The UN Fraudulently Addresses “Extreme Poverty” in the United States by Francis Menton

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12629/un-poverty-united-states

You may be aware that the UN actually has an official definition of “extreme poverty,” which is “liv[ing]… on less than $1.90 per person per day.” $1.90 per day would come to just under $700 per year.

An April 2018 study by John Early for the Cato Institute found that counting the $1.2 trillion of annual redistributions toward the income of the recipients — a sum often misleadingly excluded from poverty statistics — reduces the official poverty level in the U.S. from 12.7% all the way down to about 2%. And the remaining 2% would be people who for some reason had not sought out the benefits.

In other words, the U.S. distributes to its low-income residents resources beyond their income equal to an additional 40 times per person the amount officially deemed by the UN to constitute “extreme poverty.”

Is the United Nations a group of people of good faith, joining together in the effort to help bring peace and justice and economic development to the world? Or is it a group of haters of freedom and capitalism engaged primarily in spewing ignorance, malice or both toward the United States? For a clue, you might take a look at the “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America,” recently issued by the UN’s so-called Human Rights Council.

Yes, this is the same Human Rights Council from which the U.S. just announced its withdrawal. It is also the same Human Rights Council that includes among its members China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — with ambassadors who think that the best use of their time and resources is to criticize the economic and human rights record of the U.S.

Watching weather waves, missing climate tides By Viv Forbes

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/watching_weather_waves_missing_climate_tides.html

The climate alarm media, the bureaucracy, and the Green Energy industry follow an agenda served by inflating any short-term weather event into a climate calamity. They should take a long-term view.

Earth’s climate is never still – it is always changing, with long-term trends, medium-term reversals, and minor oscillations. Humanity is best served by those who use good science to study geology, astronomy, and climate history searching for clues to climate drivers and the underlying natural cycles and trends hidden in short-term weather fluctuations.

For the last 10,000 years Earth has basked in the Holocene Interglacial, which is the latest of many warm cycles within the Pleistocene Ice Age. There are small warm and cool cycles within the Holocene. Today we enjoy the Modern Warm Cycle (which started about calendar 1900), following the Little Ice Age, which bottomed in about 1750.

What does the future hold? The past gives clues to the future.

In every warm era, glaciers retreat, ice sheets melt, and sea levels rise. Coastal land, ports, and settlements are lost under the rising seas, but tundra, grasslands, and forests expand. Some corals manage to grow as fast as the seas rise, but others are drowned in deep water. The warmth drives more carbon dioxide from the seas, plants thrive, deserts shrink, and humans are well fed.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: America Needs Leaders like Martha McSally By Elise Cooper

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/america_needs_leaders_like_martha_mcsally.html

“Drain the Swamp” is the rallying cry of Americans who want leaders, not politicians. This was the case for many World War II veterans who chose to serve their nation in a different capacity. It is no different today with Congresswoman Martha McSally (R-AZ), a representative of those veterans who care more about this country than their own political ambitions.

McSally has an impeccable resume. As a colonel in the Air Force she was part of the team that helped plan and execute U.S. air operations over Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. In January 1995, she became the first woman in U.S. history to fly a combat aircraft into enemy territory, in order to help enforce the United Nations’ “no-fly zone.” In July 2004, McSally took command of the 354th Fighter Squadron, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to command a combat aviation unit. A requirement that American military women wear veils while stationed in Saudi Arabia led her to stand up for American principles with a lawsuit in early 2002. This eventually led Congress to pass a bill ending the practice. She is now serving her second term after first being elected to Congress (R-AZ 8th district) in 2014. American Thinker had the privilege of interviewing her as she makes a run for Arizona’s open Senate seat.

Less than 1% of the total population serves in the military today. Yet, many post-9/11 veterans are stepping up to the plate to serve in Congress. McSally believes, “Being an elected official is a continuation of my service. Those who served in the military understand that our culture is not to walk away from a problem, but to do something about it. A lot of veterans are responding to this ‘call to duty.’ I am willing to work with those on the other side of the aisle, even the ones who I do not agree with. I think it is in a veteran’s DNA to be mission oriented, which means to see if there are any Venn Diagrams pieces that we can agree upon and work together.”

Nunes Targets the Real Collusion: The Media and DOJ By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/10/nunes-targets-the-real

Congress is finally closing in on the biggest perpetrator of the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax: the American news media.

After taking an eight-year break from its vital role as the executive branch’s watchdog, the media have been on a frenzied, anti-Trump bender since 2016. Every conspiracy theory, every rumor, every dubious source has been chased down and breathlessly covered by once-credible news organizations. (This shameful interview on CNN with a drunken former Trump campaign aide could be a new low in journalism.)

