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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Friday, August 31, 2018

The John McCain Myth

Who Really Started the Trump-McCain Feud? Brian C. Joondeph

To the media, this feud is totally one-sided. In reality, it was Trump minding his own business, trying to run a winning campaign, something McCain found challenging, when McCain called him and his supporters "crazy."...........

McCain’s treatment of the MIA issue Stu Tarlowe

At Thursday’s memorial service for John McCain, former Vice-President Joe Biden delivered a lengthy eulogy, one that is being praised for its heartfelt emotion and (like McCain himself) for its non-partisanship. I’m sorry, but just about anything uttered by Joe Biden sends the needle on my Bravo Sierra meter edging toward the red zone; I find the man a study in disingenuousness. In this case, the needle swung widely on this particular sentence: “He loved basic values, fairness, honesty, dignity, respect, giving hate no safe harbor, leaving no one behind and understanding Americans were part of something much bigger than ourselves.” And the phrase that really made my ears perk up, and pegged the needle on the BS meter, was the one about “leaving no one behind”............
 
Did Sarah Palin really deserve that?  By Monica Showalter

I can't think of anything more spiteful or "mean-spirited" than the exclusion of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin from the funeral of the late Sen. John McCain.

According to Breitbart News, not only was she not asked to come to any of the numerous McCain events where she could have been present, but she was actually asked to stay away.

Since the Breitbart report, the McCain camp has backtracked a bit and now says Sarah would not be bounced by the security guard at the door if she actually came. According to People Magazine, the exclusion of this woman, who was so significant in the career of John McCain, was the decision of Cindy McCain, not John McCain. But its sourcing was anonymous, and that sounds like a possible attempt to paper over a public relations disaster, which would tell us that that is what it is, a black mark on McCain, who, up until now, has been drawing a lot of praise......

Judicial Watch Obtains IRS Documents Revealing McCain’s Subcommittee Staff Director Urged IRS to Engage in “Financially Ruinous” Targeting

Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.”  Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, former IRS director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.

Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”

In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, Nikole Flax, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”...................

The McCain Guest List! Do You Really Care? Does it Really Matter?

By Rich Kozlovich

Yesterday   posted this article, "Top 2008 campaign aides shut out of McCain funeral" saying:
"Campaign manager Steve Schmidt, senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, and longtime strategist John Weaver were snubbed, as was former running mate Sarah Palin.  John McCain’s funeral will spotlight some of the late senator’s political rivals – but some of his closest campaign aides are being excluded from the proceedings.   Three of the most prominent members of his 2008 presidential campaign – campaign manager Steve Schmidt, senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, and longtime strategist John Weaver — were not invited to any of McCain’s services, according to three people familiar with the guest list."
My 93 year old mother uses a phrase I think fits this story: "This falls under the category of who gives a s..."!    And I agree! 

The author missed the real significance of all of this.  The real story about these former aides isn't who was invited, who was left out, who was told not to come, what they did, what they said to whom or about what.  The real story about these three former uninvited campaign aides is this:
"All three former McCain advisers are now affiliated with MSNBC."
Because the real story is about the actual character of John McCain!

Are we're to believe McCain hired people to get him elected President of the United States whose personal political views were philosophically antithetical to his own?  This is the real story, and this was the real McCain, and the real reason he lost the election.    People seem to forget it was reported an estimated  five to six million conservatives absolutely refused to vote for him.  Why?  Conservatives knew him for who he really was, and the rest of the country isn't Arizona. 

I'm willing to acknowledge hero status for his service, irrespective of all the counter claims, but having once been a hero doesn't give someone a pass on the rest of life.  And for most of his life I found him to be corrupt (Try the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal, where the Phoenix New Times referred to him as the McCain: The Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five), vindictive, (Did Sarah Palin really deserve that, a must read article by Monica Showalter.) ungrateful, self serving, deceptive and untrustworthy, and many of those who are slobbering all over themselves to praise him now felt the same way, on both sides of the aisle.  Many of those who vilified him during his political career are now vilifying Trump for not slobbering over himself as they've done.  What they should be doing is praising Trump for being gracious about a man he most likely despised.

Trump saying, "My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain.  Our hearts and prayers are with you!", wasn't enough.  Flying the flag at half staff according the the protocol of the "1954 proclamation by then President Eisenhower" wasn't enough.    Not showing up at the funeral in spite of McCain's request he not attend wasn't the right thing to do.

It's clear no matter what Trump did it wasn't going to be enough to appease these hypocrites. 

Slobbering and absolute obeisance to the, "John McCain was the greatest American to have ever lived myth", was now called for, and demanded by these hypocrites.  And make no mistake about this - if he had done that they would have gleefully called him a hypocrite and would have claimed that was proof he wasn't worthy of the Presidency. 

