Month: November 2017

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Partisanship over Patriotism

The U.S. economy is beginning to rebound, following the replacement of a “big government” approach with a more traditional jobs and growth strategy. The concept of excess federal regulation was a key factor in the 2007 “Great Recession,” brought on by mandates requiring lending institutions to provide loans to those without the means to provide repayment.

However, surveys, particularly among the young, indicate that socialism remains popular.  A survey by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation  found that “…as of this year, more Millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country (44%) than in a capitalist one (42%). Some even said they would prefer to live in a communist country (7%). The percentage of Millennials who would prefer socialism to capitalism is a full ten points higher than that of the general population.It seems that the majority of America’s largest generation would prefer to live in a socialist or communism society than in a free enterprise system that respects the rule of law, private property, and limited government. This is even more disconcerting when coupled with the fact that, despite Millennials’ enthusiasm for socialism and communism, they do not, in fact, know what those terms mean.”

It would appear that the clear-cut disastrous consequences of a government-controlled economy in nations as diverse as the Soviet Union, North Korea, and Venezuela have no impact on the points of view of many.

In a similar vein, the effects of the past eight year’s reduction of investment in U.S. national security, combined with an international policy of appeasing opponents, has placed global affairs in a hazardous condition.  Nonetheless, numerous politicians and media pundits continue to oppose a return to an adequately financed military and a more results-oriented foreign affairs strategy.

While all this is going on, the now obvious foul play of the Clintons—particularly their uranium-related and email-related crimes were responded to with shrugs and excuses by many, although many now are beginning to approach that issue differently, but only because the latest revelations indicate that Bernie Sanders was among their victims.

There will, and should always be, different political, economic, and foreign policy strategies and philosophies.  But when the clear results of one approach have failed so spectacularly, it is appropriate to examine the logic of those who cling to a blatantly discredited perspective. But the gap between those adhering to viable policies and those that cling to obviously flawed concepts has grown to an unprecedented proportion, and it is appropriate to examine the reasons.

If young students returned home from school proclaiming that they had been taught that the Earth was flat, or that magic was real and science was a myth, parental outrage would be substantial.  Newspapers and other informational outlets that endorsed those concepts would be shunned.

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The warping of school curriculum, from first grade through graduate schools, in the pursuit of left-wing ideological goals has not produced the protest it truly warrants.

Partisanship has grown to epidemic proportions, and far too many Americans see fellow citizens of a different political persuasion as more of an “enemy” than those real threats from abroad.  During a 2016 presidential primary debate, Hillary Clinton, when asked to identify who she thought of as an “enemy” replied, Republicans!

That mindset explains much. For example, Bill Clinton, during his presidency, allowed the sale of supercomputers (which were used to modernize Beijing’s military) to China, during a period when that nation sought to assist his campaign efforts. Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state, sold the basic ingredient of nuclear weapons to the Russians. Neither elicited much outrage in the media, university campuses, or in the bulk of the media. The reason: the possibility of giving a public relations boost to the opposition party was seen as a greater problem than the weakening of America’s national security.

A powerful combination of ignorance, brought about by education overly influenced by progressive ideology and a media dominated by hard-core leftists, has endangered America and created an atmosphere in which loyalty to a political party or ideology has supplanted honest discourse and the good of the nation.

 

 

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U.S.A. Provides Welfare to World

According to the U.S. State Department  “[T]he U.S. Government leads the international community in responding to the needs of refugees, internally displaced persons, victims of conflict and disasters, and vulnerable migrants…The U.S. Government directly supports more than one-quarter of the cost of humanitarian activities undertaken by the UN and Red Cross organizations, and provides strong support to other NGOs.[non-governmental organizations]  The United States is also a leader in the promotion of legal, orderly, and humane migration, building on our history and values as a country of immigration.

Foreign Assistance.gov  notes that “the U.S. manages foreign assistance programs in more than 100 countries around the world through the efforts of over 20 different U.S. government agencies.”

There is, of course a type of assistance to the world community not generally considered as foreign aid, but which certainly has a dramatic impact on global needs. Steven Camarota and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)   have researched the abundant assistance given to both legal and illegal immigrants to the United States. Among the findings:

