Records Show Dr. Ford Is Not A Licensed Psychologist, May Have Committed Perjury

Records Show Dr. Ford Is Not A Licensed Psychologist, May Have Committed Perjury

Chadwick Moore // Editor-in-Chief // 9.28.18

Testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Blasey Ford identified herself as a ‘psychologist,’ but records indict this is a false statement under California law. Someone at Stanford University also appears to have caught the blunder and edited Ford’s faculty page.

Just one sentence into her sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford may have told a lie.
After thanking members of the committee on Thursday, and while under oath, Ford opened her testimony saying, “My name is Christine Blasey Ford, I am a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine.”
The issue lies with the word “psychologist,” and Ford potentially misrepresenting herself and her credentials, an infraction that is taken very seriously in the psychology field as well as under California law.
Under California law, as with almost every other state, in order for a person to identify publicly as a psychologist they must be licensed by the California Board of Psychology, a process that includes 3,000 hours of post-doctoral professional experience and passing two rigorous exams. To call oneself a psychologist without being licensed by a state board is the equivalent of a law school graduate calling herself a lawyer without ever taking the bar exam.
According to records, Ford is not licensed in the state of California. A recent search through the Department of Consumer Affairs License Bureau, which provides a state-run database of all licensed psychologists in California, produced no results for any variation of spelling on Ford’s name. If Ford at one time had a license but it is now inactive, she would legally still be allowed to call herself a “psychologist” but forbidden from practicing psychology on patients until it was renewed. However, the database would have shown any past licenses granted to Ford, even if they were inactive.
Ford also does not appear to have been licensed in any other states outside California. Since graduating with a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Southern California in 1996 it does not appear Ford has spent any significant amount of time outside the state. She married her husband in California in 2002, and completed a master’s degree in California in 2009. She reportedly completed an internship in Hawaii, but a search of Hawaii’s Board of Psychology licensing database also did not turn up any results for Ford.
What makes Ford’s claim even more suspicious is someone affiliated with Stanford University appears to have also been aware of the potentially damning use of the word “psychologist” and rushed to cover for Ford. DANGEROUS exclusively uncovered an archived version of Christine’s Blasey’s page on the school’s faculty directory. On September 10, 2015, the only archived date available, Ford’s faculty page was saved to the Wayback Machine and showed Ford listed as a “research psychologist” along with her email address and office phone number.
The most recent version of that page shows Ford listed only as an “Affiliate” in the department, with the words “research psychologist” removed along with Ford’s email address and phone number. This suggests the page was altered by someone very recently to scrub Ford’s contact information and title after she entered the national spotlight.

An archived version of Ford’s faculty listing, identifying her as a “research psychologist.”

The most recent, edited version of Ford’s faculty listing.

It is common for academics and researchers in psychology to not hold a license. California law does not prohibit anyone from engaging in research, teaching, or other activities associated with psychology if they are not licensed, so long as those individuals do not use the word “psychologist” when referring to themselves publicly.
Several searches on California’s licensing database revealed many of Ford’s colleagues in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Studies at Stanford are not licensed psychologists in California, including the department chairman Laura Roberts, who identifies herself only as a professor. Of the unlicensed members of the faculty — which includes researchers, clinicians, professors, and fellows — none refer to themselves as a “psychologist” or “psychiatrist,” unless they also had a license issued in California.
Aside from potentially misleading the committee, Ford also appears to have violated California law. California’s Business and Professional Code Sections 2900-2919 govern the state’s laws for practicing psychology. Section 2903 reads, “No person may engage in the practice of psychology, or represent himself or herself to be a psychologist, without a license granted under this chapter, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.” Section 2902(c) states: (c) “A person represents himself or herself to be a psychologist when the person holds himself or herself out to the public by any title or description of services incorporating the words “psychology,” “psychological,” “psychologist,” “psychology consultation,” “psychology consultant,” “psychometry,” “psychometrics” or “psychometrist,” “psychotherapy,” “psychotherapist,” “psychoanalysis,” or “psychoanalyst,” or when the person holds himself or herself out to be trained, experienced, or an expert in the field of psychology.”
This appears to include titles like “research psychologist.” There is one specific exemption to the law regarding the title “school psychologist,” which refers to school counselors who do not need to be licensed. School psychologists are legally forbidden from referring to themselves as simply “psychologists.”
Whereas the term “research psychologist” may be common in academic parlance, the issue seems to be publicly presenting oneself under any title containing the word “psychologist” if a person is not licensed. Ford is a professor and a researcher, but not a psychologist. Section 2910 of the law states, “This chapter shall not be construed to restrict the practice of psychology on the part of persons who are salaried employees of accredited or approved academic institutions, public schools, or governmental agencies, if those employees are complying with the following (1) Performing those psychological activities as part of the duties for which they were hired. (2) Performing those activities solely within the jurisdiction or confines of those organizations. (3) Do not hold themselves out to the public by any title or description of activities incorporating the words “psychology,” “psychological,” or “psychologist.”
It is unknown why Ford, 51, a seasoned academic in the field of psychology would have made such an obvious mistake unless she was unaware of the law or trying to intentionally mislead the public and members of the committee about her credentials in the field of psychology. Her bizarre testimony often veered off into psychological jargon about brain chemistry, memory storage, and how trauma effects the brain, analysis one would expect from a clinical psychologist, rather than an academic involved in research. When asked by committee members of her most vivid memory from the attack that allegedly occurred nearly 40 years ago, Ford responded, “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two [men], and their having fun at my expense,” referring to the part of the brain mainly associated with memory. When discussing her trauma, Ford replied, “The etiology of anxiety and PTSD is multifactorial. [The incident] was certainly a critical risk factor. That would be a predictor of the [conditions] that I now have … I can’t rule out that I would have some biological predisposition to be an anxious-type person.”
Yet, Ford’s academic focus for years has been statistics, not memory or trauma. To look at her as some sort of expert in this area would be like asking a podiatrist about heart disease simply because he’s in the medical field. Still, the media ate it up. Hours after her testimony ended, various mainstream media outlets falsely identified Ford as a “psychologist” and praised her approach to science during the hearing, calling the statistician an “expert” on issues more closely related to clinical psychology.
The Washington Post ran a headline that simply read, “Christine Blasey Ford, psychologist,” The Atlantic’s headline read, “Christine Blasey Ford, A Psychologist, Testifies to Congress,” Slate‘s headline read, “Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony combined her own expert analysis of the situation,” The New Yorker‘s headline read “Christine Blasey Ford is Serving As Both A Witness And An Expert,” and the Wall Street Journal ran with “Ford’s Testimony Reminds Us That She’s A Psychologist.” As of Friday morning, Ford’s Wikipedia entry also identified her occupation as “Psychologist.” According to California law, all of these are false. Ford is not a psychologist.
The Senate judiciary committee is set to decide Friday on a date for Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote. If Ford committed perjury, she could face up to five years in federal prison.

