VA employees actually destroy veterans’ records to ease backlog

/in , , , , /by

There can be no debate that the Obama administration has a disdain for our military and its veterans. Now it seems we’ll no longer see Obama attend VFW and American Legion conferences — not that anyone will miss him.

Remember the empty promises about easing the veterans’ claims backlog? As a matter of fact, when was the last time you saw the FLOTUS and Dr. Jill Biden on a military base talking about supporting military families? Yep, the true colors of Barack Hussein Obama are as brilliant as ever.

But I’m not sure anything can be more disgusting and heinous than what the Daily Caller reported: Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee said. Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by The Daily Caller confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.”

Apparently this brilliant method of reducing the backlog was conceived in November 2008 and put into full implementation in March 2009 under the purview of the Obama administration.

As the Daily Caller reports: “We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams. Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant said. ”It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned.” By 2008, some patients were “waiting six to nine months for an exam” and VA “didn’t know how to address the issue,” Mitchell said.

So, rather than figure out a way to handle the requests, presto change-o! The VA Greater Los Angeles Officials simply decided to cancel them. You can hear the evidence.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/XnvhdV2DD0g[/youtube]

VA Greater Los Angeles Radiology department chief Dr. Suzie El-Saden initiated an “ongoing discussion in the department” to cancel exam requests and destroy veterans’ medical files so that no record of the exam requests would exist, thus reducing the backlog, Mitchell said. Dr. El-Saden, according to Mitchell, was “the person who said destroy the records.”

Mitchell tried to blow the whistle on the scheme to destroy veterans’ records and ended up being transferred out of his department and eventually losing his job. “I filed the initial complaint with the IG. The IG instead of doing their own investigation just gave it to the facility and made them aware of my complaint.” Mitchell eventually wrote to Congress about the issue in January 2011. Two months later, in March 2011, he was fired.

In April 2013 Mitchell received a letter from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel stating that OIG (Office of the Inspector General) found in November 2009 that “all imaging services across the country were instructed to mass purge all outstanding imaging orders for studies older than six months, where the procedure was no longer needed”. However, Mitchell contends that in Los Angeles, exam requests that were found to still be needed were “definitely” destroyed.

I believe this matter must be immediately investigated by the House Veterans Affairs Committee headed up by Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla). If a thorough hearing and investigation verifies this incident, the punishment should be heavy. It must send a message throughout the Veterans Administration that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. As well, there should be some sort of follow up investigation to ascertain if this is an isolated practice or promulgated elsewhere in the VA Hospital system.

Regardless, the fact that we are even discussing this issue is beyond believable. Veterans, if you have had any issue with your valid exam requests being delayed beyond a six-month point please let us know and contact the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee immediately. We owe our veterans a debt that cannot ever be fully repaid — but for goodness’ sake, we should at least try.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com. It is reposted with permission.

What Is Polycentric Law? by Tom W. Bell

/in , , , , /by

Do you like having options when you look for a new bank, dry cleaner, or veterinarian? Of course you do. You want to find the service that will best satisfy your particular demands, after all, and you know that when banks, cleaners, and vets have to compete they have a powerful incentive to make you happy. A monopoly, in contrast, can take its customers for granted.

Polycentric law simply extends that observation from commercial services to government ones. Just as competition makes life better for those who seek banking, cleaning, and pet care, it can benefit those seeking fair and efficient legal systems. Competition helps consumers and citizens alike.

Polycentric law regards the sorts of legal services that governments provide—defining rules, policing their application, and settling disputes—as a ripe field for competition. When a government claims a monopoly in the law, it tends to neglect the needs of its subjects. In a polycentric system, however, providers of legal services care more about what consumers want. They have to, if they don’t want to go out of business.

Our Polycentric World

But won’t competition between legal services lead to chaos? Evidently not. We already live in a world that offers us a fair degree of choice between the sorts of rules we live under. Polycentric law simply takes note of that fact, sees the good in it, and argues for more of the same.

It may not always seem as if you can choose the legal system you will live under. If you like the culture and climate of United States, for instance, but not the commands that issue from the federal government, you indeed face a hard choice: Suck it up or hit the road.

And even if you do decide to leave in search of a better legal system, you have no guarantee of finding one. Because they typically impose uniform rules across large geographic areas, governments tend more toward monopolistic law than polycentric law.

Even so, excepting totalitarian regimes such as the former Soviet Union and present-day North Korea, most governments allow disgruntled residents the freedom to escape to better legal systems. Most also allow movement within their borders, from one state, county, or town to another, affording the freedom to choose between local legal systems. To some degree, therefore, governments already compete against each other. But the influence of polycentric law goes deeper than that.

From Plain Old Law to Polycentric Law

To fully understand the extent of polycentric law, you have to understand the nature of law itself. Legal philosopher Lon Fuller aptly described it as “the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules.” So described, the law is not just a service provided by public organizations. It also issues from private sources such as homeowners’ associations, businesses, religions, clubs, and myriad other organizations that subject their members’ conduct to the governance of rules.

Consider a residential cooperative corporation, for instance. Such a co-op’s members both possess shares of it and lease their homes from it; in effect, they own their landlord. And like other landlords, a residential cooperative corporation subjects its tenants to the governance of rules. A residential co-op might specify quiet hours, for instance, and establish a committee to resolve complaints between member tenants.

That may not sound much like the sort of legal system offered by a conventional government—until you reflect that many residential co-ops rival cities in terms of their size and range of operations. The largest of them, Co-Op City in New York’s Bronx borough, houses over 50,000 members. In addition to shelter, Co-Op City provides an elected government, parks, streets, security, and just about every other service you might expect from a conventional city.

Homeowners’ associations (HOAs) likewise often grow as large and capable as cities. The largest HOA in the United States, Highlands Ranch, Colorado, includes over 30,000 homes and 90,000 residents. In all respects but its origins and legal status, it resembles a conventional municipality.

Other private organizations also effectively duplicate cities on a small scale. Malls and hotels, for instance, provide their users with transportation networks, shelter from the elements, utilities, fire protection, security, and (most pertinently for present purposes) rules of conduct.