  • In 2012, 51 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal or illegal) reported that they used at least one welfare program during the year, compared to 30 percent of native households. Welfare in this study includes Medicaid and cash, food, and housing programs.
  • Welfare use is high for both new arrivals and well-established immigrants. Of households headed by immigrants who have been in the country for more than two decades, 48 percent access welfare.
  • No single program explains immigrants’ higher overall welfare use. For example, not counting subsidized school lunch, welfare use is still 46 percent for immigrants and 28 percent for natives. Not counting Medicaid, welfare use is 44 percent for immigrants and 26 percent for natives.
  • Immigrant households have much higher use of food programs (40 percent vs. 22 percent for natives) and Medicaid (42 percent vs. 23 percent). Immigrant use of cash programs is somewhat higher than natives (12 percent vs. 10 percent) and use of housing programs is similar to natives.
  • Welfare use varies among immigrant groups. Households headed by immigrants from Central America and Mexico (73 percent), the Caribbean (51 percent), and Africa (48 percent) have the highest overall welfare use. Those from East Asia (32 percent), Europe (26 percent), and South Asia (17 percent) have the lowest.
  • Many immigrants struggle to support their children, and a large share of welfare is received on behalf of U.S.-born children. However, even immigrant households without children have significantly higher welfare use than native households without children — 30 percent vs. 20 percent.
  • The welfare system is designed to help low-income workers, especially those with children, and this describes many immigrant households. In 2012, 51 percent of immigrant households with one or more workers accessed one or more welfare programs, as did 28 percent of working native households.
  • The large share of immigrants with low levels of education and resulting low incomes partly explains their high use rates. In 2012, 76 percent of households headed by an immigrant who had not graduated high school used one or more welfare programs, as did 63 percent of households headed by an immigrant with only a high school education.
  • The high rates of immigrant welfare use are not entirely explained by their lower education levels. Households headed by college-educated immigrants have significantly higher welfare use than households headed by college-educated natives — 26 percent vs. 13 percent.
  • In the four top immigrant-receiving states, use of welfare by immigrant households is significantly higher than that of native households: California (55 percent vs. 30 percent), New York (59 percent vs. 33 percent), Texas (57 percent vs. 34 percent), and Florida (42 percent vs. 28 percent).
  • Illegal immigrants are included in the SIPP. In a forthcoming report, we will estimate welfare use for immigrants by legal status. However, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of immigrant households using welfare are headed by legal immigrants.
  • Most new legal immigrants are barred from welfare programs when they first arrive, and illegal immigrants are barred as well. But the ban applies to only some programs; most legal immigrants have been in the country long enough to qualify for at least some programs and the bar often does not apply to children; states often provide welfare to new immigrants on their own; naturalizing makes immigrants eligible for all programs; and, most important, immigrants (including illegal immigrants) can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth.
  • The heavy use of welfare by less-educated immigrants has three important policy implications: 1) prior research indicates that illegal immigrants are overwhelmingly less-educated, so allowing them to stay in the country creates significant welfare costs; 2) by admitting large numbers of less-educated immigrants to join their relatives, the legal immigration system brings in many immigrants who are likely to access the welfare system; and 3) proposals to allow in more less-educated immigrants to fill low-wage jobs would create significant welfare costs.

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John Binder, writing in Breitbart   reports that “Decades of mass immigration to the United States, with more than 1.5 million legal immigrants entering the country every year, is the world’s ‘largest anti-poverty program’ at the expense of blue-collar American workers and the middle class, says Harvard University economist…George Borjas…Since 1965, we have admitted a lot of low-skilled immigrants, and one way to view that policy is that we were running basically the largest anti-poverty program in the world… someone is going to have to pay the cost for that.” The impact is seen in low wages. “When it comes to how much Americans have suffered because of mass immigration, Borjas says his ‘rule of thumb is that if immigration increases the number of workers by 10 percent, the wage of workers probably drops by about 3 percent.’ Borjas said that Americans are not only negatively impacted by immigration in the workforce but also in how much they must pay in social services for new arrivals. ‘The other big loss that we need to think about in terms of low-skill immigration is the increased cost of government services that we provide to them,’Borjas said. ”

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Kurdistan Independence, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its examination of  the case for an independent Kurdistan.

Secretary of State Tillerson,following a meeting with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Dohar on October 22, made it clear that the U.S. “did not support the Kurdish independence referendum. We did not believe it was time given that the battle to defeat ISIS is still underway. And while there have been significant victories and significant progress in Iraq, that task is not yet complete. And clearly, what we were concerned about is the referendum would lead to a distraction from the fight to defeat ISIS or Daesh…[Iraqi] Prime Minister Abadi has, I think, made it clear his commitment to follow through on those constitutional obligations, and we hope the Kurds will engage with Baghdad in a very productive way to see that the constitution is fully implemented. I think many of the Kurds’ concerns will be addressed through that process.”

Iraqi opposition to the potential independence of its Kurdish region has much to do with oil. The Kurdish Project  notes that “With a whopping 45 billion gallons of Kurdistan oil reserves, the Iraqi-Kurds hold almost a third of all of Iraq’s 150 billion gallons of untapped black gold. If the KRG autonomous region were a nation-state, it would rank 10th in the world for largest petrol reserves, coming in just after Libya. This makes Kurdish land a hot commodity in an already politically fiery region. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq has more autonomy over their own oil politics and economics than other Kurdish regions. This independence can be attributed to the weakness of the post-war Iraqi government. Many argue that the KRG holds a more functional economic climate than its host.”

