Displaying posts published in

April 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

CBO Report: 1.4 Million Lost Health Insurance Since 2016 — And Obamacare Is To Blame John Merline

By on April 24th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/04/24/cbo-report-1-4-million-lost-health-insurance-since-2016-and-obamacare-is-to-blame/

The number of uninsured climbed by 1.4 million from 2016 to 2018, according to a report out last week from the Congressional Budget Office. Naturally, this led those on the left to blame the Trump administration for its Obamacare “sabotage.”

But the data in that report — which was released on the same day the Mueller report came out and largely ignored — tells an entirely different story.

All of the increase in the uninsured over the past two years — all of it — is the result of the massive rate increases Obamacare’s mandates and regulations caused. According to the Health and Human Services Dept., premiums in the individual insurance market doubled from 2013 to 2017. They shot up again in 2018.

For those eligible for Obamacare subsidies, the rate increases were meaningless. The amount they had to pay didn’t change much, and in many cases went down.

Continue reading →
BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Huge Cost of Climate Hysteria Alan Moran

By on April 24th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/04/the-huge-cost-of-climate-hysteria/

Mark Lawson comes from a journalistic tradition which attempted to assess factual information without interpreting it within an ideological framework.

His book, Climate Hysteria, draws on publicly available information, details that information, and analyses its interpretation and projections as offered by climate “experts”. It is highly readable, pulling together the both history of the climate debate and the present situation by comparing the careerists’ doom-laden forecasts against reality.His book, as its title suggests, analyses the development of what he calls “climate hysteria” which,  coupled with conferences of nations represented by their environmental agencies, has led to international agreements limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other the greenhouse gases, the latest being the Paris Agreement of 2016.

Trouble is, the climate is failing to behave the way scientific analysis, as reported at planetary conferences, indicates it should. Not only have the various milestones indicating apocalyptic tipping points on the road to irretrievable disaster failed to occur, but even the minor prophecies haven’t materialised.

Consider:# there has been no increase in wildfires, whereas more of these were claimed to be imminent in the IPCC papers# there has been no change in global precipitation — not even locally, as is evident from the on-going, irregular-but-trendless rainfall data assembled for Australia

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Islam Viewed from ‘The House of War’ Frank Pledge

By on April 24th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/04/101269/

It is nearly twenty years since 9/11, and yet the media coverage of the events of a few weeks ago in Christchurch, and now in Sri Lanka, suggests journalists and politicians still have little to no understanding of Islam and what it is all about. Politicians, I can understand, but it would appear that journalism courses no longer extend to basic research. On that basis I have felt compelled to write a brief introduction to Islam which I present here. My apologies to long term Quadrant readers, who probably would have picked all all this up in around 2001.

To really understand Islam it is only necessary to understand three things.

Firstly

Muslims openly — go Google it, it’s no secret — divide the world into the Dar al Islam and the Dar al Harb. “Dar al Islam” translates as “The region under Islamic control”, or more literally since “Islam” translates as “submission”, “the region that has submitted (to Islam).” “Dar al Harb” translates literally as “The region of war”, that is, the region that has yet to submit to Islam. It is the duty of every Muslim to advance the cause of Islam, that is, advance the cause of submission in the Dar al Harb. Australia is part of the Dar al Har, and so, to those who take their creed as seriously as the sacred texts urge, Islam is quite openly, and quite literally, “at war” with Australia and will remain so until it too “submits” and becomes part of the Dar al Islam. Verse (ayat) 29 from the Sura 9 (Repentance) of the Qur’an pretty much spells that out:

Continue reading →
MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Reporting” on the Sri Lanka Jihadist Massacres If possible, it’s even worse in Norway than in the U.S. Bruce Bawer

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273568/reporting-sri-lanka-jihadist-massacres-bruce-bawer

If you think the mainstream media in America are shameless in their devotion to leftist orthodoxy – well, of course you’re right. But there are exceptions: at least some major outlets in the U.S. don’t march in ideological lockstep. Even the New York Times has a good, honest reporter or two. In any event, you don’t have to pay to read these people’s claptrap if you don’t want to.

