Why I trust God over any Scientist when it comes to Man Made Climate Change

This past week we had a historic event take place because saw the Roman Catholic Pope visit the United States.  He visited the President at the White House and he gave a speech.  He visited a historical joint meeting of Congress and he gave a moving speech.  He visited the United Nations in New York City and he gave a speech. He visited the city of Philadelphia, and he gave a speech.

The Pope gave a lot of speeches over the past week.  And one of the constants in his speeches was this idea of Man Made Global Climate Change.  The problem is, the Pope knows very little about this so-called science and he is reacting to what those around him tell him about the issue.

I bring this up because the Pope has great influence even in nations that are not heavily populated with Roman Catholics. The people and leaders listen to the Pope because they usually are not political, but the problem with this influence is that it is based on faulty science at best and just plain flat out lies at worst.

You see, way back in the day, as we like to say in colloquial speak, when a very famous artist, philosopher, scientist, thinker was alive and well, he looked at the natural world around him and changed the way people thought.  He tried to change what was already the established “science” of the day.

Leonardo da Vinci was a great thinker and his imagination lead him to many discoveries and theories that later proved to be true and eerily accurate. He showed that the earth had changed dramatically since God created it, in spite of the fact that the settled science of the day said the earth was basically unchanged since God created it and placed man upon it.

Today we know for a fact that the earth has gone through massive changes over the centuries and millennium.  In fact if we could get a time machine and go back to the time of Christ, just 2000 years or so, we would be hard pressed to recognize the earth from our vantage point.

That is how much the earth has changed since then and to think most of that change had nothing to do with mankind.  The same is true of our climate.  We can go back in time and see for a fact that the great warming period of 950 to 1250 AD had nothing to do with mankind.  Indeed, a man was in no position to affect or effect the climate of that time.

But then if you fast forward to about 1650 to 1770, the earth entered to what is often called the Mini Ice Age.  This is the time of Charles Dickens.  He wrote his novels about an England that knew snow and cold and we know this to be factual.  That period of time was colder than it is now.  Just as scientists believe that the warming period was warmer than it is today.

So within the short history of man, we have a tremendous amount of climate change that could not have been initiated by a man at all. This brings up the point of Leonardo because he challenged the so called “settled science” of the day.  He showed and proved that conventional wisdom of the time was wrong and it was wrong because the base cause or base belief was wrong.

This is also true for climate change. You see the main problem with this theory is that we do not have an accurate base from which to establish this unnatural change. What the Pope fails to understand is that God gives us a base from which we can judge our sins and our deeds and actions be them be good and honest or sinful and evil, but we do not have such a base for defining our climate.

In order to determine that our climate is getting out of control, we would have to know the perfect base from which to establish our scientific data. We do not have such a base because we simply do not know what that base is.  So we assume the change happens from a base that we chose during our recent lifetime and history and that base is after the Industrial Revolution.

With this false base established, those with certain agendas can dictate the outcomes of that science and thus dictate how man must be governed in order to meet the objective of those that believe in climate change. The problem is their objective is to preserve the perfect climate, which, as history has proven, does not exist.

Thus the Pope and any other political leader that signs on to such a notion as Man Made Global Climate Change have not looked at the historical evidence and the evidence provided in the earth’s history which was placed there by God Himself.

Frankly, I will trust God over any scientist any day of the week. After all, God created science and He knows all.  We are still discovering what He created and, in fact, we know very little.  But isn’t it interesting how some people think they have all the answers.  The problem with their answers is that often they are wrong and we the people suffer for their mistakes.

RELATED ARTICLE: Must a Darwinian Be a Non-Christian?

VIDEO: The Muslim Attack in Chattanooga – Why it happened, what to do now?

This is a talk that I gave recently in Chattanooga, TN. Chattanooga was the site of the most recent jihadi attack in the U.S.

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Florida State University President Thrasher Flip-flopped 4 times on Campus Carry

The media love to expose the underbelly of politicians whether it favors their own position or not.  Changing positions on issues only once apparently is acceptable but multiple times on the same issue rankles even the most understanding and tolerant person.

It is particularly significant when someone who uses his/her position to expend state funds to lobby the legislature against the constitutional rights of the people who pay those taxes.

Further, it is egregious when that position and power can be used to curtail First amendment rights to keep others from speaking out against the administration on Second Amendment rights.

Conservative, pro-campus carry faculty members and employees have expressed fear of retaliation if they speak out in support of issues which the anti-gun administration opposes.  There is a chill and a suppression of First Amendment rights when it comes to speaking out on gun rights.  If you support the administration’s position, you’re golden.  If you oppose their position, they’re afraid to speak out.

