Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Poverty and immigration translate to voters



Click Here to Read Maggie,s Daily Notes



Say it. All together, now - It's corruption, stupid.

The U.S. brings in one million legal immigrants every year, chosen from those considered to be living under the threat of oppression and poverty. This has been the program since 1990. That's 25 MILLION people now in the United States, excluding millions of illegals, with another, at least, one million coming in 2016.

Three billion people, worldwide, live in "desperate poverty," defined as living on $2.00 per day. It is hopeless to hope to feed (or to try to feed) those who live in the masses of corrupt countries spanning the globe. Hopeless! Corrupt politicians steal aid.

They steal it! The hungry do not receive the aid free countries send. They just don't! Each and every year ANOTHER 80 MILLION are born into poverty, and those 80 MILLION are over and above the number of deaths.

Mexico is a poor country, but they've got nothing on the 5.6 BILLION people who are poorer than Mexicans. The U.S. brings in one million immigrants annually, yet in the same year, the number of births over deaths among the "desperately poor" numbers 80 MILLION, ANNUALLY. We can double our quota to 2 million annually, and BILLIONS remain in "DESPERATE POVERTY."

The people who come here legally are among the best and brightest of poor countries (good for America), and their leaving, abandoning, their own homelands. Devastating. But not so devastating to corrupt government.

In the whole scheme of world corruption, the U.S. doesn't make an eyelash blink in the numbers of those living in poverty.

WE ARE FUNDING CRIMINALS

Well, forget the immigrants we bring to our shores –– the huddled masses yearning to breathe free -  our farmers feed the world (while the American taxpayer subsidizes). Right?
The only truth that lies in the claim “American farmers feed the world” is the fact that bigger harvests in America tend to keep food prices lower all over the globe, and lower food prices theoretically mean more accessible food for the poor.
The above quote points to the fact that farmers say they must use pesticides to grow enough "to feed the world." We're poisoning the hungry? Whatever.

There is no way to feed the world. Leaders steal. Leaders of all these countries are corrupt. For the lack of a better word, let's use 'War Lord.' Whether those grabbing aid are Communists or War Lords, in the truest sense of the word, the world is hungry because of corrupt governance.

Portions of the following are from the video which uses gumballs to represent world poverty. Portions are from my own research.

How many people in the world make less than two dollars a day?
AFRICA: 650 million "desperately poor," making less than two dollars a day.
Around 80 per cent of African people live on less than US$2 a day. Corruption is one factor perpetuating poverty. Poverty and corruption combine to force people to make impossible choices like “Do I buy food for my family today or do I pay a bribe to get treated at the clinic?” Source

ANGOLA: 70 per cent of the population live on $2 a day or less. One in six children die before the age of five – making it the deadliest place in the world to be a child. More than 150,000 children die each year. But not everyone’s suffering.

Dubbed Africa’s youngest billionaire, Isabel dos Santos made her US$3.4 billion fortune from the national diamond and telecommunications business. She’s also the president’s daughter.

SOMALIA: Clan-based warlords, rival politicians and Islamist militants have battled for control since the fall of long-serving ruler Siad Barre in 1991.

A UN-backed government was installed in 2012, and is trying to win back territory occupied by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab insurgents - and bring back a measure of stability to the country.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: We’ve seen corruption exacerbate crises during 2015. Forty out of the region’s 46 countries show a serious corruption problem and there’s no improvement for continent powerhouses Nigeria and South Africa.
If corruption and impunity are to 'be a thing of the past' as the African Union stated, governments need to take bold steps to ensure rule of law is the reality for everyone.
INDIA: 890 million "desperately poor," making less than $2 a day. Long history of communist and socialist influence in government. Governments rife with corruption.
If the decline in poverty went from 60% to 35% between the 70s and the early 90s, globalization and liberalization policies have made this trend go backwards in the 90s.
CHINA: 480 million "desperately poor," making less than $2 a day.
BEIJING - China has announced a five-year campaign to crack down on corruption by officials engaged in poverty relief work, which kicked off at the beginning of 2016. Source

Some Chinese officials have become expert at pretending to live frugal, exemplary lives while actually being dissolute individuals with often huge hidden wealth, a state-run newspaper said on Friday, warning the government would root them out.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has embarked on a massive campaign against deeply ingrained corruption since taking office three years ago, warning, like others before him, that the problem could threaten the Communist Party's grip on power.
PARTS OF ASIA: 810 million "desperately poor," making less than $2 a day.
AFGHANISTAN: Most Afghans see not Taliban militants but poverty, unemployment, and government corruption as the main causes of war in their country.

