Gore: ‘Some Levels of the Earth System Have Crossed a Point of No Return’ By Nicholas Ballasy

WASHINGTON – Back with a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore reflected on his 2006 prediction that “the world would reach a point of no return within 10 years” if “drastic measures” were not taken to combat climate change.

Gore was asked why he made that prediction in the first film and if he has another prediction to make about climate change now 11 years later.

“First of all, we’ve seen a lot of progress since the first movie came out. We have the Paris agreement now. The cost of renewable energy has come down so quickly that people are switching over. Unfortunately, some levels of the Earth system have crossed a point of no return,” Gore said during an interview with PJM on the green carpet of the An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power screening Wednesday evening at the Newseum.

“The big chunk of the West Antarctic ice sheet, for example, makes a considerable amount of sea level rise inevitable in the future. But we still have the ability to stop short of other points of no return and we now have the solutions available to really solve this crisis. We need the political will, but political will is a renewable resource,” he added.

Gore recently said the U.S. still has time to “avoid catastrophe” related to the effects of climate change. PJM asked Gore what specific catastrophe he thinks might occur.

“I’m very optimistic because the entire world has now reached the agreement in Paris to go down to net-zero global warming pollution as early in the second half of this century as possible,” Gore replied. “Many countries are making dramatic changes now and, regardless of President Trump’s statement about the Paris agreement, our governors and mayors and business leaders are stepping up to fill the gap. I think we’re going to meet our obligations under the Paris agreement regardless of what he does.”

Jeff Skoll, a producer of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, said Gore was not predicting the “end of the world” when he said in 2006 that the “point of no return” would be reached within 10 years.

“The 10 year ago prediction wasn’t that it would be the end of the world, it would just be it’s going to be a lot harder 10 years from now if we don’t get started,” he said. “So here’s the good news: we actually have solutions now that we didn’t have 10 years ago. We have solar panels and wind that are less than the price of coal, which has always been, sort of, the lowest energy cost. We have batteries that are about to hit the next generation. We have electric cars that are a lot of fun to drive and are taking off.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Highlights From a Summer in Eurabia By Bruce Bawer

Adventurers that we are, we decided this year that during fellesferie — the three weeks in July during which, by Norwegian government decree, virtually everybody in the country goes on vacation at the same time – we would travel not to Gran Canaria or the Caribbean or the Greek islands but, instead, to the next sizable town over from ours, where we spent one night at a budget hostel.

So it was that last weekend we could be found sitting outside at a bar in Kongsberg, famous (at least in Norway) for its silver mines and for being the location of the Norwegian mint, and, more recently, as the city that produces such impressive cutting-edge defense technology as the new Joint Strike Missile.

One thing we noticed while wandering around Kongsberg was that there seemed to be a lot fewer women in hijab (or worse) than in our own somewhat smaller burg twenty miles away. I wondered if the government, which owns 50.001 percent of the Kongsberg defense conglomerate, had deliberately chosen not to settle too many Muslims in the city because of its sensitivity as a hub of classified military intelligence. Just a guess.

In the evening – it was a Friday – we went to a bar and sat outside sipping our beers at a sidewalk table. We had only been there for a matter of moments when the woman at the next table, who was alone, began speaking to us. This is common in Norway. Most Norwegians won’t meet your eyes when you walk past them on the street, and if you smile at them they’ll assume you’re crazy or dangerous or both; but after they’ve had a beer or two on a weekend evening, they’ll think nothing of sitting down at your table with you and telling you their life stories.

This woman, who must’ve been around fifty or so, was eager to do precisely that. Until a couple of years ago, she told us, she’d worked as an instructor in a government school, teaching Norwegian to adult immigrants, mostly from the Muslim world. She complimented me on my Norwegian but said that most Americans are terrible at learning Norwegian – Afghans and Iraqis, she insisted, put them in the shade.