The scale and scope of residential co-ops, HOAs, malls, and hotels make it easy to see how the private sector can rival the public one in providing governing services. Polycentric law is not solely the province of huge, private quasi-cities, however. Under Fuller’s definition, even a small organization that regulates only a narrow range of behavior—a church that imposes strict dietary rules on its members, for instance—also qualifies as a source of law. Size and breadth matter less than whether an organization subjects human conduct to the governance of rules.

For More Polycentricity

We thus already live in a somewhat polycentric legal order. Except when they completely imprison their subjects, governments have to compete against each other for financial and human capital. This means that, in the long run, governments that fail to supply adequate legal services tend to end up poor and unpopulated. Alas for consumers of governing services, though, that “long run” can last for generations. To make governments better sooner, we need to make them face more competition.

Except when a totalitarian government completely eradicates them, intermediary institutions also compete in the market for law. Towns compete with residential co-ops and HOAs to provide housing arrangements; main streets compete with malls to provide shopping environments; religious institutions compete with each other to provide moral instruction, and so forth. Because each subjects human conduct to the governance of rules, each of these institutions competes in providing the law. Here, too, though, we might benefit from more competition.

How can we make the law more polycentric? We can start by recognizing that legal systems do not differ in principle from banks, vets, cleaners, or other services. All face some competition and, insofar as they do, consumers benefit. Legal systems differ from other services not because they escape the effect of market forces, but because they have for too long pretended to do so.

Once we recognize that competitive forces already shape legal services, we can turn to increasing their influence. We should seek ways to make it easier for disgruntled subjects to flee, either physically or virtually, from bad governments to better ones. Bitcoin, for instance, seems likely to help on that front. And we should encourage the rise of special jurisdictions, such as the ZEDE/LEAP zones recently introduced in Honduras, where locals can opt into legal rules imported from abroad.

From a Good World to a Better One

Far from a mere theoretical ideal, polycentric law already shapes our world. We need only appreciate its latent power and invite more of the same. Once more fully realized, polycentric law can give to the consumers of legal services the same benefits that free and open competition already gives to the consumers of banking, cleaning, and veterinary services.

ABOUT TOM W. BELL

20121126_TomBell

Tom Bell

Tom W. Bell is a professor at Chapman University School of Law.

Bit9+Carbon Black and FL based Sylint Group partner to provide global cybersecurity services

/in , , , , /by

WALTHAM, Mass.— Bit9, the leader in advanced threat protection for endpoints and servers, today announced the Bit9 Connect Alliance Partner Program. The program integrates the leading endpoint and server security solution from Bit9 + Carbon Black with top network security, analytics and SIEM, threat intelligence and security service provider solutions so organizations can choose best-of-breed solutions from different vendors to create a unified defense against cyber threats.

Companies participating in the program represent the best of the best in their respective segments of security. The end result is enterprises that deploy the Bit9 Security Platform with any or all of the alliance partners’ offerings will strengthen their security posture, decrease their total costs of ownership, achieve faster deployment times, and gain increased value from their integrated solutions. Participating vendors’ solutions are certified to fully integrate with the Bit9 platform.

The new program, which is being introduced a week following Bit9’s merger with Carbon Black, covers the complete security ecosystem, including:

  • Network Security–Bit9 and Carbon Black partner with vendors in the network security space to enable customers to correlate their network data with their endpoint and server data. As network security solutions detect malware on the network, Bit9 and Carbon Black consume the network alerts and automatically determine where the malware landed, if it executed, and how many machines were affected. This instant visibility enables security analysts to filter out non-actionable events, prioritize high-impact alerts, and rapidly respond to security incidents. Likewise, when Bit9 detects unknown or suspicious executable files on endpoints and servers, it can send the file to a detonation engine for analysis. If a risk analysis determines that the file is malicious, Bit9 can automatically ban it from spreading to other endpoints or servers within a customer’s environment. Certified network security solutions include Check Point Next Generation Firewall, General Dynamics Fidelis Cybersecurity Solutions, FireEye EX, FireEye NX, and Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall.
  • Analytics and SIEM—Bit9 works with vendors in the data analytics and security information and event management (SIEM) space to enable customers to view all of their security information from one centralized data repository. Bit9 offers standards-based and proprietary integrations with leaders in this space so security analysts can view endpoint and server events alongside other security information. Certified analytics and SIEM solutions in the program include HP ArcSight, IBM QRadar, LogRhythm, and RSA NetWitness.
  • Threat Intelligence—Bit9 partners with threat intelligence vendors to bolster the power of the Bit9 Software Reputation Service (SRS). The Bit9 SRS is a cloud-based intelligence database that provides insight into known-good, known-bad and unproven software, giving IT and security teams actionable intelligence about the software installed within their enterprise. Our threat intelligence partners provide valuable feeds so Bit9 can provide customers with the most accurate and up-to-date software reputation data. Bit9’s threat intelligence partners include OPSWAT and Team Cymru. Bit9 will announce additional threat intelligence partners later this quarter.
  • Security Service Providers—Bit9 partners with managed security service providers (MSSP) to fully empower security analysts to detect, respond and remediate advanced threats that target their customers. Bit9 also works closely with incident response (IR) consulting firms to help clients gain immediate access to the Bit9 + Carbon Black solution to aid in remediation efforts. As IR teams identify the malicious files used to execute an attack, Bit9 can identify each endpoint and server on which the malware has landed. This immediate visibility enables IR teams to rapidly contain attacks and accelerate remediation. Certified security service provider partners in the Bit9 Connect program include Accuvant, FishNet Security and Sylint.

Bit9 Executive Quote: Tom Barsi, vice president of business development
“Legacy security systems do not solve the problem for today’s advanced threats. Customers are defending themselves against advanced threats with a completely new approach across their security stack. I’m excited to announce that today, Bit9 is taking a step forward to create a holistic ecosystem of security partners that helps close the security gap and provides a 360-degree view of advanced threat security.”