PAPUA: Participants argued that corruption problems in Papua are the most fundamental reason special autonomy has not had more impact on Papua and, in fact, perpetuate poverty. Lack of planning and weak rule of law were also cited. 
LATIN AMERICA: 105 million "desperately poor," making less than $2 a day.
If you came here and did everything correctly, you’d fail,” says Smith, who has several businesses in Brazil. “You’ve got to flow with the river a little bit.
EUROPE: Very worrying is the marked deterioration in countries like Hungary, FYR of Macedonia, Spain and Turkey. These are places where there was once hope for positive change. Now we’re seeing corruption grow, while civil society space and democracy shrinks. Source
HUNGARY: 47 % of Hungarians living in poverty.
Once you’re poor, it’s very difficult to struggle out of it. For us – the European Anti-Poverty Network – poverty is a political choice. It’s not a God-given thing. It is because politicians make certain decisions that (mean) these 124 million people live in poverty.
The World Bank total of worldwide "desperately poor," making less than $2 a day is THREE BILLION PEOPLE.

Going back to the video and the staggering containers of gumballs:
Of course, we don't pull our immigrants from these desperately poor populations. These people are too poor, too sick and too disconnected to make it here as immigrants.

We tend to pull our immigrants out of the better off poor of the world, and Mexico tends to define the type of immigrant we bring here because the plurality of people come from Mexico. And Mexico is poor.

How many people in the world live in countries that have average incomes lower than that of Mexico? And the World Bank tells us that number is three billion, plus another 2.6 billion people –– 5.6 billion people in the world who live in countries with average incomes below that of Mexico.

So what is it the elites are telling us? They're telling us that when we take this one million immigrants, that we somehow or another are tackling world poverty, and we have to do it regardless of the effect on our unemployed, the working poor, the most vulnerable members of society - regardless of the effect on our natural resources.

Even if we went by the most radical proposals in Washington, which are to actually double our immigration to two million a year, which would totally overwhelm our natural and social infrastructures, we couldn't make a noticeable difference.
We may be really hurting the impoverished people of the world because the million we do take, are among the most energetic, often the better educated, certainly among the most dissatisfied people, that if they did not immigrate, would be the agents for change to improve the lot of all these people countries.

The true heroes in the global humanitarian field are the people in these countries who have the wherewithal to immigrate to another country but who instead stay in their countries –– to apply their skills and help their fellow countrymen. Our immigration system tends to entice these very types of people to abandon their country.

The impossibility of making a dent is actually worse than it looks here [the gumballs], because last year, when we took one million immigrants, these countries [the gumballs] added, births over deaths, eighty million more people into the impoverished population.

And this year, Congress is bringing in a million immigrants. This year, according to the United Nations, these countries [all the gumballs] are expected to add another eight million people.

Next year, you can expect Congress, unless stopped by the American voters will bring another million immigrants, and these countries [the gumballs] will be adding another eighty million people into these impoverished countries.

We could take five million a year, but we'd never get ahead of what's happening in these countries, not even in this century.

Don't you see, immigration can never be an effective or significant way to deal with the suffering people of the world.

They have to be helped where they live - 99.9 percent of them will never be able to migrate to rich countries. There is no hope for that.

They have to bloom where they're planted. The only place that 99.9 percent of these people can be helped is where they live. Let's help them there.
Our government is using the poor to import voters into this country. Say it all together now, 'it's corrupt politicians, stupid,' and that includes pols in the U.S.
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Obama doubles down on refugee pledge




In a brief Easter weekend radio address, President Obama vowed to decimate the self-proclaimed Islamic State, but he said the United States will do so by offering an example of freedom, tolerance and open society.

“Our openness to refugees fleeing ISIL’s violence; our determination to win the battle against ISIL’s hateful and violent propaganda — a distorted view of Islam that aims to radicalize young Muslims to their cause,” are paramount in the fight, Obama told Americans during his weekly radio address.

Admitting entry to Syrian and Iraqi refugees has become a divisive issue in the U.S. as well as Europe, but Obama made clear he has no plan to back off his promise to admit 100,000 to the U.S. this year.

“We have to wield another weapon alongside our airstrikes, our military, our counter terrorism work, and our diplomacy,” Obama said. “And that’s the power of our example. Our openness to refugees fleeing ISIL’s violence.

