NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Promoting Endless Race Hatred, in the Name of “Justice” Inside the agenda of the Equal Justice Initiative. John Perazzo

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

It’s quite likely that you’ve never heard of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and its radical agenda, but this Alabama-based organization has had its eye fixed upon you and your country for a very long time. For nearly 30 years, it has been working relentlessly to advance the notion that because the United States is so thoroughly awash in racist inhumanity, its culture merits no respect — and no defense — whatsoever. And EJI can’t be dismissed as some sort of fringe lunatic group that’s barely scraping by on a shoestring budget; its coffers are flush with cash. In 2015-16, one of the largest and wealthiest corporations on earth, Google.com, announced that it was proudly giving EJI a cool $2 million in donations. Half of that sum was earmarked to fund the creation of “civil rights landmarks” such as a large national memorial honoring the 3,445 black Americans who lost their lives at the end of lynchers’ ropes from 1882-1964, plus additional memorial markers that would be situated at the various sites where those lynchings took place.

You might wonder why EJI deems it necessary to now dredge up the memory of a horrific practice that last occurred in this country 53 years ago. One would think that an organization that truly cared about the well-being of black people, might be more concerned by the fact that in any given year nowadays, the number of black-on-black homicides that occur nationwide far exceeds the number of white-on-black lynchings that have taken place in all the years since the Civil War, combined.

Obviously, then, EJI’s motivation has nothing whatsoever to do with promoting the safety of modern-day blacks. The group’s chief objective, rather, is to incessantly scold and shame Americans for their racist heritage, and to thereby make them lose all faith in the very legitimacy of their society — thus setting the stage for its ultimate collapse. In essence, EJI faithfully follows the counsel of the late pro-communist guru of “community organizing,” Saul Alinsky, who urged his fellow radicals to seize every possible opportunity to “rub raw the resentments of the people,” and to “fan the[ir] latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.” In that spirit, EJI is devoted to fomenting perpetual discontent and racial grievance in the hearts of black Americans — under the righteous-sounding banner of “social justice.” That’s because black discontent and grievance are good for business, when your business is to tear a nation apart along racial lines.

It is highly noteworthy that while EJI depicts lynching as an exclusively white-on-black phenomenon, there were in fact 1,297 whites lynched in the United States during that same 1882-1964 period. Obviously, this doesn’t in any way diminish the horror or the evil of the lynchings that were carried out against black people. Nor does it negate the fact that lynchings frequently had a racial component that targeted blacks, as evidenced by the fact that blacks comprised nearly three-fourths of all lynching victims. But as David Horowitz has pointed out, a majority of black lynchings were not incidents where groups of whites randomly chased down black people and strung them up for fun. Most black lynchings — like most white lynchings — were a form of extrajudicial “frontier justice” where angry mobs of vigilantes essentially anointed themselves as prosecutors, juries, and executioners. The mobs dispensed with due process and took it upon themselves to kill people — white or black — whom they believed were guilty of some transgression. Sometimes the transgressions were serious, like rape, homicide, or robbery. And sometimes, blacks were killed merely for violating social norms, like showing “disrespect” for a white person.

According to EJI, the practice of lynching “reinforced a narrative of racial difference and a legacy of racial inequality” that remains “readily apparent in our criminal-justice system today.” This legacy, we are told, is reflected in the “mass incarceration” that “has had devastating consequences for people of color” — e.g., “African Americans [today] make up about 13 percent of the nation’s population, but constitute 28 percent of all arrests, 40 percent of those incarcerated in jails and prisons, and 42 percent of the population on death row.” As far as EJI is concerned, these statistics are evidence of the “implicit biases” that “have been shown to affect policing … and all aspects of the criminal-justice system” — and cannot be attributed to the demonstrably higher rates of criminality in the black community. In short, we are asked to believe that everything stems, ultimately, from the fact that “the United States has done very little to acknowledge [its] legacy of genocide, slavery, lynching, and racial segregation.”