Despite sanctimonious protestations that the media are not—as President Trump suggests—the “enemy of the people,” their collective conduct before and during his presidency has been disgraceful and borderline subversive. The elite press is complicit in one of the greatest political scandals of all-time: How the Obama administration concocted the tale that Donald Trump’s campaign was working with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) now is asking his congressional colleagues to compel open testimony from several people suspected of working as conduits between the Justice Department and the media to facilitate the Trump-Russia narrative.

Kavanaugh Gets the Call: Get Ready for the Smear By Lloyd Billingsley

https://amgreatness.com
Twelve days ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy stepped down and Monday night the pick to replace him was in. President Trump named D.C. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, 53, for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The president sought a candidate who would “do what the law requires” and “apply the Constitution as written.”

That is also what Trump supporters are looking for, and why Democrats opposed Trump’s whole list. For Democrats, the Supreme Court is a robed politburo that gives them what they fail to win through the electoral process. Even before the announcement of Kavanaugh, who clerked for Anthony Kennedy, they were turning up the volume to eleven. The battle to confirm Kavanaugh is certain to be fierce, so all age groups, Millennials in particular, might profit from a review of the Democrats’ grand inquisitors of the past.

Ohio Democrat Senator Howard Metzenbaum, a veteran of Communist Party fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild, took the lead against black conservative Clarence Thomas in 1991. Metzenbaum thought he was intellectually superior to the Bush nominee, but Thomas, a Yale man like Kavanaugh, made him look a fool. It was likely Metzenbaum who leaked Anita Hill’s fake story, and the Democrat pushed hard on the sexual harassment allegations.

When black businessman John Doggett testified in favor of Thomas, Metzenbaum charged that Doggett was also guilty of sexual harassment. White liberal Joe Biden also attacked on that front.

“From my standpoint as a black American,” Thomas said, “as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.”

France’s Latest Surrender to Jihad New anti-terrorist wall around iconic Eiffel Tower. New anti-terrorist wall around iconic Eiffel Tower. Stephen Brown

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270672/frances-latest-surrender-jihad-stephen-brown

It is being called “the biggest aquarium in the world.”

Perhaps the best known symbol of France to the world, the Eiffel Tower, will open this month with a new look that leaves some native French very disgruntled.

New walls of “extra clear”, bullet-proof glass, standing 10 ft. high and 2.5 inches thick, will now enclose Paris’s affectionately named ‘Lady of Iron’ on its north and south sides. Metallic walls of curved prongs of equivalent height will encase the other two sides, through which one will have to pass to access the Tower after submitting to security controls.

In addition, 420 blocks are being placed around the Tower to prevent jihadist vehicular attacks like those that occurred in Nice, Barcelona and Berlin. All of which has caused observers to complain the Tower will lose its aesthetic look, resembling now a “fortress.”

Under construction since last fall at a cost of about 40 million dollars, many French believe these latest security measures not only disfigure the venerable ‘Lady’, but represent, above all, the French political class’s impotence in face of the jihadist threat.

“Jihad Allowance”: Views of Work in the Middle East by Nonie Darwish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12340/jihad-allowance-work-ethic

After the ruling class, the highest respect and wealth is given to the jihadist class or military leadership class. Otherwise, the jihadist or military class might turn against the leadership and Islamic system itself. That is one reason why the highest pensions in most Muslim countries, as in Gaza and the West Bank, go to widows, parents and children of jihadists and military retirees.

“We [the Muslim world], don’t work and if we work, we don’t do it professionally. We do not produce . . . and we import everything from the needle to missiles… Muhammad ordered us to excel in everything ‘if you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly…’ How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us? They have become superior through knowledge and technology and work ethics.” — Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Today, as Muslims are escaping their vast, poverty-stricken Islamic territories in 54 Islamic nations for the greener lands of Europe and America, Westerners seem to think they are rescuing refugees. Many times they are, but other times this is just the latest version of a story that has been repeating itself for 1,400 years.

Recently, the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, dismissed President Trump as just a “tradesman” who lacked the qualifications to handle political and international affairs. At face value, the criticism might sound similar to that of an opposition party alleging that Trump lacks political experience. Coming from an Islamic leader, however, it reflects a much deeper meaning: on how differently the Islamic culture views the work ethic and the means of acquiring wealth.