The hypocrisy by the media and political cowards over McCain's life and death is gaggable, and now he will pass off into history - and I hope everyone will remember I said this.  The circus has left town, and history will not be kind to John McCain!   Not any more than it's been kind to Ted Kennedy. 

Another "lion" of the Senate.

One more thing.  Who started the war between McCain and Trump?

Who Really Started the Trump-McCain Feud?

By Brian C. Joondeph August 31, 2018

With Senator John McCain's recent passing, the Trump-McCain feud has heated up. It's really a manufactured kerfuffle, as one party is saying little, and the other party has departed from the living, no longer able to participate in the feud, except posthumously via the media. Leave it to the media to resurrect the controversy between the late senator and the U.S. president as a means of bashing President Trump, whom the media detest. It is also a distraction from the stock market breaking records left and right, a new and better trade deal with Mexico, a country that the media constantly tell us hates Trump and won't do business with him, Bruce Ohr's congressional testimony, and other news the media would prefer to ignore..............Read more

When is it time for a scientist to call out peers over questionable research?

Ingfei Chen | | August 30, 2018

retracted 8 13 18 2


















Recently, I received an email from a wildlife researcher — I’ll use the pseudonym Scientist A — who wanted to anonymously seek advice on a professional quandary. This researcher believes that two colleagues are presenting data on a controversial wildlife species in a misleading way. The dataset now spans roughly four decades, but when the method for counting the critters changed in the 1990s, the population census leapt by an unprecedented amount.

While Scientist A says the switch in survey methodology created the illusion of a spike in the animal’s population growth, the colleagues — whom we’ll refer to as Scientists B and C — portrayed the increase as a biological reality.

Scientist A further notes that although their older research reports clearly mentioned the shift to the newer census method, the more recent studies by Scientists B and C haven’t acknowledged it.

That includes a new report this year that ignored other published work pointing out the importance of the change in methods. As a result, Scientist A is now pondering whether the right move is to write another commentary and continue discussing the issue publicly in the literature — or demand retraction of recent papers by Scientists B and C. “Is this a case for scientific debate,” Scientist A wondered in the email message, “or a case of misconduct?”..........To Read More.....




The misguided Affordable Clean Energy rule

Why is the US EPA still determined to control plant food and drive up electricity prices?

Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris

On August 29, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release “EPA Acting Administrator tours Ohio to promote ACE rule,” his proposed Affordable Clean Energy rule.

According to the release, the Trump Administration’s proposed rule will “replace the Clean Power Plan [CPP] and establish emission guidelines for [U.S.] states to develop plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

But the new rule is still misguided. Like the CPP, it is based on the mistaken idea that human activities, and particularly our industries and electricity generators, are causing dangerous global warming.

In reality, increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the only gas restricted by both the ACE and the CPP, is bringing huge benefits across the terrestrial biosphere. CO2 is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis. The last thing we should be doing is trying to reduce this “plant food.” So why is it that, even under President Trump, the EPA still finds it necessary to restrict CO2 emissions? Let’s review a bit of history. To increase government control over the economy, the Obama White House strongly supported the climate scare: the unfounded crusade to restrict CO2 emissions. The impact was and would be profoundly harmful. As MIT atmospheric meteorologist Richard Lindzen has said, “Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream. If you control carbon, you control life.”

Obama achieved his goals using the “deep state” – influential, unelected, decision-making, unaccountable government bureaucrats, whose policies and long-term goals are mostly unaffected by changes in elected officials. In particular, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was central to his administration’s control of carbon in the form of CO2.

Obama knew he could not get the Paris Agreement on climate change through the Senate because – just before the rest of the world adopted the UN’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol in Japan – the Senate unanimously passed the Byrd/Hagel Resolution. This resolution stated that the United States should not be a signatory to any agreement that did not hold developing countries to similar targets as developed nations. In particular, the document said in part: Resolved, that it is the sense of the Senate that –

(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would – 
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period The Paris Agreement does indeed have very different targets for developing and developed countries. So Obama asserted that Paris should not be considered a “treaty,” and so would not require Senate approval.
To get “rulings” that seemed to legitimize the EPA’s control over CO2 without going through Congress, Obama exploited a growing problem with the Constitutional balance of powers: the increasing tendency of the Judicial Branch to rule from the bench and make decisions that were properly Legislative Branch responsibilities. The The EPA website explains   how it was able to bypass Congress and control CO2: gases
On April 2, 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gasesgases [including CO2] are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The Court held that the [EPA] Administrator must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare, or whether the science is too uncertain to make a reasoned decision.
Predictably, on December 7, 2009, the EPA issued its “Endangerment Finding” that GHG emissions did indeed threaten health, asserting:
The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) – in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
and:
The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution which threatens public health and welfare.
This is the flawed driver, the faulty reasoning, that underlies both the CPP and the ACE. Ironically, under the EPA definition of “air pollutant,” EPA could even include oxygen because it causes rust.

