Month: July 2019

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Quick Analysis

Apollo 11 and American Pride

In the annals of human history, the success of Apollo 11, the first landing on a surface other than Earth, ranks among the greatest achievements. For patriotic Americans, it is a particular source of pride.

Neil Armstrong, Ed “Buzz” Aldrin, Mike Collins and the exploits of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts, scientists and technicians are sterling examples of mankind at its best. Many have failed, however, to comprehend the vital significance of their achievement.  Our species is a young one. The first modern beings emerged from Africa just a little over 70,000 years ago. We learned to fly a mere one hundred and six years ago. For the rest of humanity’s (hopefully) long history, the dawn of spaceflight will be seen as pivotal as the invention of fire and the wheel.

More than technological challenges needed to be overcome to bring about the landing of The Eagle, the Lunar Excursion Module which, after separating from Columbia, the command spacecraft, brought Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar surface while Collins remained in orbit.  It took the vision and optimism of a young president and the support of the American people as well.

It was an optimism that seemed natural at the time, a continuation of the success of a people who fought and won their independence against all odds, settled a vast continent, and defeated dire threats from totalitarian regimes. It is not a coincidence that the space program dwindled down to less lofty goals at the same time that America’s overall confidence fell, as scandals and harsh internal dissent preoccupied the headlines.

The Space Shuttle program allowed NASA to build a new infrastructure and revive dreams of future accomplishments.  In 1984, I had the unique opportunity, while at the White House, to hear, first hand, President Reagan’s dreams of an America soaring ahead to explore and exploit space as the pioneers had done a mere century ago in the Western Frontier. It was not a universally shared dream.

The Space Shuttle era was ended prematurely during the Obama Administration. The 44th president also killed what was to be There are many online pharmacies and generic viagra germany you can only buy the medicine after talking to the doctor. Our brain (in cost of viagra canada our heads) performs complex computations and rational thinking. You cialis without prescription must pick the protected search before each new search on every new engine you use. You will be able to achieve an erection and smoking hampers the blood supply to your heart, cialis vs viagra check out for source brain, and other parts of your body. the successor to it, the Constellation program, and massively slashed funding for all other manned space flight development, leaving American astronauts earthbound and embarrassingly dependent on Russia to gain access to the very space station that the Space Shuttle program had built.

Fifty years after Apollo 11, the commercial promise of space technology has become a reality.  But there is a vast potential of even greater economic and technological accomplishments if the nation regains the vision and optimism of those incredibly short years between Alan Shepard’s first American manned space flight aboard a small Mercury spacecraft and those first footsteps on the lunar surface.  It is not far fetched to say that the future survival of our species may depend on moving ahead.  Establishing human outposts on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere, as well as monitoring the heavens for potentially planet-killing asteroids are vital endeavors.

However, just as in the Apollo era, accomplishing those goals requires more than science, technology, and cash. It requires that same level of optimism and confidence President Kennedy exhibited when he stated on September 12, 1962, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

A half-century later, President Trump seeks to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps. I covered his inauguration, and heard him promise a return to space glory for the United States.  He has pursued that goal by placing the necessary funds in his budgets, and establishing a goal of returning to the Moon, this time to stay, within the next decade.

To achieve that will require a return of pride, patriotism, pragmatism and confidence that far too many in Washington now lack.

Photo: NASA

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Quick Analysis

What Would An All-Democrat Government do?

What nationwide results would a Democratic victory in the 2020 elections bring?  Democrats have complete control of New York State’s government, having a majority of both the Assembly and State as well as the governorship. What has been done in the Empire State could well serve as an example for the country as a whole.  Ted Flint, a New York radio personality and legislative professional, provides a description.

With New York’s 2019 Legislative session finally in the rearview mirror, it’s time to assess what the effect on the state’s citizenry will be.   Governor Cuomo and others have hailed the recently completed session as “historic,” because progressives got most of what was on their wish list. But the result has been a significant economic burden on the people paying the freight.  The headline story is about the state making it legal for illegal aliens to obtain drivers licenses but that only scratches the surface of what was done during the waning weeks of the session, during which lawmakers considered over 1,800 bills. An objective review might result in a perspective that great strides were made in putting the interests of those seeking benefits ahead of those, particularly the middle/working class, who will be forced to pay the bills.

 As with many left-wing measures, many of these bills were debated and passed in the dead of night.

 State Senator Brian Kavanagh told the Wall Street Journal “A lot of these things (issues) are very complicated and we negotiate through the night.” Why wait until the final days of the session to consider such important pieces of legislation and then have lawmakers voting on them at 4, 5 and 6 in the morning? Inevitably, late hours with little or no sleep will result in poorly crafted pieces of legislation.

Even Governor Cuomo admitted he noticed more mistakes this year than in prior years. He chalked that up to democrats not being used to their new status as majority party in the Senate. Since 2010 they had been writing bills as a minority party that rarely became law. Jimmy Vielkind reported in the Wall Street Journal one oversight “involved a deal to legalize e-bikes and e-scooters everywhere in the state but Manhattan. To make the carve-out lawmakers included bill language stating scooters would be barred in any county in the state with a 2010 U.S. Census population of between 1.586 million and 1.587 million people.” The only problem: Manhattan’s population in 2010 was 1,585,873.

