Syrian civil war negotiations get off to rocky start

Dr. Riad Hijab, Syria's former Prime Ministe

Dr. Riad Hijab, Syria’s former Prime Minister : Syria’s Supreme Commission for Negotiations Convenes (PRNewsFoto/Office of Dr Riad Hijab)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia /PRNewswire/ — The Supreme Commission for Negotiations held its third meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday January 19-20, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Commission Coordinator Dr. Riad Hijab presided over a wide agenda with several deliberation sessions and reviews, in addition to consultations over outcomes from visits to various Arab and Western capitals.

Following a thorough review of the Commission’s proposed agenda to UN Special Envoy, Staffan de Mistura; the Commission agreed to the appointment of Mr. As’ad Al-Zo’ubi as head of the negotiating team, Mr. George Sabra as deputy and Mr. Mohamad Alloush as chief negotiator. Appointment of the delegation was based on a rigorous selection criteria taking into account qualifications, expertise and ability to implement any future agreements on the ground.

Dr. Hijab confirmed that the Commission will request from the UN envoy to formally and directly issue invitations to the Commission to attend the negotiations.  Regarding the idea of a third delegation from outside the charter of the Commission, Dr. Hijab commented:

“The Riyadh Conference incorporated a diverse spectrum of Syrian opposition, including the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the National Coordination Committee, moderate factions, political groups and independent figures who participated in the Cairo and Moscow conferences, as well as broad ethnic and religious representation and a significant number of independents.

We will not accept attempts by foreign parties to support a particular group at the expense of another, make proposals intended to challenge the credibility and mandate of the Supreme Commission for Negotiations, or to inject individuals in the form of a so-called third delegation, justifying their presence under unfounded pretexts merely to disrupt the political process and prolong the fighting in the name of combating terrorism.”

During the meeting several opposition groups proposed to suspend negotiations and consider the timing in the absence of full adherence by signatory states to UNSCR 2254, particularly:  lifting the siege to enable humanitarian agencies to deliver aid, releasing detainees, ceasing aerial shelling and artillery attacks against civilians.

In response to these valid reservations Dr. Hijab pointed out that, “Dates are not sacred, we will not go to any negotiations while our people suffer from shelling, starvation and siege… debased political bartering at the expense of the Syrian people is tantamount to callous extortion which we will not accept under any circumstance.”

Trump Surges to 48 Percent in Florida

fau poll logoBOCA RATON, Florida /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Donald Trump has surged nearly 12 points in the last two months and is closing on half of the GOP vote in Florida, where Hillary Clinton has improved in all head-to-head match-ups against GOP front runners, according to a new poll by the Florida Atlantic UniversityBusiness and Economics Polling Initiative (FAU BEPI).

The survey began Jan. 15, the day after the latest GOP debate, and concluded Jan. 18, the day following the most recent Democratic debate.

Trump leads the GOP field in Florida with 47.6 percent; followed by Ted Cruz at 16.3 percent; Marco Rubio at 11.1 percent; and Jeb Bush at 9.5 percent. Ben Carson fell from third to fifth as his support dropped from 14.5 percent in November 2015 to just 3.3 percent in this latest poll. Cruz gained more than six points from the November 2015 poll, while Rubio lost more than seven points, and Bush gained six-tenths of a point.

With his support growing in each of the polls BEPI has conducted since September 2015, Trump has clearly seized momentum in Florida, where he enjoys a 70 percent favorability rating among GOP voters.

“At this point, Donald Trump is simply crushing the opposition in the Florida Republican primary,” said Kevin Wagner, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at FAU and a research fellow of the Initiative.

On the Democratic side, Clinton has strengthened her position in head-to-head match-ups with the GOP front runners. Clinton has turned a three-point deficit against Cruz in November into a five-point lead, while pulling even with Rubio after trailing him by seven points two months earlier. Clinton also closed the gap on Trump by six points and now trails the GOP frontrunner 47 to 44.3 percent. However, Bush leads Clinton in Florida 45 to 41.5 percent.

Clinton also maintains a 36-point lead over Bernie Sanders (62.2 to 25.9 percent), despite losing seven points from her 43-point margin in November.

“Clinton continues to hold a solid lead on the Democratic side in Florida,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of the BEPI. “She’s also performing much better against all the GOP front runners, including Trump.”

VIDEO: Tactics for Counter Jihad

Many people are afraid of speaking out about Political Islam. But, once you understand the nature of our enemies, you need not be afraid. Actually, we have two enemies: the far enemy (Islam) and the near enemy (the apologists). You only need to deal with the apologists, such as ministers, media editors, school board members and opinion makers. The only damage you will have to contend with is being called names, such as bigot, hater and racist.

We must educate the apologists by understanding their principles and showing them how Political Islam violates their own beliefs. Once they can see this, they can become an ally.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

VIDEO: The Four Jihads

Massive Terrorist Migration to Telegram: The new Jihadist Social Media Destination

VIDEO: Migration as Jihad

Bernie’s Bolsheviks vs. Donald’s Trumpites

Bolshevik: Russian for “One of the Majority.” There appear to be two movements in the 2016 presidential primary race. One is led by Bernie Sanders and his Bolsheviks. The other is lead by Donald Trump and those who “Want to Make America Great, Again”, known at Trumpites. One movement promotes collectivism, the other individualism. Ayn Rand defines the principles underlying these movements as follows:

  • Individualism – Each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.
  • Collectivism – Each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group (i.e. One of the Majority).

Question: Which movement will win on November 8th, 2016?

Chris Stirewalt from Fox News reports:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign network is riot with talk about socialism, seeping in under the door or perhaps in the fluoridated water. You never know where the “conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids” will turn up.

Among those warning of socialist creep is prominent Clinton booster, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who got double coupons for warning of a threat to the very heartland of the nation. “Here in the heartland, we like our politicians in the mainstream, and he is not — he’s a socialist,” Nixon told the NYT.

