RUTHFULLY YOURS

Now come climate scientists’ implausible explanations for why the ‘hiatus’ has passed the 15-year mark.

On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won’t attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?

In effect, this is all that’s left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).

Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began.

First the climate-research establishment denied that a pause existed, noting that if there was a pause, it would invalidate their theories. Now they say there is a pause (or “hiatus”), but that it doesn’t after all invalidate their theories.

Alas, their explanations have made their predicament worse by implying that man-made climate change is so slow and tentative that it can be easily overwhelmed by natural variation in temperature—a possibility that they had previously all but ruled out.

How many Jews were aboard the Titanic before it sank? This question will likely forever remain unanswered.
Hundreds of Jewish passengers, fleeing years of pogroms, boarded the famous ship on their way to start a new life in America. Most were poor and had no chance of surviving the disaster. A soon-to-be-published book offers fascinating details on the Jewish life they led onboard the ship before it sank.

“According to the White Star Line company’s list, there were several hundred Jews onboard,” says Eli Moskowitz, who studied the story of the Jewish passengers on the most famous ship in history, which sank 102 years ago, claiming the lives of 1,517 people.

“Some of them were in first-class cabins, but most were in the third class which was reserved for immigrants, and where men had the lowest chances of surviving. The exact number of Jews in the third class is still unknown.”

Moskowitz, an educator who defines himself as a “Titanic fan,” turned an MA seminar paper in history into a book about the Jews of the unfortunate ship, which is about to be published soon.

He donated the knowledge he acquired during his research to the Titanic exhibition from the United States, which is docking at the Israel Trade Fairs Center in Tel Aviv until the end of August and is partly dedicated to “the Jews of the Titanic” – from the Jewish newspapers of the era, through the stories of the passengers who died and their widows, to the ship’s kosher menu. Moskowitz, an educator who defines himself as a “Titanic fan,” turned an MA seminar paper in history into a book about the Jews of the unfortunate ship, which is about to be published soon.

He donated the knowledge he acquired during his research to the Titanic exhibition from the United States, which is docking at the Israel Trade Fairs Center in Tel Aviv until the end of August and is partly dedicated to “the Jews of the Titanic” – from the Jewish newspapers of the era, through the stories of the passengers who died and their widows, to the ship’s kosher menu.

During his yearlong captivity at the hands of the barbarians from Islamic State, Steven Sotloff’s colleagues in Israeli media organs purged all of his articles from their websites to erase his connections to Israel and hide the fact that he was an Israeli citizen.

So, too, every effort was made to hide the fact that he was Jewish.

The reason was clear. Given the genocidal Jew-hatred endemic in jihadist doctrine, it was obvious that if Sotloff’s Judaism was exposed, he would have been singled out for torture and execution.

Much has been written since Islamic State released the video of its British executioner chopping off James Foley’s head last month. We have been told by leaders and commentators alike that with this singular crime, Islamic State awakened the sleeping lion of the West. That act of barbarism, we have been assured, will now force the US to lead a global coalition against this Islamic army of butchers.

Clearly Islamic State is not convinced. With the release of the Sotloff beheading video this week, it appears that Islamic State thinks its cinematographers will move the West in another direction – apathy.

Foley’s execution video ended with the preview of coming attractions for the Sotloff execution video.

And the Sotloff execution video ended with the preview of a British hostage’s execution video.

By releasing the films gradually, Islamic State is apparently trying to routinize beheadings. Its leaders are probably betting that by the seventh or eighth beheading video, we will greet the violence with a shrug of our shoulders.

In this, Islamic State is channeling Iran, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban.

Diana West looks askance at suggestions defector from Islamism gave Megyn Kelly

It’s just seven minutes of airtime out of millions since 9/11, but a recent segment of “The Kelly File” on Fox News bears notice. It’s as good an example as any of the state of paralysis that still afflicts the public square since jihad struck Manhattan and Washington, D.C., 13 years ago. We have mourned our dead, fought wars, rebuilt cities, but something still is missing. That something is informed talk about Islam. Frank discussion of the Quran and Muhammad. Without it, there is no stopping the jihad that is shutting down Western civilization.

