Month: April 2018

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Iranian Missile Threat

The world’s attention is currently focused on North Korea, but Iran should not be ignored due to its weapons program, its support for worldwide terrorism, and its ongoing aggressiveness in the Middle East. The Iran nuclear deal, which only temporarily slowed down Iran’s atomic weapons program, has not affected that nations’ strategic delivery systems development, including both ballistic and cruise missiles.

According to Ian Williams’ report for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC.) , “Iran has invested significantly in the development of its strategic forces which today includes the region’s largest and most diverse arsenal of ballistic missiles, increasingly sophisticated cruise missiles, as well as an array of shorter-ranged anti-ship missiles … Iran has also established the technological basis for a nuclear weapons program. This effort has included a blend of overt activities under the auspices of a civilian nuclear energy program, and covert activities aimed at expanding Iran’s nuclear weapons potential without international blowback…even those with the highest hopes for the long-term efficacy of JCPOA  [Iran nuclear deal]  cannot deny that the agreement entirely neglects significant aspects  of malign Iranian behavior. In fact, mounting evidence suggests that the structure of the nuclear deal, its limitations, and its associated provisions have actually had the opposite of their intended effect, abetting and emboldening Iranian behavior and capabilities that fall outside of the parameters of the JCPOA…nuclear weapons, these forces give Iran the ability to impose significant costs upon the United States and its regional partners should conflict occur. They also provide Iran with a kind of deterrent cover to pursue its malign activities in the region with less perceived risk of direct military confrontation with the United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and/or Israel. Such a dynamic could easily to lead to strategic miscalculation and conflict.”

A Fox News report based on a Foundation for Defense of Democracies study revealed that Iran has aggressively pursued its ballistic missile program “since agreeing to the 2015 nuclear deal…Iran has fired some 23 missiles …as many as 16 of them nuclear-capable… the robust missile program shows the Islamic republic is bent on intimidating its enemies and preparing for the day when it can do so with the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.”

A Foreign Policy  analysis notes that  “ According to multiple Directors of National Intelligence, Tehran boasts the Middle East’s biggest ballistic missile arsenal. This poses both a conventional and an unconventional threat, with many missiles exceeding the specifications that make them nuclear capable.”
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Iran is proliferating its missile weaponry. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has stated  that  “…the Iranian regime’s behavior is growing worse…Its ballistic missiles and advanced weapons are turning up in warzones across the region…In its strongest language yet, the Secretary-General’s report describes violation after violation of weapons transfers and ballistic missile activity.”

Iran is rapidly developing the ability to directly threaten the American homeland. An NTI study notes that “In addition to its missile program, Iran possesses a space launch capability. Iran has successfully launched several satellites aboard its space launch vehicle (SLV) the Safir, with reports of an attempted launch from the new Simorgh SLV. Many have expressed concern over the dual- use capabilities of these systems and their potential application for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

NTI notes that “Iran is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime or the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. In 2015, to support implementation of the JCPOA, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2231, which called on Iran ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.’ The U.S., U.K., France, and Germany have claimed that Iran’s subsequent ballistic missile tests were ‘inconsistent with’ and ‘in defiance of’ UNSCR 2231, with the U.S. imposing sanctions on Iran in response to its ballistic missile tests, most recently in 2017.”

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Media Should Concentrate on Facts, Not Opinions

Much of the American media enjoys thinking of itself as an avant-garde group, ready to tell truth to power, while engaging in Woodward-Bernstein style investigative journalism.  Sadly, the truth is significantly different. Despite studies, some over a decade old, that clearly indicate an extensive left-wing bias, the problem is only growing worse.