The following article published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune strikes at the heart of the problem of people of power forgetting their true obligation.

Williams: FSU president flip-flopped on campus carry 4 times

By Lee Williams

Published: Herald Tribune, Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 1:27 p.m.

John-Thrasher

Florida State University president John Thrasher

Florida State University president John Thrasher has become one of the most vocal opponents of campus-carry legislation in Florida.

The bill introduced by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, would allow concealed-carry licensees to tote firearms for self-defense on college and university campuses.

Thrasher has very adamantly and very publicly criticized Steube’s bill, and similar legislation in the Senate.

“I’m personally opposed to it. I think it’s a bad thing for universities to do. I would love to see us have a gun-free zone frankly on our campus,” Thrasher said earlier this year.

It is a position that Thrasher has held on-again, off-again in the past five years: a Herald-Tribune investigation found that Thrasher has switched his position on campus carry four times during that time frame.

Two state representatives have told the newspaper that Thrasher personally lobbied them to vote against the campus-carry bill, even though state law prohibits him from lobbying lawmakers for two years after leaving the Senate.

“It seems as though he’s obviously taking the position he would take as president of the university,” Steube said. “I’d ask him why he’s changed his position back and forth.”

Flip-flopping

Thrasher supported campus carry in 2010, according to the “Florida Candidate Questionnaire” created jointly by the National Rifle Association and the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, the state NRA-affiliate.

The candidates were asked: “Concealed Weapons and Firearms Licenses are only issued to law-abiding adults who are 21 years of age or older. Do you believe the constitutional right of self-defense does not end on the campus of a college or university and that anti-gun administrators should stop discriminating against persons licensed by the state to lawfully carry firearms for self defense?”

Thrasher agreed, putting a check mark by a response that stated: “Yes, and I would support legislation to stop colleges and universities from banning lawful self-defense on campus.”

The two gun groups gave him an “A” rating.

One year later, Thrasher, as Rules Committee chairman, single-handedly killed a concealed-carry bill that was sponsored by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker.

The reason? The daughter of Thrasher’s dentist had been accidentally shot and killed by her boyfriend during a late-night party at an off-campus fraternity. The boyfriend, who at 18 did not possess a concealed-carry license, told police he did not know his rifle was loaded. He also admitted to drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

Thrasher told one newspaper that the decision to kill the 2011 bill was “beyond personal.”

A year later, in the 2012 candidate questionnaire, Thrasher for the first time opposed campus carry. He wrote a personal note on the form to former Marion Hammer, executive director of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida and a past-president of the NRA: “Marion, you and I have discussed.”

Based upon his response, the NRA and USF downgraded Thrasher’s candidate rating to a B-minus.

In 2014, facing reelection, Thrasher switched his position on campus carry again — this time supporting the bill — and he wrote another note to Hammer: “I am a strong advocate of the NRA and the second amendment and plan to continue to be.”

The two gun groups restored Thrasher’s A-rating.

FSU’s Board of Trustees selected Thrasher to serve as president in September 2014.

Just 10 days after taking office, there was a shooting in the FSU library. A 31-year-old alumnus shot a university employee and two students before he was fatally shot by police.

After the shooting, Thrasher changed his position again, and now remains opposed to campus carry.

Thrasher, in a brief interview Wednesday, said he had never flip-flopped since the death of his dentist’s daughter.

“When the young woman was shot on campus and killed accidentally by a student who had a gun, that’s when I changed my position,” he said. “I don’t care what I filled out. My position is that I’m opposed to guns. I don’t think it’s a good idea. That’s where I was last year. That’s where I was after the young woman was shot. I don’t care what the NRA says. Thank you.”

Hammer told the Herald-Tribune that she seldom sees anyone switch their position on the campus-carry bill, much less four times, since it “has no gray area.”

“Generally, we believe that when a candidate flip-flops, they have reasons that are not in the best interest of the Second Amendment that they profess to support,” she said.

Read more.

VIDEO: The Nincompoop Generation

Nin·com·poop [ˈniNGkəmˌpo͞op] noun – a foolish or stupid person.

How will history remember today’s generation? Will history will remember today’s generation in unflattering terms, like clueless?

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The Anti-Alinsky Handbook: Rules for Republicans?

It’s not easy to be a conservative.

As the saying goes, “If I had a nickel” every time someone angrily bashed conservatism to me on the campaign trail, or while on the radio, yet simultaneously had almost no idea what conservatism actually was, I would be making regular appearances in Forbes magazine.

