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White House ignores contrary climate data

President Obama utilized his recent trip to Alaska to visit Exit Glacier and state that its gradual receding justifies the extensive and expensive actions by federal agencies that are based on the theory of man-made global warming.

According to the New York Post “Exit Glacier has been shrinking … since 1815 — long before widespread industrialization and automobiles…Alaska has been buffeted by cyclical swings in climate for thousands of years. That’s true for the rest of the world, too. There was a 300-year-long Medieval heat wave, followed by a Little Ice Age that began around 1300, and then the 300-year warming period we’re in now. …The Alaska Climate Research Center reports almost no evidence of warming trends in Alaska since 1977…Many scientists are predicting the onset of two or three centuries of cooler weather — which would mean bigger glaciers.”

Despite the extensive disagreement by numerous scientists (31,072 American scientists, including 9,029 with PH.D’s, have signed a petition opposing the views of those who claim human factors have altered the climate) the White House continues to contend that the issue of man-made warming is “settled science” and there is no need for further research.

An icon of global warming advocates is failing to cooperate. The Daily Caller’s review of a Lakehead University study found that polar bears, supposedly threatened by global warming, are in fact thriving.

Part of the problem in determining what climate changes the Earth is enduring is that, as noted by federal sources “Temperature records from thermometers and weather stations exist only for a tiny portion of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year-long life.”

Official or semi-official weather records go back only about 100 years, although some records do go back a few centuries before that.  However, scientific data indicates that substantial global climate swings occurred long before industrial activity began. According to Green Agenda “In AD 1000, the Earth was experiencing an episode of climate warming similar to that of the present day…In Europe, several centuries of long hot summers led to an almost unbroken string of good harvests, and both urban and rural populations began to grow. These centuries are known as the Medieval Warm Period. One of the more dramatic consequences of the Medieval Warm Period was the expansion of Viking settlements in the North Atlantic. From their Icelandic base (established in AD 870), the Norse people began to move west and north to Greenland, Canada, and eventually above the Arctic Circle.”

A Nature study has found that temperatures in ancient Rome were warmer than the present.
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One of the more significant arguments against the extreme measures advocated by the White House can be gleaned from a study of the other planets in our solar system. A National Geographic  review in 2007 reported that

“Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory…In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide ‘ice caps’ near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. ‘The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,’ he said…Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun’s heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.”

The Earth and Mars are not alone. A Daily Tech  report noted that “The entire solar system appears to be warming up lately…Global warming was detected on Jupiter last year, and the warming is apparently behind the formation of a second red spot. Global warming on Neptune’s moon Triton has also been noted, with severe atmospheric changes as a result. And even tiny Pluto has experienced moderate warming in recent years, with temperatures rising a full 3.5 degrees.

“The common denominator in all these cases, the Earth included, is of course the Sun, which is in the middle of an extremely active period at present. The last time it was so active was during the Medieval Warm Period of 700 years ago, a period where the Earth was warmer than it is today. Interestingly enough, the period in which it was least active (the Maunder Minimum) corresponds with the Little Ice Age the earth experienced in the 17th century.”

The article points out that this doesn’t mean that the sun is getting hotter, but that is more “active.”

“Such correlations are causing many scientists to consider the Sun the primary cause of terrestrial climate change. The initial problem with this theory was that the changes in solar flux didn’t appear to be enough to account for the warming.  Scientist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute reports that increased solar activity not only warms the earth directly, it increases the strength of the solar winds. This reduces the amount of cosmic radiation striking the earth, which directly reduces the formation rate of clouds. Less clouds = more warming. Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv reconstructed 550 million years of Earth’s climate change history. He found that 2/3 of the temperature variance could be explained by changes in cosmic flux alone, without even considering the direct influence of solar heating. This has always been a weak point of CO2-based models, which have never been able to successfully explain these warming and cooling trends in our past.”

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The U.N. must be reformed or replaced

The annual ritual when countries that have failed their citizenry through bad governance and worse economics gather to lecture and make demands of nations with truly representative leadership and successful economies will again commence when the General Assembly of the United Nations opens its seventieth session on September 15 in New York.

The opening of the session will be followed, in the second week, by the United Nations summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda—a high-level plenary meeting taking place from September 25, through September 27—when world leaders are expected to agree to a new set of sustainability measures. The Assembly’s annual general debate, when Heads of State and Government and other senior national representatives gather to present their views about pressing world issues, will open on September 28, and run through October 5.

The United Nations Charter reaffirms “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women…” However, far too many members of that body utterly ignore that concept. Two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—China and Russia- regularly and substantially violate key tenets of the Charter. Over the decades since the document was first signed on June 26, 1945, far too many members have been admitted and remain who have no affinity with the concepts of individual rights, the equality of the sexes, or the principle of resolving international disputes through negotiation.