Meg Sullivan, writing for the UCLA Newsroom in 2005, found that “…almost all major media outlets tilt to the left…”  Citing a study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Sullivan reported that “Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center…”

On occasion, brief flashes of self-awareness creep into the minds of the industry, when forced to do so by vociferous criticism.  In 2009, Thomas Edsall, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review  noted that “…FOX, and a couple of conservative video reporters have, in effect, forced the editors and ombudsmen at two of the nation’s leading newspapers, the Times and The Washington Post, to assume a full-scale defensive posture regarding charges of liberal bias…The actions at both the Post and the Times… do little or nothing to address the underlying reality at most papers…The mainstream press is liberal….the more pervasive and subtle form liberal ‘blindness’ takes is in routine coverage. Stories, local and national, of virtually every culture-war issue commonly reflect reporters’ allegiance to social insurgents against traditionalists…”

Fraser Seitel, in an Odwyers  column (the publication specializes in public relations and marketing) notes that the Washington Post “has increasingly become a willing spear-carrier for liberal political causes.” He found that “Advocacy journalism in the 21st century — whether an “independent news service” attacking climate change deniers or an “actor journalist” protecting a murdering drug lord — has become an accepted fact of life…”

Moving away from elitist circles like the Washington Post or Columbia Journalism, some local papers have taken partisanship to a whole new, and extremely low, level.  New York City’s Daily News is a primary example. Consider these front-page headlines and illustrations about the President:

  • A photo of Trump with his hand raised, with the caption “The New Furor.”
  • A photo of Trump, with the caption “Anti-Christ!”
  • A photo of Trump, with clown make-up, with the caption “Dawn of the Brain Dead.”
  • A caricature of Trump as a pile of dung, with the caption “S**t for brains.”
  • An illustration of the White House, with the caption, “House of Horrors.”
  • An illustration of Trump bearing a bloody knife, holding a severed head of the Statue of Liberty.
  • An illustration Of Trump with a pig snout.

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Those front pages would be considered too low-brow for Mad Magazine, let alone a major and established urban newspaper. Consider that first example.  Recently, television host Laura Ingraham was savaged for comparing the stiff-armed salute of David Hogg, who has become the face of the well-financed anti-Second Amendment movement, to a Nazi gesture.  But repeated and unsupported charges of racism against the President, or other sources not favored by the leftist media elites, are considered to be wholly acceptable.

The techniques of highly partisan journalism, both traditional and new, include giving credence to allegedly “nonpartisan” sources who are, in fact, extensively biased in favor of the left.

Ben Kamisar, writing for The Hill notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a harshly left-wing group, is helping YouTube decide what content is “too offensive” for the video platform.

In a speech by Ted Koppel, discussed by Kevin Cody in EasyReaderNews  the veteran newsman, who has been critical of partisan journalism on both sides, noted: “… the separation between news reporting and opinion has eroded not only on cable and news, but in newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post…I genuinely believe journalists need to be reminded we are dealing with factual reporting and to leave opinions to the opinion page. We need to restore the old standards and exercise more discipline. The purpose of journalism is to lay out the facts and let readers make their own decisions…”

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Media Downplays Trump Economy Success

The media has, for the most part, underplayed an important news issue: the dramatic recovery of the U.S. economy in the first year of the Trump Administration. Wall Street may fluctuate, but in contrast to the Obama years, Main Street is doing better

While individual statistical reports have grudgingly disclosed the welcome numbers, the overall impact of policies that promised (and recently delivered) lower taxes, decreased regulation, and the rejection of anti-energy production policies have been largely un-discussed.

From 2010—2016, the average GDP under Obama was about 2.12, including a dismal 1.9 in 2016. The fact is, the fiscal environment was getting worse, not better, as the impact of President Obama’s regulatory excesses, and his anti-energy policies became more deeply embedded. GDP never exceeded 3% annually, for the first time in the past seventy years. In sharp contrast since Trump’s election, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis “Real gross domestic product  increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the third quarter of  2017. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent.”

Even Americans outside of the job market suffered. While Obama dramatically increased spending on food stamp programs and assistance to illegal aliens, social security recipients during his administration received the lowest levels of cost of living increases since the Social Security cost of living system began.

In President Trump’s first year, MSN noted in January, “the economy has done something it has been unable to do since 2005: maintain 3 percent growth for three quarters in a row.” Forbes adds that “Over the past year, the stock market has boomed, GDP growth has improved and unemployment is at an almost 17-year low.” Black unemployment has reached historic lows since President Trump took office. In the latest statistics released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6.9% of black adults were unemployed in February. ZeroHedge’s Tyler Durden emphasized that total U.S. employee compensation rose in the fourth quarter to match the biggest 12-month gain since 2008, as private-sector pay picked up. Total compensation, which includes wages and benefits, rose 2.7% over the past 12 months, the highest since 2008.