 Other miscues involved rent law regulations, which if adopted in its original language would have applied to tens of thousands more apartments than intended. Another bill would have given state tuition subsidies to students who are not citizens, including foreign exchange students.  The language on the rent bill was amended and included in an omnibus bill dubbed by one state official as the “slim ugly.”

 Much of the problem lies with the culture concerning lawmaking. According to an analysis by the New It is not necessary that dental emergencies will always come with pain, but the occurrence of pain is the one that is not associated with the typical symptoms of migraine, such as nausea, vomiting, or sensitivity to light. viagra cheapest online If men with heart problem, hypertension, kidney problems and diabetes ignore prescription and gulp the medicine firm erections, they develop serious health ailments. buy cialis line They can look at multiple medicines in the Kamagra range and decide which one fits their continue reading content cialis without prescription needs perfectly. The wholesale tadalafil simple truth from the matter is the fact that they are impotent. York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) this year, the state Assembly and Senate passed 935 bills, the highest number in 13 years and 50 percent higher than the average during Andrew Cuomo’s tenure. There is a poster outside the Albany office of a Republican assemblyman which invites anyone with an idea for a new bill to contact his office. The time has come to consider whether proposed legislation causes more harm than good, especially to already overburdened average Americans.

 According to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislators, http://www.ncsl.org/the New York State Legislature in 2017 introduced 16,038 bills, of which only 505 were enacted. That’s a 3.1 percent enactment rate, the lowest of every state, with the exception of Pennsylvania and Minnesota. It’s takes an army of high-paid lawyers on both sides of the aisle to craft all that legislation, much of which never becomes law. And guess who’s left with the tab?

  People are leaving New York State. Yes, a high tax and heavy regulatory burden are contributing to the exodus. But there is something more at work. It is the non-economic policies that are pushing New Yorkers to look for more friendly environs; the free college tuition and drivers licenses for illegals, the expansion of abortion laws, the decisions by the Governor’s parole board to release cop killers and other murderers, granting parole in most cases to anyone over 55 years of age. It is these policy proposals, many now with the force of law that are forcing productive New Yorkers to devise an exit strategy. Ultimately, all of these issues have an economic impact.  As a Republican assemblyman told me, when business people plan to spend their retirement years elsewhere, they are less likely to invest in their businesses, their homes and their communities. And that will take a toll on the Empire State’s economy. 

 But instead of addressing kitchen table issues that affect the vast majority of New Yorkers, downstate Democrats, who now control all the levers of power in the state, are consumed with pushing a left-wing social agenda which includes, among other things, decriminalizing marijuana, guaranteeing pay equity in the private sector, giving migrant farm workers the right to unionize and reforming the criminal justice system to lessen the severity of the punishment for lawbreakers. We shouldn’t be surprised the state has taken such a hard left turn. Governor Cuomo, in a 2014 radio interview, tipped his hand when he characterized those who differ politically from him and his fellow liberals:

“Are they these extreme conservatives, who are right to life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that is who they are and if they are extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” What does that say for those of us who believe life is a gift from God and begins at conception; that the Second Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right; that homosexuality is a sin? It’s time for us New Yorkers who cherish freedom and liberty to dig in and fight the Blue Tide sweeping New York so we can continue to live, thrive and raise our families in the most beautiful state in the union.”

Illustration: Seal of New York State

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Quick Analysis

Web Giants vs. Free Speech

Twitter says a new version of its popular site is about to be launched. It will not, of course, address the organization’s rampant left wing bias and censorship of all other political views.

The latest example of Twitter’s extremism came as President Trump convened a social media summit to discuss the censorship of conservatives began. The social media giant mysteriously went off-line during the event, cutting the live feed. The incident follows the extraordinary revelation by Project Veritas via a stealth video proving that Google plans to use its service to meddle in the 2020 election to prevent Trump’s re-election. 

The open bias of Google, Twitter and Facebook has been evident for some time.  In an exclusive interview on the Vernuccio/Novak Report this month, political analyst Josh Bernstein urged nonleftists to work together to address the glaring censorship crisis. The call is not new.

Brad Parscale, writing in USA Today, stated that “Google, YouTube and other tech giants filter, suppress and even directly attack conservatives. This must stop to protect our free and open society… Americans must be wary of powerful institutions that seek to control what we see and hear. As the internet has become an increasingly central part of modern life, Big Tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have increasingly sought to become the gatekeepers of the internet and political discourse. Without any sort of democratic mandate, these companies have appointed themselves the arbiters of acceptable thought, discussion and searches online… During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Also, research at Harvard University found that Google’s search rankings are not objective, and in 2017, the company was fined billions of dollars by the European Union for manipulating search results. Google also maintains at least nine shadowy blacklists that affect what the public sees when using its search engine.”

The internet research organization Can I Rank reports that Google “search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant…Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results…the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.”

