News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Friday, October 06, 2017
College of the Ozarks: A Role Model for Transforming Higher Education in America
by Newt Gingrich: Families and students across the country struggle daily to afford college tuition. Often, they are left with two options: choose a less competitive school or absorb tremendous debt.
At the same time, state legislatures nationwide grapple with ways to make higher education more attainable for their residents. For lawmakers, that usually means raising taxes or running deficits.
These are terrible choices – and unnecessary ones.
For more than half of a century, College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, has been offering students no-cost, debt-free four-year college degrees by employing a model that any state could emulate.
The private Christian college began as a high school in 1906, became a junior college in 1956, and finally elevated to a full four-year institution in 1965. Today it offers students an excellent education in exchange for work.
I first visited College of the Ozarks in April of 2009 when I gave a speech at its Citizenship Forum. I was profoundly moved by the sincerity, diligence, and work ethic of both the students and faculty. I was delighted when they invited me back in November 2016 for another forum.
Students at College of the Ozarks earn – I mean actually earn – their educations by working in one of the more than 100 jobs offered to students on the 1,000-acre campus. For example, the college’s Keeter Center, which serves as a dining hall, meeting center, and hotel for guests, is staffed by more than 350 students. These students do everything from milking cows before breakfast to attending to guests at dinner. They are so successful, TripAdvisor named the on-campus facility a Top Small Hotel in the U.S. for 2017. This unique model is applied across nearly every aspect of the campus.
The work the students do on campus helps to greatly reduce the overhead of running the college, which helps the college offset the cost of providing students with an incredibly high-quality education. The remainder of student tuition is covered by scholarships and grants.
Once they graduate, these students have a first-rate education, real working experience, and zero debt.
States should specifically study this college for two key reasons.
First, 90 percent of College of the Ozarks students must show economic need prior to being admitted.
Second, U.S. News & World Report has recognized College of the Ozarks on its Best Colleges list since 1989, most recently ranking the school #1 in Most Innovative Schools and Best Value Schools for Regional Colleges in the Midwest, #4 for Best Undergraduate Teaching in Regional Colleges in the Midwest, and #5 overall for Regional Colleges in the Midwest.
Of its many accolades, the #1 Most Innovative Schools ranking is most unique because it was determined differently than the other designations.
U.S. News asked top college officials from across the system to nominate up to 10 schools that were “making the most innovative improvements in terms of curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology, or facilities.” Based on the answers of all those college presidents, admissions deans, and provosts, College of the Ozarks topped the list for Regional Colleges in the Midwest. That peer consensus shows you that there is something very special happening.
These designations are especially important to states because innovation and value are vital to unlocking high-quality, affordable education.
Imagine if states applied this model to public colleges and universities. Higher education would immediately be in reach for virtually every student. Students would graduate with both academic and professional skills – and they would be debt-free.
Think of the impact on the economy if these newly graduated young working professionals were saving money instead of servicing debt.
Also think of the impact it would have on lower-income families, who otherwise see no hope of sending their children to college.
College of the Ozarks represents an enormous opportunity for states across the nation to implement a better model for the future of higher education. Tags:College of the Ozarks, Role Model, Transforming Higher Education, AmericaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: ISIS Doubles Down - ISIS is doubling down on its claim that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was "a soldier of the Islamic State." The latest edition of the Islamic State's propaganda newsletter claims that Paddock converted six months ago.
There are reasons to be skeptical, however. Paddock certainly does not fit the profile of your typical jihadist. While rare, the group has made false claims in the past. And, as it continues to lose ground in Iraq and Syria, it is increasingly desperate to maintain its relevance.
That said, the attack fits a pattern in other ways. Las Vegas has been threatened repeatedly by terrorist groups, most recently in May of this year.
And while any event with large numbers of people will be a target for "mass causality" attacks, ISIS has carried out several attacks on concerts and music festivals. (Here, here and here.)
The Gun Control Debate - Earlier this week, I noted that the left's knee-jerk reaction would be to attack the Second Amendment. A more appropriate response, in my opinion, would be to resuscitate the First Amendment and for America to turn back to God.
But since the left and its media allies are all-in on blaming "gun violence," I think it is important to provide some context.
While the Las Vegas shooting has rightly seized the public's attention, 60% of all gun deaths are suicides, not homicides. Every death is a tragedy. But beyond banning handguns, the left has no "gun control" solution that addresses the vast majority of cases of alleged "gun violence."
When it comes to mass shootings, Chicago accounts for 10% of all incidents. Nearly 2,900 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year. Even the left-wing New York Times noted that the atrocity in Las Vegas occurs almost every month in Chicago. Celebrities and progressive politicians rail against the NRA for defending the Second Amendment. Why aren't they leading protests in Chicago?
Honest liberals do admit that gun control isn't the answer. Unfortunately, some left-wing politicians have a problem with honesty.
For example, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said this week that it was "absurd" to say that "the background check proposal wouldn't have stopped the killer in Las Vegas." Well, it wouldn't have. According to NBC News, Stephen Paddock passed "all required background checks." It is absurd that liberals lie to push their radical agenda.
By the way, when President Trump wanted tougher background checks, the left erupted in a fit of rage and said it was discriminatory. Of course, that was when President Trump called for "extreme vetting" of individuals from countries infested with jihadism.
Perhaps the president should reissue his executive order and say that all immigrants and refugees coming into the country must undergo more severe background checks just in case they want to purchase a firearm. The left would really be in a bind then!
A final point. For many progressives, the real issue isn't our constitutional rights. It's power. But don't take my word for it.
In response to the Las Vegas shooting, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman offered this advice to the left:
"There is only one remedy: Get power. If you are as fed up as I am, then register someone to vote or run for office yourself or donate money. . . This is about raw power, not persuasion. And the first chance we have to change the balance of power is the 2018 midterm elections. . . Just get power. Start now."
Friedman isn't right about much, but he's right about one thing: Elections have consequences. If the left takes control of Congress in 2018, it won't hesitate to use and abuse its power. There will be severe consequences for religious liberty and the Second Amendment.