The Left, and their allies in the media, have done an incredible job of deluding many Americans into voting against their own interests and, at the same time, instilling into their supporters that conservatives hate them. This strategy has convinced many to vote against conservatives, not necessarily in favor of liberals, and conservatives have struggled for decades to fight back. The methods by which the Left uses to accomplish this is a theme of Fred Siegel’s excellent book The Revolt Against the Masses. In the book, Siegel discusses the Left’s “Iron Triangle,” consisting of interest groups, congressional committees, and their allies in the media and their strategies for ensuring that an ideological narrative is spread far and wide.

Here’s how it works for the Left; an interest group takes control of a narrative such as the “War on Women.” After the narrative and the wording of the message is agreed upon, these interest groups push their bought-and-sold congressional allies to call hearings on the topic, (i.e. Sandra Fluke’s congressional testimony) guaranteeing widespread public attention. Finally, an anxious, and ideologically biased media operation kicks into gear to cover the hearings and to ensure that the most “powerful” soundbites are pushed out to the media ecosystem.Sadly, what follows is what frequently happened to me when campaigning and greeting voters. I would introduce myself, then a pleasant conversation about issues would ensue, quickly followed by an expletive and the campaign material being thrown back at me when they read that I was a Republican because they were waging a completely fictitious “war on women.”

We can learn from the tactics of the Left and, as a movement, we can leverage our own “Iron Triangle” to combat the malicious narratives of the Left and to transmit the truth about conservatism. Using the conservative “Iron Triangle” of conservative media, social media, and a revived grassroots, we can begin to take back the narrative and take the fight to the Left.

A useful example of this was the battle to combat Maryland’s “storm water management fee.”  This disastrous tax was designed to tax property owners based on the amount of impervious surface on their property, liberals reasoning that this led to runoff which polluted the Chesapeake Bay. The catch is that most Marylanders were already suffering under a brutal tax load along with a number of additional fees designed to combat storm water runoff. A number of conservatives in the state knew, based on feedback from their grassroots contacts, that this was an opportunity to fight back against the Maryland democratic machine and to leverage their assets to focus the attention of heavily-taxed, and frustrated Marylanders. Although there was no formal coordination, when the term “rain tax” came up in conservative activist circles, to describe the storm water management fee, it spread like wildfire within the conservative “Iron Triangle.”

A Marylander at the time, I saw an opportunity to move the narrative from the conservative siloes into the wider political conversation and did an interview on the subject with Breitbart, along with many other conservatives and libertarians who pushed the story in order to fight back against the reviled “rain tax.” Quickly the story grew, and generated national attention as concerned Americans shared the story over and over on the various social media platforms.

With a gubernatorial election occurring at the time, a number of the candidates for governor reached out to their conservative media contacts and saturated the airwaves with discussions of the ridiculous “rain tax.” Following the social media saturation and the widespread attention of both conservative and mainstream media, grassroots groups in Maryland picked up the message and ran with it. Future governor Larry Hogan’s grassroots group “Change Maryland” put out numerous graphics shedding light on the economic damage of the “rain tax” and candidates for local and state office took every opportunity to discuss it.

The rest is history, Larry Hogan won the Maryland governorship, in a political upset for the ages, in deep-blue Maryland and, although this wasn’t the only reason Hogan won, it was certainly one of the more significant factors.

The lesson here with regard to changing the political narratives of the Left is simple; we don’t need to emulate the morally corrupt practices of Alinsky and his acolytes because our message is RIGHT. The Left needs these corrupt practices because they are selling snake oil. Taking people’s money, their child’s education, their control of their health care, and their political liberty, requires a deviation from accepted moral standards. We should NEVER seek out these tactics or we have become what we dread most: a group of people who worship an ends, while completely disregarding the value of, and the example set by, the means.

I would rather be right alone than wrong in a group and I’m sure you would as well.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. Featured image courtesy of Congressional Quarterly.

Final Thoughts on Islam and violence from News Anchor Tomi Lahren

News Anchor Tomi Lahren is 22-years old and from South Dakota. She provides her “Final Thoughts” commentary on Islam and violence. The video is less than 3 minutes long. Tomi says a lot in those 3 minutes.

ALERT: Burmese Muslims on the way to the U.S.

Rohingya (Burmese) Muslims are coming to the U.S. This group of young men was apprehended by the Malaysian government, a Muslim government, that doesn’t want the Rohingya. So we are taking them!

I thought I was done today.  I was just going to tackle my bulging e-mail in box when I came across an e-mail from reader Judith alerting me to this news from the Bangkok Post yesterday.

24 Rohingya (Burmese) Muslims are on the way to the US, but the article tells us that since right after 911 we have admitted 13,000 Burmese Muslims (how many are Rohingya?).

Ahhhh!

While we focus on the fact that Syrians can’t be screened, frankly neither can Muslims who get on boats in Southeast Asia (claiming to have been kidnapped) be properly screened!