The sinister socialist to whom Nixon is referring is 74-year-old Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been in Congress since 1991 and for all of his adamancy about being an independent and a, yes, socialist has almost always been a perfectly pliant supporter of the Democratic party. Read more.

Megan Kelly Tweeted: A stunning new poll out of  with the below graphic:

poll out of New Hampshire

I recently wrote a column titled “The Trump Insurgency.” In that column I noted:

The definition of an insurgency is a “rebellion against an existing government by a group not recognized as a belligerent.”

Is it Trump who created an insurgency or is Trump following the lead of a growing insurgency that was already taking place? I have written that Trump leads his followers by following their lead. The movement began during the Presidency of Bill Clinton and continues today. It is a struggle between the individualist and the collectivist.

The choice for America is between a collectivist form of government or one that returns power to the people.

In a column titled “Government Caused the ‘Great Stagnation‘” Peter J. Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, discusses how government has outgrown America’s ability to pay for it. Boettke writes, “Government is too big, too bloated. Washington faces a spending problem, not a revenue problem. But too many within the economy depend on the government transfers to live and to work. Yet the economy is not growing at a rate that can afford the illusion. Where are we to go from here?”

Boettke labels totalitarian government as “Stupidity.” Boettke notes that, “[W]e fought off (in the West, at least) totalitarian government (Stupidity).”

However, that has changed. Today stupidity reigns supreme with more and more citizens receiving government subsidies and largess.

If either Hillary or Sanders wins the Democratic Party nomination for president, we could see the party at the last minute recruit Uncle Joe Biden to run.

This would be a last ditch effort to end the stupidity, or maybe not?

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Trump: Biden would run if Clinton indicted

World faces wave of epic debt defaults, fears central bank veteran

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is courtesy of AP/Jacquelyn Martin/Seth Wenig/Photo montage by Salon.

Bernie Sanders Is Wrong on College and Jail by Kevin Currie-Knight

In a December 15 tweet, Senator Bernie Sanders intimated that graduating from college decreases the likelihood that you will go to jail:

Sanders has long supported dubious measures for making college more affordable and hence accessible to all, and this may be why: he believes that “no college” is a path to jail.

Mike Rowe, the former TV host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and a longtime opponent of the “college for all” message, responded to Sanders with outrage. Rowe challenged Sanders’s idea that the most viable option without a college degree is jail. He also brought home a favorite point of his, to throw into question whether a cost-benefit analysis of college really shows that college is the best path to a successful career.

I’ve written before against the “academic training for all” mentality that Sanders and so many others seems set in, but Rowe, unfortunately, also gets a few things wrong.

Upcredentialing and Downvaluing

While Sanders is right that college degrees significantly increase one’s job prospects, he’s wrong to think that “college for all” will increase job prospects for everyone. Rowe is right to note that there are viable career options that don’t require college degrees, but he overlooks that they are vanishing by the year.

We all strive to “outcredential” each other, and in short order, the college degree is the new high school diploma. 

As a recent study documents, more employers are demanding a college degree as a qualification for careers that never used to require one — from positions at an IT help desk to positions as a receptionist, office manager, or file clerk. What is behind this “upcredentialing” phenomenon?

College degrees and other certificates of learning are what economists call positional goods: their value partly hinges on how they stack up relative to what others have. If I live in an area where few have finished college, my degree will be of great value and probably open many doors. But if I live where college degrees are commonplace, mine will do little more than put me on an even footing with my equally credentialed peers. In that case, distinguishing myself from others may require me to get still more education than my peers.

The Education Arms Race

We can think of higher education as a game of chicken, where each person’s strategy is to outdo others without completely breaking their bank. Since I want to compete in the job market, and I have reason to think that many other people are getting college degrees, my strategy should be to get one, too, and perhaps one more impressive than theirs. But my competitors are probably thinking the same thing, and each of us knows what the other is thinking. We all strive to “outcredential” each other, and in short order, the college degree is the new high school diploma.

This is basically what Americans have done for the last several decades, at least since the GI Bill expanded college accessibility.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, college enrollment in 1983 was 10.6 million, and, after a small dip between 1984 and 1985, it has steadily increased each year. In 2012, the number stood at 17.7 million. Data also show that more Americans than ever have college degrees, though the percentage of people with college degrees (20 percent to 40 percent) varies by state.

Upcredentialing occurs because it can. Employers want ways to differentiate candidates. When college degrees were scarce, the candidate with the college degree distinguished himself from everyone else right off the bat. But when more and more people have a college degree, employers can afford to make having one a requirement.

If this process looks circular, that’s because it is. Bachelor’s degrees are a pathway to many more career options because many careers now require bachelor’s degrees. But the reason many careers now require bachelor’s degrees is because people en masse get bachelor’s degrees because they are a path to a better future.

Trapped in a Vicious Circle

While I generally support Rowe’s “college isn’t the only way” message, I am more pessimistic than he is because I don’t see the circle breaking easily.

If the best way to have the best career prospects is to outdo my competition, how likely is it that I will decide not to go to college if I suspect that others are better satisfying employers’ expectations by going? I could take a chance, but it’d be a big chance; if I’m right, I save a lot of tuition money, still get a decent job, and accumulate four extra years of earnings and experience, but if I’m wrong, my career prospects are slim. Rowe might point out that many careers don’t require a college degree, but I’d remind him that the pool of such jobs is shrinking. Fifteen years ago, those jobs included file clerks and construction supervisors, both of which now require degrees.

If this process looks circular, that’s because it is.

Some companies are bucking the upcredentialing trend and recognizing that there is little reason for them to require college degrees for certain positions. I hope that as those companies find success with that model, others will follow suit and we will reach a tipping point. Rowe probably shares that hope.