The Left vs. Kavanaugh: Desperate Smears by Democracy's Losers

The Left vs. Kavanaugh: Desperate Smears by Democracy's Losers

By Lester Jackson

In my book, Equal Justice for Victims, I wrote:

Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a dream.  My dream is that one day the United States will elect a president who dares to explain to the American people that, on controversial questions, the Supreme Court is a political and not a legal institution; and that justices practice their politics by pretending to "interpret" and apply the law and the Constitution.

In a nutshell, this explains what is going on with the vicious and vile leftist Democrat character assassination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
"Political" here does not refer to Republicans versus Democrats, or the desire of Trump-haters to stick it to the president.  This article uses "political" to describe the struggle over "who gets what when and how." In a self-governing republic, the "how" consists of decisions by elected representatives.  The Kavanaugh fight is really a fight between those who believe in the Framers' republic and those who want to destroy that republic.
To paraphrase the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, he frequently told political combatants: "If you want policies not mandated or prohibited by the United States Constitution, don't ask judges to impose what you want but, instead, persuade your fellow citizens."  What are today's leftists to do if they can't persuade their fellow citizens to buy their nostrums?  What if these leftists are like the communists once described by Justice William O. Douglas as "miserable merchants of unwanted ideas" they cannot sell?   
Here is why death penalty opponents, consistently unable to convert the death penalty-supporting majority of voters, repeatedly run to the Supreme Court to get their way: unaccountable judges are the last best hope of democracy's losers.  Once upon a time, a very old Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously stated:

[A]bout 75 years ago I learned that I was not God.  And so, when the people ... want to do something I can't find anything in the Constitution expressly forbidding them to do, I say, whether I like it or not, "G-------, let 'em do it."

Judge Kavanaugh has been subjected to what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called (4'04") a "despicable" Democrat smear campaign because today's "miserable merchants of unwanted ideas" are terrified that Kavanaugh is honest and will be faithful to the Constitution they have abhorred dating back to Woodrow Wilson.  That these "miserable merchants" despise the Constitution and all who faithfully apply it has been abundantly demonstrated by the refusal of the left to accept the constitutionally mandated result of the 2016 election.  Leftists prefer justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, not long ago, expressed disdain for the very Constitution she took not one, but two oaths to apply faithfully (Equal Justice, p. 196).  (Unlike in the days of my youth, today, "leftist" and "Democrat" are synonyms.)
Justice Scalia complained repeatedly about what has been described as the "Constitutionalization" of political issues by judges who "abridge[] the people's right to govern themselves" by removing these issues from the realm of political debate and legislative action without a shred of Constitutional justification."  As Scalia powerfully explained:

The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.  That system is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution.  So to counterbalance the Court's criticism of our ancestors, let me say a word in their praise: They left us free to change.  The same cannot be said of this most illiberal Court[.]

Leftists have declared war on decency, the American people, their way of life, their right to self-government (Equal Justice, p. 195), and their Constitution.  If a president who is not a corrupt criminal darling of the left is constitutionally elected, why, then, let's just attempt a coup d'état.  If a judge with a sterling reputation and impeccable credentials is nominated to the Supreme Court, why, then, let's destroy him with vicious character assassination.

* * *

No one can complain that President Trump is not one of the most courageous leaders in our history.  But I do suggest that if the beloved country in which most Americans were raised is to survive in recognizable form, the president simply has not done enough.  It is time to explain why the survival of the United States as a free and self-governing country is at stake. That means, to start, that it is time to explain that the United States Supreme Court has been transmogrified by the left from a legitimate legal institution into an illegitimate political institution.
It is time to give concrete examples, such as rewarding the most depraved individuals in our midst with a judicially invented not-in-the-Constitution right to commit additional violence with no punishment.  That is not a mistake.  Contrary to the widespread expectation that those with the worst records deserve the most punishment, dishonest justices have given a constitutional door prize to the most depraved to commit more depravity without any punishment at all.
That is but one example.  There are many more.  Pro-criminal leftists fear that a Justice Kavanaugh will honestly apply the Constitution and not participate in judicially ramming unpopular leftist policies down the throats of an unwilling American people.  That is what this fight is really all about.
Given recent events, a re-run of the character assassinations of Judge Robert H. Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas, it is time to explain to the American people, as only President Trump can, that the 2018 election is a contest between good and evil.  Majority leader McConnell was restrained in calling anti-Constitution Democrats "despicable."  Anyone who thinks the mere leveling of a scurrilous charge is proof of its truth is genuinely evil.  The existence of due process, freedom, the right of self-government, and public safety are at stake.  Only the president can command an audience large enough to make a difference.
Again and again, dishonest judges have lied about the Constitution (Equal Justice, pp. 197, 265-275) in order to impose unwanted leftist policies on an averse electorate.  If Judge Kavanaugh does not become Justice Kavanaugh, we can all say goodbye to honest Constitutional self-government and hello to fascism.  Leftists have tried every dirty trick in the book – first, to prevent and second, to nullify the results of an election in which our promise-keeping president made the appointment of honest judges, committed to the Constitution, a central feature of his campaign.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/the_left_vs_kavanaugh_desperate_smears_by_democracys_losers.html#ixzz5SPul3DiU
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Christine Ford's Expert Nonsense