New readers of RRW don’t know that we have an entire category on the very ‘observant’ followers of Islam that are known as the Rohingya.

We have 180 posts in our ‘Rohingya Reports’ category extending all the way back to 2007.  Back in 2007 and early 2008 there was no way the US State Dept. was going to admit Rohingya Muslims, but clearly all that has changed

Here is the story at the Bangkok Post (which won’t let me snip much, so please go read it yourself):

At 46 years old, Basamai, an ethnic Rohingya Muslim man, will for the first time obtain identity documents that will allow him to resettle in the United States next week, along with 23 other trafficking victims.

The 24 to be resettled follow four who left Thailand earlier this month, in a humanitarian programme that has resettled 13,000 Muslims from Myanmar since 2002, according to the US Department of State Refugee Processing Center.

They are not saying if they are coming to your town!

Following their arrival in the U.S. — the exact location remains unknown — the Rohingya group will undergo Cultural Orientation Training before they can be resettled, said a source from the Ministry of…

Cultural Orientation Training, here? in the US?  That is a new one on me.

They were screened by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the star of this story hopes to bring his wife and 8 daughters to America real soon!

RELATED ARTICLE: The Rising Tide of Third World Refugees and the Plight of NATO’s Southeastern Flank

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Florida Sheriff: Campus Carry, Open Carry Part of Exercising 2nd Amendment

As support for Campus Carry by concealed weapons license holders who are over 21 years of age and support for Open Carry by concealed weapons license holders continues to grow, some Florida Sheriffs are speaking out on these important Second Amendment issues.

The outstanding article below featuring Florida Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County signals a new movement among sheriffs who are standing up and fighting for you and your rights, against those who just give lip service to those rights while lobbying against you.

Unlike conservative college and university administrators and faculty members, who often find themselves in a position of not only having their Second Amendment rights trampled, but their First Amendment rights being chilled by fear of retaliation from their administrations if they speak out, Florida Sheriffs face no such threat.

Sheriffs answer to the people on election day.  Once elected, they must take the oath of office that begins: “I do solemnly swear that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States, and of the State of Florida….” and ends, “So help me God.”   That means the whole Constitution, not just the parts some unions or associations like.

We hope you enjoy this article. WE DID. And we will remember it.

With Florida Republicans working anew to pass legislation that will make it legal for women to be armed against sexual predators on campus, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey stresses that Campus Carry is part of exercising the Second Amendment. He believes Open Carry is part of exercising the Second Amendment too.

Florida Carry reports Ivey Sheriff supports a recognition of “the right to bear arms openly and on campus.” Moreover, he believes such legislation will be passed in the coming legislative session.

Ivey stresses that more and more people are recognizing the importance of carrying a gun for self-defense, which is contributing to Florida’s boom in concealed carry. He believes this growing recognition is changing attitudes and attracting more support for carrying on campus and carrying openly as well.

Breitbart News previously reported that Campus Carry legislation sponsored by representative Greg Steube (R-Sarasota) and senator Greg Evers (R-Baker) passed out of committee on September 16 and will be one of the first pieces of legislation considered when the legislature convenes in January 2016.

The move to arm women and other law-abiding citizens on campus for self-defense is opposed by Florida’s League of Women Voters (FLWV) and by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. It is supported by rape victim and Florida State University student Shayna Lopez-Rivas, who says she is “resolved to never be a victim again.” The Tampa Bay Times reports that Lopez-Rivas refuses to be “a sitting duck for [another] rapist or a shooter” as she stresses how much she would “feel safer” on the FSU campus if she were allowed to keep her gun with her for self-defense.

Read more.

Pope Francis’s Graph of the Day by Ian Vásquez

As the Argentine Pope, ever critical of capitalism, visits the United States, my colleagues at HumanProgress.org have posted this graph.

pope graph

It shows that in 1896, income per person in the United States and Argentina, two of the richest countries in the world, was about identical. Argentina subsequently eschewed the free market, replacing it with trade protectionism and other corporatist policies intended to help the poor by redistributing wealth. By 2010, Argentine income was a third of that of the United States.

Perhaps Pope Francis doesn’t endorse Argentine economic policies, but having just arrived from Cuba, he missed an opportunity to denounce the lack of freedoms that have kept that island and other Latin American countries poor and repressed. He met with none of the many admirable Cuban dissidents, in or out of prison, who have been peacefully advocating basic rights. Nor did he mention the plight of the Cuban people they represent, even as authorities arrested or detained 250 Cuban activists during his visit.