The Equal Justice Initiative is the archetypal subversive organization of the American Left. It rejects the very notion of colorblind justice as nothing more than a means of perpetuating a racist status quo that favors whites over blacks. And the alternative brand of “justice” that EJI proposes, is concerned only with offering up rationales for interracial hatred that never goes away. In short, EJI’s agenda is to promote, in the name of “justice,” racial strife that tears America apart.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Assassination Fantasies At a Times Square rally, an open call for Trump’s murder is ignored by elected officials. Seth Barron

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

Following President Trump’s declaration on Twitter Wednesday that transgender people would not be permitted to serve in the armed forces, protesters converged on Times Square. Assembling in front of the Armed Services Recruiting Station, several hundred people cheered as local elected officials and LGBT activists denounced both the decision and President Trump generally.

Most of the crowd held small printed signs reading, “Resist”; others waved the familiar “NO!” signs from the Revolutionary Communist Party-backed Refuse Fascism movement. A few handmade signs stood out in the relatively compact crowd, in particular one that read, in black against a red background,

Lincoln
Garfield
McKinley
Kennedy
Trump

The first four names on this list, of course, are the presidents murdered in office, in chronological order; the last embodies the seeming wish of many on the American Left that someone put him on it for real. As seen in the picture accompanying this article, Trump’s name is embellished with horns and a tail, and flames indicate that the president is roasting in hell: the protester left little room for interpretation.

The sign was held aloft for the duration of the event, in full view of the crowd, the media, the NYPD, and at least a dozen elected officials, but garnered no comment or acknowledgement. Perhaps historical literacy is so low that the sign’s meaning eluded most people, but it’s more likely that the pitch of outrage is keyed so high in leftist political rhetoric that the message on the sign was basically unremarkable—uncontroversial, even.

Consider what now passes as respectable dissenting opinion. New York City comptroller Scott Stringer issued a press release this week announcing that “Republicans just made the U.S. Senate a death panel,” because they voted to permit debate on changing Obamacare, which is in a state of critical failure. The evening before the president’s announcement, Melissa Mark-Viverito, speaker of the city council, tweeted, in response to nothing in particular, “Just sickened by this maniacal, self-absorbed, narcissistic, sadist, misogynistic, so-called President. Your days are numbered, FOOL.” Given Mark-Viverito’s open support and affection for convicted political terrorists like Oscar Lopez Rivera and Isabel Rosado Morales, it is hard to read “your days are numbered” as only figurative.

Public advocate Tish James spoke at the rally, and, in view of the sign calling for his death, led chants in favor of resistance to Trump. James first ascended to office in 2003, after her predecessor, Council Member James E. Davis, was shot to death by a rival at City Hall. One would have hoped that James would thus be attuned to ugly, violent political discourse, but she chose to ignore its presence.

Council Member Corey Johnson, speaking at Wednesday’s protest, said that Trump’s announcement “is not just an attack on trans service members; this is an attack on the entire United State military by this president.”Another city legislator, Jumaane Williams, tweeted a picture of the rally, including the sign calling for Trump’s assassination, with the inscrutable comment, “At 42nd street rally against @realDonaldTrump #transmilitaryban. You cannot hate nearly. #istandforhumandignity”—presumably meaning that there is no limit to the amount of hate that one should feel toward the president.

When asked about the hateful message of the protester’s poster

MEDIA Comments turned off

What Happens When an Imam Calls for Killing Jews How the Left covered up Muslim anti-Semitism in California. July 31, 2017 Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

On Friday July 21st, Imam Ammar Shahin delivered a sermon at the Islamic Center of Davis calling for the extermination of the Jews. He quoted an infamous Islamic Hadith which claims that Judgement Day won’t come around until the Muslims hunt down and exterminate the Jews.

“Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews,” he prayed. “Annihilate them down to the very last one,” he added.

Next Friday, after the video went viral, the Imam appeared at a press conference to apologize to the filthy Jews. “I said things that were hurtful to Jews.”

The whole thing was sanctified by Rabbi Seth Castleman, a former Buddhist monk married to the Rev. Elizabeth Griswold, the pastor of Parkside Community Church. Castleman leads Buddhist meditation sessions at his current house of worship. When bacon was dumped on the Islamic Center, Castleman appeared and declared that, “Attacks such as this one are a strike against all of us.”

“Look, the Old and New Testaments have horrible things in them,” Castleman had opined in response to the imam’s anti-Semitic rant. “You can always find horrible things.”

The Islamic Center of Davis had tried to claim that the Imam’s rant had been taken out of context. “If the sermon was misconstrued, we sincerely apologize to anyone offended,” it offered.

