ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s EPA nominee makes eco-misanthropes and red-greens howl By Ed Straker

Posted By on December 8th, 2016

Donald Trump made another excellent nomination, of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator. But you wouldn’t know it by reading the mainstream media, who criticized Pruitt for being “too friendly” to fossil fuel producers in his fight against Obama energy regulations.

At the heart of Mr. Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change are a collection of E.P.A. regulations aimed at forcing power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution.

They are being forced to reduce their emissions, all right – by shutting down, reducing the overall power supply available to the nation as a whole, as part of Obama’s illegal “Clean Power Plan” regulations designed to shut down coal and other fossil fuel power plants, even though we currently have nothing to replace them with.

As Mr. Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state’s economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.

Here’s an original thought: Mr. Pruitt didn’t just ally himself with oil and gas companies; he allied himself with every consumer who uses oil and gas and wants to continue to do so at affordable prices.

Here’s what one red-green had to say about Mr. Pruitt:

“At a time when climate change is the great environmental threat to the entire planet, it is sad and dangerous that Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A.,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. … “The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination.”

Climate change is the greatest environmental threat? What about our greatest threat, period, such as radical Islam, unchecked illegal immigration, and our enormous national debt? These things will destroy us long before fictional global warming. And the American people are not demanding we move away from fossil fuels. They use more fossil fuels than ever. It is political commissars like Bernie who are making the demands.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Taps WWE Co-Founder Linda McMahon as Small Business Head see note please

Posted By on December 8th, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) cofounder and former CEO, to head the Small Business Administration in his Cabinet, his transition team announced Wednesday.

“Our small businesses are the largest source of job creation in our country,” McMahon said in a statement. “I am honored to join the incredibly impressive economic team that President-elect Trump has assembled to ensure that we promote our country’s small businesses and help them grow and thrive.”

As administrator, McMahon will spearhead the federal government’s efforts to work with small businesses and entrepreneurs across all 50 states. The 68-year-old executive was a major Trump donor during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Along with her husband Vince, McMahon founded WWE in 1980 and gradually built the wrestling company into a publicly-traded, $1 billion brand. McMahon left the company in 2009 to enter politics, running unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.

“Linda has a tremendous background and is widely recognized as one of the country’s top female executives advising businesses around the globe,” Trump said in a statement. “She helped grow WWE from a modest 13-person operation to a publicly traded global enterprise with more than 800 employees in offices worldwide. Linda is going to be a phenomenal leader and champion for small businesses and unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit all across the country.”

Steve Chabot (R-OH), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, applauded McMahon’s nomination in a statement.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Shari’a Law Meets the Internet by Denis MacEoin

Posted By on December 8th, 2016

Shari’a councils should not have the right effectively to deny women rights they hold as British citizens under British law.

In the end, the biggest problem is that there is no system of external regulation for the councils. There is no legal requirement for them to keep full records of the cases they adjudicate on, no requirement to report to a civil authority with the right to prevent abuses, and not even a requirement for any council to register with a government agency.

The Muslim Brotherhood in the US itself listed the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) as one of several organizations who shared their goals, including the destruction of Western civilization and the conversion of the US into a Muslim nation.

The “minorities” jurisprudents generally favour a non-violent approach to the encounter of Islam and the West, while retaining a critical stance towards the latter and a conviction that Islam must, in the end, replace it. But on occasion, as in the Middle East, violence is sanctioned.

The UK has for several years faced problems with its growing number of shari’a councils (often misleadingly called courts). These councils operate outside British law, yet frequently give rulings on matters such as divorce, child custody, inheritance and more, which are based on Islamic law and in contradiction of the rights of individuals (usually women) under UK legislation. Many Muslim communities in cities such as Bradford, Birmingham, Luton, or boroughs such as Tower Hamlets in London are both sizeable and close-knit; individuals in them are made to live lives in accordance with Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Islamic traditional norms. This means that contact with British life at large is often restricted, with a lack of assimilation that traps many women and girls into lives very close to the lives of their sisters in Muslim countries.

Much of the concern about the “courts” has been expressed by Baroness Caroline Cox, whose bill to limit their impact on Muslim women has passed more than once through the House of Lords and, recently, into the House of Commons. Her personal determination and clear-sightedness have meant that the matter has remained for several years a focus for debate in politics and the media. Her arguments have received widespread support from women’s rights organizations, especially several concerned with the rights of Muslim women.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Dragon of Islamic Terrorism by Dex Quire

Posted By on December 8th, 2016

The dragon’s first major tongue-dart at the West was the death threat — a fatwa with a bounty issued in 1989 by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini — on Salman Rushdie, a British citizen, for his novel, The Satanic Verses.

