Month: October 2017

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Quick Analysis

Can Western Civilization Survive?

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government examines the threat to the key concepts of western civilization in this two part study.

It’s not just European civilian targets, U.S. military bases in the Pacific, or non-Leftist speakers on American campuses that are being targeted.  It’s western civilization itself. Antifa terrorists replace dialogue with violence on the streets of American cities. North Korea makes increasingly credible threats against the United States. University administrations delete or downgrade vital cultural courses.  Islamic religious extremists issue unblushing promises to replace European governments with Sharia Law regimes.

In his study, “Siege of Western Civilization,” Herb Meyer explains: “…today, Western Civilization is under siege.  We are under attack from Radical Islam – that’s the War on Terrorism.  We are under attack from those within the US itself who seek to destroy our traditional culture and our moral values – from those who believe the State is more important than the family or the individual.  And we ourselves are acting in a way that will leave our children with a bleak economic future.”

What is particularly remarkable about all this is the almost total lack of awareness of how serious these threats are.

Writing for Breitbart, Michael Patrick Leahy  worries that “the West is experiencing a civilizational loss of self-confidence…We began giving up our self-confidence a century ago when the Western governments who fought on both sides of World War I abandoned classical liberalism and its associated political philosophy of constitutional liberty and replaced it with autocratic top-down, state controlled central planning… Almost a decade ago …Richard Koch…and former United Kingdom cabinet member Chris Smith wrote a prescient book called Suicide of the West. In it they argued: ‘One hundred years ago, most Westerners felt tremendous pride and confidence in their civilisation. They knew what it stood for, and they believed in it. Today that sense has gone. That is largely because the six principal ideas which underpinned Western confidence – those of Christianity, optimism, science, economic growth, [classical] liberalism and individualism – have suffered a century of sustained attack. These ideas no longer inspire or unite the West as they once did…”

In a landmark speech delivered in Poland in July, President Trump delivered a Churchillian-style message about western civilization The address, which was met with thunderous praise in that Eastern European nation, was largely ignored by the American media except for left-wing journalists who sought to warp it into something divisive:

Have a look on these instructions:* Do no take the medicine in his favorite flavor. viagra pill for sale The causes of childhood hearing loss can either be congenital or canadian cheap viagra acquired. Similarly, alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and other emotional problems and conditions viagra shop usa keeps growing rapidly. Tissue repairs: If you suffer from loss of sexual desire in men, because due to this disease the chemical messaging system of the brain for any buy cialis physical activity. “Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests… Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty.  We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies…

“We write symphonies.  We pursue innovation.  We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers. We reward brilliance.  We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God.  We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression…We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.  We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.

“And we debate everything.  We challenge everything.  We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves… And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.  That is who we are.  Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

“What we have, what we inherited from…our ancestors has never existed to this extent before.  And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again…As long as we know our history, we will know how to build our future.  Americans know that a strong alliance of free, sovereign and independent nations is the best defense for our freedoms and for our interests…

“Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield — it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.  Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital, and demand no less defense, than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested.  Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory…”

The Report concludes Monday.

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Quick Analysis

Unresolved 2016 Campaign Misdeeds, Bias Issues, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of  unresolved and relatively undiscussed issues, including media bias and potential criminal actions, that inappropriately influenced the 2016 presidential campaign.

Evidence of the stunning level of abuse by the Obama Administration of national security facilities to influence the campaign in favor of Ms. Clinton continues to grow.  Fox News  reports that “In a July 27 letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the committee had learned ‘that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration.”

Of course, the misuse of federal agencies was nothing new.  The Obama Administration had used the IRS to harass Tea Party opponents of the White House, the FCC tried (unsuccessfully) to muzzle conservative news outlets, the Department of Justice refused to investigate Secretary of State Clinton’s profiting from the sale of A-bomb fuel to Russia or prosecute her email misdeeds—all these received scant attention from a media thoroughly absorbed in the task of insuring that Democrats kept their hold on the White House.

Attempted tilting of the 2016 campaign in Ms. Clinton’s favor may not have been restricted to misusing federal agencies or DNC resources.  The Voter Integrity Commission is examining illegal activities in New Hampshire that tilted the state in the former Secretary of State’s position. According to the Washington Times,  “More than 6,500 people registered to vote in New Hampshire on Nov. 8 using out-of-state driver’s licenses, and since then the vast majority have neither obtained an in-state license nor registered a motor vehicle…’Having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real. It’s very serious…White House policy adviser Stephen Miller told ABC News in February.”

