Looks Like Another Story to Cover Up

We know now that at least one of the two men arrested in connection with the London subway bombing is a Syrian refugee.  There's some stories on the web that say that the other person in custody is also a refugee from Syria, but this seems as of yet unconfirmed.  There are also news items that say that the one of the terrorists planting the bomb was under surveillance by Scotland Yard.

Do you realize what this means?  First, once again Europe has been attacked by refugees from Syria.  Those are just the people who President Trump has wanted to subject to "extreme vetting" and to keep out until a sufficient system for that vetting is in place.  For that reason alone, there is very little coverage of the identities and backgrounds of the men arrested in the UK.  Second, it means that President Trump's tweet about the bomber being on the radar of Scotland Yard was accurate.  Oh, the horror!  The media could not possibly tell us that Trump was correct and all the upset about the tweet was not just nonsense but erroneous nonsense.  No doubt editors are fainting at the newsrooms of the NY Times and Washington Post just thinking of the prospect of telling America the truth.

Don't worry.  They'll be fine.  Either they won't report the story or they will bury it on page 41 of the paper.

Time To Get A Grip on Reality About the President

The media is conducting an all out assault on the connection between President Trump and his base.  President Trump made a deal on the debt ceiling, government funding etc. with the Democrats.  Then he met with Pelosi and Schumer and made progress on a resolution to the DACA issue as well as funding for border security.  Those are the facts.

Then there are these items:
1.  Pelosi and Schumer indicated that the border wall was not to be part of the DACA deal.  The media went crazy with this, and all manner of Republicans and Trump supporters had an angry or upset reaction.  The White House then made clear that there was no such agreement to end the push for a border wall.  We had a few days of confusion, but Trump has said that he was still committed to the border wall.  The GOP response died down.

2.  Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed sources in Europe said that the USA was no longer going to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord.  The White House immediately put out a statement saying that the story was untrue.  There was no major reaction among the Trump base because the White House response was so quick and the media did not have time to build the story up into a big deal.  It is rather shocking that the Wall Street Journal would print a story based upon an anonymous foreign source without even getting a White House comment first.

There's more, but the new story line is from the media is that Trump is abandoning his base.  It's ridiculous.  Indeed, it's totally ridiculous.  There's no indication that Trump is doing anything other than something many other presidents have done, that is talk to and make deals with the other side.  Bill Clinton was known for triangulation which was moving towards the Republican position on many issues to get things done.  Ronald Reagan often said that if he could get 80% of what he wanted and had to give way on 20%, it was a major victory.  The country, however, has gotten used to the aberrant way that Obama operated.  With few exceptions, Obama never considered the GOP position or made deals with Republican leaders.  Since the GOP controlled at least one house of Congress except for Obama's first two years, the result was gridlock.  Nothing major got done during Obama's last six years.  That's why Obama started issuing all of his unconstitutional executive orders.  Trump is going back to a more normal method of operation by a president. 

Of course, Trump is returning to the norm in his own unique style and in the face of a major campaign of hate against him by the media.  Still, this is not something that should give rise to all the hysteria.  It's time for everyone to get a grip on reality about the President.

Another Word on Global Warming and Hurricanes

It's been a bad year for hurricanes because of two major storms:  Harvey and Irma.  Those were the first major hurricanes to hit the USA in 12 years.  That dearth of strikes by major hurricanes is the longest period without one in recorded history.  Despite that record period without hurricanes, the media and even many of the "experts" were quick to blame the two latest hurricanes on climate change.

It's worth going back a bit to look at what the climate scientists and those pushing the global warming position have said about hurricanes over the years and their connection with global warming.

Back when Al Gore made his first movie and started really pushing the idea of man made global warming, the "settled science" was that rising temperatures would cause more and stronger storms.

When Katrina hit New Orleans and Rita hit Texas in 2005, there was a chorus of global warming supporters who kept shouting "We told you so!"  It was the beginning of the end; super strong hurricanes were now here to stay.  They said that even though for the last century, a major hurricane has hit the USA on average about every 4 years.

After Katrina, we had 12 years with no major hurricane strikes.  That was contrary to the "settled science".  It did not present much of a problem; the global warming supporters just changed "settled science."  If you go back just a year or two, you can find a series of articles explaining that global warming actually causes FEWER hurricanes, but stronger ones.  For example, here's the link to an article by the Weather Channel discussing a new study that determined that we would no longer have as many hurricanes each year but that they would have maximum winds about 3 MPH faster.  In years with unusually warm sea temperatures we would have many fewer hurricanes than the average total (12) per year.