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The issue began to garner an even greater degree of note when, as reported by Lifesite “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai scolded Twitter…for censoring conservative users of its platform…’ The company has a viewpoint…and uses that viewpoint to discriminate…to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users…’”

Even some Facebook staff have rebelled against this. According to a Daily Mail report Facebook engineer Brian Amerige has described the company’s “political intolerance” and the threats against employees who don’t go along with leftist ideology.

Robert Epstein, writing in U.S. News, states that “Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor.  The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.”

No one should feel comfortable allowing any entity, whether a government or a corporation, the power to censor free speech. In their exceptional dominance of the web, companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook have unprecedented and monopolistic power,  and the ability to shape the outcome of elections. 

Illustration: Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

Descent into Socialism

This article was prepared exclusively for the New York Analysis of Policy and Government by Retired U.S. Army chaplain Don Zapsic.

All of the hoopla about the socialistic left-leaning politicians taking our country to new lows is essentially more of the same-ole-same ole. Whether epitomized in the rhetoric of old socialist lion Bernie Sanders, youthful firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or RINO (republican-in-name- only) collusion on the political right, the goals of both the Democrat and Republican parties have far too much in common. The scenery may be different along the way, but their destination is essentially the same when it comes to our nation’s downward spiral towards socialism. In all fairness, liberal democrats are much more open and transparent about their desire and intent to redistribute middle-class wealth to the lower socio-economic classes. If you doubt the assertions, look no further than the passage and funding of the “Affordable Healthcare Act” better known as “Obamacare.”

It is an indisputable fact that the Democratic Party lied, deceived, and stole affordable healthcare from millions of hard-working Americans since relegated to second-class citizenry. Meanwhile, the Republican Party overwhelmingly opposed the bill’s passage back in 2010 to no avail. Both parties acknowledged that the nation’s healthcare system was broken largely due to waste, fraud, and abuse. Each side knew that bi-partisan, gross mismanagement of resources created a crisis that demanded extreme measures to keep the nation’s healthcare system viable. Democrats stood up and took the hit while Republicans reaped a political windfall winning election-after-election tapping into public outrage. The story does not end there as it is one thing to oppose a bill and quite another to facilitate its viability. Republicans in Congress made sure that Obamacare implementation was funded every step along the way while repeatedly vowing to halt its progress on the next go-round or more specifically, once re-elected. 

If you are quite convinced that America can only turn socialist if politicians like Senator Sanders or Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez rise to further prominence, consider that democrat passage and bi-partisan implementation of Obamacare arbitrarily shifted a large segment of the U.S. economy from private to public sector control. This is a hard reality to bear considering that republicans controlled all three branches of the federal government for two years after the election of Donald Trump (2017-2018) and still could not get the job done. Many blame a single Republican senator (John McCain) for defeating the “skinny repeal” of Obamacare even though precious little was offered in the way of a better plan of action. The simple reality is that there is not a better alternative to Obamacare because the nation’s healthcare system can only remain viable by fleecing the middle-class (socialism). If a better plan was in the offing long after the bill’s passage in March of 2010, one left-leaning U.S. Senator would not have been able to defeat the measure single-handedly in July At times like this, a stereotypical treatment technique will be of less levitra generic no prescription help and more dilemma for the patient. The Womenra also worked. “These best price for sildenafil pills have worked like a magic to create wonders in the bed. This non-invasive system has helped ‘n’ number of people improve tadalafil generic 20mg their self- esteem. Now that you have gone through all the sources. generic viagra order http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/pembroke-welsh-corgi/ of 2017.

Economics 101 dictates that socialism is a natural and inevitable outcome of any capitalist-based republic that fails to properly manage its resources. Incompetence, irresponsibility, and outright plundering of the public treasury are just as toxic as the most outright, militant promotion of socialism. And how did this all take place? A large part of it can be attributed to bi-partisan approval of unfunded social programs that could only be supported by the reckless fiscal policy of printing a faith-based currency, backed by nothing, along with further taxation of the American people. Obamacare, simply put, was the largest tax increase on American taxpayers in U.S. history in the form of draconian insurance premium hikes, punishing deductible increases, along with an extra serving of less access to quality medical care. 

Obamacare is more than a blueprint of how to fleece middle-class America. It is a symptom of a much bigger problem. While politicians such as Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez advocate fast-track socialism, the greater threat lies in taxation fueled by incompetence and promoted through deception. Whether a house is burned down or allowed to fall apart, the eventual result is the same. It is ultimately a question of how long it takes. The Democrat Party characteristically strikes a match and throws it into the house of liberty watching it burn. The Republican Party by-and-large watches America’s freedom-house crumble brick-by-brick, board-by-board. Impotent to react, articulate to describe. Abuse or neglect, pick your poison. 

My portrayal of contemporary American politics may seem harsh considering that I am an ordained minister and a retired military chaplain of twenty-four years. Please note that I do not divorce spirituality from my political commentary. To me they are one-and-the-same. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the middle-class does not prosper and is further restricted in their pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the poor will suffer. The goose that lays the golden egg is not the rich; it is the middle class. Contrary to popular belief, there are not enough rich to fleece considering America’s huge national debt. Therefore, the middle-class goose may eventually be killed for a few more eggs, but then everything breaks down coming to a screeching halt.

