Iran: U.S. must pay reparations to the Islamic Republic

The billions in sanctions relief weren’t enough. The Islamic Republic sees the weakness of the Obama Administration, and is pressing forward with more demands.

“Iran: U.S. Must Pay Reparations to Islamic Republic,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, November 5, 2015:

An Iranian military leader is demanding that the United States pay Tehran reparations for the deaths of more than 250,000 Iranians at the hands of U.S. affiliates, according to regional reports.

Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a brigadier general in Iran’s volunteer Basij Force, said on Thursday that the Obama administration “should pay ransom” for its supposed role in killing Iranians during the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought hardline extremists into power.

The demand for a ransom comes just a day after Iranians across the country took to the streets to rally against America and Israel. They burned U.S. flags and chanted, “Death to America.”

It was disclosed on Wednesday that Iran has been found to be directly responsible for the deaths of nearly 200 U.S. troops in Iraq and the wounding of nearly 1,000 others. The Obama administration has been hesitant to prosecute Iran under U.S. terrorism laws for these killings.

Naqdi said Iran has “irrefutable” evidence that America is responsible for the deaths of more than 250,000 Iranians.

“In the days when the Islamic Revolution was underway and after that and during the holy defense (the Iraqi-imposed war against Iran 1980-1988), over 250,000 Iranians were massacred directly by the U.S. or by its proxies at Washington’s order, and these US crimes can be proved based on undeniable and irrefutable proofs and documents,” the military figure was quoted as saying by Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

Because of this, Iran “should receive compensation money from the U.S. for the death of their children and beloved ones at the hands of the merciless Washington,” the report stated.

The report goes on to claim that Iranian officials have evidence that the United States worked with former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, providing him weapons during his war against Iran.

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UC Merced stabbing attacker praised Allah, authorities search for motive

Islamic State praises Muslim who stabbed four at University of California — Merced

As always, the Islamic State glories in violence. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the Islamic State knew about the attack beforehand or coordinated it — but they love it, for they love bloodshed.

“Calif. university stabber shot dead after lunging at officer, student says,” FoxNews.com, November 6, 2015:

…Warnke stressed Wednesday’s stabbings were not terrorism, just a grudge by an angry teenager, but Mohammad did praise Allah in his writings. He added though that the writings about Allah would be like him, a Christian, referencing Jesus, since that is the religion he practices.

Mohammad, who was killed by campus police, was described by at least one witness as smiling as he slashed at victims, called a loner by a fellow dorm resident and drew praise Thursday from a Twitter account associated with ISIS, which just last week released a series of videos calling for lone wolf stabbing attacks.

“May Allah accept him,” read a tweet in Arabic from a Twitter account that terrorism experts say has carried previous ISIS propaganda, just minutes after Mohammad’s name was divulged by campus authorities.

“He had a smile on his face, he was having fun,” a construction worker who helped stop the attacker told CBS 47.

A suitemate said Mohammad “didn’t talk much.” Speaking to KFSN, Andrew Velasquez said he never saw the stabber walking to class with anyone, adding, “Every time I would try and say something he would just ignore it.”

The four victims are expected to survive….

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Why Dr. Ben Carson’s Fame Is Like Christ’s Triumphal Entry for the Adventist Church

Christ’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem had been foretold 500 years earlier, riding on a colt, Zechariah 9:9. God’s purpose was to call attention to the prophecies concerning the Savior before Friday’s crucifixion.

Adventism may be due for a similar bipolar swing from popular now to ridicule or scorn soon. With most major news sources doing an article on Dr. Carson’s faith, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is no longer considered a cult, but they sadly edited some beliefs to escape inclusion in Walter Martin’s “Kingdom of Cults” 50 years ago, a book that included Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Islam, New Age, etc.

The purpose of this is not to look at the Trinity now accepted, but it’s a word that Ellen White never used. We look instead at the eschatology she may have hinted for us in the next chapter of her book on Christ’s life, a chapter titled “A Doomed People.” It was about the Jewish nation then, like the fig tree flaunting its pretentious leaves but lacking fruit. Christ cursed the tree as a lesson against empty or shallow religion.

“So it is now” wrote Ellen White from Australia where brethren sent her to get rid of her agitation for a new truth of righteousness by faith for the church. She returned to appeal for a reorganization of the General Conference in 1901. They voted her request, but never carried it out and in 1903, voted a more hierarchical structure that GC President Wilson said in court was like the Roman Catholic Church. M. Silver v PPPA.

Ellen White’s response was, “How is the faithful city become an harlot? My Father’s house is made a house of merchandise; a place whence the divine presence and glory have departed.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol 8, pg 250. Two years later she wrote, “the great apostasy which is developing…will continue to do so until the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout.” Special Testimonies, Series B, #7, 1905.

Special Testimonies, Series B was burned in the basement of the GC. BT Anderson, custodian was told they had extra copies they didn’t need, to stoke up the furnace. They burned her books he related after retiring.

Her statement in 1905 was confirmed by Dr. Mervyn Hardinge in 1985 as he retired as Medical Director of the General Conference. SDA hospitals perhaps best show our apostasy if one understands what happened.

Ellen White saw Loma Linda in vision as property to be purchased and at one point, when the brethren had no money, her check for $35,000 mailed from Australia months earlier arrived on the due date! She said that thousands were to be trained, not as professional doctors and nurses but as gospel medical missionaries going home to home praying for the sick, giving treatments, singing gospel songs, claiming Bible promises.

She said drugs do not cure disease and pharmacology was not to be taught. Leaders seeking accreditation were told “no” twice and on a third trip to see her, she refused to see them. They reported to the committee that “she didn’t say no,” and Loma Linda was hijacked to become accredited to teach a false science with medical care now a leading cause of death due to Adverse Drug Reactions. Journal of AMA, 4-15-1998.

Loma Linda enjoys a central sculpture of the Good Samaritan that mocks its greed in medicine and surgery.