I decided not to argue with her. True, most Americans, however long they’ve been in Norway, still don’t get the pronunciation right, especially the “r” sound. But back in the Dark Ages, when I took my own Norwegian course in Oslo, in a class made up exclusively of people from Western countries, our teacher told us that we were the class that every faculty member in the school coveted, because we were, relatively speaking, a breeze to teach: the other several dozen classrooms in the building were packed with students from Africa and south Asia, who would take a lot longer time to learn Norwegian than we would.

One reason for this was that, to put it euphemistically, those students were not accustomed to the classroom experience and to the manners and mores appropriate thereto. Nor were most of them terribly motivated to learn Norwegian. Their attendance was spotty. Some of them were women who had to be accompanied by male chaperones from their families, and who tended to drop out after a few weeks at most.

Teaching those classes could be dicey because, for cultural reasons, certain topics had to be avoided. Another part of the reason why they were tough to teach was that the students’ grasp of their own native languages was so tenuous. Many of them were actually illiterate, or only minimally literate, in their own tongues: how do you teach a second language to somebody who barely has a first one? CONTINUE AT SITE

Samantha Power Takes Center Stage in Unmasking Investigation By Debra Heine

Samantha Power has agreed to testify before a congressional panel, although an exact date has not yet been confirmed, a spokesman for the former ambassador told Fox News.

“Ambassador Power strongly supports any bipartisan effort to investigate and address Russia’s interference in our electoral process and she wanted to engage both House and Senate Committees charged with investigating it,” David Pressman, counsel to Power and partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, told Fox News. “Ambassador Power is very much looking forward to providing any assistance and encouragement she can to bipartisan efforts aimed at addressing this serious threat to our nation’s security.”

Red flags were immediately raised when House investigators identified Power as someone who was involved with the “unmasking” of Americans connected to the Trump campaign. She was President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, not an intelligence analyst. What business did she have unmasking the names of Trump campaign/transition officials?

According to Fox News, several other Obama officials are appearing on Capitol Hill this week to testify behind closed doors as well:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared before both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Monday.

Former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough will also testify this week, Fox News was told.

But according to the Washington Free Beacon, House investigators now see Power as “central to efforts by top Obama administration officials” to unmask American citizens named in classified intelligence community reports related to Trump and his presidential transition team.

The names of Trump allies in the raw intelligence reports were leaked to the press in what many in Congress and the current administration claim is an attempt by Obama allies and former officials to damage the White House.

A former senior U.S. official told WFB: “Unmasking is not a regular occurrence—absolutely not a weekly habit. It is rare, even at the National Security Council, and ought to be rarer still for a U.N. ambassador.”

“It might be defended when the communication in question relates directly to U.N. business, for example an important Security Council vote,” explained the former official, who would only discuss the matter on background. “Sometimes it might be done out of other motives than national security, such as sheer curiosity or to defend a bureaucratic position. Or just plain politics.”

The Intelligence Committee’s focus of Power and other key Obama officials is a prime example of the Obama administration’s efforts to spy on those close to Trump, according to sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

“The subpoena for Power suggests just how pervasive the Obama administration’s spying on Americans actually was,” said one veteran GOP political operative who has been briefed on the matter by senior Congressional intelligence officials. “The U.N. ambassador has absolutely no business calling for the quantity and quality of the intelligence that Power seems to have been asking for.”

The source questioned why Power would need to uncover such classified intelligence information in her role at the U.N.

“That’s just not the sort of thing that she should have been concerned about, unless she was playing the role of political operative with the help of the intelligence community,” the source said. “It gives away what was actually going on: the Obama administration was operating in a pervasive culture of impunity and using the intelligence community against their political opponents.”

Rice was scheduled to speak to House Intelligence Committee this week, but the meeting was reportedly postponed. Some sources speculated this could be a delaying tactic by Rice aimed at pushing the testimony back until after Congress’s summer recess. CONTINUE AT SITE

Venezuelan Opposition Stages General Strike Action brings cities to standstill in protest of President Nicolás Maduro’s plans to rewrite country’s constitution By Anatoly Kurmanaev

CARACAS, Venezuela—The cities of this economically distressed country largely came to a halt on Thursday, as the opposition staged a 24-hour general strike in a last-ditch attempt to force President Nicolás Maduro to abandon plans to rewrite the constitution.