Palo Alto Networks Executive Quote: Scott Gainey, vice president of marketing and programs
“Bit9 is setting the pace for Endpoint Threat Detection, Response and Prevention solutions. Since our partnership began in 2013, we have been consistently impressed with Bit9’s execution, and our customers have demonstrated strong interest in our integrated network and endpoint security offerings. The Bit9 Connect Program will only deliver further value as customers continue to build out next-generation security infrastructures.”

IBM QRadar Executive Quote: Jason Corbin, director of security intelligence strategy and product management
“With today’s increasingly complex threats, more network context helps security teams detect attacks and remediate breaches faster. The Bit9 Security Platform provides the QRadar Security Intelligence solution with in-depth visibility around endpoint security. Our joint solution identifies where files originate, any propagation to other machines, and whether they’re executable, malicious or involved in a current attack. We’re excited about Bit9 adding more intelligence and visibility around security threats such as malware and zero-day attacks to QRadar’s leading analytical capabilities.”

Sylint Executive Quote: Serge Jorgensen, chief technology officer
“The Bit9 team and product suite bring a strong new set of capabilities to any incident response toolkit. Bit9’s technology consistently increases the accuracy, speed and efficiency of our incident response process by precisely identifying key files and machines and allowing a more effective triage and mitigation.”

About Sylint

Formed in 1998, our firm has developed a national reputation as a leader in its field. We serve clients from Fortune 50 to small firms and municipalities. Our professionals combine experience from National Intelligence Agencies, Department of Defense, law enforcement, and corporate entities Sylint provides comprehensive cyber security and investigative services to keep our clients secure in a cost efficient manner. Our services include detection and remediation of corporate espionage, fraud identification, cyber security posture review, and regulatory compliance.

About Bit9 + Carbon Black

Bit9 and Carbon Black have joined together to offer the industry’s most complete solution for advanced threat protection for endpoints and servers. The merged company helps organizations protect themselves from advanced threats in two critical ways: by reducing their attack surface through new signature-less forms of prevention, and rapidly detecting and responding to threats. We do this by leveraging the powerful combination of Carbon Black’s lightweight endpoint sensor, which can be rapidly deployed with no configuration to deliver “incident response in seconds,” and Bit9’s industry-leading prevention technologies to continuously monitor and record all activity on endpoints and servers and stop cyber threats that evade traditional security defenses. Our lightweight real-time sensor and recorder, cloud-based services, and real-time enforcement engine give organizations immediate visibility into everything running on their endpoints and servers; real-time signature-less detection of and protection against advanced threats; a recorded history of all endpoint and server activity to rapidly respond to alerts and incidents; and real-time integration with network security devices such as Check Point, FireEye and Palo Alto Networks. 1,000 organizations worldwide—from 25 Fortune 100 companies to small businesses—use Bit9 and Carbon Black to increase security, reduce operational costs and improve compliance.

Integrity Florida calls for Investigation of Enterprise Florida

/in , , , /by

Dan Krassner, Co-Founder and Executive Director Integrity Florida, and Ben Wilcox, Research Director Integrity Florida, in an email state, “The lavish travel and wasteful government purchasing practices of Enterprise Florida, a taxpayer supported entity serving as the privatized commerce department for the State of Florida, was detailed in an investigative report by Michael Buczyner, WPEC/CBS 12 titled ‘State-run agency accused of abusing taxpayers dollars‘ on February 25.  The Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) is responsible for the state’s contract with Enterprise Florida, but it has clearly turned a blind eye to this waste and abuse of the taxpayers’ money.”

“Enterprise Florida travel guidelines do not comply with official state travel restrictions, even though the entity is using taxpayer funds allocated by the state legislature.  According to an internal audit prepared on March 15, 2012 by McGladrey, only three Enterprise Florida executives, Secretary of Commerce Gray Swoope, Chief Operating Officer Griff Salmon and Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Medley, all former employees of the Mississippi Development Authority, gained ‘unlimited signing authority’ on February 7, 2012, to execute contracts and make significant purchases of non-economic development goods and services,” note Krassner and Wilcox.

Since the new authority was granted to these top three executives at Enterprise Florida, here is a sampling of the organization’s questionable expenses:

  • Nearly $22,000 spent on New York Yankee Luxury Suites and related purchases.
  • More than $13,000 spent at the San Diego Zoo.
  • $12,000 spent on Texas Rangers baseball.
  • More than $7,000 spent at Cowboys Stadium.
  • More than $4,000 spent on Atlanta Braves baseball.
  • More than $4,000 spent on limousine services.
  • Nearly $3,300 spent at Truluck’s Seafood Steak & Crab House in Austin, Texas.
  • More than $2,500 spent at the 21 Club.
  • More than $2,000 spent at 4Rivers Smokehouse.
  • More than $1,300 spent on a charter fishing boat.
  • Roughly another $30,000 per month spent on American Express credit cards for unknown expenditures.
  • Thousands more on airfare, luxury resorts and hotels, expensive meals and limousine services.

The people of Florida deserve accountability and transparency within every aspect of our government.  Given the appearance of impropriety, an inspector general report is needed to determine whether the taxpayer resources that support Enterprise Florida are properly protected and whether corrective action is needed.  A company this large, supported by hard-working Florida families, must be held to the highest ethical standards.

