March 27, 2017

Trumping the State Department

Paul Driessen

Government and leadership advisor Scott Faulkner has some valuable personal insights into the US State Department. Bottom line: This bloated bureaucracy disdains our new president, has far too many people doing too little with too much of our money, and badly needs an American Desk to represent our national needs in Washington and abroad – especially on vital issues like "dangerous manmade climate change” and the Paris non-treaty.

Trumping the State Department

Reining in the budget and activities of this bloated bureaucracy is essential

Scot Faulkner

President Trump’s budgetary assault on the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is long overdue. He is forcing a rethinking that will benefit America and the world.

The State Department is one of the most bloated of federal bureaucracies. Front line consular officers, many just starting their careers at State, actually help Americans abroad. However, there are also countless "Hallway Ambassadors” who aimlessly roam from irrelevant meeting to obscure policy forum, killing time and our tax dollars.

Legions of these taxpayer funded drones fill the State Department. Some are reemployed retirees who travel to overseas missions conducting "inspections” to justify their additional salaries.

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is to the State Department what the Teacher Unions are to public education. It exists to protect tenure and to prevent any accountability or reduction among the State Department drones.

The Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (AVC) is a uniquely harmful part of State. This Bureau’s main mission has been to create photo ops of treaty signings. The arms control treaties have usually been unenforceable with sworn enemies of America. The Bureau’s agreements with the Soviet Union undermined U.S. security. Its bureaucrats developed elaborate procedures for justifying the minimizing or overlooking of blatant treaty violations. They are using this same play book for the Iranian Nuclear deal.

Headquarters waste and dysfunction are just the beginning of State Department ineffectiveness. In the mid-1980’s, I viewed State Department field operations personally while serving as Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Malawi.

The most egregious problem was the un-American culture that permeates career Foreign Service Officers. Except for toasting America at the July 4th Embassy party each year, being pro-American is viewed as unprofessional. Long serving Americans would advise me that rising above nationalism and acting "world wise” was the mark of a seasoned diplomat.

Not only did these U.S. foreign bureaucrats avoid Americanism, they avoided the host country. The Embassy team members spent their business and recreational time with diplomats from the other Embassies and with European expatriates living in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. Their only sojourns outside the capital were to Salima, the lakeside resort, or to the Ambassador’s vacation home on the Zomba Plateau.

As Country Director, I eliminated the chauffer-driven luxury car used by my predecessor and reallocated the chauffer to other duties. At the wheel of a Nissan Patrol, I spent the majority of my time in the field with my seventy-five volunteers. This meant absorbing in depth knowledge of Malawi and its people.

State Department versus reality was proven many times over. The most blatant was the 1985 fuel shortage. Malawi was land-locked. The Mozambique Civil War closed off its closest ports. A problematic network of rail lines brought goods, including gasoline, to Malawi via South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. My volunteers told me a Zimbabwean labor dispute was going to cause a five week disruption of fuel to Malawi. I dutifully reported this to the Embassy Team. They scoffed, assuring me that their British friend running Mobil-Malawi was telling them no disruption would occur. I directed my staff to begin stockpiling gasoline.

The disruption occurred. The Embassy team kept dismissing my reports and telling themselves the disruption would be short-lived. By week four, the Embassy motor pool was without fuel. Staff was delivering messages via bicycle. By week five, the Ambassador asked to purchase fuel from the Peace Corps, which had remained fully operational.

The Embassy was blind-sided on an even more important issue. Air Malawi announced it was going to purchase a new fleet of passenger jets along with a comprehensive parts and maintenance agreement. At this point the State Department replaced the Embassy’s Commercial Attaché with a Hispanic who could barely speak English. Instead of sending this person to Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea, they posted him to the most Anglophile country in Africa. He was miserable and totally ineffective.

Alternatively, the German Ambassador moved about Malawi’s 28 regions, equaling my zeal for the field. When Boeing’s sales team arrived they were given a proper, but cool reception. The Fokker team arrived to a hero’s welcome and the multi-million dollar deal was signed shortly thereafter. American business lost a huge contract.

USAID has spent over $1 trillion on overseas projects since its founding in 1961. Empty buildings and rusting tractors are silent testaments to its failures. What funds were not diverted to corrupt government officials went for unsustainable efforts, driven more by academic theories than practicality.

State Department and USAID need a fundamental review and a day of reckoning. This is fertile territory for President Trump and Secretary Tillerson to implant business principles and common sense.

Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and on Reagan’s White House Staff. He advises global corporations and governments on strategic change and leadership.

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Zookeepers who saved Jews from Nazis

Jack Kemp forwards this:

http://nypost.com/2017/03/25/how-a-zookeepers-hero-wife-saved-hundreds-of-jews-from-the-nazis/

During the Second World War a zookeeper in Warsaw - Jan Zabinski and his wife Antonina - secreted Jews to protect them from the Nazi invaders. By hiding Jewish people in hidden cages and the like the couple managed to save 300 of them from the Nazi butchers. A fascinating story!

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Women's March leader deported to Jordan, loses U.S. Citizenship!

Jack Kemp

Would Hillary have done this? Ha!
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/26/ex-terrorist-who-led-womens-march-just-received-a-big-fat-dose-of-american-justice/

Ex-terrorist who led Women’s March just received a big fat dose of American justice

A convicted Palestinian terrorist who served as a key figure in the recent Women’s March on Washington is set to be deported to the country of Jordan and stripped of her United States citizenship.

According to Heat Street, Rasmea Odeh’s deportation and loss of U.S. citizenship comes after a multi-year investigation into her failure to disclose to immigration authorities that she had been imprisoned for a decade after committing two terror attacks in Israel.

Odeh recently accepted a plea bargain that allowed her to avoid prison time only if she gave up her U.S. citizenship and agreed to go back to Jordan. Thanks to the plea bargain, O

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Global Warming Now Causes Diabetes

Jack Kemp forwards this:


http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/26/climate-change-alarmists-say-warming-linked-to-diabetes-then-instantly-destroyed-by-facts/
Climate change alarmists say warming linked to diabetes — then instantly destroyed by facts
Justin Haskins 2 hours

A new report published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, an academic medical publication, claims there is a clear connection between rising global temperatures and type-2 diabetes, but skeptics say this is just another example of climate alarmism.
According to the report, titled "Diabetes incidence and glucose intolerance prevalence increase with higher outdoor temperature,” for every 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature, there is an age-adjusted diabetes incidence increase of 0.314 per 1,000 people.

The report’s authors state in their conclusion, "Our findings indicate that the diabetes incidence rate in the USA and prevalence of glucose intolerance worldwide increase with higher outdoor temperature.”

