The 8 steps to communism
Mar 21, 2014
To the editor:
These are the eight levels of controls by Saul Alinsky to transform a nation through socialism into communism.
1. Healthcare – control healthcare and you control the people.
2. Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you provide everything for them to live.
3. Debt – Increase the debt level to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes and this will produce more poverty.
4. Gun control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5. Welfare – Take control of every aspect (food, housing, income) of their lives because that will make them fully dependent on the government.
6. Education – Take control of what people read and listen to and take control or what children learn in school.
7. Religion – Remove belief in God from the government and schools because the people need to believe in only the government knowing what is best for the people.
8. Class warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. Eliminate the middle class.
This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with the support of the poor.
It should be clear to all how our nation is well on its way to winning its race to the bottom.
Is it our public servants in both political parties who are constitution-despising oath breakers?
Or, we the people who vote and revote them in office to sell us out?
Mike Gallagher, the 8th most recognized talk radio personality, in the U.S.A., is heard by over 2.25 million
listeners weekly. He compiled and wrote the following essay entitled,
"Obama: It was You."
* It was you who spoke these words at an Islamic dinner - "I am one of you."
* It was you who on ABC News referenced - "My Muslim faith."
* It was you who gave $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to re-build foreign mosques.
* It was you who wrote that in the event of a conflict- "I will stand with the Muslims."
* It was you who assured the Egyptian Foreign Minister that - "I am a Muslim."
* It was you who bowed in submission before the Saudi King.
* It was you who sat for 20 years in a Liberation Theology Church condemning America and professing Marxism.
* It was you who exempted Muslims from penalties under Obamacare that the rest of us have to pay.
* It was you who purposefully omitted - "endowed by our Creator " - from your recitation of The Declaration Of
Independence.
* It was you who mocked the Bible and Jesus Christ's Sermon On The Mount while repeatedly referring to the 'HOLY' Qur'an.
* It was you who traveled the Islamic world denigrating the United States Of America.
* It was you who instantly threw the support of your administration behind the building of the Ground Zero Victory mosque overlooking the hallowed crater of the World Trade Center.
* It was you who refused to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, but hastened to host an Islamic prayer breakfast at the
White House
* It was you who ordered Georgetown Univ. and Notre Dame to shroud all vestiges of Jesus Christ BEFORE you would
agree to go there to speak, but in contrast, you have NEVER requested the mosques you have visited to adjust their decor.
* It was you who appointed anti-Christian fanatics to your Czar Corps.
* It was you who appointed rabid Islamists to Homeland Security.
* It was you who said that NASA's "foremost mission" was an outreach to Muslim communities.
* It was you who as an Illinois Senator was the ONLY individual who would speak in favor of infanticide.
* It was you who was the first President not to give a Christmas Greeting from the White House, and went so far as to hang
photos of Chairman Mao on the White House tree.
* It was you who curtailed the military tribunals of all Islamic terrorists.
* It was you who refused to condemn the Ft. Hood killer as an Islamic terrorist.
* It is you who has refused to speak-out concerning the horrific executions of women throughout the Muslim culture,
but yet, have submitted Arizona to the UN for investigation of hypothetical human-rights abuses.
* It was you who when queried in India refused to acknowledge the true extent of radical global Jihadists, and instead
profusely praised Islam in a country that is 82% Hindu and the victim of numerous Islamic terrorists assaults.
* It was you who funneled $900 Million in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Hamas.
* It was you who ordered the United States Postal Service to honor the MUSLIM holiday with a new commemorative stamp.
* It was you who directed our UK Embassy to conduct outreach to help "empower" the British Muslim community.
* It was you who funded mandatory Arabic language and culture studies in Grammar schools across our country.
* It is you who follows the Muslim custom of not wearing any form of jewelry during Ramadan.
* It is you who departs for Hawaii over the Christmas season so as to avoid past criticism for NOT participating in seasonal
White House religious events.
* It was you who was uncharacteristically quick to join the chorus of the Muslim Brotherhood to depose Egypt's Hosni
Mubarak, formerly America's strongest ally in North Africa; but, remain muted in your non-response to the Brotherhood
led slaughter of Egyptian Christians.
* It was you who appointed your chief adviser, Valerie Jarrett, an Iranian, who is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood, an
off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
* It was you who said this country is not a Christian nation.
PLEASE! Distribute this far and wide
This Presidency is Killing Relationships—and We’re All Grieving
August 6, 2020 / John Pavlovitz
I’ll never understand it.
As long as I live, it will never really make sense to me.
Yeah, I’ve read all the research, analyzed all the data, digested a thousand think pieces, and watched countless late night cable TV commentaries over the past four years—and all of them together still don’t add up to this.
They don’t explain once rational, otherwise decent, educated people fully taking leave of their senses: people I’ve grown up with, served on mission trips with, families who’ve had my kids over for sleepovers, older relatives I spent decades aspiring to become, ministers I once respected for their compassion—a rapidly growing army of people who I was sure knew better than this.
Nothing adequately explains their complete rejection of Science.
Nothing completely accounts for them instantly embracing the most nonsensical of conspiracies.
Nothing truly prepared me for their social media explosions of racism.
Nothing fully connects the dots between their past goodness and this present ugliness.
I can microscopically parcel out every conceivable contributing factor: white supremacy, the pro-life lie, Fox News propaganda, toxic masculinity, Evangelical indoctrination, intellectual laziness, manipulated nationalism, unchecked capitalism, hatred for Hillary, political fatigue, disenfranchisement, fear of replacement, and celebrity worship:
They fail to adequately explain how I lost people I loved and respected.
They don’t cushion the pain of these separations.
They don’t make it easier for me to grieve the loss of living people.
They don’t comfort me in these relational funerals.
And as much as I am in mourning, I know that these people are likely similarly grieving me right now; that they too are lamenting their own list of ways they imagine I’ve changed or lost the plot or abandoned my convictions or betrayed my religion—and they’re wondering where they lost me.
I think that’s the smaller, more devastating story we’re not telling right now; the one far below the bold type trending news. It isn’t America’s clear compound fractures of partisan battles, issue differences, loud tribalism, and attention-stealing sideshow press conferences that are doing the greatest damage right now. The real mortal wound to this nation is coming from the relational internal bleeding measured around kitchen tables and in church pews and in neighborhoods. It is the interpersonal separations that we’re all experiencing: hundreds of millions of losses to collectively mourn every day.
We’re not just being pulled apart along political lines, but the fragile, time-woven fabric of our most intimate connections with people are being torn in two right now. Marriages, families, lifelong friendships, faith communities, and social circles that survived every previous assault from within and without—may not survive this presidency.
And the worst part, is that the election results aren’t going to fix this.
They’re going to leave half of us elated and the other half sickened—and that emotional divide is only going to grow and strain to sever the already tenuous ties between us. There will certainly be a massive wave of ghostings and unfriendings, more silent disconnections and explosive middle-finger send-offs, more aborted family gatherings and cold silences with our neighbors. There will be a greater separation in the small and the close spaces where life is truly measured—and I’m not sure how we prevent or repair it.
I imagine some relationships will manage to survive this beyond November—if we invest in them, if we keep listening, if we have willing participants in mutual understanding—but others will not, and that’s probably necessary. Maybe we’ve simply seen too much about the deepest contents of people’s hearts to ever feel safety in their presence again. Maybe we’ll never feel like they are home for us anymore.
Either way, we need to name and reckon with this very specific and metastatic grieving: the accumulating losses of people we love who are still here, the death of our relationships.
It is a national tragedy.
Good news is always sweet
especially when even Snopes will verify the same. Look this up on Snopes and they say our President Donald Trump did indeed send Obama a bill for all the vacations he has gone on since leaving office..
It's no wonder ex-President Obama's last speech went after President Trump. Obama's recent speeches are not to support his Democrat party, they are to slam President Trump for taking away the Obamas taxpayer-paid vacations for the next 20 years!
President Trump cancels their vacations, and refunds the money to the American taxpayers.
PRESIDENT TRUMP JUST TRUMPED THE OBAMA'S VACATION SCHEME...!!!