None of this lets Sanders off the hook. Not only is his tweet horribly oversimplified (and to be fair, one can’t be terribly nuanced in a tweet). But “college for all” ceases to look so good when you understand that education is a positional good. Increasing college access to all will do little more than deflate the value of a college degree for everyone by fueling the very upcredentialing that is already making the degree ever less meaningful.

“At the end of the day,” some future tweet may opine, “a second PhD is a helluva lot cheaper than prison.”

Kevin Currie-KnightKevin Currie-Knight

Kevin Currie-Knight teaches in East Carolina University’s Department of Special Education, Foundations, and Research. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

The Islamic State vs. the Laffer Curve by Daniel J. Mitchell

Based on my writings, some people may think I’m 100 percent against higher taxes.

But that’s not exactly true. In some cases, I like punitive taxation. Or, to be more precise, I sometimes take pleasure when punitive tax policy backfires on bad people.

Here’s an example. An interesting article in Slate, authored by Adam Chodorow of Arizona State University Law School, looks at how a terrorist group’s attempt to form a government is being stymied by an inability to collect taxes.

Revolution is easy. Governing is hard. And there are few things more difficult than taxes. Operating a country requires money, and that typically requires taxes. … 

The population in this area is estimated to be between 7 million and 8 million, about the same as the population of Washington state. While ISIS currently collects about $1 billion annually, countries of similar size collect about $16 billion, suggesting that ISIS has a long way to go if it wants to operate like a real state.

But the comparatively low levels of tax revenue are not because of a Hong Kong-type commitment to limited government.

Instead, the terror group is discovering that people don’t like giving their money to politicians and bureaucrats, even ones motivated by Islamic fundamentalism.

Taxes aren’t a great way to ingratiate oneself with the governed. … More than one government has fallen because of its tax policy. ISIS must face these challenges just as any emerging polity does… ISIS may have displayed prowess on the battlefield, but it has revealed that it is as stymied and constrained by the complexities of taxation as the rest of us. …

ISIS’s taxes appear to be … no more popular in the territory it controls than they would be here in the U.S. As the Times reported, ISIS’s taxes are now so onerous that large numbers of people, who were apparently willing to tolerate ISIS’s religious authoritarianism, are fleeing Syria and Iraq to escape them. At some point people will either rise up or leave, threatening ISIS’s internal revenue source.

So taxes are becoming so onerous that taxpayers (and taxable income) are escaping.

Hmm… excessive taxation leading to less taxable economic activity. That seems like a familiar concept — something I’ve written about one or two times. Or maybe 50 or 100 times.

Ah, yes, our old friend, the Laffer Curve!

ISIS is … constrained by a lack of administrative resources and the simple reality once sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin by the economist Arthur Laffer: that tax rates can only get so high before they actually drive down government revenues.

Given current conditions, ISIS may be near or at the limits of its ability to tax, even if it can recruit jihadi tax accountants to its cause. Thus … it’s not clear how much room the group has to grow internal revenues. More important, its efforts to do so may do more to damage its prospects than outside forces can accomplish.

This sounds like the tax equivalent of War of the Worlds, the H.G. Wells’ classic in which alien invaders wreak havoc on earth until they are felled by bacteria.

Tom Cruise was the star of a 2005 movie adaptation of this story, but I’m thinking I could rekindle my acting career and star in a movie of how the Laffer Curve thwarts ISIS!

But to have a happy ending, ISIS has to be defeated. And Professor Chodorow closes his article with a very helpful suggestion.

Rather than send in ground troops … view our tax code as a weapon of mass destruction. … We could make full use of it in the war on ISIS, perhaps by translating it into Arabic in the hopes that the group adopts it.

Sounds like the advice I once gave about threatening Assad with Obamacare.

A version of this post first appeared at Dan Mitchell’s blog International Liberty.

Daniel J. MitchellDaniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

Government Caused the ‘Great Stagnation’ by Peter J. Boettke

Tyler Cowen caused quite a stir with his e-book, The Great Stagnation. In properly assessing his work it is important to state explicitly what his argument actually is. Median real income has stagnated since 1980, and the reason is that the rate of technological advance has slowed. Moreover, the technological advances that have taken place with such rapidity in recent history have improved well-being, but not in ways that are easily measured in real income statistics.

Critics of Cowen more often than not miss the mark when they focus on the wild improvements in our real income due to quality improvements (e.g., cars that routinely go over 100,000 miles) and lower real prices (e.g., the amount of time required to acquire the inferior version of yesterday’s similar commodities).

Cowen does not deny this. Nor does Cowen deny that millions of people were made better off with the collapse of communism, the relative freeing of the economies in China and India, and the integration into the global economy of the peoples of Africa and Latin America. Readers of The Great Stagnation should be continually reminded that they are reading the author of In Praise of Commercial Culture and Creative Destruction. Cowen is a cultural optimist, a champion of the free trade in ideas, goods, services and all artifacts of mankind. But he is also an economic realist in the age of economic illusion.

What do I mean by the economics of illusion? Government policies since WWII have created an illusion that irresponsible fiscal policy, the manipulation of money and credit, and expansion of the regulation of the economy is consistent with rising standards of living. This was made possible because of the “low hanging” technological fruit that Cowen identifies as being plucked in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the US, and in spite of the policies government pursued.

An accumulated economic surplus was created by the age of innovation, which the age of economic illusion spent down. We are now coming to the end of that accumulated surplus and thus the full weight of government inefficiencies are starting to be felt throughout the economy. Our politicians promised too much, our government spends too much, in an apparent chase after the promises made, and our population has become too accustomed to both government guarantees and government largess.

Adam Smith long ago argued that the power of self-interest expressed in the market was so strong that it could overcome hundreds of impertinent restrictions that government puts in the way. But there is some tipping point at which that ability to overcome will be thwarted, and the power of the market will be overcome by the tyranny of politics. Milton Friedman used that language to talk about the 1970s; we would do well to resurrect that language to talk about today.