Within Iraq, however, one non-Kurdish group does appear to be a source of support for independence.  Many Iraqi Christians believe they could benefit from the move.  An interview with  the Secretary-General of Iraq’s small  Assyrian Bet al-Nahrain Democratic Party, Romeo Hakkari and  the Kurdish news source Kurdistan24, was described by Mewan Dolmari: “Hakkari…stated that Christians are with an independent Kurdistan Region that protects the right of all ethnic and religious groups in the Region, a democratic Kurdistan that defends minorities before Kurds…Hakkari …acknowledged the vital role of the President of the Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani in promoting harmony and coexistence in the Kurdistan Region. Importantly, he stated that Christians have always supported Kurdish independence, and Christians believe that they can attain more rights if and when the Kurdistan Region becomes an independent state, ‘When our Kurdish brothers achieve more rights [independence], the rights of other ethnic and religious groups will also increase…Christians are spread throughout the Kurdistan Region, mostly live in Ankawa area located in Erbil province. Assyrians and Chaldean Christians have five reserved seats in the Kurdistan Region Parliament. Christians are able to practice their religious beliefs without hindrance. During an official Christmas Day celebration broadcast on TV, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani stated, ‘Christians are not treated as minority in the region, and they are an indigenous people of the Kurdistan Region.’”

Turkey opposes the move as well. Writing for World Affairs, Michael Totten notes that “Turkey fears and loathes Kurdish independence anywhere in the world more than it fears and loathes anything else. Kurdish independence in Syria, from Ankara’s point of view, could at a minimum escalate a three-decades-long conflict and at worst threaten Turkey’s territorial integrity. Kurds make up between 15 and 25 percent of Turkey’s population, but no one knows for sure because the government outlaws ethnic classification. Most live in the southeast near the Syrian and Iraqi borders. Many would like to secede and form an independent state of their own.”
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Syria also opposes Kurdish independence. Like Turkey, it fears Kurds within its own borders would follow suit, particularly since the nightmare regime of Bashar al-Assad, now strengthened thanks to Russian and Iranian assistance, is certainly an inducement to secession for any group that could muster the capability to do so.

Michael Rubin, writing for the American Enterprise Institute outlines the Iranian position: “The Iranian government has long opposed any Kurdish independence in Iraq, largely because they fear how the precedent might impact the Kurdish population in Iran. While no Middle Eastern country besides Israel has allowed true censuses in decades because of the sensitivity of the data for their own internal security, most geographers and anthropologists estimate that perhaps eight percent of Iranians speak Kurdish as their first language. Iran has a Kordestan province, but it encompasses only about half of the areas inside Iran in which Kurds predominate. Therefore, the idea that the Iraqi Kurdish referendum will include not only the Iraqi Kurdistan Region itself but neighboring provinces worries Tehran even more.”

Kurdish independence does have one regional friend—Israel. Jonah Mandel, in a Times of Israel article  explains that “ Israel has become the only country to openly support an independent Kurdish state, a result of good ties between Kurds and Jews and expectations that it would be a front against Iran and extremism, experts say… Israel became the first, and so far only, country to openly voice support for ‘the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own,’ as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said… To Gideon Sa’ar, a former Israeli minister for the Likud Party, who recently returned to politics after taking time out, the Kurds are a minority group in the Middle East that, unlike the Jews, have yet to achieve statehood. ‘The Kurds have been and will continue to be reliable and long-term allies of Israel since they are, like us, a minority group in the region,” he said.’”

Despite U.S. reluctance to support independence, a free Kurdish state would be beneficial to Washington’s goals. A New York Post article by Jonathon Tobin notes: “Kurdish independence could create a state that would act as a firewall against Iran’s quest for regional hegemony… A policy switch that encourages the Kurds could throw a monkey wrench into Iran’s plans to use its clients in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Hamas state in Gaza to create a sphere of influence that endangers America’s Arab allies and threatens Israel with a three-front war at any time of Iran’s choosing.”

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Kurdistan Independence

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government examines the case for an independent Kurdistan.

Recently, Iraqi Kurdistan held a referendum on independence. According to Hndren Muhammad, the head of the Kurdistan Independent High Elections and Referendum Commission, the pro-independence side won an overwhelming victory.  There were 4,581,255 eligible voters, of which 3,305,925  cast ballots,  a turnout of 72.16 percent. 2,861,471 people voted Yes, (92.73 percent)  of the voters, against  224,468 No votes, (or  7.27 percent of the voters.)

Although it has gained significantly less attention than Spain’s Catalonia independence movement, the quest of the Kurdish people to form an independent nation, seceding from Iraq, is a far more compelling story.  As noted by several analysts, in contrast to the Palestinians, who have received far broader international support, the Kurds have a language and culture distinct from their Arab neighbors.