There is little doubt that vital issues currently affecting the world won’t be seriously addressed. Several examples of problems that will either be ignored or given little serious consideration:

  •  the growing military threats and actions from Russia , China, Iran, and North Korea—(U.N. members all, China and Russia are members of the Security Council);
  • the enslavement and repression of Women in Islamic states;
  • the impoverishment of many national populations due to official corruption or the imposition of failed economic  models;
  • the continued repression against Christians in China and the Middle East;
  • the growing trend of internet censorship.

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The philosophical dilemma facing the United Nations, in addition to the positions of power held by governments that have no affinity with the democratic principles of the organization, is an adherence to a moral equivalence, in which the attainment of a consensus is more important than insuring that justice prevails.  The reality is that while nations that openly or in practice oppose basic concepts of individual rights, representative government, and nonaggression continue to hold significant positions of power and influence, the United Nations will not be a viable avenue to achieve worthwhile goals.

The time has come for nations that do practice the principles of open government and individual rights and nonaggression towards other countries, to consider whether the basic format of the United Nations is a viable platform for the international community to meet and work together.

How rational is it to give repressive regimes a voice on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council? Russia’s Mikhail Lebedev and China’s Yishan Zhang are 2016 members of that body. The Express-Tribune  recently reported that Edward Snowden (the former U.S. intelligence contractor who controversially released significant amounts of sensitive U.S. data and is now living in Russia) has sharply criticizing Moscow’s deteriorating human rights record. Despite that, there is no question of Moscow’s continued membership in the U.N. Security Council, giving it a veto in any important decision the world body makes.

The anti-semitic tendencies of the U.N. are also an important problem. Despite the fact that Israel adheres more firmly to the organization’s charter than any of its regional neighbors, it is the Jewish state that is the subject of the most intense criticism.

A general forum in which all parties can meet and present their viewpoints is good and necessary. However, decision making should be the sole province of those who have truly adopted the principles of human rights and peaceful resolutions. The United Nations must either be reformed or replaced with a more viable organization led by states that truly practice the principles its charter espouses.

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Make bad governments pay for causing their citizens to flee

The scenes are heartbreaking, such as those of sick and dying children on the shores of the EU. The Economist estimates that 23,000 have lost their lives since 2000 attempting to enter the European continent. The Gatestone Institute reports that more than 175,000 have applied for asylum during the past 12 months. Many, many more are entering illegally.

Across the Atlantic, the Migration Policy Institute  notes that “In 2013, approximately 41.3 million immigrants [legal and illegal] lived in the United States, an all-time high for a nation historically built on immigration. The United States remains a popular destination attracting about 20 percent of the world’s international migrants, even as it represents less than 5 percent of the global population. Immigrants accounted for 13 percent of the total 316 million U.S. residents; adding the U.S.-born children (of all ages) of immigrants means that approximately 80 million people, or one-quarter of the overall U.S. population, is either of the first or second generation.”

Impoverished families crossing the U.S. southern border present wrenching views. The Pew Research Institute  estimates that there are approximately 11.3 million illegals in the U.S. Pew also notes that “President Obama’s executive action on immigration, announced Nov. 20, 2014, would among other things expand deportation relief to almost half the unauthorized immigrant population, though this part of the program is on hold due to a lawsuit to stop the move.” Unauthorized immigrants make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force.

The reactions to this wave of humanity range from  an abundance of sympathy, such as that exhibited by President Obama’s very lax enforcement of American immigration law, to the exclusionary policies advocated by some European political groups. Even Pope Francis has weighed in, urging Christian charity for the masses on the move.

The United Nations Refugee Agency has noted:

“Since the late 1970s, the international community has been well aware of the severe impact that large scale refugee populations can have on the social, economic and political life of host developing countries… From the moment of arrival, refugees compete with the local citizens for scarce resources such as land, water, housing, food and medical services. Over time, their presence leads to more substantial demands on natural resources, education and health facilities, energy, transportation, social services and employment. They may cause inflationary pressures on prices and depress wages. In some instances, they can significantly alter the flow of goods and services within the society as a whole and their presence may have implications for the host country’s balance of payment and undermine structural adjustment initiatives… The heavy price that host countries have to pay in providing asylum to refugees is now widely recognized.”

But, perhaps for reasons of political correctness and an embarrassment of past instances of colonialism, the actual causes of illegal immigration and the only workable solutions to the crisis remain largely unspoken.
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The poverty, war and other conditions from which most of the refugees flee are largely not the results of a natural disaster, such as a famine or flood, but from bad regimes.

The fact is, the governments from which most of the current waves of immigrants hail from are corrupt, incompetent, repressive, or adhere to economic philosophies that simply don’t work. Their misdeeds and/or ineptness force many of their citizenry to seek refuge and sustenance elsewhere. In essence, the populations of the United States and Europe are forced to pay for the stupidity or malfeasance of other nations.