Cowen’s work is a subversive track in radical libertarianism because he identifies that government growth (both measured in terms of scale and scope) was possible only because of the rate of technological improvements made in the late 19th and early 20th century.

We realized the gains from trade (Smithian growth), we realized the gains from innovation (Schumpeterian growth), and we fought off (in the West, at least) totalitarian government (Stupidity). As long as Smithian growth and Schumpeterian growth outpace Stupidity, tomorrow’s trough will still be higher than today’s peak. It will appear that we can afford more Stupidity than we can actually can because the power of self-interest expressed through the market offsets its negative consequences.

But if and when Stupidity is allowed to outpace the Smithian gains from trade and the Schumpeterian gains from innovation, then we will first stagnate and then enter a period of economic backwardness — unless we curtail Stupidity, explore new trading opportunities, or discover new and better technologies.

In Cowen’s narrative, the rate of discovery had slowed, all the new trading opportunities had been exploited, and yet government continued to grow both in terms of scale and scope. And when he examines the 3 sectors in the US economy — government services, education, and health care — he finds little improvement since 1980 in the production and distribution of the services. In fact, there is evidence that performance has gotten worse over time, especially as government’s role in health care and education has expanded.

The Great Stagnation is a condemnation of government growth over the 20th century. It was made possible only by the amazing technological progress of the late 19th and early 20th century. But as the rate of technological innovation slowed, the costs of government growth became more evident. The problem, however, is that so many have gotten used to the economics of illusion that they cannot stand the reality staring them in the face.

This is where we stand in our current debt ceiling debate. Government is too big, too bloated. Washington faces a spending problem, not a revenue problem. But too many within the economy depend on the government transfers to live and to work. Yet the economy is not growing at a rate that can afford the illusion. Where are we to go from here?

Cowen’s work makes us think seriously about that question. How can the economic realist confront the economics of illusion? And Cowen has presented the basic dilemma in a way that the central message of economic realism is not only available for libertarians to see (if they would just look, or listen carefully to his podcast at EconTalk), but for anyone who is willing to read and think critically about our current political and economic situation.

The Great Stagnation signals the end of the economics of illusion and — let’s hope — paves the way for a new age of economic realism.

This post first appeared at Coordination Problem.

Peter J. BoettkePeter J. Boettke

Peter Boettke is a Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University and director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

RELATED ARTICLE: 5 Reasons Why America Is Headed to a Budget Crisis

Political Correctness and Barack Obama

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on January 12, 2016 was criticized by many. For us, the people of the former Socialist countries, it had been a very familiar political theater. The carefully choreographed speech was brought from the stratosphere of illusion and a calligraphy of misleading, which had nothing to do with the reality on the planet Earth. We were not surprised—we are used to the political theater of Stalinist’s ideology, the only achievement of Soviet Socialism. President Obama’s speech represented a quintessential form of the Stalin’s Political Correctness, which has been nourished by the liberals in America for the last several decades.

You won’t find a person in America’s social media who doesn’t use the term Political Correctness every day and many times a day. In his interview with Fox, the former FBI deputy director Kostrome said to Judge Jeanine: “Political correctness is killing us.” He is right, PC was designed to harm and destroy Western civilization. Yet, I am not sure that all the people using the term are familiar with its agenda, etymology, and creator. The author and architect of the term is Joseph Stalin and knowing this fact will help many to grasp the world politics of the 21st century.

Barack Obama forces me to return again to this subject. When I read that 76 per cent of the American people loath Political Correctness (PC), my love for those people tripled. They did not know that PC was a Stalinist ideological invasion into their culture, they just felt it intuitively. I also knew that they are the fairest people in the world and their dislike for PC shows them to be very sensitive to the adversarial and harmful actions against American interests.

Political Correctness is the Ideological Tool of Soviet Socialism.

Political Correctness is the major method in fighting the war against Western civilization and implementing the ideology of Soviet Socialism, the topic I have been writing about for the last twenty years. I called this war WWIII. There are four main components in my definition of an asymmetrical WWIII. They are the following: Recruitment, Infiltration, Drugs, and Assassinations. Recruitment and Infiltration are inextricably connected. Neither could have been achieved without Political Correctness, which is falsely projects tolerance.

A famous Russian dissident Vladimir Bukowski once said: “when a Socialist comes to power, you can expect concentration camps.”  He was right—violence is the main feature of Socialism. The perspective for the future Socialist world was expressed by Karl Marx in his slogan Proletarian of the world unite, which meant a violent world war. One hundred years later Joseph Stalin developed the Socialist intent in a more politically pronounced manner by camouflaging violence: One world Government under the Kremlin auspices. He used Political Correctness.

We, the former citizens of the Socialist countries went through that development, called Soviet Socialism. It was a war by the government against its own citizens–a multi-faceted war with different fronts, methods, shapes, and forms. Speaking different languages and living in different countries, we all came to America from a collective microcosm of Political Correctness—a false narrative to alter the nature of the Truth. There is no surprise that the American people are angered and frustrated—this is a response to Obama’s war against the population. He is following the same way Stalin did to build his Soviet Socialism, which had never worked.

Yet, many Americans are still infected by the virus of Stalin’s Socialism. The question is – how it was possible that a fraud, as I identified Stalin’s ideology of Socialism, survive for almost a century and still seduce a lot of people in the world today? The question I have been researching and investigating for many years discussing multi-faceted methods of the Stalin’s social model—one of them is Political Correctness.

Does anybody in America or the world know the architect of PC, its concept or the fundamental agenda behind it? Does anybody know the nature and crucial role those two words played in their lives for decades? The answer to the question will unite us: the former citizens of the Socialist countries and all of the people in the 21st century, as we all together in different times have been manipulated and brainwashed by these two words—Political Correctness.