There is little in recent history to suggest that the Kurds have any affinity, or any possibility of any reconciliation, with an Iraqi state. The Kurdistan Regional Government  lists a few of the more salient incidents:
1971-1980: The Iraqi government expels more than 200,000 Faili (Shia) Kurds from Iraq.
1983: The Iraqi government disappears 8,000 boys and men from the Barzani clan. In 2005, 500 of them are found in mass graves near Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia, hundreds of kilometres from the Kurdistan Region.
1987-1989: The Iraqi government carries out the genocidal Anfal campaign against Kurdistan’s civilians, of mass summary executions and disappearances, widespread use of chemical weapons, destruction of some 2,000 villages and of the rural economy and infrastructure. An estimated 180,000 are killed in the campaign.
1988: On 16 and 17 March 1988, Iraqi government airplanes drop chemical weapons on the town of Halabja. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people, almost all civilians, are killed.
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By 1992, Kurds were essentially autonomous. Laurie Mylroie, writing for the Atlantic,  noted that in that year, “Iraq’s Kurds [were] effectively running their own affairs, administering a population of 3.5 million in a territory almost twice the size of Israel. They are doing so with considerable success, having managed the transition from authoritarian rule better than many others, including Afghans, Somalis, and the various peoples of the former Soviet Union…In Sulaimaniya, the largest and southernmost city under Kurdish control, I started to understand the remarkable social cohesion underlying the success of the Iraqi Kurds’ administration. Sulaimaniya’s police chief explained that there was, in fact, less crime now in northern Iraq than there had been under the Ba’ath. Thus policemen’s jobs had become easier. ‘Before, people didn’t trust the police and avoided them. Now they cooperate with us.’”

While Saddam is long gone, tensions between Kurds and the Iraqi government continue, and now that the common foe of ISIS has been largely defeated, those tensions have risen to the surface.

Alan Dershowitz also described the “Case for Kurdish Independence” in a Gatestone analysis: The independence referendum is an important step toward remedying a historic injustice inflicted on the Kurdish population in the aftermath of the First World War… the Iraqi Kurds have their own identity, practices, language and culture. They are a coherent nation with profound historical ties to their territory. They have their own national institutions that separate them from their neighbors, their own army (the Peshmerga) and their own oil and energy strategy. International law stipulated in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, lays the foundation for the recognition of state sovereignty. The edict states: ‘the state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.’ The KRG meets these criteria…Moreover, the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq — the closest it has come to having its own state — has thrived and maintained relative peace and order against the backdrop of a weak, ineffectual Iraqi government and a brutal civil war. As such, it represents a semblance of stability in a region comprised of bloody violence, destruction and failed states.”

Predictably, Baghdad is not pleased with the results of the ballot, and the Iraqi government has made it clear that it will not recognize the legitimacy of it. Unlike the significant support by the international community for a Palestinian state, there is no widespread support for the arguably more appropriate Kurdish aspiration, Despite the potential viability and cohesiveness of an independent Kurdish state.

The Report concludes tomorrow.

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The Left’s War on Science Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of  the policies and beliefs of the progressive left that clash with scientific reality, and the harm those policies have caused.

City Journal’s John Tierny, notes that Left-wing physicist John Holdren, who served for eight years as an advisor to President Obama, called for a “planetary regime” to control population and natural resources around the world.

Tierny worries that “Environmental science has become so politicized that its myths endure even after they’ve been disproved. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring set off decades of chemophobia with its scary anecdotes and bad science, like her baseless claim that DDT was causing cancer in humans and her vision of a mass avian die-off (the bird population was actually increasing as she wrote). Yet Silent Spring is taught in high school and college courses as a model of science writing, with no mention of the increased death tolls from malaria in countries that restricted DDT, or of other problems—like the spread of dengue and the Zika virus—exacerbated by needless fears of insecticides. Similarly, the Left’s zeal to find new reasons to regulate has led to pseudoscientific scaremongering about “Frankenfoods,” transfats, BPA in plastic, mobile phones, electronic cigarettes, power lines, fracking, and nuclear energy. The health establishment spent decades advocating a low-salt diet for everyone (and pressuring the food industry to reduce salt) without any proof that it prolonged lives. When researchers finally got around to doing small clinical trials, they found that the low-salt diet did not prolong lives. If anything, it was associated with higher mortality.”

Jenny Splitter, in a Science 2.0 article, also not someone who is biased towards conservative views (she noted that she supported much of Bernie Sanders platform) is concerned about the left’s scientific blindspots. She states that  Sanders views on agricultural and climate change policies, and alternative medicine, “aren’t really informed by science as much as they are by Sanders’ Vermont hippie vision for America…Sanders’s anti-nuclear stance isn’t particularly surprising when you consider what’s driving Sanders’ policies. The Sanders campaign isn’t about science advocacy; it’s a throwback to 1960s counter-culture. And just like 1960s counterculture, Sanders’ policies include hard-hitting political activism as well as dreamy hippie idealism…The idea that small farms and school vegetable gardens should serve as the backbone for a serious national agricultural policy is a regressive and anti-science way of thinking that pro-science progressives really should confront…..When it comes to the safety of biotechnology and transgenic crops, Sanders rejects scientific consensus completely…progressives and Sanders supporters need to confront regressive anti-science thinking in the progressive movement. Anti-GMO and anti-nuclear policies aren’t forward thinking, evidence-based policy solutions. They’re anti-science, rooted in fear and a derailment from the fight to advance meaningful progressive change in this country.”

