08/6/15

Ernest Moniz, Iran and the Imprimatur of Science

By: Benjamin Weingarten

Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

Watching the Obama administration trot out Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on the Sunday shows and in testimony to Congress following the consummation of what I believe will be a nuclear weapon-ensuring deal for not only the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad in Iran, but their Sunni counterparts, it should have been clear to all what a charade it was.

Moniz — an MIT physicist turned Obama administration shill — was there to provide the imprimatur of unimpeachable Science™ to the transparently deceptive deal. And who can fight with science, especially of the kind that is already settled?

In this light, I am reminded of a quote from an expert in financial markets and economic history, Jim Grant, he of the legendary Wall Street newsletter Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

During an address delivered on June 2, 2015 to the Manhattan Institute in connection with his winning of the Hayek Prize, Grant stated:

In the 1960s, John Cowperthwaite, British governor of Hong Kong, refused to allow the collection of economic statistics lest the bureaucrats misappropriate that information in the service of governmental macroeconomic manipulation (the very word “statistics” derives from “the state”).

Such an act would be heresy today in a world in which the state, governing according to scientific principles, is the church for our progressive elites.

Cowperthwaite knew that politicians would conflate science and public policy to justify their agendas and grow their power.

For it is science that legitimates the Iran deal.

It is science that legitimates the disruption of human activity, and with it trillions of dollars in wealth through global climate regulation.

Indeed, it is science that legitimates any number of government intrusions into our daily lives.

Science ought to be celebrated. But politicians can manipulate it towards destructive ends.

Winston Churchill saw this early on when he expressed fears about the power of mass weaponry. Of course it is not the weapons that are the problem in and of themselves, but the prospect of evil people obtaining them and using them towards genocidal ends that ought to keep us awake at night.

Today America is aiding, abetting and enabling just these types of people.

In fact, as an aside, Ernest Moniz, again our Secretary of Energy, when asked about government findings on another mass weapon, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) during Congressional testimony — the use of which Iran has endorsed and for which we have yet to harden our grid — effectively pleaded ignorance.

Ernest Moniz is a fitting living embodiment of the fusion of science and state.

02/24/15

Media Accepting Obama’s Spin on the Economy

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

With as many lies and distortions that proceed from this scandal-plagued administration, one might think that mainstream reporters would turn a skeptical eye toward another one of President Obama’s carefully crafted narratives. Each narrative is designed to push “progressive” policies or to cover up administration mismanagement. But our corrupt media reflexively cheer whenever the leftist agendas for amnesty, Obamacare, climate change, and economic regulation are mentioned. Add to the list of official narratives the hyped state of the economy, the successes of which cannot fail to be championed because they reflect on the viability of the current President’s policies.

Yet President Obama’s claims about how his administration’s efforts have boosted the economy, or that the economy is actually improving, are based on cherry-picked data.

“At this moment when our economy is growing and creating jobs, we’ve got to work twice as hard, especially in Washington, to build on our momentum,” claimed President Obama in his recent economic report, according to The New York Times. He continued, “And I will not let politics or partisanship roll back the progress we’ve achieved on so many fronts.”

Back in January, the labor force participation rate was the lowest since 1978. It has since increased by a mere 0.2%. And while hiring may be up, wages remain stagnant.

What type of progress, exactly, is the President citing? His entitlement and regulatory policies, such as Obamacare and proposed EPA regulations, shackle American economic ingenuity with an ever-increasing burden.

“Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed,” wrote Gallup President Jim Clifton in, “The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment.”  “Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast ‘falling’ unemployment.”

“Our concern with our analysts is that [the unemployment statistic is] very, very misleading because what America really wants are full-time jobs. … The percent of full-time jobs in this country, to the population, is the worst it’s been in thirty years,” Clifton said on CNBC. He connected this to the middle class crisis.

Mortimer Zuckerman, of The Wall Street Journal has argued that the President’s signature health care legislation depresses full-time hiring. “Many employers cut workers’ hours to avoid the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide health insurance to anyone working 30 hours a week or more,” wrote Zuckerman last July. “The unintended consequence of President Obama’s ‘signature legislation?’ Fewer full-time workers.”