Ex-President Obama was going to stick us for $2.1 billion or so Before Obama left office, he arranged with the State Department for a series of "official visits" to foreign countries spanning the next 20 years. Using funds from the Office of Presidential Visits and Vacations, Obama was planning to use what would have been $2.1 billion in free vacations for him and up to 24 members of his family plus staff and even a dog sitter until the year 2036. He would have, that is, until President Trump put a stop to it.
Trump, who is always looking for ways to save money, was presented with a ledger that contained all of the Obama's travel plans and expenses. The ledger was found by one of the workers President Trump hired from outside the typical White House staff. President Trump immediately canceled the plans and recalled all Secret Service agents scheduled to protect the Obamas anywhere outside of the United States. The Obama's are also facing another new challenge at the hands of President Trump. They're going to have to repay the government for all of those vacations that weren't official state business.
The bill, after some small allowances for days that were possibly work related, is for $214 million. Of the 692 days the Obama's spent on vacation, almost none included any work at all. They ate, slept, and golfed And, Michelle was given shopping allowances from the Office of Discretionary Gifting Funds, which is supposed to be used to buy presents for visiting dignitaries.
Feel free to share this with everyone in your email list. Many Americans will appreciate to know this hidden facts.
Yea, President Trump! We love what you do and for what you stand for!
P.S. Michelle's mother, who took care of the granddaughters for all 8 years was GETTING PAID! And NOW she is getting a pension of $13,000 a month for the rest of her life. (chew on that fat; how much is your social security?)
Obama: 'I Make Love to Men Daily'
By Jack Cashill
In composing my new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, I thought hard about whether I should address the question of Barack Obama's sexuality.
Two considerations persuaded me to pursue the issue. One was the no-holds-barred media treatment of the sex life, real and imagined, of Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. The second was the fact that despite Obama's early feint to the center, his presidency was something of a golden age for gay America. A May 2012 Newsweek cover story, in fact, dubbed Obama "the first gay president."
Understandably, the fear of offending the “black church” made Obama initially cautious about championing the LGBT cause, but there may have been another reason for his restraint. Obama faced rumors that he himself was gay. No subject made those close to Obama more nervous.
College girlfriend Alex McNear, for instance, redacted a section of a letter she shared with Obama biographer David Garrow, thinking Obama’s reflections on homosexuality “too explosive." Her concern was understandable.
In his early twenties, Obama had written to McNear that he viewed gay sex as “an attempt to remove oneself from the present, a refusal perhaps to perpetuate the endless farce of earthly life.” Obama continued, “You see, I make love to men daily, but in the imagination. My mind is androgynous to a great extent and I hope to make it more so." This passage did not make the hardcover edition of Garrow’s 2017 book, Rising Star.
In the less "inclusive" days of the early 1980s, no straight guy I know would ever have thought to make such an admission, especially to a "girlfriend." Only after McNear sold the Barack Obama letters to Emory University in 2016 was Garrow able to access the original and even then with some difficulty. Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights historian, included the passage above in the paperback version of his book. No one noticed.
Given the admitted bisexuality of Obama's Hawaiian mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, and Obama’s mental indulgence in the same, the honest critic has to think hard about this excerpt from “Pop,” a poem Obama wrote about Davis while in college.
“Pop takes another shot, neat / Points out the same amber / Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine / and / Makes me smell his smell, coming / From me.” A therapist who blogged under the label “Neo-Neocon” hesitated to call the interaction “outright sexual abuse,” but she imagined it at the very least “a boundary violation.” She explained, “This child feels invaded—perhaps even taken over—by this man, and is fighting against that sensation."
After Obama announced for the presidency in 2007, a fellow named Larry Sinclair fueled rumors about Obama’s sexuality when he went public with his allegations of a two-day coke and sex romp with the then-married Obama in 1999. Fearless, if nothing else, Sinclair then booked space at the National Press Club in June 2008 to detail his reputed relationship with Obama.
From the beginning, the mainstream media, including the “responsible” right, pretended Sinclair did not exist. The actual work of extinguishing Sinclair’s credibility was left to the internet's leftist hitmen. As soon as Sinclair announced plans for the press conference, they launched an internet petition drive demanding the Press Club deny Sinclair its stage.
To its credit, the National Press Club refused to buckle. Sinclair held his conference. In watching it years later, I am impressed by how well Sinclair understood Obama’s hold on the media. If you asked a question about a black man who chose to run for president, he observed, “All of a sudden you’re called a racist, a bigot.”
A genuine character, Sinclair acknowledged up front the various crimes he had committed in years past. He wanted to take that cudgel away from the media. Sinclair then explained in exquisite detail the nature of his alleged 1999 interaction with then-state senator Obama.
He provided dates, the name of the hotel, the name of the Muslim limo driver who arranged the assignation, the specifics of their sexual interlude, as well as insights into the menacing phone calls he received from Donald Young, a member of Reverend Wright’s church and an alleged lover of Obama’s.
More than once during the question and answer period, reporters asked Sinclair, given his “tremendous credibility problem,” why they should take him seriously. In turn, Sinclair asked the reporters “to do your jobs and find facts.” He provided them several useful leads and challenged them to follow up. Sinclair specifically asked the reporters to check Young’s phone records. He believed Obama to be complicit in the choir member’s December 2007 murder, a crime that remains unsolved to this day.
True to form, Politico quickly moved to discredit Sinclair. Its editors headlined their article from the day of the press conference, “Obama accuser has long rap sheet.” In an aside that Trump or Kavanaugh might find amusing, Politico refused to publish Sinclair’s “outlandish” allegations because they were “unsubstantiated.” Wired, meanwhile, ran an article celebrating those leftist bloggers who succeeded in getting Sinclair arrested on an outstanding Delaware warrant just as he was leaving the Press Club.
As should be obvious, the media had stunningly different standards for Sinclair and, say, Stormy Daniels or Christine Blasey Ford. The same media that insisted we “believe the women” were not at all inclined to believe the men, at least not this man.
The same media that insisted “love is love” saw something inherently distasteful in Sinclair’s tale of consensual gay sex. The messenger in this case had to be attacked, exposed, eliminated as a threat, and that he was. To this day, few have ever heard of Sinclair. Fewer still have heard of the late Donald Young.
In fact, so quickly were Sinclair’s allegations trashed and burned, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin did not even mention Sinclair in their comprehensive look at the 2008 campaign, Game Change.
Yes, Obama did have girlfriends. In his memoir Dreams from My Father he wraps them up into one white composite girl but tells his half-sister Auma, “There are several black ladies out there who’ve broken my heart just as good.” Obama, however, does not devote a sentence to any of these imagined black ladies, and his future biographers failed to locate a single one.
Obviously, too, Obama got married. His memoir, Dreams from My Father, culminates in his wedding to Michelle. Yet he seems to have chosen Michelle with the same political calculation that he chose his church, a way of rooting himself in the African-American community. As with all previous relationships, this tale of courtship is strikingly devoid of any reference to love, sex, or romance.
At his most passionate, Obama says of Michelle, "In her eminent practicality and Midwestern attitudes, she reminds me not a little of Toot [his grandmother]." That description must surely have warmed Michelle's heart, but that may have been the best Obama could do.
My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!
I'm sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to "fix" the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.
I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook's, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we've become completely blind to it.
Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don't give them a second thought.
We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!
Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??
Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, "An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity."
Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.
When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I've ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.
My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let's just say I didn't have the popular opinion, but I digress.
Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.
People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they've never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.
Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn't live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn't see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.
We don't know what it's like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don't have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it's spreading like a plague."
7 Big Stories Corporate Media Is Ignoring Because The Truth Might Help Trump
Due to corporate media’s hatred of Donald Trump, Americans are sorely uninformed about news stories that, under any other presidency, would deservedly flood coverage.
Margot Cleveland
By Margot Cleveland
August 17, 2020
When Donald Trump entered the political arena some five years ago, reporters floundered for a way to cover his candidacy. Then, sensing a ratings boom from the chaos the businessman and former reality TV star injected into the primary, the left-leaning press quickly converted to covering all things Trump, benefitting both their bottom line and their sense of schadenfreude.