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It’s more than just food and vaccines. “The [progressive] war on fracking is also entirely ideological. Any new technology will have challenges, but the National Academy of Sciences, MIT, and other bodies with no axes to grind say that fracking is safe. Environmentalists should love it, because natural gas emits far less carbon than oil. Instead, they want to ban it. They’ve persuaded Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that it’s evil. Without fracking and without a pipeline to the east, Eastern Canada will keep importing foreign oil. Does that make sense? Only to progressives.”

Toby Young, in a Spectator analysis,  asks, “How much longer can the liberal left survive in the face of growing scientific evidence that many of its core beliefs are false?”

 

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The Left’s War on Science

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government reviews the policies and beliefs of the progressive left that clash with scientific reality, and the harm those policies have caused.

America has generally been an optimistic nation, eager to employ scientific advances to move rapidly ahead. That inherent characteristic is now being challenged.

Campus Reform’s Toni Airaksinen reports that  Sara Giordano, a “ feminist professor at the University of California-Davis has vowed to ‘challenge the authority of Science’ by ‘rewriting knowledge’ through a feminist lens. Ms. Giordano “left the field of neuroscience to become a Women’s Studies professor. She believes ‘We need to disrupt the epistemic authority of Science…[and] the assumption that science = truth.”  She equates science with colonization, racism, and  slavery, and is currently being used to “perpetuate racism and colonial practices.”

Her views, were they restricted to just a few, would not be worrisome, but they are part of a larger trend, encompassing a wide swath of those on the extreme left.

Scientific American’s Michael Schermer maintains that there is a left-wing “ war on science.” Schermer, who is not a  conservative, points to a number of specific examples.

Leftists led an all-out assault against evolutionary psychology via such Orwellian-named far-left groups as Science for the People, he notes. “On energy issues, for example, progressive liberals tend to be antinuclear because of the waste-disposal problem, anti–fossil fuels because of global warming, antihydroelectric because dams disrupt river ecosystems, and anti–wind power because of avian fatalities…Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words “Monsanto” and “profit” are not dropped like syllogistic bombs…The fact is that we’ve been genetically modifying organisms for 10,000 years through breeding and selection. It’s the only way to feed billions of people.”

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City Journal’s John Tierny, reports that “the Left has repeatedly skewed science over the past half-century. In 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan published a paper presciently warning of the dangers for black children growing up in single-parent homes, it was greeted with such hostility…that the topic became off-limits among liberals, stymying public discussion and research for decades into one of the most pressing problems facing minority children. Similarly, liberal advocates have worked to suppress reporting on the problems of children raised by gay parents or on any drawbacks of putting young children in day care. In 1991, a leading family psychologist, Louise Silverstein, published an article in the American Psychologist urging her colleagues to ‘refuse to undertake any more research that looks for the negative consequences of other-than-mother-care.’..

Despite the dangerous, inhumane and deadly results of  placing leftist dogma over science, the practice continues. Tierney provides examples: “The work of left-wing population alarmists inspired China’s monstrous one-child policy, which included forced abortions and infanticide…”

But the horrid consequences of the left’s anti-science animus pre-dates Mao. The Eugenics movement, so beloved by progressive heroine Margaret Sanger, led to the the involuntary sterilization or castration of more than 35,000 Americans. “Even after Hitler,  [A National Socialist] used eugenics to justify killing millions, the Left didn’t lose its interest in controlling human breeding…Eugenicist thinking was revived by scientists convinced that the human species had exceeded the ‘carrying capacity’ of its ecosystem. The most prominent was Paul Ehrlich, whose scientific specialty was the study of butterflies. Undeterred by his ignorance of agriculture and economics, he published confident predictions of imminent global famine in The Population Bomb (1968). Agricultural economists dismissed his ideas, but the press reverently quoted Ehrlich and other academics who claimed to have scientifically determined that the Earth was ‘overpopulated.’”

 

The Report concludes tomorrow.

 

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Importance of the Electoral College

Should a handful of states, and, indeed, just a handful of jurisdictions within those states, be given the power to choose the winner of future presidential contests? That’s precisely what would happen if the electoral college is abolished.

Luis Fuentes-Rohwer and Guy-Uriel Charles, writing in the Duke Law Review, note that “For critics of the Electoral College, the Achilles heel of the College is its ability to select a President that fails to win the popular vote. Moreover, and as a direct result of the close presidential elections in the last forty years, many students of the Electoral College have continually warned that the College would soon ‘malfunction’ by producing a minority President. In response, reformers have introduced myriad proposals for changes in the Electoral College. These changes must be understood exactly within the larger historical context. ‘Close presidential elections, those in which the new president has only a narrow margin in the total popular vote,’ Polsby and Wildavsky write,’always lead to renewed public discussion of the merits of the electoral college, since close elections remind people of the mathematical possibility that the candidate with a plurality of all the votes will not necessarily become president…’”