In a report published by the Huffington Post, one of the co-authors of the studies reportedly said the connection may be caused by higher temperatures’ effect on brown fat or climate-related links between exercise patterns, diets and higher temperatures.
Lisanne Blauw, one of the co-authors of the report, which was authored by a team of seven Dutch researchers, said their results add something important to the global warming conversation.

"When it gets warmer, there is higher incidence of diabetes,” Blauw told the Huffington Post. "It’s important to realize global warming has further effects on our health, not only on the climate.”

Writing at Watts Up With That, an influential website questioning the theory of manmade global warming, Eric Worrall said the Dutch researchers’ data "seems quite noisy” and contains some puzzling contradictions.

"The state of South Carolina (average annual temperature 63F) shows a strong correlation between diabetes and temperature, but the state of Louisiana (average annual temperature 69F) shows a strong negative correlation,” wrote Worrall. "Arizona (average annual temperature 75F) also shows a negative correlation.”
Read it all.”

A NOTE FROM TIM:

And their reasoning makes no sense; people exercise in warmer climates more than in cold. And in cold they eat more and tend to gain weight. Compare the BMMI of an Eskimo and a Mexican and then argue this case, I sez.

Another question; why didn't the Greek physicians observe this during the Roman Warming Period? The Greeks were quite an observant bunch, and they should have noticed an increase in Diabetes when the world warmed back then - and subsequently noticed it's decline during the cooling period that followed.

Of course, there has been no planetary warming since 1995 anyway...

The current trand toward diabetes is most likely a result of dietary changes in modern times. We don't eat the whole grains and unprocessed foods we used to, and that is most likely the cause of our current plague. Of course, easy transportation, electric lights, and computers all make for a nation of couch potatoes, which surely doesn't help with blood sugar control.

‌k]Rates of type II diabetes in aboriginal peoples in Canada are 17.2%, far higher than the rest of the population, which is at 5%. While this apparently supports the conclusions of the Dutch researchers as the Arctic region is supposedly warming faster than the rest of the planet, one must ask why Innuit people are developing such high rates of diabetes when people down in Louisiana have much lower rates. It's a lot warmer down in the southern U.S. than in northern Canada. Diabetes was almost unheard of in Innuit and other aboriginal peoples in Canada just 20 years ago. Why the increase? Probably because they stopped eating fish and other traditional foods and started munching Fritos and french fries.

According to Diabetes Canada:

"Some populations are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes, such as those of South Asian, Asian, African, Hispanic or Aboriginal descent, those who are overweight, older or have low income. Diabetes rates are 3-5 times higher in First Nations, a situation compounded by barriers to care for Aboriginal people.3"

End excerpt.

Funny; Africa and South East Asia are warmer places than Canada, so the incident of diabetes should have dropped in these people.

This is just more junk science, and not very good junk science at that.






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March 26, 2017

Tim's Preschool Story at the New American

Timothy Birdnow

My article at American Thinker on the suspension of a 4 year old from an Illinois daycare because he brought in a used .22 carshell casing has gone viral - and our friend Selwyn Duke covers ita the New American.

I had to write the original post later in the evening, and I was very tired. i spent 45 minutes looking for a reference but never could find it; Eric Holder said he wanted to demonize guns, to make them taboo. I couldn't remember who said it so wasted a lot of time looking. In the end I had to settle for a Boston Globe article arguing the same. Well, Selwyn found the quote from Holder, and it is well worth reviewing as it explains why the Left is so fierce with small children on this issue.

Be sure to read the whole article.

Thanks Selwyn!


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None Dare Call it Terror

Timothy Birdnow

Police seized a couple of knives from a car after it plowed into a crowd waiting to get into a pub in Islington. Naturally, this isn't being considered by British police as an act of terrorism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/three-hospitalised-after-car-crashes-into-crowd-queuing-outside-old-queens-head_uk_58d7a608e4b02a2eaab4d85d

"Four men, aged between 17 and 19, remained in custody on Sunday after the incident outside the Old Queen’s Head pub in Essex Road shortly before 11pm.

Police seized two knives at the scene, one from the Peugeot involved, and one found nearby, in what is not being treated as a terrorist incident."

End excerpt.

Barring the Prophet himself calling into the BBC the British authorities would not say this was a terrorist act, especially with the last ditch attempts to end Brexit. Notice how the article did not give names or any real details; that is because they are trying to figure a way to cover that up. Here's a tip; if they don't give details it means they are looking for a way out. It's the way the media and the authorities roll - especially in Britain.

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Don't Go to Canada

Dana Mathewson

Not if you want to talk, anyhow!

http://americanactionnews.com/articles/in-this-western-country-it-s-now-illegal-to-criticize-islam

This Trudeau dude's worse than his father ever was.

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Our Christian Past

Dana Mathewson

From Townhall today. A very thought-provoking column. And it contains concrete reasons why I am "on the outs" with the current pope.

Love the explanations about Saint Paul -- feeds right into the novel I'm currently reading about him (sent to me by Jack).

https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/03/24/revisiting-the-christian-past-no-political-progressivism-here-n2303714?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

A NOTE FROM JACK KEMP:

This is a good article. There are limits to what I can say here in comment because of my unfamiliarity with any church's teachings, but I can say something.

Believers, nominal or serious ones, seem to want to pass on responsibility for upholding moral beliefs to the state all too often. And many people have not been trained or though out for themselves how to handle such demands (read: guilt trips) as the one the Pope made concerning accepting Muslim "refugees" who are essentially invaders trying either sooner or later to tear down the values and institutions of a Judeo-Christian society. They alsready demand and get, sub rosa, acceptance of child marriages, but they await the chance to demand that rape of non-Muslim females be accepted (it is already widespread) and that all street signs in Western Europe and America be written in Arabic.

As for the author's remark about aid to Israel being a form of religious perfectionism carried out by the state, this is not so simple a topic. A number of Israelis have called - in print - for the end to foreign aid and yet it still persists. Israel is a paradox - a now strong country that is constantly at risk of annhilation for their neighbors and the thousands of rockets stored in Lebanon. You may not recall this, but when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, they found a huge storage area of Russian made tanks and other armored equipment that the Soviet Union had placed their in advance of their soldiers entering the area quickly and traveling light - then participating in a war (perhaps at Har Meggido - or in English, Armageddon). His brief mention of Israel is also simplistic because Israel is also located at the junction of three continents and is the one place on earth where more wars have been fought than any other location. That makes Israel a significant point of interest for U.S. foreign policy for geopolitical as well as for shared spiritual reasons. Exactly how much access to the Suez Canal would the U.S. have without the presence of Israel as a stabilizing influence? And Israel is the only country in the Middle East that isn't abusing its Christian citizens, something Mr. Kerwick failed to mention. All these are not insignificant issues, even if the author of this article ignores their importance.