It seems that the nature of those two words, is very neutral indeed. In fact, those words are not peaceful, on the contrary they represent the psychological tools or methods which are used to transform a political system by fraud, while simultaneously fighting its ideological opponents. To my knowledge Stalin was the author of those two words that were published for the first time in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia (News) in 1933, the time when major transformation was going on within the Soviet Union. Stalin called “Politically Incorrect” the leaders of the opposition. The American educator Herbert Kohl confirms my opinion:

“In the early-to-mid 20th century, contemporary uses of the phrase “Politically Correct” were associated with the dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine, debated between formal Communists (members of the Communist Party) and Socialists. The phrase was a colloquialism referring to the Communist party line, which provided for “correct” positions on many matters of politics. According to American educator Herbert Kohl writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s. “

Writing about Stalinism and watching its ubiquitous application in the 21st century, I have offered my version of the matter several times before:

“… Political Correctness is a Stalinist policy, driven by the political agenda, a skillfully crafted design of quintessential system of lies, the long-term strategy of war against Western civilization and creation of One World Government.”

And again I’d like to remind you about Stalin’s incredible ability to mislead, lie, and defraud. Stalin was so skillful at political intrigue that vast majority of people in the Soviet Union not only believed him, but adored him as a Messiah. Nobody could compete with him in the art of intrigue. Political Correctness had no opponents and reigned in the country—we lived inside a gigantic network of falsehood… And so lives America in the 21st century.

Look at America today. Due to the constant efforts of the Obama administration America is drastically transformed, like us, living in the Soviet Union, America lives today inside a gigantic network of falsehood created by Political Correctness. And this is not the end of the resemblances: our economy is going down the tube, the harm Obama has done to economy counts in billions, our morals are at their lowest level ever. All of this has a logical result—Socialism has never worked anywhere, it ended by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The history of the 20 century repeats itself in the 21st when manipulation and brainwashing of human minds goes undetected in America. We can’t continue down the path of “Democratic Socialism”: it is an oxymoron–Democratic can’t be Socialist and Socialism can’t be democratic. We must return to the values of our Founding Fathers. Now is the time to see clearly where we are going under the leadership of the party, called Democratic: Even the name is a false one. I am not sure that Trump, like the vast majority of Americans knows about source of PC, yet, with his magnetic and unique personality, he symbolizes them all. We are witnessing an uprising against the bureaucracy of the Washington political class.

“I voted against that incompetent, lying, flip-flopping, insincere, double-talking, radical socialist, terrorist excusing, bleeding heart, narcissistic, scientific and economic moron currently in the White House!” – Clint Eastwood

VIDEO: Iranian-Backed Harakat al-Sabireen Terror Group in West Bank and Gaza

 reports:

A new Iranian-backed terror group is making inroads in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, where it operates underground with the potential capacity to deliver devastating attacks to Israel, according to regional experts who have been investigating the organization’s rise.

The group, which goes by the name Harakat al-Sabireen, was established around May 2014 but has begun in recent months to boost its public profile on social media and brag about its plots to wage jihad against Israel, according to information gathered by regional analysts and provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Al-Sabireen is believed to receive $10 million a year from Iran via funds that are smuggled through a large network of tunnels built by terrorists to facilitate illicit travel beneath the Gaza Strip, according to estimates disseminated in the Arab language press.

Read more.

RELATED ARTICLES:

What terror will Iran fund with $100 billion?

U.S. releases convicted felons for hostages held by Iran

Murdered by a terrorist in her own home: remembering Dafna Meir

New Biological Data Measures Issues that Divide American Voters

CHICAGO. IL /PRNewswire/ — Obamacare and immigration are the two issues on which Republicans and Democrats are the most divided, according to research by research and insights agency Shapiro+Raj, the company announced. Republican and Democratic respondents differed in their reactions to different candidates’ positions on these issues.

Researchers at Shapiro+Raj, led by Associate Manager Mike Winograd, Ph.D., used traditional survey methods complemented by biometrics to better measure respondents’ in-the-moment opinions about eight issues using video statements by some of the leading candidates from both parties in the 2016 presidential race.

Of the eight issues covered—abortion, climate change, gay marriage, gun control, immigration, Obamacare, Social Security and taxes—Obamacare, gun control and abortion elicited the strongest responses from both sides in terms of support or opposition. The majority of respondents also ranked gay marriage and climate change among the least important issues in the upcoming election.

For each issue, Shapiro+Raj used five video clips of Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and undeclared candidate Joe Biden. Republican candidates included Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. All of the clips lasted between 10 and 33 seconds. Clips for each issue were shown in serial with 15-second blank screens between each video clip.

In this study, Shapiro+Raj used a biometric measure known as galvanic skin response (GSR), to measure respondents’ perspiration levels, which are an indicator of arousal and emotional reactivity, and applied the results alongside facial coding to determine not only the strength of viewers’ responses, but also their comparative reactions.

The findings overall showed that the biometric analysis did not fully align with the survey responses.

“Biometrics have huge implications for the ad-marketing industry because they can be applied to extract more detailed and actionable consumer insights on behalf of brands,” Winograd said. “Traditional researchers have known for a long time that what people say doesn’t always align with their true beliefs or how they might behave.”

For example, aside from his image as Washington outsider, Trump has more moderate, or even liberal, views on some issues. While Democratic voters’ ratings of Trump were strongly negative, the biometric findings indicated that when the content of his messages aligned with their beliefs, Democratic voters do not necessarily dislike Trump.

A 2013 clip of Ben Carson referring to Obamacare as, “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,” evoked the strongest negative reaction among some Democratic respondents, according to the biometric analysis. By contrast, Republicans’ responses to the Carson clip indicated that they did not find his statement provocative.

“Using biometrics, we can get nuanced perspectives on the emotions of voters and consumers,” Winograd added.

