New Posts

Did Trump send TWA 800 signal at Montoursville?


Colorado's Red Flag law

Did our intel leaders have any evidence when they pushed the Russia collusion line?

Big Conspiracy: Electing a New Population


Rutherford Institute Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Rein in Aggressive, Coercive, Potentially Violent Knock-and-Talk Practices by Militarized Police

by Rutherford Institute


WASHINGTON, D.C. — Warning of the danger to the public from the increasing use of “knock and talk” tactics by police, The Rutherford Institute has asked the United States Supreme Court to rein in aggressive “knock and talk” practices, which have become thinly veiled, warrantless attempts by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with h

The Wrap Up Smear


Acid Rain - Monitoring SO2 in a Flue Gas Desulfurization Unit

Figure 1. SO2 Emissions from CSAPR and ARP Sources, 1980–2016 (ARP- The Acid Rain Program; CSAPR -Cross-State Air Pollution Rule)5

The EPA reports concluded that experience with the Clean Air Act since 1970 has shown that protecting public health and building the economy can go hand in hand


Creating the impression of strength in numbers for Hillary Clinton!


Spectrum - a Rip off Internet Service Provider

by Allen Williams

I acquired Time-Warner’s Everyday Low Price internet plan about six years ago as I’m not a gamer and I don’t stream movies from NetFlix. I just enjoy reading the news and making occasional online purchases.  So I didn’t feel the need to pay for Hi speed internet.  Time Warner was a pretty good plan with decent service.

About 5 years ago Time-Warner was bought out by AT &T who sold off the cable service to Charter Communication’s Spectrum.  

Right from the start I began getting calls from their representatives for me to upgrade my service, add phone, TV and what not which I declined.  I have my own broadband phone installation which works fine so I didn’t need another.

tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:/posts 2018-11-02T16:01:51Z Patriots News tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1339309 2018-11-02T15:57:00Z 2018-11-02T16:01:51Z

by Lisa Payne-Naeger


Levi Strauss & Co. has expanded their original mission beyond the manufacture of blue jeans. This “values driven company” now feels a responsibility to “the communities where we live and work” and will now engage with other gun control groups to fight for “gun violence prevention.”

Chip Berg, CEO of Levi Strauss, wrote an open letter to his customers asking them not to bring firearms onto the premises of their stores, offices or other facilities. For him, it was a matter of safety. Of course, law enforcement was exempt from that request.

“It boils down to this: you shouldn’t have to be concerned about your safety while shopping for clothes or trying on a pair of jeans. Simply put, firearms don’t belong in either of those settings. In the end, I believe we have an obligation to our employees and customers to ensure a safe environment and keeping firearms out of our stores and offices will get us one step closer to achieving that reality.”

So, it’s clear Berg doesn’t subscribe to the theory that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Berg took it a step farther today with an op-ed in Fortune. He explained that as a leader in business “with power in the public and political arenas” he felt the responsibility to break the silence that threatens “the very fabric of the communities where we live and work.”

“So today, on top of our previous actions, Levi Strauss & Co. is lending its support for gun violence prevention in three new areas.”

The company has developed a site that outlines its gun violence prevention strategy complete with mission statements and donation match programs.



This coalition of like minded executives “has a critical role to play in and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country. I encourage every CEO and business leader reading this to consider the impact we could make if we stood together alongside the broad coalition of concerned parents, youth, elders, veterans, and community and faith leaders who are committed to shaping a safer path forward.”

He doesn’t explain any particular plan of action for the Every Town organization other than to infer there may be some think-tank like discussions on how to end gun violence.

And the third leg of the stool involves employee participation. Levi Strauss is doubling its employee donation match to any organizations aligned with its own Safer Tomorrow Fund.

In addition to encouraging employee donations to their own foundation, they are offering to compensate any employee who wishes to volunteer time up to five hours a month. Not only can employees volunteer in their own foundations but political activism is also compensated as well.

Levi Strauss considers this compensation an encouragement to employees “to use their time to make an impact.”

Berg notes that Levi Strauss has always been on the cutting edge of progressivism ideals in company policy and some not so progressive. But he thinks this one will prove to be the right stand in history.

“As a company, we have never been afraid to take an unpopular stand to support a greater good. We integrated our factories in the American South years before the Civil Rights Act was passed. We offered benefits to same-sex partners in the 1990s, long before most companies did. We pulled our financial support for the Boy Scouts of America when it banned gay troop leaders.

“While each one of these stands may have been controversial at the time, history proved the company right in the long run. And I’m convinced that while some will disagree with our stand to end gun violence, history will prove this position right too.”

Mr. Berg, no one disagrees with your stand to end gun violence. Gun violence is a terrible thing.

We just don’t want anyone to eliminate our constitutional right to bear arms at a time when law enforcement officers can’t get to your offices, stores or factories in time to stop mass shooters who would attack innocents in a gun free zone — hypothetically of course.

Has anyone ever asked these social justice warrior business leaders why they can’t coalesce around decreasing the national debt, lowering taxes, returning to state sovereignty, or any number of other things that also “threaten the very fabric of the communities where we live and work?”

Lisa Payne-Naeger - Contributor, Commentary
An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1338852 2018-11-01T16:38:00Z 2018-11-01T16:37:47Z



by Dr. Orly Taitz, ESQ


On Oct 30, 2018 President Trump announced that he will issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship. He states that he can do it by executive action and he might be right.

The 14th amendment states:


Now, an important point in it is the fact that people, who are foreign citizens, are subject to the jurisdiction of their own nations, not US. Their children automatically inherit the citizenship of the countries of their parents, not US, and they automatically are under the jurisdiction of those foreign nations.

One wrinkle is a decision of the Supreme Court over 100 year ago.


There can be 2 rebuttals to Wong Kim Ark.

1.Wong Kim Ark’s parents were legal residents, the ruling should not be read as an affirmation of the status of children of undocumented immigrants.

2. The Supreme Court might disavow, overturn this precedent as it was done by overturning 1857 decision in Dred Scott v Sandford. Supreme Court might decide that the decision in Wong Kim Ark needs to be clarified in that a child follows the legal immigration status of his parents. If the parents are legal residents, the child gets status of a legal resident, if the parent is a foreign citizen illegally residing in the US, the child is a foreign resident illegally residing in the US.  Supreme Court might decide that this clarification is needed as birthright citizenship is a magnet that led to an invasion of millions of illegal aliens with the hope of having anchor babies.

According to the US government we have 12 million illegals. According to the Center for immigration studies and the former ambassador of Mexico, we have over 30 million illegals, which is an enormous burden on our welfare system and which causes wages to stagnate.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1338320 2018-10-31T15:52:00Z 2018-10-31T15:51:54Z

By James Taylor
A publication that has built a reputation for fair and non-biased reporting has lately been inserting leftist propaganda into its energy and environment coverage.

Energy, environment, and climate reporting at the usually solid Washington Examiner are increasingly taking on the left’s language and agenda. Why are the Examiner’s two lead energy and climate reporters advancing leftist politics rather than straight reporting, and why is the paper allowing this to happen?