“It’s unfair when I have spoken about nonviolence, and here is some two minutes. My record is very clear, I have always been against violence,” Imam Shahin told the Washington Post.

At the press conference, he conceded that his words might have encouraged violent acts. The farce finally came to an end with a halting apology delivered from a written statement in broken English.

Then he committed to fighting for “social justice” and against “hate speech and violence”.

Imam Shahin’s apology was preceded by an address from a senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church who denounced “the language that we hear coming from the highest office in our country.”

When an Imam spews hate at Jews, the left will go right back to attacking President Trump.

The diverse clergy and community leaders at the event were more than happy to give Shahin a pass. And Shahin blamed the whole thing on his “emotions”. It went without saying that a Christian leader calling for Muslim genocide would not have been allowed to use his overwrought “feelings” as an excuse.

While the media had rushed to cover the Islamic Center of Davis’ bacon scandal, the same outlets had far less interest in the Center’s anti-Semitism problem. At first the story could only be found in Jewish and conservative outlets. When the media was finally forced to cover the viral video, it made excuses.

MEMRI, the monitoring organization that found, translated and uploaded the video, was smeared. Since Shahin’s remarks had been translated, challenging the translation was the easiest way to shoot the messenger. The Islamic Center accused MEMRI of having mistranslated “destroy” as “annihilate”.

And it attacked MEMRI for not having featured the ”countless lectures and sermons he has given regarding treating all people, especially non-Muslims, with kindness.”

Why indeed didn’t MEMRI highlight all the lectures in which he didn’t call for genocide?

The Muslim Public Affairs Council put out a statement complaining that, “Groups like MEMRI exacerbate political divisions on the Middle East conflict rather than aim to reconcile differences.” And who better to bring us together than MPAC whose boss had accused Israel of being behind the 9/11 attacks.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Root Cause of the Disasters in the Middle East The culprit is Obama and his policies of appeasement, betrayal and retreat. David Horowitz

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

During the eight years of the Obama administration, half a million Christians, Yazidis and Muslims were slaughtered in the Middle East by ISIS and other Islamic jihadists, in a genocidal campaign waged in the name of Islam and its God. Twenty million others were driven into exile by these same jihadist forces. Libya and Yemen became terrorist states. America – once the dominant foreign power and anti-jihadist presence in the region – was replaced by Russia, an ally of the monster regimes in Syria and Iran, and their terrorist proxies. Under the patronage of the Obama administration, Iran – the largest and most dangerous terrorist state, with the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands – emerged from its isolation as a pariah state to re-enter the community of nations and become the region’s dominant power, arming and directing its terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and Yemen.

These disasters are a direct consequence of the policies of appeasement and retreat of the Obama administration. Beyond that, they are a predictable result of the Democratic Party’s long-standing resistance to the so-called war on terror, and its sabotage of George Bush’s efforts to enforce 17 UN Security Council resolutions in Iraq, aimed at maintaining international order and peace in the Middle East.

In fact, the primary cause of the disasters in the Middle East is the Democratic Party’s sabotage of the War in Iraq. Democrats first voted to authorize the armed overthrow of Iraq’s terror regime but within three months of its inception reversed their position 180 degrees and declared the war “immoral, illegal & unnecessary.” The reason for the Democrats’ reversal on the war had nothing to do with the war itself or the so-called absence of weapons of mass destruction, but was rather a political response to the fact that an anti-war Democrat, Howard Dean, was running away with their presidential nomination. It was this that caused John Kerry and his party to forget that the war was about Saddam’s defiance of 17 UN Security Council resolutions, and refusal to allow the UN inspectors to carry out their efforts to ascertain whether he had destroyed his nuclear and chemical arsenals.

Beginning in June 2003, Democrats began claiming – falsely – that Bush had lied to secure their support for the war. “Bush lied, people died,” became the left’s slogan to cripple the war effort. Bush couldn’t have lied because Democrats had access to every bit of intelligence information on Iraq that he did. But this false narrative began what became a five-year campaign to demonize America’s commander-in-chief and undermine his efforts to subdue the terrorists and pacify the region.