It is likely that the EPA colluded with the State of Massachusetts to get it to sue the EPA in support of designating GHGs as pollutants. In effect, the state claimed that the EPA was endangering the lives of its citizens by failing to control “harmful” CO2.

The trial transcript strongly suggests that EPA deliberately lost the final Supreme Court case. If it had properly defended itself, the case would have exposed all the lies and misinformation already pedaled to convince the public that dangerous human-caused global warming is a proven scientific fact.

The trouble is, most people think about this case in the context of criminal or civil law. In fact, and this is central to the problems created by unaccountable bureaucrats, it was adjudicated under Administrative Law  (AL), a third component of the U.S. legal system.

Created just after World War II, AL allows groups and individuals to bypass the Constitution and Congress. It gives direct, unaccountable power to technocrats, subject matter experts who are members of highly skilled elite groups. The creation of AL speaks to the failure of the political class, but also to the manipulative power of technocrats and technocracy.

It was created because too many politicians cannot understand science and technology. They are afraid of making a mistake and exposing their ignorance, which would jeopardize their political careers. Instead of creating legislation that enables them to get information in ways they can understand, they give nearly complete control of issues involving science and technology to scientists, specialists and technologists. Here is what the Administrative Law does,
The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the US federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing and securities markets.
Simply put, if legislators can’t decide these matters in the first place, they won’t know if what the experts are telling them is the truth, or an exaggeration, manipulation or fabrication.

Justice Scalia summarized the situation when the case came before the Supreme Court in 2007:
The Court’s alarm over global warming may or may not be justified, but it ought not distort the outcome of this litigation. This is a straightforward administrative-law case, in which Congress has passed a malleable statute giving broad discretion, not to us but to an executive agency. No matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake, this Court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.  
As forceful and persuasive as Justice Scalia’s comments were were, (here is his dissent in full), there is one massive hole in them that illustrates what is wrong with AL, not only in this case, but in almost every case where it is the basis for judgment.

It was the EPA that determined that CO2 was a harmful substance. The Supreme Court is in the foolish position of effectively ruling that the EPA must control a harmful substance that the EPA decided, with little evidence, was a harmful substance.

No wonder so many bureaucrats take positions with technocrat groups after they leave government. They can guide the groups on how to get what they want without having to bribe politicians.

The EPA was the central agency for creating, perpetuating and applying the myth that that CO2 is a harmful substance that is causing runaway global warming. Its bureaucrats wrote and promoted the biggest deep state fake news story of all time. President Trump must continue to rein them in.

Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
                                           

Maine DOT denies request from PETA to put up memorial for lobsters killed in crash

by WGME August 30th 2018
 
The Maine Department of Transportation has denied a request from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to build a 5-foot tombstone memorial where lobsters may have died after a crash on Route 1 in Brunswick last week.  Brunswick Police say a Cozy Harbor Seafood truck, carrying nearly 70 crates of lobster, rolled over and crushed several of them.............. “Countless sensitive crustaceans experienced an agonizing death when this truck rolled over and their bodies came crashing down onto the highway" PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said. "PETA hopes to pay tribute to these individuals who didn't want to die with a memorial urging people to help prevent future suffering by keeping lobsters and all other animals off their plates." .......To Read More....

My Take - Sensitive crustaceans?  They left out tasty sensitive crustaceans! And how did the DOT respond? They denied their request because, "Route 1 in Brunswick is a “controlled-access highway,” which means they prohibit signs, and in this case a tombstone, because of safety concerns."

How about just telling PETA "no" because they're nuts?


Good riddance to Obama’s energy mistake

by , 0 Comments @ CFACT


In 2015, President Obama’s EPA released the final version of a rule they called the “Clean Power Plan.”

The “CPP” was a wrong-headed mistake, guaranteed to make American power more expensive while not meaningfully cleaning anything.

EPA is now working to rectify Obama’s CPP and has unveiled a replacement called the “Affordable Clean Energy” rule.

In promulgating the CPP, EPA indulged in severe bureaucratic overreach when it went beyond the authority granted it under the Clean Air Act and issued its infamous “endangerment finding,” through which it labeled CO2, the essential gas you just exhaled, a “pollutant.”

A Manhattan Institute study found that EPA overestimated the benefits of Obama’s CPP and underestimated its costs.  In reality there is no meaningful benefit at all.  The CPP would lower world temperature only 0.01 degrees Celsius by 2100 if EPA’s choice of climate modeling is accurate. Of course, such models never are!

Obama’s CPP was so egregious that no less than 27 states filed suit to block it, along with a host of others.  Even the generally reluctant Supreme Court weighed in and granted a nationwide “stay” blocking the CPP from taking effect!