Host Megyn Kelly interviewed Maajid Nawaz about the Islamic State (ISIS), the latest Muslim horde on a jihad to establish a “caliphate” (pan-Islamic regime) based in Shariah (Islamic law). Nawaz could be considered a defector from Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of the revolutionary Islamic groups, some violent, some removed from violence, dedicated to the establishment of a caliphate based in Islamic law, from al-Qaida to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Nawaz said goodbye to all that in 2007, he says. In 2008, he and fellow defector Ed Husain founded Quilliam, a British “counter-extremism” foundation named for William Quilliam, a 19th-century British convert to Islam. Abdullah Quilliam, as he became known, opened the first British mosque on Christmas Day, 1889. “Co-exist,” right? It’s no stretch, however, to imagine Sheikh Quilliam at home in Hizb ut-Tahrir as a fatwa-issuing advocate of the caliphate and Shariah both. He also issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslims from fighting for or assisting Britain (“contrary to the Shariah”), then fighting Muslim tribes in the Sudan.

Scholar of Islam Andrew Bostom first brought these fatwas to my attention, but they are now accessible on Abdullah Quilliam’s Wikipedia page. Should we take a “counter-extremism” think tank in Quilliam’s name seriously? Could the name have been a mistake? Or is it a joke on gullible infidels? A wink to stealth jihadists?

This piqued my interest in Kelly’s Nawaz interview. Zeroing in on the ISIS beheading of Steven Sotloff, she asked: “Where does their thinking come from? … The first reaction many here in the United States and around the world had was these people who are doing this are psychopaths.”

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Sonnie Johnson, the CEO and inspiration of Change the Game (ctghq.org), the new website and activist program launched by the David Horowitz Freedom Center that sets out to expose the failure and racism of progressive policies and to use hip hop culture to reach constituencies previously untouched by conservative messages.

FP: Sonnie Johnson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Johnson: Thank you for having me. I have the feeling this will be the first of many.

FP: You have great intuition!

So let’s begin:

What is Change the Game all about and what inspired you to create it?

Johnson: I never wanted to start my own project. I wanted to bring my talent to projects that currently exist, and I tried. It wasn’t long before I realized if I wanted to do something different, if I really wanted to change the conversation, I was going to have to do it myself.

Plus, there are a lot of black conservatives holding on by a thread. They are one Bundy Ranch, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown story away from leaving the conservative movement. We’ve lost some really great advocates already. They say they don’t have a home on the conservative side of the aisle. I wanted to provide that home.

FP: Why has hip hop and its constituency been so insulated from conservative messages? Why have so many conservatives been insulated from hip hop?

Johnson: Excellent question. If both sides asked themselves and answered honestly, we could actually have an honest conversation on race and culture.

In my very first “political” speech, I did a comparison between Jay-Z and Ronald Reagan. I took quotes straight from Reagan and mirrored them to lyrics by Jay-Z. I thought I was nailing my political coffin, but I wanted people to see we are saying the same thing. Every Tea Party speech I’ve ever given has hip hop symbolism or direct quotation. When conservatives don’t know the message is coming from hip hop, I get standing ovations.

During the past ten years and two days, the ostrich cabinets did nothing. Every warning was ignored. They lied to the people.

Do not prevent jihadists from leaving our country. Let them leave. I am prepared to go to Schiphol [airport] to wave them goodbye. But let them never come back.

Madam Speaker, war has been declared against us.

Madam Speaker, actually I was expecting flowers from you. I am celebrating an anniversary these days. Exactly ten years and two days ago, I left a party whose name I cannot immediately remember. During these ten years and two days. I have been much criticized. Most importantly for always saying the same thing.

My critics are right. Indeed, my message had been the same during all these years. And today, I will repeat the same message about Islam again. For the umpteenth time. As I have been doing for ten years and two days.

I have been vilified for my film Fitna. And not just vilified, but even prosecuted. Madam Speaker, while not so many years ago, everyone refused to broadcast my film Fitna, we can today watch Fitna 2, 3, 4 and 5 daily on our television screens. It is not a clash of civilizations that is going on, but a clash between barbarism and civilization.

The Netherlands has become the victim of Islam because the political elite looked away. Here, in these room, they are all present, here and also in the Cabinet, all these people who looked away. Every warning was ignored.

As a result, also in our country today, Christians are being told: “We want to murder you all.” Jews receive death threats. Swastika flags at demonstrations, stones go through windows, Molotov cocktails, Hitler salutes are being made, macabre black ISIS flags wave in the wind, we hear cries, such as “F-ck the Talmud,” on the central square in Amsterdam.

Indeed, Madam Speaker, this summer, Islam came to us.