What the dragon learned with that initial thrust! The West was so genteel. The United Nations issued condemnations on — paper! Diplomats wrote scare-letters. Politicians said harrumph.

How different if politicians and diplomats in the West had delivered the simple and forceful message back to the Ayatollah: Unless you remove this threat, we will cancel all diplomatic visas.

“The worst part of the dragon is in the tail.” You do not have to know what it means; it gives off a spooky authority. This thought was written by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the great Cuban writer who knew something about dragons’ tails: he had confronted Fidel Castro and lived to tell about it. While on a diplomatic mission to Brussels in 1965, he denounced Castro, abandoned his post and lived out a life of exile in London until his death in 2005. He never went back.

For a minute, let us call the dragon Islamic Terror (we shall get back later to the tail). There is much about the dragon we do not know: where he lives exactly, his vulnerabilities, his comings and goings, his next attacks, his feeding schedule. We do know that he foments terror and inspires fear. From the front part of the dragon, his snout, emerges a tongue flick — tasting the air, sensing out fresh victims. His first major tongue-dart at the West was the death threat — a fatwa with a bounty issued in 1989 by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini — on Salman Rushdie, a citizen of Britain citizen, for his novel, The Satanic Verses.

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Education – The Selection of Betsy DeVos” Sydney M. Williams

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

There is nothing more ferocious than a cornered animal. That description fits the leaders of the two major teachers’ unions – the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Both lashed out when Donald Trump nominated Betsy DeVos to take on what is perhaps the toughest and most important job in the new Administration – Secretary of the Department of Education. Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the NEA, said: “By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators and communities.” Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, was blunter: “In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.” The irony is that those two have stood in the way of reform. It is time the status quo is challenged. A good education, next to family, is the most critical element in determining future success and happiness. For too long, unions have focused on teachers and administrators, not students and parents. This has been especially true in those districts most in need of help.

Both unions had a financial stake in the defeat of Mr. Trump. Based on data through October 28, the NEA had contributed $23.3 million to political causes in 2016, with 98% going to Democrats. The AFT had given $10.3 million, with 100% going to Democrats. Both have a stake in maintaining what is not working. Studies suggest that 40% of high school graduates are not prepared for college, and that 20% are not qualified to serve in the armed forces. Something is wrong. Albert Einstein once famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Throwing good money at bad schools, with no little or no choice for parents and students and little or no accountability on the part of teachers and administrators has not worked.

Betsy DeVos is the person chosen to breach those walls – walls that thus far have proven invincible. Her selection by Mr. Trump shows that he is serious about reform. She has been trashed by those who see her as a threat, not only the heads of the two unions who have the most to lose, but reporters as well. Valerie Strauss, an education reporter for The Washington Post used incendiary language in an article titled, Trump terrifies public school advocates with education secretary pick. She claimed that Ms. DeVos’s proposals would promote segregation, discriminate against students with severe disabilities and fight public oversight. The implication was that Mrs. DeVos would destroy public education. Reporters for The New York Times, Kate Zernike and Kevin Carey, were equally provocative. Neither reporter mentioned unions, nor did they see any value in competition, choice, or accountability when it comes to education and teachers.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Donald Trump Picks Retired Gen. John Kelly to Head Homeland Security Four-star Marine general led the U.S. Southern Command and troops in Iraq; his son was killed in Afghanistan By Gordon Lubold and Damian Paletta

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump has picked retired Marine Gen. John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security in his new administration, people familiar with the decision said Wednesday.

The move would put a military commander who directly supervised U.S. operations in Central and South America in charge of one of the president-elect’s signature platforms: securing the border between Mexico and the U.S.

Gen. Kelly would become the second retired Marine general to join Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Both he and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the choice for defense secretary, must be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Trump also has tapped retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser. And he is considering whether to nominate Adm. Michael Rogers to be the director of national intelligence, and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus as secretary of state, although there are several candidates for that post.

In addition to Gen. Mattis and Gen. Kelly, the chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, also is a Marine and will be in that post through most of 2017.

Gen. Kelly’s last job was as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, the division that oversees U.S. military activities south of Mexico, including Central America, South America and the Caribbean. As Southern Command chief, Gen. Kelly focused on homeland-security issues, because his post involved monitoring drug trafficking and other illicit smuggling activity south of the U.S.

Gen. Kelly’s views on immigration and tightening the border were likely to have appealed to Mr. Trump. Before retiring, Gen. Kelly testified that the border between Mexico and the U.S. was too loose. “The border is, if not wide open, then certainly open enough to get what the demand requires inside of the country,” he said during congressional testimony.