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Defund the Left: GOP, here's your chance

Dana Mathewson

There is a case for bipartisanship, but it is not the one you usually hear.

Bipartisanship is desirable not because the best course is likely to be found at the midpoint between two extremes: The man who drinks to excess every day is a drunk, and so is the man who does so every other day. There is no compromise between fidelity and infidelity. When presented with a good idea and a bad one, there is no point in being a little bit stupid for the sake of compromise.

...Compromise is good because broad political buy-in is necessary to predictable government. But that has its limit, and Senator Chuck Schumer has reached it. Senator Schumer has announced that he intends to filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. There is no substantive case against Gorsuch, who is well qualified for the position and held in generally high regard — including by Democrats. In 2006 he was confirmed unanimously to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. His most controversial position is that judges should stick to the law.

Senator Schumer is doing the Republicans a favor without intending to: He is giving them a perfectly legitimate reason to suspend the filibuster. Republicans should do so — and not only for the purpose of moving forward the Gorsuch nomination.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446066/epublicans-congress-defund-left-national-endowment-arts-chuck-schumer-filibuster-neil-gorsuch

"Defund the Left!” has been a conservative battle cry for some time, but one that has produced relatively little in the way of results. But Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have made it abundantly clear that the Democrats simply do not intend to act as partners in government. It may be that this is the Republicans’ best opportunity to leave them with a permanently diminished base — financially and, hence, politically.

Now is the time for a little petty partisanship in the public interest.


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The Setting Sun in Britain

Timothy Birdnow

London terror attacker Khalid Masood was linked to ISIS and had terror training in Saudi Arabia. While he was born Adrian Russell Ajao. formerly Russell, in Dartford, a hairy handed gent from Kent. But he was not English by race; his photo shows a dark-skinned man, clearly not English or Welch. (I find it ironic his name was Adrian like Rosemary's baby.) In fact, his stepfather was a Nigerian immigrant and it is probable he was raised Muslim, as a Muslim's child is always considered Muslim in the Islamic community. Much like Barack Obama, who was raised Muslim in Indonesia because his stepfather was a follower of Muhammad, so too would young Adrian be so raised. That we aren't hearing about it suggests quite strongly this is the case.

Britain's idiot PM Theresa May defiantly proclaimed that Britain would continue to maintain the "values" that brought this whole thing on innocent people. She referred to this as "It is a perversion of a great faith.", showing she has absolutely no idea of what Islam is about or why these attacks happen.

It is beyond astonishing; history is replete with just these sorts of things, acts of terrible violence by Muslims against anyone not of their faith. It's in the Koran to do this, after all, and one need but read the history books (good ones, not modern text books) to know Islam is spread through terrorism and murder and rape. Sadly, the leaders of Britain refuse to admit this to themselves.

Whether Masood was raised Muslim or converted is immaterial; even if he radicalized and converted on his own, the fact remains that letting hordes of Muslims into Britain has created an Islamic culture, and promoted the tools of Islamic expansion aka terrorism and murder. Islam is rising precisely because it offers meaning to a pointless existence, and there are plenty of people who find the empty motions of atheistic Western culture (which has reached a zenith in Britain as only 30% of Brits admit to any faith whatsoever.) This empty void begs to be filled, and it is increasingly the macho, male centric faith of Muhammad that is filling it. Islam offers the perfect rebellious belief, because it promotes militarism, strength, male chauvinism, and promises paradise if you die killing infidels. It is largely diametrically opposed to the feminist, anti-militaristic, snowflake vision of humanity held by the Progressive Left. It's getting to be a bad boy and being rewarded for it! And with the continued success of radical Islam across the Globe - a success born of an unwillingness by snowflake liberals to actually address and resist the onslaught - many a disgruntled man joins the cause.

And it is this very thing that led to Brexit. The British people want to save Britain, to keep it what it had once been. Brexit was a revolt against the spinelessness of the Western elites and the horrible immigration and civil rights policies promulgated in Brussels by a corrupt and insane E.U. Not only could Britain not stop the influx of Middle Easterners, but they could not even criticize lest they be accused of "xenophobia" and sentenced to prison. The average British citizen had had enough.

Which is what makesthis so crazy; a major protest march occurred at the same time the U.K. was licking her wounds after the London terror attack. I have little doubt that the attacks only spurred the protests; Progressives always believe that the average person is a bigoted, hate filled monster who will lynch foreigners if given the chance, and so the British left turned out en-masse to try to thwart Brexit, the policy of those who want Britain to be Britain and not the New World Order.

Frankly, I think the days of Britain are over, and that these "British values" of multiculturalism and cowardice are going to swallow the United Kingdom in years to come. But there are still good people left, and Brexit shows that there are some still fighting to save their country.

We have so often heart the phrase "demographics is destiny" meaning that a people can disappear to be replaced by another. It has happened many times in history. The island of Britain has been inhabited by numerous nations over the centuries; the Celtic Britons, the Romans, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans. With each newcomer the old order was pushed aside. Now, it made Britain great because it forced such things as the Magna Carta on the government (so many disparate groups resist each-other) and it gave them the English language, a most capable language in terms of technical speech and precision, but it was at the expense of great suffering. And always, since the first Christians came, Britain maintained the same religious traditions, by and large; there is little difference between Catholicism and Anglicanism, for instance. But now we have non-Western peoples trying to take over, and they are devotees of the Muhammad an belief, a barbarous and tyrannical faith at odds with the traditions and values of Britain. Unfortunately multiculturalism - a concept invented in the late 1970's - has come to be seen as THE western value and the rest be damned. Liberalism has destroyed all the old virtues and values and customs, with only nonjudgementalism and tolerance surviving. Sadly those virtues do not tolerate any of the old virtues, only the values of newcomers.

They have created a machine. It is a doomsday device, a weapon purely of the mind but just as terrible, actually more terrible, than any nuclear bomb or biological weapon. The doomsday machine kills whole minds.

Alas, despite Brexit we shall probably bid a fond adieu to the once great nation, our American forefather. Brexit is like a final rally before the cancer puts the patient six feet under.

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Obama Administration used Tax Dollars and FBI to Destroy Trump

Timothy Birdnow

This morning on the Eirc Metaxas show Dick Morris dropped a bombshell; apparently the FBI used taxpayer money to fund British Intelligence to create the bogus "Russian connection" report on Donald Trump!

Christopher Steele, the MI6 agent who produced the attack document against Trump, was promised by the U.S. law enforcement agency to be reimburst for his efforts with American money. This is huge, because it means the American government was in fact trying to take Donald Trump down.

It also makes the case that got Judge Napolitano fired from Fox News, namely that the Obama Administration was dealing with the British intelligence community to do the dirty work in fighting Trump.

