis have banned the Muslim Brotherhood. Ironic, eh?

In his quest to become the caliph of those states, Emir Faisal ibn Hussein of Mecca, the hero of the “Great Arab Revolt” against the Ottoman Empire, together with his father and older brother Abdullah, placed Palestine on the pan-Arab agenda by falsely claiming that those living in what was regarded as southern Syria, had been promised a nation of their own, but in 1919 he signed an agreement with Chaim Weizman, the Zionist leader, supporting the 1917 Balfour Declaration on the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. In 1920, he declared himself the king of Syria. After the French removed him, he laid claim to be Iraq’s ruler, a position he held until his death in 1933.

Over the decades “the Arab states continued to manipulate the Palestinian national cause to their own ends. Neither Egypt nor Jordan allowed Palestinian self-determination in the parts of Palestine they occupied during the 1948 war.” In April 1950, the territory now called the West Bank was formally annexed by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan.

Hafez Assad who had seized control of Syria, controlling it from 1970 until his death in 2000, described Palestine in 1974 as “a basic part of southern Syria” but said that the Palestine Liberation Organization, appointed by the Arab League in October 1974 was “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” so long as it did not deviate from the destruction of Israel. It never did, nor has the Palestinian Authority that replaced it.

No matter where Palestinians lived throughout the Middle East, they were endlessly harassed by Arab nations. “As a result, the vast majority of Palestinians have remained stateless refugees with more than half living in abject poverty in twelve squalid and overcrowded camps.”

In one Arab nation after another, other than Jordan, they have been refused citizenship and barred from professions and other rights, but even Jordan drove them out when they attempted to seize control in 1970. They fled to Lebanon where they encountered a similar fate, but led by Hezbollah they have gained control there.

“Not only have the host Arab states marginalized and abused their Palestinian guests, but they have not shrunk from massacring them on a grand scale whenever this suited their needs.”

In the current Syrian civil war, “thousands of Palestinians have been killed…and tens of thousands have fled the country.”

So who are the enemies of the Palestinians? It is not the Israelis who have spent more than six decades trying to come to some arrangement with them to achieve peace and end their daily attacks.

As Obama and Kerry continue to threaten Israel with reprisals if they don’t make peace with a people who have never demonstrated any desire for anything other than Israel’s destruction, the isolation of the Palestinians is likely to continue for a very long time to come. It was imposed by the Arab states. If those states formally recognize Israel it could end, but that prospect is nowhere in sight.

The current U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians ignores history. Their Arab “brothers” regard the Palestinians as a threat to their state’s sovereignty and events in Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere confirm that view.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image, a photo-montage of some prominent Arabs and people of Arab descent is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.