For more information about these findings, click here.

ABOUT SHAPIRO+RAJ

Shapiro+Raj is a new strategy and research company for the Insight Economy™, connecting Shapiro’s 60-year leadership in research, insights and analytics with new world brand strategy, innovation and ideation capabilities. Shapiro+Raj delivers deep, enduring insights and inspired ideas to help its Fortune 500 clients improve the value of their brands while driving profitable growth of their business. Headquartered in Chicago, the independent firm also has an office in New York.

RELATED ARTICLE: North Carolina: Craven County considering resolution to block some refugees from the county

Europeans Paying Close Attention to U.S. Election

SHELTON, Conn. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The United States presidential campaigns are having a bigger effect on world opinion than one might think, based on the results of a recent SSI QuickPoll™.  In fact, there’s great interest in Europe in the presidential election even at this early stage.  Two-thirds of Europeans are paying attention, with over a third saying they are paying “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of attention.

SSI QuickPoll Says Europeans Pay Close Attention to US Election (PRNewsFoto/SSI)

SSI QuickPoll Says Europeans Pay Close Attention to U.S. Election (PRNewsFoto/SSI)

According to SSI’s U.S. Presidential Pulse, the majority of respondents (56%) across France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom paid “quite a lot of attention” or “some attention” to the U.S. presidential election campaign.  Only 11% of respondents across the four countries indicated they have paid “a great deal of attention” to the election campaign.

The SSI Presidential Pulse QuickPoll was conducted amongst 3199 individuals aged 18 and older between Jan. 12-13, 2016.  To coincide with this year’s presidential election, SSI will conduct ongoing surveys under its SSI Presidential Pulse program to provide real-time checks on the opinions of the voting public on candidate favorability.

“When SSI reviewed the results on a country level respondents in the Netherlands (48%) were more likely to state they had not paid ‘very much attention’ or ‘no attention at all’ to the U.S. presidential election campaign than respondents in France (25%), Germany (28%), and the U.K. (31%),” said Jackie Lorch, vice president of knowledge management at SSI.

When asked which of the following candidates for U.S. president have they heard of, respondents were very aware of Hillary Clinton (90%) and Donald Trump (85%).  Almost half (48%) of respondents had heard of Jeb Bush.  No other candidate reaches 20% name recognition (SSI only asked about the top two Democrats and the top six Republicans).

Across all four countries, 69% of respondents who have heard of Hillary Clinton indicated they have a favorable opinion of her.  France (71%) and Germany (75%) were more likely to indicate they have a favorable opinion of Clinton than respondents in the Netherlands (66%) and the U.K. (64%).

Conversely, among respondents who have heard of Donald Trump, 71% indicated they had an unfavorable opinion of him.  Germany (76%) and U.K. (72%) respondents were more likely to state they had an unfavorable opinion of Trump than respondents in France (68%) and the Netherlands (67%).

In fact, yesterday, the British Parliament held a debate over a petition calling for Donald Trump to be banned from the country.  The debate did not produce any binding decisions.

“SSI asked our respondents, ‘Do you think Donald Trump should be banned from entering the U.K.?’  Overall, 38% of respondents did not think Donald Trump should be banned from entering the U.K.,” explained Lorch.  Respondents in the U.K. (46%), were more likely than respondents in France (34%), Germany (33%) and the Netherlands (39%) to state they did not think Trump should be banned from the UK.

“In spite of the unfavorable opinion, only a quarter to a third of Europeans polled think Trump should be banned from the U.K. or from their own countries,” concluded Lorch.  The majority of respondents in France (41%),Germany (41%), and the Netherlands (46%) stated they did not think Trump should be banned from their country.

SSI is the premier global provider of data solutions and technology for consumer and business-to-business survey research, reaching respondents in 100+ countries via Internet, telephone, mobile/wireless and mixed-access offerings. SSI staff operates from 30 offices in 21 countries, offering sample, data collection, CATI, questionnaire design consultation, programming and hosting, online custom reporting and data processing. SSI?s 3,600 employees serve more than 2,500 clients worldwide. Visit SSI at www.surveysampling.com. (PRNewsFoto/Survey Sampling International)

ABOUT SSI

SSI is the premier global provider of data solutions and technology for consumer and business-to-business survey research, reaching respondents in 100+ countries via Internet, telephone, mobile/wireless and mixed-access offerings.  SSI staff operates from 30 offices in 21 countries, offering sample, data collection, CATI, questionnaire design consultation, programming and hosting, online custom reporting and data processing.  SSI’s 3,600 employees serve more than 2,500 clients worldwide.  Visit SSI at www.surveysampling.com.

SSI QuickPoll is a trademark of Survey Sampling International LLC

Court: NYPD must purge documents on how Islamic terrorists operate

The NYPD is now bound to pretend that the Muslim community is no more likely to produce terrorists than the Amish community or the Jain community. Here again, what could possibly go wrong?

The Leftist ideologues who have joined with Islamic supremacists such as Linda Sarsour to bring this about seem to think that there will be no consequences to enforcing upon the NYPD ignorance about the jihad threat.

Either they don’t realize that there will be more Islamic jihad murder in New York City because of this ruling, or they don’t care — and given that this is 2016, after 9/11, after Fort Hood, after the Boston Marathon, after Garland, after Chattanooga, after San Bernardino, after hundreds of thwarted jihad plots and more, it is apparently the latter.

SarsourdeBlasio

New York City Mayor de Blasio (right) with Linda Sarsour.

“Court Requires NYPD to Purge Docs on Terrorists Inside U.S.,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, January 18, 2016:

The New York Police Department has been directed by a U.S. court to remove from its online records an investigation pertaining to the rise of Islamic extremists in the West and the threats these individuals pose to American safety, according to legal documents.