But President Obama, his administration, and the media are on a full-blown public relations campaign to promote “middle class economics,” with more government as the answer.

“In a letter to Congress with the report, Mr. Obama called on lawmakers to approve his economic agenda of expanded tax breaks for the middle class and increased spending on initiatives such as early childhood education,” reported The Washington Times. “The president also wants to raise several hundred billion dollars through tax increases on mostly wealthier families.”

“The [recent economic] report…also contained a fair dollop of wishful thinking—or what some might call the administration’s own ‘dynamic scoring,’” observed Neil King Jr. for The Wall Street Journal.

President Obama has tied his favorite policies to theoretical economic gains which may, or may not occur. “So various measures to provide free preschool or expand the Earned Income Tax Credit would bring more adults into the workforce, thus expanding the tax base,” writes King. “A revamped immigration system would in turn lure more foreign-born workers to counteract what the president’s report calls ‘the effects of an aging native-born population.’”

“Although annual budget deficits have fallen from the trillion-dollar-plus levels early in Mr. Obama’s presidency, the national debt has continued to soar and topped $18 trillion late last year,” notes The Washington Times.

With the current controversy over comments by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani questioning whether or not President Obama loves this country, we are reminded of President Obama’s comments when criticizing then-President George W. Bush for running up $4 trillion of new debt during his eight years in office. Obama said it was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.” President Obama has so far added over $8 trillion in new debt, and he still has two more years in office. So how would he rate himself?

Both The Wall Street Journal and New York Times ran articles which summarized the economic report without questioning its assumptions, effectively offering the administration additional platforms from which to spout its economic spin.

I reported last November that President Obama unsuccessfully attempted to sell the “illusion of economic success” to the public in order to “salvage what most polls indicate is about to be a dismal election for Democrats.” This effort continued with the President’s State of the Union, where he argued that “we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.”

Obama’s tired rhetoric of hope and change resonated with the media back in January, and it still does. Meanwhile, many in America struggle to put bread on the table.

“Not only have the ‘benefits’ of the Obama recovery not been ‘fully shared,’ but many Americans are still worse off today than when Obama became president,” reports Townhall. The 2013 median family income, “the most recent year available,” is more than $2,000 less than what it was in 2009 when Obama became President, it reports.

The media are doing their part to validate Obama’s claims about the economy. It is all about their political agenda and double standard.

Among Democrats, there are divisions over the degree to which Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered their leading contender, should praise the recovery and run on Mr. Obama’s stewardship of the economy,” wrote Jonathan Martin for The New York Times on February 22. “And Republicans—assessing falling unemployment and soaring job creation under a president with still-mediocre approval ratings—are grasping for the right way to frame their 2016 campaign message.”

Martin, like so many other reporters, operates under the premise that the economy has actually recovered. But to the extent it has, there may be other factors at work besides Obama’s initiatives. How much credit for the nation’s economic growth belongs to the Republican-led states, such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida and especially Texas; states which are doing far better at adding jobs and balancing their budgets than the federal government? And how much is attributable to the powerful capitalist economy in this country, which chugs along despite the burdensome taxation, regulatory and bureaucratic demands that have been imposed on it by this administration?

12/12/14

Why the 2013 FBI Hate Crime Statistics are bogus and biased

By: Renee Nal
New Zeal

FBI Seal

FBI Seal

The newly-released FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2013 have some major issues, rendering them vastly useless to researchers and the public.

According to the FBI, there were a total of 6933 hate crime offenses that took place during 5,928 incidents “because incidents may include more than one offense type.” Of those, the FBI asserts that there were 4430 victims, and of those, 2685 attacks included actual physical harm. The breakdown is: Murder and non-negligent manslaughter (5), rape (including those that fit under the revised definition) (21), aggravated assault (734), simple assault (1925).