DW, discussing the lack of candor in Africa about the reasons for the immigration crisis, noted:

“Tens of thousands of refugees risk their lives trying to get to Europe. Surprisingly this sort of news rarely makes front page in Africa. ‘The migrant boat tragedy is not just Europe’s problem,’ a title by the ‘Daily Maverick’, a South African daily, silently screams.

“The African Union communications department has been very busy lately, issuing statements on subjects as varied and diverse as the Sudanese elections, the killing of Ethiopian citizens by ‘Islamic State’ (IS) in Libya, the xenophobic violence in South Africa and the marketing of Africa’s ‘Agenda 2063’ to Polish investors. Nothing, however, on the boatloads of Africans risking everything to escape the continent. Nothing on the hundreds of corpses floating in the Mediterranean.”

There should be an international discussion on placing penalties and sanctions on governments that create the conditions that cause many of their citizens to flee. While some may claim that this constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the nations affected, it is appropriate, pragmatic and, indeed, humanitarian to eliminate, at the source, the conditions which give rise to the necessity of mass immigration.

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Attempts continue to impose left wing bias in education

During 2014 and 2015, numerous scholars protested the College Boards’ attempt to impose a radical new American History advanced placement curriculum. (The College Board is a private New York organization that administers advanced placement courses.) The revised coursework reflects a leftist version of American history that emphasizes a negative attitude towards the U.S. and for the most part omits major figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The material gave little recognition to America’s contributions to defeating the forces of tyranny in the World Wars, or the nation’s pivotal role in raising economic standards.

The curriculum bowed to the Progressive’s lack of belief in American exceptionalism.

The issue became so controversial and partisan that the Republican National Committee weighed in on the debate, arguing that the College Board’s new framework “deliberately distorts and/or edits out important historical events…and reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.”

Think Progress reported that a number of state legislators across the country attempted to pass laws prohibiting government funding from being used to advance the politicized course revision. Calls were also made to withhold federal funding. Critics were concerned that David Coleman, a key figure behind the Common Core standards, was involved in pushing the biased material.

Educators from the National Association of Scholars  published the following letter after the new material was released:

The teaching of American history in our schools faces a grave new risk, from an unexpected source. Half a million students each year take the Advanced Placement (AP) exam in U.S. History. The framework for that exam has been dramatically changed, in ways certain to have negative consequences.

We wish to express our opposition to these modifications. The College Board’s 2014 Advanced Placement Examination shortchanges students by imposing on them an arid, fragmentary, and misleading account of American history. We favor instead a robust, vivid, and content-rich account of our unfolding national drama, warts and all, a history that is alert to all the ways we have disagreed and fallen short of our ideals, while emphasizing the ways that we remain one nation with common ideals and a shared story.

The Advanced Placement exam has become a fixture in American education since its introduction after the Second World War, and many colleges and universities award credits based on students’ AP scores. In fact, for many American students the AP test effectively has taken the place of the formerly required U.S. history survey course in colleges and universities, making its structure and contents a matter of even greater importance from the standpoint of civic education. Many of these students will never take another American history course. So it matters greatly what they learn in their last formal encounter with the subject.

Educators and the public have been willing to trust the College Board to strike a sensible balance among different approaches to the American past. Rather than issuing detailed guidelines, the College Board has in the past furnished a brief topical outline for teachers, leaving them free to choose what to emphasize. In addition, the previous AP U.S. History course featured a strong insistence on content, i.e., on the students’ acquisition of extensive factual knowledge of American history. But with the new 2014 framework, the College Board has put forward a lengthy 134-page document which repudiates that earlier approach, centralizes control, deemphasizes content, and promotes a particular interpretation of American history.

This interpretation downplays American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective. The College Board has long enjoyed an effective monopoly on advanced placement testing. The changes made in the new framework expose the danger in such a monopoly. The result smacks of an “official” account of the American past. Local, state, and federal policymakers may need to explore competitive alternatives to the College Board’s current domination of advanced-placement testing.
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The new framework is organized around such abstractions as “identity,” “peopling,” “work, exchange, and technology,” and “human geography” while downplaying essential subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s ideals and political institutions, notably the Constitution. Elections, wars, diplomacy, inventions, discoveries—all these formerly central subjects tend to dissolve into the vagaries of identity-group conflict. The new framework scrubs away all traces of what used to be the chief glory of historical writing—vivid and compelling narrative—and reduces history to an bloodless interplay of abstract and impersonal forces. Gone is the idea that history should provide a fund of compelling stories about exemplary people and events. No longer will students hear about America as a dynamic and exemplary nation, flawed in many respects, but whose citizens have striven through the years toward the more perfect realization of its professed ideals. The new version of the test will effectively marginalize important ways of teaching about the American past, and force American high schools to teach U.S. history from a perspective that self-consciously seeks to de-center American history and subordinate it to a global and heavily social-scientific perspective.