The Daily Signal argues that “Though a huge part of the anti-Electoral College push is sour grapes in the wake of [Trump’s] surprise electoral defeat, it serves the broader interest of the progressive movement’s goal to both delegitimize the incoming administration and subvert the idea of federalism as enshrined in the Constitution… What is lost in the Electoral College debate is the underlying attack on America’s cherished and inherited idea of federalism…The elimination of the Electoral College would be just another blow to the role of the states in the American system of government. No longer would presidential candidates have to appeal to the farmers of rural Iowa alongside the bankers of urban New York. They would be incentivized to campaign directly to the interests of the largest population centers alone…”

Actually ED is an inability in men who are not fond of taking viagra for sale australia tablets especially the elderly who sometimes find it difficult to handle their problem, and many give up because they don’t know how to relax and cope. So, it is clear that ED is a call of several low mental factors and a reason buying generic cialis http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1482459178_add_file_5.pdf of weak relationship. But, hit the curb a bit harder, at a less favorable angle, and you can bend the wheel or twist a support strut. stores for viagra This medicine dilates the blood vessels of the buy generic tadalafil genitals. Some of the calls to abolish the Electoral College have wholly ignored historical and Constitutional facts. Melissa Quinn, writing for the Washington Examiner reported on the bizarre comments of Democrat National Committee Chair Tom Perez, who, in a speech at Indiana University’s School of Law, falsely stated that “the Electoral College isn’t ‘a creation of the Constitution.’”  Contrary to Perez’s comments, “the Constitution clearly, specifically and explicitly, College in Article II, and the 12th Amendment details the process by which electors will meet and vote for president and vice president.”

Changes to a system that has successfully helped preserve American unity and the existence of freedom would be dangerous. Tom Boylan, from Winthrop University’s Political Science Department, wrote in the Open Political Science Journal that “calls for a system of presidential selection based on a pure form of popular democracy can lead to unintended and undemocratic outcomes. By examining the Electoral College in its constitutional as well as its political context this study finds that the Electoral College, rather than subverting democracy, preserves it in ways that are both enduring and significant. Those who suggest amending the Constitution need to confront the many negative consequences of jettisoning the present system of American presidential selection.”

Abolishing the Electoral College would, in essence, disenfranchise the population of the other 39 states. Sean Rosenthal, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education,  explains that “…the Constitution’s voting system does an unexpectedly good job of deterring the concentration of political power…A two-party system poses the danger of one party taking exclusive control and exerting its unrestrained will on the population…within a two-party system in a large nation, the Electoral College has an important function: it transforms elections from one national election into 51 local elections. With the elections managed locally, the federal government has little control over the voting process and cannot systemically tilt the election in favor of a party in power, preventing any party from systematically expanding its power through the voting system. Thus, the electoral college protects the voting system from potentially systemic federal corruption by dispersing it across the states. Moreover, by having 51 local elections for electoral votes instead of 51 local elections that sum into a national popular vote, local politicians do not have a powerful institutional incentive to tamper with the voting system.”

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Hollywood’s Other Scandal Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of  China’s growing control over Hollywood, and how this impacts upon the very survival of American culture.

In May, Small Wars Journal’s  Darren E. Tromblay outlined the issue of China’s use of Hollywood. “China has a well-established respect for information warfare.  Chinese companies have made a variety of acquisitions in the United States that it can leverage to influence U.S. decision-making.  While certain aspects of this buying spree – telecom and media purchases – have made national headlines and prompted U.S. government inquiries, China’s entry into – and consolidation of its holdings in – the entertainment field provide a vector that has not been sufficiently scrutinized…Since 2012, Chinese entities have made a significant push into the U.S. film production and distribution industry.  Chinese involvement in this area creates two primary concerns.  The first of these is that, by gaining control of distribution, China can effectively diminish the impact of films that it deems to be objectionable to Beijing’s interests.  China may take offense at any number of themes – ranging from portrayals of the country as an aggressor to glorification of protest and civil disobedience – that have filled U.S. movie screens.  A second, complementary, concern is that China will develop the resources to produce content with thematic elements supportive of a “China solution”.  Sympathetic, non-Chinese-produced, portrayals have already entered American theaters (one need look no further than the recent Disney nature flick, “Born in China”) – it is entirely plausible that Chinese producers will be able to capitalize on these sentiments with their own content.”

In the broad marketplace of ideas, it could be speculated that American audiences should be able to see through Hollywood’s sellout to Chinese censorship.  The problem is that the ability to do so is hampered by a U.S. education system that has deemphasized the teaching of history and civics, and that has adopted anti-American curriculums that are, at times, even more hostile (and inaccurate) than those portrayed by China or other hostile regimes.

