The New York Times is Hoping to Persuade Readers to Burn More Carbon
Posted: June 2, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Global, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Federal Bureau of Investigation, History of the United States, James Comey, Paris, President of the United States, The New York Times, United States, White House Leave a comment
Climate and the New York Times
At least on the surface, the Manhattan-based news organization is keeping the faith. The various items in Friday’s editions amount to a collective primal scream against President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Paris climate accord. As of this writing, the home page of the paper’s website features stories claiming that Mr. Trump’s decision was “stupid and reckless” as well as “disgraceful” and based on “dubious data” from “distorted reports.” A news report says that Mr. Trump made a political “calculation” to ignore the popular will and instead placate his base. Meanwhile a Times column carries the subtle headline, “Donald Trump Poisons the World.”
[MORE – The Left’s Unhinged Freakout over Trump’s Paris Accord Withdrawal]
But the Times seems to have made its own calculation about the risks of environmental catastrophe. And the only reasonable conclusion is that folks at the Times don’t think burning carbon is quite as dangerous as you might think from reading their product.
[ALSO SEE – Democrats Have Lost On Climate Change, And It’s Their Own Fault]
Even as the newspaper warns about impending doom if Americans don’t limit their emissions, the Times has also been trying to persuade its readers to dramatically increase theirs. In print and online this week, the Times has proudly presented advertisements for an exciting product offering called, “Around the World by Private Jet: Cultures in Transformation.” It sounds delightful, assuming you like the company:
Fly around the world in a customized Boeing 757 jet for the ultimate in luxury travel. Spend 26 days visiting such places as Israel, Cuba, Colombia, Australia, Myanmar and Iceland. Four award-winning New York Times journalists will accompany you, each for several days as you visit areas where they have expertise.
The Times promises, “In the air, your private jet comes with lie-flat beds and a dedicated cabin crew and chef.” Most Americans, who are generally not as well-heeled as the Times’ target demographic, probably couldn’t leave carbon footprints this big if they tried. And it wouldn’t be easy for the Times to design a less efficient means of circling our beloved planet. This week the print version of the advertisement noted there would be just 50 travelers—on an aircraft that can carry more than 200. Read the rest of this entry »
Kissinger Dismisses Concerns About Tillerson, One China Policy
Posted: December 14, 2016 Filed under: China, Diplomacy, Global, Politics | Tags: Al Gore, Barack Obama, Beijing, China–United States relations, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, History of the United States, Iowa, Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, President of the United States, Terry Branstad, Tsai Ing-wen, United States, United States Ambassador to China, Xi Jinping Leave a comment
Kissinger himself negotiated the One China policy, which recognizes the Chinese government in Beijing, as opposed to Taiwan.
Addy Baird
reports: Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger dismissed concerns Wednesday about President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who has been criticized for his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I hope and I am optimistic that the cooperative way will prevail… Keep in mind that if China and America are in conflict, then the whole world will be divided.”
“I pay no attention to this argument that he is too friendly with Russia,” Kissinger said at an event in Manhattan. “He would be useless at the head of Exxon if he was not friendly with Russia… I don’t hear those concerns at all.”
Kissinger was asked about Tillerson at an event put on by the Committee of 100, an organization that works to advance Chinese-American relations, where the former secretary talked about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations under Trump.
“I pay no attention to this argument that he is too friendly with Russia. He would be useless at the head of Exxon if he was not friendly with Russia… I don’t hear those concerns at all.”
But Kissinger walked a fine line in talking about Tillerson, joking when he was asked about the appointment that he didn’t “come to commit suicide,” but that he “sympathized” with Trump’s decision.
“Nobody can meet every single qualification for secretary of state,” Kissinger said. “I think it’s a good appointment.”
Reflecting on Trump’s developing relationship with China, Kissinger said he is optimistic about the coming administration.
[Read the full story here, at POLITICO]
“[We have to decide] whether to attempt to deal cooperatively or confrontationally” with China, Kissinger said. “I hope and I am optimistic that the cooperative way will prevail… Keep in mind that if China and America are in conflict, then the whole world will be divided.”
Earlier this month, Trump became the first U.S. president or president-elect to speak with the leader of Taiwan since 1979. And he suggested this past weekend that the U.S. shouldn’t have to be “bound” by the “One China” policy that American leaders have stood by for decades. Those comments “seriously concerned” China’s Foreign Ministry, its spokesperson said Monday. Read the rest of this entry »
Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery
Posted: November 6, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: A People's History of the United States, American Institutes for Research, American Revolution, College Board, History of the United States, Professor, Republican Party (United States), Thomas Jefferson, University of Tennessee at Martin, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, Ursinus College, Western culture 1 Comment
‘They are convinced that slavery was an American problem.’
Kate Hardiman – University of Notre Dame: For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture.