Imagine, by contrast, living in Norway, where the political left has a total lock on the mainstream news media, and the country’s five million people are forced to pay big time for their non-stop propaganda. TV and radio news are dominated by government-run NRK, to which the sheeple shell out $500 million per annum in compulsory license fees for the privilege of being brainwashed.

Then there’s the print press. In addition to scores of local papers, Norway has about a dozen national dailies, several of which receive generous taxpayer support – supposedly in order to ensure diversity of thought, even though they’re all left-wing. For example, Dagsavisen, a former Labor Party organ that’s now a gaunt rag consisting largely of far-left editorials and columns, sells only 20,000 copies a year while raking in $5 million in state subsidies.

One is constantly reminded that this is a country whose first-ever professor of journalism, Sigurd Allern – brought on board by the University of Oslo in 2002 – was the first chairman of the Workers’ Communist Party of Norway and longtime editor-in-chief of the Communist daily Klassekampen.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Palestinian Leaders Encourage Terrorism by Bassam Tawil

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14134/palestinian-leaders-encourage-terrorism

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s remarks at the Arab League gathering in Cairo demonstrate his preference for the well-being of terrorists over the ability of hard-working employees to put bread on the table for their families. These payments to terrorists and their families lie at the heart of Palestinian incitement to terror that drives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If anyone is collectively punishing the Palestinians, it is Abbas himself. He is depriving tens of thousands of families of full salaries, thus preventing them from purchasing food for their children or paying various fees, including rent and university tuition. A Palestinian civil service employee who sends his son to university does not get a full salary. A Palestinian whose son sets out to murder a Jew is entitled to a full salary and earns more respect from Palestinian leaders.

What message is Abbas sending to his people? That those who wish to eat had better turn to terror. The families of the public employees who are now unable to pay their grocery bill and rent are now looking at the families of the terrorists with envy. They must be saying to themselves: “We are suckers because we didn’t send our children to stab a Jew!” This is the education that the Palestinians leaders have been providing since 1965.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas recently reaffirmed his longstanding commitment to pay families of Palestinians who were imprisoned for or killed during terrorist attacks against Israelis. “We have been paying the families of the prisoners and martyrs since 1965,” Abbas told Arab League Foreign Ministers during an emergency meeting in Cairo on April 21.

Abbas’s insistence on paying millions of dollars to families of Palestinians who murder or attempt to murder Jews, has cost the Palestinians a heavy price. In the past two months, Abbas’s government has been unable to pay full salaries to its 200,000 employees. The reason? Israel has begun deducting, from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, the same amount the PA government pays each month to the families of the prisoners and “martyrs.”

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The European Union: Nurturing Instability and Terrorism in the Middle East by Naomi Linder Kahn

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14011/european-union-palestinians-instability

The apparent objective of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to annex these areas and bring them under PA control as part of its larger plan for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state. This plan was publicized in 2009, in an official PA document written by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; since its publication, it has been carried out virtually unhindered, with the help of massive European funding in violation of the Oslo Accords, and in violation of international law. Additionally, this type of activity is more easily presented to international media outlets and foreign benefactors as “humanitarian aid.”

The key actor in these land-grab projects is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). UAWC maintains close organizational and operational ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terror organization that has carried out many deadly attacks against Israel’s citizens – including numerous suicide bombings in the 2000s. UAWC is funded, for the most part, by European governments and humanitarian aid organizations, and by the European Union.

In recent years, and in particular since 2013, the Palestinians have intensified agricultural activity as a means of quickly and efficiently seizing large swaths of land under the guise of humanitarian aid for farmers. This activity is illegal and violates the international treaties to which the PA is a signatory. But this has not troubled foreign governments and organizations, including the European Union, who continue to bankroll this illegal activity – while at the same time vocally criticizing the State of Israel.

Under the guise of “agricultural assistance,” the Palestinian Authority is taking over Area C (the area placed under full Israeli jurisdiction in the Oslo Accords, pending a full peace agreement which would establish sovereignty over the area for one side or the other), with the help of massive European financial support — in violation of the law, and of international agreements signed by the EU.