Most residents of Caracas stayed home and businesses were closed, further depressing the country’s feeble economy. Members of opposition factions erected road barricades to block any remaining traffic, clashing in some neighborhoods with security forces.

“We have to make the government understand that people are dying of hunger and lack of medicines,” said Carlos Ramírez, an accountant who joined the strike in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz.

The country’s biggest business and farming associations were among the groups that spoke in favor of the action, and the National Transport Federation told its 200,000 bus drivers to stay home.

“It’s obvious that today is not a normal day and that Nicolás Maduro doesn’t have a way to prevent Venezuelans from exercising their will,” said opposition lawmaker Juan Andrés Mejía.

“We accompany the citizens who are looking for a peaceful exit from this crisis,” said Carlos Larrazabal, who is head of Fedecámeras, an umbrella organization for Venezuela’s chambers of commerce. He added that many of its members have been effectively idled anyway because of the economic depression.

The strike is part of the opposition’s “Zero Hour” protest campaign to prevent Mr. Maduro from staging a vote on July 30 for the Constituent Assembly, which is to be tasked with overhauling the country’s political system. The opposition, which controls congress, and ruling party dissidents are boycotting the vote and calling it illegal.

On Sunday, the opposition said it collected 7.6 million signatures, more than a third of all registered voters, in support of scrapping the vote. U.S. President Donald Trump promised “swift economic actions” if Mr. Maduro goes ahead with elections.

Mr. Maduro has responded by doubling down on the election campaign and accusing Mr. Trump of imperialism.

On Thursday, Mr. Maduro danced and sang at a youth rally in Caracas, playing the strike down as a failed effort by a few detractors. He threatened jail for the strike’s organizers. CONTINUE AT SITE

‘Do What You Can’ Senate Republicans try once more to rewrite ObamaCare. by James Freeman

“Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spurred Republican senators Thursday to resolve internal disputes that have pushed their marquee health care bill to the brink of oblivion,” reports the Associated Press. At a White House meeting on Wednesday, President Trump urged the GOP lawmakers to try one more time to avoid pushing themselves into political oblivion.

According to the A.P.:

Aiming to finally resolve the issue, McConnell has said he’ll force a vote on the legislation early next week.

After a face-to-face lecture from Trump, around two dozen of them staged a nearly three-hour bargaining session Wednesday night to resolve their disputes. When it was over, none offered specific examples of any progress.

“We still do have work to do to get to a vote of 50, but people are committed to continuing that work,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of the GOP leadership who hosted the meeting in his office.

Also attending Wednesday’s private meeting were health secretary Tom Price and Seema Verma, the Medicaid and Medicare administrator. It was interrupted by prayer after the lawmakers learned that [Sen. John] McCain, 80, had a cancerous brain tumor.

Earlier Wednesday at the White House, Trump told them they must not leave town for their August recess without sending him an “Obamacare” repeal bill to sign.

“I’m ready to act,” Trump said, foisting the responsibility on Republican lawmakers, not himself.

Of course it’s the U.S. Constitution, not Donald Trump, that has foisted the responsibility of passing bills on the elected legislators. And, as reported by the Journal, Mr. Trump makes a good case that GOP senators have a moral responsibility as well:

“Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare,” Mr. Trump said before a lunch with the senators Wednesday. He gestured at one wavering GOP lawmaker, Dean Heller of Nevada, saying, “He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” and warned lawmakers not to leave town in August without a deal.

“I’m ready to act, I have pen in hand, believe me, I’m sitting in that office. You’ve never had that before,” Mr. Trump said. “For seven years, you’ve had an easy rap: ‘We’ll repeal, we’ll replace, and he’s never going to sign it.’” CONTINUE AT SITE

REFORM IS NEEDED ON THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL- REPLACE SHIRLEY MADIGAN BY ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

Governor Bruce Rauner can term limit the matriarch of Illinois’ most powerful political family to 41 years.