The Democrats’ anti-war crusade climaxed with the election of Barack Obama, a leftwing activist and vocal opponent of the war, and of the majority of Senate Democrats who voted for it. At the time of Obama’s election, America and its allies had won the war and subdued the terrorists by turning the Sunnis in Anbar province against them. But the new commander-in-chief refused to use American forces to secure the peace, and instead set out to withdraw all American military personnel from Iraq. This was a fatal step that created a power vacuum, which was quickly filled by Iran and ISIS.

Obama’s generals had advised him to maintain a post-war force of 20,000 troops in country along with the military base America had built in Baghdad. But Obama had made military withdrawal the centerpiece of his foreign policy and ignored his national security team’s advice. Had he not done so, American forces would have been able to effectively destroy ISIS at its birth, saving more than 500,000 lives and avoiding the creation of nearly 20 million refugees in Syria and Iraq.

Instead of protecting Iraq and the region from the Islamic terrorists, Obama surrendered the peace, turning Iraq over to Iran and the terrorists, and betraying every American and Iraqi who had given their lives to keep them out. The message of the Obama White House – to be repeated through all eight years of his tenure – was that America was the disturber of the peace, and not “radical Islamic terrorism” – words he refused to utter. Instead he even removed the phrase “war on terror” from all official statements and replaced it with “overseas contingency operations.”

Second among the causes of the Middle East’s human tragedy was Obama’s support for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad whom his secretaries of state, Clinton and Kerry both endorsed as a democratic reformer on the very eve of his savage war against his own people. This was followed by Obama’s refusal to enforce the red line he drew to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons on the Syrian population. When Assad did use them, Obama averted his eyes and papered over his culpability by arranging a phony deal with Russia to remove Assad’s chemical arsenal. Six years later, Assad was again using chemical weapons on Syrian civilians, the exposing Obama’s ruse.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

K-12 Educators Taught How to Combat ‘Whiteness’ in Schools By Rick Moran

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

You have to feel for Social Justice Warriors. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t get away from white people.

They’re everywhere! Why, you even find them in the supermarket, at the movie theater, and — worst of all — in schools. Where our children go to be educated. Where our kids should be sheltered from the depredations and poisonous proclivities that all white people possess.

It makes one weep to think about all this white privilege on display for our children and other delicate flowers to be offended by.

Thankfully, Columbia University wants to do something about it. The Ivy League college — one of America’s most celebrated universities — held a conference for K-12 educators that featured workshops on ho to combat the evil of white privilege in our schools.

The Campus Fix:

The “Reimagining Education Summer Institute” conference, organized by Columbia University’s Teachers College, was held in mid-July and concentrated on “opportunities and challenges of creating and sustaining racially, ethnically and socio-economically integrated schools,” according to its website.

The event, in its second year, drew 300 participants that mostly consisted of K-12 teachers and principals, the institute’s director Amy Wells said in a phone interview with The College Fix. The four-day conference included plenary sessions, dozens of workshops and dialogue sessions.

One presentation, called “Whiteness in schools,” provided “a history of Whiteness, and will invite participants into a discussion of how Whiteness and White culture shapes what happens in schools,” according to a description.

One workshop discussed “3 ways to face white privilege in the classroom.” Presented by Teachers College postdoctoral fellow Jamila Lyiscott, a summary of the workshop states it included “activities and critical dialogue around White privilege to connect personal responsibility to pedagogical possibilities for the classroom.”

And a workshop on “Teaching for Social Justice” sought to challenge colonialist and racist pedagogies.

“We will challenge Eurocentric pedagogical approaches that not only under-prepare students for the realities of our increasingly multiethnic, multilingual, globalized society, but are also rooted in colonial and racist ideologies that stifle the voices, identities, and realities of students of color,” a description states.

There was also a “Deconstructing Racial Microaggressions” workshop in which attendees pledged to address racial insults at their schools.

Institute director Wells, a professor of sociology and education at the Teachers College, said the conference came about out of her belief that the “missing piece” regarding issues of integration in education is what goes on inside the classroom.