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce posted seven ways they find the Affordable Clean Energy Rule to be better than Obama’s plan:
  • EPA doesn’t stray beyond the bounds of the Clean Air Act
  • States are truly in the driver’s seat
  • “Flexibility” isn’t just a tag line
  • New source review is addressed
  • Useful life considerations for coal plants are permitted
  • Emissions will continue to decline
  • Vastly improved regulatory process
The Chamber is correct that the Trump Administration’s new rule is a major improvement over Obama’s CPP. However, we believe EPA should go further and admit that its economy-wrecking CO2 “endangerment finding” was also in error, and then scrap that too!
The CPP recklessly limited America’s energy mix in ways certain to hurt consumers and industry.  CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen explains at The Hill:

Having diversified sources of power — natural gas, coal, nuclear, oil, hydroelectric and other renewables — has enabled the U.S. economy to avoid the perils of being overly dependent on one source of electricity. The CPP, by pushing utilities to shutter coal-fired power plants, seriously undermined that diversification and threatened the reliability of the grid.

EPA’s new approach empowers energy companies to use technology to solve America’s energy challenges.  That’s the kind of challenge the American economy is geared to meet.

China now emits more CO2 than the U.S. and E.U. combined, while America has led the world in reducing emissions as a result of its shale energy revolution.  Over the last two years China claimed to be reducing emissions for climate policy.  That was a lie.  Chinese emissions peaked when its economy temporarily declined.  Satellite images revealed that as soon as its economy picked back up, China went right back to building new coal plants.  Chinese coal use is set to increase four percent right away.

Restricting American coal, while China and India and others expand their use of it as quickly as their economies allow, is foolish — unless you think shifting even more manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia is a good thing.

EPA is doing the right thing by replacing Obama’s ill-conceived “Clean Power Plan” with a smarter “Affordable Clean Energy” rule.  While not perfect and improvements can still be made, it is clearly a step in the right direction.

About the Author: Craig Rucker - Craig Rucker is president and co-founder of CFACT.

Democrats have no idea what demons they are unleashing

Newt Gingrich

New York Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared on 'The Daily Show' with Trevor Noah and stood by her polarizing label of 'democratic socialist.'  A few weeks ago, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote an article for Vox explaining the movement’s goals – to end capitalism and radically change America.  In normal times, the declarations of a fringe party and ideology in America would not merit much attention. However, these are not normal times. A new Gallup poll shows that 57 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of socialism – while only 47 percent view capitalism positively..................So the Vox article (or manifesto) is worth taking seriously. Reading it, I was struck by how remarkably honest it was.

The writer, Meagan Day, a member of the East Bay Chapter of DSA, explicitly debunks the apologists in the mainstream media trying to paper over the group’s radicalism.   Day quotes several prominent news “analysts” who argue that Democratic Socialism is just New Deal liberalism rebranded. She then dumps a bucket of cold water on them, writing that “in the long run, Democratic Socialists want to end capitalism.”  In fact, she writes that the liberal, big-government reforms the movement has chosen to rally behind in partnership with the Democratic Party are simply steppingstones to this eventual goal............To Read More....

First Yellowstone-area grizzly hunt in 40 years blocked by federal judge

By Laura Zuckerman,

Contempt for America Is Normal on the Left

Dennis Prager

The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, did Americans a favor last week. He provided that which is most indispensable to understanding anything: clarity.  “America … was never that great,” he announced. In one sentence, the governor revealed the left’s true view of America. This is rare—because leftists are masters at hiding what they really believe.

For example, the left’s low regard for nonwhites is well-hidden under a mountain of “anti-racist” rhetoric. But people who consistently advocate lowering standards for blacks obviously do not think highly of blacks, and people who believe in separate black dorms and separate black graduation ceremonies obviously believe in a pillar of racism: racial segregation.

Another generally denied—if not hidden—left-wing belief is contempt for America. On a daily basis, the left describes America as xenophobic, misogynistic, imperialist, greedy, and homophobic. And that’s on a slow day at The New York Times, MSNBC, or your local university. Just last week, a New York Times column added “barbaric” to the left’s view of America.

But for some reason, the average American does not see all this as proof of the left’s contempt for America.  So, we have to rely on the occasional unguarded and unambiguous statement to know what the left really thinks...........Contempt for America is so central to leftism that there would be no leftism without it. Yet there remains an even more important question: Why?

Why does the left—not liberals, who traditionally revered America—have such disdain for America?

I will address this question in a future installment of this series explaining the left. America and the West cannot be saved unless those who cherish them understand what motivates those who wish to see them end..........To Read More.....

Robert Reich and the Tragedy of TDS

He has all the classic symptoms including verbal incontinence.