By Christopher DeGroot

Given her background in psychology, it is not surprising that during yesterday's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Ford should tell us that the laughter of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge is indelible in her hippocampus.  Nor is it unusual that it took the New Republic only a few minutes to publish a characteristically biased and irresponsible article on the subject.
Says Alex Shepard:

The most powerful moment thus far of Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee came when she was asked by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy to describe her strongest memory from the night that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her.  Her answer was both moving and horrifying.
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter," Ford says, her voice cracking.  "The uproarious laughter between the two.  They're having fun at my expense."
"You've never forgotten them laughing at you," Leahy says.
"They were laughing with each other," Ford replies.
"And you were the object of the laughter?" Leahy asks.
"I was underneath one of them, while the two laughed," Ford says.
The exchange underscored how the alleged assault was both traumatizing and humiliating.  It also girded Ford's credibility, which Republicans have gone to great length to attack, showing the extent to which the incident is imprinted on her memory.

Strictly speaking, Ford's claim that "indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter" is nonsense.  And while one would like to be charitable, believing that Ford is simply in error, in view of what seems to be her deliberately heavy breathing and sorrowful manner and tone, we must, I think, conclude that she is being disingenuous: trying to sway everyone via "her expertise."  She is acting, perhaps, on the advice of her cynical lawyers, including Democratic activist Debra Katz.
Anyway, whatever may be her motivation and intent, let us be clear: Ford's claim is ipso facto absurd.  Nor should one need medical training (which Ford doesn't have) or a background in philosophy to recognize that.  For what does it mean to believe that laughter is thus indelible?  Does one have actual access in the implied manner to the hippocampus?  Of course not!  Ford's claim is rather like saying, "I have discussed the matter with my lungs, and we agree that I should give up smoking."
To be sure, Ford may indeed have been almost raped some thirty-six years ago.  She may also have a firm recollection, whether accurate or no, that two men laughed during the course of that evil.  But however all that may be, it won't do for her to talk of laughter being indelible in her hippocampus, if by that she means it's an indisputable fact and the rest of us are to think Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge are guilty on account of her "expert recollection."  As with perception itself, so with the memory it reflects: it is common to unwittingly believe things because they suit one's interests, selectively interpreting both the past and the present to that egoistic end.  This is true whether one is an "expert" or not.  It would be the grossest naïveté, then, to believe that Ford, because of her training, is not prone to the general human errors, biases, and delusions.  After all, it seems that what she is doing is putting her "expertise" to a rather manipulative end.
In any case, contra Shepard, "the exchange" manifestly did not underscore "how the alleged assault was both traumatizing and humiliating."  Nor did it gird "Ford's credibility, showing the extent to which the incident is imprinted on her memory."  From an epistemic point of view, all we really know is what Ford has alleged.  We do not know whether she is right, nor do we even know she is sincere.  I am not saying she is not right or not sincere: for all I know, she is.  My point concerns the vital distinction between what we know and what we merely believe.  It is important to understand that such a metaphysical assertion as Ford's admits of no justification, and therefore is not to be taken seriously.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/christine_fords_expert_nonsense.html#ixzz5SPuNWsu8
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Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly 

Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Issued on: September 25, 2018