A National Association of Scholars report   on the issue of public education’s “New Civics” outlines why young Americans are already primed to be susceptible to foreign propaganda that portrays America as an evil nation. It found that:
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“What we call the  ‘New Civics’ redefines civics…Rooted in the radical program of the 1960s’ …Though camouflaged with soft rhetoric, the New Civics, properly understood, is an effort to repurpose higher education. The New Civics seeks above all [dedicated] to …elevating international ‘norms’ over American Constitutional law, and disparaging our common history and ideals…Because middle schools and high schools no longer can be relied on to provide students basic civic literacy, the subject has migrated to colleges. But colleges have generally failed to recognize a responsibility to cover the basic content of traditional civics, and have instead substituted programs under the name of civics that bypass instruction in American government and history.”

A Federalist study agrees. “…a retired AP teacher named Larry Krieger took a look at the new APUSH [Advanced Placement U.S. history] guidelines that had started to circulate. He has examined the AP tests for decades because he coaches for the exams (and, not incidentally, has won awards from College Board for his AP teaching). What he saw alarmed him. He teamed up with American Principles Project fellow Jane Robbins, who is nationally known for her incisive criticism of Common Core…’The new Framework inculcates a consistently negative view of the nation’s past. For example, the units on colonial America stress the development of a ‘rigid racial hierarchy’ and a ‘strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority.’  Third, they noted that the new framework ignored pivotal figures and events in favor of less-important individuals and events that reinforce a leftist narrative of U.S. history: “It excises Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and the other founders from the nation’s story. George Washington’s historical contributions are reduced to a brief sentence fragment noting his Farewell Address. Two pages later, the Framework grants teachers the flexibility to discuss the architecture of Spanish missions, suggesting it merits more attention than the heroes of 1776.” Krieger also conducted a meticulous dissection of the anti-American themes and anti-knowledge gaps in the extensive new curriculum framework. These include emphasizing exploitation, racial conflict, and economic determinism, and omitting the Pilgrims, all Revolutionary War battles, Alexis de Tocqueville, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and much more.”

Emmet Tyrell, editor of the American Spectator,  has repeated an oft-heard refrain: “Culture trumps politics.” From the anti-American bias of the nations’ educational system to the new reign of Chinese values in our entertainment, the United States is in danger of losing its identity within a generation.

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Hollywood’s Other Scandal

The biggest story in Hollywood surpasses even the Weinstein scandal.

Recently, a rather boring, third rate science fiction film, Geostorm, opened. It featured an absurd plot, miscast actors, and a woeful script.  The movie’s premise was that an American official plotted to use advanced weather control technology to wipe out enemy nations, even though no war was underway.

Why should you care? That basic concept, that the U.S. is a malevolent nation, is becoming increasing common, both on television programs and feature movies.  It is not a coincidence that these concepts have become increasingly prevalent as Hollywood increasingly is financed by China. NBC’s  Ronan Farrow reports that “If you got to a movie theater right now, there’s a pretty good chance that the film you see will have been partially financed in China.” Beijing has not been subtle about using its monetary muscle to induce the famously “for sale” chieftains of Tinsel Town to spread its propaganda.

Business Insider notes that “Chinese outbound capital has begun to have substantial influence in Hollywood. Hollywood is increasingly a destination for media investment by Chinese companies in individual projects, in US-based offices, and even entire studios. Alibaba reportedly invested in the 2015 Hollywood film “Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation.” The China Film Group has been linked as an investor to the record-breaking “Furious 7” movie. Chinese entertainment and technology firm LeTV established its US offices in Los Angeles in 2015. In April 2015, Chinese film studio Huayi Bros. made an agreement with American motion picture company STX entertainment to co-produce and co-distribute 12 to 15 films. In January 2016, the Dalian Wanda Group acquired American studio Legendary Pictures, making it the first Chinese firm to own a Hollywood studio. Rather than made in China, Hollywood studio productions will also increasingly be made by China—or rather, by Chinese companies investing in Hollywood.”
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The Washington Post’s Ana Swanson  has written that “China has never been shy about its desire to acquire “soft power” – the kind of cultural and economic influence that can’t be wielded by military might. And Hollywood has often been a partner in its project…These deals have sparked concern over whether China’s expanding influence in Hollywood could lead to more pro-Chinese propaganda in U.S. films. The Chinese government tightly controls media content, and Hollywood studios have been known to alter films to feature China or the Chinese government in a more flattering light to gain access to the country’s lucrative film market…”

Last year, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee expressed concern about foreign media entities “which may receive funding and/or direction from a foreign government with the intent to serve propaganda goals and censor content in the United States.”  Its basic finding that to appease China, and in the hopes that its films will be allowed by Beijing censors to be shown in the lucrative Chinese market, Hollywood is following Chinese censors guidelines in producing films.