The Cuban Forum for Rights and Liberties (Foro por los Derechos y Libertades), an independent group of dissidents in Cuba, summed up how it felt about, and experienced, the Pope’s visit. It read, in part:

We human rights activists, regime opponents and independent journalists have experienced days full of threats, harassment, telephone connections being cut off, homes besieged by the authorities, and violent, arbitrary arrests.

The behavior of the regime was expected. However, the position of the church has been surprising.

The exaggerated and repeated shows of approval of the dictatorship, the silence toward its excesses, and the refusal to hear dissident voices have created broad discontent among Cuban believers and non-believers both within and outside of the island.

The group might have added that the disappointment has spread more widely in the Americas.

This post first appeared at Cato.org.

Ian Vásquez

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Real Clear Markets: The Sooner the Fed Gets Unstuck, the Better

Last week the Fed announced it would once again delay liftoff from its zero interest rate policy. During her press conference, Fed Chair Janet Yellen noted that “[the housing market] remains very depressed.”

Has the Fed missed the housing liftoff? July existing home sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.6 million, the highest level since the end of the peak of the housing bubble in December 2006. Home sales are up 23 percent from July 2012 – just before the Fed’s announcement of its last round of quantitative easing known as QE3 in September 2012. This strength has been more than fully reflected in the home loan market, a market dominated by FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government agencies.

The spring home finance market has also been booming.

Agency unit home purchase volume in August is up by double digits over the same months in 2013 and 2014. This boom has been influenced by outsized gains for first-time buyers (FTB): up 26 and 20 percent over 2013 and 2014 respectively. In August, FTB accounted for 57 percent of primary owner-occupied home purchase mortgages with a government guarantee – representing healthy increases from both August 2013 and 2014.

Home prices are seeing a second liftoff – inflation adjusted home prices are up 12.5 percent since September 2012. This should come as no surprise. Research as far back as the 1950s has shown that the liberalization of credit terms creates demand pressure that easily becomes capitalized into higher prices, especially when undertaken in a seller’s market. This is economics 101, pure and simple. Link to continue reading The sooner the Fed gets unstuck, the better.

Also read how the GAO report on mortgage reforms fails to address impact of QM and QRM

Drone-strikes – A Pacifist’s Ideal Weapon?

Drone-strikes are the nearest thing possible to a pacifist’s ideal weapon. They pose no risk to one side in an engagement, and the studies that exist show that on the ground the ration of unintended casualty rates are lower than in any other form of military engagement.  When people complain about ‘collateral’ damage caused by drone strikes on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, for instance, they should consider how much bloodier an engagement would be expected were the Pakistani army to be sent in.

But like every other means of warfare, drone-warfare throws up its own ethical and moral problems. Not the least of them has been the growth in the legalisation of war at the same time as what some critics would describe as its bureaucratisation. This week this came around to hit David Cameron. Earlier this month two British citizens fighting for ISIS in Syria were killed by a British-ordered drone-strike.  David Cameron announced this to the House of Commons. The Prime Minister described the strikes as ‘entirely lawful’ and said that the government was ‘exercising Britain’s inherent right in self-defence.’  Elsewhere there were briefings to the press suggesting that the two men posed an imminent danger to the UK, including possibly even to Her Majesty the Queen.

Here and in others of its statements on the strikes, the government has wandered into some very undesirable areas. The questions around these drone strikes initially appeared to surround the legality of British strikes taking place inside Syria rather than solely inside Iraq. But questions over the precise nature of the intelligence information which led to the strikes also began to be voiced.  And now this week the charity ‘Reprieve’, with the backing of the Green Party’s Member of Parliament among others, has announced that they are starting a legal challenge against the government’s decision. They claim that the basis of this legal action will surround the legality of military operations in countries where Britain is not officially at war. But it is likely to spill into a scavenging mission to find out about the nature of the intelligence which gave rise to the strike. Given the already slightly shifting story from the government on the urgency of the strike it is possible there is a weakness somewhere in here.

Among the things the UK government should learn from this is something which the last Labour government also had to learn – which is the danger of announcing anything more than the absolute bare minimum when it comes to matters of intelligence.There will always be a demand for more information – from the public, media and legal-profession – but the demand should be ignored. Intelligence is too delicate a matter to ever be politicised.

But attention should not be only on the government. It should also be on those people like Caroline Lucas MP and Reprieve who seek to make even drone-warfare effectively impossible. The general public have little sympathy or care for young British men who go to Syria to indulge their desire for sadism and butchery.  The niceties and even legalities of their deaths are of little interest to most of them. But that voice is barely if ever heard.  It is the voice of the tiny minority of activists who oppose such strikes who are always most heard. But it is they – the people who try to make even British drone-missions a legal impossibility – who are the ones who have the most difficult questions of all.


mendozahjs

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

Is this the week that the West finally abandoned the remnants of its shattered moral authority in the Syrian crisis? It would appear so.