"Calm Before The Storm" - During a meeting with top Pentagon officials at the White House last night, President Trump said that this was "the calm before the storm." That certainly got everyone's attention! Asked by reporters what he meant by that, Trump simply replied, "You'll find out."
I have no idea what the president means, but I doubt he was referring to the weather.
My guess is that it is part of an ongoing effort to wean North Korean leaders off of the idea that American presidents give in to extortion, which is what past presidents of both parties have done.
Trump is trying to send a signal to both North Korea and Iran: "Don't miscalculate because I'm not like other presidents."
Speaking of Iran, President Trump is expected to announce next week that he will no longer certify Iran's compliance with Barack Obama's terrible nuclear deal. Since that deal was announced, Iran's support for terrorism and its belligerent actions in the Middle East have gotten worse, not better.
According to Politico, the White House is announcing plans "aimed at cracking down more forcefully" on Iran's terrorist proxy Hezbollah. Iran's support for Hezbollah has increased dramatically since Obama's nuclear deal lifted tough sanctions against the Iranian regime.
In June, the Justice Department charged Samer El Debek of New York and Ali Kourani of Michigan with conducting surveillance operations for Hezbollah. Among the sites targeted were the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Panama, as well as "military and law enforcement facilities in New York City."
And guess what? It seems like President Trump's tough stance is starting to payoff. Reuters reports that Iran is suddenly open to talks about its ballistic missile program.
Peace through strength works!
Keeping Promises - The Trump Administration today fulfilled a key promise to values voters. It formally rolled back Obamacare's contraception mandate by expanding the existing exemption granted to churches to other faith-based institutions, businesses and non-profit organizations.
Just to clarify any fake news you may hear, Donald Trump did not ban birth control. The new rules simply state that any organization claiming a religious or moral objection cannot be compelled by the government to provide free birth control.
Obamacare's contraception mandate took a big hit in 2014 when Hobby Lobby and other closely-held private companies won a major case before the Supreme Court. But a year later, the Obama Administration still refused to accommodate the Little Sisters of the Poor. It was so committed to its radical pro-abortion agenda that it threatened to bankrupt Catholic nuns!
In addition, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued guidance to all federal agencies instructing them to fully respect religious liberty. Below is an excerpt from his memo:
"Religious liberty is a foundational principle of enduring importance in America, enshrined in our Constitution and other sources of federal law. . . Religious liberty is not merely a right to personal religious beliefs or even to worship in a sacred place. . .
"Except in the narrowest of circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law. Therefore, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, religious observance should be reasonably accommodated in all government activity, including employment, contracting and programming."
------------------- Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, ISIS Doubles Down, Gun Control, Keeping PromisesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
10 Noteworthy Twitter Reactions to the Harvey Weinstein Sexual Harassment Bombshell
by Stephen Kruiser: Film producer Harvey Weinstein, a longtime champion of liberal causes and Hollywood icon, has been exposed by The New York Times as being a serial sexual harasser of women.An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.
During that time, after being confronted with allegations including sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact, Mr. Weinstein has reached at least eight settlements with women, according to two company officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. Among the recipients, The Times found, were a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 and Ms. O’Connor shortly after, according to records and those familiar with the agreements.
In a statement to The Times on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Weinstein said: “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”So he's trying to do better. Bully for him.
Twitter has been buzzing with the news since yesterday when it wasn't even officially news yet. It's still buzzing, so we'll just provide a synopsis for everyone who isn't in the mood to deal with Tweetdeck today.
1. This has been a thing that the industry has known about for a while
Bravo to the NYT reporters for publishing the story we all tried to get for decades https://t.co/O5E0pPiAtP
4. He takes full responsibility...until he doesn't
Harvey Weinstein: I feel real bad about all the harassment
Also Harvey Weinstein: I'm suing you for writing about the harassment https://t.co/zuBzkahlq3
We didn't even get into the fact that Weinstein blamed the '60s for why he was harassing women well into the 21st century. Perhaps the most surreal aspect of all of this is that he is the first person in years who has been able to make Ashley Judd appear credible and sane.
---------------------- Stephen Kruiser is a professional comedian and writer who has also been a conservative political activist for over two decades. A co-founder of the first Los Angeles Tea Party, Kruiser often speaks to grassroots groups around America and has had the great honor of traveling around the world entertaining U.S. troops. PJ Media shared this article. Tags:Stephen Kruiser, PJ Media, Twitter Reactions, Harvey Weinstein, Sexual Harassment BombshellTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Boozman & Crawford Announce $7.6 Million USDA Funding for Flood Prevention in Arkansas
ARRA News Service: U.S. Senator John Boozman and Congressman Rick Crawford, members of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees, announced that the Departee Creek Watershed Improvement District and Big Slough are recipients of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding to reduce the risk of flooding.
“Floods put a significant strain on Arkansas’s communities and severely impact agricultural producers in our state. I am pleased to support these investments which will improve water infrastructure control measures to ease the threat of flooding to Arkansas’s rich farmland,” Boozman said.
“Our abundant water resources can often be a real challenge for the 1st District. From meetings with the producers to conservation districts to local municipalities, for years my office has been working hard on the Departee Creek project in particular. It’s a relief to know that these projects will finally receive the critical investments that the communities need to properly manage their flood risk,” Crawford said.
Departee Creek Watershed Improvement District will receive $5.7 million from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to create water control structures and conservation easements to reduce the risk of flooding. Big Slough will receive a $1.9 million grant from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to reduce floodwater damage and prevent sediment loading in Big Slough Drainage Ditch and its major tributaries. Tags:Senator John Boozeman, Rep. Rock Crawford, USDA Funding, Flood Prevention, ArkansasTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
This Key Change Will Bring Money Pouring Back Into the US
by Sondra Clark: President Donald Trump once called our tax code a “giant self-inflicted wound.”
He’s right—and one of the worst aspects of our broken code is the “worldwide” system of taxation.
Under current tax law, U.S. businesses are expected to pay the same amount of taxes on income they earn overseas as they would in the U.S. Of course, these same companies are also paying taxes in those foreign countries, which means their profits are being double-taxed.