Additional Resources:

Integrity Florida letter to Governor Rick Scott “Eliminate government waste at Enterprise Florida, investigation needed” (read more)

“State-run agency accused of abusing taxpayer dollars” Story by Michael Buczyner / CBS 12 NEWS (read more) (watch video)

Enterprise Florida Internal Audit by McGladrey – March 15, 2012 (read more)

Enterprise Florida, Inc. Vendor Payments – January 1, 2012 to August 28, 2013 (read more)

Enterprise Florida receives more than 97% of its funding from taxpayers (read more on page 24) (watch video starting at 1:00:20 about an hour into the video)

  • $57.4 million total 2012-13 budget for Enterprise Florida
  • $56 million (97.6%) in government/public/taxpayer-funded sources
  • $1.4 million (2.4%) from the private sector

Bipartisan efforts to hold Enterprise Florida accountable with bills filed for the 2014 legislative session:

  • Applies state ethics code to Enterprise Florida staff – CS/SB 846: Governmental Ethics GENERAL BILL by Senate Ethics and Elections Commission; Senator Jack Latvala (read more)
  • Strengthening Enterprise Florida disclosure practices and fiscal accountability SB 1270: Economic Incentive Programs GENERAL BILL by Senator Eleanor Sobel (read more)
  • Strengthening Enterprise Florida disclosure practices and fiscal accountability HB 1103: Economic Incentive Programs GENERAL BILL by Representative Jose Javier Rodriguez (read more)

Dick Cheney: Obama would ‘much rather spend the money on food stamps’ than military

/in , , , , , /by

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday accused President Barack Obama of cutting the defense budget because “he would rather spend money on food stamps.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/QMev7cfceG4[/youtube]

The Pentagon announced on Monday plans to shrink the U.S. Army to pre-World War II levels, in addition to eliminating the Air Force’s A-10 fleet and retiring the Cold War-era U-2 spy plane program.

“Absolutely dangerous,” Cheney told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I, obviously, have not been a strong supporter of Barack Obama but this really is over the top. It does enormous long-term damage to our military.”

“They’re basically making the decision, the Obama administration, that they no longer want to be dominant on the seas and the skies and in space,” the former vice president added. “This notion that we no longer want to have a force that’s capable of any sustained occupation of a foreign territory, that’s a basic fundamental decision that drives — supposedly justifies this. But lots of times, you don’t get to make that choice. Circumstances will make that choice for you.”

Cheney said that his “old friends” in the Middle East had told him that they no longer trusted the United States to use military power when it was necessary.

“I think the whole thing is not driven by any change in world circumstances, it’s driven by budget considerations,” he insisted. “He would much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.”

“Pretty frightening,” Hannity agreed.

Medal of Honor recipient Ed Freeman dies with no media attention!

/in , /by

Medal of Honor winner Major Ed W.  Freeman, US Army (Ret.), died with no media attention. It’s time to raise up genuine heroes to replace the pathetic role models of the left.

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

moh_vietnam_freemanEW

ABOUT ED W. FREEMAN

Rank and Organization: Captain, U.S. Army, Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion,1st Cavalry Division

Date of Issue: 07/16/2001

Citation: Captain Ed W. Freeman, United States Army, of Boise, Idaho, who distinguished himself by numerous acts of conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary intrepidity on 14 November 1965 while serving with Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, he supported a heavily engaged American infantry battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, Republic of Vietnam.

The unit was almost out of ammunition after taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, fighting off a relentless attack from a highly motivated, heavily armed enemy force. When the infantry commander closed the helicopter landing zone because of intense direct enemy fire, Captain Freeman risked his life by flying his unarmed helicopter through a gauntlet of enemy fire time after time, delivering critically needed ammunition, water, and medical supplies to the besieged battalion. His flights, by providing the engaged units with supplies of ammunition critical to their survival, directly affected the battle’s outcome. Without them the units would almost surely have gone down, with much greater loss of life. After medical evacuation helicopters refused to fly into the area because of intense enemy fire, Captain Freeman flew 14 separate rescue missions, providing lifesaving evacuation of an estimated 30 seriously wounded soldiers-some of whom would not have survived had he not acted.

All flights were made into a small emergency landing zone within 100 to 200 meters of the defensive perimeter, where heavily committed units were perilously holding off the attacking elements. Captain Freeman’s selfless acts of great valor and extraordinary perseverance were far above and beyond the call of duty or mission and set a superb example of leadership and courage for all of his peers.

Captain Freeman’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

Miranda Barbour: “Satan’s Killer Girl”

/in , , /by

Nineteen-year old Miranda Barbour is in jail for murder. Its time for the Christians of America to speak out against the culture of death.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/yOpj1mhy9JY[/youtube]

According to Thomas Jivanda from The Independent:

A woman charged with the murder of a man she and her husband lured to a meeting point after meeting him on Craigslist, has admitted to the murder and claimed she has killed over 20 other people.

Miranda Barbour, 19, of Pennsylvania said she killed at least 22 others across the US as part of her involvement in a Satanic cult.

Speaking to Pennsylvania’s Daily Item newspaper from jail, Barbour said: “When I hit 22, I stopped counting,” adding that she was coming clean now as she wanted to be honest.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Barbour and her newly-wed husband Elytte Barbour, 22, for the murder of Troy LaFerrara, 42, who they met through the classified advertisements website in November.

Read more.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image “Devils Goat” is by Diablorex. It is a typical modern of depiction of satan (or the devil, lucifer, diabolos, etc.) in the likeness of a goat with horns and goatee. This image evolved from ancient depictions of the god pan. Diablorex does not in any way endorse the author, this video or the use of the work in this post. The image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Greenpeace Co-Founder: Geologic History ‘fundamentally contradicts’ CO2 Climate Fears

/in , , , , /by

Selected Highlights of Dr. Patrick Moore’s Feb. 25, 2014 testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee:

‘There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.

‘Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species…It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.’

Earth’s Geologic History Fails CO2 Fears: ‘The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming…When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.’

Obama Science Czar John Holdren’s testimony here.

Selected Highlights of Dr. Patrick Moore’s Feb. 25, 2014 testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee:

“Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.

Humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing…It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.

Earth’s Geologic History Fails CO2 Fears:

‘When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.’

On UN IPCC’s 95% confidence in man-made global warming: ‘Extremely likely’ is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.

Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940?

What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.”

Full Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight – “Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies”

February 25, 2014

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing.

In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace.

After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective. Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now.

There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (My emphasis)

“Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.

These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.

Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.

There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.

Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5oC. This compares with a low of about 12oC during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22oC during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested.

Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.
Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950.

From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5oC over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57oC during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.

The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910-1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940?

It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2oC rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.

I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species.

If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on this important subject.

Attached please find the chapter on climate change from my book, “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist”. I would request it be made part of the record.