Now we are here in 2017, and the hurricane season is half over.  In fact, September 15 is usually designated as the peak of the season.  Sea surface temperatures have been much warmer than average, so the "settled science" from last year predicts that we should have many fewer than 12 hurricanes for the entire season.  So how many hurricanes have there been?  The latest one is Hurricane Lee which just formed.  It is storm number 12 of 2017.  That's right, instead of having many fewer than 12 hurricanes for an entire season, we have had 12 with half the hurricane season left to go. [UPDATE: in the few hours since I wrote this piece, yet another named storm appeared in the Atlantic.  That means we already have 13 in only half a year.]

Have you heard anyone report on why there are so many hurricanes this year when the "settled science" says that there ought to be many fewer?  Have you heard anyone who tells us that Harvey and Irma were so destructive because of global warming mention that these monsters were, on average, only 3 MPH stronger due to that effect?  Of course not.  Now that we finally have two monster hurricanes, we are still being told that both of them were wholly the result of global warming.

It never fails to amaze me just how dishonest the global warming community is in pushing its theories.  Don't get me wrong; there may be warming.  It would not be a surprise since the Earth has been warmer than now for most of the last million years (to the extent we can determine it.)  Nor is it beyond belief that human activity is contributing to global warming, although there is nothing that so indicates as of yet.  We do know, however, that all those computer models on which global warming prophecies are based have been proven wrong.  "Settled science" is nothing more than a widely held belief in an unproven belief based upon extremely faulty computer simulations.

Before we reconstitute our economy and way of life to deal with man-made global warming, we ought to first get some valid proof that the phenomenon actually exists.

What Is News?

Yesterday, there was a terror attack in the London subway in which a bomb placed in a white plastic bucket filled with nails exploded.  Fortunately, only the detonator blew up; the main explosive failed to ignite.  Nevertheless, about two dozen people were injured.

What do you think is the big news of the day regarding the London terror attack?  Here are four potential stories.

1.  British police have arrested an 18 year old male in Dover as he was attempting to leave the country.  He remains unidentified, but police believe him to be the bomber.

2.  The UK government raised the threat level to indicate that another terror attack is "imminent".

3.  Across Europe there were three other terror attacks yesterday.

4.  President Trump tweeted "Another attack in London by a loser terrorist.  These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard.  We must be proactive." 

So I ask again, which of these four stories do you think was featured prominently on page one of today's New York Times?  That's right, it was choice number 4, the tweet by the President.  The article discussed how the British prime minister, when first asked about the tweet, said that it was "unhelpful".  The focus at the Times is not on the terror attack, but rather on the tweet.

Somehow, I think that the people at the Times cannot get past their hatred for the President so that they can cover the actual news.

What A Difference A President Makes

The State Department announced yesterday that the Trump administration supports passage of the Taylor Force Act.  For those of you who have never heard of this bill, it provides that the USA will not give foreign aid to governments that reward terrorists or their families for their actions.  Specifically, the Taylor Force Act would cut off much of the aid given to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops paying monthly pensions to terrorists and their families.

Taylor Force was an American graduate of West Point who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel.  His family was outraged that the Palestinian Authority was rewarding Taylor's murderer and his family with a pension.  As a result, the Taylor Force Act was introduced into Congress some years ago.  President Obama opposed passage of the act, so it never moved forward.  Obama thought that having the Palestinian Authority reward terrorists who killed Americans was just something that the USA had to accept.  Fortunately, President Trump disagrees.  America will no longer give money to the Palestinians which they can then use to pay rewards to terrorists who kill Americans.

Hopefully, support from the White House will lead to the quick passage of the Taylor Force Act. 

Disaster Tourism

Many years ago, my national guard unit was activated to help deal with some really serious flooding after a hurricane.  In a town with 5500 homes, all but 2 had been flooded with many being totally submerged.  By the time my unit got to the town, two days had passed since the end of the storm; the waters had mostly receded.  We spent days going house to house helping homeowners cart all of their belongings as well as waterlogged parts of their houses onto huge trucks.  The refuse was then taken to a nearby deep mine where it was dumped.  It was a terrible tragedy to watch all these people lose everything, but at least we were helping.