We squandered the opportunity to hold President Assad to account for his violation of international agreements through the use of chemical weapons in 2013. We have failed to prosecute the war against ISIS with any degree of vigour, meaning that it drags on as a conflict of attrition. And we now appear to be subcontracting decision-making in the region to Russia’s President Putin given the military firepower he has deployed to assist Assad in the past couple of weeks, with more seemingly to follow.

Our weakness and indecision contrasts unfavourably with Putin’s opportunism and determination. He has seen our dithering as an opportunity to not only ensure that his Syrian puppet remains in office, thereby maintaining Russian influence in the Middle East, but to humiliate the West by forcing it to sacrifice its values in the process. Our demands that the mass murderer who began this conflict and who is largely responsible for its perpetuation can be no part of the new Syria have begun to be set aside. Where once we said Assad had to go, now we say Assad may need to stay for a transitionary period.

But there will be no transition if Assad stays. He won’t be going anywhere. Putin knows it. Assad knows it. And our own leaders know it too. They are too ashamed to say it, but that is what Russia’s plan for Syria means.

Some will say we will have the consolation prize of a full international assault against ISIS which will drive it out of Syria and Iraq. This may be true. But it will be a pyrrhic victory if so. Because the seeds of the next ISIS will have already been sown by our betrayal of human rights and freedom in the conclusion of such a squalid deal. Islamists the world over will clamour to recruit more of our own impressionable young citizens for the next jihadi hotspot, using the duplicity of the West as a rallying cry to the need for a pure Islam which can defend the true believers.

In the meantime, Assad will be free to wreak vengeance on the remainder of Syria’s population, Hezbollah will secure a permanent arms supply route to benefit from the advanced weaponry flowing into Syria, and Iran will be emboldened to make its own advances in the region. If Putin can get away with it, why can’t the mullahs?

This is the stark future facing our leaders as they decide how to react to Russia’s posturing. They can accept it. Or they can call Putin’s bluff, put together their own plan for a Syrian future without Assad, and get on with implementing it.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society

Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

18 U.S. Mayors: We want More Muslim refugees! Is one of them yours?

This story is from Syracuse, NY, but it is all about a letter 18 mayors sent to Obama telling him that they want MORE Syrian refugees now!

Remember Syracuse is the city that saw a beautiful Catholic Church become a mosque.  I’m guessing the mayor wants to see more of that because the majority of the Syrians to be admitted to the US through the UN are Sunni Muslims.   Kind of ironic that they penned this letter when the Pope was here.  Does he want more Muslims to take over more Catholic Churches worldwide?

Clearly Catholic Charities and Mayor Miner of Syracuse do!

From Syracuse.com:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Mayor Stephanie Miner is one of 18 mayors encouraging President Barack Obama to accept additional Syrian refugees into the United States.

miner and Obama

Mayor Stephanie Miner: “[I]…urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.”

Miner signed a letter, sent to Obama, that calls for an increase of the number of refugees the U.S. will accept in the next two years. Obama has already pledged to take 10,000 Syrian refugees and increase the overall refugee allowance to 100,000 by 2017.

“Our cities have been transformed by the skills and the spirit of those who come to us from around the world,” the letter reads. “The drive and enterprise of immigrants and refugees have helped build our economies, enliven our arts and culture, and enrich our neighborhoods.”

All 18 mayors are members of Cities United for Immigration Action, a coalition pushing for immigration reform. Along with Miner, mayors from Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh, Boston and Chicago signed the letter. [I bet if you dug into this group, you would find it another George Soros-funded group.—ed]

Syracuse currently accepts between 1,100 and 1,200 refugees each year. Two organizations — Catholic Charities of Onondaga County and Interfaith Works CNY — resettle refugees in Syracuse.

“We have taken in refugees, and will help make room for thousands more,” the letter reads.”

See the letter at Syracuse.com.  And here are the 18 cities which need new mayors!

  1. Ed Pawlowski, Mayor of Allentown, PA
  2. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore, MD
  3. Martin J. Walsh, Mayor of Boston, MA
  4. James Diossa, Mayor of Central Falls, RI
  5. Mark Kleinschmidt, Mayor of Chapel Hill, NC
  6. Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago, IL
  7. Edward Terry, Mayor of Clarkston, GA
  8. Nan Whaley, Mayor of Dayton, OH
  9. Domenick Stampone, Mayor of Haledon, NJ
  10. Pedro E. Segarra, Mayor of Hartford, CT
  11. Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, CA
  12. Betsy Hodges, Mayor of Minneapolis, MN
  13. Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, NY
  14. Jose Torres, Mayor of Paterson, NJ
  15. William Peduto, Mayor of Pittsburgh, PA
  16. Javier Gonzales, Mayor of Santa Fe, NM
  17. Francis G. Slay, Mayor of St. Louis, MO
  18. Stephanie A. Miner, Mayor of Syracuse, NY

Be sure to check out the hundreds of comments this story generated.  I skimmed some and it sure looks like Mayor Miner’s constituents aren’t too thrilled by her invitation.