In June 2017, the Examiner hired Josh Siegel to join John Siciliano covering energy, environment, and climate news. Siciliano had a solid track record of just-the-facts reporting and had worked as a reporter for The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Two months after bringing Siegel on board, the Examiner launched Siegel and Siciliano’s “Daily on Energy” report, with each day’s edition containing several short write-ups of energy, environment, and climate issues. Lengthier versions of many of the short write-ups later appeared in the Examiner as stand-alone articles.

Shifting Toward Politicized Language

Since launching the report, Siegel and Siciliano have taken a significant turn toward the political left. Its substance, tone, word choice, and quoted sources consistently advance leftist messaging on energy, environment, and climate issues.

For example, in news articles regarding the Trump administration’s proposal to enhance energy grid reliability by crediting coal and nuclear power for being on-demand power sources with on-site fuel storage, Siegel and Siciliano consistently refer to the proposal as “the coal bailout.” While anti-coal activists can make a shaky argument that assigning monetary value to electric grid security is a “bailout” for the energy sources that provide that security, the argument is exactly that–a political argument.

Siegel and Siciliano refer to the proposal matter-of-factly as “the coal bailout,” as if such a label was factual and beyond dispute rather than a loaded political argument. Just as strikingly, Siegel and Siciliano never use the term “bailout” to describe wind and solar power or the many government programs, subsidies, and policies that benefit them, even though wind and solar power receive more subsidies than all conventional energy sources combined.

When reporting on Sen. Marco Rubio noting that sea level rise will continue, regardless of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, Siegel and Siciliano cite the aggressively leftist Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in an attempt to rebut Rubio. Worse yet, they present the UCS as an objective arbiter of scientific disputes. The journalists claim, in their October 15 report, “What the science says about sea level rise: The Union of Concerned Scientists last week published a report…” (emphasis in the original).

Using Leftist Language To Talk About Climate Science

Siegel and Siciliano also use the left’s biased and loaded language when discussing global warming. In their October 10 report, they write that President Trump “has denied climate science.” Trump has never said there is no such thing as climate science, which would be the factual definition of “denying climate science.” Trump acknowledges climate science exists; he merely sides with the many thousands of scientists who are skeptical about predictions of an imminent crisis.

Moreover, the term “denier” was inserted into the global warming debate by environmental leftists who want a more loaded term than “skeptics” to vilify people who are skeptical of alarming global warming predictions. The term was reportedly chosen in an effort to equate skeptics of an imminent global warming crisis with contemptibly racist Holocaust deniers, which is historically the most common use of the term “denier” in the political context.

Siegel and Siciliano are likely familiar with the history of the term and the strong objection skeptics take to being unfairly besmirched by it. Yet they still used it to describe Trump.

On October 18, the two journalists released another biased and inaccurate criticism of Trump on climate issues. They wrote, “Trump on Tuesday continued to falsely assert that the science is unsettled on climate change and its causes…” Yet the causes of climate change are very unsettled.

For example, a 2016 survey of more than 4,000 American Meteorological Society meteorologists reveals 33 percent believe humans are not responsible for most or all of the earth’s recent warming. Even among the 67 percent, many undoubtedly believe a warming earth will not create the climate catastrophe the the environmental left predicts.

Moreover, every new publication by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains different predictions than the previous publication, and each report explicitly states there is a degree of uncertainty in its predictions. In fact, IPCC predictions of future climate change have dropped significantly over the years, from a prediction in its initial report, in 1990, of 0.3 degrees Celsius warming per decade, to its current prediction of 0.2 degrees per decade.

Real world observations also show temperatures are rising closer to 0.15 degrees per decade, which defies the predictions in all of the IPCC reports. Yet Siegel and Siciano state that it is false to claim there is scientific uncertainty regarding global warming.

In their same October 18 report, Siegel and Siciliano launched a cheap personal attack on Trump, using a false global warming narrative as a hook. They write that, during a recent media interview, Trump “claimed he has a ‘natural instinct for science’ because his uncle worked as a professor at MIT.”

While Trump claimed a natural instinct for science, and noted earlier in the conversation that his uncle was a professor at MIT, Trump did not say he has a natural instinct because his uncle was a professor at MIT. Siegel and Siciliano’s inaccurate description, while subtle, tells a false narrative that clearly conveys ridicule for a person who he believes his uncle’s work at MIT automatically makes him an expert.

But that is not what Trump said at all. It is difficult to believe such an error, and one that appears designed to ridicule Trump, appeared accidentally.

Why So Biased?

Many more examples exist. Why have Siegel and Siciliano deviated from objective reporting and taken on the left’s language and agenda? People would be forgiven for expecting that from the New York Times or the Huffington Post, but the Washington Examiner? The paper, like the Wall Street Journal, has a conservative editorial board and has historically aimed its news reporting at the middle. But this kind of reporting is not the middle. It better reflects the typical media bias towards the left that the Examiner has built a reputation contrasting with fairer reporting.

Is there a hidden follow-the-money story here? Is there an editor pushing these reporters in a leftist direction? Is this an example of two reporters succumbing to the leftist ideology that is so pervasive inside the Beltway? Or is this just an example of the Washington, D.C. political swamp rearing its ugly head? I don’t know, but it is tragic and sad that the political left has subverted the energy, environment, and climate reporting of a respected newspaper.

James Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy and vice president for external relations at The Heartland Institute.]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1337813 2018-10-30T16:07:00Z 2018-10-30T16:22:25Z




by Chris Campbell



In putting together the upcoming book, “99 Things Every Millennial Man Should Know,” I’ve (re-)learned some important lessons.

One of them, weird as it sounds, has to do with Pinocchio. And the incredibly profound messages hidden beneath the surface… one of which is how victimhood turns you into a braying jackass.

But I’ll get to that in a moment.

99 Things is a compendium of powerhouse contributors imparting wisdom.



The underlying theme is answering the Call to Adventure (the “call” to your life’s purpose) and how to survive and thrive through your own “Hero’s Journey” (and, no less, the awesome power of archetypes).



A great explainer video on the Hero’s Journey

The book, since its inception, has taken on a life of its own. 

In large part because of my newfound “tribe” of people who are just as excited about, and emotionally invested in, the project as I am.

One contributor, Noble Brown (AKA, @Sociopathlete on Twitter), for example, who wrote an excellent piece for the book, called “Engineer the Future”, wrote this…



(Yes, I’m “@StoicGoatFarmer” on Twitter — which, I have found, used wisely, is a great tool. If you “do Twitter,” let’s connect.)

Two lessons here.

One, the power of the ask. It’s cliche, but I think it’s easy to forget: You never know until you ask.

Out of ten supremely bold asks, nine will probably say no or never respond, but that one yes will change everything.

(In the ask, however, increase your chances by providing unmistakable value to them.  As opposed to, “Please do this for me.” James Altucher is a master of this and has simple ways to get started.)

Second, which is tied to this: Whatever you’re doing, you don’t have to go at it alone. 

Left unchecked, I easily fall into a wildly ineffective “Hercules Complex”… this assumption I should shoulder all of the burden of big projects, lest it lose its meaning.

But working with, and building a tribe of great people in the process, is so much more satisfying.

(I plan to go into more detail on this book, and how I’m putting it together, in the private Choose Yourself Publishing Circle…  It’s one great part of Altucher’s self-publishing course, of which I’m leaning on to write this book. If interested in finally crossing “write a book” off your bucket list, come… join us.)