Following Trump’s surprise election in 2016, the press faced a different challenge: How to cover a president they despised? Unfortunately, their answer was to abandon any semblance of journalistic integrity. They pushed fake news while ignoring huge stories that might accrue to Trump’s benefit. As a result, Americans are sorely uninformed about news stories which, at any other time and under any other presidency, would deservedly flood airways and the print media.
Here are seven important stories from just the last year that the press should have — and would have — covered in detail, or differently, but for their disdain for Trump.
1. Spygate
While the Spygate scandal spans many years, some of the most newsworthy developments broke over the last several months, although you would not know it if you read corporate media. Just Friday, the Department of Justice released information charging Kevin Clinesmith with making a false statement in an email he altered concerning Carter Page. Clinesmith inserted “was not a source” in the email addressing Page’s relationship with an intelligence agency, and that false statement led to a fourth FISA surveillance order on Page.
Now, the MSM did “cover” this story, if you count the spin peddled as news coverage. After telling readers “Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Review of Russia Inquiry,” The New York Times twisted the story to slam Trump, sub-heading its article, “Prosecutors did not reveal any evidence of the kind of broad anti-Trump conspiracy among law enforcement officials that the president has long alleged.” The Times then hit Attorney General William Barr and defended the Robert Mueller investigation while minimizing Clinesmith’s misconduct.
Coverage of the charge against Clinesmith is already receding, but the story deserves relentless investigative reporting. Clinesmith was deeply involved in the Crossfire Hurricane surveillance of Trump, including in the FBI’s decision to task Joe Pientka with spying on the Trump campaign during an intelligence briefing. Further, Clinesmith altered the email while a member of Special Counsel Mueller’s team and the special counsel’s office then obtained the fourth and final FISA surveillance order on Page.
That a member of the supposedly independent special counsel’s office falsified a document to get a surveillance order and allegedly committed a felony should burn up the wire for weeks. But instead, we get misdirection and minimization from the press, because heaven forbid the public to learn that Trump was right:it was a witch hunt.
A couple of weeks ago, another Spygate-related development was also sidestepped by the press. The Department of Justice announced its results from sampling FISA applications, telling Americans that the analysis of 29 different applications to the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court showed they “all contained a sufficient basis for probable cause” and that there were “only two material errors, neither of which invalidated the authorizations granted by the FISA Court.”
That conclusion starkly contrasts the 17 significant errors Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in just the FISA applications submitted to surveil former Trump campaign advisor Page. Unlike the 29 randomly reviewed FISA applications which, notwithstanding an array of errors, were found to be supported by probable cause, the DOJ concluded probable cause did not exist for at least two of the four applications submitted to surveil Page—and in turn the Trump campaign and administration.
The media, however, made scant mention of the DOJ’s findings, even though when IG Horowitz revealed in late March that initial results from an audit of FISA applications revealed “errors in every FBI application” the press pushed that news as evidence that the FISA abuse uncovered in the Page case wasn’t the result of politics, but of “broad, institutional weaknesses.”
The DOJ’s announcement earlier this week decimated that spin and a press interested in the truth would realize the significance of the findings of the audit. While 29 randomly pulled FISA applications contained only two material errors in total, none of which rendered the warrants invalid, there were 17 significant errors or omissions in FISA applications involving one person—the Trump-connected Page. But admitting the truth would help Trump, so the media remained silent.
The press has likewise ignored the stunning developments in the Michael Flynn criminal case, including revelations that the special counsel’s office withheld exculpatory evidence from Flynn’s attorneys, including notes suggesting FBI agents had attempt to either get Flynn fired or caught in a perjury trap and evidence establishing that the FBI agents did not believe Flynn had lied. Any other defendants would have been beatified a martyr by the media over this. And any other prosecutor would have been excoriated.
But instead, the press villainized Barr, who directed the charges against Flynn be dismissed based on that evidence and the recommendation of Missouri-based U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, following Jensen’s independent review of the Flynn prosecution.
These latest developments showcase but a sliver about the worst political scandal of our country’s history: The Obama administration obtained an illegal court order to conduct surveillance on a political enemy, using evidence paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Then, following Trump’s election, holdovers continued to spy on the president-elect’s team and later plotted to oust their new boss’ national security advisor. This is a story for the ages. Just not the age of Trump.
2. Israel and United Arab Emirates Normalize Relations
Last week also showed the press skimming over news that should make peace-seeking nations cheer: The normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Again, the media covered the news, even acknowledging its historic nature, but with a pivot playing the achievement as a culmination of a decade of outreach between the two Middle Eastern countries. The Trump administration’s leadership received short shrift.
Is there any doubt that any other American president who helped bring about this promising leap forward in the Middle East—whether Democrat or Republican—would be heralded? A month of in-depth interviews would follow. Specials on the Middle East would air. The history of the conflict would be retold and Trump’s close relationship with Israel highlighted. Then Americans would learn the inside story of how this achievement came to be.
But not with a President Trump.
3. Big News on Terrorism Sponsor Iran
Likewise, the media has ignored or downplayed several significant stories involving Iran that would vindicate Trump’s hardline stance against the Islamic regime. While the press had no problem regurgitating the propaganda Ben Rhodes created in the D.C. echo chamber to sell President Obama’s 2015 disastrous Iran deal, with Trump corporate media has opted to limit coverage of Iran’s horrific human rights abuses.
Few Americans know of Iran’s plans to execute those involved in a 2017 uprising, with one execution taking place earlier this month. “The silence of the international community about [that] execution,” Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam, the director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, said, “can be considered a green light for more executions.”
In contrast, earlier this year, the press played the U.S. military operation that killed Qassem Soleimani, a terrorist responsible for the death of scores of American soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq, as an unnecessary escalation of tensions with Iran. Then, when the Iranian regime killed 200-plus passengers on Ukrainian Flight 752, the media responded with far less outrage and scant coverage of the protests overtaking the authoritarian country.
On Friday, there were two new developments about Iran. How the media plays these stories will be telling. Will the press highlight the Trump administration’s failed bid to extend a UN arms embargo on Iran? Or will the media provide detailed reporting on the news that the Department of Justice seized the “largest-ever” “fuel shipments from Iran,” which headed to Venezuela on four Iranian fuel tankers?
By week’s end, we’ll know whether the media opts to focus on the former while downplaying Trump’s recent success in pressuring the Iranian regime.
4. Major News on China
Over the last year, the press has also sidestepped several significant stories about China, starting with COVID-19. The press downplayed Trump’s success in negotiating a new trade deal with China, and once Trump branded COVID-19 the Chinese virus, the media threw objectivity to the wind, as this Washington Post headline established: “Trump views China’s Communist Party as a threat. Young Chinese see it as a ticket to a better future.”
Beyond publishing propaganda-laced fluff pieces, the press proved its hatred of Trump by providing only scant coverage of three stories: China’s takeover of Hong Kong, its persecution of Uighurs, and its use of TikTok and WeChat to spy on Americans.
While the media has touched on these topics, the coverage is neither representative of their significance nor near the coverage it dedicated to faux scandals harmful to the president, such as when Michael Avenatti repeated Julie Swetnick’s lies about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The media’s coverage of the Kavanaugh confirmation circus shows its strength in pushing a narrative, but sadly, journalists have failed to use their power to unite the world in opposition to China’s sickening persecution of Uighurs and Hong Kong citizens.
While Trump’s impending ban on TikTok and WeChat may be a lesser story, the media’s downplaying of these apps’ threats to Americans’ privacy and national security is par for their so-called reporting on China. Corporate media cannot provide the coverage warranted by these stories because it would prove Trump’s position that China’s Communist Party is a threat. Therein is all you need to know for why the press remains at best hushed and at worst a propaganda arm for the communist country.
5. COVID-19
Corporate reporting on COVID-19 provides another stark example of the Trump litmus test it constantly applies to news: Does the story help the president or hurt him?
Coverage of hydroxychloroquine as a possible therapeutic provides the clearest proof of this, as best illustrated by the national coverage of the death of a man who “ingested” fish tank cleaner, spun as a Trump-induced death. But more subtle bias by omission is prevalent as well.