National Geographic (Nov, 2005) featured Loma Linda in their cover story on longevity, but the secret has nothing to do with medical care—it’s what Ellen White wrote about food that has made Adventists healthy, a message we’ve conveyed so poorly that NIH spent millions to discover why we live about 7 extra years.*

Adventists could have had their own brand of naturopathy. Seeking worldly accreditation, we joined them, as we’ve done in every area of education, and now we must teach Jesuit Spiritual Formation to ministers to keep our accreditation. Yes, Adventism is glowing with Carson’s triumphal entry, but the next chapter, “A Doomed People” is impending. “The lesson is for all times…So it is now.” Desire of Ages, p 584-588.

*To survive the next 7 years, Adventists will need to understand Ellen White’s last message, lost when her publishers changed her chosen title to “Prophets & Kings,” masking also her last definition of the church as a “covenant-keeping people.” The covenant is how we marry the Bridegroom when He comes. For a better understanding of why this is crucial to our destiny now, see The Bridegroom Comes.

RELATED ARTICLE: Carson Campaign Fires Back at Politico’s West Point Story

Alabama: Marine Combat Veteran Announces Candidacy for U.S. Senate

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. /PRNewswire/ — Conservative Jonathan McConnell, a Marine, Iraq War Veteran and small business owner, today announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in Alabama’s Republican primary race.

Washington is broken. But instead of leaders who are focused on solving the problem, our politicians are focused on profiting from the work we send them to do in Washington.  That’s why I’m running – because its time to put an end to politicians who profit while we pay,” said McConnell.

McConnell filed the formal paperwork to qualify and followed with his official announcement.

“As a Marine, I know what it means to take on the tough battles, win the tough fights and put service and sacrifice ahead of personal gain.  And, as a small business owner, I know what it means to build a business, make a payroll, help veterans get back to work and get things moving again,” said McConnell.

“We need that kind of bold, conservative leadership in Washington.  The insiders and politicians are ruining this country, and we need to take it back from them before they do any more damage,” said McConnell.

A graduate of Auburn University and currently the President and CEO of Meridian.us, Captain McConnell served in the Marines from 2005 – 2008, where he was stationed on the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq in 2006 and was then redeployed to the Syrian Border in 2007 where he commanded the Second Mobile Assault Platoon and was Executive Officer of Weapons Company.

Upon returning, McConnell earned his law degree at the University of Alabama.  While a law student, he founded Meridian.us, a global maritime security company which combats the Somali Piracy threat against merchant vessels.

“We can’t fix Washington by electing the same people who broke it.  And 44-year career politicians can’t fix it.  They just don’t know how.  My experience as a Marine, veteran and small business owner who has created jobs is exactly what we need to fix what’s broken in Washington,” said McConnell.

Alabama Primary voting will occur on Tuesday, March 1, 2016. Further information about Jonathan McConnell, to donate to the campaign and to sign up for campaign emails can be found at www.McConnell2016.com.

Wasserman Schultz Orders Democrats to Embrace Gun Control

At the Florida Democratic Party Convention, held October 30-November 1, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed, “The Florida Democratic Party is back and better than ever.” Also back, it would seem, is the national party’s misguided emphasis on gun control.

Speaking at a convention event held at the Walt Disney World Yacht and Beach Club Resort, Wasserman Schultz launched into an anti-gun screed aimed at getting members of her party to more fervently pursue gun control. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Wasserman Schultz demanded, “Democrats! We must close the gun show loophole! Democrats! We must require background checks for all gun purchases!” Indulging her penchant for hyperbole, Wasserman Schultz added, “We can’t sit idly by and allow thousands and thousands of lives to be mowed down!”

Wasserman Schultz’ excited rhetoric comes on the heals of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s comments rejecting the Supreme Court’s holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right and an endorsement of Australia-style gun confiscation. Together, the pair appear intent on branding Democrats as the party of severe gun controls; a label that has rarely served it well.

Wasserman Schultz and Clinton would do well to heed the warnings former President Bill Clinton. As recently as 2013, Bill warned Democrats, in relation to the gun issue, not to “patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents,” noting that passing the 1994 semi-auto ban “devastated” the party in the House of Representatives.

Bill made this same point in his autobiography, My Life, where he wrote of the 1994 election, “On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946….The NRA had a great night.” Elaborating, Bill wrote, “The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage…” Later in the book, Bill credits the NRA with helping to defeat Al Gore in 2000.

These and other experiences led some to question the national party’s commitment to gun control, and advocate for a more pragmatic approach. In 2005, no less an anti-gun zealot than then Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rahm Emanuel was quoted in a Boston Globe article titled “Democrats Recast Gun Control Image,” as stating that Democratic candidates “[have] got to reflect their districts” on the issue. While running for president in 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama did his best to conceal his anti-gun positions.

Moreover, just this week, a bevy of writers for the Washington Post reflected on the degree to which support for gun control, and the interjection of Michael Bloomberg’s millions, cost the Democrats a majority in the Virginia State Senate.

NRA is nonpartisan, and therefore supports politicians of any political party who demonstrate a legitimate respect for the right to keep and bear arms. However, if history is any guide, Wasserman Schultz and Clinton’s insistence that their party advocate against the Second Amendment rights of the American people could once again lead Democrats down the road to ruin.

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O’Reilly, Hannity, and Kelly are Destroying America

Conservatives are fully aware that conservative views are not presented at ABC, CBS, NBC, and the dozens of other news channels scattered across the internet.  Where do conservatives go to get their daily dose of news?  They turn to FOX News.  So do I, but I am changing my updates to the news to friends and internet sites I have faith in.  I no longer have faith that FOX News has been or will continue in the future to provide conservatives news from around the world that is unbiased and captures the most important news for all Americans.