Over the past decade, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has implemented a long-term program aimed at taking control of strategic locations in Area C of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. The PA’s apparent objective is to annex these areas and bring them under PA control, as part of its larger plan for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state. This plan was publicized in 2009, in an official PA document written by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; since its publication, it has been carried out virtually unhindered, with the help of massive European funding.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Changing hearts and minds on nuclear powerBy Jim Martin and Saul Anuzis

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/changing_hearts_and_minds_on_nuclear_power.html

Until we’re able to fuel America and the rest of the world with cleaner forms of renewable energy, we need the ability to generate the electricity necessary to sustain civilization while curbing carbon emissions. For now, the clamor for less carbon, more renewable fuels and cleaner energy often ignores one of the cleanest, cheapest and most abundant supplies of energy on Earth. 

Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the electricity in the United States today, but it holds the potential to create much more. Affordable electricity is also a key issue for millions of American seniors who live on fixed incomes and can ill afford higher utility bills. The 98 nuclear plants currently on-line in the U.S. contributed more than 73,000 thousand megawatt hours to the nation’s grid in January, making it the third most productive energy source behind coal and natural gas. But nuclear power generation has remained virtually flat over the past 18 years. The question is ‘why?’

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UN Human Rights Council member beheads 37By Ethel C. Fenig

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/un_human_rights_council_member_beheads_37.html

While Vermont’s independent senator and Democratic presidential wannabe Bernie Sanders supports allowing all jailed individuals the right to vote, including the terrorist Boston Marathon bomber, longtime U.N. Human Rights Council member Saudi Arabia has a different opinion.  The Saudis behead those they deem terrorists.  In public.  In mass executions.  And pin the heads to poles.

Yesterday, they did it again, whacking off the heads of 37 of their citizens, mostly from a minority Islamic branch, for alleged terrorism, an act they justified with Islamic law.  Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded 37 Saudi citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes.  It also publicly pinned the executed body and severed head of a convicted Sunni extremist to a pole as a warning to others. …

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Former FBI Official Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Were Found in Obama White House By Debra Heine

By on April 24th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/former-fbi-official-admits-hillary-clinton-emails-were-found-in-obama-white-house/

A former top FBI official has admitted under oath that a repository of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email records was obtained by the Obama White House and housed in the Executive Office of the President.

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch recently coaxed the admission out of the former assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, Bill Priestap, as part of a court-ordered discovery regarding Clinton’s unauthorized email server.U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled earlier this year that discovery could commence examining Clinton’s use of the server and ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath.

The court said that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”Judicial Watch asked Priestap to identify representatives of Clinton, her former staff, and government agencies from which “email repositories were obtained” by the FBI.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

At Yale, ‘Diversity’ Means More of the Same A 2018 dispute between two students prompts yet another expansion of the massive bureaucracy. By Heather Mac Donald

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-yale-diversity-means-more-of-the-same-11556058975

Yale President Peter Salovey announced a major expansion of the school’s diversity bureaucracy this month, providing a case study in how not to lead a respected institution of higher education.

The pretext for this latest accretion of bureaucratic bloat was a May 2018 incident in a graduate student dorm. Sarah Braasch, a 43-year-old doctoral candidate in philosophy, called campus police at 1:40 a.m. to report someone sleeping in a common room, which she believed was against dorm rules. Yale administrators knew Ms. Braasch had psychological problems and that she had a history of bad blood with the sleeping student, Lolade Siyonbola, a 35-year-old doctoral candidate in African studies. But because Ms. Braasch is white and Ms. Siyonbola is black, the administration chose to turn the incident into a symbol of what Mr. Salovey called the university’s “discrimination and racism.”

Yale leaders immediately announced a slew of new initiatives: “implicit bias” training for graduate students, grad-school staff and campus police; instruction in how to run “inclusive classrooms”; “community building” sessions; a student retreat to develop the next phase of equity and inclusion programming. Despite this flurry of corrective measures, Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, Yale’s secretary and vice president for student life, ominously declared there was still “much more to do.”

Continue reading →