David Catron August 30, 2018
Robert Reich was once a proponent of the “Third Way,” a center-left governing philosophy that ostensibly embraced deregulation, privatization, smaller safety nets, and fiscal responsibility. He brought this theory of governance to Washington while serving as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, and was occasionally cited as a moderating influence on the Democratic Party. Since the 2016 presidential election, however, Reich has been brought low by Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). The symptoms of TDS include the inability to think rationally, as well as verbal incontinence. Reich exhibited both symptoms six days ago on Facebook, where he suggested annulling “Trump’s unconstitutional presidency.”


Thursday, August 30, 2018

Taking an Axe to 'Peace Processing'

By Shoshana Bryen August 29, 2018

The Trump administration has restored the United States to the position of honest broker – emphasis on "honest" – and taken a hatchet to a series of fantasies underlying the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian "peace process."  Twenty-five years after the Oslo Accords ushered in radical, despotic, kleptocratic Palestinian self-government, the Accords are dead. And that's good.
The new construct is as follows:
  • The U.S. is not neutral between Israel, America's democratic friend and ally, and the Palestinians, who are neither.
  • Everybody has a "narrative," a national story. Not everyone's narrative is factual. The U.S. will insist that there are facts, and that history – both ancient and modern – is real and knowable. ; The American government's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel is simply the acceptance of the truth of history. The city was the capital of the Jewish people and never, ever the seat of government for any other. In this assertion, the president was joined by many members of the U.S. House and Senate, irrespective of party – although some had more trouble saying so than others.
  • The U.S. will not pay for fraud, mismanagement, or support of terrorism by the Palestinians or the United Nations.  Repeat the comment about congressional support.
  • Neither will we fund two Palestinian governments simply because it is easier than figuring out what to do with Hamas and Fatah, who are fighting a civil war and agree on little besides the need for Israel's ultimate demise.  Repeat the comment about congressional support.
In the new game, the Palestinians have something to lose – the sine qua non of successful negotiations.............Read more

Feel the Bern: Will Trump invade Venezuela?

By Rich Kozlovich

I think President Trump realizes we're at the end of the Bretton Woods era, and there is absolutely no value in the U.S. invading Venezuela.  Here's a great article by Doug Bandow entitled "No, America Should Not Intervene Militarily in Venezuela", I think is worth viewing. 
 
Let's face it, we don't need their oil, we don't need their friendship, or the friendship of any of our neighbors to the South. Should we be concerned over the terrible suffering the people of Venezuela are going through? Of course! But why is it the responsibility of the U.S. to fix what they've brought on themselves?

This human disaster is a real expose of the morality of an international community that loves to criticize America.  As Antonio Mora states in his article,  Who’s Saving Venezuela? The U.S.? The UN? The Pope? No. But They Could. Here's How”
"The list of international players that have wrung their hands about Maduro’s tyranny, but failed to take effective action, is long and shameful. But they are far from powerless.........".  
"The violent repression, oppression, and human rights abuses by the Venezuelan government have become so commonplace and the Venezuelan people have become so despondent, little is seen as shocking anymore. In horrifying detail, she describes atrocities that include the rape of men and women, beatings, broken bones, psychological torture, starvation rations, and the withholding of medical treatment, including for malaria, a once-eradicated disease in Venezuela, but where 240,000 cases were documented last year."  
"Children are starving, people are dying of treatable illnesses because of a scarcity of medicines, and the regime has taken dozens of television and radio stations off the air."   
"But international dysfunction is such that their pleas to the world may be a waste of breath.​​"
The United Nations has done nothing.  Where is the condemnation from the UN Council on Human Rights?  Oh, wait, Venezuela is a member of that council, and who does the U.N. criticize?   UN goes after Ecuador and Peru over passports, not Maduro regime
"It was the United Nations that so conspicuously succored the Venezuelan regime, dating from the days when Hugo Chavez hooted on about the 'smell of sulfur' against President George Bush. Venezuela was awarded a seat on the United Nations Security Council as recently as 2014, and kid you not, has gotten awards from the UN about hunger alleviation. The UN gave Venezuela a position on its Human Rights Council. Hugo Chavez's billionaire daughter (wealth derived from looting the treasury), served as Venezuela's credentialed United Nations envoy. Why didn't the UN put the brakes on any of that? Why didn't they put Venezuela on the spot for that, leaning on them to clean up their home act?  
Is it any wonder the U.S. is withdrawing membership in that council and ending any funding to it? What is the Organization of American States doing?  They talk of suspending Venezuela's membership and adding sanctions.  Really?  Is that all? 
 
What about the Pope?  He's had a lot to say about America's "immoral" immigration policies and our "immorally" dumping the Paris Treaty on Climate Change, but we're being assured, the Pope has a plan for Venezuela and we just need to give it time to work.  After reading this piece of clabberous jabberwocky, can someone please tell me what that plan really is? 

