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NATO Needs a Reset The Ukraine conflict highlights the long-evident dysfunctions of the treaty. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/nato-needs-reset-bruce-thornton/

Last week Joe Biden and his foreign policy team attended the NATO Heads of State and Government summit in Brussels. This gathering was more consequential than usual given the ongoing brutal war Russia is waging against Ukraine. Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, this conflict on the borders of several NATO nations highlights the long-evident dysfunctions of the treaty, some of which are only now being acknowledged.

Yet little went on last week to suggest that NATO member-states are serious about making the deep reforms that should have taken place in the decade after the Cold War ended.

The official NATO statement was certainly filled with “rules-based international order” clichés typical of large bureaucracies suffering from professional deformation and fossilized narratives. It spoke of Russia’s “assault on international norms” that don’t exist, any more than the “international community” it implies will “hold accountable those responsible for violations of humanitarian and international law, including war crimes.” No more substantial are phrases like the “values and norms that have brought security and prosperity”; or “the foundations of international security and stability”; or the “international order including the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as enshrined in the UN Charter.”

In reality, all these laws, institutions, and principles are the result of treaties made among sovereign nations that join them not because of shared “norms” or “values,” but because they serve those nations’ interests. And when a treaty stops doing so, those nations will ignore or violate them. That fact of history calls into doubt the statement’s claim that “Our commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is iron-clad.”

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Biden denies saying every bad, stupid, scary thing he said last week By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/biden_denies_saying_every_bad_stupid_scary_thing_he_said_last_week.html

As every media outlet in the world reported last week, Joe Biden said three remarkable things: That America’s military would be heading into Ukraine, that it was possible America would use chemical weapons, and that Putin needed to be removed from power, which presumably either a call for Putin’s assassination or for regime change (which Putin probably wouldn’t survive). In each case, the White House went into emergency damage control. Now, though, Biden denies saying any one of those things. Is this a broken brain or his usual narcissistic dishonesty?

One of the coolest things about malignant narcissism, if you happen to be the narcissist, is that you never tell a lie. It’s possible other people might perceive you as lying or even accuse you of lying, but the fact is that you never lie—and you have the passed lie detector tests to prove it.

You see, the deal about being a malignant narcissist is that there is only one truth: Yours. Whatever you need to say at any given moment, either to achieve an advantage or to protect yourself, instantly becomes the one, the only, the absolute truth.

That’s the world in which Biden, a compulsive liar, has always existed. However, when he was one Senator among many—especially among many who shared the same trait—his chronic lying was less obvious. For most people, it first burst into view during his 1987 run for the presidency, when he told a series of lies about his educational abilities and plagiarized a speech from a British politician.

After that, “Joe Biden lies” was a known fact but most people ignored it.

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Swimming with Dolphins Ban – Regulatory Overreach? By Janet Levy

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/swimming_with_dolphins_ban__regulatory_overreach.html

“The stark arbitrariness of the ban is evident from the following: a) spinner dolphins are abundant around Hawaii, and there is no evidence of a population decline; b) dolphins, as is well known, are friendly and approach humans for benign, exuberant interactions; c) the ban applies only to tourism-related businesses, while the captive dolphin industry is exempt from it; and d) military activities, which might endanger dolphins with shelling, sonar, and underwater explosions, are also exempt.”

Who decides whether you may or may not swim with dolphins?  You may think this is determined by some environment-related law, made by elected representatives who constitute the legislature.  But the generalities of law are often translated into the specifics of practice through rules and regulations made and enforced by officials.  Not all these officials answer to the checks and balances of the democratic process.  Therein lies the scope for them to further political agendas or the interests of pressure groups unsanctified by the ballot, which alone represents the will of the people of America.  It is for this reason that a landmark lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of an arbitrary ban on human-dolphin interactions in Hawaii gains importance.

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President Biden proposes a punitive wealth tax, and the AP dutifully publishes a puff piece saying how great Biden’s economic policies are By Jack Hellner

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/president_biden_proposes_a_punitive_wealth_tax_and_the_ap_dutifully_publishes_a_puff_piece_saying_how_great_bidens_economic_policies_are.html

Either the media is full of economic illiterates, or they don’t care about the truth as they seek to influence voters.