Tonight, I’ll attempt another BIG ask… Jordan Peterson. I’m suiting up and seeing him speak in Cincinnati this evening. 

His lectures have had a remarkable effect on me, especially his Jungian analysis of… this might sound weird… Pinocchio.

(Had I understood all of this earlier, as I described yesterday, I might not have been such a Hellion growing up… in a misguided pursuit of “fitting in.”)

The film Pinocchio is considered by many to be Walt Disney’s greatest achievement.

Superficially, the storyline is easy enough to understand. It’s about going from a puppet to an authentic individual. One who tells the truth, listens to one’s own conscience, and is capable of taking responsibility for one’s own life.

Pinocchio, you might recall, was brought to life by a blue fairy (the “anima,” as described by Jungians).

The fairy told him he could become a real boy if he proved himself to be “brave, truthful, and unselfish.”


Pinocchio: Right and wrong? But how will I know? 

Jiminy Cricket: (watching) How’ll he know! 

The Blue Fairy: (to Pinocchio) Your conscience will tell you. 

Pinocchio: What are conscience? 

Jiminy Cricket: What are conscience! I’ll tell ya! A conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to. That’s just the trouble with the world today… 

Pinocchio: Are you my conscience? 

Jiminy Cricket: Who, me?

(Spoiler Alert: The cricket, as it happens, is Pinocchio’s conscience, a good, but imperfect tramp who “bugs” him throughout the movie to do the right thing.)

Going deeper, the overarching message unfolds: The best way to live your life is orient yourself toward the highest good you’re capable of imagining (represented by Geppetto, the woodcarver, wishing upon a star).

Why? Because the capacity for it to come to fruition exists. Not only that, the act of aiming there will open you up to forces which can help you — ones in which wouldn’t otherwise be available to serve you.

What is the highest aim?

To become a fully developed, authentic human being. One who isn’t a marionette. One whose strings are not whipped around by undeveloped (evil) forces of the world.

The Road to Tyranny

At one point in the movie, Pinocchio is convinced by two petty criminals — the fox and the cat — that he is a mere victim of the world. That the world is his enemy. They then lead him to Pleasure Island, a place where all his desires can be fulfilled.

There, boys can smoke, drink, fight, destroy stuff and act like heathens.

Pinocchio and Jiminy discover, however, Pleasure Island is a trap, run by masked goons dressed in black.

With enough badness under the boys’ belts (perhaps literally and figuratively), the boys lose their voices and turn into braying jackasses (donkeys), and are sold as slaves to work in the mines.

The superficial lessons of the overall story are evident:

1. Peer pressure can lead you astray.

2. Growth can emerge from pain.

3. Idle hands do the Devil’s work.

Going deeper, however, the underlying themes present in the book and film are awesome for a mere “children’s story”… 

– Telling the truth will ultimately make your life easier, and taking the seemingly easy route, by lying, has consequences (the more he lied, the more his nose grew and the more complicated his life became)…
– People-pleasing does little more than turn you into a puppet, you give up your own individuality to appease them (when Pinocchio fell under the thumb of Stromboli and became an unearned celebrity he became a slave to Stromboli and the crowd)…

– You have free will not to listen to your conscience (as Pinocchio doesn’t at first) and your conscience is not omnipotent, it is capable of making mistakes (as Jiminy did). The more you listen and learn from your mistakes, however, the more both of you mature and begin to understand the true difference between right and wrong. (Pinocchio and Jiminy grow stronger as the storyline progresses).

And, very apropos to current times… 

– Be wary of those who would have you believe you are a victim. Those who claim to be solely looking out for the oppressed are often on the hunt for unearned power. (Marxist professors come to mind).

– Accepting yourself as a victim, furthermore, will cause you to lose your voice and, perhaps, in the case of Pinocchio and the boys on Pleasure Island, transform you into a braying jackass.

– Great forces will emerge to help you when you aim for your highest good. You don’t have to go at it alone.

– Finally, one of the highest aims is to rescue the old structures from collapse, and reinvigorate them anew. To keep the torch alive and save what is worth saving. Otherwise, all will fall into chaos.

Pinocchio, in the end, is said to represent Geppetto’s ego and persona (how you interact with the external world and mask you wear for it).

Left undeveloped, it’ll remain a young puppet, a slave to the whims of the outside world.

In the end, Geppetto comes to terms with this “inner child” (also giving a nod to the incredible importance of fatherhood — the “outer child”)…

And, ultimately, they save one another.

Geppetto, by giving Pinocchio form and careful attention, and Pinocchio by swimming into the ocean (unconscious) and saving him from the Belly of the Whale (the archetypal Underworld of Chaos).

At the end, Geppetto, though he’s an old man, becomes young in spirit.

And the old structures worth saving in himself (and the world) are given new life, salvaged from total destruction and created anew.

I will tell Millennial Men this.


Published under Creative commons here.]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1336859 2018-10-29T13:00:01Z 2018-10-29T13:54:26Z

by Allen Williams


Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are growing as a function of the industrialization of the world and particularly the United States.  The IPCC has issued its first report: "..the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a multinational scientific body organized under the auspices of the United Nations, published its first comprehensive report on the topic... the IPCC concluded that "emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of ... greenhouse gases..."


Man is viewed as an 'eco-cancer' in the earth by globalists and other crackpot scientists who presume the masses are destroying the earth. Yet there is NO evidence of significant temperature increases across the globe despite CO2 releases many times larger than the earth's natural carbon dioxide content. WHY? Because plants metabolize CO2 at faster rates and more limestone is formed according to the concentration driving force governed by reaction Kinetics.





The  Normal Plant Animal Cycle diagram above depicts the carbon flow between plants and animals.


Limestone Formation:

Carbon dioxide is readily soluble in sea and fresh water forming metallic precipitates such as calcium or magnesium carbonate.


The gas readily dissolves in water sources in equilibrium with its liquid concentration just as in many popular soda beverages. CO2 increases in solubility as water temperatures decrease and atmospheric pressure increases.  Concentration is the driving force that causes greater amounts of CO2 to dissolve in water.  In solution, CO2 reacts with metallic ions in the water to form insoluble CaCO3 precipitates like calcite.

(M+) + CO2  + H2O à MCO3

Calcite is most often seen in caves as stalagmites or stalagmites. It is also the principal constituent of a sedimentary rock known as limestone. Many Invertebrate Sea animals take up calcite from seawater to construct their shells and are an important part of the animal plant environmental cycle. As carbonates are formed and settle out, more CO2 can be absorbed into the water.  This helps to ensure a stable atmospheric concentration of around 0.04 percent (400 ppm) consistent with the law of conservation of mass.


Plants increase their rate of growth in higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. "Trees respond to CO2 fertilization(1) more strongly than do most other plants, but all plants respond to some extent...plant response to CO2 fertilization is nearly linear with respect to CO2 concentration over the range from 300 to 600 ppm.."


Greenhouse gases

Atmospheric reactions must occur at ambient conditions of constant temperature and pressure either spontaneously or from activation energy available from solar radiation in open atmosphere.  In order for a reaction to be spontaneous, it must have a negative free energy (G) as defined by the requirements of the Gibbs free energy equation, i.e. G = H - TS.  A spontaneous change is probable whenever enthalpy, H is negative or entropy, S is positive, i.e. (H - TdS) <= 0.