Let’s look at an example.
Allan owns a company that sells baseball caps. Last year, he made $50,000 of profits in the United Kingdom. There, he has to pay the British government a 19 percent corporate tax, amounting to $9,500.
Allan wants to bring that money back to the United States. But to do so, he has to pay the U.S. government another 35 percent of those profits (that’s the current corporate tax rate), which means dishing out another $17,500.
So Allan initially made $50,000. Then, had to give $9,500 to the British government, and then another $17,500 to the U.S. government. Now, he only gets to keep $23,000—less than half of the profits he originally earned.
You can see why Allan has an incentive to keep his $40,500 in profits in Britain, as opposed to reinvesting in his business back home. And countless other companies feel that same incentive.
That’s bad for investment in America and for economic growth, and it’s why the new GOP tax plan has made a significant stride by proposing a “territorial tax system.”
The territorial system would allow all foreign subsidiaries to bring their earnings back to the U.S. with a 100 percent deduction. In other words, overseas profits made by U.S.-based companies will no longer be double-taxed because the U.S. government will no longer assess a tax when those profits are brought back to our shores to be spent or invested.
Let’s look at Allan’s baseball cap company again.
Under a territorial tax system, he would still have to pay a $9,500 tax on his $50,000 of income to Great Britain, but that’s all. He could bring the rest of his profits home to the U.S. without paying any taxes on them because they weren’t made within the U.S.
Under the territorial system, Allan gets to keep $40,500 in profits.
The U.S. already has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. U.S. companies are currently at a disadvantage when competing with other companies internationally because of the high tax burden.
A territorial system will encourage foreign business investment here in America and help bring back more than $2.6 trillion in profits currently locked out of the U.S. by our broken and outdated tax system.
Establishing a territorial tax would also encourage companies to stay in the U.S. rather than merging with international companies to avoid the tax burden. Only 20 percent of developed nations have worldwide tax systems, while the rest have territorial systems, putting the U.S. in the minority of the developed world. Heritage Foundation policy analyst Adam Michel gives some great examples: Reacting to both the high U.S. corporate income tax rate and worldwide taxation, U.S. firms are pressured to merge with foreign competitors and move their new joint headquarters overseas to avoid the U.S. tax system. Prominent examples include Anheuser-Busch’s acquisition by Belgian brewer InBev, and Burger King’s buyout of Canadian Tim Hortons. U.S.-foreign mergers always reincorporate outside the U.S. Even if the merger is not explicitly tax motivated, the decision to not headquarter in the U.S. certainly is tax motivated.American companies shouldn’t get special handouts to succeed in the marketplace. But they also shouldn’t have to start from a disadvantage to compete with international companies.
The answer is to reform our tax code and to adopt a territorial system for the 21st century.
------------------ Sondra Clark (@SondraClark) is the managing director of communications and grassroots at Heritage Action for America and contributes to The Daily Signal. Tags:This Key Change, Will Bring Money Pouring Back, Unites States, Sondra Clark, The Daily Signal, Heritage Action for AmericaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
AG Sessions' Office Releases Memo on Religious Liberty
ARRA News Service: The Office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as directed by President Trump, released a memo today on Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty.
This memo acknowledges that "no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law" and as such lays out twenty principles administrative agencies and executive departments must adhere to.
"Religious liberty is a key tenet upon which our country was founded but unfortunately has been under assault" said Ed Martin, President of Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund. "We are grateful to President Trump for recognizing the importance of protecting individuals of faith from undue attacks and for keeping yet another campaign promise."
The full DOJ memo can be read here. Tags:AG Sessions' Office, Releases, Memo on Religious Liberty To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
More Evidence Of Arkansas GIF Misuse Amidst Lawsuit
by Caleb Taylor : A new nonprofit with a focus on “alternative medicine” received approximately $42,000 in General Improvement Fund (GIF) state grants from 2013 to 2015, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Unfortunately, it appears the only outcome from these grants was making Arkansas taxpayers ill.
From the report: On Sept. 10, 2013, Arkansas Health and Economic Research Inc. registered — as most new businesses are required to do — with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office.
That same day, the Benton nonprofit company’s executive director wrote his first letter seeking thousands of dollars in state grants.
The startup’s chances of getting state money might have seemed slim.
The company’s focus was alternative health practices, including ozone therapy that mainstream researchers call quackery.
The executive director wasn’t a scientist, but an insurance agent who now works as a Saline County juvenile intake officer.
And the grant application offered no evidence that anyone connected with the firm was an expert in economics or health.
Yet 15 days after incorporation, Arkansas Health and Economic Research received word that it had won a General Improvement Fund grant from the state, backed by a single lawmaker, for $20,000.
And that was just the first grant.
Between 2013 and 2015, records show the nonprofit received a total of five General Improvement Fund checks, OK’d by four legislators, for $41,698 in taxpayer money.Two of the four legislators who approved the grants to Arkansas Health were former State Rep. Micah Neal and State Sen. Jon Woods. Neal has previously pled guilty to one charge of fraud related to his use of GIF. Woods has pled not guilty to similar charges for his use of GIF.
The other two legislators named in the report are State Rep. Jana Della Rosa and State Sen. Bart Hester. Hester says he regrets sponsoring a $5,000 grant to Arkansas Health at the advice of Woods.
As loyal readers of this blog will know from our previous reporting on GIF corruption, the Arkansas Supreme Court recently heard a lawsuit by former State Rep. Mike Wilson on the constitutionality of GIF practices. The court has yet to release a decision on the matter.
Wilson says the program is nothing more than money laundering without sufficient oversight. Defenders of GIF say everything is on the up and up. Sam Jones, an attorney with the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District, told the court last month: What we have now is a fairly elaborate process where an appropriation is made by the Legislature to the Department of Finance and Administration. Then these eight distinct planning and development districts have to submit a grant application to receive these funds for purposes of evaluating grants for economic development. What they then do is they have a staff that entertains grant applications from entities within the legislative districts that form the planning and development districts. They are formed around legislative districts…not individual Representatives or Senators. They are open for business to evaluate any grant requests that is made by anyone in the state of Arkansas who is within that district.Unfortunately, this version of how the process works was contradicted in the newspaper’s report by Berryville Mayor Tim McKinney, a board member on Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District.