The proposal includes taxing unrealized capital gains which are not income. The tax would destroy investment and cause stock prices to go down. The collapse in stock prices would harm everyone because public pensions will be harmed, leaving government entities trolling for higher taxes.

It is not as if Musk, Buffet, Gates, Bezos, and other billionaires have billions sitting around waiting to pay taxes. They would have to sell assets and they would be inclined to move more investments overseas, which would contribute to economic decline.

There are two sensible, easy ways, to get more money from billionaires.

The first is to only allow the billionaires to deduct their cost, instead of market value, for charitable contributions. Allowing them to deduct market value makes us subsidize them.

The other sensible, appropriate way is to finally tax hedge fund billionaires, like George Soros, at ordinary income tax rates instead of at a lower special rate. From the Associated Press:

The fading of the pandemic and the growth has enabled the deficit to fall from $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020 to $2.8 trillion last year and a projected $1.4 trillion this year. That deficit spending paid off in the form of the economy expanding at a 5.7% pace last year, the strongest growth since 1984. But inflation at a 40-year high also accompanied those robust gains as high prices have weighed on Biden’s popularity.

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Will Smith Apologizes for Slapping Chris Rock at Oscars By Zachary Evans

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/will-smith-apologizes-for-slapping-chris-rock-at-oscars/

Will Smith has apologized for slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, after the comedian told a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

“My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally,” Smith said in a statement posted on his Instagram account on Monday evening.

“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong,” Smith added. “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be.”

Smith closed his statement by saying “I am a work in progress.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poll: Only 34% Agree Biden Has Lived Up to His Vow to Unify all Americans- Terry Jones

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/03/28/only-34-agree-biden-has-lived-up-to-his-vow-to-unify-all-americans-ii-tipp-poll/

One of President Joe Biden’s signature promises during the 2020 campaign was that he would “unify the country.” Now, a little more than a year into the presidency, most Americans don’t feel he has lived up to his promise. In fact, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows they feel America is divided, not united, under Biden.

“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States,” Biden told followers after declaring victory on Nov. 8, 2020.

That speech was seized on by many as a sign that years of bitter divisiveness brought on by non-stop investigations and two impeachment efforts against former President Donald Trump were over. The often-expressed hope was that civil political discourse would be restored, and Americans would once again show toleration and understanding for others’ beliefs.

This, in turn, would lead to a new spirit of bipartisanship and policy cooperation in Congress.

Unfortunately, average Americans don’t see things that way.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Lies, Damned Lies and Biden’s Budget

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/03/29/lies-damned-lies-and-bidens-budget/

The first line in President Joe Biden’s budget statement, released Monday, is “Budgets are statements of values, and the budget I am releasing today sends a clear message.”

Biden’s right that his $5.8 trillion budget sends a clear message. The message is that he will say and do anything, no matter how disconnected from reality it is. The rest of his statement is itself full of lies and half-truths.

For example, Biden brags that he’s cut the deficit in half in his first year, making it “the largest one-year reduction in the deficit in U.S. history.” That’s technically true but completely irrelevant.

Deficits ballooned as a result of the pandemic shutdown and the – bipartisan – rescue legislation enacted under President Donald Trump. Biden forgets that he added trillions more to the pile with his “rescue plan” and the bloated infrastructure bill.

Plus, it’s Biden’s own budget that calls for deficits to remain well above $1 trillion – and climbing – over the next decade.

By 2032, Biden’s “fiscally responsible” budget pegs the deficit at $1.8 trillion, or 4.8% of GDP – and still growing. (The post-World War II average is 2.6%.)

