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July 2017

EDUCATION Comments turned off

“It’s About Time We Had an Intifada in This Country!” (video)

By on July 14th, 2017

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
A collection of eyebrow-raising pronouncements from an American professor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2k5QaUOBE4

Asserts the uploader, Canary Mission, which has a must-read post here,

‘Nablus-born Hatem Bazian, is notorious for calling for intifada [violent uprising] in the USA. He is the founder of radical organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). He is a serial pusher of conspiracies, and has a ‘project’ to re-write history. More worryingly, he is largely responsible for the wave of antisemitic incitement across North American campuses.’

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Alan Moran Electricity: All Hope is Lost

By on July 14th, 2017

Alan Finkel’s otherworldly prognosis is bad enough. But toss in Malcolm Turnbull’s advocacy of renewables and then add an imported American chief regulator who would have been happier working for Hillary Clinton and where are you? The simple answer: thoroughly stuffed.

With Australian electricity prices now approaching world-beating highs, we have on Friday another meeting of the Council of Australian Government (CoAG) energy ministers who have created the current energy catastrophe.

They are to examine the Finkel report into electricity. Among the many counter-productive recommendations this report offered was an increase in the electricity market’s “governance”. This is a demand for even more of the political tinkering which, in the space of just 15 years, transformed the Australian electricity industry from the cheapest in the world to one of the dearest. Distortionary subsidies to renewable energy, which have also undermined reliability, are paramount in this.

Finkel decided that renewables are inevitable (which is why Malcolm Turnbull appointed him) and commissioned economic research to demonstrate that this is so. The modelling showed future lower prices from the substitution of wind/solar for lower cost coal. It did so by using two mechanisms.

First, it has the renewables subsidised and with priority access to the grid, meaning coal powered stations have either to run at a loss or close down. The optimists assume coal will run at a loss in an oversupplied market then close down in an ‘orderly’ manner.

In theory, this allows a second mechanism – forecast cost reductions of wind and solar – to swing in.

One shortcoming of this picture is that if the coal stations hit major expenditure needs at an inconvenient time, they will be forced to close down. This was the case with Hazelwood, which was operating in the face of Worksafe notices and requiring perhaps a billion dollars for new boilers. Finkel’s solution (adopted by politicians) of requiring three years notice of closure is absurd and unworkable.

Moreover, the fabled and imminent onset of cheap renewables will not occur, just as it has not ocurred through the past 30 years of similar erroneous predictions. Ah, but batteries will save the day, I hear some say. But no, they won’t. Batteries are simply a costly way of smoothing out the peaks of renewables’ intermittency.

Compared with the cost of coal at below $50 per MWh for new power stations and less than that for existing ones, wind is at least $90 plus the costs of storage ($14 according to the totally inadequate estimates published by Minister Josh Frydenberg) and requires aditional transmission expenditure.

With current policies having brought wholesale prices to around $100 per MWh, Finkel decided to airbrush from history the sub-$40 prices that prevailed until the renewable subsidies started to bite in 2016.

It is easy to forget the changes that the deregulation of energy created, before politics overturned its competitive nature.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Media, Dems Ignore Hillary Ukraine Collusion By Daniel John Sobieski

By on July 14th, 2017

“Where are the Congressional hearings on Hillary’s collusion with the Ukraine? Where are the hearings on her making it possible for Russian interests to control 20 percent of our uranium supply in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation? ”
Call it “the Seinfeld meeting,” because the conversation between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer was a meeting with a nobody about nothing, from which nothing resulted. Yet in the Democratic and media (sorry for the redundancy) alternate universe, it is more worthy of attention than North Korea, ISIS, or jobs and the economy.

In a bit of irony, the lawyer with which Donald Trump Jr. was allegedly colluding, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was allowed to be in this country by the Obama administration and its attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Natalia may have overstayed her visa and at the time of the meeting may have been, dare we say it, an illegal alien. Extreme veting, anyone? As reported by Fox News Politics:

The Obama administration granted the Russian attorney who met with Donald Trump Jr. last June a special type of “parole” to be in the United States after she initially was denied a visa, Fox News has confirmed – though it remains unclear whether she had permission to be in the country when she attended the Trump Tower session. …

Well before the June 9, 2016, meeting, she was denied a visa to enter the U.S. in 2015, according to court filings first reported by the Daily Beast. She was granted a “parole” to be in the country from October 2015 through early January 2016. However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York told Fox News on Thursday that their office did not extend that status.

“She was not granted a second parole by our office,” office spokesman James Margolin told Fox News in an email. “Her case-related immigration parole ended early in 2016, and it was not renewed by us.”…

“She shouldn’t have been in the country,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. “I think the lady Russian lawyer that was there in that meeting, I’ve written to [The State Department and Department of Homeland Security] to find out what she was doing in the country when presumably either her visa or parole expired.”

Maybe the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton campaign were colluding with the Russians to let her in and let her stay to try to st up Team Trump? Why was she allowed in the country? Why was she allowed to overstay her welcome or “parole”/ Media curiosity about the meeting apparently has its limits.

Some, such as Mark Steyn, have approached the meeting with the trivial pursuit it deserves:

…Mark Steyn dismissed the notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin was pulling the strings behind the meeting of Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.