A capitalistic system can only thrive if its participants are able to adequately share in the fruits of their labor. Demanding production from hardworking Americans without adequate reward is tantamount to domestic slavery. Such a deplorable condition demands a response; a brand of social justice that indeed lifts the lot of the ever-shrinking middle class. Socialism, always based upon unjust redistribution of wealth, is not a legitimate response to the Obamacare-like oppression that middle-class, and previously middle-class America is still staggering from. The answer is also not to be found in the collective Republican Party even though, unlike the Democratic Party, it administers the anesthesia before the surgery but similarly offers no painkillers afterwards. Any form of freedom, including economic freedom, is contingent upon the individual, and not government. The truth, with or without government intervention, must once again set us free. 

Illustration: Lenin, (Pixabay)

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Quick Analysis

The Dangers of Diversity

This article was prepared exclusively for the New York Analysis of Policy and Government by the distinguished retired judge John H. Wilson.

On July 15, 2017, Justine Diamond was shot and killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor.  Diamond, a yoga instructor who had immigrated to America from Australia, had called the police to report a suspected rape in the area.  Officer Noor and his partner, Matthew Harrity, were sitting in their squad car at the location Diamond reported, when Diamond approached the squad car from behind, and appeared at the driver’s window, where Officer Harrity was seated.  Officer Noor, in the passenger seat, pulled out his service revolver, and shot Diamond in the stomach, firing across his partner, killing her. 

Officer Noor was charged with Murder in the Third Degree, which under Section 609.195 of the Minnesota Statutes, requires that the person charged with this crime, act “without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.”

At Officer Noor’s trial, Officer Harrity testified that he believed that the use of deadly force was “premature.” –  After his conviction, Officer Noor was sentenced to serve 12 and 1/2 years in prison (which is half of the maximum sentence for Murder in the Third Degree in Minnesota).

What is most tragic about this shooting, is that it did not have to happen in the first place.  According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, prior to being hired by the Minneapolis police force in 2015, Noor was flagged by two psychiatrists during his pre-hiring evaluation “after he exhibited an inability to handle the stress of regular police work and unwillingness to deal with people.”   Yet, he was hired anyway, and two months before the shooting of Diamond, Noor allegedly put his gun to the head of someone he had stopped for a traffic violation. 

Mohamed Noor is a Somali, and as a member of that community, his joining of the Minneapolis police force was met with joy.  Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges gave this statement at the time he was hired: “I want to take a moment to recognize Officer Mohamed Noor, the newest Somali officer in the Minneapolis Police Department…his arrival has been highly celebrated, particularly by the Somali community.”  Shortly after the shooting of Diamond, the Chief of the Minneapolis Police Force, Janee Harteau, resigned, and in spite of the evidence to the contrary cited above, had the nerve to state that “the recent incidents do not reflect the training and procedures we’ve developed as a Department.” 

So how is it possible that a candidate for the police academy, who shows an inability to handle the day to day stress of being a police officer, makes it onto the force?  Further, how can that officer remain on active duty after pointing his gun at the head of a citizen pulled over for a traffic infraction?

Before we answer these questions, let us look at another member of the Somali community who appears to have been hired without any qualifications for the job they hold.

Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was elected to serve in Congress, replacing Keith Ellison, who now serves as the Minnesota Attorney General.  At the time of her election, Omar, who immigrated to America as a teenager, was widely celebrated for being a Somali, a woman, and a Muslim.  As reported in Vox, “the makeup of the district (in which Omar was elected) has allowed progressive politics to flourish. Omar ran on a platform that embraced the left, including Medicare-for-all, a $15 minimum wage, and tuition-free college… ‘It is a district that is very much interested in making sure our progressive values are represented,'” Omar stated. 

As it happens, I know people who reside in Omar’s district.  These persons posted on Facebook their absolute joy at having Omar as their Representative at Then again, long haul emotional wellness treatment should be possible through treatment, which includes receiving an entire better approach for considering. cheap viagra levitra Demand purchase levitra Kamagra Oral Jelly online and you won’t reconsider it. Some products that are out in the market add in their list of ingredients some herbal extracts which have sexual health benefits. order generic cialis Most teenagers are sexually active, which may be the influence of pornography. generic cialis online Recommended page the time of her election.

In the short time Omar has been in Congress, she has accused American Jews of having allegiance to a foreign government (Israel).  In fact, she has repeatedly apologized for a series of anti-Semitic tweets, some made before she was elected, including “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”  

As if this were not bad enough, there is an on-going investigation into whether or not Omar married a man who may have been her own brother, while her divorce to her husband had not been finalized.  The allegation centers around her having married her “brother” in order to assist him with securing legal residence in the United States.  husband, while still legally married to her ex.

Clearly, there are Somalis who are more than qualified to hold positions of authority and who should be promoted to those positions.  However, it is equally clear that Noor and Omar are not among those qualified persons.

So, how did each secure a job in which each could do so much damage?  