CNN also covered this From the article:

"The short-lived arrangement before the US election ended abruptly in part because of the frustration of Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy, that the FBI wasn't doing enough to investigate the Trump-Russia ties.
The Washington Post first reported Tuesday that the FBI and Steele had sought to reach a payment arrangement.

An official familiar with the discussions said the FBI didn't hire Steele as an informant, but that the arrangement instead allowed for expenses to be paid. It couldn't be learned how much he was paid and for how long. "

End excerpt.

This after the Telegraph reported the British government had given Steele permission to work with the FBI, making it obvious there was collusion going on between the Obama Adminsitration and the British.

This is huge; it is worse than Watergate; the hijacking of taxpayer funds to destroy a Presidential candidate and manipulate the elections. This truly exposes the existence of the Deep State and the Shadow Government. Trump is vindicated in his claims.

SOMEBODY has been leaking and the FBI has done nothing - and James Comey admitted his agency is investigating the President but not investigating the leakers, who are committing felony acts.

We all knew the Establishment was not going to go quietly, and they are waging an almost open war against the will of the American People. Comey and the Obama Administration must be investigated, and Comey at least must be forced to resign. (He can't be removed by Trump by statute.)

This is an attempted coup.

Here is an interesting point, by the way; after the terrorist attack in London British apologists claim Russia was behind it or at least pushing the idea it was an Islamic attack. From The Hill:

""This is another example where we take one group of people and we demonize them," said Louise Mensch, a Heat Street columnist and former Conservative member of the U.K. Parliament.

"The guy was British-born. His name was Adrian before his converted. And partisans of Russia were out in the streets saying it was an illegal immigrant who did it, trying to turn the London people against our Muslim friends and neighbors. And you're not going to do that."

End excerpt.

So the Russians are to blame for terrorism in Britain, or at least on blaming those innocent Muslims who never hurt a fly.

The Russian bogeyman appears to be a planned strategy of the Progressives. This is clearly a global liberal scheme.
It's obvious there has been collusion between the Obama camp and the British.



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Left calls parents Genetic Chauvanists

jACK kEMP

This week in stupid (1/2 video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCLe7VHa0gs talks of the left's fantasy of taking all children away from their biological parents to be the property of the state and then raised by other randomly chosen parents. Any opposition to this utopian hell is called "genetic chauvanism" and also "genetic narcissism."

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About that "Death Spiral" of Arctic Sea Ice

From Peter courtesy of Helen Dyer

Arctic sea ice is always fluctuating significantly. During the medieval warm period 1000 years ago, there is anecdotal evidence that for much of the 12th century, the Arctic was navigable in summer. Then came the "Little ice age” for 500 years where glaciers advanced all over the planet and the Arctic must have expanded considerably.

Then around the late 1700’s the Earth started warming again, glaciers started receding and sea levels began rising again. None of the preceding can be attributed to CO2 because in the late 1700’s CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was around 280 ppm and it took until about 1950 to reach 300ppm and it is now over 400 ppm.

The greatest warming period in the last 200 years was 1910 to 1940 and warmist scientists try and attribute this to volcanoes, and other causes because they know it wasn’t caused by CO2. During the 1910-40 global warming period , Arctic ice shrank and glaciers receded.

But in the 1940’s , the planet started cooling again and did so until the mid 1970’s. During this period, the Arctic expanded and glaciers advanced. During this period, the consensus of climate scientists was that the Earth was going to enter another ice age.

But then the planet started warming again until the El Nino of 1998 and average warming since then has been minimal. The point I am trying to make with all the above is that Arctic ice is sensitive to Earth global temperatures so if the planet is still warming significantly, then we should look to the Arctic to verify it.

One of the many organizations that measure Arctic sea ice is the US based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) who have the following on their site….

"Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximum extent on March 7. This is the lowest maximum in the 38-year satellite record.”

"NSIDC director Mark Serreze said, "I have been looking at Arctic weather patterns for 35 years and have never seen anything close to what we’ve experienced these past two winters.””

"Arctic sea ice maximum at record low for third straight year”

""While the Arctic maximum is not as important as the seasonal minimum, the long-term decline is a clear indicator of climate change,” said Walt Meier, a scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory and an affiliate scientist at NSIDC.”

Wow, the ARCTIC is in big trouble! Perhaps we should look at the actual data.


NSIDC use two Arctic sea ice measuring systems…

1. Sea Ice Index(SII)….history back to 1979
image002.jpg
It shows significant shrinking until 2006 then the decline slows quite a bit, but 2006 is still higher than the present.

2. MASIE……………...history back to 2006
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Screen-Shot-2017-03-22-at-8.00.17-PM.gif
From the MASIE web page. http://nsidc.org/data/masie/about_masie
"About MASIE-NH
MASIE-NH stands for the Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent – Northern Hemisphere. It is similar to the Sea Ice Index (SII) product in that it is easy to use and gives a graphical view of ice extent in various formats. However, it relies more on visible imagery than on passive microwave data, so the ice edge position will generally be more accurate than that of the Sea Ice Index”

So Masie is more accurate than SII but NSIDC are basing all their press reports on SII. The above MASIE cyclic trend is not anywhere to be found on the NSIDC site, only the data is available and can be downloaded in CSV format. It appears to me that the reason they don’t display the trend as above is because you don’t have to be a climate scientist or a mathematician to determine that for the last 10 years, Arctic ice has remained pretty much the same. It shows that

· Arctic max ice for 2017 was about the same as 2006.

· Arctic min ice for 2016 was about the same as 2007

And from the university of Illinois, the graph below shows that since 2006, sea ice has remained the same.

image008.jpg

So next time you see the headline "Arctic in death spiral”, just remember that song from Porgy and Bess, "It aint necessarily

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March 25, 2017

Climate Change Caused Brexit, According to Al Gore

Dana Mathewson

Now we know. . .

https://apple.news/ATAaCEGzKPTuRxJXd1mu5hA

(I love Delingpole when he's operating in full snark!)

DELINGPOLE: Climate Change Caused Brexit Explains Al Gore…
Breitbart News
Climate change caused Brexit, Al Gore has claimed. Gore, who was speaking at an event to promote his latest global warming propaganda documentary - An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power - said the Brexit vote in Britain last summer was the result of "political instability" created by the "stress" caused by climate-change induced chaos in the Middle Eas

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Third Anniversary of Ammo Grrrll at Powerline

Dana mathewson

This one details how Ammo Grrrll became a columnist for Power Line (and how she got her moniker). Wonderful writer! Fun! Delightful!

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/03/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-160.php

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Conservatives Kill Ryanocare - Horrah!

Timothy Birdnow

With the collapse of Ryanocare in the House of Representatives, the media is giddily high filing because Trump experienced his first major defeat. The Donald had put all his political prestige on the line to promote Pee Wee Ryan's version of Obamacare, and it has now failed. Oh joyous day! The little troll with the Hair Club for Men hairdo has taken it in the shorts! The media is pleased.