As part of a settlement agreement reached earlier this month with Muslim community advocates in U.S. District Court, the NYPD will purge from its website an extensive report that experts say has been critical to the department’s understanding of radical Islam and its efforts to police the threat.

The court settlement also stipulates that the NYPD make a concerted effort to mitigate the impact of future terror investigations on certain religious and political groups, according to a copy of the court documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has spearheaded the case since June 2013.

Legal experts and critics of the settlement maintain that it could hamper future terrorism investigations and view it as part of a larger campaign by Muslim advocacy organizations in the United States to dismantle surveillance programs encompassing that community.

Critics expressed particular concern about the case in light of a recent surge in attacks on U.S. citizens committed by individuals pledging allegiance to terror groups such as ISIS.

A key portion of the settlement focuses on the NYPD’s purported use of a document produced by the department’s intelligence division to examine how radicalized individuals make their way to the United States and carry out terror attacks.

The document, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” aimed to provide local law enforcement and policy makers with information about domestic terrorists and their operations.

As part of the settlement agreement, the NYPD will be forced to remove the publication from its database and vow not to rely on it in the future.

The NYPD and New York state government agencies included in the case “represent that they do not, have not, and will not rely upon the Radicalization in the West report to open or extend investigations,” according to the settlement. “Defendants will remove the Radicalization in the West report from the NYPD website.”

The settlement further affirms that the NYPD will be “committed to mitigating the potential impact” of future investigations on political and religious groups, such as those in the Muslim-American community.

While NYPD officials would not comment Thursday when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon, a spokesperson directed a reporter to a recent press release affirming the department’s commitment to upholding the court settlement.

The NYPD and relevant New York state agencies will “provide additional guidance to police officers as part of a settlement of lawsuits accusing the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups,” according to the Jan. 7 press release. “While the City did not admit to engaging in any improper practices, the changes represent an effort to provide more detailed guidance to NYPD personnel within the existing Handschu Guidelines,” which govern how authorities investigate political activities.

The NYPD confirmed that it would remove from its website the 2007 radicalization report.

RELATED ARTICLES:

UK: Muslims plotted to murder police and soldiers in drive-by London shootings for the Islamic State

Number of Muslims from UK who have joined the Islamic State now up to 1,500

‘Could this be the year Europe dies’ as economic conditions drive a billion Africans North?

Klaus Schwab the founder of the World Economic Forum convening in Davos, Switzerland this week has a very scary prediction for the future of Europe.

Learn more here at American Resistance 2016!

See our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive by clicking here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Wisconsin: It is not just meatpackers having problems with Muslim refugee employees

See American Resistance 2016! for a couple of stories that might interest RRW readers

So-called ‘Unaccompanied alien children’ numbers are on target to surpass Invasion 2014

U.S. Campuses: Virulent Anti-Semitism Passed Off as Mild Dissent

Anti-Israel BDS resolutions have been seizing campuses in Canada. According to an article in the Jerusalem Post, it is Hamas — an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood — that has fueled and directed the BDS and Israel Apartheid Week campaigns on university campuses across North America, through chapters of the Muslim Student Association and the Palestine Solidarity Network. Yet these menacing campaign drives are being minimized, passed off at best as a difference of opinion, and at worst, as social justice campaigns to protect Palestinians from the so-called brutalities imposed by an apartheid state.

A recent Brandeis University study on anti-Semitism singled out Canadian and Californian universities as locales where hostility toward Jewish students was especially high.

In Spring 2014, several hundred Ryerson University students voted “overwhelmingly in favour” of supporting BDS. Then three months ago, what was described as “a hate-filled anti-semitic message full of vile language” was found scrawled in the men’s bathroom at Ryerson. It referenced the “stealing of Palestinian land” and called for Israel, Jews and supporters of the state of Israel to “burn in hell.” In April, the president of the organization called Ryerson’s Students Supporting Israel said she was spat upon while holding an Israeli flag as she filmed a school project on campus, prompting investigations by Toronto police and the university’s Investigations and Crime Prevention Office.

Referring to the graffiti, Ryerson President Sheldon Levy stated:

We are shocked and saddened….Graffiti of this nature is absolutely unacceptable at Ryerson and has no place on our campus or anywhere else. We are committed to providing a civil and safe environment which is free of discrimination, harassment, and hate, and is respectful of the rights, responsibilities, well-being and dignity of all its members.

Despite the rebuke to such blatant anti-Semitism, there still lurks a more subtle and dangerous new anti-semitism that is paraded as dissent in political opinion, but that aims to delegitimize the state of Israel.

I had the unfortunate firsthand experience of a display of this phenomenon — albeit a seemingly mild version — during a speech I gave before an adult part-time class at Ryerson University on November 9. Also speaking was the executive director of a Christian Zionist organization. The professor who invited us did a stellar job at keeping balance and poise in the midst of unreasonable “student” attacks against the state of Israel, and some aimed at me personally.

The experience I will recount is one that is far too often justified by reference to the Palestinian plight, and is also minimized by those who undermine the peril of this subtle form of new antisemitism.

My speech encompassed the justification of support for Israel beyond “the Bible said so,” with references to the two-state solution delineated long ago by the League of Nations, to which Arab states still took offense, as they rejected Israel’s very existence — despite the British partition plan favoring the Arabs – and thus attacked the Jewish State it upon its birth in 1948. My co-speaker was her usual charming self as she discussed the fine work of her Christian Zionist organization. Then came my segment, which was more about the blend and crossover between religion and politics with regards to Israel.