“It’s always about getting kids into the building and I just think … we’re always missing the educators who actually do the work and who actually interact with the kids on daily basis and help them understand race in terms of how they’re relating to other students,” she said. CONTINUE AT SITE

BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary Clinton wants to tell you ‘What Happened’ in her new book which won’t actually tell you what happened By Stephen L. Miller

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

The title of Hillary Clinton’s memoir on her failed 2016 campaign for the White House has at long last finally been revealed, ending the suspense for left-wing policy wonks. Hillary has officially gone from “What difference does it make” to “What Happened.”

“What Happened” will chronicle what Hillary was “thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history,” according to the synopsis released by the publisher.

The publisher goes on to breathlessly describe the tell-all: “Now free from running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference and an opponent who broke all the rules.”

That’s right. Hillary Clinton wants to convince you she believes in rules. Sources who claim to have spoken to her people about the book say it’s a “bombshell” and say she blames her historic election loss on former FBI Director James Comey and, of course, the Russians. Will Hillary tell us the Russians parked a supersonic stealth submarine in Lake Michigan and cloaked the entire state of Wisconsin for over 100 days, preventing her from visiting the state once?

“What Happened” is Hillary’s hubris, accompanied by a bubbling distrust among the public over the enshrined Hollywood-media complex. She underestimated an opponent she herself wanted to face off against and was a terrible candidate. That cost her a place in history.

Hillary definitely won’t tell you what really happened. Valid concerns were raised about her health after she collapsed at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, an event that she at first attempted to shield from the media. It only became a full-blown scandal when a private citizen with a video camera caught the whole thing and broadcast it on Twitter.

Hillary also won’t tell you that her campaign strategy was, in many ways, just plain dumb.

And she won’t tell you that Donald Trump simply outworked her by campaigning at a ratio of almost 2 to 1 in battleground states, as reported by NBC News shortly after the election.

“Over the final 100 days of the election, Trump made a total of 133 visits to Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin,” NBC reported. “Over the same time period, Hillary Clinton visited the first five of those states a total of 87 times. She never traveled to Wisconsin during the 102 days between the convention and the election.”

What Hillary Clinton also won’t tell you is that Donald Trump was carried to the White House by 218 counties across the Rust Belt of the United States that had previously voted for Barack Obama’s message of hope and change.

After eight years, many Obama voters were left without hope. Nothing had changed for the better. Voters were now strapped with a financial catastrophe in ObamaCare and some fell victim to a ravaging epidemic of opioid addiction. Hillary Clinton was more interested in appearing with millionaire celebrities, while telling coal miners she was going to put them out of work.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Western Media Eliminating ‘Temple Mount’ By Susan D. Harris

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

“In short, we are to think of it primarily as a sacred Islamic Jerusalem shrine that the Jews falsely lay claim to. In order to accomplish this, the term “Temple Mount” must be stealthily eradicated.”

There is a subtle repositioning in process by the mainstream media to influence the way people think – or don’t think — about the Temple Mount. In short, we are to think of it primarily as a sacred Islamic Jerusalem shrine that the Jews falsely lay claim to. In order to accomplish this, the term “Temple Mount” must be stealthily eradicated.

Drudge Report first caught my attention with the July 14th headline: “2 Israeli policemen killed in shooting near Jerusalem shrine.” I wondered, “What Jerusalem shrine?” Surely if it were the Temple Mount it would say so. The headline linked to an AP story which told me in the first paragraph that it was a “major Jerusalem shrine,” (at this point I wondered why they were hedging about the location.) The second paragraph told me it was a “sacred site” … which in American lingo is starting to sound like an Indian burial ground somewhere in the Old West. The next thing I read is that it is known to Muslims as the “Noble Sanctuary.” Huh. I guess that would be…yep…now the article tells me it’s known to Jews as the “Temple Mount.” There you have it! It took three paragraphs but the Associated Press finally connected this vague sacred site to the Jewish people — after first telling us it is revered by Muslims.

The same day, British daily The Guardian told us by their second paragraph that the attack occurred “in the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex.” Before the paragraph is over however, Muslims again get first dibs as it’s described as being “revered as a holy site by both Muslims and Jews.”

Two days later, CNN took a more serious tone as they reported the Israeli policemen were killed “just outside one of the world’s most important religious sites.” In keeping with framing the Temple Mount as firstly a Muslim site and secondly a Jewish site, CNN falls in step saying the attack was “next to what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews the Temple Mount.”