United Nations Headquarters
New York, New York
10:38 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, world leaders, ambassadors, and distinguished delegates:
One year ago, I stood before you for the first time in this grand hall. I addressed the threats facing our world, and I presented a vision to achieve a brighter future for all of humanity.
Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we’ve made.
In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.
America’s — so true. (Laughter.) Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay. (Laughter and applause.)
America’s economy is booming like never before. Since my election, we’ve added $10 trillion in wealth. The stock market is at an all-time high in history, and jobless claims are at a 50-year low. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded. We’ve added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs.
We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. We’ve started the construction of a major border wall, and we have greatly strengthened border security.
We have secured record funding for our military — $700 billion this year, and $716 billion next year. Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before.
In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago.
We are standing up for America and for the American people. And we are also standing up for the world.
This is great news for our citizens and for peace-loving people everywhere. We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace.
Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth.
That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination.
I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship.
We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.
From Warsaw to Brussels, to Tokyo to Singapore, it has been my highest honor to represent the United States abroad. I have forged close relationships and friendships and strong partnerships with the leaders of many nations in this room, and our approach has already yielded incredible change.
With support from many countries here today, we have engaged with North Korea to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace.
In June, I traveled to Singapore to meet face to face with North Korea’s leader, Chairman Kim Jong Un.
We had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both countries’ interest to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago.
The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Some military facilities are already being dismantled. Our hostages have been released. And as promised, the remains of our fallen heroes are being returned home to lay at rest in American soil.
I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done. The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.
I also want to thank the many member states who helped us reach this moment — a moment that is actually far greater than people would understand; far greater — but for also their support and the critical support that we will all need going forward.
A special thanks to President Moon of South Korea, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, and President Xi of China.
In the Middle East, our new approach is also yielding great strides and very historic change.
Following my trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Gulf countries opened a new center to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions, working with us to identify and track terrorist networks, and taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have pledged billions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen. And they are pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen’s horrible, horrific civil war.
Ultimately, it is up to the nations of the region to decide what kind of future they want for themselves and their children.
For that reason, the United States is working with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.
Thanks to the United States military and our partnership with many of your nations, I am pleased to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria. We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders.
The ongoing tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking. Our shared goals must be the de-escalation of military conflict, along with a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. In this vein, we urge the United Nations-led peace process be reinvigorated. But, rest assured, the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime.
I commend the people of Jordan and other neighboring countries for hosting refugees from this very brutal civil war.
As we see in Jordan, the most compassionate policy is to place refugees as close to their homes as possible to ease their eventual return to be part of the rebuilding process. This approach also stretches finite resources to help far more people, increasing the impact of every dollar spent.
Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.
Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.
The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran’s treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people’s religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war. Not good.
Iran’s neighbors have paid a heavy toll for the region’s [regime’s] agenda of aggression and expansion. That is why so many countries in the Middle East strongly supported my decision to withdraw the United States from the horrible 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and re-impose nuclear sanctions.
The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget grew nearly 40 percent. The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen.
The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody agenda. Last month, we began re-imposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that had been lifted under the Iran deal. Additional sanctions will resume November 5th, and more will follow. And we’re working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.
We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth. Just can’t do it.
We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues. And we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.
This year, we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East. In recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital, I moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That aim is advanced, not harmed, by acknowledging the obvious facts.
America’s policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.
We believe that trade must be fair and reciprocal. The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer.
For decades, the United States opened its economy — the largest, by far, on Earth — with few conditions. We allowed foreign goods from all over the world to flow freely across our borders.
Yet, other countries did not grant us fair and reciprocal access to their markets in return. Even worse, some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries, and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year.
For this reason, we are systematically renegotiating broken and bad trade deals.
Last month, we announced a groundbreaking U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. And just yesterday, I stood with President Moon to announce the successful completion of the brand new U.S.-Korea trade deal. And this is just the beginning.
Many nations in this hall will agree that the world trading system is in dire need of change. For example, countries were admitted to the World Trade Organization that violate every single principle on which the organization is based. While the United States and many other nations play by the rules, these countries use government-run industrial planning and state-owned enterprises to rig the system in their favor. They engage in relentless product dumping, forced technology transfer, and the theft of intellectual property.
The United States lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of all steel jobs, and 60,000 factories after China joined the WTO. And we have racked up $13 trillion in trade deficits over the last two decades.
But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse. We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.
The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion. I have great respect and affection for my friend, President Xi, but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. China’s market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated.
As my administration has demonstrated, America will always act in our national interest.
I spoke before this body last year and warned that the U.N. Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.
Our Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.
So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.
For similar reasons, the United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.
America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.
Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.
In America, we believe strongly in energy security for ourselves and for our allies. We have become the largest energy producer anywhere on the face of the Earth.
The United States stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas.
OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.
We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices, and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with it — these horrible prices — much longer.
Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.
Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.
It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs. The United States has recently strengthened our laws to better screen foreign investments in our country for national security threats, and we welcome cooperation with countries in this region and around the world that wish to do the same. You need to do it for your own protection.
The United States is also working with partners in Latin America to confront threats to sovereignty from uncontrolled migration. Tolerance for human struggling and human smuggling and trafficking is not humane. It’s a horrible thing that’s going on, at levels that nobody has ever seen before. It’s very, very cruel.
Illegal immigration funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs, and the flow of deadly drugs. Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable populations, hurts hardworking citizens, and has produced a vicious cycle of crime, violence, and poverty. Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.
We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same — which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.
Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again.
Currently, we are witnessing a human tragedy, as an example, in Venezuela. More than 2 million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors.
Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty.
Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.
In that spirit, we ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Today, we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro’s inner circle and close advisors.
We are grateful for all the work the United Nations does around the world to help people build better lives for themselves and their families.
The United States is the world’s largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid. But few give anything to us. That is why we are taking a hard look at U.S. foreign assistance. That will be headed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We will examine what is working, what is not working, and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart.
Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense.
The United States is committed to making the United Nations more effective and accountable. I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential. As part of our reform effort, I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden.
And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.
Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the U.N.’s highest aspirations. We must pursue peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology.
Looking around this hall where so much history has transpired, we think of the many before us who have come here to address the challenges of their nations and of their times. And our thoughts turn to the same question that ran through all their speeches and resolutions, through every word and every hope. It is the question of what kind of world will we leave for our children and what kind of nations they will inherit.
The dreams that fill this hall today are as diverse as the people who have stood at this podium, and as varied as the countries represented right here in this body are. It really is something. It really is great, great history.
There is India, a free society over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class.
There is Saudi Arabia, where King Salman and the Crown Prince are pursuing bold new reforms.
There is Israel, proudly celebrating its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.
In Poland, a great people are standing up for their independence, their security, and their sovereignty.
Many countries are pursuing their own unique visions, building their own hopeful futures, and chasing their own wonderful dreams of destiny, of legacy, and of a home.
The whole world is richer, humanity is better, because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world.
In each one, we see awesome promise of a people bound together by a shared past and working toward a common future.
As for Americans, we know what kind of future we want for ourselves. We know what kind of a nation America must always be.
In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty -– a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.
Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland.
The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art.
Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better.
To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.
When we do, we will find new avenues for cooperation unfolding before us. We will find new passion for peacemaking rising within us. We will find new purpose, new resolve, and new spirit flourishing all around us, and making this a more beautiful world in which to live.
So together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, and forever thankful for the grace and the goodness and the glory of God.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the nations of the world.
Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
END

What Democrats Have Become 


 

What Democrats Have Become

Brett Kavanaugh is a casualty of an anything-goes political resistance.