“A Hillary Clinton White House might adhere to the letter of the law, but a de facto second Clinton co-presidency would, like the first, violate both the spirit and the good sense of the Constitution. Buy one, get two—but at far too high a price. ”

It was the first and only time in this country’s history that supreme executive authority had been simultaneously wielded by two people, man and wife. Bill was away on a foreign trip. That left his wife, who’d only recently rebuffed Henry Hyde’s bid to remove them both from power, in command of the nation’s domestic affairs. At this delicate juncture, Bill’s powerful spouse confided her innermost thoughts to a private diary she habitually kept close by and ready for burning in the event of discovery. Few Americans know anything of this diary’s contents, which can now be publicly revealed.

I refer, of course, to the private papers of Queen Mary II, who ruled England with her husband, King William III, from 1689 to 1694, an example of joint sovereignty unique in English history. Mary’s share in the government of England was recently described in an essay by historian Richard Price, based on her heretofore neglected private papers. It is a curiosity of history that, much like a later ruling couple in America, William and Mary fought off efforts to displace (if not impeach) them by one Henry Hyde, Mary’s uncle, the 2nd earl of Clarendon.

The reign of William and Mary is a relatively rare historical example of smoothly functioning joint executive power. The couple’s accession to the throne was the foundation stone of England’s Glorious Revolution, which replaced a reigning king with a monarch elected by Parliament. As the daughter of the displaced king, and wife of the new one, Mary’s presence on the throne smoothed over the break in succession. William, however, held full executive power, by grant of Parliament.

With the king frequently out of the country prosecuting a war against France, Mary was left to take control of domestic affairs. Parliament passed a Regency Bill granting her authority while William was away, yet the nature of the arrangement remained ambiguous. What if Mary’s commands contradicted William’s wishes? What if William issued a counter-order negating hers? Thanks to Mary’s limited enthusiasm for governance, along with her determination to solidify the joint monarchy’s tenuous legitimacy, these difficulties were never faced. For all practical purposes, Mary successfully served as William’s vicegerent.

William and Mary are the exception that proves the rule. From ancient Rome to contemporary Latin America, history shows that in the absence of clear, hierarchical lines of authority, joint executive power tends to produce debilitating confusion and weakness.

Although she frequently invokes her White House years as a credential, Hillary Clinton’s scandal-plagued past is nowadays generally dismissed as irrelevant to her political future. Most Americans, for example, have long since forgiven, forgotten, or discounted the Whitewater affair, Mrs. Clinton’s startling acumen at investing in cattle futures, even Vince Foster’s suicide. And when it comes to Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, and other such friends of Bill, the public’s sympathies seem to be solidly on the First Lady’s side.

The Obama administration is playing with fire at the UN Security Council, actively considering the idea of capitulating to Arab demands over a resolution on Gaza. Now on the table are draft versions from the United States, Europe and Jordan/the Arab group.

The Europeans are pushing for the introduction of an “international monitoring and verification mission” in Gaza that would supposedly ensure the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. What it would actually do is prevent Israel from exercising the right of self-defense against Hamas attacks emanating from Gaza in the future, since the international personnel would immediately serve as human shields for Palestinian terrorists. The European proposed mission would also supposedly investigate and report on violations, despite the reality that UN missions in other Arab countries (such as Lebanon) have never satisfactorily fulfilled similar mandates.

The United States draft resolution asks Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to develop options for a verification mechanism for “dual-use” materials – such as concrete – that Israel would be expected to allow into Gaza. That’s the same Secretary-General who spent the 50-day war slandering Israel with the charge of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians.

The United States holds the presidency of the Security Council for the month of September and may view a Gaza resolution as a “victory” during its tenure. The frequent course of UN diplomacy is to expect the U.S. to capitulate to European demands as a faux “middle-ground.” Moreover, it would not be the first time that the Obama administration played protecting Israel against international coalition-building on other fronts.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is open to a new U.N. resolution on Gaza but only if it contributes to sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said Wednesday.

Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters that a resolution must “do no harm” to the cease-fire that has been holding in recent days and Israeli-Palestinian talks that are scheduled to resume in Cairo, and should “play a positive role in supporting a durable solution.”

“Nothing underscores the urgency of securing … a negotiated two-state solution like the crisis in Gaza and the heartbreak that so many people on both sides suffered throughout that crisis,” she said.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior figure in the Palestine Liberation Organization, told a news conference here Tuesday that the Palestinians are demanding a commitment to the 1967 borders and a deadline for the end of Israel’s occupation, adding when pressed that “within three years, the occupation should end.”

She also criticized the failed U.S. peace initiative by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying it allowed Israel “to persist in policies” that she characterized as unilateral and abusive.