DC Statesman noted that “U.S. employers added 200,000 jobs in January. Wages soared at the best pace in over 8 years. And it’s all thanks to President Trump’s tax plan. Employers are competing for a smaller pool of candidates because the unemployment rate is so low. This is causing businesses to increase wages in order to compete with the dwindling employee market. 18 different states have seen minimum wage increases and raises are aplenty thanks to businesses keeping more of their earnings thanks to the tax plan. Speaking of the unemployment rate, it sits at 4.1% for the 4th straight month. It is at its lowest level since 2000.”

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While all of those increases are welcome, the manufacturing and mining hikes are the most notable.  As noted by the BLS, “Manufacturing employment grew by 31,000 in February. The industry has added 224,000 jobs over the past 12 months. In February, mining employment rose by 9,000, with most of the job gain occurring in support activities for mining (+7,000). Since a recent low point in October 2016, mining has added 69,000 jobs.”

Job creation under Obama was largely confined to low-income jobs with no benefits. Job creation under Trump, in contrast, has been in better paying, middle-class positions.

In a critique of the Obama Administration’s post-recession policies, Peter Ferrara, writing for The Hill,  noted: “Historically, the worse the recession is, the stronger the recovery typically is. The economy grows faster than normal for a while to catch up to its long-term economic growth trendline… Based on that metric, the economy should have come out of the recession booming. But [during the Obama Administration that never] happened.

Despite that, notes The Heritage Foundation “Still Donald Trump gets no respect. Even though nearly every poll for the past six years tells us that Americans care most about jobs and the economy (with terrorism occasionally taking over first place), the media naturally won’t cover the undeniable economic speed up since the election of Donald J. Trump… If the economy and jobs had done this well under President Obama he and the media would have been doing cartwheels down Pennsylvania Avenue. Even worse, when the media does cover the jobs and growth story, every reporter asks me: does Mr. Trump deserve credit for these numbers? Well if he doesn’t, who does? Liberals argue that this is a continuation of the Obama recovery, but there’s a big problem with that analysis: the economy was decelerating under Mr. Obama, not speeding up. In Mr. Obama’s last year in office, 2016, the economy was barely limping to keep ahead of another recession.”

DOL photo

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White House Sets New Space Strategy

The Trump Administration has provided more details of its plan to restore NASA to its original priorities. Mr. Obama had mandated NASA’s attention be redirected to efforts intended to assist a climate change agenda. President Trump has reset the space agency, emphasizing manned exploration beyond Earth orbit.  The President even included a reference to space travel in his inaugural address.

Obama prematurely ended the Space Shuttle program, and effectively cancelled the next-wave human piloted spacecraft, the Constellation project.

One mission apparently advocated by the Trump Administration is a relatively quick return to the Moon. According to the Wall Street Journal the Trump White House will seek to expand public-private partnerships for NASA, including, according to White House documents, “a rapid and affordable” return to the lunar surface.

President Trump’s signing of the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, the first comprehensive NASA authorization passed by Congress in more than six years, indicated again the White House emphasis on manned space flight, including a return to the moon and human exploration of Mars by 2033, and deep space exploration by robotics as well.

NASA/private sector partnerships should move quickly ahead. The space agency reports that “NASA and industry partners, Boeing and SpaceX, are targeting the return of human spaceflight from Florida’s Space Coast in 2018. Both companies are scheduled to begin flight tests to prove the space systems meet NASA’s requirements for certification in the coming year. Since NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX, the companies have matured space system designs and now have substantial spacecraft and launch vehicle hardware in development and testing in preparation for the test flights. The goal of the Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a public-private approach. NASA, Boeing and SpaceX have significant testing underway, which will ultimately lead to test missions when the systems are ready and meet safety requirements.”