Mr. Trump has vowed to erect barriers between the U.S. and Mexico, despite controversy and criticism about the potential cost. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump traveled earlier this year to Mexico and met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. CONTINUE AT SITE

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Obama Defends His Antiterror Strategy in Arguments Aimed at His Successor President draws contrast between his ideas and those of Donald Trump By Carol E. Lee

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

President Barack Obama on Tuesday defended his strategy for combating terrorism, despite the emergence on his watch of the Islamic State group and the expansion of the conflict in Syria.

Mr. Obama, in a national-security speech delivered just weeks before he leaves the White House, repeatedly drew a contrast between his ideas and those of Republican President-elect Donald Trump while making a case for why his successor should adhere to his approach, which was shaped by his early decision to scale back America’s military presence overseas. Mr. Obama also pointed to his administration’s ban on torture, including waterboarding, and to his longtime effort to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained,” Mr. Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. “We can get these terrorists and stay true to who we are.”

Mr. Obama said the clearest evidence his strategy has succeeded is that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland, and it’s not because they didn’t try.”

Attacks in Europe have rattled Americans, as have several apparently Islamic State-inspired shootings in the U.S. Mr. Trump campaigned on being tougher on Islamic State and suggested the vetting of Muslims in the country.

A Trump transition spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Mr. Obama’s speech.

While he didn’t mention Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Obama had a clear message for his successor on foreign policy. He argued for using diplomacy before military power, pointing to the deal with Iran to restrain its nuclear program, which Mr. Trump has said is deeply flawed.

He also said the U.S. doesn’t impose religious tests and that “protecting liberty” is something the U.S. does for all Americans, not just some. Mr. Trump has proposed curbs on immigration by Muslims.

On closing Guantanamo Bay, one of Mr. Obama’s earliest and unfulfilled promises, Mr. Obama said the “politics of fear” has kept the facility open and that until Congress changes course on its refusal to allow the transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons, “it will be judged by history.”

“And I will continue to do all I can to remove this blot on our national honor,” Mr. Obama said.

Matthew Levitt, who was deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration, said that beside Mr. Obama’s digs at Mr. Trump, “the speech was most interesting for what it left out: any real answer to the fact that terrorist threats are worse now than when he came to office, according to most intelligence officials.” CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Cancer Breakthrough Aids One Patient, Raises Hopes for Many Researchers use a woman’s immune cells for new therapy to reverse her metastatic colon cancerBy Thomas M. Burton

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

BETHESDA, Md.—National Cancer Institute researchers have produced an immune-cell therapy that for the first time successfully targeted a genetic mutation involved in causing tens of thousands of gastrointestinal cancers.

The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, focused on only one patient whose metastatic colon cancer was completely reversed. But that patient’s unusual story may hold promise for many others, doctors said. The therapy targets a gene mutation estimated to drive more than 50,000 new cases of GI cancers in the U.S. each year, including about 90% of often-lethal pancreatic cancers and 45% of all colorectal cancers.

The NCI laboratory is headed by famed immune-therapy researcher Steven A. Rosenberg, the chief of surgery at the cancer institute. He has previously published landmark findings showing that immune therapy has effectively treated many patients with metastatic melanoma, as well as those with blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The technique also proved successful in a bile-duct cancer case reported in 2014. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is based here.

Targeting the commonly-occurring family of cancer-driving genes known collectively as RAS has been a kind of Holy Grail in oncology. Mutations in the subset of RAS genes known as KRAS are believed to be a driving force in most pancreatic cancers, which have a bleak survival rate, and in nearly half of colorectal cancers, the No. 2 cancer killer in the U.S. after lung cancer. In this case, the targeted mutated gene is known as KRAS G12D and is the most common of the KRAS gene mutations.

“We report the regression of metastatic colon cancer,” wrote the researchers, headed by Dr. Rosenberg and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Eric Tran. The researchers calculated that tens of thousands of patients annually could potentially be eligible for this treatment.

Dr. Rosenberg said that while the therapy depends on each patient’s own immune cells, it is potentially transferrable to many other patients because of receptors in the patient’s immune cells that grab onto the cancer. These anti-KRAS receptors can be widely used as a treatment, he said.

“This is truly exciting,” said Axel Grothey, a Mayo Clinic oncologist. “At this point in time I consider the presented data as an intriguing proof of principle that cellular immune therapy can be used to target cancer cells with specific molecular alterations. That alone is important and could represent a game-changer in the future.”