There are notable political or ideological biases inherent in the 2014 framework, and certain structural innovations that will inevitably result in imbalance in the test, and bias in the course. Chief among these is the treatment of American national identity. The 2010 framework treated national identity, including “views of the American national character and ideas about American exceptionalism” as a central theme. But the 2014 framework makes a dramatic shift away from that emphasis, choosing instead to grant far more extensive attention to “how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial and ethnic identities.” The new framework makes a shift from “identity” to “identities.” Indeed, the new framework is so populated with examples of American history as the conflict between social groups, and so inattentive to the sources of national unity and cohesion, that it is hard to see how 3 students will gain any coherent idea of what those sources might be. This does them, and us, an immense disservice.

We believe that the study of history should expose our young students to vigorous debates about the nature of American exceptionalism, American identity, and America’s role in the world. Such debates are the warp and woof of historical understanding. We do not seek to reduce the education of our young to the inculcation of fairy tales, or of a simple, whitewashed, heroic, even hagiographical nationalist narrative. Instead, we support a course that fosters informed and reflective civic awareness, while providing a vivid sense of the grandeur and drama of its subject. A formal education in American history serves young people best by equipping them for a life of deep and consequential membership in their own society. The College Board’s 2014 framework sadly neglects this essential civic purpose of education in history. We can, and must, do better.

Some revisions to the course were made in July following the protests, although critics still maintain that the curriculum continues to reflect a left-wing partisan viewpoint.

To a significant extent, the new material is an outgrowth of the use of a textbook, “A People’s History of the United States,” written by the Marxist author Howard Zinn, in many schools.

Writing for Hillsdale College’s Imprimis publication, Wilfred M. McClay discussed the controversy, placing it in the context of a much broader ideological battle:

“The audacity of this agenda could not be clearer. It is nothing less than a drive to expel the nation-state, and completely reconstitute public consciousness around a radically different idea of the purpose of history. It substitutes a whole new set of loyalties, narratives, heroes, and notable events—perhaps directed to some post-national entity, or to a mere abstraction—for the ones inhering in civic life as it now exists. It would mean a complete rupture with the past, and with all admired things that formerly associated themselves with the idea of the nation, including the sacrifices of former generations…

“It represents a lurch in the direction of more centralized control, as well as an expression of a distinct agenda—an agenda that downplays comprehensive content knowledge in favor of interpretive finesse, and that seeks to deemphasize American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective… It gives only the most cursory attention to traditional subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s fundamental political institutions, notably the Constitution, and the narrative accounting of political events, such as elections, wars, and diplomacy.

“Various critics have noted the political and ideological biases inherent in the 2014 framework, as well as structural innovations that will result in imbalance in the test and bias in the course. … the new framework is so populated with examples of American history as the conflict between social groups, and so inattentive to the sources of national unity and cohesion, that it is hard to see how students will gain any coherent idea of what those sources might be. This does them, and all Americans, an immense disservice. Instead of combating fracture, it embraces it.”

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Should the Federal Communications Commission be abolished?

In an exclusive interview with the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s Vernuccio/Novak Report radio program on August 26, Brian C. Anderson, author of the study “Against the Obamanet” called for the abolition of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and strong opposition to the variety of current proposals to regulate the internet or to surrender control of it to a United Nations organization heavily influenced by nations seeking to provide government censorship of it.

Opposition to the FCC’s moves under the Obama Administration to control the internet can be based on First Amendment grounds. Opposing providing greater authority to international bodies should be based on a study of the mindset of several powerful nations whose attitude towards free speech—especially on the internet—is diametrically opposed to America’s.

The Sratfor research organization has forecast that Russia and China will maintain a unified front to challenge the West’s conception of the Internet, and that Moscow and Beijing will be able to extend government control on their respective domestic Internet realms.

According to Stratfor, “A Russian law regarding data localization of Internet communications goes into effect Sept. 1 with the stated intent of safeguarding Russian citizens from the growing threat of foreign interference, particularly from the United States, in cyberspace. The law effectively requires companies obtaining information online from Russian citizens to store that data on servers physically located in the country. Initially, companies like Google, Facebook or Twitter would be required to move or build data centers in Russia if they wish to conduct business online there, otherwise Russian Internet users presumably would be blocked from accessing the company’s content.

“Foreign technology industries and civic activists have opposed the law, which Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in July 2014, but it addresses Russia’s network security concerns in several ways. The law gives Russia another tool for controlling the flow of information within its borders to tamp down on dissidence. Moreover, the Kremlin wants to closely monitor the flow of information into and out of Russia through the Internet to protect its Internet space from foreign actors, whether state or non-state.”