“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America. They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”
The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.
“They cannot tell you many historical facts or relate anything meaningful about historical biographies, but they are, however, stridently vocal about the corrupt nature of the Republic, about the wickedness of the founding fathers, and about the evils of free markets.”
“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix. “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”
“Most alarmingly, they know nothing about the fraught history of Marxist ideology and communist governments over the last century, but often reductively define socialism as ‘fairness.’”
— Professor Duke Pesta
Pesta, currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has taught the gamut of Western literature—from the Classics to the modern—at seven different universities, ranging from large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges to branch campuses. He said he has given the quizzes to students at Purdue University, University of Tennessee Martin, Ursinus College, Oklahoma State University, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
[Read the full story here, at The College Fix]
The origin of these quizzes, which Pesta calls “cultural literacy markers,” was his increasing discomfort with gaps in his students’ foundational knowledge.
“They came to college without the basic rudiments of American history or Western culture and their reading level was pretty low,” Pesta told The Fix.
[MORE: Black studies prof says slavery ‘white people thing’]
Before even distributing the syllabus for his courses, Pesta administered his short quizzes with basic questions about American history, economics and Western culture. For instance, the questions asked students to circle which of three historical figures was a president of the United States, or to name three slave-holding countries over the last 2,000 years, or define “capitalism” and “socialism” in one sentence each.
Often, more students connected Thomas Jefferson to slavery than could identify him as president, according to Pesta. On one quiz, 29 out of 32 students responding knew that Jefferson owned slaves, but only three out of the 32 correctly identified him as president. Interestingly, more students— six of 32—actually believed Ben Franklin had been president. Read the rest of this entry »
DHS: More than Half a Million Aliens Overstayed Visas in 2015
Posted: January 19, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice | Tags: Airline, Citizenship in the United States, Cuba, History of the United States, National security, Obama administration, Terrorism, United States, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Department of State 1 Comment
Adam Kredo reports: More than half a million aliens overstayed their temporary visas in the United States in 2015, with more than 482,000 of those individuals believed to be still residing illegally in the United States, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security.
“By not enforcing visa overstays, the administration has flung the border open—millions get temp visas and then freely violate their entry contracts and shred their eviction notices. Further, DHS has refused to complete the legally required biometric tracking system.”
Around 527,127 aliens temporally granted U.S. business and tourist visas were found to have stayed in the United States longer than legally permitted, according to DHS’s 2015 entry and exit overstay report.
Of those who did not leave the United States on time, around 482,781 are believed to still be illegally residing in the United States, according to the report, which was issued by DHS amid debate in Congress over an Obama administration initiative to permit around 170,000 new immigrants from Muslim-majority nations in 2016.
Senior Obama administration officials had trouble in the past year informing Congress about the number of individuals who had overstayed their visas. The administration also could not provide Congress with statistics about the number of Syrian refugees who had been granted residency in the United States in 2015.
[Read the full story here, at freebeacon.com]
Concerns about visa overstays come as Congress is investigating a sharp uptick in the number of terror plots hatched by foreign-born individuals legally granted entrance to the United States. Lawmakers estimate that at least 113 foreign-born individuals have been implicated in domestic terror plots since 2014.
Last year there were 219 illegal overstays from Afghanistan, 681 from Iraq, 564 from Iran, 56 from Libya, 1,435 from Pakistan, 440 from Syria, and 219 from Yemen, according to the report. Many are still in the United States illegally. Read the rest of this entry »
This Day in History: Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris – Jan 14, 1784
Posted: January 14, 2016 Filed under: Diplomacy, Politics, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: 1700s, Anand Naidoo, British, Continental Congress, History of the United States, Revolutionary war, Second Treaty of Paris, Shay's Rebellion, United States, War for Independence 1 Comment
On this day in 1784, the Continental Congress ratifies the Second Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence.
In the document, which was known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.
In addition, the treaty settled the boundaries between the United States and what remained of British North America. U.S. fishermen won the right to fish in the Grand Banks, off the Newfoundland coast, and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Both sides agreed to ensure payment to creditors in the other nation of debts incurred during the war and to release all prisoners of war. The United States promised to return land confiscated during the war to its British owners, to stop any further confiscation of British property and to honor the property left by the British army on U.S. shores, including Negroes or slaves. Both countries assumed perpetual rights to access the Mississippi River.
Despite the agreement, many of these issues remained points of contention between the two nations in the post-war years. The British did not abandon their western forts as promised and attempts by British merchants to collect outstanding debts from Americans were unsuccessful as American merchants were unable to collect from their customers, many of whom were struggling farmers.
In Massachusetts, where by 1786 the courts were clogged with foreclosure proceedings, farmers rose in a violent protest known as Shay’s Rebellion, which tested the ability of the new United States to maintain law and order within its borders and instigated serious reconsideration of the Articles of Confederation.