Now we see how much compassion Venezuela's neighbors have for them as tens of thousands pour over their borders trying to escape the disaster created by the socialist government they loved. Now these countries are demanding they show passports. Passports they don't have and can't get because Venezuela farmed that duty out to Cuba, and Cuba isn't giving them out.

So why can't these South American countries just recognize them as refugees? Because this idea of open borders is dangerous, and now that it's happening to them they're declaring states of emergencies at their borders.

In some areas these refugees have caused so much trouble the local people drove them out. If an invasion is necessary to fix Venezuela, let the other nations of South America invade Venezuela! If the U.S. invaded we'd be condemned as imperialists interfering in a sovereign nation's affairs, and of course the charge will be that we're really not doing it for humanitarian reasons, it's because were greedy capitalists and want to steal their wealth.  But if we don't invade, our morality is called into question, and we'll hear how the richest country in the world is unconcerned about all this human suffering.

It's a no-win situation for the United States, except for one thing. If America stays home we don't waste American lives or money on Venezuela! So if we're going to be criticized no matter what we do.... let's make the choice of saving our men and our money. As for the claims of our lack of human compassion - that will pass. If we invade that will be an arrow shot at us forever, and by the very people demanding we do something, no matter how much good we may do.

Tell the South and Latin American countries that if they want Venezuela fixed to stop huffing and puffing and acting all self-righteous, and do it themselves. Put the burden of all of this on their shoulders.   If it takes an international effort, including invasion, to fix Venezuela then let the Union of South American Nations (USAN) take the lead.  However, to take that road means they are in fact condemning socialism. Let them take the road that condemns socialism, something they've all embraced in varying degrees over the decades, which is one of the reasons they're ambivalent to do anything.  If they do that it makes it difficult to justify their own levels of socialism, and difficult to criticize the United States.  And that goes for the Pope, and all these socialists thugs and thieves infesting the United Nations, and the OAS. 

All these entities have been willing to self-righteously criticize Venezuela from a distance, but now they have to do something directly to deal with this political crisis. But they won't, and if the USAN, the UN, the OAS and the Pope refuse to do anything, then let the suffering be on their heads.

Another reason the USAN won’t do anything is because the USAN is a mess. Of the 16 countries that make up South America, seven have either suspended or withdrawn their membership, and as far as I can tell there are only six active members.   As for taking action against Venezuela?  They couldn't even agree on who the Secretary General should be and at times the position went unfilled. And guess which country remains a member? Venezuela!

At some point all these groups are going to start begging the U.S. to do something. First, they'll demand and pontificate about how this is America's responsibility, which some are already doing. Then they'll try to shame us over our lack of humanitarian instincts ..... and then ..... they'll start begging, and when that happens they need to be told to shove it, grow up, stand on their hind legs and put their own house in order.

The people of Venezuela jumped on Chavez's socialist bandwagon when it was obvious who he was and what he was going to do.... and stupidly....... they loved it. Let them live with the consequences of that stupidity.

This is not America’s fight, or America’s responsibility!

Can you "Feel the Bern"?

Barnes & Noble CEO fired for allegedly standing behind secretary

By Ed Straker August 29, 2018
Sexual harassment is a real problem in the workplace.  At least, it used to be.  It's become so weaponized now that trivial complaints are being mixed in with the real thing.  That seems to be the case in the firing of Barnes & Noble CEO Demos Parneros.  He claimed he was fired on trumped up sexual harassment charges so Barnes & Noble could get rid of him without paying several millions in severance, and he's suing for defamation and breach of contract...............Read more

Boom! South Africa Withdraws Expropriation Of White-Owned Farms Bill After Trump Tweet

Largely because of the U.S. scrutiny, the ruling ANC party has withdrawn its plans to “redistribute” — i.e., seize and steal — farmland from whites.

Pamela Geller

For the past 10 years, GR has reported on the systematic racism and dehumanization of whites in South Africa. To speak of such things was heresy. And yet here we are — South Africa has made the news in recent weeks for its ruling party’s determination to strip farmland from white owners.  The White House has finally weighed in on the matter and President Donald Trump told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study the farm seizures...........To Read More......

My Take - This sounds impressive, and it is, but there's only one problem.  As the murders of white farmers continues it won't be long before there will be no white farmers left to expropriate the land from.   If the white population of South Africa wants to survive it has two options.  Move or fight!  But if appears they're not being allowed to move and they won't fight.  Guess what?  They're doomed. 

They can thank Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and the rest of the leftist cabal.

Viewpoint: Public’s support for Canadian neonicotinoid ban obscures bigger threats to bee health

Health Canada held a news conference to explain why it was banning neonicotinoid insecticides.

| | August 29, 2018

Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency proposed a three- to five-year “phase out” of two neonicotinoids: clothianidin, a Bayer product and thiamethoxam, a Syngenta insecticide.