Moreover, a definite easy fast or simply controlled eating regimen on top of a periodic juicy acai will often aid when you order cialis check need to detoxify most of the physique created by intoxicating tendencies. It must be online prescription viagra without stored away from attain regarding youngsters. Spam is categorized by these filters using a mathematical function called cheap viagra 100mg probability. Online stores offer medicines for issues online cialis soft like men’s health women’s health, skin care problems etc. This is not a new development. In 2012, The Computer & Communications Industry Association noted that “Undemocratic governments like China, Russia, and Iran seek greater control over the Internet, and are pursuing this objective in intergovernmental agencies worldwide, especially those headquartered in Geneva. Governments, industry, and NGOs worldwide must unite to oppose government-led Internet governance. CCIA opposes more government control of the Internet, and supports existing multi-stakeholder models… Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others are promoting a ‘cyber-arms control’ treaty as a guise to create international legal ‘cover’ for classifying dis-favorable information as a military threat, and responding accordingly. Many of the same states are urging the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – which traditionally develops essential standards for cross-border telecommunications – to indirectly expand its remit into Internet governance, using alarmist, hot-button issues like cybercrime and Internet porn…”

The Wall Street Journal reported in August that several years ago “As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in [China’s] People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party. Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings… Four years after… China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms. It envisions a future in which governments patrol online discourse like border-control agents, rather than let the U.S., long the world’s digital leader, dictate the rules. President Xi Jinping…is moving to exert influence over virtually every part of the digital world in China… In doing so, Mr. Xi is trying to fracture the international system that makes the Internet basically the same everywhere, and is pressuring foreign companies to help.

“On July 1, China’s legislature passed a new security law asserting the nation’s sovereignty extends into cyberspace and calling for network technology to be “controllable.” A week later, China released a draft law to tighten controls over the domestic Internet, including codifying the power to cut access during public-security emergencies.Other draft laws under consideration would encourage Chinese companies to find local replacements for technology equipment purchased abroad and force foreign vendors to give local authorities encryption keys that would let them control the equipment.

China Digital Times notes that this year, China has become ever more assertive in asserting its alleged “right” to control the internet within its’ borders. “Since the start of 2015, authorities have pushed even harder to realize this vision at every level from international norms and Internet traffic down to software and the hardware it runs on. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Alex Grigsby noted the submission to the U.N. earlier this month of a proposed International Code of Conduct on Information Security by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The document is an updated version of one previously submitted in 2011. Overall, the new text seems to simply update the 2011 code to take into account developments that have occurred since then. The new code references the 2012-2013 report of the group of governmental experts (GGE) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security and the UN Human Rights Council’s Internet freedom resolution. Not surprisingly, Moscow and Beijing have altered or selectively quoted the text to promote their longstanding positions on cyber issues, such as the need for new international law for cyberspace and the concept of ‘cyber sovereignty.’ For example, the code references a line in paragraph sixteen of the GGE report that says that  ‘additional norms could be developed over time’ without mentioning the same GGE report stresses that ‘international law, and in particular the Charter, is applicable and essential’ to promoting peace and security in cyberspace. The same thing happens in article seven of the code, which begins by referring to the Human Rights Council’s affirmation that ‘the same rights people have offline must also be protected online,’ but then concludes on how those rights may be restricted to protect national security, public order, health or morals.”

Clearly, there is a disturbing trend towards censorship emanating from several of the key powers involved in international bodies that the White House is moving towards giving greater internet authority to.

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The political angst of America’s blacks

The long struggle through slavery and segregation is over, and, quite bluntly, more economic and political progress was rightly to be expected for America’s blacks following the civil rights legislation and court decisions of the 1960’s. Indeed, since 1972, blacks have experienced unemployment at roughly twice the rate of whites.

Many of those who blame continued racism for the poor results are themselves responsible. Rather than taking the politically appropriate and clever approach of continuously playing off the Democrat and Republican parties to gain goals, the black establishment sold itself in virtual lock step to the Democrats. It was an odd fit that never produced the necessary results. Those with a sense of history can rightly express confusion at the alliance of black leaders with the party that supported slavery and segregation.

Republican connection with the black community extended beyond those twin evils. As noted in a Guardian  review, “With Republicans having trouble with minorities, some like to point out that the party has a long history of standing up for civil rights compared to Democrats. Democrats, for example, were less likely to vote for the civil rights bills of the 1950s and 1960s. Democrats were more likely to filibuster.”

There is more to Republicans and civil rights as well.  Rather forgotten is the fact that 57 years ago this month, Republican president Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Democrat social welfare policies do not envision blacks as equals, with the same capability to advance economically and politically as all other ethnic groups. Rather than embrace policies that provided more opportunities, the Democrat leadership opted instead for social welfare programs that provided no path to economic equality but did buy votes from those at the bottom of the economic ladder who saw no other way to increase their standard of living. That strategy remains a hallmark of the Obama Administration.

Those policies, and the federal budgetary and economic spinoffs they produced, hold significant responsibility for the roadblocks blacks have faced in moving into the economic mainstream (after segregation was ended) in the same manner that other ethnics groups have.