For the last year Hannity has been focused on next years Presidential election.  Virtually nothing else is reported during his time period.  O’Reilly and Kelly are right behind him.  Kelly is fixated on convincing conservative Americans that she is unbiased when it comes to the upcoming election.  Viewers now know Kelly leans further left than we once imagined.  Two years ago I would never have thought Kelly would seek to destroy the character of America’s leading Republican candidate (Donald Trump).  It is apparent FOX News is now trying to act like they adore Trump, but the reality is Trump is being given less positive time on FOX.  Rest assured if Trump is elected there will be hell to pay at FOX News.  Trump does not forgive nor does he forget.

How many readers have a complete understanding of the recent stabbings by a Muslim student at the University of California?  How many people know that the stabber was harming victims because of Jihadi views and not because of he disfavor of a study group.  Does the study group reasoning not seem familiar to the ‘video being the cause of the Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack’?  Faisal Mohammed was stabbing and trying to kill his fellow students because he is Muslim and he was following the actions of other Muslims who were stabbing and killing innocent people in Israel.  Believe it or not there will be politicians who will be calling for the banning of any knife not classified as a basic pocket knife.  One need only travel to any Veterans Hospital.  There are signs on every building, in offices, and in the parking lots informing veterans that even pocket knifes are not allowed on VA grounds.  How silly America has become.

Instead of FOX News focusing on a news event (UC stabbing) that if given the proper time and focus would allow Americans to better understand the Muslim mindset and prepare them for many more such Islamic terrorist events in America, FOX and it’s anchors are so focused on the Presidential candidates than on anything else.  There is little we do not know about any candidate, but there is a lot Americans do not know about the UC stabbings.  Like their counter-parts FOX does not want Americans to get too heavy a dose of negativity for Islam and it’s followers.

Viewers must understand there are numerous conservative U.S. elected officials who consider Saudi Arabia our friends and that deep down they believe overall Muslims love America. In other words there are numerous ignorant people in the conservative party.  Don’t get me wrong by thinking I prefer MSNBC and other liberal (socialist/communist) news media better than FOX.  I don’t.  I have relied on FOX to keep Americans focused in the right direction and by Hannity and the others skipping making the UC stabbing a major news event, they continue to focus on an election many months away.

In regards to the Presidential election FOX should be focusing on only Trump and Carson.  The others in the field are 100% politicians and if elected America will continue to decline.

Americans must demand FOX News focus on Islamic terrorist events because these events are the future of America and sadly for our children.  Islamic terrorist events can only be prevented if Muslims around the world know that even the most basic Islamic terrorist action will receive the attention that is parallel to the coming together of media and Americans on 9-11.

President Obama’s Absurd Reasons for Rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline

President Obama tossed economics and science out the window and onto the White House lawn when he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline.

After leaving it in bureaucratic limbo for seven years, the president claimed the project–which would safely transport Canadian and American crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries–would have little economic effect and would hurt U.S. leadership in reducing carbon emissions.

Both claims are bunk, as the State Department’s analysis shows.

Let’s first take up President Obama’s economic argument.

“The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy,” President Obama said at a White House event.

The State Department’s analysis disagrees:

  • 42,000 jobs would be created.
  • $3.4 billion would be added to the U.S. economy.
  • $405 million would be earned by workers building the pipeline in Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska.
  • $55 million in property tax revenue would go to local communities.

Not only did President Obama tossed aside the Keystone XL pipeline’s economic benefits, he also ignored the science showing that the project’s environmental effects will be minimal.

“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” President Obama said. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”

The only thing the Keystone XL pipeline would undercut it America’s reliance on oil from unfriendly countries. It certainly wouldn’t undercut efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

In fact, the State Department found that not building the pipeline would result in higher greenhouse gas emissions, increases ranging anywhere from 28%-42%.

Impacts of Keystone XL alternatives [table]

But as Phil Kerpen tweeted, the administration is more concerned about perception than real science.

The truth is, our president–a “science geek” according to his top science advisor–rejected science and instead chose to side with anti-energy opponents of the pipeline.

The reaction to President Obama’s decision was strong and swift.

“In rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama has put politics before the best interests of the country,” said U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue. “Rejecting Keystone breaks two promises the president made—to put jobs and growth first and to seek bipartisan solutions.”

President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute Jack Gerard said: “This decision will cost thousands of jobs and is an assault to American workers. It’s politics at its worst.”

Labor union leaders were beyond disappointed.

Terry O’Sullivan, general president for Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), saidPresident Obama threw “hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus.”

On a press call, Sean McGarvey, president of the North America’s Building Trades Unions, called the Keystone XL pipeline, “a victim of the radical environmental movement.” The jobs lost by President Obama’s decision “are real jobs for real people supporting real families.”

Before he flies off to Paris, President Obama should order Air Force One to head west. He himself should visit people living along the pipeline’s route and explain why they can’t have the jobs, the economic growth, and the local tax revenue that would come from the pipeline. As I wrote in 2014:

Bonnie Davidson of the Glasgow Courier said that local residents were scratching their head as to what the controversy is with the pipeline. She told me she hopes that if the Obama administration denies the permit someone should come to Glasgow and tell them why.

Those people deserve to be told why he took those opportunities away from them.

MORE ARTICLES ON: ENERGY

RELATED ARTICLE: New York Attorney General Tries to Criminalize Scientific Dissent on Climate Change

PARENTAL WARNING: AMC Theaters forcing Socialism on your children

I recently went to my local AMC theater to watch the film Goosebumps. It is a film that attracts children and their families. Before the film began an advertisement sponsored by The Global Goals for Sustainable Development appeared on the screen.

I understand that AMC Theaters runs ads to increase its revenues, however, this is the first ad that I have seen that targets children and promotes Socialism, sustainable development, fighting climate change, promoting social justice and gender equality. Perhaps AMC should review their advertising policy?

The ad (below) is titled “Project Everyone.” It targets young children.

According to Project Everyone the ad, “Is founded on the principles of ending injustice, ending extreme poverty and fighting climate change. In preparation of the UN’s Global Goals announcement in September, world renown ad agency, BBH and animation studio, Aardman have joined forces to create the first global cinema campaign for worldwide release.” This and other ads by Global Goals are playing in theaters world-wide.