The first question from the media was telling. “What took so long? We’ve heard, for years, about the effects of (these) pesticides on pollinators and other insects,” Eric Atkins of the Globe and Mail asked in a tone suggesting the federal government should have banned the insecticides years ago.

Questions like that illustrate the gap that exists between the general public’s opinion and the opinion many in the agriculture sector have about the harm caused by neonic pesticides ….To Read More....
 
My Take - This is another example of how the lunatic left has dominated the media and government in Canada.  As for them banning neonics....good!  That makes it better for American farmers.  Make no mistake about this - if Canada wasn't sitting right next to a nation that's been - from it's very begining - a natural capital generator and the biggest economy the world has ever known - it would be a third rate crap hole, just like Europe is fast working to become.  All of which will be good for the U.S. as it won't be long before companies will be moving here or coming back to the only stable economic and political entity that will soon be left in the world.  The U.S. 

The Bretton Woods era is over, and Canada will only survive because it next to the U.S. 

Temporary employees have permanent legal rights

By Jon Hyman Ohio Employer Law Blog

Temporary employees do not leave their legal rights at your door. In fact, they enjoy the same rights as your permanent employees.
 
Consider, for example, EEOC v. Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA, in which an employer recently agreed to pay $65,000 to settle claims brought by a temporary employee that she was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment and fired after repeatedly complaining about it.
 
The allegations are not pretty.
 
LaToya Young began working as a temp at Massimo Zanetti in late January 2015. Within 10 days of starting her placement, a male co-worker began making sexually harassing comments to her:
  • Telling Young that he had "blue balls" and asking her "Why don’t you help me out with that?
  • Telling Young that he wanted to "suck [her] bottom lip."
  • Telling Young that he wanted to have sex with her, often using lewd language.
  • Telling Young that he imagined himself engaging in sexual relations with her.
  • Telling Young that he would "ball [her] up like a pretzel" and would "have [her] screaming."
  • Grabbing his groin area while looking directly at her.
  • Blowing kisses at her.
  • Licking his lips and biting his bottom lip while looking at her.
Young complained three times to her supervisor. The harassment continued unabated after the first complaint. After the second complaint, Young alleges that her supervisor warned her that going to HR "would jeopardize her employment." After the third complaint, she was fired. 

According to EEOC Regional Attorney Kara Haden, "Employers must take appropriate action to stop harassment of all employees, including temporary workers." She adds, "We hope that this case sends a clear message that the EEOC will hold accountable employers who fail to protect all employees from workplace harassment."
 
Take heed of this lesson. Your temporary employees have the same civil rights as your permanent employees.

 Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Meyers Roman Friedberg & Lewis. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 831-0042, ext. 140 or jhyman@meyersroman.com.  Do you like what you read? Receive updates two different ways:
 
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More Marxism From John Ray

@ Dissecting Leftism

I have just put up on my Marx blog a new collection of "wisdom" from leading Marxists.  It makes clear that Leftist violence is thoroughy intentional and central to Leftism.  It is not at all the work of a radical "fringe" or "incidental" in some way.

Trump voters are all druggies

By John Ray @ Dissecting Leftism

That's how the more extreme media outlets will headline the latest piece of research in the medical journals.  Source (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.0450) But it aint so. A bit hard to know where to begin.  I probably should start by congratulating the authors on their quite humble conclusions.  They say nothing like my headline above.  But, as Churchill said of Clement Attlee, they have much to be humble about.

They know and admit that their data is what statisticians call "ecological" (group based) but fail to mention that the correlations emerging from such data are usually much higher than what emerges in correlations using individual data.  So their results are a poor guide to what individuals do.

And the fact that they had individual data but did not use it suggests that all relationships in the individual data were negligible, meaning that there was NO tendency for Trump voters to overuse prescription opiods.  That is a highly critical interpretation but, in view of the revelations inspired by Ioannidis, that is actually a conservative conclusion.  What Ioannidis showed can be summarized simply as "Medical researchers are crooks".  Sad.  And when an opportunity to bash Trump offers itself, the temptation to cheat could well be overwhelming.

But let me be charitable and assume that all the work was honestly done and all the relevant findings were reported.  The big issue then with the research is the problem of control.  Why was there greater use of prescription opioids in counties where the voters favoured Trump? The obvious explanation would be that Trump voters are poor and are tired of being looked down on by leading Democrats, who used to represent them (See Hillary's "deplorables"). So was that examined in the present study?

They made a good attempt at it and did find that socioeconomic variables explained two thirds of the relationship between Trump-voting and prescription opioid use.  But they apparently had no data on income so they used rough proxies of it.  Much error could flow from that. Better income data might have shown that opioid use was irrelevant and all the Trump voting could have been accounted for by income.  I doubt that it was but the present research cannot exclude it.