Our determination to win the battle against ISIL’s hateful and violent propaganda – a distorted view of Islam that aims to radicalize young Muslims to their cause.” . . . Read More
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Vietnam Vets Recognized with a Day



They went to war, fought for us, bled for us, died for us. When they came home, they were spit on and treated worse than dirt. That’s right, I’m talking about those who served in the Vietnam War.

Finally, after 50 long years, they’re getting their own day, according to the VA:
As part of the 50th Commemoration of the Vietnam War, VA and 29 states and territories are commemorating the anniversary of the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam with a day of appreciation celebrated on March 29.
More than 40 years after the war, many Veterans continued to feel the effects of their service. Some battled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Others fought illnesses caused by their exposure to Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants sprayed during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) believes their fight should be honored.

One of those who served is my good friend Jack Cunningham, who continues to fight not only PTSD, but a legal system in New Jersey that seems to be doing all it can to deny him justice.

Jack Cunningham Featured Above

He wrote a poem, called “Dear Vietnam Veteran,” and you can see it below, or visit his website to hear it.
I know I should have written much sooner.

I can’t say why I did not. Out of fear of admitting to myself you were there fighting a war. Or maybe ashamed; ashamed that I never accepted the things you felt you had to do.
Whatever it is, I know it must hurt.

Believe me when I say it hurts me more. I have the burden of your hurt plus that of my own; the pain of not being able to show my true feeling toward you.

I am not writing this for the months you served in Vietnam, but for the many years, you were left alone with only your brother Veterans. You served proudly and it went unmentioned.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to express the words. The words an honorable Veteran needs to hear.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to hold you during your times of pain.

God knows I wanted to.

And only He knows why I never found the courage. I do not remember what I used to say; maybe I do not want to remember.

All I know is I hope that it is not too late to give you those things now.

For years, you tried to be part of my world. Doing everything to please me, just to be noticed and given a little time and understanding.

I look back and see the demands I placed on your shoulders when you were young. “Fight your weakness, and always show strength to others around you.”

Who was I to make such a demand?

I sit here with tears in my heart, finally admitting to myself the one weakness you must have seen in me and never questioned.

My inability to say the words that I know would have meant so much to you.

“Welcome Home.”

You served your country honorably.

Please hear these words now, from my heart. Please give me a chance to be part of your world now. The world I should have been part of long ago.

Love America

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Fighting political correctness in Brussels?


Grab that Morning Coffee and Check Out Branco Online

Okay, I’m hyperventilating. Tony combines beautiful drawings with biting politically incorrect wit and laugh out loud humor.” – Larry Elder – TV and Radio personality at at Fox News and KRLM AM 870

Lighten things up! Political discussions and debates don’t always have to be deep and long-winded arguments with points and counter points. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from it all and have a good laugh. With so many discouraging things happening in our country lately, that’s the only thing we can do to keep from crying.

Conservative artist Antonio Branco is a master at encapsulating deep and complex issues in a simple comic.

He has written his first book in a series and takes on a wide array of issues, from food stamps to global warming to foreign policy, Antonio isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.

Presented in a coffee table book style, this is the perfect conversation starter with friends and family that pick it up and start glancing through it’s pages.

Who knows, that liberal aunt of yours just might come over to the right side because of this book!

This 80 pages, hardcover comic measures 8″ x 10".


Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.
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Stone says Cruz had other sexual encounters




Click Here For the Malzberg Show Powered by Newsmax

The Steve Malzberg Show, hosted by talk show veteran Steve Malzberg, analyzes the latest news and media spin with leading news-makers
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Obama's Dangerous Ideology Ignored


I left the Secret Service five years ago because I was deeply troubled by the direction President Barack Obama was taking the country.

I, along with millions of conservatives, libertarians, and JFK Democrats, have repeatedly warned the country about Barack Obama and, sadly, he has proven us right again and again. Yet, many Americans choose to blind themselves to this president's radicalism.

Tragically, none of this is conjecture or hyperbole; we can determine the ideological motivations of Barack Obama by simply listening to his own words, and the words of his closest advisors.

Before I delve into Barack Obama's latest transgression, I want to briefly list some of the Obama team's more troubling statements, which paint a clear picture of the troubling anti-American ideology which has infected our White House.

In June of 2009, White House staff member, and loyal Obama acolyte, Anita Dunn, while speaking to a group of high school students stated that two of her "favorite political philosophers" were Mother Theresa and Mao Zedong.

Yes, that's right, Mao Zedong, the Chinese communist leader responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese men and women.

President Obama's "green jobs czar," Van Jones, one of the founders of STORM, a self-declared Marxist organization, said in 2005, "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28, and then the verdicts came down on April 29.