This relationship may also be expressed in terms of the ratios of the forward and reverse rate constants for reactions k1 and k2, i.e. the equilibrium constant, K:

                                 K =  k1/k2 = edS/R e-dH/RT

Now, the probability of spontaneous reactions are favorable whenever K is a large positive number, i.e. K >>1. This criterion is a necessary condition for the chemical reaction(s) to proceed. 

So carbon monoxide and Nitrous oxide compounds oxidize over time to carbon dioxide and either Nitrogen oxide or Nitrogen dioxide. So atmospheric equilibrium is maintained and the law of Conservation of Mass is upheld.

The principle objection to NO2 in the atmosphere is the formation of acid rain but it is absolutely essential for natural nitration of the soil. 

Calculation Basis: 

From Appendix C Summary of Calculations

We see that the Incident Air Volume over the U.S. at 10 ft elevation is 1.056 x 1015 ft3 for our chart purposes. Since CO2 occurs naturally in the atmosphere at approximately 0.04% by volumeCO2now. org indicates the current atmospheric CO2 concentration at 400+ parts per million, normal variation within the 0.04% atmospheric concentration. So our atmospheric concentration over the mainland US per the chart is calculated as:

3,787,425 miles2  x   (5,280 ft)2 / 1 mile2  x  10 ft above grade  x  0.04% CO2 / ft3 of air  =  4.22 x 1013 ft3 of CO2 at a 10 ft elevation in our chosen atmospheric bottle.






Appendix D shows the most significant man made sources of greenhouse gases. Note that the single largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gas is the industrial use of natural gas followed closely by the automobile. The war on fossil fuel has accomplished nothing more than to increase natural gas consumption. Now you know the underlying motive behind the deindustrialization of America and shipping manufacturing jobs overseas.



Most importantly, note from the Human and Natural Sources of CO2 chart above that if both natural gas consumption and the automobile were totally eliminated, human breathing would be the dominant source of greenhouse gas. The real environmental problem seems to be human breathing accounting for nearly half of the natural CO2 in the atmosphere exclusive of natural gas consumption and the automobile.

But combined utility consumption and people breathing is the underlying impetus for globalists to force the world's population down to around 1/2 to 1 billion people by any and all means available.  ISIS Created by US & NATO Training & Recruiting Jihadists  is very likely one such means  

Killing off vast numbers of the world's population is former science Czar John Holdren's response to climate change in the 1977 book 'Ecoscience', co-authored by Holdren and colleagues Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Natural News has noted that ".. we've already seen shocking statements from many scientists about their desire to use genetically engineered viral strains to accomplish global depopulation goals." 

The 'final solution' is to kill vast numbers of the population to effect a three-fold reduction in carbon dioxide because fewer people use less gasoline and natural gas which translates to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Scientific Manipulation & Fraud


Science has claimed that fat people are responsible for global warming, "warning that the increase in big eaters(2) means more food production - a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet.  Overweight people are also more likely to drive, adding to environmental damage. Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming (flatulence) carbon dioxide per year than a thin oneproviding extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests."

Data collected from satellite monitoring of the earth's surface temperatures do not support the assertion of global warming.  NOAA has been caught adjusting temperatures(3) upward to support warming predictions. In a shocking report, errors in a climate change paper(4)showing gains from global warming were retracted.

There is disturbing evidence that atmospheric data have been manipulated by governments and educational institutions in an attempt to demonstrate ecological damage to the environment from high levels of carbon dioxide.  First, the University of East Anglia was involved in a collusion to alter temperature data to support a global warming of earth theory.  The Wall Street Journal reports(5) "Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.


If we cannot predict weather reliably more than several hours into the future under most circumstances, why should the predictions of a government computer model be taken seriously? Yet, Time® magazine warns that we are likely to see a 6 oF increase in global temperatures by the year 2006(6) which unsurprisingly never occurred. Neither is there data to support the warnings(7) of "Earth in the Balance. "





(1)  Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon,  http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm


(2)  Fatties Cause Global Warming, The SUN, April 20, 2009, http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2387203.ece  


(3)  NOAA Fiddles With Climate Data To Erase The 15-Year Global Warming ‘Hiatus’,  Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/04/noaa-fiddles-with-climate-data-to-erase-the-15-year-global-warming-hiatus/#ixzz3vdeqymrD

(4)  Gremlins” caused errors in climate change paper showing gains from global warming, Retraction Watch, http://retractionwatch.com/2014/05/21/gremlins-caused-errors-in-climate-change-paper-showing-gains-from-global-warming/ 

(5)  Climategate: Follow the Money, The Wall Street Journal, Dec 1, 2009  http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490

(6)  Heading for Apocalypse, Time, Vol. 146, No. 14, 1995                    

(7)   Albert Gore Jr., Earth in the Balance, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1336284 2018-10-26T16:03:00Z 2018-10-26T16:36:50Z

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple



For those of you that claim we don’t live in a police state, I give you this recent Michigan Appeals Court ruling.

In 2015, Deputy James Dawson went to Joshua Brennan’s home and knocked on his door trying to obtain a breath sample. When Brennan did not answer, Dawson spent an hour and a half knocking at his doors and windows.

Officer Dawson also put crime-scene tape over Brennan’s security cameras to conceal his actions and used his siren and cruiser lights in an attempt to rouse him.

When Brennan finally opened his door, officer Dawson forced him to take a breathalyzer and arrested him for a probation violation even though he blew a 0.000.

All of this was done without a warrant. (Warrantless breathalyzer tests was not a condition of Brennan’s probation.)

If you think, it is obvious to any reasonable person that his rights were violated. Then you don’t know how the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals interprets the Constitution.  The fact that this even went to an Appeals Court, speaks volumes about our justice system but I digress.

Let’s get back to the ruling;  judge John Nalabandian said that officer Dawson did violate Brennan’s Fourth Amendment rights by searching him without a warrant. All is good so far, right?

Not quite, Nalabandian went on to say “police actions that violate the Constitution do not lead to liability.”

The court also ruled that since officer “Dawson’s implied license was not clearly established” and because of that old police standby, “deficient training” he cannot be sued.

To say that the court’s reasoning is frustrating is an understatement. The court said that because “Wilson and Clare County were not on actual or constructive notice that the deputy training was deficient they could not be liable.”

Does anyone really think police are held to a higher standard when they constantly use the “deficient training” excuse?

If you are upset by the court’s ruling that police are not liable for violating the Constitution I warn you, it only gets worse.

Citizens must prove to judges that violating out rights is unlawful

According to the Sixth Circuit and this speaks volumes about our justice system “the plaintiff bears the burden of proving that the right was so well settled that every reasonable official would understand that what he is doing is unlawful.”

In other words, citizens must prove to a “reasonable official” [judge] that a police officer violating the Constitution is unlawful.

The Sixth Circuit claimed that since the Hardesty v. Hamburg Twp. ruling did not set a limit on how long a police officer can harass people at their homes Brennan cannot sue the police.  Even though they admitted that “absent a warrant a police officer has no greater license to remain on the property than a Girl Scout or trick-or-treater.”