According to John Gilmore of Alpha News, it is the need for diversity at any price that drives these tragic results.  “There’s no cost too great to inflict on the public, indeed a people and their culture, in the name of diversity,” he writes.   “’Diversity’ is a cancer that has metastasized throughout America.” 

On the other hand, those who defend the need for diversity hiring have argued that the Noor case points to a larger issue with police brutality and the overall need for better training of law enforcement.    But in the case of Representative Omar, her defenders seem to be fighting more of a rear-guard action – for instance, pulling back on a Congressional Resolution to censure her anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel comments, and making a broader statement against “hate” in general. 

There is an argument to be made that Jackie Robinson was, in essence, the first diversity hire, and in an effort to give people the chance to accept him, the ownership of the Brooklyn Dodgers chose one of the absolute best ballplayers in existence. In America today, it is no longer necessary that the “best of the best” be chosen to achieve diversity.  

At the very least, however, we should expect those hired in the name of diversity to be competent, and fit for the job.  In the case of Officer Noor, the failure to meet this simple goal has cost the life of an innocent woman, and the freedom of a once-celebrated officer.  

Rep. Illan Omar (official photo)

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Foreign Policy Update

The United States Has formed a “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” We present Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement.

COMMISSION ON UNALIENABLE RIGHTS

[T]he Trump administration has embarked on a foreign policy that takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government. Those principles have long played a prominent role in our country’s foreign policy, and rightly so. But as that great admirer of the American experiment Alex de Tocqueville noted, democracies have a tendency to lose sight of the big picture in the hurly-burly of everyday affairs. Every once in a while, we need to step back and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been, and whether we’re headed in the right direction, and that’s why I’m pleased to announce today the formation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights.

The commission is composed of human rights experts, philosophers, and activists, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents of varied background and beliefs, who will provide me with advice on human rights grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An American commitment to uphold human rights played a major role in transforming the moral landscape of the international relations after World War II, something all Americans can rightly be proud of. Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights ended forever the notion that nations could abuse their citizens without attracting notice or repercussions.

With the indispensable support of President Ronald Reagan, a human rights revolution toppled the totalitarian regimes of the former Soviet Union. Today the language of human rights has become the common vernacular for discussions of human freedom and dignity all around the world, and these are truly great achievements.

But we should never lose sight of the warnings of Vaclav Havel, a hero of the late-20th-century human rights movement, that words like “rights” can be used for good or evil; “they can be rays of light in a realm of darkness …

[but]

they can also be lethal arrows.” And as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has observed, the evils of any time and place will be justified in whatever is the dominant discourse of that time and of that place. We must, therefore, be vigilant that human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or malignant purposes.

It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights. International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission. As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into This natural effect from order viagra from india the aging and should not be confused with either a loss in ability to achieve and maintain an erection. Moreover, it can lead to improper managing tadalafil generic viagra of stress. Fildena is really effective and safe to treat erectile dysfunction. generic india viagra Apart from ED, it is prescribed for the following purposes: treating altitude sickness; and normalising high blood pressure in the bile and pancreatic ducts. viagra pill for sale tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect. Nation-states and international institutions remain confused about their respective responsibilities concerning human rights.

With that as background and with all of this in mind, the time is right for an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy. And I’m pleased to introduce to you today the chair of the commission, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Mary Ann is a world-renowned author, beloved professor, an expert in the field of human rights, comparative law, and political theory. She’s the perfect person to chair this effort.

I’m also proud to announce today the other members of the commission. They include Russell Berman, Peter Berkowitz, Paolo Carozza, Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Jacqueline Rivers, Meir Soloveichik, Katrina Lantos Swett, Christopher Tollefsen, and David Tse-Chien Pan.

These individuals will provide the intellectual grist for what I hope will be one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 Universal Declaration. Our own Kiron Skinner will serve as the head of the executive secretary of the committee, and Cartright Weiland will serve as Rapporteur.

I hope that the commission will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right? How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us? Is it, in fact, true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings, we – all of us, every member of our human family – are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?

Each of these is an important question, and the mission of the commission is to provide advice on them and others not as purely abstract academic matters, but in a manner deeply informed by the timeless truths embedded in the American founding with a view to guiding our nation’s foreign policy. Or to put it another way, the commission’s charge is to point the way toward that more perfect fidelity to our nation’s founding principles to which President Lincoln called us at Gettysburg and to which Dr. King called us while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the mall in Washington, D.C., not so very far from where we are here today.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Repealing Citizenship 2

Advocates of open borders ignore that dramatic cost. Kristan Tate, writing in The Hill, h reports: “Taxpayers are indeed on the hook for over $45 billion in state and federal education spending annually, not to mention the added burden of increased social welfare dollars. Much of the almost $30 billion in medical and assistance funding is sparked by the fact that noncitizen families in the United States are twice as likely to receive welfare payments than native born families. A full half of noncitizens receive Medicaid, compared to 23 percent of native born citizens, while almost half of noncitizens are on food stamps. Of particular concern is that noncitizens who stay in the long term are more likely to use these programs than those who just arrived. Half of new noncitizens receive welfare, but the figure jumps to a stunning 70 percent among those who have been in the United States for more than 10 years.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures notes that “Twelve states and the District of Columbia enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain a driver’s licenses. These states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington… In 2019, legislators in several states introduced legislation to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented residents including Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Texas. Legislation in New York passed in the Assembly and is going through the New York Senate as of June 2019.”