By August, I was a communist." - Read More
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Dan Bongino is the bestselling author of the book Life Inside the Bubble and now The Fight. He is a Contributing Editor at Conservative Review and was the 2012 and 2014 Republican nominee for the United States Senate and 6th congressional district in Maryland. 

Dan served for over a decade as a special agent in the United States Secret Service, and currently owns a security consulting business. 

You can follow Dan Bongino on his website, at Facebook or on Twitter.


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Joe Biden mangles the 2nd Amendment



“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Somehow Uncle Joe has found his authority to confiscate weapons within this sentence. I don’t see it, do you?
Joe Biden has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer. It is difficult to understand how he has been able to stay in officethese many years when he repeatedly shows he does not understand the law, the Constitution, or even common sense.

Perhaps he has been Obama’s insurance policy against a much deserved impeachment effort since the public is rightfully terrified of replacing the out of control, would be emperor Obama with the village idiot Biden.

When a sitting president reaches the end of his term, the party pole position generally is awarded to the vice president. The 2016 presidency, however, was seen as the horrid Hillary Clinton’s rightful prize, and Joe decided to sit this one out.

But Clinton is now facing a possible indictment, and the public seems to have caught on that she does not have an honest or pleasant bone in her body, and she could very well be too damaged to survive even the primaries.

And crazy uncle Bernie Sanders is gathering steam among panicked Democrat communists, but still seems an embarrassment to rational U.S. citizens. So it may actually be Joe who takes a second look at the race and decides he still has time to throw his hat into the ring.

Biden also anxious to take your guns . . . Read More
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World wants natural gas and electricity



Hillary Clinton Sends Cookstoves

Hillary Clinton’s “trustworthiness” problem is fed by a long history of “varying credibility,” as a recent Politico story delineated, including cattle-futures trading, law firm billing records, muddled sniper fire recollections and e-mail use.

While providing pertinent points, the Politico list is just a sampling.

One missing item on the “mistrust” litany is a project she reportedly cooked up as Secretary of State, but that was shaped by her family foundation. State Department staff sent official emails to solicit funds from foreign governments.

The project sounds innocent enough: “to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change.” What miracle product can do all that? A cookstove. Yes, that is correct—a cookstove. This is not the product of “as seen on TV” wizardry, nor is it the latest in high-efficiency appliances.

There’s something fishy when governments throughout the world (including the U.S), corporations (including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Johnson & Johnson), and Ted Turner’s UN Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative are involved as they are with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Alliance).

No one would begrudge corporations giving to a philanthropic effort, but we would probably feel differently about our own tax dollars going to the project Clinton is hawking—especially when the project is, by most accounts, an epic fail.

The Alliance claims to provide a solution to the “fourth worst overall health risk factor in developing countries.” Its website’s “Frequently Asked Questions” download states: “Exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires—the primary means of cooking and heating for nearly three billion people in the developing world—causes 1.9 million premature deaths annually with women and young children most affected.”

Not only that, but “Reliance on biomass for cooking and heating increases pressure on local resources” as women and children “forage for fuel.” Additionally, “inefficient cookstoves contribute to climate change through emissions of greenhouse gases.”

To remedy this problem, it would make sense for the well-funded public-private partnership to use its money and influence to help build natural-gas-fueled power plants and infrastructure to bring electricity to the developing world. But that was not Clinton’s idea.

On September 21, 2010, the world first became aware of Clinton’s brainchild—though she may have stolen the idea from India’s National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative that made headlines around the world in the summer of 2010.

The Secretary of State announced the Alliance at the Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (GCI)—with the Clinton Foundation being one of the “Strategic Partnerships and Alliances.” By November 2014, at the “Inaugural Cookstoves Futures Summit” it was announced that more than $400 million had been raised for the project. As co-host of the meeting, Clinton exclaimed: “We have to redouble our efforts to get more clean and efficient products in the hands and homes of families everywhere. ... We can rededicate ourselves to doing everything we can to help more people in more places to breathe more easily, work more safely and live healthier lives.”

In her memoir, Hard Choices, she brags about her role in the Alliance: “I was delighted by the scope and speed of the progress [the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves] made around the world.”

“Progress” in the Alliance can be attributed to her influence as Secretary of State. Before the announcement of the Alliance, Kris Balderston, who served as her special representative for global partnerships, on his state.gov account pressured Norway to join. They obliged with a commitment for a $600,000 “down payment.”