McKinney said board members were instructed by legislators on how to vote on which projects would receive grant funding.
McKinney said: I can tell you nobody at the board level asked any questions. We were given a list of projects, and we were told to ‘vote yes here, vote yes here. Good job guys, let’s eat.’ It was clear the Legislature still controlled that money.But the story gets even worse! One of the “alternative medicine” practices promoted by Arkansas Health was “ozone therapy” — a practice the FDA says has no known useful medical application. If we’re going to waste taxpayer dollars, let’s at least make sure they go to practices with proven medical benefits!
Wilson told The Arkansas Project in an interview Monday afternoon: t’s another startling incident of the whole GIF mess and the record is replete with more examples of that same disregard for any kind of proper governmental purpose. I’m hopeful the Supreme Court will read those documents and take heed.It’s time for the GIF process to be ended, or at least significantly reformed. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will save the Legislature from themselves on this issue.
--------------------- Caleb Taylor writes for The Arkansas Project an outreach of the Advance Arkansas Institute. Tags:Caleb Taylor, Advance Arkansas Institute, More Evidence,Arkansas, GIF Misuse, Amidst LawsuitTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
. . . Politicizes US hurricanes to call for strengthening of Paris Agreement.
by Joseph Klein: The United Nations is misusing statistics to try and prove a causal relationship between the reported increase in carbon dioxide concentrations and the purported increase in extreme hurricane events over the last several decades, focusing in particular on the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season.
“Over the past 30 years, the number of annual weather-related disasters has nearly tripled, and economic losses have quintupled,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at a press briefing on Wednesday. To “prove" his point, graphs were distributed to reporters that show carbon dioxide concentration levels and ocean temperatures rising since 1960, together with an increase in the number of meteorological natural disasters. “Scientists are learning more and more about the links between climate change and extreme weather,” the Secretary General added. He then predictably called for “countries to implement the Paris Agreement [on climate change], and with greater ambition.”
The UN is using the familiar logical fallacy of equating statistical correlations with proof of causation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory issued a report, last revised on August 30, 2017, that demonstrates the crucial difference between mere statistical correlation and proof of causation. The report found that “records of Atlantic hurricane activity show some correlation, on multi-year time-scales, between local tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the Power Dissipation Index (PDI),” which is “an aggregate measure of Atlantic hurricane activity.”
However, the report went on to conclude that it is “premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.” Computer models may indeed predict increased storm intensity and destruction by the end of this century based on some measures of historical data showing increases in sea surface temperatures. However, the extent to which this would be due to an increase in 21st century greenhouse warming caused by human activity is indeterminate at the present time.
Moreover, even the statistical correlations may be misleading. The report examined records of past Atlantic tropical storm or hurricane numbers (1878 to present), which it found to be incomplete in terms of reported storms prior to 1965. Reliance on ship-based observations during that period meant that some storms, particularly short-lived ones, were simply overlooked because they had less opportunity for chance encounters with ship traffic.
There were no satellites more than five decades ago to observe and measure hurricanes with the same degree of accuracy as can be performed today. Even with the sketchier information we do have regarding hurricanes in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, we know that five of the eight seasons with the most major hurricanes since 1851 occurred prior to 1965. The strongest hurricane on record to hit the U.S. occurred on the Florida Keys on Sept. 2, 1935. And while Hurricane Maria was a tragically devastating hurricane to be sure, Puerto Rico suffered an even worse hurricane in 1928.
“In summary,” the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory report stated, “neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm counts over the past 120+ yr support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic.”
Christopher Landsea, who was the science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in 2010, observed that hurricanes run in cycles. "The late nineteenth century was a very busy period," he said. "Then from the 1900s until about 1925, it was very quiet. The late 20s to the 60s were very busy. The 1970s to the mid-90s were quiet again, and then from the late 90s onward, it's been generally very busy."
With respect to natural disasters and their aftermath, the United Nations is at its best when it works to deliver humanitarian aid to devastated areas. “To date,” according to Secretary General Guterres, “the United Nations and its partners have provided a variety of humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean region by air and by sea: 18 tons of food; 3 million water purification tablets; 3,000 water tanks; 2,500 tents; 2,000 mosquito nets and school kits; 500 debit cards for cash assistance; and much else.”
The United Nations is as its worst when it politicizes natural disasters such as the recent hurricanes and seeks to squelch any divergence from the conventional wisdom. “I have not yet lost my hope that what is happening will be making those that are still skeptical about climate change to be more and more realizing that this, indeed, is a major threat for the international community at the present moment,” the Secretary General told reporters. He wants the Paris Agreement to be strengthened. He said, “what is important is that the Paris Agreement is the solid foundation to allow us to have the ambition to go further and to make sure that we do not have a warming of the planet at the catastrophic levels that would happen if we'd just move on as we are.”
The true science deniers, which include the UN bureaucracy and its leaders, are those who try to shut down legitimate scientific skepticism regarding demonstrable misuse of data to mislead on storm causation and over-reliance on unvalidated computer models to support the political agenda behind the Paris Agreement. Even the UN itself admitted back in 2007 the shortcoming of its models: "In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."
However, the UN is institutionally incapable of resisting the prospect of hundreds of billions of dollars a year or more of wealth redistributed from richer nations to the less developed nations under its aegis, premised on the predictive power of just such models. President Trump has good reason to want a do-over when it comes to the Paris Agreement and the "green" financial commitments made by Barack Obama.