This buy sildenafil india is all of a sort of stupidity to remain in darkness about the treatment of the condition and they involve lifestyle changes, psychological and physical conditions. You should buy Kamagra only the dosage suggested by doctor, before 45 mins of sexual sales uk viagra act. To do the sex practice these generic levitra anti-impotence pills admitted best amongst all to response well. They are abnormal hormone levels; abnormal levels viagra pills wholesale of particular hormones can interfere with erections and sex drive. Rather than focus on the  DNC, Obama, or Clinton misdeeds, which combined do indeed amount to the greatest scandal in U.S. history, the media has followed a storyline aimed at distracting the public.  As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government  reported in August,

“Despite a clear lack of substantive evidence, an entire press and prosecutorial industry has been developed based on claiming that the damning evidence provided by Julian Assange and others about the corrupt Clinton machine and the machinations of the Democrat Party to deny primary rival Bernie Sanders a fair chance to compete with her in the 2016 primary season was provided by Russian agents in an attempt to promote a Trump victory.” The fact that the current investigation into the as yet baseless allegations that Russians worked with one or more individuals in the Trump campaign is being conducted by a team consisting largely of pro-Clinton donors apparently is too inconsequential for the media to comment on.

The Washington Times revealed: “Leaked emails show that Hillary Clinton’s campaign officials boasted about getting favorable news coverage from compliant journalists, received political advice from cozy reporters and circulated the names of journalists who were “friendly” to the candidate… Clinton campaign officials clearly exude[d] an air of confidence that much of the mainstream media are in the bag for their candidate and hostile to Republican rival Donald Trump. Clinton traveling press secretary Nick Merrill was practically gloating after a series of local media interviews with Mrs. Clinton in Michigan in March before the Democratic primary. .’[Six] radio interviews and [two in] coffee shops this morning,” Mr. Merrill wrote. “No flags. Every single interviewer was for her…Mr. Podesta’s emails show that CNBC anchor John Harwood offered advice to the Clinton campaign…”

Rehashing the 2016 campaign is less important than outlining the collusion between the majority of the media with the major officials of one political party.

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Announcements

Helping Hurricane Victims in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico

The effects of hurricanes in Puerto Rico,Texas and Florida will be felt  for several years.  Government alone cannot address the many dire needs of the victims. These organizations are providing assistance.  To contribute, contact them as noted below:

American Red Cross 1-800-RED CROSS or REDCROSS.ORG

Salvation Army 1-800-725-2796 or www.helpsalvationarmy.org

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Catholic Charities Catholiccharitiesusa.org
Greater Houston Community Foundation  www.ghcf.org
United for Puerto Rico call 787.552.9141 http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/

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Quick Analysis

Unresolved 2016 Campaign Misdeeds, Bias Issues

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government reviews, in two parts, unresolved and relatively undiscussed issues, including media bias and potential criminal actions, that inappropriately influenced the 2016 presidential campaign.

There was a great deal of rage when President Trump asserted that there were “good guys” as well as extremists with evil intentions on both sides of the right-left divide.

The furious reaction to this rather bland and self-evident comment, in which the President was accused of everything from racism to being a neo-Nazi, revealed a great deal about how much of the media operates, both in the way particular news stories are reported, and, perhaps more importantly, which news items are completely ignored.

The list of vitally important news that has been downplayed or ignored by much of the media is stunning in its scope and in the importance of the particular items.

While the media has tilted left since the 1960’s, (when journalism schools replaced teaching their students about the importance of objectively describing who, what, when, where and why with “advocacy” which inevitably tilted left,) the current extreme nature of reporting beginning in the 1990s, which centered around unquestioning support of the Clintons and eventually Barack Obama, is unprecedented.  That has resulted in downplaying the most significant political scandals in American history.

It is becoming increasingly clear that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Democrat elected officials as well as party leadership conspired (that word is used in the full legal sense) to insure that Hillary Clinton both secured the Democrat Party nomination and won the general election.

DNC misdeeds during the primaries prompted appropriate howls of anger from Bernie Sanders supporters

The Observer reported: “In its recent leak of 20,000 DNC emails from January 2015 to May 2016, (released by Wikileaks) DNC staff discuss how to deal with Bernie Sanders’ popularity as a challenge to Clinton’s candidacy. Instead of treating Sanders as a viable candidate for the Democratic ticket, the DNC worked against him and his campaign to ensure Clinton received the nomination.”
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Donors to the DNC reacted with anger to the bias.