Apparently, as emails revealed, the country wanted to be part of the launch: “They wanted to move quickly for the CGI announcement.” (Note: Norway is a major donor to the Clinton Foundation.) Once Norway signed on, France and Finland were expected to follow suit. While traveling the globe, on the taxpayers’ dime, Clinton recruited more partners.

All big charity programs have celebrity spokespersons—the Alliance has actress Julia Roberts and chef Jose Andres—but Clinton was much more. She is credited with the program’s birth. While Secretary of State, it was “on the top of her agenda.” Once retiring from her official duties, Clinton became the Chair of the Alliance’s Leadership Council—where she still serves.

If you don’t know the rules, this may seem like petty politics. However, as Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on ethics in government, in the Washington Times cites the Code of Federal Regulations on the use of public office for private gain: “an employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the employee is an officer or member.”

While at best, Clinton’s clean cookstove campaign seems slimy, and may be illegal, one might cast a blind eye if the program achieved its aggrandizing goals.

These so-called “clean cookstoves,” even by the Alliance’s own literature, “may last for several years”—yet only 20 percent, according to a survey cited in the Washington Post (WP), are still in use after two years. While the Alliance has reportedly “helped drive more that 28 million stoves into the field,” most do not meet the World Health Organization’s guidelines for indoor emissions.

The WP states: “The vast majority of the stoves burn wood, charcoal, animal dung or agricultural waste—and aren’t, therefore, nearly as healthy as promised.” While “some perform well in the lab,” others “crack or break under constant heat.”

In her book, A River Runs Again, journalist Meera Subramanian chronicled cookstove use in India. The WP reports: “She found that women had stopped using the stoves because they didn’t like the design or because the stoves broke, burned more wood (not less, as intended) or didn’t get foods hot enough.”

Defending the Alliance’s effort, Radha Muthiah, CEO of the Alliance, says: “There may not be the greatest health benefit, but there’s certainly a good environmental benefit, and it will save them more time” and create “livelihood and empowerment opportunities.”

Distributing stoves that “we know will kill people” has been called “unethical.” Rema Hanna, the Harvard economist who led “Up in Smoke”—which WP calls “the most extensive field study to date on this subject”—says: “it makes no sense to ‘push more stoves into the world that people are not going to use.’” Citing a recent publication in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, David Kreutzer, Senior Research Fellow, Energy Economics and Climate Change at The Heritage Foundation, reports: “there were no long-term (after four years) health benefits from clean cook stoves. After two years, smoke inhalation was not at all different, and by the fourth year, nearly one-third of the households had so little use for the new stoves that they actually destroyed them.”

Rather than burning biomass, experts believe that gas, electricity, or both would be better at protecting health. Kreutzer agrees: “These cookstoves seem to be substitutes for efforts to provide affordable modern power to those in need”—which he says condemn so many of the poor to continuing energy poverty. Sadly, Alliance members oppose projects that would provide low-cost power to these poor households.

You have to wonder, if these cookstoves—which are more like a hibachi grill than a stove and cost about $25—don’t achieve the stated goals, why is Clinton such a proponent? As Christine Lakatos, whom I have worked with on dozens of green-energy, crony-corruption reports, and who alerted me to this dirty story, found in her Green Corruption File report, Alliance work was a high priority during Clinton’s time as Secretary of State. The project spanned eleven federal agencies and, so far, totals more than $114 million.

Her involvement complicates her “trustworthiness” concerns and risks, as the Washington Times points out: “Raising questions about where she drew the line between official business and aiding the family charity run by her husband and daughter.”

The answer to Clinton’s involvement, and the conflict of interest with her role at the State Department and “aiding the family charity,” deserves further investigation by someone with better access, and a bigger budget, than Lakatos or I have.

But a hint can be found on the Alliances’ own website: carbon credits. It states: “In addition to being one of the fastest growing offset types in the voluntary market, cookstoves credits are selling for some of the highest prices observed in the voluntary carbon market.”

If Clinton becomes president, her energy policies will likely enact a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax—which would suddenly make her cookstove project profitable.

Rather than helping bring modern power to the world’s poor, she’s, as Kreutzer calls it, “prolonging energy poverty for millions upon millions in the developing world.”

And that is the dirty story behind Clinton’s clean cookstove campaign.
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Trying to Make Winners Out of Losers from the files of Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great, Inc.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy

Marita hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy - which expands on the content of her weekly column. 