For instance, under other circumstances, the harm widespread school closings cause to especially low-income and at-risk children would be the nightly news narrative. Personal interest stories featuring single moms, unable to work and supervise the online schooling of their children, would run. Special-needs children struggling without individualized educational plans would be profiled. Heartstrings would be pulled, and pressure would be brought to bear on leaders refusing to open schools.
But because Trump wants the schools open, the coverage has focused instead on the risk to children and teachers of returning to the classroom.
The deaths of the elderly in states like New York that forced nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients would also be a national scandal if it didn’t counter the liberal narrative that Trump is to blame for COVID deaths. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control’s antiquated flu surveillance system would be the stuff of investigative reporting, but for the vindication it would provide to Trump, who directed the CDC to create an entirely new system to track COVID.
American pharmaceutical companies might have even been championed for their record-breaking efforts to develop an effective vaccine for COVID. However, highlighting the promise of a late-year vaccine would only provide a dual-edged plus for the president by both showcasing his strong leadership and prompting Americans to sense a quick economic recovery. So the story stays muted.
6. 2020 Elections
While the media has long been biased towards Democrats, this year the press seems uninterested in even hiding this preference. The bias shows both by what the media covers and what it doesn’t.
One taboo topic, of course, is Joe Biden’s health. Here the press is repeating its performance in 2016, which The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway exposed four years ago. Then, the press was ignoring concerns over Hillary Clinton’s health, including coughing spells, memory lapses supposedly caused by a concussion and a brain clot, and then a fainting spell caught on camera.
Is Biden a racist? A sexual predator? Harris said as much during the primaries. What changed?
Now it is Biden’s bizarre behavior, forgetfulness, and word salads served on those few occasions he emerges from his basement in unscripted exchanges. A media less concerned about possibly assisting Trump’s re-election bid would expose these disconcerting episodes. They also would not tolerate Biden’s refusal to engage with the press.
Also ignored are the many stories that should have spun from Biden’s announcement that Kamala Harris is his choice for vice president. Is Biden a racist? A sexual predator? Harris said as much during the primaries. What changed? But other than late-night comedy, the press has already moved on. To paraphrase Biden, “Come on, media.”
And in no sane world is Harris a moderate, but that is how the New York Times cast her in its continuing delusional coverage of the election.
The media’s handling of the mail-in-voting story is likewise telling, and again reminiscent of 2016, when fears of hacking concerned both parties—until Trump raised the issue. We’re seeing the same dynamic today, with the press pushing back against concerns that universal mail-in-voting creates the risk of both fraud and foreign interference.
The media pivots from this legitimate concern by conflating mail-in-voting with absentee voting. To date, it also has remained relatively silent while USPS sabotage conspiracy theories go viral.
7. Riots? What Riots?
The media also finds itself struggling to cover the riots occurring throughout our country. The “mostly peaceful protests” spin remains strong because any acknowledgment of the violence confirms Trump’s criticism of Democratic-run cities and his decision to use federal law enforcement officials to protect federal property. So the press bypasses or shades these major stories.
At any other time and under any other president, the media would have descended on the Portland federal courthouse to report the insurrection taking place. Reporters would have infiltrated the autonomous zone and covered the rampant crime and violence occurring. Profiles of the small business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed by the riots would run.
Yes, covering these stories may help Trump, but it would also help Americans, who at best are ignorant and at worst are brainwashed.
The Sneaky Trick a Public Health Official Used to Make Mask Mandates Look Super Effective
The efficacy of face masks has been a subject of debate in the health community during the pandemic. Public health officials who use deceiving graphs only make things worse.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Image screenshot from 3KSN
Jon Miltimore
Jon Miltimore
Politics Masks COVID-19 Coronavirus Kansas Public Health Ludwig von Mises
As of early August, 34 US states mandate the use of masks in public to limit the spread of COVID-19.
The efficacy of face masks has been a subject of debate in the health community during the pandemic. Because health experts disagree on their effectiveness, countries and health agencies around the world, including the World Health Organization and the CDC, have done a reversal on their mask recommendations during the pandemic.
Reasonable and persuasive cases can be made both for and against the use of masks in the general population. Unfortunately, the science of masks and viruses is becoming less clear because of the politicized nature of the debate.
A case in point is the Kansas public health official who made news last week after he was accused of using a deceptive chart to make it appear counties with mask mandates had lower COVID-19 case rates than they actually did.
At a press conference, Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Dr. Lee Norman credited face masks with positive statewide COVID-19 trends showing a general decline in deaths, hospitalizations, and new cases.
Norman pointed to a chart (see below) that depicted two lines tracking cases per 100,000 people between July 12 and August 3. The red line begins higher than the blue line but then falls precipitously as it travels down the X-axis, ending below a blue line.
Norman explains that the red line represented the 15 counties with mask mandates, which account for two thirds of the state’s population. The flat blue line represented the remaining 90 counties, which had no mask mandates in place.
“All of the improvement in case development comes from those counties wearing masks,” Norman said.
The results are clear, Norman claimed. The red line shows reduction. The blue line is flat. Kansas’s real-life experiment showed that masks work.
It didn’t take long for people to realize something wasn’t quite right, however. The blue line and the red line were not on the same axis.
This gave the impression that counties with mask mandates in place had fewer daily cases than counties without mask mandates. This is not the case, however. In reality, counties with masks mandates have far higher daily COVID-19 cases than counties without mask mandates.
If the trends are depicted on the same axis, the blue and red lines look like this.
Many Kansans were not pleased with the trickery.
Kansas Policy Institute expert Michael Austin told local media that the chart clearly gives a false impression.
“It has nothing to do about whether masks are effective or not. [It’s about] making sure Kansans can make sound conclusions from accurate information,” Austin said. “And unfortunately, the chart that was shown prior in the week strongly suggested that counties that had followed Dr. Norman’s mask order outperformed counties that did not, and that was most certainly not true.”
Twitter was less diplomatic.
The chart is deceptive.
Worse, Norman also failed to note that the lines were on different axes until a reporter asked if the blue line “would get below the red line” if those counties passed mask mandates, which prompted Norman to mumble about different metrics and then admit that counties without mask mandates have lower case rates.
“The trend line is what I really want to focus on,” Norman said.
The deception prompted a non-apology from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment: “Yes, the axes are labelled differently … we recognize that it was a complex graph and may not have easily been understood and easily misinterpreted.”
Dr. Norman, meanwhile, vowed to do better next time.
“I’ll learn from that and try to [be] clearer next time,” he said following criticism from lawmakers.
The episode is unfortunate because it further clouds the science and erodes trust in the medical experts individuals rely on to make informed decisions.
It’s also ironic, because the controversy overshadowed the state’s positive data, which suggests masks may be working in Kansas. The chart may have been deceptive, but the data is correct and shows a 34 percent drop in COVID cases in counties with mandates in place.
It’s quite possible that drop is linked to county orders mandating the use of masks. Then again, the order may have nothing to do with the drop. Correlation, we know, doesn’t equal causation. If it did, the surge in COVID-19 cases in California following its mask order would be “proof” that masks increase transmission rates.
But science doesn’t work that way (at least it shouldn’t), and Dr. Norman knows this.
Maybe masks are an effective way to curb transmission of the coronavirus, or maybe it’s largely ineffective or even harmful, like the Surgeon General stated back in March. The truth is we don’t yet know.
What’s clear, as I noted last week, is that the top physicians and public health experts on the planet can’t decide if face coverings help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
In light of this, it seems both reasonable and prudent that public health officials should focus less on forcing people to “mask-up” and more on developing clear and compelling research which will allow individuals to make informed and free decisions.
This, after all, is the traditional role of public health: inform people and let them choose.
Allowing individuals to choose instead of collective bodies is the proper and more effective approach, because, as the great economist Ludwig von Mises reminded us, individuals are the source of all rational decision-making.
“All rational action is in the first place individual action,” Mises wrote in Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. “Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”
Mask orders aren’t just about public health. They are a microcosm of a larger friction at work in our society: who gets to plan our lives, individuals or the collective?