“Words and Phrases – Fake or Twisted?” Sydney Williams

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“But no one was interested in the facts. They preferred the invention,Because this invention expressed their hates and fears so perfectly.” James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son 1955

“The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions.” Thomas Sowell The Vision of the Anointed: Self Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy 1995

As the two rubrics show, the concept of “fake” or “twisted” news is not new. The media has long been used for purposes of disinformation, propaganda and deceit. Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf tells a story of deception gone wrong. The Federalist Papers was written to persuade the undecided to support the Constitution. Lenin argued that capitalists bought up newspapers to control what was printed. Hitler employed Joseph Goebbels as his minister for propaganda. Using words to coax and prod others is the province of politicians, columnists, bloggers and essayists, including yours truly. What is distressing today is that editorializing has seeped into the news room, so that news is comingled with opinions. That does not mean we should be a nation of cynics, but skepticism is healthy. For whom or for what is the writer or speaker an advocate?

One example: The front-page, top right-hand column of the July 2, 2018 New York Times was headlined, “Curbs on Unions Likely to Starve Activist Groups.” The article by Noam Scheiber, in reference to Janus v. AFSCME, read: “The Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory union fees for government workers was not only a blow to unions…” Why did Mr. Scheiber use the word “for”? The fees are not for workers; they are paid by workers. They are for union leaders, certainly not for workers who disagree as to how money is spent. The editors of The New York Time are scrupulous in words they choose; the use of “for” had to have been deliberate. One subtle example of editorializing on the front page.

How Trump Plans to Change the World He rejects the postwar order on the ground that it puts the U.S. at a disadvantage. Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-trump-plans-to-change-the-world-1531177521

Eighteen months into Donald Trump’s presidency, the nature of his foreign policy continues to elude most observers. The problem is not, as some admirers claim, that he is playing an elaborate strategic game that his critics can’t grasp. Nor is it, as some detractors believe, that Mr. Trump is simply a creature of impulse with no fixed views. The president’s approach to foreign policy may well fail—indeed, there is a case it deserves to. But a Trump doctrine exists, and neither friends nor foes can afford to remain blind to it.

Mr. Trump is hard to understand not because he is deep but because he is different. American presidents since the 1940s have primarily sought to conserve the post-World War II order. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is a revisionist who wants to alter the terms of the world system in America’s favor. From the president’s perspective, America’s superior military strength and its large trade deficit provide important advantages in international politics. Mr. Trump wants to boost America’s military edge while using military and economic tools to persuade other powers to accept his revisions to the world system.

Mr. Trump respects China as a serious long-term rival but believes that its economy depends more on Sino-American trade than the U.S. economy does. This is partly because China is much poorer than the U.S. on a per capita basis. Further, Mr. Trump believes that America’s bilateral trade deficit means that the current arrangement heavily favors China, and that China would be less able to withstand a disruption to that relationship.

Education, Paul Collits Dumb, Dumber and Growing More So

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/dumb-dumber-growing/

We school more but educate less, and our institutions, experts and policy makers are decidedly not helping matters — least of all in demanding even more public money to underwrite and expand a failing educational establishment whose return on investment continues shockingly to decline.

A study in 2013 claimed that Western IQs had fallen 14 points over the previous century. More recent research, involving a Norwegian sampling, also captured media attention with its observation of a decline in that country’s IQ amongst those born since 1975.

The Norwegian study listed various potential explanations for the decline, including “social spillovers from immigration”. Oh dear, best not go there. As the great Charles Murray learned to his peril after daring to observe the relationship between the distribution of IQ, race and ethnicity, to merely touch on that topic is enough to see the tumbril rolled out and pyre lit.

But there was another element of the Norwegian study that’s safe — well, relatively safe — to mention, and here I reference “education”, which raises all sorts of fresh questions. For one, the findings challenge the myth that education levels rise inexorably from generation to generation as more people receive a greater quantum of schooling. It also raises uncomfortable questions about how we now learn and the value we get from the money we pour into our schools.

Aren’t we meant to be the most educated generation ever – especially our current young people, the millennials, aka Gen Y? We hear endlessly this meme, which surely is being confused with the most “schooled” generation ever. Now this claim is certainly true. We live in an age of “lifelong learning”, as we often hear. This is surely one of the most pernicious marketing campaigns ever rolled out — perpetrated mostly by self-interested institutions of higher education and their useful idiot pals in politics and government.

We also live, or so we are are assured, in an age of technology-enabled education, with formal learning commencing at much younger (pre-school) ages. Surely these are good things, having more tools at students’ disposal and extended time to master them? The push in this direction has been substantial and unrelenting. On top of starting earlier, we also insist on formal schooling to a higher age for a much higher proportion of the population, with many laments for those poor souls who fail to matriculate. It is, apparently, a terrible to master a trade when one might be working toward a degree in womyns’ studies, gay cinema or advanced aboriginality.