This is hardly a new issue for this President. For starters, he has been as deceptive about his relationship to Islam as all of this sitting government’s reluctance to name Islam, the enemy. And even those who have dared venture into those troubled waters, have been reticent to suggest how we should proceed with each new iteration of Islam’s blood-lusting assault.

Those discussing the ISIS/ISIL phenomenon, treat this particular viral infestation as a unique manifestation in much the same way they have treated every seemingly new but separate spawn of this agency of hell.

This aversion to naming the enemy has gone from frustrating to idiotic to damnable as those primarily entrusted with the security of this nation continue to squirm in their seats at the very prospect of questions forcing them to declare their rudimentary understanding of this seventh century scourge. For many, it is just as well they are not asked because their answers would make the strongest of us embarrassed to share the same gene pool.

That ISIS/ISIL is a blood-lusting and dangerous group of murderers is a given. If they make a threat – to anyone, they should be taken at their word regardless of how unlikely it seems they could carry it out. They have proven their resolve and, their resolve is tempered in the furnace of Islam. Denying this makes men in dignified political positions look like the three monkeys. Whatever else can be said about gaggles like this, their points of origin all remain constant; Islam.

So, if ISIS/ISIL, Ansar Al Sharia, Boko Haram, Al Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah ad infinitum have as their common denominator, Islam and if these groups can be traced back to Islamic nations who either intentionally or unwittingly (publicly speaking), spawned these groups, why is it so difficult to declare them Islamic? Because there are nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world and the majority of them are not “actively” involved in Jihad.

Using the incredibly sophomoric math politicians like to use, they come to their conclusions like this; “if it ain’t got a bomb in a vest, it’s a friendly”. Of course most discerning people would be able to conjure up a list of questions to determine if this approach is correct and most, like myself have asked those questions and to a one, we have received the exact, same response; “These groups do not represent Islam, they are fringe”, which neither answers the question nor suggests any depth of understanding of the networking required to carry out these attacks.

The nominal corporate-income-tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, the highest in the developed world. That’s the on-paper rate. The effective corporate-income-tax rate — i.e., the actual rate — is . . . a matter of some dispute, but Martin A. Sullivan, a highly regarded economist specializing in taxation, puts it around 28 percent. Others have estimated the rate to be much lower: A Government Accountability (ha!) Office study put the figure at about 13 percent.

Let’s put it at 0.00 percent.

In reality, the effective corporate tax rate varies substantially from firm to firm and from industry to industry. As Sullivan points out, corporations that operate exclusively within the United States pay an effective tax rate very close to that 35 percent statutory rate, and energy and mining companies generally pay a relatively high rate. On the other hand, multinationals doing most of their business abroad often pay much lower rates, as do many technology and pharmaceutical companies. For example, in 2013 Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil all had effective tax rates higher than the U.S. statutory rate, but most of their taxes were owed to foreign governments. Microsoft paid about 19 percent. According to S&P Capital IQ, neither Merck nor General Motors paid any corporate income taxes for the second quarter of this year, even though both brought tons of money. (About 22 and a half tons of money in Merck’s case, if you stacked it up in hundred-dollar bills.) Total federal revenue from corporate income taxes in 2013 was $274 billion, or 9.8 percent of total receipts.

When you point out to your average soy-milk-’n’-class-warfare type that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and is alone among non-batzoid countries (looking at you, Zimbabwe and North Korea) in imposing that rate on the worldwide operations of domestic firms rather than only on business done in the United States, Moonbeam will reliably point to those lower effective rates as evidence that everything is hunky-dory. But the enormous variability in real tax rates between politically favored companies (Hello, First Solar!) and those lacking in political tax patronage is not an argument against reforming the corporate tax system — it’s an argument for abolishing it altogether.

At the risk of engaging in some absurd oversimplification, we do not really tax corporate income, meaning revenue, but corporate profits, meaning revenue minus everything that can be counted as a business expense — salaries, materials and supplies, inventory, maintenance, etc. (Ordinary operating costs are 100 percent deductible in the year in which the purchase is made, while capital expenses — investments in assets that have a useful lifespan of more than one year — are deducted over time.) A corporation could, in theory, reduce its taxable income to zero every year simply by giving its CEO a cash bonus equal to what would otherwise be its taxable income.

But in that case, the CEO would have to pay taxes on that money as personal income, presumably at the top rate of 39.6 percent, which is higher than the top corporate rate. And that is why it makes sense to scrap the corporate income tax entirely.