The ruling repeatedly admits that “Dawson arguably violated the Constitution.” but states for a second time that “even if a government official violated a constitutional right, that official is entitled to qualified immunity.”

The Sixth Circuit refused to view the “constitutionality of the officer’s conduct or the continuing viability of Hardest and Turk.”

Not only did the Appeals court rule that Brennan cannot sue the police for violating his rights but they dismissed his unlawful arrest claim as well.

Only one judge, Karen Moore dissented and agreed like any “reasonable official” should, saying Brennan’s rights were violated and the officer could be sued.

Why is the media silent when rulings as egregious as this are taking place across the country?

Proving to “reasonable officials” that violating our rights is unlawful? America is fast on its way to becoming a police state.


]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1335940 2018-10-25T16:03:00Z 2018-10-25T16:03:26Z

by Jack Davis


After an Ohio parent blew the whistle on a morality test given to a high school class, the Hilliard City School District sent the teacher who gave the test to time out.

Students were given a 36-question test about various ethical situations in which they were asked to choose what actions were OK and which were not.

But the questions, given to a 10th-grade language arts class at Hilliard Bradley High School, crossed a line as far as parent Todd Sandberg was concerned, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

Sandberg said the test was graded in a way that it would tell students their “moral foundation” and their political leanings.

“What does the teacher need to know that information for?” he asked. “The questions are so out of line for high school language arts.”

Some questions asked about typical conflicts and dilemmas, but some were more disturbing and involved sex and violence.

One question talked about a scenario in which “A man kills a baby rabbit with a knife” on a live TV show. As with all the questions, students had to grade the comment on a scale from “Not OK” to “OK.”

In another instance, according to Fox News, students were asked to respond to this statement: “Using both a condom and a pill, a brother and a sister decide that they want to sleep with each other — just once, to see what it would be like.”

“Sarah’s dog has four puppies,” another scenario read, according to Fox News. “She can only find a home for two of them, so she kills the other two with a stone to the head.”

Sandberg pointed out the questions on a Facebook site for parents.

“My job was to point it out,” Sandberg said. “It is clearly evident that it’s out there in the public. The public eye is aware of it. I knew it was going to cause a firestorm.”

The teacher was placed on administrative leave while the district sorts out what to do next, WTTE reported.

The school district then issued a public apology, according to WTTE.

“Last night, we were made aware of a classroom activity that should never have taken place,” the district stated. “We absolutely share the outrage of our parents and community.”

The statement called the test “an isolated incident, and an activity of this nature would never be considered acceptable.”

Sandberg said the underlying issue is that parents need to talk with their children about what’s going on in school.

“Hey, parents, be on the lookout,” he said. “I love the district. This is an isolated case.”

According to the Canton Repository, documents released by the district said the teacher who gave the test is named Sarah Gillam and she has taught at the school since 2007.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1335600 2018-10-24T16:44:00Z 2018-10-24T16:44:22Z

President Trump has stood up more firmly for sound science and climate realism than any prior president.

President Donald Trump this week stood firm when subjected to a 60 Minutes interrogation on climate, making a bold pitch for climate realism. The Heartland Institute was happy to help the president in his successful efforts.

60 Minutes journalist Leslie Stahl began the interrogation by asking Trump if he thought climate change is a hoax. While declining to use the word “hoax,” Trump cast doubt on the notion that humans are creating a global warming crisis.

“Something’s changing and it’ll change back again…. But I don’t know that it’s manmade,” said Trump.

Trump referenced the economy-killing schemes proposed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, as well as the $100-billion-annual wealth transfers to developing nations under the Paris climate agreement.

“I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage,” Trump explained.

When Stahl attempted to argue that scientists at NOAA and NASA make alarming global warming predictions, Trump immediately countered, “We have scientists that disagree with that.”

Scientists affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA have joined scores of other scientists making the case for global warming skepticism at The Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change series. Thousands of other scientists have signed the Oregon Petition, expressing similar skepticism about global warming alarmism.

Trump also noted that climate change has been a natural occurrence for millions of years.

Trump followed up his schooling of Leslie Stahl with an interview this Tuesday with the Associated Press.

Responding to a challenge about hurricanes, Trump observed the many hurricanes 50 or more years ago that were as strong or stronger as recent hurricanes.

“We had worse hurricanes in 1890. We had a worse hurricane 50 years ago. We’ve gone through a period, actually, fairly recently, where we have very few,” said Trump.

“What I’m not willing to do is sacrifice the economic well-being of our country for something that nobody really knows,” Trump insisted. “And you have scientists on both sides of the issue. And I agree the climate changes, but it goes back and forth, back and forth. So we’ll see.”

When presented with a “scientists say” question, Trump quickly saw through the misleading generalization and corrected it.

“No, no. Some say that and some say differently,” Trump noted.

The Heartland Institute has been happy to help President Trump understand the truth about climate change, as well as see through the traps the media constantly tries to spring on climate realists. During the White House transition after Trump’s election in November 2016, The Heartland Institute – at the request of Trump’s top staff – put together a PowerPoint presentation on climate change for the president’s viewing. His bold and powerful messaging on the topic and citation of global warming facts closely reflects The Heartland Institute’s views and published information on the topic.

President Trump has stood up more firmly for sound science and climate realism than any prior president. We look forward to helping him do more of the same throughout his presidency.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1335270 2018-10-23T16:51:00Z 2018-10-23T16:54:16Z

by Gourav Krishna Nandi, Montana State University - Bozeman, MT


{An interesting 2014 article on what might constitute personhood in a transhuman- ED}

[“Data” refers to the anthropomorphized android from Star Trek]


Personhood is often thought to be a characteristic possessed by those who can make decisions, have moral worth and responsibilities, and can participate in civil and political rights. Are these attributes exclusive to the naturally born and naturally maintained humans? If we, in the foreseeable future, are to adapt to the assimilation of individuals with technological enhancements in society, how should we regard the personhood of such enhanced sentient beings? In this paper, I use Hume's distinction between an idea and a belief to analyze our differences in the perception of personhood in a naturally born human and a transhuman. Using the instance of Julian Savulescu’s intelligent and independent observer and Gene Roddenberry’s android character Data, I argue that personhood is an evolving idea that does not depend on strict social constraints, but is similar to the mathematical deﬁnition of inﬁnity, an abstract approximation.