Despite what many today seem to believe, society is best served by allowing individuals to plan and control their own lives.
But individuals benefit from sound and reliable information. Sadly, that is something public health officials increasingly appear incapable or unwilling to offer.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL SHARIA LAW
Implementation of unconstitutional Sharia Law in any location or application is an affront to the “rule of law” within the borders of the United States and our territories. Sharia Law violates Article VI of the Constitution which states,
“…This Constitution and the Laws of the United states which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
The Senators and Representatives… and all executive and Judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Most applications and interpretations of Sharia Law are incompatible with and “Contrary” to the Constitution of the United States of America, “the supreme Law of the Land….” Sharia Law qualifies as a “Contrary,” extra-constitutional “Thing” under Article VI. Additionally, Sharia Law judges would have to be followers of Islam. They would be subjected to an unconstitutional “religious Test” in violation of Article VI. This “religious Test” prohibition does not allow for any exception related to Amendment I of the Constitution. Islamist would contend that Sharia Law is necessary for “free exercise” of their religion. However, Article VI clearly states, “…This Constitution and the Laws of the United states … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; …any Thing (Sharia Law in this situation) in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Unconstitutional Sharia Law
Unconstitutional Sharia Law is also incompatible with the mores of our culture.
Finally, implementation of unconstitutional Sharia Law is a part of a plan, “civilization Jihad,” designed to convert western cultures into Islamic cultures. The mission statement of this plan follows:
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers (Christians and Jews) so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
This plan must be thwarted throughout the United States.
Clearly, unconstitutional Sharia Law is incompatible with our “rule of Law,” cultural mores, and societal norms and should not be allowed under any circumstances anywhere in the United States of America or our territories.
BREAKING: Wikileaks Posts 137 Documents on Kamala Harris Hours After She Is Named Joe Biden’s Running Mate
By Jim Hoft
Published August 11, 2020 at 8:48pm
Joe Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice President nominee.
Politico reported:
Joe Biden has selected Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, elevating a charismatic blue-state senator, former prosecutor and onetime 2020 primary rival who has built a reputation as an unyielding antagonist of the Trump administration.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job. Her experience as a battle-tested presidential contender, her efforts leading major law enforcement offices and her political track record of three election wins in California helped her overcome a crowded list of contenders.
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TRENDING: California Black Lives Matter Leader Charged with Five Felonies, Faces 15 Years in Prison (VIDEO)
Biden also made the announcement on his official Twitter account.
Hours after today’s announcement Wikileaks released 137 documents on Kamala Harris.
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Via Jack Posobiec.
Wikileaks published their list on Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Fact check: President Pelosi? No, House speaker wouldn't assume role amid
election delay
Ella Lee USA TODAY Claim: Nancy Pelosi would become president Jan. 20 if the
election were delayed. When President Donald Trump tweeted July 30 about his
qualms with mail-in voting and suggested that perhaps the 2020 general election
should be delayed, citing a need to “properly, securely and safely vote,” there
was a panicked response. Under the Constitution, a president does not have the
power to change an election date; that’s Congress’ call. But if Congress did
choose to push Election Day into 2021 and past the constitutionally mandated
Inauguration Day, who would take office on Jan. 20? “President Pelosi” quickly
trended on Twitter and screenshots of those tweets were shared on other social
media platforms in response to the widespread claim that Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi would be next in line to take office on Jan. 20 if there had not
yet been a vote. More:Fact check: Federal agents in Portland are not mercenaries
provided by Erik Prince “If the president doesn’t get re-elected or vacate by
Inauguration Day (1/20/21), the Speaker of the House would serve as acting
president. That means President Nancy Pelosi,” reads tweet, a screenshot of
which was later posted on Instagram. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., wears
a face mask as she arrives to speak at a news conference on Capitol Hill in
Washington, Friday, June 26, 2020. “Correct me if I’m wrong but if an election
gets delayed doesn’t the Speaker of the House become interim president at the
end of the incumbent’s term? So Trump wants President Pelosi?” reads another
widely spread tweet, also shared via screenshot on Facebook. Some lawmakers
jumped in, too. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters that Pelosi would
become president if the election were delayed past Jan. 20. More:Trump doubles
down on mail-in voting concerns, warns of 'greatest election disaster in
history' Trump, Pence and Pelosi would leave office if no federal election
occurred The 20th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the terms of the
president and vice president end at noon Jan. 20. If an election had not taken
place by that date and successors had not been chosen, Trump and Vice President
Mike Pence would be out of office, regardless. Behind the vice president in the
presidential succession, as determined by the Presidential Succession Act of
1947, is the speaker of the House. It makes sense to assume she’d then take the
role of president, but that assumption ignores two important points: Pelosi is
also up for reelection in 2020, and the Constitution puts an end date on the
terms of members, too. Congressional terms end, too The 20th Amendment says
terms of senators and representatives end at noon Jan. 3. If a federal election
were delayed, then no vote would take place to reelect or remove Pelosi from
office. She, too, would have to step down from her position. In this case, the
president pro tempore of the Senate – next in line – would assume office as
president. Currently, that person is Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. But there’s
more. If no federal election took place, Pelosi wouldn’t be the only member of
Congress to leave office. There are 35 senators up for re-election – 22
Republicans – and if they were all removed without any successors, the
100-member Senate would just have 65 members, with Democrats in the majority.
Not sure if you’re registered to vote?:Check your status Because of that, those
senators could technically then choose a new Senate president pro tempore, and
thus, the president. Republicans might be able to maintain their hold on the
Senate thereafter, though. A Congressional Research Service report, “Continuity
of Government,” says that in the case of a Senate vacancy, depending on state
law, governors may make a temporary appointment until an election can be held.
That means vacant seats formerly held by Democrats could be filled by
Republicans, or vice versa, depending on a governor's pick. Fact check:
Coronavirus deaths surpass combined battle fatalities in several US wars Fact
check: Low body fat, healthy lifestyle do not prevent COVID-19 Fact check: Fauci
warned Trump administration in 2017 of surprise infectious disease outbreak Fact
check: Expanded COVID-19 testing shows more cases, doesn't cause high positivity
rate In the case of vacancies in the House, governors can issue a writ of
election to fill those vacancies, according to the report. Election is unlikely
to be delayed Regardless, a delay is extremely unlikely, as politicians on both
sides of the aisle have spoken out against the idea. "Never in the history of
the country, through wars and depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not
had a federally scheduled election on time, and we'll find a way to do that
again this November 3," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told local
Kentucky TV station WNKY Thursday. Story from Rocket Mortgage® Changing the
course for Detroit residents: How this local event will support change Bringing
connectivity to all residents, regardless of economic status. Our rating: False
We rate the claim that Nancy Pelosi would become president should the 2020
election be postponed as FALSE because it was not supported by our research.
Pelosi’s term ends Jan. 3, and if no federal election takes place, she would
have to leave office, just like the president and vice president. That would
mean the president pro tempore of the Senate would assume office. Currently,
that is Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, though a downsized Senate may swing in
favor of Democrats, presenting them the opportunity to elect a new president pro
tempore. Our fact check sources: USA TODAY, "Trump floats delaying election over
mail-in voting, legal experts say that power rests with Congress" Twitter
search, "President Pelosi" Tweet by USA TODAY reporter Nicholas Wu 20th
amendment to the U.S. Constitution United States Senate, Presidential Succession
Act USA.gov, "Order of Presidential Succession" Axios, "These Senate seats are
up for election in 2020" WUSA 9, "VERIFY: No, Nancy Pelosi would not become
president on Jan. 20 if Congress delayed federal elections. Here's why,
according to a legal expert" CRS Report for Congress, "Continuity of Government"
Tweet from WKNY reporter Max Winitz
7 Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
Evidence for human interference with Earth’s climate continues to accumulate
By John Rennie on November 30, 2009
7 Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
Credit: Alison Seiffer
In Brief
Naysayers of climate change, including members of Congress and President Donald Trump, often use weak and long-disproved arguments about alleged holes in the science behind global warming.