Related Links: 

Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore: ‘Thank goodness we came along & reversed 150 million-year trend of reduced CO2 levels in global atmosphere. Long live the humans’ – Moore: ‘CO2 is lower today than it has been through most of the history of life on earth…At 150 ppm CO2 all plants would die, resulting in virtual end of life on earth’

Former Greenpeace co-founder turned climate skeptic Dr. Patrick Moore calls NAS ‘tipping point’ study ‘pure junk’: ‘Low point for US National Academy of Science. Warns of ‘tipping points’ in climate like ‘drunk drivers’

Former Greenpeace Founding Member Dr. Patrick Moore refutes warmist’s attack point by point:

Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore: Oil is the ‘most important source of energy to support our civilization’ – ‘If it is the aim of ‘environmentalists’ to stop fossil fuel production and use, end fracking, end coal mining, end use of oil, then they are promoting a policy that would have disastrous consequences for human civilization & the environment. If we stopped using fossil fuel today, or by 2020 as Gore proposes, at least half the human population would perish & there wouldn’t be a tree left on planet within a year, as people struggled to find enough energy to stay alive’

Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore Rips Windfarms: ‘They are ridiculously expensive and don’t work half the time…The industry is a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy’ –Moore: ‘And no matter how many are built, they won’t replace coal, gas or hydro or nuclear plants, because they are continuous and wind is not always reliable’

Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore Questions Man-Made Global Warming, Calls it ‘Obviously a Natural Phenomenon’ – ‘We do not have any scientific proof that we are the cause of the global warming that has occurred in the last 200 years…The alarmism is driving us through scare tactics to adopt energy policies that are going to create a huge amount of energy poverty among the poor people’

Elementary School Spiral: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Robinson

/in , , , /by

Vouchers are back in vogue, but higher ed offers us lessons about a K–12 tuition spiral.

Twenty-five years ago, education secretary Bill Bennett advanced the idea that government student aid was largely to blame for the steady increases in college tuition. Since then, higher education reformers have been sounding the alarm about the tuition spiral. The public has finally started to pay attention, now that average tuition and fees at private universities have topped $30,000 per year.

K–12 school choice proponents should take heed. With the increasing popularity of vouchers, it’s possible for the same problem to crop up in private elementary and secondary schools. There’s even a proposal before Congress to launch a federal voucher program for poor families that would allow them to send their children outside their designated districts.

Before jumping on board that proposal, though, voucher proponents should hear this cautionary tale from higher education.

Reformers have amassed considerable evidence for Bennett’s now-famous hypothesis in the past quarter-century. College tuition has increased more than 500 percent since 1985, compared with a 121 percent gain in the consumer price index during the same period. At elite schools, the problem is worse. Fifty years ago, the annual cost to attend Harvard was less than $2,500, which is about $19,000 in today’s dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A year at Harvard now costs nearly $60,000, including tuition, room and board, and fees.

The mechanics of college pricing are to blame. As the availability of student aid increases, either via grants or low-interest loans, demand for education increases—particularly at previously unaffordable “elite” institutions. Colleges then raise tuition enough to capture some of that aid. The problem is systemic; even colleges that are not “greedy” will eventually raise tuition to compete with peer institutions and bolster their reputations by hiring more prestigious staff and adding or upgrading facilities. Aid is then increased to “keep up” with tuition hikes, feeding the cycle.

But endless tuition hikes are not a foregone conclusion. Scholarly evidence shows that some types of aid and some segments of higher education seem to be somewhat “immune” to the tuition spiral. In Introducing Bennett Hypothesis 2.0, Andrew Gillen summarizes those findings.

First, he says, “Not all aid is created equal. . . . Aid programs that are restricted to low-income students are less likely to allow colleges to raise their tuition.” Most voucher proposals get this part right. But here again, K–12 reformers can learn from higher education’s mistakes. The federal Pell Grant program, which once served only students in poverty, has now been expanded to middle-class students—mostly due to political pressure. Voucher programs are susceptible to the same problems.

Second, Gillen shows that tuition caps weaken the link between aid and tuition. In the current market, the existence of “free” public education exerts considerable pressure on private schools to hold tuition down. “Free” public education acts as a tuition cap. Allowing parents to take their voucher money outside the child’s traditional neighborhood zone counteracts that tuition cap. If public schools can capture voucher money to then spend on teachers or programs, it will be that much harder for private schools to compete without raising their own tuition. (In reality, any additional funding poured into public schools exacerbates this problem—but that subject is beyond the purview of this article.) Allowing parents and students to choose their public schools would address the problem; giving them additional money to do so would introduce another.

Third, Gillen notes, “Price discrimination allows private colleges to raise tuition in response to aid at an individual level.” But in order for colleges to do this, he explains, they must know each student’s ability to pay. This means that providing colleges with students’ financial background, as the federal government does via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), will lead to more aid being captured. “Ending [this] counterproductive practice,” Gillen says, “would curtail price discrimination, which would increase the effectiveness of aid in improving affordability.” The lesson here for K–12 is that parents’ financial information, which they will necessarily disclose to government officials in order to qualify for vouchers, should never be shared with private schools.

Ultimately, all schools, whether public or private, want to improve in order to better serve students and to bolster their reputations. The incentive to increase spending in pursuit of that goal is already very strong. Implementing vouchers in the wrong way simply gives schools another avenue to do so. Vouchers advocates should proceed with caution.

ABOUT JENNA ROBINSON

Jenna Robinson is director of outreach at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

How Social Security Makes Us Poorer by Brenton Smith

/in , , , /by

When you read that Social Security lifts 50 percent of seniors out of poverty, keep in mind that it was largely the cost of Social Security that put them there. It’s the perfect example of government incompetence creating higher costs and misguided incentives—and delivering exactly the opposite of what it promised.

The contradiction stems from the cost of Social Security, which has exploded. In 1950 Social Security cost 2 percent of the first $3,000 of income (in 2013 dollars, that would be 2 percent of roughly $29,000, according to the BLS calculator).  In 2013, the retirement portion of Social Security cost 10.6 percent of the first $113,700. On top of this cost, the government now takes another 1.8 percent of your wages to cover the cost of disability benefits, which were added in 1958.