This socialist propaganda must be understood for what it is – the destruction of freedom and capitalism. Parents must be forewarned to tell their children that the United Nations Agenda 21 is not in their best interests and will lead inextricably to tyranny.

PARENTAL WARNING: This ad is rated “S” for Socialism.

Serious flaws uncovered in Federal Reserve’s Bank Lending Practices

New analysis by Tobias Peter, research analyst at AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk (ICHR), uncovered serious flaws with respect to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices when compared to ICHR’s much more comprehensive and timely National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI).

Earlier this week the Fed released the closely-watched quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS).[1]  The survey of loan officers is widely viewed as providing a key signpost for trends in mortgage lending standards in the United States.  Unfortunately, the information provided by the survey has always been limited at best, and useless at worst.  Limited because it only reports on the results based on about 60 loan officers.  But even if these were representative for the fifty percent of mortgage lending originated by banks, it ignores the other half, consisting largely of much riskier originations by nonbanks.  And useless because it showed no systematic loosening in mortgage lending standards in the run-up to the 2007/08 financial crisis, which runs contrary to everything we now know.

Fortunately, policymakers are no longer forced to rely on the SLOOS.  A much better measure of mortgage lending standards now exists.  With the creation of theNational Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), published each month by AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk (ICHR) and covering an estimated 78 percent of all home purchase loans and 90 percent of all primary owner-occupied home purchase loans, we are now able to quantify the risk in mortgage lending and provide accurate, timely, and in-depth tracking of trends in lending standards.

A quick comparison of the two measures clearly shows why the NMRI is superior to the SLOOS.  First, and most important, the NMRI is based on hard data – millions of loan records – rather than opinions.  Second, as noted above, the loan officers included in the SLOOS are all from commercial banks.  Third, the SLOOS weights all survey responses equally, rather than by their share of originations.  Wells Fargo alone accounts for nearly 15 percent of purchase loan originations market wide, yet it receives the same weight in the survey as banks that are barely on the radar screen.  The NMRI, in contrast, includes the loans with a government guarantee originated by all lenders, and each lender is properly weighted by its share of originations.  In addition, because the NMRI is based on loan-level data, it can focus on mortgages used to purchase primary owner-occupied homes, the type of lending toward which the Federal government’s housing policies are aimed.  The SLOOS doesn’t distinguish between such loans and those that are used to buy second homes or finance investor purchases.  Finally, the NMRI allows for separate tracking of first-time and repeat buyers, a key metric in any analysis of mortgage lending trends.

The SLOOS shows that mortgage lending standards have loosened on net over the past year.  This is the right signal, but the SLOOS arrives there by accident, rather than by design.  In a head-to-head comparison with the NMRI for only bank-originated loans, the results do not line up.  Where the SLOOS shows a loosening of bank lending standards over the past year for loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the NMRI, with its nearly complete census of such loans, shows little change in standards.  Roughly the same discrepancy holds for bank-originated loans backed by Ginnie Mae (principally FHA and VA loans).

By focusing solely on banks, the Fed’s SLOOS misses two crucial mix shifts underway in mortgage lending that are responsible for the easing in standards that is clearly documented in the composite NMRI, which covers the entire government-guaranteed market.  The first shift is that large banks have ceded substantial market share to higher-risk nonbank lenders.  This has been largely due to concern over the risks associated with government guaranteed lending (particularly FHA’s extremely expansive credit standards), past and future legal liability, reputational risk, and greater capital requirements.  The second shift is from loans guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie toward higher-risk FHA loans, which resulted from HUD’s reduction in FHA mortgage insurance premiums earlier this year.[2]

While the SLOOS can shed some light on mortgages without a government guarantee, which are not currently covered by the NMRI, the same flaws apply.  Instead of basing evaluation of lending standards on a small survey of bankers that will send the correct signal only by accident or even worse, the wrong signal, policymakers and the public should direct their attention to an index grounded in facts, not opinions.  Next year, the ICHR plans to add loans without a government guarantee to the NMRI.

FOOTNOTES:

1. http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/snloansurvey/201511/default.htm

2. http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-federal-housing-administration-to-reduce-premiums-1420644685

RELATED ARTICLE: Are We Headed Toward Another Housing Crisis? What Hasn’t Changed Enough

The Global Trade in Child Rape by Lori Handrahan

Last Thursday The Guardian reported on a United Nations publication, released in September, that described four U.N. staff fired for trading in images and/or videos of child sex abuse on their work computers. Journalists from Agence France-Presse to Al Arabiya followed this story and referenced that U.N. work computers were involved. The trade in child rape, aka child pornography, in the workplace is an all too common problem that few employers, the U.N. included, are handling properly.

Bloomberg recently profiled a Swedish software, NetClean, that scans workplace computers and reports child porn use to law enforcement. NetClean’s experts estimate one in every 1,000 people trade in child sex abuse images/videos at work. My research suggests this may be a conservative estimate. From pediatric oncologistspolice chiefssenior military staffdaycare and preschool teachers to professors, my research shows that those arrested for child porn in America almost always commit the crime at work.

In August and September, an average of two professors per week in America were arrested, arraigned or sentenced for child porn crimes almost all committed on university and college computers. One example: University of Minnesota professor Christopher DeZutter told law enforcement officers who arrived at his home to arrest him for child pornography, “You are not going find a lot of this at home. I do most of this at the office.” Investigators said his university laptop was “full” of child sex abuse files. This included, as is common, the rape of infants.

Read more.

ABOUT DR. LORI hANDRAHAN

Dr. Lori Handrahan has worked for the United Nations, on and off, for the past 20 years. Her forthcoming book, Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk, details America’s child sex-abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2

Only Focusing on the Presidential Race is Fool Hearty

The upcoming presidential election is very important.  But making it the preeminent focus may prove to be fool hearty for “We the People.”  Ever since I began to seriously pay attention to the American election process during my high school years, one thing has been abundantly clear.  The primary and in some cases the only real focus is on the presidency.  Now don’t get me wrong, the office of president of the United States of America is very important. In fact, it should be highly regarded not only by sovereign citizens, but also by those who are blessed to be elected to that office.