By

Daniel Henninger

Sept. 19, 2018 6:59 p.m. ET

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill, Sept. 4. Photo: chris wattie/Reuters

It is still true: What begins as tragedy can end as farce. So it is with the case of Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assaulting her when she was 15 and he was 17.
As of the most recent available moment in this episode, Ms. Ford’s lawyer said her client would not appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee until there is a “full investigation by law-enforcement officials.” Like the Mueller excavations, that could run to the horizon, unable to find anything but unwilling to stop until it finds something.
Let us posit that the one thing not at issue here is the truth. As a matter of law and fact, Ms. Ford’s accusation can be neither proved nor disproved. This is as obvious now as it must have been when Dianne Feinstein and the other Democrats came into possession of this incident.
Surely someone pointed out that based on what was disclosed, this accusation could not be substantiated. To which the Democrats responded: So what? Its political value is that it cannot be disproved. They saw that six weeks before a crucial midterm election, the unresolvable case of Christine Blasey Ford would sit like a stalled hurricane over the entire Republican Party, drowning its candidates in a force they could not stop.
In #MeToo, which began in the predations of Harvey Weinstein, Democrats and progressives finally have found a weapon against which there seems to be no defense. It can be used to exterminate political enemies. If one unprovable accusation doesn’t suffice, why not produce a second, or third? It’s a limitless standard.
The Democrats’ broader strategy is: Delay the vote past the election; win the Senate by convincing suburban women that Republicans are implacably hostile to them; seize power; and—the point of it all—take down the Trump government.
This is the “resistance.” This is what Democrats have become. Resistance is a word and strategy normally found in a revolutionary context, which is precisely the argument made by the left to justify its actions against this presidency since the evening of Nov. 8, 2016. Anything goes. Whatever it takes. Brett Kavanaugh is not much more than a casualty of war.
Rather than try to argue or win public issues on substance, the Democrats have become a party that seems to think it can win with muscle alone. Environmentalism emerged in the 1970s as a worthwhile idea that attracted the interest and support of both parties. From Al Gore onward, it became a bludgeon to beat up the other party. Now sexual abuse, an issue originating in utmost seriousness, has been quickly captured and fashioned into a political weapon by the Democratic left.
Politics as trench warfare has relieved the Democrats of the burden of thought. Extending the Pelosi Rule—we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it—we now have the Gillibrand Standard.
Commenting this week on Ford v. Kavanaugh, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, another 2020 presidential aspirant, said, “I believe it is disqualifying, given what we know.” In other words, what she believes is based on next to nothing.
Put on defense by these accusations, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley unsurprisingly agreed to a hearing in which Ms. Ford would tell her story and Judge Kavanaugh would speak. Then the senators would vote.
Consider the spectacle: Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court, the embodiment of a modern rule of law, is being decided in the Senate by the medieval practice of trial by ordeal, such as surviving immersion in fire or ice. Trial by ordeal was outlawed by the Lateran Council in 1215.
Or worse, the standards of the mob in the Roman Colosseum, turning thumbs up or down on the combatants. Though unlike the Senate Democrats, the Roman mob at least had an open mind.
Incidentally, the standard trope that Donald Trump has degraded our politics? We don’t need to hear that anymore. Or about the moral certitudes of the religious right.
Is there a sadder figure in the modern Democratic Party than Sen. Dianne Feinstein? Elected to the Senate in 1992, Mrs. Feinstein has produced a creditable career. Her above-it-all reputation was never quite deserved, but she has at least performed with dignity.
Now, seeking re-election at 85, she is getting heat from the progressive-dominated Democratic Party in California, the world capital of identity-only politics. By withholding from the committee the accusatory Ford letter that came into her possession nearly two months ago, Sen. Feinstein ensured the nomination’s descent into such a hapless, cynical moment. This will be the most remembered event in Sen. Feinstein’s career.
The Kavanaugh nomination, “given what we know,” has come down to an undiscoverable accusation. The defeat of a Supreme Court nominee on this basis would be a victory for a level of conscious political nullification not seen in the U.S. for a long time. Republicans in the Senate shouldn’t allow it, and voters in November should not affirm it.

Democrats Demonstrate Their Hatred of Women

Democrats Demonstrate Their Hatred of Women

By Tom Trinko

Democrats love to claim they love groups they actually hate.  Take blacks, for example.  Democrats, and the fake news media, are always telling us how much they love blacks.  But we know that's not true because Democrats are doing nothing while thousands of blacks are shot each year in Democratic-run cities.
If the Democratic mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, actually cared about blacks, he'd be doing something to reduce the thousands of shootings occurring each year.  Instead, he simply uses the ongoing slaughter of blacks in the city he runs to push for his personal desire to repudiate the Second Amendment.  We all know that if nearly 4,000 white people had been shot in Chicago last year, Rahm would be doing more to end the violence.
We're seeing the same situation with women as a result of the Democrats' desperate need to ensure that the Supreme Court remain full of left-wing activists. 
The entire leftist agenda, ranging from being soft on criminals to redefining marriage, has been established by judicial fiat with judges making, not interpreting, the law.  Without an activist leftist Supreme Court, none of the modern leftist agenda would have been imposed on the people.  That's why Kavanaugh is an existential threat to the left: a majority of honest judges would require the left to get the majority of Americans to support their agenda, something the left knows will never happen.
Because Kavanaugh is a great human being – for example, he volunteers in a soup kitchen – and a great judge, Democrats weren't able to come up with any honest reason he shouldn't be on the Court.  But instead of accepting that elections have consequences, as their god Obama has said, Democrats have decided to destroy the #MeToo movement, seriously hurting women in the process, in a hopefully vain attempt to keep Kavanaugh off the Court.
The Democrats are destroying #MeToo by putting forth clearly specious claims that Kavanaugh has assaulted women, thereby undermining the credibility of all women.
The sad reality is that in many cases, because women don't report assaults or rapes when they occur, often due to the completely wrong idea that being forcibly assaulted is something to be ashamed of, the cases often devolve into a he said, she said situation.  If the public sees the entire Democratic Party pushing what are clearly fake claims by women, the public will begin to question all women who claim to have been assaulted.
We know that the Democrats don't believe these claims against Kavanaugh because they've kept them hidden and because they're doing everything they can to prevent the claims from being scrutinized.
We know that a lack of belief is merited.  In the Ford case, within a week of her publicly accusing Kavanaugh of assault, all of the people she said would corroborate her story, including a lifelong female Democratic friend, have said the party Ford describes never happened.  That on top of Ford being unable to remember when or where the supposed party occurred and the fact that her own therapist's notes don't support her current claims make it obvious to honest people that either Ford is lying or she's deluded.  Possibly poor therapy brought out a false "repressed" memory.
Within hours of Ford's claims being unambiguously debunked, the Democrats found a new woman, Deborah Ramirez, to allege that a young Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her.  But we already know that the people whom she claimed as witnesses say it never happened.  Furthermore, we know that she contacted former classmates for information on the incident because she didn't really remember it and she told them that she wasn't sure that it was Kavanaugh.
But now, after spending six days with a Democratic lawyer, she's sure that the alleged event did happen.  Given that she's a Democrat and that she's said she came forward because of Ford's now debunked claim, it's pretty clear that she's just turned a wish that she could derail Kavanaugh into a story that she hopes will derail him.
Can you imagine if some woman claimed that Obama had exposed himself to her?  Would the media have run the story if there were no corroboration, if in fact the people the "victim" cited as corroboration outright denied her claims?  Of course not.  While Obama's policies are loathsome, there is absolutely no indication that he is the sort of man who sexually assaults women, just as there is no indication that Kavanaugh is such a man.
There is no proven or even claimed #MeToo case where someone assaulted women when he was young and then completely stopped and never reoffended.
The Democrats' acceptance of clearly false claims and their embracing the idea that the mere fact that a woman accuses a man of something makes the man guilty hurt women in another way.  Women often have husbands and sons.  Real women are quite rightly concerned that their husbands' and their sons' lives could be destroyed because some woman makes a false claim.
The reality is that we know that some women will lie about assault to protect themselves or to hurt a man they don't like.  That doesn't mean we should ignore the claims of women, but it does mean we can't simply assume that women never lie.
It's unclear if the Democrats are eager to destroy #MeToo because it has caught mostly Democrats to date or if the death of #MeToo is just a price that Democrats are willing to pay to ensure that the Court doesn't return to simply interpreting the law.
Or perhaps the Democrats are planning to use their common strategy of creating standards that only Republicans are judged by to make #MeToo a tool that attacks only conservatives.
We're actually seeing that today.  The same Democrats who claim that an uncorroborated and repudiated accusation is enough to keep Kavanaugh off the Court say two credible, sourced claims of assault against Keith Ellison mean nothing.  While it's true that the Democrats make noises about investigating Ellison, if they were to apply the same "all that matters is the accusation" standard they'd be demanding that Ellison resign from his number-two role in the DNC and his campaign to be attorney general of Minnesota.  But they're not.
It's time to end this farce.  The Kavanaugh who will sit on the Court has a spotless record of respecting women for decades, and the ability of the Democrats to convince women to bring up readily debunked claims of Kavanaugh having assaulted them decades ago doesn't change that.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/democrats_demonstrate_their_hatred_of_women.html#ixzz5S8QFFmEX
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Dumb Energy Advances in Colorado