One example, as noted in Newsweek: “Jared Beck, a Harvard Law graduate and one of the several attorneys who filed the suit against the DNC and its former chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, wants retribution for donations made by supporters to the Vermont senator’s campaign, citing six legal claims of the DNC’s deceptive conduct, negligent misrepresentation and fraud. The DNC violated Article 5, Section 4 of its own charter by working with a single campaign to effectively choose who would win the Democratic ballot, the attorneys stated in the suit.”  (The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, not on the merits but because the judgein the case considered the matter more appropriately resolved within the DNC itself, and that those donors bringing the case lacked the legal standing to bring the action to court.)

Despite a long history of important scandals, both personal and professional, Hillary Clinton was given a relative free pass in both the primaries and the general election by a media that acted far more like partisan cheerleaders than journalists.  Trump, of course, provided a near daily fare of over-the-top comments, which were reported with exuberant glee.  But, other than in the few conservative outlets, where was the discussion of Clinton’s abundant misdeeds?

As National Review  noted during the campaign, “Felony mishandling of classified information, including our nation’s most closely guarded intelligence secrets; the misappropriation and destruction of tens of thousands of government records — these are serious criminal offenses…Whatever the relevance of the new e-mails to the probe of Clinton’s classified-information transgressions and attempt to destroy thousands of emails, these offenses may pale in comparison with Hillary Clinton’s most audacious violations of law: Crimes that should still be under investigation;…Mrs. Clinton appears to have converted the office of secretary of state into a racketeering enterprise. This would be a violation of the RICO law — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1971 (codified in the U.S. penal code at sections 1961 et seq.).

Having secured the nomination, actions were taken to rig the fight against Trump, including using federal agencies to illegally harass and surveil his campaign. To their credit, a limited number of news outlets rose above the general bias to ask questions that many other media outlets still find uncomfortable.

USA Today provided an important example, when it asked “…what are we to make of the recently unveiled Obama administration program of massively spying on political opponents in violation of clearly established law?… The admitted violations undercut one of the primary defenses that the intelligence community and Obama officials have used in recent weeks to justify their snooping into incidental NSA intercepts about Americans. …  The American Civil Liberties Union said the newly disclosed violations are some of the most serious to ever be documented and strongly call into question the U.S. intelligence community’s ability to police itself and safeguard Americans’ privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.”

The Report concludes tomorrow.

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Quick Analysis

21st Century Slavery, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its look at the horrifying existence of modern slavery.

The International Labor Alliance notes that of the 40.3 million victims of modern slavery:

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by modern slavery, accounting for 28.7 million, or 71 per cent of the overall total. More precisely, women and girls represent 99 per cent of victims of forced labour in the commercial sex industry and 58 per cent in other sectors, 40 per cent of victims of forced labour imposed by state authorities, and 84 per cent of victims of forced marriages.

One in four victims of modern slavery were children. Some 37 per cent (5.7 million) of those forced to marry were children. Children represented 18 per cent of those subjected to forced labour exploitation and 7 per cent of people forced to work by state authorities. Children who were in commercial sexual exploitation (where the victim is a child, there is no requirement of force) represented 21 per cent of total victims in this category of abuse.

In the past five years, 89 million people experienced some form of modern slavery for periods of time ranging from a few days to the whole five years. The average length of time victims were in forced labour varied from a few days or weeks in some forms imposed by state authorities to nearly two years for forced sexual exploitation.

The regional figures

Modern slavery occurred in every region of the world. Modern slavery was most prevalent in Africa (7.6 per 1,000 people), followed by Asia and the Pacific (6.1 per 1,000) then Europe and Central Asia (3.9 per 1,000). These results should be interpreted cautiously due to lack of available data in some regions, notably the Arab States and the Americas.

For forced labour specifically, the prevalence is highest in Asia and the Pacific, where four out of every 1,000 people were victims, followed by Europe and Central Asia (3.6 per 1,000), Africa (2.8 per 1,000), the Arab States (2.2 per 1,000) and the Americas (1.3 per 1,000).