There is more to the provision of driver’s licenses than just motoring.  That document is an essential to identification, particularly for registration to vote. While some jurisdictions claim that they will modify the licenses to prevent illegals from registering, in practice that assurance has not been consistently kept.

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As outlined by the Center for Immigration Studies “The problem, quite simply, is that motor vehicle examiners aren’t experts at knowing who is, or is not, allowed to vote and so, not surprisingly, err on the side of inclusion. It’s understandable, really, but the result is that they inevitably assist license applicants to register when they are ineligible because they’ve been disenfranchised because of felony convictions, because they are aliens, or because they are subject to one of the sundry legal bases that exist for not permitting a person to vote. The parameters of these unintended consequences have multiplied, at least where aliens are concerned, in those states that have chosen to grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. California is one of those states. News outlets are now telling us that, after repeated denials, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has admitted that, yes, it did in fact screw up by assisting at least 1,500 ineligible driver’s license recipients to register to vote, including aliens.”

The overall concept of not discerning between citizens and noncitizens, and not drawing a line between those privileges and benefits granted to them, as well as not having an enforceable border, essentially calls into question the very sovereignty of the United States. 

Despite the extraordinary problems created by illegal immigration, advocates of open borders attempt to equate it with legal immigration and the benefits that has.  

It’s a false comparison.  Over the past centuries, legal immigrants came to the U.S. with the expectation that they would be expected to contribute as much as they received.  Increasingly, however, significant benefits have been made available to new arrivals. This has attracted many who come for the purpose of receiving more than they give. 

Poor and mismanaged nations have gained tremendously from this.

While the current wave of massive immigration is from Central America, but previously Mexico was the  chief source. Patrick Buchanan described its strategy in 2006:

“By pushing her poor into the United States, Mexico relieves herself of the burden of providing for their welfare and receives a bonanza of billions in the remittances Mexican workers in the States and back to support their destitute families.  The figure has been estimated at at $16 billion a year, the second highest source, after oil, of Mexico’s hard currency.  America has become the safety valve for an exploding  population of 106 million that Mexico is unable to provide for.”

Illustration: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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Quick Analysis

Repealing Citizenship

The very concept of citizenship is being questioned by American progressives, who have debated whether the census should include a question on citizenship status.

John Eastman, writing for Fox News, notes that “…a question about citizenship status was part of nearly every decennial census conducted from 1820 to 1950; that it was asked on the long census form from 1960 to 2000; and that it has been part of the annual American Community Survey ever since that survey’s inception in 2005.”

The U.S. Supreme Court, which has temporarily blocked the question, is expected to rule further. is expected to rule on the issue. There have been numerous attempts to overturn the Trump Administration’s decision to include the question, which it announced in 2018.

The White House notes that the question is vital to enforcing the 1965 Voting Rights Act. A count that includes noncitizens could violate the “One Man, One vote” principle by providing districts with significant numbers of noncitizens more representation in Congress than districts with fewer noncitizens. Opponents have challenged the decision extensively. There is a deeply partisan divide, since Democrat districts stand to gain substantially by including noncitizens

The question has been the subject of multiple legal challenges since it was announced in early 2018.

The very concept of an actual, enforceable border has been questioned. National Review’s Jeff Duncan reminded readers that Hillary Clinton has called for a borderless hemisphere.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has compared the detention of illegal immigrants to Nazi concentration camps. Rep. Yvette Clarke, (D-N.Y), said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is the  “Gestapo of the United States of America.”

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Advocates claim their position is philosophical: the idea that all humans should be treated the same, regardless of whether they have made contributions to U.S. society. But in reality, their position is largely and bluntly political: new immigrants to the United States overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and so there is great gain to be made in encouraging mass numbers of new entrants. Corporate leaders also benefit from the downward pressure it places on wages.

The politics of the census goes beyond election year. Areas with heavy concentration of illegals would gain representation in Congress if all residents were counted. Eastman. explains that “…the scope of non-citizen population, and particularly illegal immigration population varies dramatically from one state to another and even from one congressional district to another. To allow non-citizen illegal immigrants to determine representation undermines the very notion of “consent of the governed,” as more representatives would then be allocated to states with large numbers of illegal immigrants, diluting the voting strength of citizens in other states.”

Some have openly advocated allowing noncitizens to vote. Ron Hayduk, in a Jacobin piece, wrote: “all residents are part of the political community in which they live and should therefore have a say in the local, state, and federal laws to which they’re subject.”  He ignores the fact that citizens have a stake in the future of their nation.  Noncitizens will vote based only on the basis of personal gain. 

Some have urged the provision of benefits and privileges intended for (and paid by) citizens and legal residents. Indeed, Progressives want to expand coverage of those benefits and privileges. Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) wants to provide Medicare for illegals. California will soon provide medical coverage for illegals.