On a technical note, they based their analysis on quintiles -- a common but disreputable technique.  Why group your data when you can use it individually?  I am afraid that the usual reason is that there is no overall relationship in the data. You can show a relationship only by throwing away three fifths of it.  Sad.

Finally, let me point out that, even if we accept their findings, there are many possible interpretations of them.  One that occurs to me is that Obamacare has made it more difficult for poor people  to get treated for their ailments (overcrowded waiting rooms, doctors not taking welfare patients, doctors quitting medicine to go and play golf rather than spend half their day on paperwork etc.) and they blame that on the architects of Obamacare -- the Democrats. So Mr Trump's talk of dumping Obamacare would be attractive

And prescription opioids are only half the story  It could be that the poor mainly use doctors to get their fix.  Because of being poor, they cannot afford to buy from street dealers.  So the Trump voters were actually more law abiding.  I think Mr Trump might like that interpretation.

Pittsburgh now the largest major city without a daily newspaper

By Rick Moran August 28, 2018

One of the oldest newspapers in the country told its readers that it is cutting its production schedule from seven days a week to five. The 232-year-old Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will still post a digital edition of the paper but will no longer publish a print edition every day. This means that Pittsburgh will become the largest city in the nation without a daily newspaper.

The Hill:
"It's the year 2018, and with the way people review and expect to review information and news, we think we're doing the right thing," said Keith Wilkowski, vice president of legal and government affairs for Block Communications Inc., the company based in Toledo, Ohio, that owns the Post-Gazette, on June 27. "We will be publishing a (digital) newspaper seven days a week," Wilkowski added. "And, frankly, we reach more people via online than through the print publication."
The union representing newsroom employees made sounds like a dinosaur braying at the moon as it sank into extinction............. Read more

My Take - One thing this writer fails to really bite into is the fact newspapers became promoters of false narratives......in short.....they lied.  Lies of commission and lies of omission, and the internet exposed them.  Once that happened, and the public became aware, that was the beginning of the end. 

Now they have to compete with bloggers.  And the bloggers are winning. 

Truthfully, I like a newspaper. In years gone by I would read the whole paper. Now, if I buy one I casually peruse the news and editorials and move on to what I really bought them for in recent years -  to do the crossword puzzles and read the sports page. 

But now I've stopped watching sports, including my beloved Cleveland Browns,  I now buy a paper to do the crossword puzzle.   And at the price they're now charging.....if I have to pay that much to read the news I'll pay more and read the Wall Street Journal. 

Newspapers are going out of business.  I believe most of these papers that are dropping their production schedules will be out of business within ten years and many in five.  If you look at the age of their subscribers you will find a huge percentage of them are old like me and older.  Time isn't on their side.  One friend told me he doesn't know anyone who subscribes to the Cleveland Plain Dealer on his street any longer.   At one time the PD was largest newspaper in Ohio.

The time will come where there will be no subscribers on any street for a lot of newspapers in this nation. 

Burying Us Won't Work, Liberals

August 28, 2018 By Christopher Chantrill

Remember when Nikita Khrushchev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, said "we will bury you" to the Western ambassadors in Moscow?  Me, neither.  I was ten at the time.  Here is the full quote from La Wik.
About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist.  If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you.  Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
Ah, yes: history, God bless it. But I would say a declaration of war like that is not good strategy. I'm sure that the great mavens of strategy, from Sun Tzu to Machiavelli to Bismarck, or even the strategic bureaucrats of the German General Staff, would disapprove.  For the best way to win, if I read the geniuses correctly, is to induce the loser to give up without firing a shot.............So what do we do?  The NeverTrump right has said it is not going to fight for us; the Deep State has told us that it is not going to help us; and the left has told us in no uncertain terms, "We will bury you."

In that kind of America, what kind of a fool would give up on Donald Trump?.........Read more

No, America Should Not Intervene Militarily in Venezuela

By Doug Bandow  August 29, 2018

War is the ultimate human calamity. Despite the fevered hopes and utopian promises of its advocates, loosing the dogs of war almost always results in abundant death and destruction, and sometimes unimaginable slaughter, devastation, and horror. America’s last four wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, should serve as sufficient proof of this fact.

At least would-be humanitarian warriors make serious moral claims, even if they usually end up killing many of those whom they promise to help. Worse are the war advocates seeking geopolitical advantage, upset that this or that government churlishly refuses to follow Washington’s dictates.

The very worst, however, are the arguments based on cash. In the bad old days, warmongers spoke of plunder. Over time they grew more genteel, instead citing trade and commercial opportunities. Now they point to increases in GDP. Bomb, invade, occupy a country, and watch it flourish!............It is a terrible argument.........To Read More..........