Follow her @EnergyRabbit.
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What happened on Oahu didn’t stay on Oahu


Click Here to Visit CFACT.org

Scientific detective work stopped cholera – now it needs to separate myths, mites and neonics by Paul Driessen

If modern activist groups held sway in the mid-nineteenth century, countless multitudes would have died from typhoid fever and cholera. The “miasma” paradigm held that the diseases were caused by foul air arising from putrid matter – and only dogged scientific work by William Budd, John Snow and others finally convinced medical and health authorities that the agent was lethal organisms in drinking water.

Ultimately, the investigators’ persistence led to discoveries of Vibrio and Salmonella bacteria, the use of chlorine-based disinfectants for drains, water purification and hand washing, programs that kept sewage away from drinking water supplies, and steady advances in germ and virus theories of medicine.

Parallels exist today, with activist politics driving the science, rather than solid science guiding informed public policy decisions. One such arena is neonicotinoid pesticides and large-scale bee deaths. Europeans introduced domesticated honeybees to North America in the early 1600s. They helped foster phenomenal growth in important food crops like tomatoes and almonds.

Indeed, over 60% of all U.S. beehives are needed each spring just to pollinate California’s extensive almond groves. By contrast, staples like wheat, rice, corn and most citrus fruits do not require animal pollination at all (by bees, hummingbirds, hover flies, butterflies and bats); these crops are self-pollinating or wind-pollinated.

Commercial beekeeping grew steadily, and today about 1% of all beekeepers manage nearly 80% of the 2.7 million U.S. honeybee colonies. The system generally functioned well until 1987, when a vicious new pest arrived. As the appropriately named Varroa destructor mite spread, beekeepers began reporting major to total losses of bees in Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin hives in spring 2006, and later in Florida, the Dakotas, southern states, both U.S. coasts, Europe and elsewhere.

Dubbed “colony collapse disorder” (CCD), the problem led to scarifying news stories about a “bee-pocalypse” and the imminent demise of modern agriculture. However, inexplicable bee colony losses had been reported in 1898, 1903, the 1960s and 1970s – even as far back as 940 AD in Ireland!

Explanations included an undefined “disappearing disease,” organophosphate pesticides, cell phone towers, GM crops that embed Bt insect killers in their genetic makeup, climate change (of course), and even a lack of “moral fiber” in bees, Paradigms and Demographics blogspot editor Rich Kozlovich notes. A psychic, he adds, claimed she was communicating with domesticated bees, who told her they were tired of being enslaved by humans and were leaving their hives to protest their crowded, inhumane conditions!

Mounting evidence suggests that today’s die-offs are primarily due to Varroa mites, along with parasitic phorid flies, Nosema fungal parasites, the tobacco ringspot virus – and even beekeepers misusing or over-using pesticides in hives to control disease outbreaks, by killing tiny bugs on little bees.

However, anti-pesticide activists and some news stories continue to blame colony deaths and other bee problems on neonicotinoid insecticides. This new class of chemicals protects crops primarily (97% of the time) by coating seeds, letting plants incorporate the pesticide into their leaves and stems, to target insects that feed on them, without harming beneficial bugs.

The regular rotation of different neonic products is also the only means currently available to kill the Asian psyllids that spread “citrus greening disease” (HLB), which is decimating citrus groves in Florida and is now spreading to Texas and California groves.

This is where solid scientific detective work becomes vital. Without it, the wrong conclusions are drawn, the wrong “solutions” are applied, and the unintended consequences can be serious. For example, banning neonics will likely mean farmers are forced to use insecticides that truly are dangerous for bees.

Over the past 50 years, Varroa mites have killed off millions of honeybee colonies around the world, scientists note. Among the diseases the mites carry is deformed wing virus, which results in short, twisted or otherwise deformed and useless wings. Like many other viral infections, DWV had long been present in hives, but was generally considered harmless before Varroa became ubiquitous.

Disease-carrying mites bite through the bees’ hard shell (exoskeleton) and inject viruses and infections directly into the bee blood (hemolymph). The mites’ saliva also carries an enzyme that compromises the bees’ immune systems, making the diseases far more toxic. Modern transportation methods disperse the problems far and wide.

Making the beekeepers’ challenge even more daunting, female Varroas often lay eggs in the same hexagonal beehive cells where the queen lays newly fertilized eggs, before worker bees “cap” the incubator cells. New honeybees then emerge with an infected mite already attached. And to top it off:
Trying to kill vicious bugs you can’t even see, in a box filled with some 40,000 buzzing bees that you don’t want to hurt, using chemicals that could easily become toxic – and that the Varroa mites quickly become resistant to – is a devilishly complicated business, beekeepers like Randy Oliver attest. In fact, they are already on their third generation of miticides, and Varroa have become resistant to all of them. So the battle rages on, as pesticide companies again try to gain the upper hand against the crafty pests.
Varroa was discovered on Oahu in August 2007. By spring 2008, 274 of 419 honeybee colonies on Oahu had collapsed, and wild bees had disappeared from its urban areas. Despite quarantine measures, by late 2010 the mite spread throughout the island of Hawaii. Now even effective Varroa control cannot eradicate DWV, since the disease is in their hemolymph and transmitted through feeding and sexual activity.