It was stunning to witness the spectacle of a significant number of audience members virulently against the state of Israel with no justification, rhyme or reason, and most critically, no apparent recognition of why Israel needs to defend itself from obliteration. When challenged to explain their positions, they could offer no explanation for their views beyond “you’re passionate, you’re religious….you’re one-sided,” or “I find it hard to listen to a one-sided approach.” The obsession with the “occupied territories,” “the fence,” “the expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem,” and the “poverty of Palestinians is because of Israel” was obscene in the face of Israel’s struggle to exist, not to mention the deadly Hamas, PA and Fatah Charters seeking Israel’s obliteration; the persecution of Christians in Bethlehem; the stabbings in Jerusalem; the rocket attacks; the Muslim women and children human shields used by Hamas; and so on. One woman talked with disdain about her “evangelical brother,” whom she found to be ignorant and bigoted, as she implicitly accused me of being an ignorant evangelical who blindly supported what she portrayed as the criminal state of Israel, but gave no evidence when asked to explain and elaborate upon her thoughts.

She and her fellow Israel-haters didn’t even care that Abbas announced that there would not be one Jew in a Palestinian state (a demonstration of pure hatred and apartheid), or that Abbas did his PhD in Holocaust denial. It was as though these folks were deaf, dumb and blind to history and the current realities of Israel’s existential threat as well as the grave sufferings being endured by the persecuted Church in Islamic states and in Bethlehem, from which Christians have been driven out.

Given plenty of opportunity and encouragement to address exactly what in the points I had made that the “students” thought was flawed, they had no answer or even any desire to examine the issues fairly in search of truth, but instead persisted with a brazen display of raw anti-Semitism disguised as caring about the Palestinians. Not even one question was posed during the speech (or Question and Answer period) about to where the 31 billion dollars of aid that the West gave to the Palestinian Authority vanished. I will answer now: much went to funding terrorism, for starters, which included reward blood money to terrorists who successfully murdered innocent Israelis.

When the bright Ryerson Professor posed a question to an attendee about whether it would really make any significant difference if Israel stopped its expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem, the answer was that at least people would not be as upset. The ludicrousness of this answer was perplexing.

I was surprised at the end of my presentation by a surprising nice round of applause, as well as by the sudden appearance of many in support of Israel that I wished had spoken up more.

What nation on the face of the earth faces obliteration by Islamic regimes, on top of unjustified and venomous attacks from Western critics who enjoy their safety at home — and in Israel, were it not for jihadists — and who would be murdered if they even so much as openly expressed their views about freedom of religion or rights for women and gays in the despotic territories surrounding Israel? A question to contemplate: Israel has habitually tried to make friends out of its foes; has it worked?

I posted this first-hand experience on Facebook, and one of the comments by an Israeli Defense and security specialist displayed some insights into raw truth:

Don’t we know this? We did warn the world about ISIS. We did warn the world about  aviation and airport security. We did warn the world about border security. Did anyone listen? Of course not!!!!

Four decades ago, the renowned professor Bernard Lewis wrote that an “ominous phrase” was heard immediately preceding the Six-Day War in 1967: “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.’” In an era of rising jihadist infiltration into Western civilization, let’s hope that leaders and campus authorities can begin deciphering the meaning and profundity of such a statement in the face of stark and mounting evidence.

Christine Williams is an award winning Canadian journalist and public relations consultant. She is also an appointee of the Canadian government.

RELATED ARTICLES:

New Iranian-Backed Terror Group Makes Inroads in West Bank, Gaza

IAEA certifies Iran’s compliance with nuke deal, U.S., EU lift sanctions

Munich pools issue leaflets telling migrants not to grope women

Rand Paul ‘Baffled’ by Evangelicals’ Preference for ‘War-Mongering GOP Candidates’

FAYETTEVILLE, NC /PRNewswire/ — In an exclusive interview with FTMDaily’s Jerry Robinson, U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul discusses the recent Senate vote on his “Audit the Fed” bill, as well as the lack of support of his candidacy within the American evangelical community.

Sen. Paul explains that the message in the New Testament is one of peace and that Jesus never encouraged his followers to rebel against the government or to instigate war. Therefore, Sen. Paul’s message of peace through prosperity should resonate within evangelical groups during this presidential election cycle. But when asked why many evangelicals in America prefer militarism over peace, Sen. Paul is truly baffled.

Sen. Paul comments:

“I think it is really an irony, and I continue to be baffled by it, but it’s not always true. I do remind them [religious and evangelical groups] that the sermon on the mount and the beatitudes were ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. Jesus didn’t say, ‘Oh, let’s gather some rebels and overturn the government that’s collaborating with the Romans’. Really, his message was a much different one.”

Jerry Robinson, a Christian economist and host of Follow the Money radio, recognizes that Sen. Paul’s message of a humble foreign policy, sound money, and fiscal transparency within government is in step with the teachings of the New Testament. And although Sen. Paul’s Audit the Fed bill was narrowly defeated by Senate Democrats on Tuesday, he promises that the fight for an audit is not over.

Sen. Paul concedes that he has worked for five years to get the bill up for a vote in the Senate, but that despite Tuesday’s defeat, he will continue to push his agenda.

Ultimately, Sen. Paul explains that his desire is to not only see a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve’s massive and opaque balance sheet, but also to allow interest rates to be set by the marketplace rather than the Federal Reserve. He claims that had interest rates been allowed to rise prior to the housing bubble of 2008, investors would have heeded the market signal that they had over-built and the bubble could have been avoided altogether.

About FTMDaily

FTMDaily, or Follow the Money Daily, is an online media company delivering cutting-edge financial commentaries, unique economic strategies, and informed geopolitical analysis. FTMDaily.com was created in 2010 by Christian economist and best-selling author, Jerry Robinson. Since then, FTMDaily.com has grown exponentially with readers and subscribers from all around the world.

Our mission at Follow the Money Daily is simple. We exist to help people understand the global economic and geopolitical realities that face them. For our paid subscribers, we provide real-time, actionable investing ideas and income strategies, along with cutting-edge geopolitical analysis, designed to prepare them for the difficult challenges that lie ahead for America and the world.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why the Freedom Caucus Wants to Declare War on ISIS