What’s more, you get a lot less bang for a lot more bucks. A couple retiring in 1960 expected to collect $8 of benefits for every $1 of contributions. Today the return for average Americans is actually negative.

The process of rising costs and declining returns has continued for 80 years. We are now at a point where the largest investment in retirement planning of the vast majority of Americans loses money. No one should be surprised to find that people who invest their retirement savings poorly wind up in poverty when they reach retirement.

The Urban Institute’s “Social Security and Medicare Taxes and Benefits over a Lifetime” projects what a hypothetical worker will contribute to Social Security versus what they expect to collect. The “lifetime value of taxes” shows what would have happened if the accumulated taxes had been put into an account that earned interest. The research projects that an average worker who retires in 2030 will have lost more than $400,000 in savings in order to collect about $370,000 in expected benefits.

Here is where the system gets really ugly. The $370,000 isn’t guaranteed. In fact, the Trustees project that in a good economy this worker will only get 77 percent of his scheduled benefits because he will retire after the trust fund is exhausted. Mind you, the 77 percent of scheduled benefits is completely dependent upon the willingness of future workers to commit 12.4 percent of their wages to this system as it falls into collapse. Basically this worker only collects provided another worker gets a worse deal.

The government has compounded the impact of the problem by feeding the systemic dysfunction directly through our labor market. Social Security is financed with a tax on labor—so it penalizes work even though the best cure for poverty is a job. This tax also creates a disincentive to hire people and creates an incentive to move work to countries with a lower tax burden. Social Security introduces incentives to work less, such as early retirement.

Nobody wants to be poor in their old age. If workers did not have to spend their entire careers burdened with Social Security taxes, fewer would face that possibility.

ABOUT BRENTON SMITH

Brenton Smith is the founder of Fix Social Security Now.

Bitcoin Comes to Wall Street by Jeffrey A. Tucker

/in , , /by

How do new technologies become part of life experience? They don’t drop from heaven, completed and ready to use. They enter into our world in marginal steps through real-time markets. These markets are full of play, experimentation, success and failure, price discovery, and technological fits and starts. Without this process, technology would remain forever in the lab or the warehouse.

It is this way with cryptocurrency and bitcoin in particular. I’ve been convinced for more than a year that this technology is the future of money and payment systems. It is so obviously better in every sense. But getting from here to there requires a messy process of adoption in real time. The demise of Mt. Gox is no exception.

This is why I was just thrilled to experience two wonderful evenings at the Bitcoin Center in New York City’s financial district. The address is 40 Broad, right on the first floor, right in the heart of Wall Street. It is inspiring just to the see the sign above the door. Bitcoin Center opened only weeks ago, in early February. It’s a beautiful symbol of a coming of age.

The Bitcoin Center sponsors lectures and debates, shows off new technologies for ATMs and mining equipment, and even has a trading pit once a week. I rang the bell for the session last week, following a general lecture on the topic. It was indescribably fun! It’s true that anyone can trade bitcoins anywhere, anytime, but there is just something wonderful about creating an old-world style environment of buying and selling with posted prices on a board. It was my first time to do this on a trading floor and it was just fantastic.

My second night at the Bitcoin Center featured a debate with Andrew Schiff of Euro-Pacific Capital. He is more skeptical of bitcoin because of fears over government intervention, security issues, and also the proliferation of so-called alt-coins.

I too worry about government—governments make a mess of everything—but this is not bitcoin’s problem. It’s a problem of meddlesome bureaucrats. The beautiful thing about bitcoin is that it is designed to persist and thrive even in the face of powerful interests that oppose it. It lives on a distributed network that is controlled by no one in particular so that there is no single point of failure. It can outlast any attempt to control or suppress it.

As for security, here again, this is not an issue for bitcoin but for the builders of tools around the bitcoin ecosphere. It is not for everyone. It is vulnerable to user error, just like email or cell phones in the early days—or the app economy today. I look forward to ever-better and ever-more accessible tools emerging over the coming year.

As for alt-coins such as Litecoin, Dogecoin, and a thousand others, I see them as a sign that competition is coming to the monetary realm after being shut out for a century. We are finally able to observe how money will emerge in an authentic market setting. This is posing serious challenges for theorists and practitioners.

Think of this: One year ago, bitcoin was still just a narrow interest among a techie crowd. There were a few businesses organizing around it, but not that many. The exchange rate to the dollar was about $20 and people were screaming that it was a bubble.

Today, there are thousands of businesses growing up around cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price peaked at $1,250, and though it has fallen by half since then, that hasn’t inspired too much hand-wringing. People now understand that volatility is a normal feature of such an emerging and edgy technology.

It’s helpful to think of bitcoin in terms of historical analogies. Consider electricity. In the 1880s, the rich were installing it in their homes. It was rather scary. It seemed dangerous and it probably was. Would it start a fire? Sometimes it did. Was it really an improvement over candles? Some people openly denied it. Anyone taking the risk early on needed to know plenty of technical details about how it worked and how to use it.

Today, we just flip a switch and forget about it. It will be the same with bitcoin. Today everyone is puzzled about how it works. I end up spending most of my talks these days going over technological basics. It’s all a bit mind-blowing because we are not used to thinking in terms of distributed networks, peer-to-peer exchange, cryptography, and the like. It seems like a new world and it is.

Another historical analogy to consider is railroads. From the 1870s to 1900, most of the headlines concerning railroads were about volatile stock prices, graft, stock fraud, malfunctioning trains, crashes, hazards and dangers, and political scandals. Often lost in this blizzard was the big picture: Railroads were changing the world dramatically.

As we follow the continued march of cryptocurrency, we should remember the big picture. Yes, there will be mishaps, evidence of corruption, lost money, ups and downs in price, and messes all around. This is the way markets give birth to new worlds.