“This is really important,” said Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “It isn’t changing treatment today, but it may change it tomorrow.” He expressed caution because this is just one case, but said, “This is a terrific translation of elegant science into a real benefit for this patient, so in that respect it’s very exciting.” CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Donald Trump Taps Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to Lead EPA Republican has been harsh critic of agency, fought Obama’s environmental regulations By Amy Harder and Peter Nicholas

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a transition official, choosing a harsh critic of the agency to take its helm.

As the chief legal officer of a big oil and natural-gas producing state, Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has led legal fights against some of President Barack Obama’s most significant environmental rules.

Mr. Pruitt has touted his leadership role in fighting the EPA rule that cut power-plant carbon emissions, as well as an EPA measure that put more bodies of water under federal jurisdiction. Both of those rules have been temporarily blocked by federal courts as litigation proceeds.

In choosing a legal official to head his EPA, Mr. Trump could be signaling that legal action will be central to his plans to repeal a raft of regulations, something he promised on the campaign trail.

The Obama administration has issued an array of regulations, most originating at the EPA, aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, including a high-profile rule that would reduce carbon emissions at power plants. Mr. Trump has vowed to repeal that rule, called the Clean Power Plan, and a host of others related to climate change and other environmental issues.

The selection of Mr. Pruitt reflects a request by some on Mr. Trump’s transition team that his cabinet—currently heavy on close allies and rich business people—should also include state officials and others not closely associated with the president-elect.

Mr. Pruitt wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Mr. Pruitt has been a close ally of the oil and natural gas industry, whose influence in Oklahoma rivals its clout in even Texas. Fifteen percent of Oklahoma’s GDP comes from oil and natural gas, second most in the country after Alaska, according to Kevin Book, managing director of research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

Oklahoma City is also home to Continental Resources, whose founder and CEO, Harold Hamm, is a top energy adviser to Mr. Trump, as well as an ally of Mr. Pruitt’s.

“He understands the regulatory stranglehold that the EPA has had on industry during the Obama administration,” Mr. Hamm said of Mr. Pruitt Wednesday. “I believe that he will work to unleash prosperity in America through the proper use of regulations and adhering to the rule of law.”

Mr. Pruitt has pushed back against a group of Democratic attorneys general who are investigating ExxonMobil Corp.’s handling of climate-change science in recent decades. Mr. Pruitt has indicated he questions the scientific consensus that human activity is helping raise the Earth’s temperature, though he has been less outspoken about it than some other candidates Mr. Trump was considering to head the EPA, such as former Texas environmental regulator Kathleen Hartnett White. CONTINUE AT SITE

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

DANIEL GREENFIELD: A DAY OF INFAMY AS IT WOULD BE REPORTED TODAY

Posted By on December 7th, 2016

A Date That Will Live Forever in Infamy

Naval Base Bombed, Shinto Worshipers Fear Backlash – New York Times – December 8 1941

A day after planes passed over their peaceful village on the way to attack the Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, local fishermen are still picking up the pieces.

“I don’t know what any of this is about,” a man who would only give his name as Paji said, holding the remains of a net which he had used to earn a living. “All I know is that the killing has to stop.”

In Washington, government officials urged the public to stay calm and not to jump to any conclusions warning that such reactions might play into the hands of the militant extremists responsible for the attack.

Early copies of President Roosevelt’s upcoming speech to Congress likewise warn the American public of the dangers of overreaction.

“We are not at war with Japan,” it says. “We are at war with a tiny handful of extremists who are attempting to drag the Japanese people into a conflict. But we must keep a cool head and not allow them to win by provoking a war. We will defeat this enemy, but we will do it by not fighting them.”

A profile has emerged of at least one of these attackers. Hideki Nakamura, a graduate of Harvard and a talented oboe player, was shot down and captured. Nothing in his background, which included playing for the Harvard squash team, would have lead anyone to conclude that he was capable of such a thing.

KATANA, a local civil rights organization partly funded by Japan’s war propaganda office, has warned that American foreign policy is responsible for the radicalization of such young men like Nakamura.

“What made this man hate America so much that he wanted to bomb it?” a spokeswoman for KATANA asked. “How did America fail him? And how can we win him back?”

Nakamura’s guards have suggested that the pilot is soft-spoken and has pleasant manners, but that he becomes vocally exercised over the American embargo of Japan and the refusal of many universities to install rice paper doors in dormitories.

“Detaining Nakamura only inspires others to imitate him,” KATANA said, suggesting that he instead be released back to Japan where the government is running an anti-extremism program at the Strategic Institute of War that claims to be able to deprogram extremists with a 97% success rate.