Human activity is by far the largest source of carbon dioxide pumping into the atmosphere. The almost universal consensus among climate scientists is that this contribution is heating the planet and will have undeniable, adverse impacts on all ecosystems on Earth.
No other explanation—not solar variations or a giant global conspiracy orchestrated by scientists—can account entirely for the fact that the planet is warming and CO2 from human activity is the cause. Multiple lines of evidence, from ice cores to tree rings, support this conclusion.
President Donald Trump has consistently opposed fighting climate change. His administration loosened fuel economy and emissions standards for new motor vehicles, for example—a measure that automakers had not even requested. He replaced the Clean Power Plan championed by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, with new regulations that permit more carbon emissions from coal- and gas-burning power plants. In November 2019 he even initiated the year-long process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accords, an agreement that required nothing from its signatories except an unenforced pledge to help keep the rise in global temperatures below two degrees Celsius.
The reasoning behind those actions has been hard to pin down. Trump has repeatedly denounced global warming as a “hoax” and a Chinese plot to undermine U.S. manufacturing. But then, in a January 2019 press conference, Trump also said “nothing’s a hoax” about climate change. Many of those he had named to head various agencies, including Rick Perry at the Department of Energy and Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, questioned or denied the role of carbon dioxide in climate change. But when reporters have directly asked whether Trump believes global warming is real, White House press secretaries have skirted the question. It’s hard to tell whether his administration is skeptical about the scientific fact of the climate crisis or simply the urgency of doing anything about it.
Ambiguity has often been weaponized by those who prefer to call themselves “climate skeptics”—although they generally seem to be more dedicated to naysaying than to genuine skeptical inquiry. Not everyone who questions climate change science fits that description, of course: some people are genuinely unaware of the facts or honestly disagree about their interpretation. What distinguishes the true naysayers is their dedicated opposition to conceding that there is an actionable problem, often with long-disproved arguments about alleged weaknesses in the science of climate change.
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What follows is a partial list of the contrarians’ bad-faith arguments and some brief rebuttals of them.
CLAIM 1: Anthropogenic carbon dioxide can’t be changing climate, because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere and the amount produced by humans is dwarfed by the amount from volcanoes and other natural sources. Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas, so changes in CO2 are irrelevant.
Although carbon dioxide makes up only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, that small number plays a significant role in climate dynamics. Even at that low concentration, CO2 absorbs infrared radiation and acts as a greenhouse gas, as physicist John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859. Chemist Svante Arrhenius went further in 1896 by estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate; after painstaking hand calculations, he concluded that doubling its concentration might cause almost six degrees Celsius of warming—an answer not much out of line with recent, far more rigorous computations.
Forests remove atmospheric CO2 and offset the nonhuman releases of CO2. Human activity, combined with forest clearing (shown here), negates this process, however. Credit: Joel W. Rogers Getty Images
Contrary to the contrarians, human activity is by far the largest contributor to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. According to the Global Carbon Project, anthropogenic CO2 amounts to about 35 billion tons annually—more than 130 times as much as volcanoes produce. True, 95 percent of the releases of CO2 to the atmosphere are natural, but natural processes such as plant growth and absorption into the oceans pull the gas back out of the atmosphere and almost precisely offset them, leaving the human additions as a net surplus. Moreover, several sets of experimental measurements, including analyses of the shifting ratio of carbon isotopes in the air, further confirm that fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are the primary reasons that CO2 levels have risen 45 percent since 1832, from 284 parts per million (ppm) to 412 ppm—a remarkable jump to the highest levels seen in millions of years.
Contrarians frequently object that water vapor, not CO2, is the most abundant and powerful greenhouse gas; they insist that climate scientists routinely leave it out of their models. The latter is simply untrue: from Arrhenius on, climatologists have incorporated water vapor into their models. In fact, water vapor is why rising CO2 has such a big effect on climate. CO2 absorbs some wavelengths of infrared that water does not, so it independently adds heat to the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere and multiplies CO2’s greenhouse effect; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that water vapor may “approximately double the increase in the greenhouse effect due to the added CO2 alone.”
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Climate contrarians argue that variation in solar energy reaching the planet is behind global warming. But human influence has a measurably stronger effect on climate. Credit: NASA
Nevertheless, within this dynamic, the CO2 remains the main driver (what climatologists call a “forcing”) of the greenhouse effect. As NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt has explained, water vapor enters and leaves the atmosphere much more quickly than CO2 and tends to preserve a fairly constant level of relative humidity, which caps off its greenhouse effect. Climatologists therefore categorize water vapor as a feedback rather than a forcing factor. (Contrarians who don’t see water vapor in climate models are looking for it in the wrong place.)
Because of CO2’s inescapable greenhouse effect, contrarians holding out for a natural explanation for current global warming need to explain why, in their scenarios, CO2 is not compounding the problem.
CLAIM 2: The alleged “hockey stick” graph of temperatures over the past 1,600 years has been disproved. It doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of a “medieval warm period” around a.d. 1000 that was hotter than today is. Therefore, global warming is a myth.
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It is hard to know which is greater: contrarians’ overstatement of the flaws in the historical temperature reconstruction from 1998 by Michael E. Mann and his colleagues or the ultimate insignificance of their argument to the case for climate change.
First, there is not simply one hockey-stick reconstruction of historical temperatures using one set of proxy data. Similar evidence for sharply increasing temperatures over the past couple of centuries has turned up independently while looking at ice cores, tree rings and other proxies for direct measurements, from many locations. Notwithstanding their differences, they corroborate that the planet has been getting sharply warmer.
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A 2006 National Research Council review of the evidence concluded “with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries”—which is the section of the graph most relevant to current climate trends. The report placed less faith in the reconstructions back to a.d. 900, although it still viewed them as “plausible.” Medieval warm periods in Europe and Asia with temperatures comparable to those seen in the 20th century were therefore similarly plausible but might have been local phenomena: the report noted “the magnitude and geographic extent of the warmth are uncertain.” And a research paper by Mann and his colleagues seems to confirm that the Medieval Warm Period and the “Little Ice Age” between 1400 and 1700 were both caused by shifts in solar radiance and other natural factors that do not seem to be happening today.
After the NRC review was released, another analysis by four statisticians, called the Wegman report, which was not formally peer-reviewed, was more critical of the hockey-stick paper. But correction of the errors it pointed out did not substantially change the shape of the hockey-stick graph. In 2008 Mann and his colleagues issued an updated version of the temperature reconstruction that echoed their earlier findings.
But hypothetically, even if the hockey stick was busted ... What of it? The case for anthropogenic global warming originally came from studies of climate mechanics, not from reconstructions of past temperatures seeking a cause. Warnings about current warming trends came out years before Mann’s hockey-stick graph. Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does—and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead.
CLAIM 3: Global warming stopped in 1998; Earth has been cooling since then.
This contrarian argument might be the most obsolete and unintentionally hilarious. Here’s how it goes: 1998 was the world’s warmest year, according to the U.K. Met Office Hadley Center’s records; the following decade was cooler; therefore, the previous century’s global warming trend is over, right?
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Anyone with even a glancing familiarity with statistics should be able to spot the weaknesses of that argument. Given the extended duration of the warming trend, the expected (and observed) variations in the rate of increase and the range of uncertainties in the temperature measurements and forecasts, a decade’s worth of mild interruption is too small a deviation to prove a break in the pattern, climatologists say.
If a lull in global warming had continued for another decade, would that have vindicated the contrarians’ case? Not necessarily, because climate is complex. For instance, Mojib Latif, then at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany, and his colleagues published a paper in 2008 that suggested ocean-circulation patterns might cause a period of cooling in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, even though the long-term pattern of warming remained in effect. Fundamentally, contrarians who have resisted the abundant evidence that supports warming should not be too quick to leap on evidence that only hints at the opposite.
In any case, the claim that a “warming pause” disproved ongoing climate change became completely academic when 1998 stopped being the warmest year on record. That title now belongs to 2016, with 2019 right behind it. In fact, the past 15 years have included all 10 of the hottest years on record.