Some prominent Democrats understood the folly of this approach. New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about the devastating effect on the black family that these policies produced.

The mainstream media, which has generally tilted towards the left, has opted to give the mantle of “black leaders” only to those public figures who give their support to the Democrat Party. Accomplished figures in government and politics such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Alan West, and others, who are Republicans, are largely overlooked as “black leaders,” while ignoble figured such as Al Sharpton get abundant airtime.

The counterproductive nature and, some would say, hypocrisy of adopting social welfare policies in combination with die hard loyalty to the Democrat leadership can be seen, oddly enough, in the antagonistic relations between the radical group Black Lives Matter and the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.
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Sanders’s positions represent the ultimate of what the black leadership—at least, the portion of it that gets publicity and wields political power—wants. He says the correct things, according to their left-wing viewpoint, and rarely misses an opportunity to blame racism or capitalism for their complaints. He is the most stringent advocate for the “progressive” policies that guide them.

The assault on what would appear to be their ideological ally highlights unfortunate personal opportunism on the part of some black leaders. Sanders is outside of the mainstream of Democrat leadership, and is therefore open to attack.

Barack Obama, as the first president from the black community, shares the hard-left ideology that characterizes his party. His policies have harmed, according to financial planner and radio personality Charles Butler (A black American) the black community more than any other group. Butler particularly points to the President’s immigration policies, which has added to the unemployment woes of the black community, particularly those of young people in inner cities.

The harm from progressive policies is also seen in education.  Policy.Mic  notes:

“In the 2012 election, minorities turned out in droves to vote for progressive Democrats. But have progressive policies really served to benefit minorities? In the field of education, the answer is a resounding no. Progressives have long opposed school choice. In 2009, Obama and other Democrats killed a program which gave low-income Washington, D.C. students money for private-school tuition, leaving only existing scholarship recipients to continue. Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan actually rescinded 216 scholarships. Imagine how those parents and students felt when they received word from the Department of Education.

“In 2011, Republicans in Congress introduced a bill re-authorizing the program. The White House opposed the bill because it expanded private-school voucher programs. They argued that the ‘private school vouchers were not an effective way to improve student achievement.’

“It seems the Obama administration didn’t bother to read its own Education Department’s study which found ‘a positive and statistically significant impact on the average reading test scores of the students in the study,’ while performing on par with public-school students in math. The voucher students graduated at a rate of 91%, more than 20 points higher than those who sought a voucher but either didn’t get one or didn’t enroll in the program after being accepted.” The White House was eventually pressured to relent.

According to Deneen Borelli (who is black) writing in the Washington Times  “Objective analysis would conclude that President Obama’s progressive policies have failed blacks, leaving them frustrated and vulnerable to the social agitation by Mr. Sharpton. The sad truth is Mr. Obama’s agenda includes policies that preferentially harm blacks.”

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Is the U.S. surrendering the Arctic?

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry , Moscow is claiming approximately 1.2 million square kilometers  of the Arctic, 350 nautical miles from the coast. The areas include the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise and Chukchi Plateau. Moscow wants the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which opposed a similar attempt by the Kremlin in 2002, to consider the matter this year, but a spokesperson for the Commission indicated the issue will not arise for about seven months.

The Arctic is a vital area both for strategic and economic purposes. It is believed to possess a quarter of the planet’s energy supplies.

Moscow has significantly increased its military presence at the top of the world, reopening former Soviet Union cold war bases and developing at least ten new sites the Kremlin calls rescue stations in the region. In 2007, one of its submarines dropped a canister with a Russian flag in the area to symbolize its claim.

Moscow’s military aircraft have flown provocatively close to Arctic-area territories belonging to NATO members.

According to Russia Direct, “Russia’s claims on …vast swaths of territory in the Arctic are reinforced by its ability to project force in the region. Its fleet of several dozens of icebreakers, including nuclear, as compared to America’s six icebreakers, [only one of which is truly Arctic-capable] gives Russia an economic and military advantage in the Arctic. The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in charge of the defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that Russia has already launched the construction of a new nuclear icebreaker fleet and that three units will start their operations by 2017, 2019 and 2020, respectively.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told Fox News  earlier this month “Right now, the Russians are playing chess in the Arctic and our Administration still seems to think it’s tic-tac-toe.” China is now also entering into the fray, constructing its own icebreaker as part of its massive naval buildup.

As the threat unfolds, the U.S. is reducing its Army forces in the region. Sen. Sullivan along with other members of the Alaska delegation recently submitted a letter to U.S. Army Secretary John McHugh on the force reduction:
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 “In accordance with our Congressional responsibility to provide oversight, we request the documentation used by senior U.S. Army leadership to make this strategically short-sighted decision. In our view, the current threat environment and the location of those threats does not align with the U.S. Army’s decision to remove forces from Alaska.