This paper explores the notion of anthropocentric bias against a transhuman individual

As neuro-informatics and cognitive sciences continue to ﬂourish and impact the average citizen, the analysis of new technology driven social standards is paramount. I focus on a contemporary issue concerning personhood as a set of societal beliefs that would play such a role, if we are, in the foreseeable future, to adapt to a transhuman society.  At the outset, the paper analyzes the classical attributes of personhood from the lens of ideas and beliefs proposed by David Hume. Owing to the scope of this work, I limit the deﬁnition of personhood to its empirical association with the existence of the human, where personhood is an elementary entity that differentiates a human from a non-human; hence, personhood is inseparable from the human. The existence of a human implies the existence of personhood in them. The contrapositive states, if an individual does not possess personhood, they cannot be a human.  Furthermore, considering the limits, I concentrate on how transhumanism ﬁts.


into human society. In other words, can we consider a transhuman to be a human-individual who possesses personhood? How would technology affect such an idea? In an attempt to answer this, I contrast the separation of the human and the natural, from an oriental perspective proposed by Ryuichi Ida in his essay “Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.”4    Lastly, I examine a concrete instance of what it means to be a human by using Gene Roddenberry’s android character Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation  to argue that being human and possessing personhood is an intangible idea, a mathematically and materialistically unreachable quantity, which is founded on the conceptions laid down by social constraints.5


2. Of Beliefs and Ideas:

According to David Hume, the belief of a concept is a subset of the idea of the concept itself.6 Every aspect of a belief is constrained in the set of ideas. 7  Mathematically, this results in the possible existence of the certain properties of a concept in which we can conceive and not believe. Hume further hypothesizes that the notion of both our ideas and our beliefs as molded by our experiences is empirically

4.  Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogatio n from an Asian Perspective., Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom, Nick, eds. Human  Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009: 59-70.

5.  Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek: The Next Generation.

6.  “The idea of an object is an essential part of the belief of it, but not the whole.” Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or Belief.  A Treatise of Human Nature.

7.  “We conceive many things, which we do not believe.” Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or Belief. A Treatise of Human Nature.


axiomatic.8   An idea of a concept is an immediate result of the sensory experiences of the world and its possible logical consequences, whereas, the belief  of a certain idea is dependent on the objective laws that the world is subjected to, in accordance to our senses. Hume provides the examples of a companion proposing the events concerning the death of Caesar in his bed, and mercury being heavier than gold.9   According to the proposed conjecture, the idea of Caesar’s death on his bed is conceivable through our sensory inputs, but the experience of the world with the historical evidence suggests otherwise.10  Caesar’s death on his bed is thus merely an idea , owing to the deﬁnition of death, a bed and our acquaintance with Caesar. I dismiss it as a belief   because history disproves it.

To equate this characteristic to the idea of transhumanism, I perform an empirical analysis. Let us begin with an example of a conception along Hume’s distinction of relations of ideas and matters of fact.11



Ideas/ Caesar’s death on his bed

Beliefs/ Caesar’s death by Brutus


Where does the personhood of a Transhuman lie in this venn diagram?


8.   Hume, D. Sec. vii  Of the Nature of the Idea or Belief.  A Treatise of Human Nature.

9.  Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or Belief.

A Treatise of Human Nature. “more fusible, than lead, or mercury heavier than gold; it is evident, that notwithstanding my incredulity, I clearly understand his meaning, and form all the same ideas, which he forms ... is it possible for him to conceive any idea, which I cannot conceive; nor conjoin any, which I cannot conjoin.”

10.   Julius Caesar (100 BCE - 44 BCE) was assassinated in the Roman senate




In the Enquiry (1748), Hume states that all ideas are derived from their impressions, which he maintains are the results of sensations.12  What I deduce from experience are therefore copies of my sensations. He reasons that even the basic axioms require oneself to possess knowledge which are the results of the accumulation of sense experiences, impressions, that cannot be exclusively deduced by reason.13   The idea of a green grass-blade, for an instance, consists of several components, all of which may be reduced to the senses. The perception of the color of the grass-blade is dependent on my visual senses. The visible light waves, consisting of various wavelengths reﬂect from the blade. The color that I perceive as green is the result of the absorption of all other wavelengths by the grass-blade. The shape of the blade is subjected to my touch senses. As such, the idea of a grass-blade is dependent on the conception of its various components. The existence of the grass blade in my mind is what Hume calls an idea.14   The components of the conception of the blade are constant in me as a result of previous experiences. However, the capability to stretch the idea of the grass blade in accordance to my conceptions is what I further contemplate, as the idea of personhood and its relation to the concept of transhumanism. The belief of the grass, on the other hand, includes just the possibility of the occurrence of the idea.  For instance, my brain has noticed in the past, the presence of snow on a grass-blade. But, it never contemplates the existence of a white grass-blade, for it is in the domain of an idea and not a belief. The green-ness of the blade is a component of its concept, and I


12.  Hume, D.An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.





argue that such contemplation of notion of a white grass blade is similar to the concept of a human transhuman, an individual who is transhuman despite possessing the properties of personhood. Let us contemplate the accepted notions of being a human. Humans are born naturally; they have naturally endowed characteristics, which a transhuman does not possess. Hence, I have a socially held belief on whom to assign the “human” tag. Transhumanism underscores the idea of surpassing the natural order, in order to improve the physical and the mental faculty of the human.15   In the next chapter, I use the analogy of Hume’s empirical propositions to classify physical enhancements and broadly the notion of personhood, as an approximation.16


2.1 Ryuichi Ida’s concept review


It might be assumed as an axiom, under the constraint of our technological and sociological progress, that a human becomes a transhuman only after the application of enhancements, which would not have been present without the existence of present technology.

Ryuichi Ida asserts that the concept of enhancements that pertains to physical and mental enhancements are artiﬁcial; a nano-chip inserted into the brain to increase


15.  I describe the natural order as is done by Ida: enhancing the individual in a way that wouldnot have been possible without the humans.

16.  Approximation is equivalent to limiting value in calculus. I use the word to attribute the abilityof, say ‘n’ to reach a value ‘b’. When we state that n is an approximation to the value b, it impliesthat n limits toward the value of b, but never reaches b. Mathematically, n ~  b, but n not = b.



memory and to aid in extensive learning can provide an instance in this regard.17   The existence of the humans is paramount to the existence of the nano-chip. The nano-chip needed the humans to be in the current state of technology. According to Ida, the enhancement using the nano-chip is not natural, i.e, had the humans been absent from the chain of events, the chip would never have existed. However, this stance does not afﬁrm that the existence of the humans is unnatural.

Now, every mention of an improvement in the physical and mental capabilities of a human underscores an artiﬁcial enhancement. Ida asserts there is a difference between natural enhancements and artiﬁcial enhancements of an individual. He provides an objective illustration: A candidate studying every day for a demanding examination and being rewarded with the highest grade can be termed as the realization of the person using their naturally given capabilities. The mental enhancement that results from a continuous practice using the natural endowments of a person is what, according to the Ida, constitutes the oriental deﬁnition of a natural enhancement. However, he opposes the view, where an examinee uses genetic enhancement to improve their performance in the examination. Such a modiﬁcation, according to Ida, is artiﬁcial and accounts for the “control and management of nature through knowledge and technology.”18    I may conclude that Ida’s position implies that every enhancement that is possible due to the presence of the modern humans and


17.  Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.






their technological growth is termed as unnatural. Here, the usage of the word “modern” is important, as the enhancements caused due to pre-historic agricultural and urban settlements are considered by Ida as natural.19


3. Enhancements as beliefs and concepts


Despite Ida’s perception of technology as artiﬁcial, he maintains that the humans are fundamentally natural. However, the way the humans have used the natural resources during their evolution to develop technology has separated them from nature, and is thus, unnatural. As such, transhumans can exist if only we develop artiﬁcial enhancements. Such individuals cannot be termed as natural and therefore personhood cannot be associated with a transhuman. In the Venn diagram of ideas and beliefs, Ida would place the personhood of a transhuman outside the domain of beliefs.  Humans are thought to have a natural order, and the enhancements acts as a deviation from the natural to create a transhuman is unnatural.