A 2017 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIRUS)  outlines the extraordinary fiscal burden imposed on U.S. taxpayers by illegal immigrants. “At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens. That amounts to a tax burden of approximately $8,075 per illegal alien family member and a total of $115,894,597,664. The total cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers is both staggering and crippling. In 2013, FAIR estimated the total cost to be approximately $113 billion. So, in under four years, the cost has risen nearly $3 billion. This is a disturbing and unsustainable trend.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Illustration: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency

Categories
Quick Analysis

Minimum Wage, Minimum Jobs

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a report detailing “The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage.”  The New York Analysis of Policy and Government presents key portions of the report.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for most workers. In this report, CBO examines how increasing the federal minimum wage to $10, $12, or $15 per hour by 2025 would affect employment and family income.

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009, though many states and localities have set their minimum wage above that level. Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers, earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty. But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fall—in some cases, below the poverty threshold.

What Options for Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Did CBO Examine?

CBO examined three options for increasing the federal minimum wage.

The first option would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour as of January 1, 2025. That increase would be implemented in six annual increments starting on January 1, 2020. After reaching $15 in 2025, the minimum wage would be indexed, or tied, to median hourly wages. The $15 option would also gradually eliminate exceptions to the minimum wage for tipped workers, teenage workers, and disabled workers.

The second option would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 per hour as of January 1, 2025. The $12 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 option but would not index the minimum wage to wage growth after 2025. It would leave in place current exceptions.

The third option would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour as of January 1, 2025. The $10 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 and $12 options. Like the $12 option, it would not index the minimum wage to wage growth and would leave in place current exceptions.

What Effects Would the Options Have?

Of the three options, the $15 option would have the largest effects on employment and family income. That is because it would increase wages for the most workers, because it would impose the largest increases in wages, and because, in CBO’s estimation, employment is more responsive to relatively large wage increases and increases that will be adjusted for future wage growth. The $12 option would have smaller effects, and the effects of the $10 option would be smaller still.

There is considerable uncertainty about the size of any option’s effect on employment. CBO’s estimates are based on the median values of likely ranges for wage growth and the responsiveness of employment to changes in wages. In particular, the likely ranges for the responsiveness parameter are not symmetric: That value has an equal chance of being smaller or larger than the median, but if it is larger, it could be substantially larger.

Effects of the $15 Option on Employment and Income. According to CBO’s median estimate, under the $15 option, 1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025. (That would equal a 0.8 percent reduction in the number of employed workers.) CBO estimates that there is about a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would lie between about zero and a reduction of 3.7 million workers. In addition, in an average week in 2025, the $15 option would increase the wages of 17 million workers whose wages would otherwise be below $15 per hour, CBO estimates. The wages of many of the 10 million workers whose wages would be slightly above the new federal minimum would also increase.

The $15 option would affect family income in a variety of ways. In CBO’s estimation, it would:

  • Boost workers’ earnings through higher wages, though some of those higher earnings would be offset by higher rates of joblessness;
  • Reduce business income and raise prices as higher labor costs were absorbed by business owners and then passed on to consumers; and
  • Reduce the nation’s output slightly through the reduction in employment and a corresponding decline in the nation’s stock of capital (such as buildings, machines, and technologies).
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On the basis of those effects and CBO’s estimate of the median effect on employment, the $15 option would reduce total real (inflation-adjusted) family income in 2025 by $9 billion, or 0.1 percent.

The effects of those income changes would vary across families. Changes in earnings would mainly affect low-income families, but many higher-income families would be affected, too. The loss in business income would be mostly borne by families well above the poverty line. All consumers would pay higher prices, but higher-income families, who spend more, would pay more of those costs. And the cost of effects on the overall economy would generally accrue to families in proportion to their income, which means they would largely be absorbed by families with income well above the poverty threshold.

Taking those effects into account, CBO estimates that families whose income would be below the poverty threshold under current law would receive an additional $8 billion in real family income in 2025 under this option. That would amount to a 5.3 percent increase in income, on average, for such families. That extra income would move, on net, roughly 1.3 million people out of poverty. Real income would fall by about $16 billion for families above the poverty line; that would reduce their total income by about 0.1 percent.

Effects of the $12 Option on Employment and Income. Under the $12 option, according to CBO’s median estimate, about 0.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025. (In percentage terms, the number of employed workers would fall by about 0.2 percent.) There is a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would lie between about zero and a reduction of 0.8 million workers, in CBO’s assessment. However, in an average week in 2025, the increase in the federal minimum wage would boost the wages of 5 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $12 per hour, CBO estimates. Wages would also increase for many of the 6 million workers who would otherwise earn just above $12 per hour.

Like the $15 option, this option would boost wages, but it would also increase joblessness, reduce business income, raise prices, and lower total output in the economy. On balance, real family income in 2025 would fall by $1 billion, or less than 0.05 percent. The effects of those changes would again vary across families. CBO estimated that families with income below the poverty threshold under current law would receive $2.3 billion in additional real income under the option. The option would move, on net, about 0.4 million people out of poverty. Families above the poverty line would receive about $3 billion less in real income, a very small share of their total income.