Studies in the United Kingdom and New Zealand found similar mite, DWV infection and CCD patterns. Another nasty plague on honeybee houses involves parasitic phorid flies, which have now been found in California, Vermont and South Dakota hives. The flies stab bee abdomens and lay their eggs inside.

When they hatch, fly larvae attack the bees’ bodies and brains, disorienting them and causing them to fly in circles and at night – giving rise to stories about zombie bees, or “zombees.” As the larvae mature into new flies, they exit the bees at their necks, decapitating them. Not surprisingly, phorid flies also carry DWV, Nosema parasites and other bee diseases.

Meanwhile, in the real world where bees interact with nature, agriculture and pesticides (rather than with artificial laboratory conditions and egregious over-exposure to those pesticides), multiple studies in Canadian and other countries’ canola and corn fields have concluded that neonicotinoids do not harm bees when used properly.

And in equally good news, U.S. Department of Agriculture, StatsCanada, EU and UN data show that bee populations have been increasing over the past several years, with American and Canadian colony totals reaching their highest levels in a decade or more.

And yet, news stories still say neonics threaten domesticated and wild bees with zombee-ism and extinction. That’s partly because anti-pesticide groups are well funded, well organized, sophisticated in public relations, and aided by journalists who are lazy, gullible, believe the activist claims and support their cause, or simply live by the mantra “if it bleeds, it leads.” A phony bee-pocalypse sells papers.

The activists employ Saul Alinsky tactics to achieve political goals by manipulating science. They select and vilify a target. Devise a “scientific study” that predicts a public health disaster. Release it to the media, before honest scientists can analyze and criticize it. Generate “news” stories featuring emotional headlines and public consternation. Develop a Bigger Government “solution,” and intimidate legislators and regulators until they impose it. Pressure manufacturers to stop making and selling the product.

Too often, the campaigns are accompanied by callous attitudes about the unintended consequences. If banning neonics means older, more toxic pesticides kill millions of bees, so be it. If a DDT ban gives environmentalists more power and influence, millions of children and parents dying from malaria might be an acceptable price; at least they won’t be exposed to exaggerated or fabricated risks from DDT.

When activism and politics drives science, both science and society pay dearly. The stakes are too high, for wildlife and people, to let this continue. The perpetrators must be outed and defanged.
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Washington's Despotic Lawlessness by Paul Driessen from Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
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Monday, March 28, 2016

They have tried to put this candidacy to bed


Get that Daily Dose of Humor and Reality from Dan Youra at Utoons.com

Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today who follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.
"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.
"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin.
Youra was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.

"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.
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Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studios located in the State of Washington. Visit the Youra Studios at Utoons.com

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Obama ignores ISIS genocide of Christians




Click Here For the Malzberg Show Powered by Newsmax

The Steve Malzberg Show, hosted by talk show veteran Steve Malzberg, analyzes the latest news and media spin with leading news-makers
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Has the GOP made their party choice?


Grab that Morning Coffee and Check Out Branco Online - Click Here

Okay, I’m hyperventilating. Tony combines beautiful drawings with biting politically incorrect wit and laugh out loud humor.” – Larry Elder – TV and Radio personality at at Fox News and KRLM AM 870

Lighten things up! Political discussions and debates don’t always have to be deep and long-winded arguments with points and counter points. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from it all and have a good laugh. With so many discouraging things happening in our country lately, that’s the only thing we can do to keep from crying.

Conservative artist Antonio Branco is a master at encapsulating deep and complex issues in a simple comic.

He has written his first book in a series and takes on a wide array of issues, from food stamps to global warming to foreign policy, Antonio isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.

Presented in a coffee table book style, this is the perfect conversation starter with friends and family that pick it up and start glancing through it’s pages.

Who knows, that liberal aunt of yours just might come over to the right side because of this book!

This 80 pages, hardcover comic measures 8″ x 10".


Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.
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Why Belgium has ghettos and we do not


Belgian police arrest terror suspect Salah Abdeslam during a raid in the Brussels 
neighborhood of Molenbeek on March 18, 2016 (screen capture: YouTube)

Long before Tuesday's terror attacks in Brussels, it was clear that Belgium had become a breeding ground for Islamist extremists. Hundreds of Belgian Muslims — as many as 500, according to one estimate — have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS, making Belgium by far Europe's leading supplier of foreign jihadists.

Last November's horrific slaughter in Paris was masterminded by a Belgian radical, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and at least four of the men who carried out those attacks were from the Brussels district of Molenbeek. One of them was Salah Abdeslam, who was captured in Molenbeek, after an intense manhunt, on March 19.

For Islamist imams and terrorist ringleaders, such neighborhoods — heavily Muslim, densely populated, with high unemployment and crime rates — have proved fertile territory for recruiting violent jihadists. "There is almost always a link with Molenbeek. That's a gigantic problem, of course," Belgium's prime minister said after the Paris atrocities.

But it's only recently that the country's security officials began confronting that "gigantic problem" with an appropriate sense of urgency. The New York Times reported last fall that weeks before the Paris attacks, Molenbeek's mayor, Françoise Schepmans, was given a list of more than 80 Islamist terror suspects living in her district.

She took no action and was unapologetic even after three of the men on the list took part in the Paris massacre.

"What was I supposed to do about them?" Schepmans told the Times. "It is not my job to track possible terrorists."

That jaw-dropping complacency helps explain how an ISIS fifth column has been able to operate with such brazenness in Western Europe. But incompetent policing doesn't explain why Muslims living in neighborhoods like Molenbeek, or in the banlieues outside Paris that have experienced violent riots, should be susceptible to Islamist radicalization in the first place.

Muslim communities, after all, are not inherently predisposed to violence. The presence of a sizable Muslim population in a non-Muslim-majority country does not inevitably presage jihadist bloodshed or demands for the imposition of sharia. It is true that some 650,000 Muslims live in Belgium, but five times as many — 3.3 million — live in the United States.

Why hasn't America become a hotbed of Islamic extremism? Why aren't American Muslims by the thousands flocking to fight for ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations? Why, despite the efforts of Islamist pressure groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — a Muslim supremacist operation that masquerades as an advocate for civil rights — are most American Muslims intent on adopting America's customs and way of life?

The United States has been far more successful at assimilating and integrating Muslim immigrants into American society and culture than has Western Europe. There are no Muslim ghettoes here like those in Molenbeek or the Paris suburbs, where authorities turn a blind eye to antisocial behavior and aggressive incitement by radicals preaching jihad.

Of course there have been some heinous exceptions, such as the Tsarnaev brothers, the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, or the killers in San Bernardino. And mosques in American cities have often been built with funding from Saudi Arabia, which promotes a harsh and puritanical version of Islam.

Nevertheless, at the grass-roots level, Muslims in the United States, like other cultural and religious minorities, have had no problem acclimating to mainstream norms. In a detailed 2011 survey, the Pew Research Center found that Muslim Americans are "highly assimilated into American society and . . . largely content with their lives."

More than 80 percent of US Muslims expressed satisfaction with life in America, and 63 percent said they felt no conflict "between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society." The rates at which they participate in various everyday American activities — from following local sports teams to watching entertainment TV — are similar to those of the American public generally. Half of all Muslim immigrants display the US flag at home, in the office, or on their car.

Given America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bloody battles with Islamic regimes and insurgents, and the threat to homeland security from "lone wolf" terror attacks, it might seem surprising that Muslims in Detroit or Brooklyn aren't at least as alienated as those in Molenbeek. But they aren't. For despite the rise of identity politics and the balkanizing pressures of multicultural correctness, America's melting pot still works.

"There is almost always a link with Molenbeek," Belgium's prime minister
said after the Paris atrocities.

Generations of Muslim immigrants have come to America to escape repression, poverty, or war in their homelands. The life they have made for themselves here has been freer, safer, more prosperous, and more embracing than the existence they left behind. There are tensions, but not enough to keep most Muslims from fitting themselves comfortably into the American mosaic.

At a time when populist demagogues are doing so much damage to our social fabric, it is well to remember why Molenbeek is a European phenomenon, and not an American one. At the core of the American experience is a conviction that immigrants who come to America can and should become Americans.

Patriotic assimilation turns profoundly dissimilar foreigners into proud and happy Americans. "Muslims in the United States," Pew found, "reject extremism by much larger margins than most Muslim publics" around the world.

Americanization — E Pluribus Unum — is not only a key ingredient in the American Dream. It also keeps us safe.
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Why there are Muslim ghettos in Belgium, but not in the U.S. by Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

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