------------------- Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam. His article was in FrontPage.Mag, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Tags:UN Secretary, General Antonio Guterres, Misleads, Hurricanes, Climate Change, Joseph Klein, FromtPage MagTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
American Manufacturers: Our Future ‘Depends On Enacting Bold Tax Reform’
President Trump will resume his push for tax cuts on Friday with an Oval Office meeting designed to highlight the manufacturing industry… Trump will host more than a dozen manufacturing industry employees and executives and issue a proclamation making Oct. 6 ‘National Manufacturing Day,’ according to a White House statement provided to USA TODAY.” (“Trump To Resume Tax Cut Push…” USA Today, 10/5/2017)
TAX FRAMEWORK: ‘Domestic Manufacturers Will See The Lowest Marginal Rates In Almost 80 Years
2017 Tax Framework: “…America’s outdated tax code has fallen behind the rest of the world – costing U.S. workers both jobs and higher wages. In response, the framework puts America’s corporate tax rate below the average of other industrialized countries and promotes greater investment in American manufacturing. … Domestic manufacturers will see the lowest marginal rates in almost 80 years.”(“Unified Framework For Fixing Our Broken Tax Code,” 9/27/2017)
NAM: ‘The Future Of Manufacturing … Heavily Depends On Enacting Bold Tax Reform’
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS: “On Manufacturing Day, America’s dreamers, doers and makers open our doors to modern manufacturing and unveil the opportunities that lie beyond them to students, parents, educators and community members across the country. It is our industry’s biggest stage to recruit and inspire next-generation manufacturers to create and build their—and our—future in America… The future of manufacturing also heavily depends on enacting bold tax reform, and today is a great opportunity to bring that message directly to the American people. Getting tax reform done will secure these jobs in the United States and mean even more Americans can enjoy rewarding, well-paying, high-tech, hands-on and exciting careers in modern manufacturing.” (National Association Of Manufacturers, Press Release, 10/6/2017)
NAM: “The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) today released the results of the Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey for the third quarter of 2017, which showed that the promise of tax reform has led to the highest three-quarter average of manufacturer optimism ever recorded by the NAM. Throughout the debate on tax reform, manufacturers have been leading the charge for a bold legislative package that will spur growth and create jobs among both small and large manufacturers. In fact, a strong majority of manufacturers who took part in the recent survey said a pro-growth tax reform package would make them more likely to expand their business (64.3 percent), hire more workers (57.3 percent) and increase employee wages and benefits (52.2 percent).” (National Association Of Manufacturers, Press Release, 9/29/2017)
DAVID FARR, Emerson Chairman And CEO And NAM Board Chair:“America is standing at a crossroads. We face a historic opportunity to lift American workers up, grow paychecks, create more jobs and out-compete the rest of the world. We have the chance to boost manufacturing in the United States and strengthen the backbone of our economy: American manufacturing workers. Tax reform is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.”(David Farr, Op-Ed, “Tax Reform Is An Opportunity US Can't Afford To Miss,” CNN 9/29/2017)
FARR: “If you're like me, you look at today's outdated tax code and ask: What are we doing to ourselves? What are we doing to American businesses and workers?
We get to write our own rules, so why are we writing rules that penalize success, harm families and give our competitors an advantage? The longer we fail to act on tax reform, the more time other countries have to gain an edge on the United States. The more we wait, the less money we will invest in research and development for new technologies or lifesaving breakthroughs. Those who defend the current tax code are defending a manufacturing worker in Ohio losing a job to a worker overseas. They are defending less innovation and fewer technological and medical discoveries. They are defending years of tightening family budgets, stagnant wages and communities losing hope. In a country with so much incredible potential, it's indefensible.” (David Farr, Op-Ed, “Tax Reform Is An Opportunity US Can't Afford To Miss,” CNN 9/29/2017) Tags:American Manufacturers, Our Future,
Enacting Bold Tax ReformTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Why did Stephen Paddock, 64, rent rooms at the Mandalay Bay hotel, sneak in an arsenal of guns, a dozen of them converted to fully automatic, and rain down death on a country music concert?
“We will never know,” writes columnist Eugene Robinson.
“There can be no rational argument for mass murder … nothing can really explain the decision to spray thousands of concert-goers with automatic weapons fire, killing at least 59 and injuring hundreds more.”
But while there can be no justification for mass murder, there is an explanation. And like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Purloined Letter,” it is right there in front of us, in plain sight.
Having chosen to end his life, Paddock resolved to go out in a blaze of publicity. This nobody would leave this life as somebody we would have to remember. He would immortalize himself, as did Lee Harvey Oswald.
Reportedly, Paddock even filmed himself during his massacre.
Ex-Marine sniper Charles Whitman, who murdered his wife and mother, and then climbed up into the Texas University Tower in Austin, 50 years ago, to shoot down 46 people and kill 15, is the prototype.
Whitman’s slaughter ended after 96 minutes when a cop climbed up in that tower and shot him. Yet, half a century on, Whitman remains famous. Many of us can yet recall his name and face.
Like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before Columbine, and Dylan Roof before his sickening atrocity at the black church in Charleston, Paddock wanted to live on as one of the great mass murderers in U.S. history. And he has succeeded. We are today paying him in the currency he craved. He is famous, and we have made him so.
Monday, the president spoke at the White House on the “act of pure evil” Paddock perpetrated Sunday night. Network and cable TV anchors and correspondents stampeded to Las Vegas to dig into his background and motivation.
Commentators discoursed on the meaning of it all. Congress is aflame with demands for gun laws against “bump stocks” that turn semiautomatic AR-15s and AK-47s to fully automatic. Paddock’s deeds pushed Puerto Rico and North Korea out of the headlines. By Wednesday, Trump himself was in Vegas. Five days later, police and FBI are still searching for the “motive.”
Whatever caused Paddock to conclude that ending his life was preferable to living it is not the crucial question. Suicides are not uncommon in America. About 3 of every 4 are carried out by white males; 121 are committed daily, with gunshot a common method.
The real question is what turned Paddock into a psychopath without conscience or a moral code that would scream to him that what he was planning was pure evil.
Unlike ISIS terrorists who believe they are soldiers of Islam doing the will of Allah, and will achieve paradise for slaughtering infidels, Stephen Paddock did not believe anything like this.
He coolly and patiently plotted mass murder almost for sport. He rented a hotel suite with windows overlooking a coming country music concert, his fighting fort. He ferried in, over five days, half his home arsenal of 40-some guns, with the semi-automatic assault rifles modified to fire fully automatic. He installed cameras to alert him to when police were about to break in and kill him. Then he smashed the windows on his 32nd floor suite, and began firing for 12 minutes.