CLAIM 4: The sun or cosmic rays are much more likely the real causes of global warming. After all, Mars is warming up, too.
Astronomical phenomena are obvious natural factors to consider when trying to understand climate, particularly the brightness of the sun and details of Earth’s orbit because those seem to have been major drivers of the ice ages and other climate changes before the rise of industrial civilization. Climatologists, therefore, do take them into account in their models. But in defiance of the naysayers who want to chalk the recent warming up to natural cycles, there is insufficient evidence that enough extra solar energy is reaching our planet to account for the observed rise in global temperatures.
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The IPCC has noted that between 1750 and 2005, the radiative forcing from the sun increased by 0.12 watt per square meter—less than a tenth of the net forcings from human activities (1.6 W/ m2). The largest uncertainty in that comparison comes from the estimated effects of aerosols in the atmosphere, which can variously shade Earth or warm it. Even granting the maximum uncertainties to these estimates, however, the increase in human influence on climate exceeds that of any solar variation.
Moreover, remember that the effect of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases is to amplify the sun’s warming. Contrarians looking to pin global warming on the sun can’t simply point to any trend in solar radiance: they also need to quantify its effect and explain why CO2 does not consequently become an even more powerful driver of climate change. (And is what weakens the greenhouse effect a necessary consequence of the rising solar influence or an ad hoc corollary added to give the desired result?)
Contrarians therefore gravitated toward work by Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark, who argued that the sun’s influence on cosmic rays needed to be considered. Cosmic rays entering the atmosphere help to seed the formation of aerosols and clouds that reflect sunlight. In Svensmark’s theory, the high solar magnetic activity over the past 50 years shielded Earth from cosmic rays and allowed exceptional heating, but now that the sun is more magnetically quiet again, global warming would reverse. Svensmark claimed that, in his model, temperature changes correlate better with cosmic-ray levels and solar magnetic activity than with other greenhouse factors.
Svensmark’s theory failed to persuade most climatologists, however, because of weaknesses in its evidence. In particular, there do not seem to be clear long-term trends in the cosmic-ray influxes or in the clouds that they are supposed to form, and his model does not explain (as greenhouse explanations do) some of the observed patterns in how the world is getting warmer (such as that more of the warming occurs at night). For now, at least, cosmic rays remain a less plausible culprit in climate change.
And the apparent warming seen on Mars? Because it is based on a very small base of measurements, it may not represent a true trend. Too little is yet known about what governs the Martian climate to be sure, but a period when there was a darker surface might have increased the amount of absorbed sunlight and raised temperatures.
Elevated CO2 makes oceans acidic, which could have irreversible harmful effects on coral reefs, such as coral bleaching (shown here). Credit: Getty Images
CLAIM 5: Climatologists conspire to hide the truth about global warming by locking away their data. Their so-called consensus on global warming is scientifically irrelevant because science isn’t settled by popularity.
It is virtually impossible to disprove accusations of giant global conspiracies to those already convinced of them (can anyone prove that the Freemasons and the Roswell aliens aren’t involved, too?). Let it therefore be noted that the magnitude of this hypothetical conspiracy would need to encompass many thousands of uncontroversial publications and respected scientists from around the world, stretching back through Arrhenius and Tyndall for almost 150 years. A conspiracy would have to be so powerful that it has co-opted the official positions of dozens of scientific organizations, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.K.’s Royal Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics and the American Meteorological Society.
If there were a massive conspiracy to defraud the world on climate (and to what end?), surely the thousands of e-mails and other files stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in England and distributed by hackers in 2009 would bear proof of it. None did. Most of the few statements from those e-mails that critics claimed as evidence of malfeasance had more innocent explanations that make sense in the context of scientists conversing privately and informally. If any of the scientists involved manipulated data dishonestly or thwarted Freedom of Information requests, it would have been deplorable; however, there is no evidence that happened. What is missing is any clear indication of a widespread attempt to falsify and coordinate findings on a scale that could hold together a global cabal or significantly distort the record on climate change.
Climatologists are often frustrated by accusations that they are hiding data or the details of their models because, as NASA’s Schmidt points out, much of the relevant information is in public databases or otherwise accessible—a fact that contrarians conveniently ignore when insisting that scientists stonewall their requests. (And because nations differ in their rules on data confidentiality, scientists are not always at liberty to comply with some requests.) If contrarians want to deal a devastating blow to global warming theories, they should use the public data and develop their own credible models to demonstrate sound alternatives.
Yet that rarely occurs. In 2004 historian of science Naomi Oreskes published a landmark analysis of the peer-reviewed literature on global warming, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” Out of 928 papers whose abstracts she surveyed, she wrote, 75 percent explicitly or implicitly supported anthropogenic global warming, 25 percent were methodological or otherwise took no position on the subject—and none argued for purely natural explanations. Notwithstanding some attempts to debunk Oreskes’s findings that eventually fell apart, her conclusion stands.
Oreskes’s work does not mean that all climate scientists agree about climate change—obviously, some do not (although they are very much a minority). Rather the meaningful consensus is not among the scientists but within the science: the overwhelming predominance of evidence for greenhouse-driven global warming that cannot easily be overturned even by a few contrary studies. (Oreskes currently is a columnist for Scientific American.)
CLAIM 6: Climatologists have a vested interest in raising the alarm because it brings them money and prestige.
If climate scientists are angling for more money by hyping fears of climate change, they are not doing so very effectively. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, between 1993 and 2014 federal spending on climate change research, technology, international assistance and adaptation rose from $2.4 billion to $11.6 billion. (An additional $26.1 billion was also allocated to climate change programs and activities by the economic stimulus package of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. Total federal nondefense spending on research in 2014 exceeded $65 billion.) Yet the scientific research share of that money fell sharply throughout that period: most of the budgeted money went to energy-conservation projects and other technology programs. Climatologists’ funding therefore stayed almost flat, whereas others, including those in industry, benefited handsomely. Surely the Freemasons could do better than that.
CLAIM 7: Technological fixes, such as inventing energy sources that don’t produce CO2 or geoengineering the climate, would be more affordable, prudent ways to address climate change than reducing our carbon footprint.
Critics of standard policy responses to climate change have often seemed to imply that environmentalists are obsessed with regulatory reductions in CO2 emissions and uninterested in technological solutions. That interpretation is at best bizarre: such innovations in energy efficiency, conservation and production are exactly what caps or levies on CO2 are meant to encourage.
The relevant question is whether it is prudent for civilization to defer curbing or reducing its CO2 output before such technologies are ready and can be deployed at the needed scale. The most common conclusion is no. Remember that as long as CO2 levels are elevated, additional heat will be pumped into the atmosphere and oceans, extending and worsening the climate consequences. As climatologist James Hansen of the Earth Institute at Columbia University has pointed out, even if current CO2 levels could be stabilized overnight, surface temperatures would continue to rise by 0.5 degree C over the next few decades because of absorbed heat being released from the ocean. The longer we wait for technology alone to reduce CO2, the faster we will need for those solutions to pull CO2 out of the air to minimize the warming problems. Minimizing the scope of the challenge by restricting the accumulation of CO2 only makes sense.
Moreover, climate change is not the only environmental crisis posed by elevated CO2: it also makes the oceans acidic, which could have irreversibly harmful effects on coral reefs and other marine life. Only the immediate mitigation of CO2 release can contain those losses.
Much has already been written on why schemes for geoengineering—altering Earth’s climate systems by design—seem ill advised except as a desperate last-chance strategy for dealing with climate change. The more ambitious proposals involve largely untested technologies, so it is unclear how well they would achieve their desired purpose; even if they did curb warming, they might cause other significant environmental problems in the process. Methods that did not remove CO2 from the air would have to be maintained in perpetuity to prevent drastic rebound warming. And the governance of the geoengineering system could become a political minefield, with nations disagreeing about what the optimal climate settings should be. And of course, as with any of the other technological solutions, reducing the emission and accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere first would only make any geoengineering solution easier.