House Speaker Michael Madigan is her husband. (34 YEARS) Attorney General Lisa Madigan is her daughter.(15 YEARS0 It’s an Illinois political dynasty.

In 1976, Shirley Madigan was appointed to the Illinois Arts Council – a state agency “…making art accessible for all.” (41 years)

Madigan became the chairman in 1983. In 2017, she’s still chairman.

On July 1, Shirley Madigan’s term expired and she’s up for reappointment. Governor Bruce Rauner should replace Madigan with a fresh face.

Here’s why reform is needed on the Illinois Arts Council:

grants were conferred without official meetings

rampant conflicts of interest were ignored

millions of taxpayer dollars were funneled to asset-rich arts organizations – including media outlets – which don’t need public money.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2017/07/19/replace-shirley-madigan-on-the-illinois-arts-council/2/#70611d687a8b

The Illinois Arts Council – led by the matriarch of the most powerful political family in Illinois – conferred grants without official meetings, ignored rampant conflicts of interest, and funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to asset-rich organizations – including media outlets – which don’t need public money.

Although Michael Madigan has served as the Illinois House Speaker for 34 years, interrupted for just two years in the 1990s, his wife, Shirley Madigan, has clinched a position on the Illinois Arts Council since 1976. She has servedas the chair of the council since 1983.

Governor Bruce Rauner must move immediately to end Shirley Madigan’s tenure on the Illinois Arts Council. Rauner has an historic opportunity to appoint thirteen fresh faces and take a reform majority on this important council of twenty-one. Two weeks ago, Shirley Madigan’s latest term expired alongside twelve other board members.

Over the past three years, Shirley Madigan’s Arts Council rarely met. Instead of holding tri-annual board meetings – as they’ve pledged to do – the council never met during the entire fiscal year of 2016. Still, without the sunshine of a public meeting, the council paid-out grants, salaries, and operational expenses. Only later did the board ratify the payments.

How does a governmental body confer and distribute millions of dollars in federal and state funding over a two-year period without an official meeting? The Edgar County Watchdogs sued the Illinois Arts Council for violations of the Freedom of Information Act and found no official meetings from August 2014 until October 2016.

Conflicts of interest between board members and affiliated organizations are rampant at the Arts Council. In fiscal year 2015 alone, board members disclosed conflicts causing 40 vote ‘abstentions.’ Loyola University – where Shirley Madigan received her master’s degree – has received $95,100 in grants since 2012. Henry Godinez is the resident artistic associate at the Goodman Theater, and Goodman received $165,650 since 2012.

One of the most conflicted board members is Christina Gidwitz, the wife of prominent Republican scion Ron Gidwitz. Since 2014, Ms. Gidwitz’s self-declared conflicts include The Field Museum of Natural History (theyendowed the Ronald and Christina Gidwitz Hall of Birds), Loyola University (they’re big donors), and the Lyric Opera (Ron serves as a director). These entities received $503,000 in Arts Council grants since 2012.

The Illinois Arts Council’s grants are not only made in the dark and riddled with conflicts, but they’re funding some of the richest arts organizations. Largely, taxpayer funding wasn’t awarded to ‘starving artists,’ but to well-connected entities with political clout.

Ideological Tribalism: Graduating Stepford Students by Linda Goudsmit

Freedom of speech is foundational. Without freedom of speech there are no other freedoms.

In a stunning new guide to colleges that ranks “a diversity of viewpoints and a culture of free and open discussion” New England colleges and universities are exposed as the most close-minded in a comparison of diversity of political and cultural points of view. Considering that the New England colleges and universities are some of the most prestigious in America and that they graduate future leaders and “authorities,” the study results are particularly disturbing.