It could be that bitcoin is just the beginning. The technological foundations of this monetary system are showing us new ways to distribute other forms of information relevant to markets, such as contracts, insurance, financial derivatives, futures, and asset allocations in companies—all based on the same system of peer-to-peer exchange without having to rely on trusted third parties.

Technology is made by human hands and grows to become part of our lives through human experience. It is a beautiful anarchy that eventually leads to unseen and unpredicted forms of order. A growing economy needs to permit the process to work. To attempt to control it is to shut down the source of its life and creative energy.

What do you think about the future of bitcoin? Check out our debate in this month’s Arena.

ABOUT JEFFREY A. TUCKER

20121129_JeffreyTuckeravatar

Jeffrey Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is a distinguished fellow at FEE, CEO of the startup Liberty.me, and publisher at Laissez Faire Books. He will be speaking at the FEE summer seminar “Making Innovation Possible: The Role of Economics in Scientific Progress.”

Ten Bills, Ten Solutions to save America

/in , , , , /by

Russ Vought, Political Director for Heritage Action for America, notes, “During the State of the Union address, President Obama called for 2014 to be a year of action. We agree, but Americans deserve action that will take the nation in the right direction. That’s why, with no clear goals or mandate from the Washington Establishment, we hosted the first Conservative Policy Summit.

On February 10th, Heritage Action brought together leaders to highlight conservative bills that would improve the lives of hardworking Americans. 10 speakers. 10 solutions.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/26d0H5Wl43M[/youtube]

Conservatives must lead through action. And we are. Heritage Action brought these leaders together on February 10th. The Conservative Policy Summit highlights the bills they have introduced, showing Americans a winning conservative reform agenda. Watch important discussion about our nation’s most pressing issues and learn about the conservative answers.

 

Privacy – Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
Social Welfare – Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) 
Health Care – Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) 
Health Care – Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) 
Energy – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Housing – Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Transportation – Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA)
School Choice – Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
Higher Education – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)
Religious Freedom – Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Claude Covo-Farchi. The use of this image does not in any way that suggests that Covo-Farchi endorses Heritage Action or the use of the work in this column. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Southern Poverty Law Center drops Nation of Islam from list of “hate groups”

/in , , , /by

 Image from the FBI monograph of the Nation of Islam (1965): Typical Front Pages of Cult Newspaper

The SPLC lists Jihad Watch, of which I am the director, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, of which I am vice president, and its Stop Islamization of America project as hate groups, and these classifications, unsurprisingly, have become a staple of every report from lazy Leftist journalists. None of them ever pause, and probably none of them ever wish to pause, to consider the question quis custodiet ipso custodes? — Who watches the watchmen? Why is fighting for the freedom of speech and the equality of rights of all people now classified as “hate”? An uncritical, uninformed public takes for granted that the SPLC is some kind of neutral observer, when actually it is a far-Left attack outfit, using its “hate group” classifications to stigmatize and demonize foes of its political agenda. But it classifies no Islamic jihad groups as “hate groups,” and has now dropped the racist, violent and paranoid Nation of Islam from its hate group list.

The cynicism and irresponsibility of this is obvious. Not that any mainstream media reporter will deign to report on it.

“Number of Ohio hate groups drops in 2013, report says,” by JoAnne Viviano for The Columbus Dispatch, February 25:

The number of hate groups in Ohio fell by about 17 percent in 2013, according to data released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The center counted 30 such groups in the state in 2013, compared with 36 in 2012.

Nationwide, the center says, the number of identified hate groups dropped by about 7 percent, from 1,007 to 939, the fewest number since 2009. Numbers had increased each year from 1999 to 2011, climbing from 457 to 1,018.

The report, titled “The Year in Hate & Extremism,” cited these factors for the decline: the co-opting of issues by mainstream politicians, an improving economy, law-enforcement crackdowns, same-sex marriage advancements, implementation of national health-care changes, Obama’s re-election, and little action on firearms and immigration laws.

“Those factors, along with the collapse or near-collapse of several major groups for a variety of reasons, seem to have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the radical right, leaving the movement both weaker and somewhat smaller,” says the report, which appears in the spring 2014 edition of the center’s Intelligence Report.

“But that has not dampened the violence and terrorism coming out of the movement.”

Remember when you read that about “violence and terrorism” that the SPLC lists no Islamic groups as “hate groups.”

The center said two hate groups are in central Ohio: ISD Records of Lancaster, in Fairfield County, is categorized as a racist-music group, and the Columbus-based Mission: America is categorized as anti-gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender.

On its website, Mission: America addresses the center’s claims against it on a “to our critics” page. It refers to its hate-group label as a “deliberate and puzzling smear campaign” and asks readers to “please take every accusation with a great deal of skepticism.”

“Mission: America is not a hate group, as claimed by the far-left SPLC,” the statement says. “In fact, based on how the SPLC has begun listing respected Christian conservative groups as if they could be compared with the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, it seems that the SPLC would qualify for this label itself by using such underhanded and invalid tactics.

The statement goes on to say that the organization is not racist and that “we … don’t ‘hate’ homosexuals. We simply object to homosexuality, the behavior, which is unnecessary.”…

No longer identified as hate groups are a Columbus-based Nation of Islam group, classified as “black separatist,” and a Chillicothe-based Crusaders for Yahweh, termed an “identity” group….

EDITORS NOTE: To learn more about Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam’s beginnings click here. Wallace Fard founded the Nation of Islam in the 1930s. Christianity was the white man’s religion, declared Fard.

Ukraine topples Lenin statues, meets quota ahead of schedule

/in , , /by

Despite severe weather conditions, the plan to topple Lenin statues in Ukraine has been successfully completed this month, ahead of schedule. The government of the former Soviet republic is happy to report that the quota of toppling monuments to Vladimir Lenin and other communist leaders has been met and in some places exceeded, with toppling of a number of unrelated statues in the process, as well as ransacking headquarters of the local Communist Party in Kiev.

Leninoval_280_3.jpgAlthough many critics warned that the goal was unrealistic, irrational, and even mathematically impossible, the toppling of statues of the creator of the world’s largest planned economy still went ahead as scheduled, paced over the course of several Five-Year Plans, starting in 1991.