But not as pleased as would be expected and neither are the Democrats. There was no real rejoicing in the Party that forced socialized medicine on an unaccepting America, and there is a simple reason why; Ryanocare was something the Donkeys and the media hoped the Republicans would pass. It was a trap. (Picture a giant langoustine in a flight suit at this point, please.)

Look, Ryan's plan did not get rid of Obamacare. It did streamline it in some areas, and got rid of a few of the more onerous things, but it left most of the budget busting policies (like "children" being able to stay on a parent's insurance until their silver wedding anniversary, or the precondition exemption) and yet it gutted the onerous funding mechanisms for this. Yes, they were onerous (like my having to purchase maternity insurance despite the fact that I have no ovaries or womb, and don't swing that way anyway, or that I have to buy dental insurance that I am not allowed to use because it's for "the children"). This is bad stuff, unfair and costly stuff, but it did fund the crappy insurance that the government mandated. Pulling this bilge out is correct, but not keeping the basic plan in place and pulling that out; there is no money for funding. Everyone knew obamacare was going to collapse anyway, and in fact it was designed to do that to clear the way for single payer aka socialized medicine (let's stop playing the liberal's game of hide the meaning through "reframing" the language, can we!)

So along comes Pee Wee Ryan, stat nerd and rampaging Rino, and he guts the funding from an already underfunded bill. Now what? It was going to collapse at some point, and everyone knew who exactly was to blame for that. Oh, the media would have tried to blame the GOP anyway, but the public knew they had resisted the program from the start. But when Ryanocare collapsed it would be entirely the fault of the Republicans - and that is why they couldn't get any Democrats on board with it, even though they knew it was going to collapse. They wanted the GOP to take the fall.

And, in their usual Charlie Brown football kicking style, they eagerly ran toward it. I am surprised at Trump, though, for falling for this. But then, Trump is not really a conservative and he probably actually believed in it.

There were numerous other pitfalls with this; the GOP promised to REPEAL the program and not just rearrange it, for instance, so passing this made them liars. Don't think the public wouldn't have noticed that; it was a large part of why they were given control of the government in the first place.

Oh, I know; it was promised that all the problems would be fixed in "phase II and phase III". Tom Cotton of Arkansas laughed at this notion, saying it would never happen and he is right. There never was going to be real reform done. We were being asked to trust a Republicans Party that has not fulfilled any campaign promises over the last decade. They did not have any right to expect our trust; it has to be earned. Had they passed a clean bill they would have earned it. But this thing was not a clean bill. It is galling because they passed many clean bills in the House while Obama was in office and it didn't matter. Strange how they have weakened since taking power.

Another point about this is that it is vintage GOP negotiating style. Normally in negotiations you demand way more than you think you can get and work your way backward. If all goes well you wind up with more than you actually wanted. Worst case scenario you wind up with your bottom line. The Republicans have this maddening tendency to go for half a loaf and not even bother with trying for the whole thing. They start their negotiations with their bottom line position, and whittle it back to near nothing. This whole Ryanocare was a classic example; they made it plain they were desperate to do this and immediately - any negotiator knows that urgency must be on the opposing side. You have to be prepared to get up and walk away from the table. But the GOP started this with "we've got to do this immediately" which meant the Democrats held all the cards. Instead of passing a clean repeal and forcing the Democrats to vote against it they worked up a bill they thought could be passed, a stinker which really didn't repeal the onerous filthy bog of Obamacare.

It's more akin to European "conservative" parties who don't resist the fundamental principles of government control but simply promise to do it better. This bill would have been a way of accepting the right of government to rule over us and our bodies. Liberals fondest wet dream is socialized medicine, because then the State owns your body and has a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. If they are paying they are giving the orders. That is why a repeal was so important here, and the GOP failed. They wanted to preserve the basic principle, the precedent that government has a right to do this.

Talk show host Michael Medved was bleating yesterday about how the failure of this increases the likelihood of our getting "single payer" because Obamacare will fail, and that we should be willing to take half a loaf. He is utterly clueless on this issue; Ryanocare was going to fail in just as spectacular a fashion, and we still could well have gotten socialized medicine. And as for that half loaf, how has that worked out in the past? We've been told to take half a loaf and like it for twenty years or more, and everything has gone backward in that time. In point of fact half a loaf is the fundamental intellectual building block of Marxism, the idea of the Hegelian dialectic, where you present a thesis, which is countered by an antithesis leading to a synthesis. Or to put it simply two steps forward one step back. The Left has perfected this technique, and Medved's half loaf is simply acquiescing to the dialectic progression. There comes a time to take a stand and this was it.

I ask Medved and the other pusillanimous pipsqueaks who wanted compromise here, would they accept half a surgery? If the doctor got them on the slab, cut their chests open and started a double heart valve replacement, would they be satisfied for the doc to only replace one valve and leave the other bad one alone? Of course not, but that is precisely what they are asking us to do here. Would they be content to have a dentist drill out a cavity but not fill it? Would they be thankful if the chef in their favorite restaurant brought out raw food?

Other points against Ryanocare; first, if much of it was going to be removed by "the Director" aka Tom Pryce then a new President can reinstate these provisions as well. They need to be killed in law, not by order. Also, nobody bothered to think about the uncertainty that the multi-pphased scheme engendered in the economy.  Without settling this issue the market had no solid footing, which means people are going to be cautious in terms of investment and expansion of businesses. Ryanocare was going to hurt economic growth.

The American Revolution was fought over one simple principle; the Colonists denied the right of England to tax them, plain and simple, while Parliament was determined to impose some tax, any tax, simply to create a precedent that they had the right to do so. Parliament kept rescinding taxes and creating new ones, ones they hoped the Colonists would accept. Each new tax brought new outrage, because the Colonists were unwilling to allow Britain to establish this premise. THEY weren't willing to accept half a loaf, because they knew that that half loaf would soon be a quarter loaf and before they knew it they would be standing in a bread line, waiting for moldy scraps from their masters. Medved and the other compromisers simply do not grasp this principle.

And another thing; we keep hearing about "the Parliamentarian won't allow it" from the Republicans. We NEVER heard a peep about this advisory position until now. Why? Well, for starters, the current Parliamentarian is Elizabeth MacDonough, a woman appointed by Harry Reid. This is not a permanent position, and Mitch McConnell is supposed to appoint his own as the Parliamentarian is simply an adviser to the Senate Majority Leader. Yet Mitch the (prison) Bitch couldn't be bothered to select a better one than Old MacDonough, who can be expected to shout "ee-i-ee-i-oh!" whenever any conservative motion comes to the floor. Oh, and Mitch has the authority to overrule the Parliamentarian any time he likes. But he doesn't like, because he doesn't really want to rid America of Obamacare. So he and the other Republicans have brought this position to a high prominence, saying they will simply be overruled by her and what can you do? I have never seen a more cowardly and craven bunch in my life.