But the run for the presidency should not be the sole focus of our attention.  The executive branch establishes the office of president Article II section II provides presidential powers.  It makes the president the commander in chief of the military and the militia, and can make treaties with other countries.  He can pick judges and other government members. It also provides the president the aid of a cabinet.  With the approval of the Senate, the president meets with other heads of state.  The President is also required to give a speech once a year regarding the state of our union.

But in addition to the president is Congress which consists of 469 seats.  When you include state and local executive and legislative seats, it amounts to around thirty thousand positions.  They are all elected to represent and govern on behalf of “We the People.”  We all know that Congress will make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances.  Congress is also supposed to oversee the production of money, (not the Federal Reserve) but that is for another column. Congress is also authorized to collect taxes and provide for the general welfare of the United States.

The Judiciary has it’s enumerated powers and responsibilities including, the overseeing of trials for all crimes except in cases of impeachment in the Judicial power which shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls.  Article III section II fully explains the Judicial Branch power and authorities, none of which includes the making of laws, such was done in regards to same sex marriage.

I agree with constitutional scholar Kris Ann Hall who pointed out at a recent gathering, that the reason the lion’s share of attention is given to the presidential race is because that keeps the focus off of our representatives who are supposed to govern on behalf of our true best interest of “We the People.”  Unfortunately, most of the time the government acts on behalf of it’s own best interest as officials seek to take more control of our lives.

If congress governed according to constitutional mandates, there would never have been repeated raisings of the debt limit. The debt limit is now to the point that it could cause an economic collapse by 2017.  Because of a lack of focused attention on Congress, both houses have worked along side president Obama in efforts to gain more control over our God given rights.  Even national security has been gravely compromised because congress has gone along with the efforts of president Obama to put us in mortal danger.  One way is allowing Obama to snare America in a deal with Iran that allows that muslim nation to obtain the nuclear weapons the imams desire to destroy the United States and Israel.

If congress were to govern on behalf of American interests there would be a constitutionally influenced effort to wipe out every single money grubbing and rights inhibiting department.  For example the Environmental Protection Agency, the I.R.S. and the Department of Education just to name a few.  Let us not forget, that under the influence of the Department of Justice, cities like Denver, Atlanta, and New York City have signed a traitorous global police initiative.  This horrible development is unfolding without any noticeable backlash from congress, so far.  Maybe things will change now that Boehner is gone.  After all, congress should be on the lookout and a safeguard against efforts of Obama to fundamentally change America into something that no longer even resembles a constitutionally limited republic.  Unfortunately, more often than not, congress has not been a check and balance against tyranny, but rather an accomplice of evil against our unalienable rights.  May God help us.

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The Islamic State poses a Global Airline Security Threat

metrojet flight plan

Metrojet 9268 Flight Schedule, October 31, 2015.

Saturday morning, October 31st, Flight 9268 a Metrojet Airbus A321 with 224 largely Russian tourists, and crew aboard were bound on a course for St. Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh on Egypt’s Sinai Red Sea. The aircraft reached an altitude of 31,000 feet at 430 knots, when something catastrophic occurred at 23 minutes into the flight. Communications with the pilot abruptly ended, the plane struggled to gain altitude and just as suddenly plummeted earthward with the tail section broken off and the rest of fuselage sent crashing into the desert and mountains were a flash was seen via satellite.

All 224 passengers and crew aboard were killed. The crash occurred less than 300 miles from the resort area at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula at the mouth of the Red Sea. The passenger remains and  aircraft debris were scattered over a wide area. All of this was recorded in real time on satellite flight status internet reports and satellite imagery. Forensic teams from Egyptian, Russian and Airbus air safety organizations were dispatched to retrieve the flight data recorders. Egyptian military and Red Crescent teams were engaged in recovery of the remains, personal effects and luggage of those killed in the crash.

Grief was overwhelming at funerals held in Russia this week with the arrival of the remains of the victims.  The immediate questions were what caused the aviation catastrophe and who may have been behind it.

Watch this CNN video on “Did a Bomb take down Metrojet Flight 9268?”:

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Metrojet Flight 9268  Tail section. Source: AFP

If the emerging facts surrounding the fate of Metrojet Flight 9268 are confirmed this aviation disaster, possibly perpetrated by Islamic terrorists,  could well be Russia’s 9/11.  Shoshana Bryen of the Washington, D.C.-based Jewish Policy Center suggested that in an American Thinker blog, “Could the destroyed Russian plane be jihadi payback?” The inference being that the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 was a deadly rebuke to Russian President Putin for his entry in the Syria conflict attempting to bolster the faltering Assad Regime in alliance with Shia extremist Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. Boaz Bismuth writing in Israel Hayom  penned an op ed about the alleged bombing with the prescient title, “ISIS aims for the global skies.”

A lot is at stake, as the Sinai had become a veritable Islamic terrorist venue with Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS echelons attacking Egyptian security forces. Sharm el-Sheik is  a major European tourist destination attracting millions of visitors annually from the EU, Russia and other countries. For the El-Sisi government, terrorist involvement in the aviation disaster in the Sinai would have a chilling effect on billions in income from tourism. For Russia it could be an un-reckoned threat arising from its entry in the Syrian conflict. It is seeking to keep at bay Caucasian and other Russian Muslims from flocking to join the self-declared Caliphate, the  Islamic State.  For the international airline industry it may have profound implications for assuring security for passengers and operations both at home and in destinations adjacent to jihadist conflict zones.  If airport or airline servicing contractors were involved, then a major security gap would be opened by this latest aviation terrorism episode.