Paddock murdered 59 people he did not know and against whom he had no grievance. How did he come to be a man who treated fellow humans as vermin? And does this say something about our civilization?
In “The Brothers Karamazov,” novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky has his character Ivan say, “If God is dead, all things are permissible.”
What Ivan meant is that if God does not exist, the idea of God’s law, of heaven or hell as reward or punishment, is nonsense. And if it is, there is no man-made law that can deter men who have decided to “end it all.”
Consider. Nevada has a death penalty for the mass murder Paddock was preparing to commit. But as he had already decided to end his life after shooting scores of innocent people, no death penalty or any other threatened state punishment could deter him.
Why not carry out his atrocity and end his life knowing that, within days, all of America would know who Stephen Paddock was?
In Shakespeare, Hamlet declares, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.” And so, fearing damnation, Hamlet recoils from ending his life or exacting revenge on the king he believes seduced his mother into complicity in the murder of his father.
In Stephen Paddock, the conscience was dead. He was a dead soul, a moral nihilist, a post-Christian man in a post-Christian age, a monster.
Yet, we are going to see more such men, for we no longer have a convincing answer to that oldest of questions, “Why not?”
-------------------- Patrick Buchanan is currently a conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He blogs at the Patrick J. Buchanan. Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Dead Soul, Stephen Paddock, Terrorism, Las VegasTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: The crazed nature of our leaders’ willingness to spend beyond revenue, and accumulate debt, is not limited to one party. Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for their outrageously perverse fiscal policies.
Their irresponsibility hides in plain view, and can be seen in most of the major policy discussions of our time. Take two:
the Democrats’ idea of putting every American on Medicare and
the Republicans’ current tax reduction bill.
Though the Republicans often pretend to be all about something called “fiscal conservatism,” their murky tax plan is not fiscally sound. Not yet, anyway — after all, it is “evolving.”
And I expect it to get worse, not better.
“The current plan proposes about $5.8 trillion in tax reduction offset by about $3.6 trillion in base-broadening offsets, meaning that it would result in a $2.2 trillion deficit increase over the next decade,” Peter Suderman summarizes over at Reason.
They have a number of cuts in the works, but also plan to spend more on defense and the like. The debt would go up.
But if the Republicans are hypocritical and irresponsible, the Democrats add sheer insanity to their irresponsibility.
“Medicare for All” is pushed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who serves Vermont, where a similar universal system was enacted, only to be repealed after it proved unaffordable even with huge tax increases. All single-payer/socialized medicine proposals would require whopping tax increases to work, and the increases in spending would inevitably yield greater deficits.
Besides, Medicare is heading for financial Armageddon. Adding more burdens to a system that they cannot (or simply will not) now make solvent?
Only a politician could consider such a “solution.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob
------------------ Paul Jacob is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacobs is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service. Tags:Politics, Painfully Usual, Paul Jacob, Common Sense To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Gov. Brown Signs Bill Making California a 'Sanctuary State'
California Gove Jerry Brown makes
California a Sanctuary State for Illegal Aliens
by Jonathan J. Cooper & Kathleen Ronayne: California Gov. Jerry Brown signed sanctuary state legislation Thursday that extends protections for immigrants living in the United States illegally — a move that gives the nation’s most populous state another tool to fight President Donald Trump.
Brown’s signature means that police will be barred from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities starting Jan. 1. Jail officials only will be allowed to transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities if they have been convicted of certain crimes.
“These are uncertain times for undocumented Californians and their families, and this bill strikes a balance that will protect public safety, while bringing a measure of comfort to those families who are now living in fear every day,” Brown said in statement.
It was one of several immigration-focused bills that Brown signed Thursday, which was also the final day for young immigrants to renew their permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects them from deportation. Trump intends to end the program if Congress doesn’t act on it.
California is home to an estimated 2.3 million immigrants without legal authorization.
The Trump administration said the sanctuary state bill will make California more dangerous.
The state “has now codified a commitment to returning criminal aliens back onto our streets, which undermines public safety, national security, and law enforcement,” Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a statement.
The measure came in response to widespread fear in immigrant communities following Trump’s election. He railed against immigrants in his campaign and promised to sharply ramp up the deportation of people living in the U.S. illegally.
Democrats hope blocking police from cooperating will limit the reach of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The bill “will put a large kink in Trump’s perverse and inhumane deportation machine,” Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said at a press conference in Los Angeles celebrating the signing.
De Leon’s bill cleared the Legislature with support only from Democrats. Republicans said it will protect criminals and make it harder for law enforcement to keep people safe.
The bill, SB54, originally would have severely restricted the authority of police officers to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. At Brown’s insistence, it was scaled back to allow cooperation in jails.
Police and sheriff’s officials, including jail officers, will still be able to work with federal immigration authorities if a person has been convicted of one of about 800 crimes, mostly felonies and misdemeanors that can be charged as felonies. But they will be barred from transferring immigrants to federal authorities if their rap sheet includes only minor offenses.
The changes convinced the California police chiefs association to drop its opposition, while sheriffs — elected officials who run jails — remained opposed. ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan has condemned the measure, saying California is prioritizing politics over public safety.
California’s Democratic political leaders have enthusiastically battled Trump and his administration with lawsuits, legislation and fiery public rhetoric, particularly about immigration and the environment.
Among other things, the other bills signed Thursday by Brown will limit federal immigration authorities from entering schools and workplaces without warrants; prohibit landlords from reporting tenants to ICE; and stop local governments from contracting with for-profit companies and ICE to hold immigrants.
Some law enforcement officials say the impact of the sanctuary measure likely will be minimal because it bans immigration enforcement activities that few agencies participate in.
Immigrant rights advocates say it’s important to codify restrictions with the force of law while adding new ones. For them, it’s a rare victory during Trump’s presidency.
The measure was dubbed a sanctuary state bill because it sought to expand so-called sanctuary city policies that have long been in place in some of California’s biggest cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Brown, though, has resisted the label. In his signing statement, he noted the bill does not prohibit ICE from operating in California.