Dumb Energy Advances in Colorado

By Norman Rogers

 

Xcel Energy is the dominant electric utility in Colorado. In cooperation with various organizations promoting green energy, Xcel released what it calls the Colorado Energy Plan. The plan proposes building nearly two billion dollars of wind and solar energy installations. It also proposes closing two coal-generating plants and building some new natural gas-generating capacity.
Xcel, without directly saying so, gives the public the impression that the closed coal plants are being replaced with wind and solar. That can’t happen for the simple reason that coal works when the wind isn’t blowing and when the sun isn’t shining. Wind and solar are always part-time supplements to the electric grid. They don’t replace reliable coal or natural gas plants. All that wind and solar do is to reduce the amount of fuel consumed in the coal or natural gas plants, when those plants are throttled back to accommodate wind or solar electricity.
What is really happening is that Xcel is replacing older, but perfectly good, coal plants with natural gas plants. The coal plants being replaced are equipped with modern pollution controls and have low operating costs. Dumping the coal plants is necessary to accommodate the proposed wind and solar. Wind and solar have to have backup plants that can inversely follow the ups and downs of erratic wind and solar generation. Natural gas turbines are much better at doing that than is coal-based generation. Dumping the coal plants that emit more CO2 than natural-gas plants also pleases radical environmentalists that worry about global warming.
The company proposes building 1000 megawatts of wind and 700 megawatts of solar. The 1700 megawatts of green energy would only supply an average of about 500 megawatts of power. Solar doesn’t work at night or when its cloudy and wind only works according to the strength of the wind. Also proposed is 700 megawatts of new natural gas generation that can replace the closed coal plants totaling 660 megawatts. The company claims that closing working coal plants and building new wind and solar plants will save money. The coal-fired, Comanche Station, in Pueblo, Colorado, consists of three units. The first two units built in the 1970s would be closed. The third, a 750-megawatt unit, built in 2010, would remain open.
Even with the massive federal subsidies for wind and solar, it is doubtful that any money is saved by building wind and solar plants supplementing new natural gas capacity. The cost of coal fuel is surely competitive with natural gas, given that the coal comes from nearby Wyoming.
What is really going on is plant churning. If a utility can replace existing but fully depreciated plants with new plants, it can increase its rate base, the portfolio of assets on which its allowed profit is based. If it can build double the number of plants by building wind and solar along with natural gas backup, so much the better. If the utilities were not restrained by public utility commissions they would be happy to frequently close depreciated plants to allow them to make investment in new plants. Wind and solar, requiring huge new investments, are wonderful for utility bottom lines. Xcel is concerned with its own financial health, not the huge waste of public and private money that takes place when efficient coal plants are replaced with subsidized, green energy schemes.
The forces of green ideology are strong in Colorado. The Sierra Club is known for hating coal, but loving wind and solar. Green political influence has given Colorado a legal requirement to increase the amount of green energy in its electric grid. Xcel and the green environmental groups represent a confluence of special interests that have come together to screw the people of Colorado.
The public is subtly lied to by giving the impression that green energy is replacing coal and that this maneuver saves money. Not everyone is going along with the farce.  The Independent Institute, located in Denver, calls the plan snake oil and points out that the existing coal plants are extremely cost efficient.
The Denver Post published a guest commentary by James Taylor, a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute, highly critical of the Xcel plan. Taylor pointed out that the Intermountain electric co-op, that serves customers in Colorado, is also strongly critical of the Xcel plan.
Xcel commissioned a poll of Colorado voters that found that 95% agreed with this statement:

“The state of Colorado and utilities should work together to achieve the most significant increases in the use of clean renewable energy that can be accomplished while providing reliable and affordable energy.”