Several theories were developed as to what caused the aircraft to go through  violent maneuvers. The aircraft may have been hit by a shoulder held air defense heat seeker missile or MANPAD, it might have suffered a high altitude structural failure which caused it to break apart or the aircraft could have suffered an internal bomb explosion. Both the MANPAD and structural failure explanations were dismissed in view of the altitude at which the incident occurred, 31,000 feet , exceeding the maximum  altitude of MANPADs, 15,000 feet. Moreover the high altitude structure failure possibility was obviated by the service record of the Metrojet aircraft indicating that it had undergone structural repairs after a 2001 incident that occurred on a rough landing.  The bombing possibility, while initially dismissed, became a palpably plausible on Wednesday, November 4th. Both UK and U.S. intelligence suggested they had intercepted electronic information indicating that an explosive device may have been secreted on board Metrojet Flight 9268 by possible operatives of ISIS groups active in the Sinai Peninsula. Perhaps they were posing as local catering and cleaning contractors with access to the aircraft. Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood  or ISIS operatives could have secreted a bomb in the rear lavatories or rear luggage holds on the Metrojet A321.

Evidence is mounting to the ultimate conclusion that this might have been  a bombing.  Shoshana Bryen  indicated that photographs of the aircraft wreckage in British media “show some of the holes in the wreckage. They are outward-facing – meaning something inside the plane moved out. A blown fuel tank – which is on the outside – would have caused inward-facing holes.” Then there were reported  forensic evidence of metal shards among the clothing and effects of the victims.  Bryen also cited reports “indicating  that security at Sharm el-Sheikh was totally lax; which helps make the case that someone inside did the job. Since Egyptian tourism and Russia are targets of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS respectively, and since ISIS came from the MB root, collaboration here is a twisted “win-win” for them.”

‘UK PM Cameron underlined the increasing evidence of a bomb plot to destroy, Metrojet  Flight 9268, saying, “It is ‘more likely than not” that a bomb brought down  the Metrojet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”. He took extraordinary measures grounding all UK charters for a security sweep at Sharm el Sheikh airport leaving more than 3,500 British passengers delayed until given clearance. CNN cited Cameron’s  office issuing a statement saying,  “Outbound flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheikh remain suspended and the Foreign Office continues to advise against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm el-Sheikh airport, but we are continuing to work with the Egyptians to get back to normal service as soon as possible.” Similar announcements came from Irish authorities and Lufthansa.  Sharm el-Sheikh is visited by more than 1 million tourists, annually.

The Israeli resort of Eilat at the head of the Red Seas also is a major European and international tourist destination.  ISIS Sinai affiliate formerly known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis has targeted Eilat for a possible bombing attack. The possible ISIS terror bombing of the Metrojet  could have rippling effects there to assure the usual tight security arrangements of Israel international carrier, El Al, and  domestic ones like Arkia.  El Al aircraft are already equipped with electronic counter measures like the Elbit C-Music anti- missile system to foil possible MANPAD attacks. Doubtless, the Israelis may also have better security clearances for aircraft maintenance, catering and cleaning employees, as well as barriers and surveillance of the Egyptian border to thwart infiltration of MB and ISIS terrorists.

ISS Facility Services Receives State of Utah Refugee Services Employer of the Year 2009

ISS Facility Services Receives State of Utah Refugee Services Employer of the Year 2009.

ISS Facility Services Receives State of Utah Refugee Services Employer of the Year 2009

The downing of the Metrojet with its innocent Russian victims  has more than just Russian, Egyptian and Israeli concerns. From investigations by the Wall Street Journal,  CNN and others, security clearances for baggage handlers, catering, and cleaning personnel with access to the tarmac and aircraft here in the U.S. is lax.

Further investigations by the Lisa Benson Radio Show National Security Task Force of America  have revealed employment of Somali refugees  by major international groups like ISS Worldwide A/S headquartered in Copenhagen. The US subsidiary  ISS Facility Services, Inc. is based in San Antonio. ISS Worldwide employs over a half million through their outsourced network of airport and commercial facilities maintenance contracts. ISS specializes in a broad range of facility management services including janitorial services, especially for airport authorities and major manufacturing  companies.

The Somali Muslim émigré population has been the source of both Al Shabaab and increasingly ISIS recruitment in the U.S.  One illustration of the inherent ISIS risk among U.S. Somalis employed at US airports was  the reported death in September 2014  of  American Somali Émigré ISIS  Jihadi

The late ISIS Fighter a former Twin Cities airport cleaner

The late ISIS Fighter a former Twin Cities airport cleaner.

The late ISIS Fighter a former Twin Cities airport cleaner

Abdirahmaan Muhumed, 29.  That revealed his employment as a cleaner for Delta Global Services, Inc.  that gave him security access to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.  Muhumed left behind 9 children in the Twin Cities to become an ISIS jihadi, before his death in Syria. Muhumed had unfettered access to jetliners at the airport, which handles 90,000 passengers a day. He also had access to the tarmac and special security clearance to other parts of the airport. Muhumed had no criminal record in the United States that would have prevented him from getting a job at the airport.

This revelation following the death of Somali émigré ISIS fighter Muhumed, should raise the concerns of both the TSA and Homeland Security regarding screening of airport and aircraft maintenance personnel at U.S. Many of who have contracts with groups like ISS Worldwide A/S and Delta Global Services, Inc.  Moreover, without active community policing programs in the major U.S. communities recruitment of Muhumed and other ISIS recruits could not have been detected.  Thus, the downing of the Metrojet in Egypt by alleged ISIS perpetrators reverberates here in the U.S.  FBI Direct James Combey has warned that ISIS jihadis lurk among us in all 50 states.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Unvetted foreigners’ working as U.S. baggage handlers

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Everyone Is Talking about Bitcoin by Jeffrey A. Tucker

I’m getting a flurry of messages: how do I buy Bitcoin? What’s the best article explaining this stuff? How to answer the critics? (Might try here, here, here, and here.)

Markets can be unpredictable. But the way people talk about markets is all too predictable.

When financial assets go up in price, they become the topic of conversation. When they go way up in price, people feel an itch to buy. When they soar to the moon, people jump in the markets — and ride the price all the way back down.