All in all, counting on future technological developments to solve climate change rather than engaging with the problem straightforwardly by all available means, including regulatory ones, seems like the height of irresponsibility. But then again, responsible action on climate change is what the contrarians seem most interested in denying.
Rights & Permissions
MORE TO EXPLORE
Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing over the Past Six Centuries. Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes in Nature, Vol. 392, pages 779–787; April 23, 1998.
Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Working Groups I, II and III of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014. Available at www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr
The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Matters. James L. Powell in Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, Vol. 36, No. 3; 2016. Published online May 24, 2017.
HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD
YOU MIGHT WANNA READ THIS !!!!
Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts.
Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes.
Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION message was removed.
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. His promises are in black, with updates in red.
1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary [No longer voluntary],
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program [Now 7.65% on the first $90,000, and 15% on the first $90,000 if you’re self-employed],
3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year [No longer tax deductible],
4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program [Under Johnson the money was moved to the General Fund and Spent], and
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income [Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed].
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following:
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US
AND MY FAVORITE:
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
Now, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it! If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, though. Some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so — but it’s worth a try.
Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.
Trump WINS: Thread explains why everything Trump did with COVID relief orders is legal and sorry, NOT SORRY, Democrats
Posted at 9:15 am on August 9, 2020 by Sam J.
Imagine suing Trump for literally taking care of Americans … not a great look, Democrats.
And while many are questioning whether or not what Trump did is legal or constitutional, this thread lays out a pretty decent case for why everything he did will stand.
We’re reminded of the time Harry Reid nuked the filibuster. Democrats (and wannabe Democrats like John Kasich) never think beyond the time when they have power. They literally made it possible for Trump to politically decimate Democrats yesterday.
Which makes it even more delicious.
Keep going.
And gosh, it’s a federal disaster right now, yes?
Trending
'Welcome to the SHOW!' Sean Spicier triggers HORDE of butthurt tweeting about Biden's VP pick, Chicago looters, Gettysburg, and more
Madison Cawthorn: 'I don't cower to the mob'
Those inconvenient laws and stuff.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Trump wins.
And from Nancy Pelosi’s reaction, you can see she knows it as well as we do.
Who knew? Bubba did something right.
Heh.
Huge! Trump White House Implements Executive
Order On Online Censorship: Prevents Tech Giants From Altering Users’
Free Speech – Demands Transparency Of Moderation Practices
This Is Big!
(Gateway Pundit) – On Wednesday Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s
Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook testified before
Congress in the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.
Since 2016 and the election of Donald Trump the tech giants have been
censoring and banning conservative voices online. The Gateway Pundit
has been a huge target of these liberal tech giants.
Of course, the CEOs dismissed allegations that they are targeting and
censoring conservative users despite ALL of the evidence to the
contrary.
Now This…
On Wednesday afternoon the Trump White House published their
executive order on online censorship. The EO prevents social media
giants from altering or editorializing free speech.
The executive order also demands the social media giants provide transparency requirements for their moderation practices!
More…
Via The Trump White House:
On Monday, the Department of Commerce, as directed by
President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on Preventing Online
Censorship, filed a petition to clarify the scope of Section 230 of the
1996 Communications Decency Act. The petition requests that the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) clarify that Section 230 does not permit
social media companies that alter or editorialize users’ speech to
escape civil liability. The petition also requests that the FCC clarify
when an online platform curates content in “good faith,” and requests
transparency requirements on their moderation practices, similar to
requirements imposed on broadband service providers under Title I of the
Communications Act. President Trump will continue to fight back against
unfair, un-American, and politically biased censorship of Americans
online.
A recent United Nations report
warns that the raw materials used in electric car batteries are highly
concentrated in a small number of countries where environmental and
labour regulations are weak or non-existent. Thus, battery production
for EVs is driving a boom in small-scale or “artisanal” cobalt
production in the Democratic Republic of Congo which supplies two thirds
of global output of the mineral. These artisanal mines, which account
for up to a quarter of the country’s production, have been found to be dangerous and employ child labour.
Mindful of what the image of children scrabbling for hand-dug
minerals in Africa can do to high tech’s clean and green image, most
tech and auto companies using cobalt and other toxic heavy metals avoid
direct sourcing from mines. Tesla Inc.
TSLA-3.1%struck a deal last month
with Swiss-based Glencore Plc to buy as much as 6,000 tons of cobalt
annually from the latter’s Congolese mines. While Tesla has said it aims
to remove reputational risks associated with sourcing minerals from
countries such as the DRC where corruption is rampant, Glencore assures
buyers that no hand-dug cobalt is treated at its mechanized mines.
PROMOTED
There are 7.2 million battery EVs
or about 1% of the total vehicle fleet today. To get an idea of the
scale of mining for raw materials involved in replacing the world’s
gasoline and diesel-fueled cars with EVs, we can take the example of the
UK as provided by Michael Kelly,
the Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of
Cambridge. According to Professor Kelly, if we replace all of the UK
vehicle fleet with EVs, assuming they use the most resource-frugal
next-generation batteries, we would need the following materials: about
twice the annual global production of cobalt; three quarters of the
world’s production lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world production
of neodymium; and more than half the world’s production of copper in
2018.
And this is just for the UK. Professor Kelly estimates that if we
want the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles, the vast
increases in the supply of the raw materials listed above would go far
beyond known reserves. The environmental and social impact of
vastly-expanded mining for these materials — some of which are highly
toxic when mined, transported and processed – in countries afflicted by
corruption and poor human rights records can only be imagined. The clean
and green image of EVs stands in stark contrast to the realities of
manufacturing batteries. Zero Emissions and All That
Proponents of EVs might counter by saying that despite these evident
environmental and social problems associated with mining in many third
world countries, the case remains that EVs help reduce carbon dioxide
emissions associated with the internal combustion engines run on
gasoline and diesel fuels. According to the reigning climate change
narrative, it is after all carbon dioxide emissions that are threatening
environmental catastrophe on a global scale. For the sake of saving the
world, the climate crusaders of the richer nations might be willing to
ignore the local pollution and human rights violations involved in
mining for minerals and rare earths in Africa, China, Latin America and
elsewhere.
While one might question the inherent inequity in imposing such a
trade-off, the supposed advantages of EVs in emitting lower carbon
emissions are overstated according to a peer-reviewed life-cycle study comparing conventional and electric vehicles.
To begin with, about half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an
electric car come from the energy used to produce the car, especially
in the mining and processing of raw materials needed for the battery.
This compares unfavorably with the manufacture of a gasoline-powered car
which accounts for 17% of the car’s lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions.
When a new EV appears in the show-room, it has already caused 30,000
pounds of carbon-dioxide emission. The equivalent amount for
manufacturing a conventional car is 14,000 pounds.
Once on the road, the carbon dioxide emissions of EVs depends on the
power-generation fuel used to recharge its battery. If it comes mostly
from coal-fired power plants, it will lead to about 15 ounces of
carbon-dioxide for every mile it is driven—three ounces more than a
similar gasoline-powered car. Even without reference to the source of
electricity used for battery charging, if an EV is driven 50,000 miles
over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means
the EV will actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere
than a similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of
miles. Even if the EV is driven for 90,000 miles and the battery is
charged by cleaner natural-gas fueled power stations, it will cause just
24% less carbon-dioxide emission than a gasoline-powered car. As the
skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg puts it, “This is a far cry from ‘zero emissions’".
As most ordinary people mindful of keeping within modest budgets
choose affordable gasoline or diesel-powered cars, experts and policy
advisors the world over have felt compelled to tilt the playing field in
favor of EVs. EV subsidies are regressive: given their high upfront
cost, EVs are only affordable for high-income households. It is
egregious that EV subsides are funded by the average tax-payer so that
the rich can buy their EVs at subsidized prices.
The determination not to know or to look away when the facts assail our beliefs is an enduring frailty of human nature. The tendency towards group think and confirmation bias,
and the will to affirm the “scientific consensus” and marginalize
sceptics, are rife in considerations by the so-called experts committed
to advocating their favorite cause. In the case of EVs, the dirty
secrets of “clean energy” should seem apparent to all but, alas, there
are none so blind as those who will not see.
This Is Big!