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Conclusions and way forward

Ending modern slavery will require a multi-faceted response that addresses the array of forces – economic, social, cultural, and legal – that contribute to vulnerability and enable abuses. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution; responses need to be adapted to the diverse environments in which modern slavery still occurs. But it is nonetheless possible to identify some overarching policy priorities in the lead-up to 2030 from the Global Estimates and from experience to date.

Stronger social protection floors are necessary to offset the vulnerabilities that can push people into modern slavery. Extending labour rights in the informal economy – where modern slavery is most likely to occur – is needed to protect workers from exploitation. Given that a large share of modern slavery can be traced to migration, improved migration governance is vitally important to preventing forced labour and protecting victims.

Additionally, the risk and typology of modern slavery is strongly influenced by gender, and this must also be taken into account in developing policy responses. Addressing the root causes of debt bondage, a widespread means of coercion, is another necessary element of forced labour prevention, while improved victim identification is critical to extending protection to the vast majority of modern slavery victims who are currently unidentified or unattended. Finally, we know that much of modern slavery today occurs in contexts of state fragility, conflict, and crisis, pointing to the need to address the risk of modern slavery as part of humanitarian actions in these situations.

Further efforts are needed to improve the evidence base on modern slavery in order to inform and guide policy responses in all of these areas. Key measurement priorities identified through the preparation of the Global Estimates include the improved measurement of modern slavery affecting children and specifically cases of sexual exploitation involving children and child marriage. There is also a need to more effectively capture specific subpopulations such as adult victims of forced sexual exploitation and victims in conflict contexts. The ability to track changes in modern slavery over time will be critical for monitoring progress in the lead-up to 2030. But perhaps the most important priority is to strengthen and extend national research and data collection efforts on modern slavery to guide national policy responses.

International cooperation in addressing modern slavery is essential given its global and cross-border dimensions. Alliance 8.7, a multi-stakeholder partnership committed to achieving Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, has an important role to play in this regard. The Global Estimates indicate that the majority of forced labour today exists in the private economy. This underscores the importance of partnering with the business community – alongside employers’ and workers’ organisations, and civil society organisations – to eradicate forced labour in supply chains and in the private economy more broadly. Cooperation should be strengthened between and among governments and with relevant international and regional organizations in areas such as labour law enforcement, criminal law enforcement, and the management of migration in order to prevent trafficking and to address forced labour across borders.

 

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Quick Analysis

21st Century Slavery

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government provides an in-depth look at the horrifying existence of modern slavery.

Modern slavery exists, it is widespread, and it is a worldwide, lucrative practice. A National Geographic study found “There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach—and in the destruction of lives.”

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHAR)  notes that “Unfortunately, the business of taking advantage of poor, weak, or otherwise disadvantaged people is still very much a reality in many parts of the world. Although 90 percent of countries have some form of legislation that directly defends the most basic human rights of each individual, many of these nations still do not have either the mechanisms to protect this liberty or laws defining what constitute human trafficking up to the United Nations’ (UN) standards.”

To describe this terrible practice as just another criminal enterprise doesn’t reflect the true scope of the problem. A National Catholic Reporter study emphasized that “many countries didn’t outlaw slavery until the 20th century. In fact, it wasn’t until 1981 that Mauritania finally abolished slavery — becoming the last country on Earth to end this dehumanizing practice, though it wasn’t made a crime there until 2007. But tragically, slavery did not completely end. It continues to this very day under a new name: human trafficking.

Research by CNBC  reveals that “Slavery… is today a flourishing underworld, generating a whopping $150 billion in illegal profits each year, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). Approximately 21 million people around the world — about 3 out of every 1,000 individuals, 5 million of them children — are victims of forced labor, according to the most recent estimate, up from 12.3 million in 2005, the ILO reports. Trafficking in persons … is one of the largest income sources for international criminals, second only to drug trafficking,” said U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week to address the issue of modern slavery…President Obama signed H.R. 644, the ‘Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015,’ which includes an amendment to close the loophole in the Tariff Act of 1930 allowing goods produced from slaves to enter the U.S. if American production could not meet 100 percent consumer demand.”

The International Labor Alliance study provides in depth information on 21st Century slavery:
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An estimated 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2016. In other words, on any given day in 2016, there were likely to be more than 40 million men, women, and children who were being forced to work against their will under threat or who were living in a forced marriage that they had not agreed to.