A White House release outlines its new “National Space Strategy:”

AMERICA FIRST AMONG THE STARS: President Trump’s National Space Strategy works within his broader national security policy by putting America’s interests first.

  • The Trump administration’s National Space Strategy prioritizes American interests first and foremost, ensuring a strategy that will make America strong, competitive, and great.
  • The new strategy emphasizes dynamic and cooperative interplay between the national security, commercial, and civil space sectors.
    • The United States will partner with the commercial sector to ensure that American companies remain world leaders in space technology.

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  • The new strategy ensures that international agreements put the interests of American people, workers, and businesses first.
  • The National Space Strategy prioritizes regulatory reforms that will unshackle American industry and ensure we remain the leading global provider of space services and technology.

SPACE PREEMINENCE THROUGH THE AMERICAN SPIRIT: President Trump’s National Space Strategy harnesses the American spirit and continues the American tradition of pioneering and exploration.

  • The President’s National Space Strategy builds on America’s pioneering, spacefaring tradition, laying the groundwork for the next generation of American exploration in space.
  • The National Space Strategy establishes forthrightly that securing the scientific, commercial, and national security benefits of space is a top priority for this Administration.
    • The United States will continue to lead in the creation and maintenance of the crucial space systems that are essential to our prosperity, security, and way of life.
  • The Strategy puts forward a reinvigorated approach to ensuring U.S. leadership and success in space.

PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH: President Trump’s space strategy builds on the National Security Strategy emphasizing peace through strength in the space domain.

  • The National Space Strategy protects our vital interest in space – to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in space, in order to advance America’s security, economic prosperity, and scientific knowledge.
    • Accordingly, the Administration’s new strategy calls for strengthening the safety, stability, and sustainability of our space activities.
  • The strategy affirms that any harmful interference with or attack upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital interest will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing.
  • President Trump’s National Space Strategy recognizes that our competitors and adversaries have turned space into a warfighting domain.
    • While the United States would prefer that the space domain remain free of conflict, we will prepare to meet and overcome any challenges that arise.
  • Under the President’s new strategy, the United States will seek to deter, counter, and defeat threats in the space domain that are hostile to the national interests of the United States and our allies.

FOUR PILLARS FOR A UNIFIED APPROACH: President Donald J. Trump’s new National Space Strategy drives a whole-of-government approach to United States leadership in space, in close partnership with the private sector and our allies, and is based on four essential pillars:

  • Transform to more resilient space architectures:  We will accelerate the transformation of our space architecture to enhance resiliency, defenses, and our ability to reconstitute impaired capabilities.
  • Strengthen deterrence and warfighting options:  We will strengthen U.S. and allied options to deter potential adversaries from extending conflict into space and, if deterrence fails, to counter threats used by adversaries for hostile purposes.
  • Improve foundational capabilities, structures, and processes:  We will ensure effective space operations through improved situational awareness, intelligence, and acquisition processes.
  • Foster conducive domestic and international environments:  We will streamline regulatory frameworks, policies, and processes to better leverage and support U.S. commercial industry, and we will pursue bilateral and multilateral engagements to enable human exploration, promote burden sharing and marshal cooperative threat responses.

A NEW DIRECTION FOR U.S. SPACE: President Trump has already taken significant steps to reorient American space policy and set it on the right path for the future.

  • On June 30, 2017, the President revived the National Space Council for the first time in 24 years.
  • On December 11, 2017, President Trump once again set America’s sights toward the stars by signing Space Policy Directive – 1, which instructed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to return American astronauts to the moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.
    • In signing the directive, the President ordered action to work with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system.

ORION spacecraft (NASA illustration)

 

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Ineffective Gun Laws Won’t Stop Gun Violence

The manner in which the mainstream media portrays some political issues represents the triumph of emotion over reason. Soundbites, bumper sticker slogans, and dramatic video of marches and demonstrations have replaced reasoned analysis, hard facts, and objective study.

The coverage that dominated televised news programs in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shooting represents the worst of biased, unprofessional, and inaccurate news analysis.