July 21st Reuters followed suit. In their article titled, “Jerusalem on alert as religious tensions rise over holy site,” the first paragraph dips its toe in the water referencing only a “sensitive holy site.” By the second paragraph we’ve waded into the pool as we’re told the “shrine” is the Muslim’s “Noble Sanctuary,” followed by a mention of the Jew’s “Temple Mount” — as if they were second in line with squatter’s rights. Now officially drowning in chaos, the London based news service decides to go with “Noble Sanctuary-Temple Mount compound.”

Also July 21st, Fox News joined the club with a headline about the “holy shrine tension.” Almost laughably, it tells it’s apparently not too worldly-wise readers about a “long-contested shrine near the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem.” Once again, Muslims are named first when discussing the “volatile Jerusalem shrine, revered by Muslims and Jews alike.”

The same day, Britain’s Telegraph chased its tail as it reported, “Palestinian gunmen ambushed and killed two Israeli police officers at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Friday, bringing bloodshed and chaos to a religious site that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims.”

VOA (Voice of America) News got the memo as well.

It seems obvious that the site formerly called the “Temple Mount” by Western media is not the preferred name of the “holy site,” “sacred site,” “holy place,” “holy shrine,” “Jerusalem shrine,” that is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

A search on an American/Canadian newspaper archive – holding nearly 40 million newspapers dating back to the 1800’s — returned 1,933 “Temple Mount” results, and only 86 “Noble Sanctuary” results. The phrase “Temple Mount” spanned the years. However, while a few of the “Noble Sanctuary” results were from the late 19th Century, the rest were mostly from the year 2000 onward.

(And it wasn’t just websites and newspapers. I heard numerous radio news reports referencing it as the Muslims’ Noble Sanctuary before mentioning it was “also a Jewish holy site.”)

While the United Nations has been pushing the narrative that the Jerusalem holy site is “Muslim, not Jewish” for years, it should be troubling to those who support Jewish claims to the site that even the most conservative Western media are now falling in lockstep with UN talking points.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Green Delusions and the Wind Bully By Norman Rogers

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

Green ideology is a collection of beliefs and superstitions that have been elevated into a religious cult. The green cult is rife with contradictions and dogma. For example, people in Wisconsin must eat fresh natural food, grown locally…and Wisconsin farmers are still working on the problem of growing lettuce in the snow.

The electric power grid is an essential of modern life. Take it away, and the consequence would be mass extinction. The greens are eager to tamper with the grid. They want to substitute “clean” wind and solar electricity for the “dirty” nuclear, coal, and natural gas electricity.

The word “clean,” like the word “green,” has a new meaning. Now “clean” means politically correct. Something is clean if it conforms to green dogma.

The Panera Bread fast food chain tells us that its food is now “clean.” It means that its food is politically correct, not containing a long list of taboo ingredients. The greens have their own dietary laws. Read the magazine Clean Eating for details.

Renewable is another word that has been twisted to conform to green dogma. Renewable electricity, according to the dictionary, is a source of electricity that is naturally replenished. The state of California has a definition of renewable electricity that is more complicated. California collects a variety of green dogmas under the umbrella “renewable.” Fossil fuels are taboo. Hydro electricity is naturally replenished by the rain, but to California, it is renewable only if it does not interfere with kayaking and fish. California loves wind and sunlight for generating electricity. Among greens, anti-nuke hysteria trumps global warming hysteria, so carbon-free nuclear electricity is not renewable. A 112-page RPS Eligibility Guidebook, Ninth Edition Revised, details the California definition of renewable electricity.

As George Orwell often pointed out, changing the meaning of words is a method of controlling and limiting the ability to think.

California has passed a law that 50% of its electricity is to be renewable by 2030. Taken seriously, that would be technically impossible. But California has a method of turning non-renewable electricity into renewable electricity by legal fiat. Instead of importing electricity, “Renewable Energy Certificates” can be imported from someone generating and selling renewable electricity outside California. The abstract “renewable attribute” comes with the certificate and can be used to legally turn non-renewable electricity into renewable electricity. It’s modern alchemy. The wind farmers selling these certificates to California utilities are supposed to sell the renewable attribute only one time. But there is an incentive to counterfeit certificates. Renewable electricity auditors police that. Both the seller and the buyer of the certificate have an incentive to cheat. The seller is selling a piece of paper that costs him nothing. The buyer needs the paper just to satisfy a government agency.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia to Cut 755 U.S. Diplomats, Staff Amid New Sanctions President Vladimir Putin said the U.S. presence in Russia would be reduced by more than half by September in retaliation for impending U.S. sanctions on Moscow.By Thomas Grove