A Report  by the U.S. China Security Review Commission found that “China’s strict regulation of entertainment imports, including foreign films, violates the country’s World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, as determined in a 2007 WTO decision calling for China to open its film market to foreign films. After years of noncompliance and inaction, China partially opened its film market in 2012 following a deal with the United States. The deal allowed for the import of 34 films each year—up from the previous limit of 20 films—in exchange for a temporary suspension of further U.S. WTO actions against China’s film importation policies. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 2015 visit to the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America and China Film Group reached two new film agreements, which could increase market access for foreign films in China. Based on recent history, however, promises that China will further open its film market should be viewed skeptically. Chinese box office sales have increased alongside China’s standard of living, resulting in China surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest film market (behind the United States) in 2012. If global film market growth rates remain consistent over the next few years, many experts expect China to surpass the United States as the largest film market in the world as early as 2018. Hollywood relies on China’s film market for revenue, but the process to get films into China is arduous due to strict and opaque regulation of film imports. China’s regulations and processes for approving foreign films reflect the Chinese Communist Party’s position that art, including film, is a method of social control. As a result of these regulations, Hollywood filmmakers are required to cut out any scenes, dialogue, and themes that may be perceived as a slight to the Chinese government. With an eye toward distribution in China, American filmmakers increasingly edit films in anticipation of Chinese censors’ many potential sensitivities.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow.

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Lessons of the Manhattan Terror Attack

There are lessons to be learned from the recent terror attack in Manhattan, which resulted in eight deaths and twelve injuries.

Umar Farooq, writing in the Los Angeles Times  notes the radicalization of 29 year old Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov did not occur in his native Uzbekistan, but in the United States.  Uzbekistan is a former Soviet republic situated north of Afghanistan, and with a Muslim majority. It is rather ruthlessly ruled by Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has suppressed extremists within his borders.

Luke Lishin, writing for Smallwars  describes Uzbekistani radicalism: “After approximately one decade spent in the shadow of the Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) claimed ownership over what appear to be increasingly frequent waves of violence focused in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and at the borders of Central Asia. While the return of the IMU as a capable fighting force may be rightly construed as a threat to the stability of Central Asia writ large, the risks are especially pronounced in the case of the region’s most populous state, Uzbekistan.”

Proof of Saipov’s recruitment to radicalism while in the U.S.  can be seen in the official complaint from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force notes  his cellphone “contains approximately 90 videos, many of which appear to be…ISIS related propaganda. For example, the videos include…a video of what appears to be ISIS fighters killing a prisoner by running the prisoner over with a tank…” The cellphone also included “3,800 images, many of which appear to be ISIS propaganda…”

Farooq notes that this isn’t the first terrorist attack involving Uzbekistanis. “In 2015, prosecutors in New York arrested three men, including two citizens of Uzbekistan, for trying to join Islamic State and carry out attacks in the US…While that plot did not go forward, several deadly attacks in Europe have been attributed to Islamic State members from Central Asia. Prosecutors in Turkey are currently trying Abdulkadir Masharipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan who allegedly saw combat in Afghanistan and Syria, for the killing of 39 revelers at a nightclub in Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2016. Masharipov was allegedly part of a network of Islamic State members from former Soviet countries that was also responsible for a June 2016 attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport that killed 45 people.” Julia Ioffe, writing for The Atlantic, also noted that “An Uzbek drove a truck into a crowd in Stockholm in April… an Uzbek was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a New York court for providing material support to ISIS. Uzbekistan has provided some 1,500 soldiers to ISIS in Iraq and Syria, according to the Soufan Group. ISIS has claimed that Uzbeks were responsible for some of its most high-profile suicide bombings in Iraq. In November 2014, the largest Uzbek faction fighting in Syria pledged its allegiance to the Taliban.”

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Saipov legally entered America ostensibly for economic reasons, under a 1990 legislative bill, HR 4165, introduced by now Senator but then Representative Charles Schumer(D-NY). The late Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts)  introduced the Senate equivalent.  The Diversity Visa Program focuses on favoring entry to those from nations not well-represented in immigrant numbers.

Daniel Horowitz, the senior editor of Conservative Review notes that “1.83 million green cards were issued to nationals of predominantly Muslim countries from 2001-2015, which has made immigration from the Middle East the fastest-growing subset. This was done after 9/11; that doesn’t include the roughly 155,000 foreign students every year from those same countries. We have admitted over 59,000 legal permanent residents from Uzbekistan since 2001. Does anyone want to guess how many subscribe to Sharia supremacism, which cultivates the climate for these individuals to hate America? We can only wonder about the family members, friends, and relatives of this terrorist. Remember, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that 15 percent of those subject to terrorism investigations were refugees.”

David French’s discussion in National Review of a Ninth Circuit decision against President Trump’s travel ban noted that “The court is going to stop enforcement of a temporary pause in entry from jihadist and jihadist-torn countries (while in a state of war against jihadist terrorists)…the court [granted]…sufficient due-process rights to potential immigrants to halt enforcement of a wartime executive order motivated by the desire to protect America from the rising threat of jihadist terror. Astonishing.”

U.S. immigration policy, particularly in the era of terror, needs to focus more on the needs of America, and American  national security. Rep. Jeff Hensarling (R-Texas)  states that “Immigrants who come to America seeking economic opportunity are an asset, but unfortunately our current immigration system often places a greater emphasis on genealogy instead of an immigrant’s potential contribution to the United States.” The potential for devastating attacks must also be considered before admitting those seeking entry.