“They are free to use their own considerable resources to enforce federal immigration law in California,” Brown wrote.
De Leon put it somewhat differently.
“It won’t stop ICE from trolling our streets,” he said.
----------------- Article was provided byNumbersUSA but published originally by the AP. Due to its unique content, it is being shared under the Fair Use doctrine to inform readers of a Governor making a state a "Sanctuary State. Tags:Governor Jerry Brown, California, Sanctuary State, AP, Jonathan J. Cooper, Kathleen RonayneTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: For decades, sociologists have documented the phenomenon of extended adolescence. This is where someone who is an adult still acts like a teenager. One classic example would be a 35-year-old who has part of their rent and bills covered by parents and continues to take college classes.
Jean Twenge in her latest research on the trailing edge millennials (who she calls iGen) are extending this phenomenon even further. She documents that teenagers are becoming adults even later than the last generation. She argues that teens today are less prepared for adulthood. She also adds that they are safer since the rates of car accidents and teen pregnancies have fallen dramatically.
Fewer 12th graders have tried alcohol. Back in 1994, 85 percent had tried alcohol. Today, only 66 percent have tried alcohol. Only 73 percent of 12th graders have drivers’ licenses, down from 85 percent twenty years ago.
One of the more dramatic differences can be found in social dating. Only about half (58%) of them have been on a date. Compare that to 83 percent of 12th graders who had been on a date back in 1994 by their senior year.
Another dramatic difference is one that we have talked about in the past: work experience. About half (56%) of 12th graders have worked for pay, which is down from 72 percent in 1994. Many more are taking college prep classes or hanging out at home.
All of these dramatic changes have resulted in a relatively new term being used by sociologists: emerging adulthood. This is their attempt to describe a new life stage between adolescence and adulthood.
All of this reminds me of the jingle, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys-R-Us kid.” Maybe it’s time for adults to say to the kids: it’s time to grow up.
-------------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Joyce Cook: Everyone can agree that in the past black citizens suffered from discrimination as a result of racism. They were often mistreated. However, great strides have been made in the last 50 years. Blacks have the same opportunities as whites do and have been able to realize their dreams of being doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.
Americans elected the first black president, not once, but twice. This would not have happened 50 years ago.
It is very frustrating, then, when people continue to believe that America is inherently racist. This is especially disheartening when the evidence points the other way.
The current kerfuffle began in Ferguson, Mo., as the leftists promoted the agenda that Michael Brown was an innocent person who was shot in the back while running away from police. Thus, the "Hands up, don't shoot" narrative was born. However, Eric Holder's Justice Department investigated and found after interviewing 40 witnesses that "Hands up, don't shoot" did not happen.
Eric Holder was America's first black Attorney General and served under President Barack Obama. His Justice Department concluded that the police officer acted out of self-defense and was justified in killing Brown.
In 2016 a study conducted by Harvard professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings. The study showed that police were actually less likely to shoot at blacks than whites. Mr. Fryer, who is black, said that the finding of no racial discrimination in police shootings was "the most surprising result of my career."
Walter E. Williams, distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, says the No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure aka fatherless homes.
Williams, who is black, also said that the undeniable truth is that neither slavery nor Jim Crow nor the harshest racism has decimated the black family the way the welfare state has. The welfare state was the brainchild of the Democratic Party.
The Democrats' War on Poverty was actually a war on the black family. After implementation of the War on Poverty homes without a father in the black community skyrocketed leading to chaos (think Chicago where numerous blacks are killed by other blacks).
It is sad to see a group of fellow Americans suffer all because leftists want to use them for political ends. However, those same Americans have a duty and responsibility to educate themselves with facts, not myths fed to them.
The Democratic Party also created the KKK, but Democrats pretend to be civil rights champions. It is the Democratic Party that should be given the knee, not America.
------------ Joyce Cook lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She is a conservative activist and former editor of a local newspaper - the Trumann Democrat. Tags:IJoyce Cook, Letter to Editor, Give Dems the KneeTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Investigation of Argentina’s “Dirty War” set Precedent for Inquiry into Iran’s “Summer of Blood”
by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: In the 1990s, I and my distinguished colleague Charlotte Ponticelli had the privilege of working with Dr. Clyde Snow, one of the world’s foremost experts in forensic anthropology, who played an instrumental role in bringing justice to Argentina by uncovering the mass graves left behind by the country’s “Dirty War.” His actions and investigation helped uncover the truth about what was an incredibly deadly series of crimes carried out over nearly a decade. Holding the regime in Argentina accountable set a valuable precedent and demonstrated the global community’s commitment to upholding justice and human rights, which must be maintained today.
After Argentine president Isabel Perón was deposed in 1976, a military junta took over the presidency and government, establishing a dictatorship and placing all levels of government under military control. During the regime’s rule between the 1970s and early 1980s, the dictatorship led by Jorge Rafaél Videla began to hunt down its left-wing political opponents and where tens of thousands were imprisoned and persecuted for their political beliefs.
Over time, the public became more aware of the human rights violations that were being carried out, and in 1979, Amnesty International accused Videla’s military government of causing the disappearance of 15,000 to 20,000 Argentine citizens.
At first, no information was provided as to the locations of their prisoners. Snow’s work in Argentina after the junta regime fell changed all of that, when forensic scientists were invited to the country in order to investigate the atrocities committed during the “Dirty War.” Dr. Snow recruited a group of Argentinean students to aid in his investigation. He led his team through the methodical excavation of unmarked graves, carefully organizing and recording all of the remains and evidence they found.
Snow’s findings brought light to the families of the victims, who previously had no knowledge of their relatives’ fates. His testimony and evidence presented in court also led to the conviction of several members of the junta dictatorship. Today, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team that was created as a result of Snow’s inquiry continues to use his methods to investigate human rights abuses.
Similarly, during Iran’s “summer of blood,” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s “fatwa” order to execute leftists and members of the principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) was implemented with deadly efficiency. Over a period of just five months, the commissions or “death committees” established to carry out executions rounded up tens of thousands of political prisoners, giving them “trials” that lasted only minutes. In total, nearly 30,000 Iranian citizens were executed as part of the regime’s campaign to wipe out its opposition.