"Repeal and replace" was a phrase that always set my teeth on edge; it meant simply changing a bad law rather than disposing of it. The conservative revolt in the House is a good thing, a very good thing, because it shows that we are not going to just rubber stamp what the Leadership - a craven leadership more interested in appealing to big money donors and the fake news media - deigns to give us. Today is a day to celebrate.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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March 24, 2017

The Hill Never Worries About his Line

Timothy Birdnow

According to The Hill Donald Trump won't repeal Obamacare if he doesn't get a yes vote on the current legislation. From the article:

"President Trump warned House Republicans on Thursday that he will leave ObamaCare in place unless they approve legislation to repeal and replace it.

Trump officials meeting with the House GOP conference said Trump is done negotiating over the legislation, which was set to come up for a vote Thursday but was delayed.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, a former member of the House Freedom Caucus that has been negotiating with Trump, told the GOP conference that Trump wants a vote on Friday during a dramatic closed-door meeting, according to a GOP source in the room.

If the vote fails, Trump will move on to other priorities and ObamaCare will stay as the law of the land, Mulvaney said"

End excerpt.

Huh?

Apparently the good folks at the Hill are not aware that the President doesn't make or repeal laws and that Trump has absolutely no power over them if Congress fails to act. OF COURSE he's not going to repeal Obamacare if Congress doesn't pass a repeal bill! Where do the writers of these mainstream outlets come from?

And of course Trump is going to move on; what choice would he have? Spend the next four years trying to cajole Congress on this?

Duh!

This reminds me of a song from The Music Man:

4th Salesman: Never heard of any salesman Hill
2nd Salesman: Now he dosen't know the territory
1st Salesman: Dosen't know the territory?!?
Whats the fellows line?
2nd Salesman: Never worries bout his line
1st Salesman: Never worries bout his line?!?
2nd Salesman: Or a doggone thing. He's just a bang beat, bell ringing, Big haul, great go, neck or nothin, rip roarin,
every time a bull's eye salesman. Thats Professor Harold Hill, Harold Hill
3rd Salesman: What's the fellows line?
5th Salesman: Whats his line?
Charlie: He's a fake, and he dosen't know the territory!

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/m/themusicmanlyrics/rockislandlyrics.html

It's kinda like that!

Hat tip: American Thinker.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bullying Tots at A Place 2 Grow

Timothy Birdnow

A quick update on A Place 2 Grow snowflake academy. The owner was interviewed last night on Fox 2 and he (a middle aged man, which is vaguely creepy if you ask me) was quite angry about this. He said his school is a place to learn the ABC's and basic counting (the irony of the name he chose for the place - which mixes Arabic numerals with Roman letters as he substitutes 2 for the word to - seems to escape him) and that their job is no to teach gun safety. Well, nobody asked him to do that. But what he took upon himself was to demonize guns - which places them in a state which overshadows the three R's. Now all the kids in school are going to be more interested in firearms than in learning their letters.

The owner said he had to shut down the school's Facebook page because of the nasty commentary. He fails to realize that it was his nasty actions that caused that, not the mother and not those of us who have chronicled this. He said it's "hurtful" to be called a hater by so many people. (Isn't that a vintage liberal; he can be as mean and vicious as he wants but if he is called out on it he cries like a little baby.)

The fact of the matter is this man is a bully. He is trying to inculcate these children with his beliefs, and to do so he is willing to bully children who cannot defend themselves.

The owner complained that he isn't being treated fairly, that the child had "priors". What were those priors? Pointing his finger and saying "bang"! Pretending rulers and other objects were guns. I hate to tell this fellow but that is what children do - especially boys. Research has shown girls play with dolls - even when they have to make crude ones of their own, and boys play with guns, even if only their fingers.

this story in the Atlantic makes the point:

" The problem with Egalia and gender-neutral toy catalogs is that boys and girls, on average, do not have identical interests, propensities, or needs. Twenty years ago, Hasbro, a major American toy manufacturing company, tested a playhouse it hoped to market to both boys and girls. It soon emerged that girls and boys did not interact with the structure in the same way. The girls dressed the dolls, kissed them, and played house. The boys catapulted the toy baby carriage from the roof. A Hasbro manager came up with a novel explanation: "Boys and girls are different."

They are different, and nothing short of radical and sustained behavior modification could significantly change their elemental play preferences. Children, with few exceptions, are powerfully drawn to sex-stereotyped play. David Geary, a developmental psychologist at the University of Missouri, told me in an email this week, "One of the largest and most persistent differences between the sexes are children's play preferences." The female preference for nurturing play and the male propensity for rough-and-tumble hold cross-culturally and even cross-species (with a few exceptions—female spotted hyenas seem to be at least as aggressive as males). Among our close relatives such as vervet and rhesus monkeys, researchers have found that females play with dolls far more than their brothers, who prefer balls and toy cars. It seems unlikely that the monkeys were indoctrinated by stereotypes in a Top-Toy catalog. Something else is going on."

End excerpt.

But liberals like the A Place 2 Grow (sic) owner believe they can condition this out of children, make guns a taboo.

And guns in particular are a boy's natural inclination. This article makes that point:

"When my son Sam was a toddler, I banned toy guns and swords. I bought him a doll and a toy vacuum cleaner instead. Boys play aggressively, I believed, because they have so many aggressive-looking toys to play with. In my theory, a kid with fun and charming alternatives wouldn't miss the weapons, and he'd grow up to be a sweet and caring man to boot.

So I was surprised that Sam never once spontaneously cuddled his doll and only reluctantly joined me when I said brightly, "Let's give the baby a bottle!" And I was shocked when at ½, he picked up a cracker, bit off a corner, pointed the long end at me, and shouted, "Pow! You're dead!"

Many parents who think they've done all they can to make sure their children won't be shaped by gender stereotypes are mystified by such behavior. A friend who's a lawyer recalls when her 3-year-old daughter, in response to a "you can be anything you want" speech, said, "Then I'll be a princess, and you'll have to buy me lots of beautiful clothes."

End excerpt.

And as the author of this piece notes:

"And sometimes banning a toy can backfire, giving it a forbidden-fruit luster that makes it more appealing. Sam had amassed an arsenal fashioned from sticks -- a stick pistol, a stick rifle, a stick musket -- before I gave in and got him a six-shooter for his cowboy costume the Halloween he was 4. He played with that gun obsessively for six months, then ignored it except when other boys came over. His younger brothers, who are growing up in a house where guns are no longer anathema, have never shown much interest in them."