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The People Promising Us “Net Zero” Have No Clue About The Energy Storage Problem Francis Menton

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=e79d572f7c

If you are even a semi-regular reader of this blog, you know about the energy storage problem that is inherent in the effort to eliminate dispatchable fossil fuels from the electricity generation system and replace them with wind and solar. As discussed here many times, other than with nuclear power, the storage problem is the critical issue that must be addressed if there is ever going to be “net zero” electricity generation, let alone a “net zero” economy based on all energy usage having been electrified. For a sample of my prior posts on this subject just in the last few months, go here, here and here.

The problems of trying to provide enough storage to back up a fully wind and solar system without fossil fuels are so huge and so costly that you would think that everyone pushing the “net zero” agenda would be completely focused on these issues. And given that the issues are quite obvious, you would think that such people would be well down the curve with feasibility studies, cost studies, and demonstration projects to make their case on how their plans could be accomplished. Remarkably, that is not the case at all. Instead, if you read about the plans and proposals in various quarters for “net zero” in some short period of years, you quickly realize that the people pushing this agenda have no clue. No clue whatsoever.

Today, I am going to look at discussions of the storage situation coming out of three jurisdictions with ambitious “net zero” plans: California, Australia and New York. First a very brief summary of the problem. It is (or certainly should be) obvious that wind and solar generators have substantial periods when they generate nothing (e.g., calm nights), and other times when they generate far less than users demand. Get out a spreadsheet to do some calculations based on actual historical patterns of usage and generation from wind and solar sources, and you will find that to have a fully wind/solar generation system and make it through a year without a catastrophic failure, you will need approximately a three-times overbuild (based on rated capacity) of the wind/solar system, plus storage for something in the range of 24 – 30 days of average usage. For these purposes “usage” at any given moment is measured in gigawatts, but usage for some period of time is measured in gigawatt hours, not gigawatts. California’s average electricity usage for 2020 was about 31 GW; Australia’s was about 26 GW ; and New York’s was about 18 GW.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

KBJ Hearings Typify Our Debased Political Discourse David Catron

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://spectator.org/kbj-hearings-typify-our-debased-political-discourse/

Since Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was chosen by President Biden to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, we’ve been encouraged by the White House, congressional Democrats, and the corporate media to celebrate her as the “first Black woman” nominated to serve on the Court. Yet, when asked during her confirmation hearing to define the term “woman,” she responded, “I can’t … I’m not a biologist.”

The problem with this answer isn’t just that it was unworthy of a serious SCOTUS nominee. It is symptomatic of a debilitating disease that has infected our political discourse, rendering substantive policy debate all but impossible and endangering the republic.

It is a virulent new strain of an old malady that George Orwell famously wrote about in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” a rebuke of politicians, journalists, and academics who use deceptive language to conceal their ideological objectives: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” This is how the hopelessly disorganized Jan. 6 Capitol riot became an “insurrection.” It is how differing outcomes between identity groups became “systemic racism.” Orwell also discusses political words that have been rendered meaningless by dishonest usage:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.… Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.… Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

 Biden’s reckless words, Ukraine missteps raise risks for US-Liz Peek

Posted By on March 29th, 2022

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/bidens-reckless-words-ukraine-missteps-risks-us-liz-peek

Joe Biden is a danger to the United States.

As I write this, Vladimir Putin’s propagandists are spinning out videos of President Biden calling for regime change in Russia. They don’t even need to doctor the films.

When Biden said in Poland, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” he handed Putin an excuse to escalate the war in Ukraine. His words sound like a threat, and that is exactly how Russians will hear it.

What difference does it make? Putin has lied to his countrymen, telling them his “special military operation” is aimed at the “demilitarization and denazification” of his western neighbor, and that he is protecting the motherland from the West.

Joe Biden just made his case.

There are two potential ramifications of Biden’s comment. The first is that Biden dealt a serious blow to Putin’s opponents in Russia. It is hard to argue that your leader is lying about the West’s aggressive intentions when the president of the United States backs him up.

The second and more dangerous outcome is this: if Putin uses Biden’s words to justify the use of even more deadly force in Ukraine, like chemical or – God forbid — nuclear weapons, that will be on Russia’s strongman, certainly, but also on Biden. If Putin does take such a step, Americans will insist the U.S. respond, potentially bringing us into direct conflict with Russia.