Then while the assets are out of the news, they disappear from the business pages and only the savviest investors buy. Then they ride the wave up.

This is why smart money wins and dumb money loses.

Bitcoin Bubbles and Busts

It’s been this way for seven years with Bitcoin. When the dollar exchange rate is falling, people get bored or even disgusted. When it is rising, people get interested and excited. The challenge of Bitcoin is to see through the waves of hysteria and despair to take a longer view.

In the end, Bitcoin is not really about the dollar exchange rate. It is about its use as a technology. If Bitcoin were only worth a fraction of a penny, the concept would already be proven. It demonstrates that money can be a digital product, created not by government or central banks but rather through the same kind of ingenuity that has already transformed the world since the advent of the digital age.

When the Bitcoin white paper came out in October 2008, only a few were interested. Five years would pass before discussion of the idea even approached the mainstream. Now we see the world’s largest and most heavily capitalized banks, payment processing companies, and venture capitalists working to incorporate Bitcoin’s distributed ledger into their operations.

In between then and now, we’ve seen wild swings of opinion among the chattering classes. When Bitcoin hit $30 in February 2013, people were screaming that it was a Ponzi-like bubble destined to collapse. I’ve yet to see a single mea culpa post from any of these radical skeptics. It’s interesting how the incessantly wrong slink away, making as little noise as possible.

For the last year, the exchange rate hovered around $250, but because this was down from its high, people lost interest. What is considered low and what is considered high are based not on fundamentals but on the direction of change.

What Is the Right BTC Price?

The recent history of cryptocurrency should have taught this lesson: No one knows the right exchange rate for Bitcoin. That is something to be discovered in the course of market trading. There is no final answer. The progress of technology and the shaping of economic value knows no end.

On its seventh birthday, Bitcoin broke from its hiatus and has spiked to over $350, on its way to $400. And so, of course, it is back in the news. Everyone wants to know the source of the last price run up. There is speculation that it is being driven by demand from China, where bad economic news keeps rolling in. There has also been a new wave of funding for Bitcoin enterprises, plus an awesome cover story in the Economist magazine.

Whatever the reason, this much is increasingly clear: Bitcoin is perhaps the most promising innovation of our lifetimes, one that points to a future of commodified, immutable, and universal information exchange. It could not only revolutionize contracting and titling. It could become a global currency that operates outside the nation state and banking structures as we’ve known them for 500 years. It could break the model of money monopolization that has been in operation for thousands of years.

Technology in Fits and Starts

Those of us in the Bitcoin space, aware of the sheer awesomeness of the technology, can grow impatient, waiting for history to catch up to technical reality. We are daily reminded that technology does not descend on the world on a cloud in its perfected form, ready for use by the consuming public. It arrives in fits and starts, is subjected to trials and improvement, and its applications tested against real world conditions. It passes from hand to hand in succession, with unpredictable winners and losers.

Successful technology does not become socially useful in the laboratory. Market experience combined with entrepreneurial risk are the means by which ideas come to make a difference in the world at large.

Bitcoin was not created in the monetary labs of the Federal Reserve or banks or universities. It emerged from a world of cypherpunks posting on private email lists — people not even using their own names.

In that sense, Bitcoin had every disadvantage: No funding, no status, no official endorsements, no big-name boosters. It has faced an ongoing flogging by bigshots. It’s been regulated and suppressed by governments. It’s been hammered constantly by scammers, laughed at by experts, and denounced by moralists for seven straight years.

And yet, even given all of this, it has persisted solely on its own merits. It is the ultimate “antifragile” technology, growing stronger in the face of every challenge.

What will be the main source of Bitcoin’s breakout into the mainstream? Commentary trends suggest it will be international remittances. It is incredible that moving money across national borders is as difficult and expensive as it is. With Bitcoin, you remove almost all time delays and transaction costs. So it is not surprising that this is a huge potential growth area for Bitcoin.

The Economist takes a different direction. It speculates that Bitcoin technology will be mostly useful as a record-keeping device. It is “a machine for creating trust.”

One idea, for example, is to make cheap, tamper-proof public databases — land registries, say, (Honduras and Greece are interested); or registers of the ownership of luxury goods or works of art. Documents can be notarised by embedding information about them into a public blockchain — and you will no longer need a notary to vouch for them.

Financial-services firms are contemplating using blockchains as a record of who owns what instead of having a series of internal ledgers. A trusted private ledger removes the need for reconciling each transaction with a counterparty, it is fast and it minimises errors.

We Need Bitcoin 

No one knows for sure. What we do know is that we desperately need this as a tool to disintermediate the world, liberating us from the governments that have come to stand between individuals and the realization of their dreams.

In 1974, F.A. Hayek dreamed of a global currency that operated outside governments and central banks. If governments aren’t going to reform money, markets would need to step up and do it themselves. Bitcoin is the most successful experiment in this direction we’ve yet seen.

And that is true whether or not your friends and neighbors are talking about it.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE, CLO of the startup Liberty.me, and editor at Laissez Faire Books. Author of five books, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World.  Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

7 Ways the Department of Education Made College Worse by Richard Vedder

Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee recently, I was asked by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) if, with respect to higher education, I would favor eliminating the US Department of Education.

She was aghast when I said “yes.”

Before I go into the damage our national educational ministry has done to higher education, it is worth reviewing its creation in 1979.

The Democrats then controlled all of the federal government, with large congressional majorities. The party had promised to create the Department in its 1976 platform. President Jimmy Carter advocated it, as did the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Educational Association (NEA).

Yet the bill barely passed. The House committee considering it advanced it to the floor on a 20-19 vote — with seven Democrats voting no. The liberal press such as the New York Times and the Washington Post opposed it editorially.