If you live in any of those 18 cities be sure the citizens there know what their mayor is doing.

Addendum:  I just remembered, you can go to this post from a few days ago to see if your city is already getting Syrian Muslims. Note to Catholic Charities, of the 1,700 plus Syrians who were admitted to the US so far, 43 were Christians and there was 1 (one!) Catholic in the bunch.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Dayton, OH mayor: Bring us some Syrian (Muslim) refugees! Congressman says NO way!

Boise, Idaho: Much wailing and gnashing of teeth as refugees get evicted, will they send some to Twin Falls?

Invasion of Europe: In Germany they are all claiming to be Syrians!

NY Times goes to Spartanburg, spin in first paragraph shows reporter’s bias

Drilling down on federal contractors that launder your money to local agencies—Twin Falls again

Big business drives refugee resettlement in America: Could Chobani Yogurt be behind the drive in Twin Falls?

Hungarian foreign minister: Mass migration is the beginning of a new world order

Dear Principal: Stop Turning Our Schools into Prisons by Alex Tabarrok

Here is a letter I wrote to principal of my son’s high school:

Dear Principal _____,

Thank you for requesting feedback about the installation of interior cameras at the high school. I am against the use of cameras.

I visited the school recently to pick up my son and it was like visiting a prison. A police car often sits outside the school and upon entry a security guard directs visitors to the main office where the visitor’s drivers license is scanned and information including date of birth is collected (is this information checked against other records and kept in a database for future reference? It’s unclear).

The visitor is then photographed and issued a photo pass. I found the experience oppressive. Adding cameras will only add to the prison-like atmosphere. The response, of course, will be that these measures are necessary for “safety.” As with security measures at the airports, I doubt that these measures increase actual safety, instead they are security theater, a play that we put on that looks like security but really is not.

Moreover, the truth is that American children have never been safer than they are today. Overall youth mortality (ages 5-14) has fallen from 60 per 100,000 in 1950 to 13.1 per 100,000 today (CDC, Vital Statistics).

Yet we hide in gated communities, homes and schools as never before.

When we surround our students with security we are implicitly telling them that the world is dangerous; we are whispering in their ear, “be afraid, do not venture out, take no risks.”

When going to school requires police, security guards, and cameras, how can I encourage my child to travel to foreign countries, to seek new experiences, to meet people of different faiths, beliefs and backgrounds? When my child leaves school how will the atmosphere of fear that he has grown up in affect his view of the world and the choices he will make as a citizen in our democracy?

School teaches more than words in books.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Tabarrok

This letter was published at Marginal Revolution.

Alex TabarrokAlex Tabarrok

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He blogs at Marginal Revolution with Tyler Cowen.

Are Markets Immoral? On Popes, Pencils, and Chicken Sandwiches by Donald J. Boudreaux

Are markets moral? This oft-asked question will be asked even oftener when Pope Francis visits the U.S.

It’s one thing to conclude that markets are immoral after learning how markets work and what life would be like in their absence. Such a conclusion is intellectually defensible because it would reflect an informed – if, in my view, bizarre – value judgment.

But the conclusion that markets are immoral typically reflects – as it surely does in the case of Pope Francis – utter ignorance of the logic and history of markets (and of the logic and history of governments).

Markets are deeply moral, for they, compared to all feasible alternatives,

  • are driven by voluntary choices rather than by diktats;
  • concentrate the costs and the benefits of each choice as closely as possible on the individual who makes that choice;
  • allow for great diversity of choices and life-styles;
  • create mass flourishing; they raise the living standards of the poor far more than they raise the living standards of the rich;
  • transform the manifestations of economic hardship from literal starvation to much-less severe financial distress; (losing a job or a home, however agonizing, is far better than losing your and your children’s lives);
  • ‘churn’ over time the rich and poor; dynastic wealth, while not unknown in markets, is less common than unthinking and historically uninformed people suppose, and such wealth is always exposed to the forces of creative destruction;
  • bring together literally hundreds of millions of strangers from around the globe and from many different cultures and religious faiths into a peaceful and cooperative productive effort.

This last point is illustrated most famously by Leonard Read’s justly celebrated 1958 essay “I, Pencil.” See the video below.