 “As a delegation, we share the concerns expressed by Generals Joe Dunford, Paul Selva, Mark Milley, and Robert Neller about Russia’s threat to U.S. national security.  Unfortunately, we believe the U.S. Army failed to fully consider the importance of Alaska’s Army forces in countering Russian emergence as a leading threat, a fact stated by numerous senior Department of Defense leaders…

 “As you are aware, the 4-25 Airborne Bridge Combat Team (ABCT) can respond to most crisis areas in the Northern Hemisphere faster than anywhere else in the continental U.S. Additionally, we believe that Alaska is home to some of the world’s greatest, most abundant, topographically-challenging, and climate-diverse joint training areas.  However, it has come to our attention that Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) scored in the bottom third of the U.S. Army’s Military Value Analysis (MVA).  Needless to say, this modeling perplexes us.”

Further, as the New York Analysis of Policy & Government recently noted, the U.S. has only two icebreakers, while Russia has forty. The President has stated he will try to deliver only a single new icebreaker by 2022.

The New York Times reports that Coast Guard Commandant Paul F. Zukunft has noted that “We have been for some time clamoring about our nation’s lack of capacity to sustain any meaningful presence in the Arctic.”

Despite widespread concern the U.S. State Department appears relatively unconcerned.  In response to press inquiries about Russia’s growing presence and military maneuvers, a senior state department official stated: “I get intelligence briefings regularly and I’m watching what the Russians are doing. Most of what I have seen in terms of their buildup, in terms of improving infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route, are things that I think the United States should be doing as well – building infrastructure, putting in search-and-rescue capabilities, improving communications capabilities in the North. So I’m not troubled by most of what I see – let me emphasize most of what I see. Arctic maneuvers, military operations, I’m not – I have not seen anything that goes much above and beyond what we’ve seen in the past decade or so from the Russians. What has happened is, for instance, the Norwegians and the Russians have been conducting joint military exercises up until when the sanctions were invoked. Because of the sanctions, we’re not allowed to have military-to-military contact and operations, so they’ve done it separately. When the Norwegians did their exercises, it got no notice. When the Russians did their exercises, it was portrayed as Russian aggression. I’m not sure that they’ve done anything more than they’ve done in the past, and they have a right to take necessary steps to preserve their sovereignty of the waters that they’re responsible for.”

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U.S. economy faces employment, trade, & national security crises

The just released report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) features a very slight improvement in the “U-3,” the generally used unemployment statistic. However, an objective analysis points to an American economy that is deeply troubled, and not improving.

According to the BLS. “Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in August at 6.5 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance and financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs. While the gains in health care, social assistance and financial activities  were, although very minimal, welcome, the reality is that a deeper examination of the statistics and the implications for the economy present a picture of a troubled economy. The more inclusive “U-6” number, which includes a more comprehensive look at unemployment, remains in double digits at 10.3%. This reflects the fact that persons employed only part time because they couldn’t find full time jobs increased by 158,000.

The divide between those engaged in productive labor and those out of the workforce is worse than last year at this time. The job participation rate is at extremely low 62.6%, down from 63% a year ago. The number of those not in the labor force edged up from 94,031, a worrisome increase from August 2014’s 91,794.

One of the most important portions of the economy continued to decline. The crucial manufacturing sector saw a jobs drop of 17,000. Mining employment also was reduced by 9,000. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, about one in six private sector jobs is in the manufacturing sector.

The challenges of the American manufacturing sector are reflected in a poor trade balance.  According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis the U.S. goods and services deficit in July increased $10.6 billion, or 3.6 percent, from the same period in 2014. Exports decreased $47.0 billion or 3.5 percent. Imports decreased by a smaller amount, $36.4 billion or 2.2 percent. In 2006, according to Trading Economics, the U.S. had set a record low trade gap, and with increased domestic production of energy it was not unreasonable to assume that trade deficits would continue to be lowered.  However, the impact of American manufacturing decline, in part due to concessions made to China by the Clinton Administration and the fact that the U.S. maintains the developed world’s highest corporate tax levels has dashed that optimism.
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The loss of vitality in the manufacturing sector is more than just an economic problem. The Alliance for American Manufacturing  notes national security concerns as well:

“America’s military communications systems increasingly rely on network equipment from China, putting our entire defense at risk. A 2012 House intelligence committee investigation, for example, found that the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which had been working to expand in the United States, posed a major threat to the U.S. because its equipment could be used to spy on Americans — as well as U.S. defense systems and companies.

“New America Foundation senior fellow Peter Singer warned military leaders in 2015 that ‘America’s most advanced fighter jets might be blown from the sky by their Chinese-made microchips and Chinese hackers easily could worm their way into the military’s secretive intelligence service.’ …

“But it isn’t just on the cyberfront where America is giving its defense away. The United States increasingly relies on foreign nations to provide the materials needed for our defense supply chain.