3.1 Savulescu’s independent observer


Extending Ida’s premise of the natural human, I state two possible attributes of being human: it is an attainable state of existence or it is a mathematical state of approximation.20  If the notion of personhood an intangible concept, like inﬁnity, personhood can be approximated to, but never reached physically. Whereas, if it is an


19.  Ida considers agriculture, which involves the cultivation of the land and the manipulation of the

natural order in the land ecosystem. His concerns begins with technology. I consider, in a later section, the deﬁnition of technology. Should any tool making be termed as technology, or is it just the modern improvements? In other words, how different is the building of a chisel to that of a computer?

20.  I use the terms being human and personhood interchangeably



attainable state, there is a set of clauses, obtaining which, an individual can possess personhood. Moreover, if human nature is a mathematical approximation of propositions, individuals whom I consider transhumans in the contemporary society, may be deﬁned as humans in a transhumanist society, for a change in the social paradigms would witness the growth of the set of beliefs. Here, I reason that enhancement cannot make us any more or any less human, using the view of an independent observer, a view which is against the oriental perspective as asserted by Ida.21


3.1.1 The Natural and the Artiﬁcial to the Independent Observer


The differentiation of the human and the natural underscores the separation of the two. It asserts the East Asian perspective upheld by Ida, who considers living amidst nature, but excludes the human when considering natural.22  However, the differentiation of the unnatural from the natural enhancement is a propensity that is historically evident in both the Eastern and the Western traditions, where philosophers have sought to distinguish between the natural and the human.

In an attempt to nullify this distinction, I consider Savulescu’s independent observer. Let us contemplate a hypothetical scenario where there exists an intelligent species on a different star system, who apparently, have developed warp drive and traveled to Earth to observe human activities. From the perspective of our visitor,


21.  Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings.  Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom, Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009: 59-70.




PAGE 10:

anthropocentric values are inconsistent; their superior intelligence afﬁrms that our technological developments and the reworking of the Earth’s surface, to them, is synonymous to our view of say, the chimpanzee using tools and displaying empathy. Savulescu terms such an observer, an independent one, who is not only devoid of my anthropocentric biases, but is also able to comprehend human intelligence. Our premise examines if the independent observer would consider our creations natural. We often attribute the same characteristic of animals using tools to the chimpanzee who uses a tool and the hummingbird who builds its nest. I reason that the association of our building of a modern city and the building of the ant-hill by the army ants to the intelligent observer is coherent and logically consistent with the premise that the observer is more intelligent than both the species. To them, without the presence of the army ants on the planet, the ant colonies and the ant-hill would never have existed, as would a city of humans without the humans. The hypothesis is also a reminder to us that our creation of advanced tools and computer technology is but a better manipulation of the natural resources available to us. The army ant uses its own armor (its natural endowment) and twigs (utilization of natural resources) to dig the soil and create the ant-hill. Similarly, we use advanced iron ore, and bricks and cement (advanced utilization of natural resources) to create buildings in a city. Evidently, to the observer, the distinction between the ants and the humans is in the advancements of tool making. As such, when we invent physical enhancements to create a transhuman, the inherent nature of the device would be termed natural to such an observer. The argument bridges the gap between the human and the natural, which in the ﬁrst place existed because of our human-centric approach to the problem. The transhuman, I can


PAGE 11:

reason, is a natural product, owing to the advanced use of the natural resources available to us.

To return to the initial argument concerning the beliefs and the ideas of a natural and an artiﬁcial enhancement, I conclude that the enhancement as a natural process is an idea for Ida, which exists as a belief to the independent observer. So far, I have concluded that the enhancements required to create a transhuman are natural; let us now explore the personhood of a transhuman. Due to the scope of this paper, I limit myself to the attribution of personhood to the transhuman individual. I assume personhood as a natural characteristic of the human individual owing to its development in us without any unnatural process. The human tag is associated with an individual who possesses personhood, as I discussed in the introduction. To analyze the possibility of a transhuman to be perceived as a human, in the following section, I study the ﬁctional character Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.


4. Data and Personhood


Data is an android character created by Gene Roddenberry for his popular science ﬁction series. The android is anthropomorphic in its appearance and functions. Data is programmed to evolve, and his goal is to become more and more human. According to Gene Roddenberry, the character was to be the closest one can be to a human without being a human.23  Nevertheless, the quintessential requirement to be a human, as mentioned above, is the possession of personhood. Data is a transhuman;


23.   Savulescu, Julian.  Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings.Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom, Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009: 59-70.


PAGE 12:

he has capabilities, which transcends the physical and mental capacities of the average human. He is stronger, can think faster, and though made of silicon, he is able to evolve. At the outset, I shall consider Data a life form, as urged by Roddenberry.24   Besides, according the prevalent NASA’s deﬁnition of life, Data is capable to reproducing and evolving in a Darwinian approach. However, is Data a person? To answer this question, I retreat to Hume’s ideas and beliefs  to differentiate between Data’s personhood considering our social paradigms.

4.1 Beliefs and Ideas concerning transhumanism


According to Ida, Data does not possess the characteristics about the ideals of personhood, owing to his artiﬁcial birth. I shall analyze Data’s status quo as a human, despite his physical differences. Ida’s foremost appeal towards a human person is arguably an attempt to nullify the idea of unnatural improvements. In the previous two sections, we have concluded that from the view of an unbiased, independent observer, the improvements are natural, even if they include an enhancement using technology.

According to the Star Trek canon, given the right circumstances, Data acts like a human.25  Alan Turing pioneered the idea of a machine imitating a human in his famous experiment where the machine is able to fool the human into making him think that the machine was a human. He delved into the idea of a thinking machine. Data’s nature is similar to the dichotomy I analyzed in the ﬁrst section. Firstly, he is an android. He is made of silicon chips rather than ﬂesh and blood. He lacks the accepted deﬁnition of a human, but Roddenberry came up with the idea of an emotion chip, a device when


24.  Roddenberry, Gene. “Datalore”.  Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.

25.  Roddenberry, Gene.  Star Trek: The Next Generation.


PAGE 13:

placed in Data’s circuits makes him “experience” human emotions.26   Often, Data is incapable of handling the emotions that he is subjected to due to their mathematical complexity, but the fact that he can experience a new emotion that is not controlled by the machine acts for the argument of assigning personhood with Data. He is able to think, to sacriﬁce, to love, to feel pain and even get confused with the emotion chip. As such, with the device implanted in Data’s body transforms the android into an individual having personhood. But should such an individual be called a human being? It can be argued that Data acts as a nonhuman with the subtraction of a certain chemical in their brain, but I reason that the lack of certain chemicals in the human brain can render a naturally born human, a non-person. As such, the criteria I discussed about Data’s personhood is consistent with humans as well; the fact that it’s an emotion chip that prevents Data from being a human is compatible logically.


4.2 Personhood as an approximation


As such, I can reason that the concept of transhuman is just an idea of an extended human. It’s a trans-person, someone more capable in some respect and less capable in other aspects of an individual socially accepted as a human. This is especially true for those who claim that being human cannot be reduced to a set of speciﬁc clauses; it is an intangible property.