The first, and perhaps most salient, question ignored in the headlong rush to de facto eliminate Second Amendment rights concerns practicality. Will a perpetrator, who is intent on mass murder, rape, robbery or any other felony truly be deterred by a statute outlawing possession of weapons? Obviously, the disrespect that individual manifests towards both fellow humans and the law would also extend to any legislation prohibiting gun ownership.

Nor would it limit the ability to obtain a weapon. Just as the war on drugs has utterly failed to limit the availability of narcotics, so too would any attempt to eliminate the manufacture or sale of guns.

Washington, D.C.’s WJLA news notes that “…many cities with the toughest gun control laws lead the nation in violence…One of the top ten states with the most restrictive gun laws in the country is Illinois, where last year there were 650 murders in Chicago alone, according to a USA Today’s compilation of crime data…In Maryland, another state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, Baltimore had 343 murders last year and has highest per capita murder rate in the nation. The city was also just named the most dangerous city in America by USA Today.”

Baltimore, by the way, is a city that alleged it couldn’t afford to provide adequate heating for its schools, yet somehow found $100, 000 to rent buses to send students to Washington, D.C. to join in protests advocating gun control, according to Sons of Liberty media.

Gun Laws.com  reports: “An example of how stricter gun control laws did not aid in lowering crime rates is Washington D.C. In 1976, D.C. adopted what was to be considered one of the few extremely restrictive gun control policies in the country. The murder rate since the time of new gun control policy rose 134%. Yet another example is New York City, which also implemented similarly stringent gun laws as D.C. had similar results. In the early 1970s, about 19 % of homicides involved pistols, and shortly after the new laws were in place, this number rose to about 50%. Furthermore, the restriction of firearms allowed for only 28,000 lawfully possessed or acquired firearms, yet law enforcement estimations had the number at 1.3 million illegal handguns in the city. Conversely, states with fewer restrictions such as New Hampshire and Vermont, have proven to the safest of all the states, with Vermont ranking in at 49th in crime and 47th in murders.”
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Justin Haskins, writing in Newsday , found that “many of the states with the lowest crime rates, including homicide rates, also have some of the fewest limits on gun ownership. In fact, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that supports enhancing gun-control laws, gave in its recent gun-control report card “F” grades (for having lax gun laws) to five of the six states that have the lowest homicide rates. If having fewer gun restrictions causes more violent crime, why would many states with the lowest homicide rates also have relatively few gun-control laws? The data also show there is no connection to higher gun ownership rates and greater amounts of crime. There are only six states in which 50 percent of the households own firearms: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, West Virginia and Wyoming. If gun-control supporters are correct about the dangers of firearms, these states should have significantly higher crime rates, but the opposite is true here as well. Data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show four of those six states ranked in the top half of all states for having the lowest homicide rates. Two of the states, Idaho and Wyoming, ranked in the top six.

“Further, many cities with very low legal gun ownership rates and stringent gun-control laws, such as Chicago, have extremely high gun-related murder rates. Gun-control laws also don’t prevent mass shootings. An analysis conducted by statistician Leah Libresco shows Australia and Britain have not experienced fewer mass shootings or gun-related crimes since enacting their very strict gun-control laws.”

Some of the various events in Parkland’s aftermath have been used by politicians to garner support or publicity, and to register like-minded new voters. Politicians have used the tragedy as a way to garner publicity in venues that were previously off-limits to them.  In one example, despite regulations prohibiting campaigning in public schools, Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Connecticut) addressed students at the Cheshire High School, reports Daria Novak, who co-hosts the public access TV news program the American Political Zone.

Schools that have had programs concerning the issue have not discussed the racist history of gun control. Before the American Revolution, even freed ex-slaves were prohibited from possessing weapons.  Once again, a century later, following the Civil War and the liberation of all slaves, some southern states enacted laws to prevent blacks, even those who had fought as soldiers in the War Between the States, from having guns, despite the desperate need for self-protection from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The horror of school shootings does call for the adoption of measures to prevent them from happening again. But ineffective measures, feel-good rhetoric, and political grandstanding are obviously not the answer, and deter attempts to enact truly viable solutions.