Source: HISTORY.com
The Making of Asian America: A History
Posted: January 9, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, Japan, Mediasphere, Reading Room | Tags: Books, History of the United States, Japanese Internment, National security, National Security Agency, The Japan Times, The Making of Asian America: A History, United States Leave a comment
The Making of Asian America: A History, by Erika Lee, 528 pages, Simon & Schuster, Nonfiction.
Nicolas Gattig reports: In 1922, a Japanese immigrant to the United States named Takao Ozawa applied for citizenship with the U.S. Supreme Court. Having lived in America for almost 30 years, Ozawa was fluent in English and an active Christian, assuring the court that his skin was “white in color” and that he wished to “return the kindness which our Uncle Sam has extended me.” Still, his appeal was denied — naturalization at the time was exclusive to Caucasians.
“Asian-Americans have experienced both the promise of America as well as the racism of America. As we debate what kind of America we want to be in the 21st century — with concerns about immigration policy, racial equality and our ties to the rest of the world — Asian Americans and their long history in the U.S. can inform on these issues.”
— Author Erika Lee
A recurring theme in Erika Lee’s new book “The Making of Asian America: A History” is the humiliations of immigrant life — the “collective burden” of people who have to keep proving they are worthy. With a keen eye for telling quotes, Lee shows the human dimensions of Asian immigration to the U.S., which now spans 23 different groups and makes up 6 percent of the total population. Incidentally, she tells of a nation expanding its identity, of the inclusion of people once vilified.
From the start, Japanese sojourners feature prominently in this history, as the second largest group of Asian immigrants —the bulk being Chinese — during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hailing mostly from 
Okinawa, Kumamoto, Fukuoka and Hiroshima prefectures, they were mainly young men dodging military service or farmers fleeing the taxation of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) government.
[Order Erika Lee‘s book “The Making of Asian America: A History” from Amazon.com]
The immigrant dream was soon interrupted. The “gentlemen’s agreement” between the U.S. and Japan was signed in 1908, barring all Japanese laborers from entering the U.S. This spurred illegal immigration via Mexico, and in a quirky aside Lee quotes a letter by a stateside contact named Nakagawa, who advised border-crossers laconically: “Some people go to Nogales. But sometimes they are killed by the natives. So you had better not go that way.”
The book reminds us how hedging the “Yellow Peril” was a part of U.S. immigration policy, culminating in 1924, when “immigration from Asia was banned completely, with the establishment of an ‘Asiatic Barred Zone.’”
“There is widespread condemnation. But there is also a lot of amnesia about WWII incarceration, a lot of misinformation and misremembering. So the lesson still needs to be learned by many, and with great urgency.”
Fitting this theme, two whole chapters here are devoted to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Army, the “military necessity” allowed for the U.S. government to round up all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast, without due process or proof of wrongdoing. In fact, the measure was unwarranted: reports by the FBI and other offices showed that second-generation Japanese Americans were “pathetically eager” to show their loyalty to the U.S.
“Since the 1980s, American media have been praising the ‘rise of Asian America,’ pointing to Chinese and Indian Americans who enjoy better schooling and salaries than many whites. Still, it is misleading to speak of a ‘model minority.’ A wildly disparate community, Asian Americans also grapple with lower income and high crime rates.”
More than 120,000 Japanese Americans spent the war in camps, many losing their homes and livelihood. About 5,500 internees renounced their U.S. citizenship — becoming “Native American Aliens” — and some of them were deported to Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama’s New Immigration Plan Offers Work-Permits To Foreigners Slated For Deportation
Posted: December 31, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: Amnesty, Barack Obama, Cheap Labor, Chicago, Cuba, Deportation, Deportation Orders, DHS, Donald Trump, Executive order, Foreign national, History of the United States, Immigration, Migrants, Temporary Protected Status, United States, Work Permits 1 Comment
Neil Munro writes: President Barack Obama’s new 181-page plan to award work-permits to at least 100,000 foreign college-grads also contains a convoluted section that would also sneak work-permits to a huge range of foreign migrants – even after courts have formally ordered their repatriation.
In plain English, the section in the rule would automatically provide updated work-permits to 15 categories of migrants who are appealing judges’ deportation orders.
In plain economics, the rule would increase the number of foreign migrants in U.S. workplaces and impose wage-cutting job competition on ordinary blue-collar Americans so that university-trained, white-collar immigration lawyers could be paid billable-hours by their due-for-deportation, work-permit clients.
“Obama is transferring the jobs and salaries of Americans to foreign nationals, including illegal aliens… [who will be] licensed to take middle class jobs,” said one Hill staffer. The pending rule “highlights the unholy alliance between progressive Democrats, progressive Republicans, and the Obama administration… [so] when it comes to finding a job in America, being native-born in America is a disadvantage,” the staffer said.