The public has been bombarded by years of propaganda claiming that renewable energy is a reasonable option. Not surprisingly, much of the public actually believes it.
A sinister alliance between green groups, the government, the renewable energy industry, and utilities have provided a new way to profit at the expense of the public. A technological edifice is created -- renewable energy. The edifice is then misrepresented by propaganda. The actual reality is impenetrable except by technically sophisticated specialists, so the propaganda Kool Aid is drunk by the public and the media. They simply don’t know any better. Those who do know better are impelled by political considerations to go along with the farce.
Public utility commissions are supposed to protect the public from this sort of looting. But in states where the green political forces are significant, the public utility commissions, themselves political bodies, tend to go along. Legislatures enact requirements requiring increased use of renewable energy. Most of the legislators are not much better informed than the public and are anxious not to offend the small but vocal part of the population that really believes in global warming and green energy. The media parrot the dubious claims of the green energy forces. This political juggernaut serves the interests of the utilities and the green believers at the expense of the public. Naturally, the manufacturers of wind turbines and solar panels are providing political assistance. The man in the street thinks, wrongly, that money is being spent to improve the climate, to lower the cost of electricity, and to remove pollution from the atmosphere.
Scientific support for global warming is extremely weak. The shenanigans of scientific groups promoting global warming are self-serving and dishonest. Even if one believes in global warming, wind and solar are a very expensive way to reduce CO2 emissions.
Wind and solar are about 70% subsidized in the case of utility scale installations, but residential rooftop solar, is actually subsidized in excess of 90%. These huge subsidies are rooted in the fact that intermittent green energy’s only real economic contribution is the reduction of fuel consumption in the backup plants required to maintain continuity of supply.
Why should a relatively small number of green fanatics be allowed to have huge influence over the configuration of the national electric grid? Because they scream loudly and put up picket lines around coal generating stations?

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/dumb_energy_advances_in_colorado.html#ixzz5S3BBzpyr
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Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate

Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate

Lacking worthy menaces to fight, it is driven to find a replacement for racism. Failing this, what is left?

By

Shelby Steele

Sept. 23, 2018 1:19 p.m. ET

Even before President Trump’s election, hatred had begun to emerge on the American left—counterintuitively, as an assertion of guilelessness and moral superiority. At the Women’s March in Washington the weekend after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the pop star Madonna said, “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House.” Here hatred was a vanity, a braggadocio meant to signal her innocence of the sort of evil that, in her mind, the White House represented. (She later said the comment was “taken wildly out of context.”) For many on the left a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle. “America was never that great,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said. For radical groups like Black Lives Matter, hatred of America is a theme of identity, a display of racial pride.For other leftists, hate is a license. Conservative speakers can be shouted down, even assaulted, on university campuses. Republican officials can be harassed in restaurants, in the street, in front of their homes. Certain leaders of the left—Rep. Maxine Waters comes to mind—are self-appointed practitioners of hate, urging their followers to think of hatred as power itself.How did the American left—conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world—become so given to hate? It began in the 1960s, when America finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. It imposed a new moral imperative: America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a tenacious menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.This amounted to a formula for power: The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”The left had important achievements. It did rescue America from an unsustainable moral illegitimacy. It also established the great menace of racism as America’s most intolerable disgrace. But the left’s success has plunged it into its greatest crisis since the ’60s. The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” But what happens when the evils that menace us begin to fade, and then keep fading?It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace.A single white-on-black shooting in Ferguson, Mo., four years ago resulted in a prolonged media blitz and the involvement of the president of the United States. In that same four-year period, thousands of black-on-black shootings took place in Chicago, hometown of the then-president, yet they inspired very little media coverage and no serious presidential commentary.White-on-black shootings evoke America’s history of racism and so carry an iconic payload of menace. Black-on-black shootings carry no such payload, although they are truly menacing to the black community. They evoke only despair. And the left gets power from fighting white evil, not black despair.Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that morally empowers those who oppose it. (Climate change?) Failing this, only hatred is left. Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism. For Martin Luther King Jr., hatred was not necessary as a means to power. The actual details of oppression were enough. Power came to him because he rejected hate as a method of resisting menace. He called on blacks not to be defined by what menaced them. Today, because menace provides moral empowerment, blacks and their ostensible allies indulge in it. The menace of black victimization becomes the unarguable truth of the black identity. And here we are again, forever victims. Yet the left is still stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to service its demands for power. The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on.

For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.

Milankovitch Cycles

Throughout geological time, the Earth’s climate has varied drastically, primarily driven by through energy transfer from the sun to the Earth’s surface.  This position and the interaction between the Earth and the sun (orbital variation) has varied over the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history, controlling the climate.

What is the Milankovitch theory?

The Milankovitch theory is used to explain the impacts of the Earth’s movements on its climate. It was developed by Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milanković during the early 1900s. Using mathematical theory, he hypothesised that variations in the Earth’s orbit were the primary drivers of global climate patterns. These ‘orbital forcing’ mechanisms are centred on three parameters: eccentricity, obliquity, and precession (see below). These parameters interact with one another, each with a different periodicity (or cycle).  The Milankovitch theory addresses the impacts of these three factors on the Earth’s climate.

Similar hypotheses were also developed much earlier, by James Croll and Joseph Adhémar during the 19^th Century. However, at that time, geological dating methods were not sufficiently advanced to provide reliable dated evidence in support of the theory. In fact, despite the evidence presented by Milankovitch, it wasn’t until the publication of the pioneering work of Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton in 1976 that the Milankovitch theory attained widespread acceptance. Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton provided the first, high resolution, high precision record of long-term global environmental change using deep ocean cores. Their work, published in 1976, used oxygen isotope measurements from the tests (or shells) of deep sea organisms called foraminifera to track changes in global ice volume over the last 450,000 years. This was used as an indicator of global climate changes over this time period, and provided strong evidence in support of the Milankovitch theory.