End excerpt.

See, it's NATURAL for boys to play gunfighting, or other rough-and-tumble games. Play is how children develop, and often play is how children work through things. Playing cowboys and Indians ( verboten these days, of course, as it is "culturally insensitive) doesn't mean a child will go out and shoot a native American, or scalp a white guy. Rather, it is a fantasy, and the children know it. They actually work through the violence and put it in it's proper place. I content that by restricting fantasy violence you encourage real violence in the growing adult. If you don't act it out as a child you will as an adult in real life.

So the owner's protestation rings false.

In fairness I will say that KTVI Fox2 in St. Louis has been guilty of some rather chippy efforts in the past. I know a fellow who was a foreign language teacher in high school. This guy is as straight an arrow as they come, but he made a big mistake. As a reward to his students for good work he would sometimes let them watch foreign language television for a few minutes at the end of class. He had tapes he would play for them. One time he put it on and left the room for a minute. to return to uproarious laughter. It seems the tape had a segment about naked skydivers. Embarrassed, he immediately turned it off. Unfortunately for him, an anchor at Fox2 had a child in the class who was struggling - and now it was a major news story! They tried to get this guy fired. He apologized and admitted it was wholly inappropriate, but it didn't matter. When the school's parents turned out in his defense the matter slowly died, but his reputation was tarnished and he had to endure endless stalking by the media. He was rather bitter about it.

So mischaracterization does happen. But given what we know in this case - and the news broadcasters interviewed the fellow in charge - I rather doubt this is being mischaracterized.

Liberals use bullying tactics to enforce silence in the service of promoting their beliefs. it is one of their prime tools. Unless we, the traditional Americans, fight back in kind we cannot hope to stem the tide of the radical left. This is clearly a less aggressive campaign against this preschool than, say, what was done to the pizza parlor where the employee, after saying they wouldn't cater ANY wedding, said they probably wouldn't cater a homosexual one. Remember that? They were driven out of business. It was a huge national news story. But I haven't heard a peep from any but the conservative media on the national scene with this.

Maybe A Place 2 Grow (sic) should issue an apology and admit their policy of zero "gun" tolerance is both unnatural and oppressive. That would be a good start.


Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Preschooler Suspended from Daycare for Bringing in spent .22 shell

Timothy Birdnow

In yet another episode of Liberals Gone Wild a Collinsville, Illinois preschool has suspended a 4 year old child for bringing a spent .22 shell to show his friends. Not a gun, not live ammunition, but a used shell.

Apparently this was too much for the snowflake academy where this junior criminal had been terrorizing his young schoolmates with pointed fingers and other faux military-grade weaponry.

According to Fox2 News:

http://fox2now.com/2017/03/22/4-year-old-suspended-for-bringing-a-shell-casing-to-preschool-daycare-goes-viral-on-facebook/

"Neither she nor Hunter's dad knew it, but he found something he thought was pretty neat and he took it to school Tuesday to show his friends.

"This is a spent .22 caliber bullet casing,” Kristy Jackson said, holding the object that got Hunter into so much trouble.

"I was met with a stone-faced teacher who said that my son had a shotgun bullet. I was horrified thinking, ‘where could he have gotten this?’” Jackson said, recalling when she picked up Hunter from the preschool in Troy, IL, Tuesday.

Hunter’s parents got a letter from the school’s director saying Hunter had been suspended for 7 days. The letter says they’d repeatedly been reminded about Hunter using other toys as make believe guns, in violation of school policy including Monday, when Jackson picked Hunter up from the preschool, the day before the shell casing incident."

End excerpt.

And to add insult to injury A Place 2 Grow aka Snowflake Academy demanded Hunter's mother (Kristy Jackson) pay for the time he was being denied. When she posted about this on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AndyBankerFOX2/posts/1404216766296771 they reported her to the Department of Child and Family Services. See Kristy Jackson's Facebook page here. https://www.facebook.com/kjax78?fref=nf

The boy apparently found the spent shell on the ground after his grandfather, a retired Collinsville police officer - had taken him to teach him gun safety.

The American People fought the most powerful nation on Earth and won independence because we had guns, and that lesson was not lost on the Left. Gun control is one of the cornerstones of liberal social engineering not because it saves lives (it doesn't) but because as long as the American People have guns they can't be forced to obey their "betters" in the Establishment. If they really cared about safety and security they would not support letting hordes of aliens invade the country. They would not support weak laws and anemic sentencing laws. Obama would not have emptied the prisons shortly before he left office. Why do these people oppose Donald Trump's efforts to stop potential terrorists from coming into the country? Why were they so eager to import tens of thousands of Syrian military age men aka refugees?

The whole point of these hysterical reactions to anything even remotely associated with firearms is to make them taboo, to create a sense of horror in the average person. While the Left is merrily picking the lock on the most sordid and vile of human passions, celebrating things that were once not even discussed in private, they are at the same time trying to make the public fear and loathe the things they do not want - such as guns. Just like it is impossible to speak out against gay marriage today, so too they want it impossible to defend firearms or even whisper about them publicly.

Doubt me? Well, the Boston Globe called for just this sort of thing. As they point out, it worked to kill cigarettes.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/23/weiss/2kSrR8nkWgwI1TJQVGkPEM/story.html

A Place 2 Grow may not even realize that this is what they are trying to do; they may just be drifting along with the hippie tide. But it most certainly is their intent, to stigmatize guns and anything associated with them. It is reminiscent of the ancient kings who would strike someone's name from all records, that their memory may perish.

A Place 2 Grow apparently doesn't live up to it's name. Shame upon them!


Read more from Tim and friends at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu

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Liberals Argued for Trump's Travel Ban in Defense of DAPA

Timothy Birdnow

Now that a lawless federal judge has issued a stay on Donald Trump's temporary entry ban to citizens of unstable or terrorist-sponsoring countries, an order that Mr. Trump took great pains to bring into compliance with a previous stay that was upheld by the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the question arises as to whether he had the authority to do so. Is Mr. Trump out of control or are the courts? Strangely enough, the very same people claiming Trump lacks the authority to do this held a very different opinion when Trump's predecessor was in a similar position. Strange how their arguments have flipped.

When Barack Obama issued the orders known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA)
https://www.uscis.gov/immigrationaction on November 20, 2014 liberals were giddy with the power of "I have a pen and a phone" as Mr. Obama once bragged; their hero could simply write his name and voila! Instant law! But in February of '15 a Federal judge Andrew S. Hanen issued a temporary stay on the Obama Executive Order, forcing the Administration to appeal. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which deadlocked 4 to 4 and wound up affirming the original court order.

It actually was that close.

Obama's executive order was struck down not because he did not have authority over U.S. immigration policy but because he was openly violating laws duly passed by Congress. The courts rulings were based on the so-called Take Care Clause, which requires him to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. His motives did not enter into it.