However, not everything went according to the Planning Committee’s projections. The first Five-Year Plan revealed a drastic shortage of ropes to pull the statues down, and of gasoline to power the moving machinery.

Lenin_Snow.jpg
The second Five-Year Plan was plagued by continuously bad weather, consisting of five hot summers and as many cold winters, with uncharacteristically wet rains in between, presumably the result of climate change caused by a disproportional use of fossil fuels in the United States.

During the third Five-Year Plan all work was put on hold by the newly created Local 11 Statue Toppler Union.

The union leadership demanded an increase in wages and benefits in addition to a restraining order prohibiting all non-unionized persons from approaching any Lenin statue within a 200 foot radius.
Lenin_Pigeon.jpg
The fourth Five-Year Plan was beleaguered by a nationwide strike and a media campaign on behalf of Local 12 Pigeon-Handlers Union, whose members feared permanent unemployment and demanded a fair treatment with guarantees of lifetime salaries and benefits should all Lenin statues be toppled and outsourced to Third World countries.

The number of Lenin statues in existence also appeared to have been grossly underestimated, factoring only statues with the iconic beard and omitting those representing the father of the socialist revolution in his teens or prepubescent years, prior to the development of Lenin’s facial hair follicles. Neither did the plan account for the number of Lenin’s busts, bas reliefs, and mosaics, as well as semi-professional carvings and drawings on the walls of public restrooms.

Lenin_Snowman2.jpgNo Lenin statues made of stone were ever toppled either, which was later blamed on the Planning Committee typist who mistook the word “stone” for “scone.” Amazingly, as many as twelve “scone” statues had been reported as processed and billed by government contractors.

A subsequent audit discovered instances where money was paid for the toppling of Lenin statues that never existed, or where the statues had been made on the spot out of snow or cardboard and then pulled by a bulldozer. In other cases funds were disbursed where no actual topplings occurred.

As a result, while the number of all reported topplings exceeded the initial projection, a visual observation by the auditors led them to conclude that nearly all Lenin statues still remained exactly where they had been placed by the erstwhile Soviet government.

At the time, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich clarified the situation as follows: “More than twenty years of heroic and selfless struggle by our government to topple Lenin statues have exhausted the national budget and forced us to request a bailout from either the European Union or the neighboring Russia. Given that Moscow has more expertise than Brussels in toppling Lenin statues, we chose to side with a partner who better suits our historic needs.”

Leninoval_200_2.jpgIn the aftermath of certain events in Kiev earlier this year, the Ukrainian president modified his position, closely approaching that of the Russian president: “If you like your Lenin statues, you can keep your Lenin statues.”

In a final speech to the nation delivered from the steps of a charter plane Mr. Yanukovich stated: “Rather than burdening our economy with this pointless toppling, I should have followed the Russian model and granted myself exclusive powers to build more palatial mansions in every struggling region of the country. Now if you’ll excuse me, my baggage and I have a flight to catch.”

Leninoval_200_3.jpgInspired by the president’s farewell address, citizens of Ukraine enthusiastically poured into the streets, toppling Lenin statues completely free of charge, without troubling the overworked authorities and union contractors with requests to plan and coordinate their activities. After only several hours of work, volunteers around Ukraine were able to topple all of the remaining Lenin statues.

The next morning, as various government officials looked out their windows and didn’t see the familiar Lenin statues, they immediately knew that it was time to report a successful completion of the final Five-Year Plan, ahead of schedule and almost within the budget.

Miami lawsuit disenfranchises Floridians who voted to affirm natural marriage

/in , , /by

MIAMI, Florida – Florida Family Action along with a diverse coalition of citizen groups crossing racial, political, and religious lines, today filed a Motion to Intervene in Pareto v. Ruvin, the lawsuit initiated by homosexual activists seeking to declare Florida’s marriage laws unconstitutional.

Liberty Counsel, founded and led by Mat and Anita Staver, is one of the premier First Amendment constitutional advocacy groups in the country are representing the parties seeking to intervene.  Florida Family Action is a cultural action organization with thousands of members across the state, devoted to preserving and protecting the institution of marriage.

Florida Family Action lead the campaign in 2008, when 62 percent of Floridians voted to pass Amendment 2, amending their state constitution to reaffirm the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Amendment 2 was the first constitutional amendment to clear the heightened 60% threshold for voter approval, thanks to the largest grassroots effort on any ballot issue in Florida’s history.

Having lost in the marketplace of ideas, and having failed to convince the public to adopt their radical version of “marriage,” homosexual activists have now filed suit, asking Miami judge Sarah Zabel to throw out the votes of 8 million Floridians, and to judicially impose homosexual marriage upon all Floridians.

In addition to Florida Family Action, Liberty Counsel represents two other umbrella civil rights organizations who are seeking to intervene to protect both marriage and the voting rights of all Floridians. PEOPLE UNITED TO LEAD THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY is a civil rights umbrella organization consisting of 35 civic groups and representing thousands of African-Americans and other minorities. FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE is one of the leading Hispanic-led human rights organizations in Florida, with thousands of members throughout the state, many of which are registered Democrats. Each of these organizations was instrumental to the passage of Amendment 2, and all are uniting to defend natural, man-woman marriage, and to the right of every Floridian to have his or her vote counted.

John Stemberger, President of Florida Family Action, previously stated after the lawsuit was originally filed that, “The six same-sex plaintiff couples in this lawsuit appear to be very sincere and are certainly free to self-define themselves and have private civil commitment ceremonies.  But they, and the activists who motivated them to file this suit, are not free to redefine a fundamental human institution which has served civilization since the beginning of time.”

According to Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, “This lawsuit threatens to disenfranchise millions of Floridians who voted to affirm natural marriage, and to supplant the clearly expressed will of a super majority of Florida’s voters with the radical vision of homosexual activists who cannot win at the ballot box,” added Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel’s Senior Litigation Counsel. “We are committed to provide a vigorous defense for marriage and voting rights,” concluded both.