Report: New England Colleges Worst in Country for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’

The silencing of Conservative voices on campus is a deliberate strategy to expand the widening echo chamber of left-wing liberal tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. Parochial schools are very clear in their mission to educate students in the particular tenets, customs, and ceremonies of their chosen religion. Religious schools freely and unapologetically attempt to perpetuate their religions through education. There is informed consent – the parents and students being fully aware of the purpose of their education.

The problem today is in non-parochial schools because parents believe their children are receiving a secular American education not a parochial education. The reality is that American students from pre-school through college are being indoctrinated in left-wing liberalism by their Leftist teachers. Leftism is the new religious orthodoxy of the Democratic Party and the Democrats are busy proselytizing their religion in the classroom. There is no informed consent and no consumer protections. There is only buyer beware.

Slowly parents are beginning to examine the content of the curricula their children are being exposed to and are rightfully alarmed by the anti-American, anti-establishment, anti-democracy lessons being taught. Their children are being propagandized toward anti-American collectivism and socialism every day all day.

Whoever controls the curriculum controls the future. Indoctrination presented as education is an abuse of power.

When liberal professors outnumber their conservative colleagues 28:1 a culture of ideological tribalism is created and freedom of speech ceases to exist. Conservative voices are silenced because the academic and social tyranny of the Left demands conformity. It is an ideological war that demands submission.

Tyranny cannot tolerate freedom of speech because in ideological wars words are the weapons. The Left is engaged in a very undemocratic effort to silence any voices of opposition. The tribal mind focuses on membership in the tribe as the absolute value which explains the malicious shunning and disparaging of anyone who disagrees. To be in the tribe one must demonstrate loyalty to the tribe and adhere to its cultural norms.

Instead of participating in the proud American tradition of open debate the Leftist leadership of the Democratic Party has adopted the tyranny of censorship, intimidation, and intolerance. Instead of encouraging respectful discourse for the merits of ideas to be debated the Left silences its opponents with its tyrannical demand for compliance to its tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. The Leftist orthodoxy silences any heterodoxy. The Democratic Party has devolved into ideological tribalism where membership in the group is determined by adherence to its orthodoxy.

CNN: King of Fake News and Queen of Leftist Indoctrination: Linda Goudsmith

CNN is already King of Fake News and now has crowned itself Queen of Leftist Indoctrination.

In a stunning exploitation of American children CNN partnered with PBS and IRC to bring Sesame Street’s Elmo on screen to “educate” the youngest American children on refugees.

Clearly American pre-schoolers are not watching CNN but this shocking interview exposed what they will be watching when they tune into Sesame Street.

Early childhood education is arguably the most powerful influencer and indicator of the direction of society. Palestinian children are being indoctrinated to hate Jews and to destroy Israel. Muslim children are being taught Islamic supremacy and hatred of infidels (all non-Muslims). The purpose of propagandizing Palestinian children is to produce Palestinian adults who will fight to achieve the destruction of Israel. The purpose of propagandizing Muslim children with Islamic hate education is to produce Muslim adults who will fight for re-establishment of the caliphate and imposition of sharia law worldwide.

So what are American children being taught and what is the purpose of their education?

Since the end of World War II, American children have been indoctrinated in left-wing liberal tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism courtesy of Tavistock Institute and its principles of mass psychology for social engineering. The purpose is to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism. Socialism, the necessary condition for cradle-to-grave control by the government, will be replaced by an internationalized globalist elite dream of one-world government.

American children are being tutored in passivity and collectivism while Middle Eastern children are being tutored to be warriors. In The Suicide of Reason, Lee Harris’ stunning analysis of the existential threat of Islam to the West describes the conflict between the tribal mind and the enlightened mind. The book jacket provides a concise summary:

“The Suicide of Reason shows how modern liberal societies, whose political theories are born of the Enlightenment are unfamiliar with the nature of mass fanaticism. The West, so accustomed to thinking of history as an inevitable progress toward enlightenment, can only think of fanaticism as a social pathology, a failure to modernize, rather than what it is: a variety of social order that is not only fully viable in the modern world but that possesses weapons to which the West is uniquely vulnerable. A governing philosophy based on reason, tolerance, consensus and deliberation cannot defend itself against a strategy of ruthless violence without being radically transformed – or worse, destroyed.”