Of these 40.3 million victims:

▪ 24.9 million people were in forced labour. That is, they were being forced to work under threat or coercion as domestic workers, on construction sites, in clandestine factories, on farms and fishing boats, in other sectors, and in the sex industry. They were forced to work by private individuals and groups or by state authorities. In many cases, the products they made and the services they provided ended up in seemingly legitimate commercial channels. Forced labourers produced some of the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and they have cleaned the buildings in which many of us live or work.

▪ 15.4 million people were living in a forced marriage to which they had not consented. That is, they were enduring a situation that involved having lost their sexual autonomy and often involved providing labour under the guise of “marriage”.

The Report concludes tomorrow.

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Quick Analysis

New Travel Ban Appears Unassailable

As the United States Supreme Court opens what may be one its most significant sessions in recent years, one controversial matter will not come before it: the contentious battle over the President’s prior travel ban temporary executive order (EO) which has expired. The Wall Street Journal notes that the “new travel ban scrambled a legal fight two weeks before a major Supreme Court argument…”

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Elaine Duke believes that the new measure “will protect Americans and allow DHS to better keep terrorists and criminals from entering our country. The restrictions announced are tough and tailored, and they send a message to foreign governments that they must work with us to enhance security.”

It appears that the new version answers the objections, many based on rather shaky legal grounds, that were levied against the original EO, and argued in the hyper-politicized 9th Circuit. The role of that judicial branch in this matter remains questionable. The law clearly provides the President with the authority to govern the subject matter, as noted by Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Unsubstantiated claims of bias against Muslims will be hard to argue in the new EO, since non-Muslim nations such as Venezuela and North Korea are on the affected list, which also includes Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen and Chad. The restrictions vary from nation to nation.  In 2016, according to the State Dept., 37,131visas were issued to citizens from Iran, 18,201 from Yemen, 11,729 from Syria, 2,690 from Libya, 2,248 from Somalia, 1,395 from Chad, and 109 from North Korea.

According to the White House, “The Administration remains focused on raising the baseline for national security standards.” The new EO requires the Administration to “determine what minimum information is needed from each foreign country to adjudicate an application by a national of that country for an immigration benefit and determine that the individual is not a security or public safety threat. The previous screening/vetting status quo for border and immigration security must be improved for individuals from certain countries, if the United States is to adequately counter terrorism and transnational crime threats against its people.”

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While the U.S. has, under the current Administration, not yet endured the number or severity of the attacks that had taken place previously, Europe has been subjected to an almost regular and ongoing round of assaults.  The State Department outlined the challenge:

“Terrorist attacks on public spaces and other soft targets – sometimes using unsophisticated means and methods – resulted in mass casualties. The terrorist attack in Nice on July 14, claimed by ISIS, epitomized this phenomenon. The attacker, a Tunisian national residing permanently in France, drove a 19-ton cargo truck through crowds gathered on a seaside promenade to celebrate Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, killing 86 and injuring hundreds before police shot and killed him. In Germany, an ISIS-claimed truck attack killed 12 in a crowded Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016. Other notable terrorist attacks on soft targets during the year included AQIM attacks on a restaurant and hotel in Ouagadougou on January 15; a June 28 attack on the main airport in Istanbul, attributed to ISIS; and a July 23 attack on a peaceful protest in Kabul, carried out by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan. The same ISIS affiliate also claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in Pakistan, including a November 12 bomb blast at the Shah Noorani Shrine in Baluchistan province, Pakistan, which killed more than 50 and wounded more than 100 people. Finally, attacks using bladed weapons such as knives and machetes, which ISIS propaganda has promoted, remained a feature of the terrorism threat in 2016. Knife attacks in Israel and the West Bank by Palestinian lone offenders continued a trend begun there in 2015.”

However, some of the same opponents to the White House’s first ban have lined up against the current version. In a recent release, ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero reasserted the argument that the EO was anti-Muslim: “Six of President Trump’s targeted countries are Muslim. The fact  that Trump has added North Korea — with few visitors to the U.S. — and a few government officials from Venezuela doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban. President Trump’s original sin of targeting Muslims cannot be cured by throwing other countries onto his enemies list.”

The lack of either legal or logical merit to the claims of those opposing the EO is disturbing.  Clearly, the extraordinary waves of recent terrorist attacks in Europe, as well as the unprecedented assaults in the United States, warrant protective actions.  Restrictions against the nations they largely derive from are neither inappropriate nor illogical.