RUTHFULLY YOURS

This article appeared on The Federalist on January 22, 2015.Scott Lincicome is an international trade attorney, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and Visiting Lecturer at Duke University.

Lost in the never-ending debate about the KeystoneXL pipeline is great news for anyone who opposes cronyism and supports free markets and lower prices for essential goods like food and energy. Sen. John McCain has offered an amendment to repeal the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, which requires, among other things, that all goods shipped between U.S. ports be transported by American-built, owned, flagged, and crewed vessels.

By restricting the supply of qualified interstate ships and crews, this protectionist 94-year-old law has dramatically inflated the cost of shipping goods, particularly essentials like food and energy, between U.S. ports—costs ultimately born by U.S. consumers. Thus, the Jones Act is a subsidy American businesses and families pay to the powerful, well-connected U.S. shipping industry and a few related unions. For this reason alone, the law should die, but it turns out that the Jones Act also harms the very industry it’s designed to protect and, in the process, U.S. national security.

People who have heard of the Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920) generally are aware that its stated purpose is to maintain a strong U.S. merchant marine industry. Drafters of the legislation hoped that the merchant fleet would remain healthy and robust if all shipments from one U.S. port to another were required to be carried on U.S.-built and U.S.-flagged vessels. Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out very well.

The protectionism of the Jones Act has given the United States the type of merchant marine that would be expected from a sector that has been cut off from market forces for close to a century. Instead of being a global powerhouse, the U.S. merchant fleet has become a minor player. In 1955 the 1,072 ships in the fleet accounted for 25 percent of global tonnage. Today the 191 vessels account for 2 percent of the world total. Those vessels primarily carry cargoes from one U.S. port to another, along with government-generated exports, such as military equipment and food aid.

We’ve seen the demolition of free speech on college campuses where concern for student sensitivity is so great that in addition to speech codes, we now have trigger warnings to give students time to prepare for the trauma of the words that are about to appear in their readings. (Think nigger in Huckleberry Finn) We’ve seen free speech die the death of politically correct sanctimony as one public figure after another has been forced to apologize for uttering a remark hurtful to some group under the liberal protectorate.

Now, with Donald Trump’s offensive comments about Mexican illegals and John McCain, we are seeing the voluntary, pre-emptive surrender of large companies and corporations such as Macy’s and various network and cable channels to media-generated pressure. What connection could Macy’s possibly have with Trump’s remarks? Does it even sell the hair-product that keeps his comb-forward from toppling into his eyes?

The deal lifts sanctions on two atomic scientists and a proliferator.

Debate over President Obama’s Iran deal has focused on such bold-face provisions as sanctions relief and inspections. But as we inspect the fine print, we are also learning more about Iran’s real nuclear priorities—along with the Administration’s willingness to accept them.

Start with Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, both Iranian nuclear scientists.

Mr. Abbasi was previously head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization after surviving an assassination attempt in Tehran. Mr. Abbasi, who is also a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been under U.N. sanctions for his suspected role in Iran’s “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.” In 2012 Mr. Abbasi admitted to lying about Iran’s nuclear program. “Sometimes we pretended to be weaker than we really were,” he told the Al-Hayat newspaper, “and sometimes we showed strength that was not really in our hands.”

Iran can easily stretch out the inspection of suspect nuclear sites for three months or more.

The Obama administration assures Americans that the Iran deal grants access within 24 days to undeclared but suspected Iranian nuclear sites. But that’s hardly how a recalcitrant Iran is likely to interpret the deal. A close examination of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action released by the Obama administration reveals that its terms permit Iran to hold inspectors at bay for months, likely three or more.

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/07/21/ex-muslim-mona-walter-rescuing-muslims-from-islam-on-the-glazov-gang/

A courageous Christian convert from Islam shares her mission to help Muslims break the chains that bind them.

This week’s special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Mona Walter, a Christian convert from Islam. She came on the show to discuss her mission of rescuing Muslims from the chains that bind them.

Don’t miss it!

Democracy is more than having the people vote. Iraqis, under Saddam Hussein, voted. They voted for a tyrant, a mass murderer. But they did not have a democracy.

One year ago, I wrote “Towards One Man Rule”. When it counts, America now has one man rule with the approval of about half the population. The other half either goes along with it or doesn’t count. The Supreme Court supports it. Congress supports it. The media supports it. Not 100% of these people support it but enough do to override those who don’t. Enough people doesn’t always mean a majority. Frequently it means those with power.

We are cursed, as the Chinese say, to live in “interesting times”, about which there is much to say – the Iran deal, for example, or the Allaku Akbar guy running amok in Chattanooga. Yet the dead sloth that is the Republican Party has finally roused itself to spend the last 48 hours hammering Donald Trump for impugning the honor of John McCain.

As his criminal-immigrant surge demonstrates, Trump’s support comes almost entirely from Americans who feel the political class passes its time talking about nothing that matters to them. So feel free to spend the weekend talking about John McCain. QED, as Trump is unlikely to say.

On the matter of McCain, in June 1998 the Senator stood up to address a Republican fundraising meeting: “You think that was a tasteless joke?” he began, referring to the previous speaker’s closing Viagra gag. “Listen to this one.” He then told the following side-splitter:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

It’s not unusual for a person with expertise in one discipline to get into trouble when he expresses opinions in another. An example is William Shockley, a Nobel laureate in physics for his research on semiconductors, blundering into advocacy for racial eugenics. The phenomenon recurred recently when financiers Mark Spitznagel and Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan), neither of whom possesses the most rudimentary understanding of the history or techniques of genetic modification, warned about the dangers of genetic engineering in a bizarre commentary in the New York Times. They went so far as to posit the possibility that modern molecular genetic engineering could cause “complex chains of unpredictable changes in the ecosystem” that could lead to worldwide catastrophe.

It’s true that as complexity increases, so does uncertainty and the possibility of calamity. Arguably, it was the synergistic failure of complex systems that gave rise to the great Northeast blackout of 2003, in which 50 million people lost power; and even to the First World War, which, because of the complex web of alliances and treaties, the assassination of a relatively obscure Austrian nobleman was able to trigger.

Translation of the original French version published in mid-June http://frblogs.timesofisrael.com/orange-amer-orange-pressee/ ].

The right word would be hazukashi, Japanese for “shame,” which means admitting you were wrong and making sincere amends. Sad to say, but “avoir honte,” being ashamed in French, too often means denial of the misdeed compounded by fresh lies.

Monsieur Stéphane Richard, CEO of France’s sterling telecommunications outfit Orange™, did a song and dance in Cairo. The international cad told his Cairo buddies he had a pressing urge to cut ties with that damned Israeli so-called partner. As if Partner (that’s actually the name of the Israeli company) were a lowdown Chinese knockoff of Orange™. If Monsieur Orange did not actually pinpoint the “colonies,” all the better: the boycotters consider all of Israel a colony. His deep desire to maintain good relations with Egypt and the whole wide Arab world was reason enough to ditch Partner.