I mention this story because the biggest problem we faced during the clean up effort came from disaster tourists.  These were people who lived in other areas who were coming to see how badly the flood had affected areas that had been hit.  Within a day or so after we got started with the cleanup effort, the problem of disaster tourists got so bad that we set up roadblocks outside town and stopped anyone who was not a resident from entering.  After a few days, we took down the roadblocks, but the disaster tourists came flocking back and we had to shut down entry again.

I was reminded of this problem of disaster tourism by a story I just heard on the news.  New York's governor Andrew Cuomo is on a trip to the US Virgin Islands to survey the damage from Hurricane Irma.  Why did he go?  Think about it.  The governor of NY has nothing to do with the Virgin Islands except for the possible occasional vacation there.  New York will not take any actions with regard to dealing with the disaster.  On top of that, having the governor of NY in the Virgin Islands will distract the relief teams from their efforts on the islands.  Do the people in Charlotte Amalie really need to have a motorcade for Cuomo breeze through their city and interrupt the relief effort just so that Cuomo can see the damage first hand?

Even worse, we all know that the only reason that Cuomo is going to the islands is because he wants to run for president in 2020.  This trip is meant to portray Cuomo as a caring individual; it's a long photo-op in anticipation of the campaign.  It's a rather cynical move in which Cuomo gets positive press despite the fact that he disrupts the ongoing clean up work.

Someone should have told Cuomo to stay home.  It might not help the islanders, but at least it wouldn't add to their problems.

Some Confusion At Harvard

Yesterday, the Harvard School of Government announced that Chelsea Manning was being named a "fellow" of the school and would be speaking there soon.  The response was predictable, although it seems to have come a shock to Harvard.  Manning, of course, spent seven years in prison for stealing national security secrets and making them available on line to the public and to America's enemies.  Then, at the end of his term, president Obama commuted the rest of Manning's sentence.  During that seven years, Bradley Manning, the male soldier who was convicted of this crime, transitioned to Chelsea Manning, the female felon who Obama freed.  And, of course, the huge cost for the sex reassignment surgery was paid for by the American taxpayer. 

When the naming of Manning as a fellow was announced, a former head of the CIA who was also a fellow at Harvard resigned that position.  He said he could not continue in his position at a school that would honor a person who so severely and intentionally endangered this country.  Then the current head of the CIA withdrew from an upcoming appearance at Harvard.  No doubt, many others also contacted the school to express outrage and, perhaps, threaten to stop contributions to the school.

This morning Harvard relented, but in a way only Harvard could.  The dean of the school of government announced that Chelsea Manning would no longer be a named a fellow of the school.  She would still appear to speak to the students, however.  In other words, Harvard and Manning will still proceed as planned, but Manning would no longer be called a fellow.

I'm a graduate of Harvard Law School.  I well know the Harvard ethos and the superiority complex that so permeates the campus.  No doubt, the dean of the school of government did not even consider that Manning's appointment as a fellow and the invitation for Manning to speak might be controversial.  Who could object?  After all, in normal liberal parlance, Manning is a victim.  She is a transgender individual.  She has to be considered a victim, right?  And if she's a victim, anything that gets done to "help" her has to be a good thing, right?  At least, in the normal leftwing view that so courses through the veins of most people at Harvard, no other conclusion is even conceivable. 

Indeed, it is the normal leftwing view that we see at work with Harvard's "correction" of its mistake in naming Manning a fellow.  The dean throws a bone to those upset about his action which he still sees as clearly correct.  He doesn't change what is happening, just how it will be described.  It's a classic leftwing action, a belief that words matter more than actions.  A terror attack in Benghazi is somehow not so bad because the administration says it was just a spontaneous reaction to a youtube video.  A terror attack at a nightclub in Florida kills 50, but it's not so bad because it was carried out by a lone wolf rather than a terrorist.  The Syrian government launches 17 chemical weapons attacks on its own people, but we need not respond because the president says we don't have sufficient proof that there really was such an attack.  Fortunately, the "words are enough" crowd is not in the White House anymore, but the legacy lives on at Harvard.

Manning ought not be speaking at Harvard.  Would they bring in Charles Manson to speak on population control through murder?  Will they bring in O.J. Simpson to speak on ways to have better marital relations?  Maybe they can bring in Nidal Hassan to speak on the psychological benefits of reducing the size of the military.

The pressure on Harvard ought not end.