“Not a single high-tech magnet — crucial to military hardware — is Made in America. Roughly 91 percent of the rare earth element needed for night-vision googles is from China. The United States produces just 2 percent of Lithium ion batteries, used in everything from unmanned aerial drones to bomb disposal robots and other gear.”

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China’s warships near Alaska elicits White House yawn

The news of an unusual deployment of five Chinese vessels, including an amphibious attack ship near the coast of Alaska is the latest in a disturbing pattern of militarily aggressive moves by Beijing’s navy. As it has in the past, the White House continues to claim that these increasingly belligerent acts are of no concern.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, in response to press questions, stated: “They [the Department of Defense] have positively identified a number of Chinese naval vessels in that region, but they have also — based on their analysis, they have not detected any sort of threat or threatening activities.”

The question is, when will the White House actually recognize that a threat exists?

A recent Defense Tech  article reported that the Chinese Navy will outnumber its U.S. counterpart by 2020. Combined with extraordinary new military technological developments, such as the Dong Feng 21 anti-ship ballistic missile, and the continuing weakened state of the U.S. Navy (which has shrunk from 600 ships to 254, and has also suffered personnel losses due to White House-encouraged retirements) America’s maritime power is in deep trouble.

The numbers tell their own story. China’s fleet will grow to 351 ships within five years. The imbalance in submarines is particularly acute. House Armed Services Committee member Randy Forbes says Beijing will have an 82 to 32 advantage in subs.

Any growth in the reduced U.S. Navy remains in doubt. President Obama’s proposal to redeploy ships from other parts of the world to the Pacific to counter the Chinese threat no longer appears viable for a number of reasons. These include the fact that the Navy simply doesn’t have sufficient numbers to make this effective, as well as the growing presence of other threats that will require those ships to be on station elsewhere. Russia is also enhancing its naval power, part of the massive growth in armed strength ordered by Vladimir Putin, and is also re-opening cold war era naval facilities in Latin America and the Arctic. Iran continues to threaten American vessels in the strategically vital Straits of Hormuz. (Al Jazeera Quotes an Iran commander saying that his fleet can destroy U.S. warship in 50 seconds) North Korea also continues to be a threat.
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China’s Dong Feng 21 missile,a land based weapon that destroy an aircraft carrier or other large ship from 900 miles away, is a major threat. The Naval Institute Blog, described the U.S. Navy’s reaction to this device  as a near-panic reaction:

“The Navy’s reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren’t many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat.” The land based missile can effectively destroy an aircraft carrier or other large warship from 900 miles away.

Concern over the existence of China’s increasingly large and highly capable fleet is matched by the use it has made of its growing power. Two salient examples exemplify the challenge.

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of U.S. Pacific Command recently stated China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea is an issue the American public must know about and the United States must address. He noted that in an 18 month span, China has reclaimed almost 3,000 acres of rocky outcroppings in the vital South China Sea. Beijing intends to use the locations to assert control over vital shipping lanes. According to the Department of Defense, “more than $5.3 trillion in global sea-based trade relies on unimpeded sea lanes through the South China Sea, adding that the Strait of Malacca alone sees more than 25 percent of oil shipments and 50 percent of all natural gas transits each day. This is made possible through the regional countries’ adherence to longstanding customary international law, which protects freedom of navigation, he added.”

China’s  occupation of portions of the Philippines exclusive economic zone, (see the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s full review of this issue) provides another example of Beijing’s vigorous use of its regional naval superiority. Its intimidation against Japan and Vietnam are other salient examples.  In each of these areas, the Unites States has failed to support the nations, some staunch allies, victimized by China.

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New York Analysis on Obama’s Foreign Policy

President Obama’s foreign policy appears inexplicable.  Today, the New York Ingredients: Newly grown dehusked Black gram (powdered) – 25 gm Seeds of kapikacchu (mucuna pruriens) (powdered) – 25 gm Seeds of kapikacchu (mucuna pruriens) (powdered) – 25 gm Shatavari, ashwagandha, Madhuyashti [ Glycerrhiza Glabra. ] (Powdered)- 3 gm each Ghee (prepared from cow’s milk) – 10 gm buying cialis on line Juice of Vidari kanda (Pueraria tuberosais) – 10 gm Sugar cane juice – 10 gm Cow’s milk -. This jelly must be consumed 15 minutes before copulation &the impact of such drug products longs for about 4-6 hours after its administration. * One must remember that before generic cialis without prescription making any consideration of such medicinal devices, the patients must obtain proper information regarding the usage, route of mechanism, adverse responses associated with the drug treatments from their health professional.* He must not have an excess consumption of such medicinal. Once patients are found to be infected with uterine fibroid, and the fibroid is in non-surgical stage, then fuyan pill will be a good choice, it can help you relieve levitra prescription the symptom, control the growing-up of the fibroid. There are also dangers associated levitra in india price with these Stents. Analysis of Policy & Government provides the most logical explanation.