In particular, the criticism leveled by the Times in its May 22, 1979 editorial “Centralizing Education Is No Reform” was sharp and prescient:

The idea [of the Department of Education] remains as unwise as when it was first broached in a Carter campaign promise to the National Education Association. …

It has always been American policy … to deliberately avoid centralizing education in a way that requires direction and financing by a national ministry. …

We believe that diversity of direction has served American education well and that it will continue to do better without a central bureaucracy, even a benign one.

The preeminent Democratic public intellectual, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was also against it.

Largely because of the NEA’s political clout, however, the widespread bipartisan skepticism about the wisdom of creating a cabinet-level education department was overcome.

Would the US be better off today if the department had not been created? A review of the pre- and post-Department developments in higher education shows why I favor eliminating the Department — at least regarding authority over universities.

The 30 years between 1950 and 1980 were the Golden Age of American higher education. The proportion of adult Americans with college degrees nearly tripled, going from 6 to 17 percent. Enrollments quintupled, going from 2.3 to 12.1 million.

By the end of the period, the number of doctorates awarded in engineering had quintupled and over 40 percent of Nobel Prizes were going to individuals associated with American universities.

This was the era in which higher education went from serving the elite and mostly well-to-do to serving many individuals from modest economic circumstance. State government support for higher education rose dramatically — spending per student rose roughly 70 percent after inflation.

During this period, however, the federal role was quite modest. The GI Bill had increased higher education participation, but the loan programs authorized under the 1965 Higher Education Act were comparatively small until the very end of the period when loan eligibility was extended to large numbers of comparatively affluent Americans.

In 1978, the year before the Department’s creation, only one million student loans were made totaling under $2 billion — less than 5 percent the current level of lending even allowing for inflation.

College costs remained remarkably stable. Tuition fees typically rose only about one percent a year, adjusting for inflation. At the same time, high economic growth (real GDP was rising nearly four percent annually) led to incomes rising even faster, so in most years the tuition to income ratio fell.

In other words, college was becoming a smaller financial burden for families.

Compare the Golden Age to the post-Department of Education era (1980 to 2015). While college attainment has continued to grow, in percentage terms the growth has slowed. But that is not all. Let me briefly enumerate seven other unfortunate trends.

First, of course, education costs have soared. Tuition fees rose more than three percent a year in inflation-adjusted terms, far faster than people’s incomes. As new research from the New York Federal Reserve Bank demonstrates, rising federal student financial aid programs are the primary factor in this phenomenon.

If tuition fees had risen as fast after 1978 as in the four decades before, they would be about one-half the level they are today, and the student debt crisis would not have occurred. Presidential candidates would not be talking about “free” tuition.

Second, if anything, college has become more elitist and less accessible to low income students. The proportion of recent graduates who are from the bottom quartile of the income distribution has declined since 1970 or 1980. The qualitative gap between the rich highly selective private schools and state universities has widened — fewer state schools make it near the top in the US News rankings, for example.

Third, there has been a shocking decline in academic standards. Grade inflation is rampant. The seminal study Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa shows that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling amongst college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not even know in which half-century the Civil War occurred. Ideological conformity is increasingly valued over free expression and empirical inquiry.

The Department of Education does nothing to reverse those trends. It doesn’t even acknowledge them.

Fourth, accreditation of colleges, overseen by the Department of Education, is expensive and ineffective. Few schools are ever sanctioned, much less closed for shoddy performance. The system discourages innovation and new entries — it is anticompetitive. Conflicts of interest are rampant. The binary evaluation system (you either are accredited, or you are not) provides no useful information to consumers.

Fifth, the federal aid programs and “college for all” propaganda promoted by the Department have led to a large proportion (probably over 40 percent) of recent graduates being underemployed, working in jobs traditionally done by high school graduates.

Arum and Roksa observe in their follow-up book Aspiring Adults Adrift that two years after graduation nearly one-fourth of graduates are still living with their parents. More college graduates work in low paying retail trade jobs than are Americans serving in our Armed Forces.

Sixth, the Department is guilty of regulatory excesses and bureaucratic blunders. For example, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) imposes a “preponderance of evidence” standard on colleges in sexual assault cases that violates American ideals regarding due process and fair treatment of accused. Twenty-eight members of the law faculty at Harvard, among others, have bitterly complained about that, but the OCR continues its crusade.

Also, the form required of applicants for federal student aid (FAFSA) is byzantine in its complexity — the 2006 Spellings Commission criticized it severely — but nothing important has been done about it.

Seventh, the one arguably useful function of the Department is to provide information to consumers and taxpayers about college performance. Yet Department bureaucrats have done very little to give useful information on student learning, post-graduate success, consumer satisfaction, et cetera.

Years after promising it, the Department has finally developed a College Scorecard, which is  potentially valuable, but marred because it excludes a number of politically incorrect colleges such as Hillsdale — ones that refuse to participate in federal aid programs or collect data on racial characteristics of students.

Summing up, the Department of Education has had, so far as I can see, no positive impact on higher education and has either caused or ignored numerous negative effects. Thus it is a tragedy that the skeptics about creating it did not prevail back in 1979.

This post first appeared at the Pope Center for Higher Education.

Richard Vedder
Richard Vedder

Richard Vedder is a professor of economics at Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

VIDEO: Free Stuff for Syrian Muslims Coming to America!

This video was prepared by Liberty News Media about Syrian Muslims coming to America.

Steven Camarata, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies released a new analysis today.

As Americans continue to debate what to do about the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, this analysis attempts to estimate the costs of resettling refugees from that region in the United States. Although we do not consider all costs, our best estimate is that in their first five years in the United States each refugee from the Middle East costs taxpayers $64,370 — 12 times what the UN estimates it costs to care for one refugee in neighboring Middle Eastern countries.

The cost of resettlement includes heavy welfare use by Middle Eastern refugees; 91 percent receive food stamps and 68 percent receive cash assistance.

Costs also include processing refugees, assistance given to new refugees, and aid to refugee-receiving communities. Given the high costs of resettling refugees in the United States, providing for them in neighboring countries in the Middle East may be a more cost-effective way to help them.

camarota-refugees-15-t1

Continue reading here.