There’s little chance that establishment GOP leaders will fight Obama’s pro-migrant, anti-American rule.
For example, House Speaker supported an amnesty-and-cheap-labor bill in 2014, and he sneaked a new rule into the December 2016 omnibus bill that allows companies to bring in at least 100,000 extra foreign workers for jobs sought by 100,000 blue-collar Americans. Ryan defended his pink-slip plan, while he and other GOP and Democratic leaders also rejected proposed amendments to the omnibus by pro-American legislators that would have constricted Obama’s legal ability to add more foreign workers to the U.S. economy.
[Read the full text here, at Breitbart.com]
If the rule is not struck down by the courts, the due-for-deportation migrants who would automatically get new work-permits include many categories of provisional immigrants, such as people who falsely claim persecution in their home countries. Most of the 250,000 Central Americans who have been allowed by Obama to migrate into the United States since 2009 have claimed in court hearings that they fear persecution in their home countries. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Previous Swarms of Immigrants Came over Fleeing Communism, Despising it, Cherishing Freedom and Openness’
Posted: June 25, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, History, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Ann Coulter, Communism, Democratic Party (United States), Ellis Island, Governor of South Carolina, History of the United States, Immigration, Latin America, Liberty, Marxism, Nikki Haley, Republican Party (United States), Socialism, United States 2 Comments
“America is not chiefly about a place. Our physical location is happenstance. It is not about blood or soil. It is not about race. America is an idea — and ideal.”
Though the original subject is a critique of Ann Coulter’s misguided attack on Nikki Haley’s Americanism, the argument within the argument — Ace’s passionate monologue about immigration history — stands on its own, as a solid defense of American ideals, and it’s worth capturing in its entirety.
Ace writes:
America is not chiefly about a place. Our physical location is happenstance. It is not about blood or soil. It is not about race. America is an idea — and ideal.
The reason America is in decline is because far too many born-and-raised Americans do not understand America…
Ace continues:
…I oppose our current nearly-open-borders immigration scam for a lot of reasons, but a major reason is this: The current temperament of the world is anti-assimilationist and anti-American.
Previous waves of immigrants came in during periods where it was widely believed that assimilation was good, because America itself was good. Now foreign immigrants are being taught — as native-born Americans are being taught — that America is shameful and needs to be rejected, torn down, and even, as one anti-American, communist-sympathizing foreign critic said, “fundamentally transformed.”*
“Previous waves of immigrants came in during periods where it was widely believed that assimilation was good, because America itself was good.”
Immigrants are no longer being encouraged to give up their old hatreds — their old, unsettled wars — carried over from their former countries. Now they’re being taught that Tribal Identity is the only true identity, and that any adopted identity, such as Americanism, is a sham propagated by, most likely, Jews.
“Immigrants are no longer being encouraged to give up their old hatreds — their old, unsettled wars — carried over from their former countries.”
Nor are they being encouraged to give up the political biases they suffered under in their home countries, chiefly socialism and authoritarianism. Strong Men on White Horses increasing the Chocolate Rations out of their undying love for the people.
Previous swarms of immigrants came over fleeing communism, despising it, cherishing 
freedom and openness and a government that kept out of their way.
[Order Daniel R. Ernst’s book “Tocqueville’s Nightmare: The Administrative State Emerges in America, 1900-1940” from Amazon.com]
Is that what the current immigrants want, in the main? The Democrat Party– long covertly agitating for socialism, now overtly doing so — sure seems to think the new immigrants will vote more socialist governments into power, because they’re sure salivating at those new fundamentally-transforming votes. Read the rest of this entry »
2013 Exposes Media’s Love of Activist Government Over Effective Government
Posted: December 16, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Carolyn McCarthy, Congress, government, Gun politics, History of the United States, Immigration reform, Political media 1 Comment
Noah Rothman writes: In early December, a year-end review of congressional productivity in 2013 uncovered a bleak truth: The 113th Congress is on pace to be one of the least productive national legislatures in American history.
The news spread across the media landscape like a brushfire with the commentariat entering a race to outdo one another in their disproportionate displays of revulsion over congressional inactivity. Few posited an objective reason for why having a relatively lethargic Congress was so terrible. Many in the press presented this revelation as self-evidently regrettable, feeling no pressure to justify this impression.
In fact, this prejudice within much of the establishment political press to welcome activist government for its own sake has characterized virtually every contentious issue that was publicly litigated over the course of 2013. From New Year’s Day until today, the political media has been pressing, agitating for the Congress to do “something” -– often for its own sake. The efficacy of that something was, in most cases, deemed irrelevant if only by virtue of how rarely the press even discussed the value of those various somethings.