It’s also illustrated by Thomas Thwaites’s effort to build a toaster. (I calculated that the typical British worker can earn in a mere 21 minutes of work enough income to purchase a toaster that is vastly superior to the one that Mr. Thwaites spent nine months building.)

Another illustration of this profoundly important insight was shared with me this morning by Bruce Berlin. It involves one man’s effort to make a chicken sandwich from scratch. To make this one sandwich took six months of this man’s work and additional expenses out-of-pocket of $1,500. (And, judging from the sandwich-maker’s reaction, the quality of the final product was mediocre.)

Far too many professors, pupils, politicians, pundits, preachers, priests, and popes screech and preach about matters on which they are ignorant. They should instead look with open minds on the great system of social cooperation that is the global market economy.

They will see the marvelous cooperation of hundreds of millions of strangers working cooperatively and productively in ways that greatly enrich each other’s lives; they’ll see also the unleashing as never before of human creativity, dignity as never before for ordinary people and their peaceful pursuits, and mass, live-giving and life-sustaining flourishing.

This piece first appeared at the irreplaceable Cafe Hayek.

Donald J. BoudreauxDonald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a former FEE president, and the author of Hypocrites and Half-Wits.

The Obama, Kerry and Clinton legacy

The Obama, Kerry and Clinton legacy is clear. Their action and inaction has resulted in a refugee problem not seen since the second world war.The Iran nuclear debacle and the rise of the new Iranian ‘Persian Empire’ allied with a resurgent Russian Empire armed with nuclear weapons is taking shape.

Russia and Iran have joined forces to make certain Assad survives. Russian warplanes have been sent to Syria along with ground troops. Obama and Kerry continue their mantra that Assad must go but haven’t said when he should go. About 350,000 Syrians have been killed and over 4 million people are homeless. Russia and Iran are victorious in the face of Obama’s failure to assist the rebels when it was possible to do so.

Libya

Libya is now a failed State and home to IS and other Jihadists. The U.S. had no strategic interest in Libya but was induced by Sect. Clinton to destroy the Qaddafi regime to satisfy England and France.

Iran

Iran is now doing their own inspections and giving the U.N. nuclear agency whitewashed results. The agreement was supposed to allow unfettered inspection anywhere and anytime. The Iran debacle and rise of a new ‘Persian Empire’ is in the process of unfolding. Iran continues to threaten the U.S. and Israel. War will escalate between the various Muslim factions in the region and a world war is in the making.

Russia and Iran are the new hegemony partners in the Middle East

The Nixon administration prevented Russia from becoming the hegemony in the Middle East 50 years ago in order to protect U.S. interests in this strategic region. It took the team of Obama, Kerry and Clinton about six years to destroy U.S. influence in the region.

We can only pray that a new president in 2017 will change  the path the U.S. has followed over the last six and a half years and restore America’s strength and resolve to protect America and its allies.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Russia’s Return to Middle East – Yaroslav Trofimov
Russia’s return to the Middle East, with its lightning military deployment to Syria, is fundamentally different from the Cold War. Because Moscow is no longer constrained by ideology, it could ultimately prove more successful in challenging American influence in the region. “Russia today is not trying to spread its own model of life – in part because there is no such model,” said Andranik Migranyan, a professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations. A perception in the Middle East that the U.S. has pulled back and can’t be trusted to protect its allies helps lubricate Russian ambitions. (Wall Street Journal)

What Will the Russians Do in Syria? – Jonathan Spyer
The arrival of Russian personnel and equipment in Latakia province is intended to bolster the Syrian regime’s enclave in the western coastal area as part of a larger effort on the part of the regime and its allies to consolidate control over roughly 20% of Syria. The deployment suggests a limited ground component, with a greater focus on air operations to back beleaguered government forces and relieve pressure on Assad’s overstretched air force.
Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the pro-Iran and pro-Hizbullah Al-Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon, announced the arrival of the “4+1” alliance. The “4” are Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria, plus Hizbullah. According to Amin, this new alliance is to include the “sending of Russian and Iranian special forces to the areas controlled by…Assad.” The Russians will “play a prominent role on the ground and will participate in combat on the battlefield with their advanced weaponry by leading operations and taking part in artillery shelling [and] air raids.” The writer is director of the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. (Jerusalem Post)

Russia: The New Landlord in Syria – Yossi Mansharof
Russia has established a clear presence in Syria and is lending significant power to Assad. In addition, Iran has increased its military presence in Syria and, according to rebel reports, established an airbase near Homs for use by its own forces and Russia’s. Russian forces have already become a target for rebel groups. On Sept. 17, Jaysh al-Islam released a video documenting a Grad rocket attack it carried out against Russians at Latakia airport. The writer is a researcher at the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa. (Israel Hayom)