Hijab, Female Oppression and the Left by Linda Goudsmit

Only a left-wing liberal living in subjective reality could promote the hijab, the quintessential symbol of feminine oppression, as fashion. The idea is so spectacularly stupid that it defies description. http://www.independentsentinel.com/hijab-female-oppression-left/

This is yet another salvo in the attempt to Islamicize the West by making the unacceptable dictates of sharia law acceptable.

Psychologically speaking, it is well known that familiarity brings acceptance – so the purpose of making the hijab fashionable and familiar is the sinister purpose of making hijabs /oppressive sharia law acceptable.

This is a deliberate strategy of indoctrination and social engineering designed to change public perception of the hijab from a symbol of oppression (objective reality) to a symbol of fashion (subjective reality). Anyone who participates in this idiocy is a useful idiot.

A “Women’s” March organized by Linda Sarsour is another contradiction in terms. Sarsour supports honor killing, female genital mutilation, wife beating, and every other sharia tenet that denies individual freedom to women and the LGBT community.

Is this what these marching women want?? Fascism, racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are the hallmarks of Islamic sharia law. The Women’s March was a March of Dhimmis.

To make sense of the nonsensical willingness of non-Muslim women to participate in a march organized by a Muslim misogynist we can examine the stunning announcement by Nihad Awad Executive Director of CAIR:
REFUSING TO ACCEPT MUSLIM REFUGEES IS THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF SLAVERY

To understand Nihad Awad’s outrageous statement you must speak the language of CAIR and learn its language of opposites and projection.

Whatever CAIR accuses Donald Trump of doing is actually the OPPOSITE of what Trump is doing but exactly what CAIR is doing.

The same language is spoken by Linda Sarsour, the DNC, the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, Barack Obama, and of course George Soros and his innumerable front organizations.

Their language, like Doublespeak, is a deliberate strategy designed to create the cognitive dissonance required to manipulate and dupe an unsuspecting public into believing their egregious lies.

Language, borders, and currency are required to have a sovereign country. Doublespeak is a deliberate attack on America’s language and an assault on our ability to understand each other.

The word peace in Islam is understood to mean the time when the world is ruled by sharia law. Americans understand the word peace to mean pluralism, tolerance, and freedom. So, when Nihad Awad claims he wants peace he does not mean peace in the way the American public understands the word.

There is no “right” to come to America. It is a privilege to come to America and LEGAL vetted immigration is what protects all Americans from those who wish us harm. It is cultural suicide to allow mass immigration of any population with cultural norms hostile to our own.

Europeans are finally learning the language of opposites and beginning to understand that they are losing their countries. Sarsour’s defenders are doing more than ignoring her liberal critics – they are being duped by her doublespeak into ignoring her misogyny.

So, why do left-wing liberal apologists prefer their fictional subjective reality to factual objective reality regarding the tyranny of Muslim extremism and oppressive sharia law?

Why do they ignore the xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, supremacy, and barbaric honor killings, genital mutilation, rape, wife beatings, and overarching desire to conquer the West and impose sharia law worldwide?

MY SAY: A PRAYER FOR SENATOR JOHN McCAIN

John McCain’s service to our nation in war is unequaled. He faces an enormous challenge. Shame on the media that discusses his diagnosis and prognosis. Medical research has many new modalities to treat brain tumors, and hope is critical for outlook.

Mi Sheberakh is a Hebrew prayer for physical cure and healing, offering blessing, compassion, restoration of health and strength.

It is recited by Chaplains, doctors, nurses, and family members.—

“May the One who blessed our ancestors —Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah —bless and heal the one who is ill:

May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion upon him.,to restore him, to heal him,to strengthen him,to enliven him.

The One will send him speedily,a complete healing —healing of the soul and healing of the body —along with all the ill, among the people of Israel and all humankind, soon, speedily, without delay.”

Amen