Since 1988, the Iranian regime has worked hard to cover up these horrors, as the locations of the mass grave sites remain largely unknown and the public is banned from visiting those that have been uncovered. However, last year’s emergence of a tape recording of Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor in 1988, condemning the massacre during a meeting of high ranking officials made it impossible for the regime to deny the massacre.
In the recording of the August 1988 meeting, Montazeri states that the massacre was “the greatest crime committed under the Islamic Republic” and that the "mass executions without trials, particularly as it relates to prisoners and captives…definitely over time will favor them and the world will condemn us.” The fact that senior officials of the regime—all of whom continue to serve today—were present at this meeting proves their direct culpability in these heinous crimes.
The similarities between these two atrocities — Argentina’s “Dirty War” and Iran’s “Summer of Blood” — are clearly extensive. Both the Argentine and Iranian regimes attempted to silence their political opponents in incredibly deadly ways, succeeding in giving violent deaths to tens of thousands of leftist opposition members in each case. In fact, even more civilians were killed at the hands of the Iranian regime than in Argentina. Those that lost their lives in the violence were buried in unmarked mass graves, with no information given to the families of the victims. The two massacres are also similar in that the governments both attempted to cover up their wrongdoings—while the Argentine junta staged guerrilla attacks to justify their “civil war,” the Iranian regime simply denied the event ever happened and essentially erased it from history.
Members of the “death committees” established in 1988 remain high ranking government officials today, including the current justice minister, Alireza Avayi. Iran continues to use public executions as a means of punishing political and religious prisoners, and leads the world in per capita executions as the only nation in the world that still executes juveniles.
As human rights lawyer and former UN War Crimes Court judge Geoffrey Robertson points out, the evidence of Iran’s international crimes violates the 1948 Genocide Convention, which Iran is a member of. This fact alone implies a duty to investigate the atrocities committed by the regime, an event which he called “the largest state killing of political prisoners since the 1942 Bataan Death March.”
Just as Dr. Snow ensured that the members of the Argentinean junta were held accountable in the 1980s, the same must be done in Iran.
The families of the victims in Iran deserve closure and justice, which cannot be achieved without an official investigation into the brutality perpetrated by the regime. Creating a commission of inquiry into the crimes of the Iranian government would further establish this precedent of justice and protecting human rights, and would display to the world that those who violate international law on such a deadly scale will be held responsible for their actions.
As the highest international authority entrusted with the task of upholding and safeguarding human rights, the United Nations General Assembly has both a moral and a legal authority to launch such an investigation.
------------------ Ken Blackwell (@kenblackwell) is member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former ambassador to the U.N., a former Domestic Policy Advisor to the Trump Presidential Transition Team, and former Ohio State Treasurer and mayor of Cincinnati who currently serves on the board of numerous conservative policy organizations. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service Tags:Argentina, ,Dirty War,, Iran, ,Summer of Blood,, Genocide, violate international law , Ken Blackwell, ARRA News ServiceTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Failure to Adequately Fund Our Military Puts America at Risk
by Dakota Wood: Arguably the federal government’s first obligation to Americans is to keep us safe from foreign attack and to defend our vital national interests wherever they are threatened.
Alarmingly, our government is on the verge of failing in this core responsibility. Our military is minimally ready, rapidly aging, and has so shrunk in size that even senior military leaders question its ability to adequately meet its national security obligations.
This is a disservice to Americans in general and, most especially, to those who are tasked with carrying out the duty of protecting our nation.
Two weeks ago, voicing his concerns about the military’s condition and the impact that restricted funding is having on America’s security, Secretary of Defense James Mattis was quite blunt: [N]othing has done more damage to the readiness of our armed forces than the continuing resolutions that stop us from taking initiative, than the lack of budgetary predictability. … I bring this up because if we don’t get budgetary predictability, if we don’t remove the defense caps, then we’re questioning whether or not America has the ability to survive. It’s that simple.Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, until recently the vice chief of staff of the Army, has testified that only “one-third of our BCTs [brigade combat teams], one-fourth of our combat aviation brigades, and half of our division headquarters” are considered ready.
Currently, of the Army’s 31 brigade combat teams only three would be available to immediately deploy to a conflict.
The Air Force is 24 percent short of the fighters it needs, and is short 1,000 pilots and over 3,000 maintainers. Only four of its 32 combat-coded squadrons are ready to execute all wartime missions.
Prior to 1991, the Air Force purchased more than 500 aircraft a year to offset platforms aging out of its inventory. Since then, it has averaged fewer than 100 per year.
The Marine Corps “is insufficiently manned, trained, and equipped across the depth of the force to operate in an ever-evolving operational environment,” according to Gen. Glenn Walters, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps. This past December, the Corps reported that less than half of its aviation platforms were considered flyable.
As for our Navy, well, it has two-thirds the ships it did near the end of the Cold War, its battle fleet being the smallest since before World War I. The recent set of ship collisions in the Western Pacific imply severe problems in basic ship-handling skills.
How is it possible that the military that won World War II and successfully kept World War III from happening—achieving peace through strength—has decayed to such a point, even while it has sustained operations for 16 years in distant theaters?
Notably, because our government has failed to recognize the difference between its obligation to “provide for the common defense” and its desire to squander taxpayer dollars on “projects of choice” rather than of necessity or responsibility.
The government has failed, and continues to fail in allocating resources commensurate with America’s security interests.
Through our Index of U.S. Military Strength, The Heritage Foundation has committed to informing our citizenry and government about the status of threats to America and the ability of our military to successfully defend our country when called upon to do so.
Threats are growing at the same time that our military is in decline. Unless this imbalance is corrected, and soon, Mattis’ fear may be realized.
---------------- Dakota L. Wood served America for two decades in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is the Senior Research Fellow for Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation and writes for The Daily Signal. Tags:Failure to Adequately Fund, Military, Puts America at Risk, Dakota Woods, The Daily SignalTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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