“The guy [who Trump Jr.] is colluding with is a washed-up pop music publicist for John Denver in the 1980s,” Steyn, a “Rush Limbaugh Show” guest host, said.

Steyn said Robert Goldstone, who he said is now a publicist for a pop star in Azerbaijan, would never be someone Putin would confide in to collude with the Trumps.

Others, including the usually-grounded-in-reality Charles Krauthammer, seem to have swallowed this “evidence” of “collusion” whole:

Charles Krauthammer said the scandal surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton was “the first empirical evidence” of the campaign’s collusion with Russia.

Collusion to do what exactly? Conspiracy to adopt Russian children? Collusion to get front row tickets at that Azerbaijani pop star’s next concert? Opposition research is not a crime and Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting was far less interesting than the fake dossier the Democrats used to fuel their “Russia, Russia, Russia” campaign.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump-haters rallying Saturday By David Zukerman

By on July 14th, 2017

On January 4, 2017, The New York Times printed a full-page ad calling on the American people to: “STOP THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME BEFORE IT STARTS.” Signers included Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground, a revolutionary- left group, known for its deadly bombings, and reportedly a friend of former President Barack Obama.

The January 4 ad having failed in its aim, the organization behind the ad — www.refusefascism.org — is bringing its Hate Trump/Pence message to the nation this Saturday, July 15, with protests scheduled mainly at locations in Deep Blue America, including New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angles. Boston, and Seattle. (Other cities include Detroit and Philadelphia, cities in states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that narrowly voted for Trump/Pence.)

The theme of the July 15 demonstrations is “Protest and Demand — THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!” As of the date of this writing, it is not clear if any Democrat — or Republican — anti-Trump elected officials will participate. Nor has it been suggested that officials from the Obama administration — National Security Adviser Susan Rice, or former CIA director John Brennan — will take part. Nor is there word that Senator John McCain will attend one of these Trump-Pence Hate gatherings to declare: This reminds me of my involvement in the Maidan protests in Kiev, a few years ago, when Ukraine overthrew its duly-elected president.”

Protest material does not set forth plans for the federal government, once Trump and Pence “GO!” Certainly, the July 15 demonstrations must have a deleterious impact on our democratic institutions, and erode confidence in our election process. And haven’t leftists been claiming, since November 8, that this has been the intention of the Kremlin?

Evan McMullin, in a New York Times op-ed piece, December 5, 2016, pointed out:

“Authoritarians often exaggerate their popular support to boost their perceived legitimacy. But the deeper objective is to weaken the democratic institutions that limit their power. Eroding confidence in voting, elections, and representative bodies gives them a freer hand to wield power.”

McMullin was identified by the Times as “a former C.I.A. officer [who] was a conservative independent presidential candidate in 2016.” The print title of his op-ed ,”The Constitution in Danger,” appears on-line, as “Trump’s Threat to the Constitution.”

In view of John Brennan’s apparently contributions to the “Trump must go” campaign, should we be surprised that “a former C.I.A. officer” sought to draw votes from candidate Trump and, after his election, charged Donald J. Trump as a threat to the Constitution, putting him in the Trump Hating mainstream?

Material promoting the July 15 Hate Trump demonstrations include this battle cry: “We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime…they must GO!” This theme appears in the ravings of New York Times Trump Hate columnists and, certainly, in the Republican-Hate propaganda spewed by congressional Democrats, with nary a reply from the Republicans.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Travel Ban, and Beyond Srdja Trifkovic

By on July 14th, 2017

The Supreme Court decided on June 26 to allow key parts of the Trump administration’s “travel ban” to go into effect temporarily. This was an unexpected victory for the President—and for common sense. Until the Court hears the full case in October, the administration will be able to bar travelers from six majority-Muslim countries who cannot show a “bona fide” connection to a person or entity in the United States. The Court said the relationship must be “formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course, not for the purpose of evading” the travel ban.

Trump’s next task should be to make the 90-day ban permanent. Over the past two decades hundreds of Muslims born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States. They have included persons who came to America legally on visas, as well as refugees. More than 300 persons who came to the U.S. as refugees are currently the subjects of counterterrorism investigations by the FBI.
In the long term, Trump should seek to reinstate the substance of his original executive order, which was issued on January 27 and revoked on March 6. Its stated “Purpose” declares that

the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law . . . who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Without naming it, Trump’s original order treated orthodox Islam as a violent ideology inimical to America’s “founding principles.” After all, for a Muslim to declare that he accepts the U.S. Constitution as the source of his highest loyalty is an act of apostasy punishable by death under Islamic law. To a Muslim, sharia is not an addition to the Constitution and laws of the United States, with which it may coexist; it is the only basis of obligation. To be legitimate, all political power must rest exclusively with those who enjoy Allah’s authority on the basis of his revealed will, and America is therefore illegitimate ab initio.

Trump’s original order effectively demanded that a Muslim give up this key tenet of his faith in order to be eligible for admission. In principle a Muslim’s naturalization is also problematic, as it includes the oath “that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . ” To swear this would be sacrilegious for a Muslim, since it means he would be prepared to shoot a fellow Muslim, or denounce him to the authorities, in defense of his adopted homeland.

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