Effects of the $10 Option on Employment and Income. According to CBO’s median estimate, the $10 option would have virtually no effect on employment in an average week in 2025. There is a two-thirds chance that the effect on employment would lie between about zero and a decrease of 0.1 million workers. In an average week in 2025, wages for 1.5 million workers who would otherwise be paid less than $10 per hour would increase, CBO estimates. Wages would also increase for many of the 2 million additional workers who would otherwise earn slightly more than $10 per hour in 2025.

Real annual family income would again be affected by changes in earnings, business income, and prices. On balance, the $10 option would reduce real family income in 2025 by $0.1 billion, a very small percentage. CBO estimates that real income would increase, on net, by $0.4 billion for families whose income would otherwise be below the poverty threshold. Families with higher incomes would see very small changes to their real income. The option would also have a small effect on the number of people in poverty.

Other Effects. Numerous studies have examined the link between minimum wages and a range of outcomes other than employment and family income. Those include labor force outcomes such as labor force participation (whether a person is working or actively seeking a job); health outcomes such as depression, suicide, and obesity; education outcomes such as school completion and job training; and social outcomes such as crime. CBO did not examine those other possible outcomes in this analysis.

CBO also did not estimate how any of the three options would affect the federal budget. However, the agency previously estimated how proposed changes to the minimum wage under the Raise the Wage Act (H.R. 582) would affect the federal budget by boosting the pay of certain federal employees. The policy analyzed in that estimate is very similar to the $15 option in this report.

Why Are the Outcomes Uncertain?

There are two main reasons why CBO’s median estimates of the effects of increases in the minimum wage on employment are uncertain. First, future wage growth under current law is uncertain. If wages grow faster than CBO projects, then wages in 2025 will be higher under current law than CBO anticipates. In that case, increases in the federal minimum wage would have smaller effects on employment than CBO expects. If wages grow more slowly than CBO projects, the options would have larger effects on employment than CBO expects.

Second, there is considerable uncertainty about the responsiveness of employment to an increase in the minimum wage. If employment is more responsive than CBO expects, then increases in the minimum wage would lead to larger declines in employment. By contrast, if employment is less responsive than CBO expects, then such increases would lead to smaller declines in employment. Findings in the research literature about how changes in the federal minimum wage affect employment vary widely. Many studies have found little or no effect of minimum wages on employment, but many others have found substantial reductions in employment.

Illustration: Google images

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Quick Analysis

Baseball’s Failed Experiment, Part 2

The question of “Tanking” has arisen.  “Tanking” is the practice of a team intentionally taking steps that almost guarantee a losing season, under the premise that he owners are actually saving up cash or acquiring higher draft picks for the future. CBS Sports, in a 2018 analysis, noted that “It’s time to reassess the practice of tanking… and recognize it for what it is: cover for profit-hungry owners to line their pockets, at the expense of their own fans’ entertainment.”  Those owners don’t have to worry about depriving their fanbase of a competitive team, discouraging them from attending games; revenue sharing dollars will come in anyway. 

How bad was tanking in 2018? Last August, Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser reported: “  How bad can a tank job get in 2018? The answer, apparently, is historically bad. After an offseason where “tanking” was the word on everyone’s mind, Major League Baseball is on track to see a nearly unprecedented amount of losing. Since adopting a 162-game schedule in 1961, MLB has never had more than two 110-loss teams in a season. It is currently on pace to tie that record. In that same time, MLB has never had more than four 100-loss teams in a season. It is currently on pace to tie that record as well.”

2018 wasn’t the first time revenue sharing was sharply questioned. In 2010, The New York Times’s J.C. Bradbury  reported: “Despite the good intentions behind revenue sharing, doling out money to baseball’s have-nots has the unintended consequence of creating a disincentive to win. Though the correlation is not perfect, winning tends to attract fans, which increases local revenue. But a healthier bottom line means drawing less from the revenue-sharing pool. The quandary faced by poor-and-losing teams is that using the added wealth to improve their clubs increases local earnings, but these gains may be offset by reducing revenue-sharing payments.

“In my book on valuing baseball players, I estimated the relationship between winning and revenue for M.L.B. teams. The revenue function shows disparate responses to winning at various levels of success, which support the notion that revenue sharing discourages improvement. The function shows that improving from a mid-60s-win team to a mid-70s-win team generates financial losses. The observed revenue bump from losing is consistent with the hypothesized disincentive to win when teams face a cut in revenue sharing. I refer to this region as the loss trap, because improving your team over this range of wins can cost you money.

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“Also, strong returns to winning do not kick in until a team hits the mid-80s in wins. Losing teams might improve their financial standing somewhat if they improved drastically, but transforming a loser to a winner does not happen overnight and cannot be willed into existence. Thus, the safety net offered by revenue sharing encourages teams to remain perpetually bad.”

There are lessons far beyond the sports world in why the equal outcomes idea, and other socialism and “socialism light” ideas fail.

Mark J. Perry, writing for the American Enterprise Institute explains:

“Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives. In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter! Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally…By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!”

Photo: Pixabay