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. would have to cut 755 diplomats and staff in the country by September in retaliation for impending U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

In an interview with Russian state television, Mr. Putin said the U.S. presence in Russia would be reduced by more than half, following the passage of new sanctions legislation by Congress that has further frayed ties between Moscow and Washington. The White House has indicated that President Donald Trump plans to sign the legislation.

“We had hoped that the situation would somehow change,” Mr. Putin said. “But judging by everything, if it changes, it won’t happen fast.”

Mr. Putin held out the possibility of additional measures but said that at this point he was against taking further punitive steps. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

Mr. Putin told state television that slightly more than 1,000 U.S. diplomatic and technical staff work in Russia at present.

As U.S. sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election move forward, here’s a look at various contacts between President Trump’s associates and Russians. Photo: Getty

Last week, the Russian foreign ministry said the number of U.S. diplomatic and technical staff in Russia as of Sept. 1 would be reduced to 455, the same number of Russian diplomats now operating in the U.S.

It’s unclear how the reductions will affect American citizens working in the U.S. embassy and in three U.S. consulates in Russia; many of the people who work in those facilities are local hires.

A State Department official said Sunday, “This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.”

A U.S. official said the move to trim down staff could slow down the embassy’s ability to issue visas, among other possible consequences.

The largest-to-date diplomatic expulsion involving Washington and Moscow occurred in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave the country over espionage allegations. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Kim Jong Un Is Going Ballistic in More Ways Than One North Korea has developed advanced short-range weapons and is almost certain to export them. By Henry Sokolski and Zachary Keck

Posted By on July 31st, 2017

Among the many types of missiles North Korea is perfecting is a short-range system that Kim Jong Un is almost certain to export. Although not as worrisome as the intercontinental ballistic missile Pyongyang tested last Friday, this weapon has a highly accurate front end optimized to knock out overseas U.S. and allied bases, Persian Gulf oil fields, key Israeli assets and eventually even commercial shipping and warships. The good news is there’s still time to halt the system’s proliferation, but only if we act quickly.

The missile in question is an advanced version of a Scud, a 185- to 620-mile-range missile that has been in use world-wide for decades. What makes the version North Korea just tested so different is that it has a maneuvering re-entry vehicle, or MaRV, which allows the missile’s warhead to maneuver late in flight both to evade missile defenses and achieve pinpoint accuracy. China, Russia, the U.S. and South Korea have all tested MaRVs but decided, so far, not to export them. Iran has also tested a MaRV, raising questions about Tehran’s possible cooperation with Pyongyang.

The worry now is how far and quickly this technology might spread. Pyongyang has already sold ballistic missiles to seven countries, including Iran, Syria and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. These sales generate precious hard currency for the Kim regime, which is otherwise difficult to come by as Washington continues to ratchet up sanctions.

Pyongyang will have no trouble finding customers. While only Iran or Pakistan might consider purchasing a North Korean ICBM, 15 countries besides North Korea already possess older Scud missile systems they might want to upgrade. Getting a MaRV version would be an affordable way to threaten targets that previously could have been knocked out only by a nuclear warhead or scores of missiles.

If Syria—which previously purchased Scuds from North Korea—were to acquire this missile, it would need only a handful to wipe out the bases the U.S. uses to launch airstrikes within its borders. Rebels in Yemen have repeatedly fired Scuds at Saudi air bases. Most have either missed their targets or been shot down by Saudi forces. A MaRV would ensure a successful strike. If Hezbollah, a North Korean arms customer, got its hands on the new system, it could make good on its threats to take out Israeli chemical plants and the Dimona nuclear reactor. Eventually, if paired with capable surveillance systems, MaRV Scuds could even be used against moving targets such as warships or oil tankers.

If these missiles spread, hostile nations and terror groups won’t need nuclear weapons to threaten America or its allies. They will be able to upgrade their threat level by merely trading up the Scuds they already have. CONTINUE AT SITE