Liberals rode to the rescue as soon as the first restraining order was issued.

Writing in The Atlantic in June of 2016 Peter M. Shane made the following argument in favor of the Obama program:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/us-v-texas-wasnt-really-about-presidential-power/489047/

"Here’s the thing: No one should have been confused about "whether the president had lawful authority to [promulgate DAPA].” The president did not—but that’s legally irrelevant. Obama’s legal authority is not at issue in the case. Really. Truly. Not even a little bit. Obama did not take the legally relevant action; Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson did. It’s a program of
which he is the legal author and for which he, not the president, is legally accountable. Politically and institutionally, this is a critically important difference.

[...]

"He could not have forced Johnson to promulgate a program, however; in the face of impasse, Obama would be able only to fire this secretary and try to appoint another. When Obama refers to "his” powers or "my” actions, he mainly insures that all the opposition to the program, both legal and political, will get focused with laser-like intensity on him, rather than Johnson."

The reason why the Left could make this argument is that the law does not direct the President to make these determinations but "the Director" which essentially means Obama is not in direct control of the policy so he is not violating the law. Cute.

(By the way the DOJ admitted that the Department of Homeland Security violated the injunction anyway.)
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/dapa-and-daca-what-happened-to-president-obama-s-executive-action

If Trump were to do that he could be impeached. That is their hope and their trap.

In defense of President Obama, Eric Posner argued in Slate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2015/02/obama_s_dapa_immigration_program_is_legal_judge_hanen_s_injunction_will.html

"The Obama administration has argued that the president has the authority under the Constitution to allocate resources among enforcement priorities, especially in the area of immigration law, where historically, and as a result of the foreign policy implications of immigration, an unusual amount of power is given to the president to set priorities. Obama, like all his predecessors, has sought to use limited resources given him by Congress to deport violent and dangerous undocumented immigrants rather than hardworking and peaceful ones."

Yet strangely enough the same voices defending Obama's absolute right to determine immigration policy are now screaming at President Trump .

According to Posner:

"The deeper problem with Judge Hanen’s reasoning is that, as he explicitly acknowledges, the president really does have the constitutional authority to decide to go after violent felons and leave everyone else alone."

So the President has the authority to decide who may be a danger and stop their entry into the United States. Isn't this precisely what Trump is doing?

As I have chronicled http://canadafreepress.com/article/judicial-piracy-and-plunder-of-americas-immigration-law the President clearly has the legal authority and duty to make the determinations of who gets in. The court rulings against Mr. Trump’s orders are based entirely on Trump's campaign rhetoric - which should not matter in this issue anyway - and yet if we are to follow the logic of Peter Shane the courts had absolutely no right to even consider Trump's thinking since it would rather be the work of DHS Director, not Mr. Trump.

And the Obama Administration's arguments in the DAPA case directly repudiates the argument being made against Trump. In the DAPA hearing , Justice Stephan Bryer did not think the individual states had standing:

http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/18/the-highlights-of-the-supreme-court-oral-argument-on-obamas-executive-amnesty/

"Justice Stephen Breyer brought the conversation back to the matter of standing. He noted that the Supreme Court rejected analogous cases in 1923 involving claims that the federal Maternity Act interfered with states’ authority. Keller responded that unlike the 1923 cases, which pressed claims based on taxpayer standing (a theory long rejected by the justices), DAPA imposes an injury on Texas’s sovereign interests. Breyer countered that this theory would allow states to seek to invalidate numerous federal laws."

Strange that the liberals on the Court all supported the notion that the individual states did not have standing then. Granted, SCOTUS has not yet heard the Trump case, but how much does anyone want to bet that those same Justices will rule the states DO have standing? In fact, I strongly suspect the Court will see the liberal members make a 180* turn on this issue.

What must be remembered is that Obama wanted to give legal status to invading aliens who wanted to colonize America while Mr. Trump is trying to protect the security of America and her citizens. Obama was acting out of political and perhaps personal motives while Trump is actually doing his job, fulfilling his oath of office. His personal attitudes have no place in the rulings

Simon Lazarus argued in the New Republic that:

https://newrepublic.com/article/127504/next-supreme-court-obamas-immigration-policy

"...the Court’s response to the Fifth Circuit’s DAPA decision should be straightforward. It will accept review and dismiss the case on the ground that the party that filed it, the state of Texas (on behalf of 25 similarly Republican-led states), has asserted no injury that gives it legal "standing” to get its grievance into court. The alleged injury on which the lower court judges relied to allow Texas to challenge DAPA is that, under Texas law, recipients of deferred action status may obtain state-subsidized drivers’ licenses, costing the state $130.89 each.

...But, as numerous experts have noted, well-established doctrine bars state or local entities from seeking judicial redress simply for incidental, self-engineered (Texas is free to repeal its subsidy) monetary loss from a federal policy change, certainly not on such a trivial scale. From the standpoint of defusing perceptions of politicization, retaining barriers to standing for Texas’s DAPA challenge will have a more systematic—and consequential—impact than the rejection of last term’s attempt to cripple the ACA. Ruling otherwise will license state or local politicians to put virtually any beef with the feds, however politically driven, on the docket of a convenient lower federal court, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court. Government programs at all levels could be threatened with gridlock—just as national immigration enforcement policy is gridlocked by this lawsuit."

End excerpt.

So why is this same logic not applicable now? If Texas didn't have standing then why do states have it now?

Notice, too, how the Left used the financial arguments against DAPA in the Trump case. The two situations are not analogous; Texas was being overrun by hordes of illegal aliens - many of them children - and were being forced to subsidize them. The same is in no way true of the Trump policy. Simon Lazarus called the invasion "trivial" yet how much more trivial is the money lost because a few citizens of suspect countries aren't coming?

And it was not just liberal news people who supported Obama's DAPA plan; over 200 Democrats signed an amicus brief in support of Obama's right to set immigration policy. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/obama-immigration-action-democrats-amicus-brief-220419 According to the Politico story:

"Democrats are insisting that Obama is not violating the "Take Care” clause because the executive actions are well within the authority of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, whose sprawling agency oversees immigration matters."

Yet those same Democrats have ripped President Trump for his exercising Presidential authority. Strange.

In the final analysis, the very arguments that were unsuccessful in the DAPA case are far more applicable in this instance. The federal statutes are entirely on Trump's side, and the essence of the argument against Trump boils down to schoolyard taunts that he is a big meanie who hates Muslims. We must ask why Barack Obama was seen by the Left as upholding the law when Donald Trump - who actually is - is treated worse than Fidel Castro. So many of those opposing Trump like to wear Che’ Guevara tee shirts, after all.


Tim blogs at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu

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