Diagram of the eccentricity, obliquity, and precession cycles, showing the relationship of the sun and Earth

Eccentricity (100,000 year cycle)

The term eccentricity refers to the shape of the Earth’s orbit, as a measure of the degree to which it departs from a circular shape.  The orbit typically varies from near circular (low eccentricity: 0.005), to near elliptical (high eccentricity: 0.058). The mean eccentricity is 0.028, and at present is approximately 0.017. Changes in the orbital shape arise due to a combination of factors, which combine to produce a periodicity of change over approximately 100,000 years. The dominant influence on the shape of the orbit is the interaction with the gravitational fields of Jupiter and Saturn. The shape of the Earth’s orbit determines the amount of incoming solar radiation due to changes in the distance from the Earth to the sun. The shortest distance is termed the perihelion, the longest distance is the aphelion. When the orbit is at its most elliptical, the amount of solar radiation at perihelion is c.23% more than at aphelion.

Obliquity – the tilt of the axis (41,000 year cycle)

This term refers to the angle of the Earth’s axial tile in relation to its orbit. It is also referred to as the ‘obliquity of the ecliptic’. Obliquity varies from 22.1° to 24.5° (an angle of 2.4°) and back again, over a time period of approximately 41,000 years. When obliquity increases (i.e. the earth is tilted at a greater angle) there is a greater variation between Winter and Summer insolation – in Summer there is more solar radiation, and in Winter there is less. This solar radiation is not equally distributed, however, due to the shape of the Earth’s surface. With an increase in obliquity, high latitudes (towards the poles) receive an increase in insolation, while lower latitudes receive a decrease in insolation. The Earth is currently tilted at approximately 23.44°, so it is half way through its cycle of tilt from 24.5° to 22.1°.

Precession – the direction of the axis (26,000 year cycle)

Precession is the direction of the Earth’s rotation (or ‘wobble’) on its axis. This motion occurs due to the tidal forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun on the Earth.
The impacts of precession are largely felt at perihelion (when the Earth is at its closest proximity to the Sun) due to increased solar radiation. For example, when the North Pole is directed towards the Sun, the northern hemisphere receives much more insolation in Summer, and experiences a colder Winter.  Meanwhile the southern hemisphere would experience milder seasons. In contrast, when the South Pole is directed at the Sun, it is the South Pole that experiences the larger seasonal variations. In its current state, perihelion is reached during the southern hemisphere summer, and aphelion is reached during the southern hemisphere winter. This is why the southern hemisphere often experiences greater seasonal extremes than the northern hemisphere.

Periodicities of the eccentricity, obliquity, and precession cycles over the past 800,000 years.

The legacy of Barack Obama (and it's not a good one)

The legacy of Barack Obama (and it's not a good one)

by Mark Vargas

September 16, 2018 12:00 AM

The legacy of Barack Obama was certainly historic, but for all the wrong reasons.

Evan Vucci/AP

President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 represented a new chapter in history. His meteoric rise to the presidency was swift and shocked not only a nation, but also the political elites, including Democratic favorites such as Sens. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But as we look back on the eight years that Obama served as president, we see a much different picture — a picture that’s certainly historic, but for all the wrong reasons.
The legacy of Obama represented one of the most racially divided times in our nation’s history. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in July of Obama’s final year in office, 69 percent of Americans said that race relations were bad and that “six in 10 Americans say that race relations were growing worse, up from 38 percent a year ago.”
The legacy of Obama represented a time when race-related riots were on the rise. We can’t forget the scenes on television in Baltimore and Ferguson, or the violence that erupted after the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Manuel Diaz, and Kimini Gray. Images taken from each of these events resembled combat zones, with police in riot gear while angry citizens burned cars, smashed windows, and vandalized storefronts.

The legacy of Obama represented a time when our enemies and allies abroad viewed us as weak. Shortly after his inauguration, Obama embarked on a worldwide apology tour throughout the Middle East and criticized America.The legacy of Obama represented a time when home grown domestic terrorism was on the rise. We can’t forget the horrific scenes or the carnage in places like Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, San Bernardino, and Orlando. The legacy of Obama represented a time when Islamic State recruitment was on the rise. By fulfilling campaign promises to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, he didn’t take into account the void that would leave, as well as the opportunity for ISIS and our enemies to fill it.
The legacy of Obama represented a time when embassy officials were attacked in Benghazi that resulted in senseless deaths, including our Amb. Chris Stevens. The Obama administration failed to heed the warning signs in advance, and as a result, innocent Americans were killed. Stevens even warned Obama’s State Department about an escalation in violence and the need for additional help. But those pleas were ignored.
The legacy of Obama represented a time of failed agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal. Not only did the president lie to Congress about the details of the deal, but he also ordered planes to secretly deliver billions of dollars in cash to Iranian officials.
The legacy of Obama represented a time when his landmark Obamacare legislation, which was meant to provide healthcare for all, still left 27 million Americans without insurance. And when he famously said, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” that promise turned out to be a lie as well.
The legacy of Obama represented a time when America made terrible financial deals, like the more than $2.2 billion in defaulted energy loans at taxpayers expense, including the now infamous $500 million loan to Solyndra, where company executives misled Energy Department officials and later went bankrupt. And who can forget when Obama said, “It's here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”
The legacy of Obama represented a time of personal enrichment. In 2009, when everyday people were recession-weary, Obama arranged, just days before his inauguration, a $500,000 advance for a future book deal. Never before in our history had a president or president-elect negotiated a book deal before or during their time in office.
The legacy of Barack Obama was certainly historic, but for all the wrong reasons. As a candidate, he campaigned on “hope” and “change,” but as president, America was left with no hope and very little change. In 2008, he sold the dream. But for eight years, America was left living the nightmare.
A legacy for sure — but not the kind to be very proud of.