According to the reporting guidelines, simple assault is “an unlawful physical attack by one person upon another where neither the offender displays a weapon, nor the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury involving apparent broken bones, loss of teeth, possible internal injury, severe laceration, or loss of consciousness.” So, a simple assault could conceivably be a shove or a slap in the face; intrusive and awful for the victim, but would not result in a scar or permanent injury.

This article focuses only on those “hate crime” offenses that resulted in physical harm, including simple assault. Here are some of the reasons why the FBI Hate Crime Statistics do not measure up to scrutiny:

  1. Convicted crimes carry the same weight as anonymous graffiti, for example, which is counted as a “hate crime” despite the fact that the perpetrator(s) could be unknown.
  2. According to the Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual, “reporting agencies must examine each case for facts which clearly provide evidence that the offender’s bias motivated him/her to commit the crime.” However, FBI spokesperson Stephen G. Fischer Jr. told the author last year that convictions are not tracked. More information about how the reporters make this determination should be available.
  3. The source information is not provided, so it is impossible to match the data with the actual statistics. Considering the abundance of “hate crime hoaxes,” source information is necessary.
  4. In 1800 out of 5928 incidents, according to the report, the offender’s race is “unknown.” This begs the question: If you cannot locate the perpetrator, how could the reporting agency possibly know his or her intent?
  5. Regarding the “known offenders,” the FBI cautions: “The term known offender does not imply that the suspect’s identity is known…” (you may need to read that again). The FBI continues, “rather, the term indicates that some aspect of the suspect was identified, thus distinguishing the suspect from an unknown offender.” The question is, if the known offender is only known based on a description from the alleged victim, how can bias intent be effectively determined?
  6. White people are considered to be the “original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.” Arab Americans who commit a hate crime, therefore, are considered to be “white.”
  7. For the first time, as reported at the Examiner, FBI spokesperson Fischer said that the FBI will be “collecting offender Hispanic information starting 2013.” Perpetrators who happened to be Hispanic were previously lumped in with white people as offenders, but not as victims. But according to the 2013 statistics, only 13 “Hispanic or Latino” individuals committed a hate crime. Consider: according to the hate crime statistics for Los Angeles County alone, there were 57 incidents of Latino-on-Black hate crimes.
  8. Of the violent hate crimes, there were five incidents of “Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.” Of those, four were committed by white people and one was of an “unknown” race. Of the aggravated assaults, 443 were committed by white people and 188 were committed by black people. Groups of “multiple races” committed 32 aggravated assaults and 31 were of an “unknown race.” Of the simple assaults, 845 were committed by white people and 451 were committed by black people. Groups of “multiple races” committed 119 aggravated assaults and 177 were of an “unknown race.”
  9. Interestingly, if one combines simple and aggravated assault, American Indians/Alaska Natives account for 32 offenses, 21 offenses can be attributed to “Asians,” and 9 can be attributed to those who are classified as Hispanic/Latino.
  10. If one removes simple assault from the equation, a total of 760 people were physically harmed during a hate crime in 2013, based on the statistics. The rest of the 6933 hate crimes can be attributed to other offenses, most prominently would be intimidation (1528), and “Destruction/damage/vandalism” (1783).

Starting in 2015, the FBI “will begin formally tracking hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus and Arabs.” It is unclear if Arabs will still be considered as white people as offenders. This year, data on gender and gender identity biases has been added to the statistics.

The most troubling aspects of the report in a nutshell:

  • Convictions are not tracked, i.e., a conviction is not needed to label a “hate crime.”
  • The offender, even the “known offender,” is not necessarily known.
  • Historically, Hispanic/Latinos were lumped in with white people as offenders, but not as victims. That changed for the first time this year. However, the 2013 report inexplicably reported that only 13 instances of hate crime were perpetrated by Hispanic offenders.
  • People of Middle Eastern and North African descent are combined with white people.
  • The most infuriating thing about the fuzzy statistics is that the hate crimes themselves are not available for public scrutiny, rendering the statistics vastly useless. FBI spokesperson Fischer told the author that source information “is law enforcement sensitive and not available other than for law enforcement purposes.”

Without having the ability to review the source data, however, it is very difficult to confirm the information in the report.

This article has been cross-posted from Broadside News.