 At the beginning of the paper, I limited myself to the empirical association of personhood to being human. Every individual who is a human possesses personhood. This condition does not necessarily imply that every possessor of personhood is a human. Rather, anyone not having personhood devoid themselves off the idea of being


26.  Roddenberry, Gene. “Generations”. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.


PAGE 14:

a human. Data, on the other hand, as I concluded, has personhood. He shows every characteristic that would tag him the notion of being a human. As such, being human has a necessary condition in personhood. Since, I have concluded that personhood is limited mostly by my acceptance of ideas into beliefs, I reason, there are no set of reducible clauses that would deﬁne the personhood of an individual.


5.  Conclusion


The essay began with an inspiration in popular science ﬁction, and how the ideas relating to personhood apply to Data, the anthropomorphized android from Star Trek.27


 I borrow the idea of mathematical inﬁnity to reﬂect upon his goal. Inﬁnity, for all its uses in

calculus, has never been deﬁned. It is the abstract notion of a number which is larger than every other number imagined by the human mind. From Hume’s empirical point of view, inﬁnity is not in the domain of a belief, for it’s incoherent with human experience. The only way I can deﬁne inﬁnity is by limiting myself to the idea.  As an instance a statement in symbolic mathematics,


limn  --> infinity 1/ n = 0

implies that the value of 1/ n is 0, when n tends to inﬁnity. Here, n is an integer; it never actually reaches inﬁnity for an integer is presumed to be in the domain of a belief, it has an empirical existence in the human mind. As such, despite the immensity of its value, n always represents a number, which excludes the possibility of being inﬁnite. The above expression, thus is concerned about the value that 1/n obtains, as n becomes larger,


27.  The choice to include Data ahead of C3PO or other androids is based on Data’s goal throughout the Star Trek series:  to become as close to being a human without becoming a human.


PAGE 15:

which is 0.  In other words, the statement doesn’t prove the equivalence of the value of

n to inﬁnity but of the equivalence of the value of 1/n to 0.


The analysis of Data’s personhood has synonymity in the deﬁnition of his goal: to become human.


Ideas/ Personhood of Data

Beliefs/ Accepted notion of personhood


The ﬁgure points out two constraints:

•to be a member of the set of beliefs, a concept has to be a set of ideas (Hume’s deﬁnition).

•the set of beliefs and the set of ideas are not necessarily equal. In other words, there are ideas which may not be beliefs.

Data’s personhood would be recognized by the social constraints as I learn that from an independent observer’s position, it’s our limitations that would not confer personhood on Data in the present society. I have drawn the set of beliefs in dotted lines to represent an ever changing set of the societal paradigms and our acceptance of who is a human; a notion that, in time, will broaden enough to include the personhood of Data. Personhood, as such, is alike inﬁnity which is abstract, on its own, but tends to function when applied to a physical object to which I am acquainted. As I, from an unbiased approach deﬁne the relationship of Data and the notion of being human, I


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observe an equivalence between Data and a human, as he evolves towards his personhood.28




limData --> Personhood Data = Human”





Hume, D. Sec. vii



Hume, D. Sec. vii



Hume, D., An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.


Hume, D. Sec. vii



.•Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.






Manzo, Silvia. "Francis Bacon: Freedom, Authority and Science."  British Journal for the History of Philosophy  14.2 (2006): 245-73. ProQuest.Web. 29 Apr. 2013.


Morris, John. "Pattern Recognition in Descartes' Automata."  Isis  60 (1969): 451-60. ProQuest.

Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

Rozemond, Marleen. "Descartes's Case for Dualism."  Journal of the History of Philosophy

 33.1 (1995): 29-63.  ProQuest. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

Roddenberry, Gene.  Star Trek: The Next Generation.



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Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek: The Next Generation.


Roddenberry, Gene. “Datalore”. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.


Taub, Liba. Ptolemy's Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy's Astronomy., 1993. ProQuest. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Xenophanes, Clement of Alexandria, Book V. 110.



1.  I generalize the notion of a transhuman, where an  individual with any form of enhancement that enables them to better their functioning, physically or mentally, is called a transhuman.

Also, considering that our understanding is materialized by perception, I consider bias to be an a-priori tautology. We perceive matter, as it were, through the senses. In other words, spatial and temporal occurrences in nature trigger the stimulus that engender into (engender into?) the perceptions we undergo. What we perceive as physical objects are the result of the reactions due to events that cause the materialization of the physical objects.

2.  “Personhood” is often taken to have a very special and speciﬁc meaning in philosophy —those things with personhood have moral latency; that is, they are objects of moral concern, are worthy of being cared about, have rights, have responsibilities, etc. Persons often are thought to be those things that can make decisions, or, at the very least, are things that we make decisions about legally and morally, because they are important and worthy of moral judgment.

3.  Personhood => Human

               not (Human) => not(Personhood)

[Note:  Amazing -- another plunge into philosophy -- this time by a transhumanist using a modern philosopher (Hume-the-empiricist and utilitarian) and a special mathematical formula to justify Posthuman “Personhood” -- specifically, the “personhood” of Data, the Star Trek android!  If ever there was an example of someone using the subject matter and method of one field (math) while trying to analyze the subject matter of a different field (philosophical anthropology, or how to define “a human being”) it is this article -- and apparently he doesn’t even know that he is violating the division and methods of the “sciences”!  (Same weird phenomenon with engineers, physicists and mathematicians doing human genetics in biology!).  E.g., you can’t study math with a microscope, and you don’t have a bus driver perform brain surgery!  Another sizzling failure of NanoBioInfoCogno.  (Whoever thought that up?!).

Not to mention that all “modern” philosophies (including utilitarian bioethics) are riddled with problems that real philosophers are fully aware of, and Hume is no exception -- especially the theoretically devastating “mind/body split”.   Additionally, David Hume (1711-1776):

“ ... questioned common notions of personal identity, and argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of causal forces in the external world itself.  ...  In the philosophy of religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject religions that are founded on miracle testimonies. ...  In moral theory, against the common view that God plays an important role in the creation and reinforcement of moral values, he offered one of the first purely secular moral theories, which grounded morality in the pleasing and useful consequences that result from our actions. He introduced the term “utility” into our moral vocabulary, and his theory is the immediate forerunner to the classic utilitarian views of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.”  Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at:  http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/

But this writer is apparently clueless as to the “cons” of Humean philosophy or of utilitarian bioethics which render irrelevant this writer’s wished-for conclusion below --including the “cons” of transhumanist/bioethicist student of Peter Singer, Savulescu.  In a real philosophical analysis it is required to acknowledge both the “pros” and the “cons” of any particular philosophical position and respond to those “cons” before adopting that philosophical position as your own -- otherwise your opponent will gladly hurl them at you.  You can’t just pick and choose bits and pieces of a particular philosophical tradition that please you and gets you where you want to go, and ignore the bits and pieces that you don’t want.

And while some “personhood” standards and definitions of "a human being" are simply matters of "evolving" social constructions (such as that proposed in the following article), not all “personhood” standards are.  Indeed, some are inherently empirically grounded in our objective knowledge of human beings -- whole human beings, that is.  [See Irving, “Philosophical and scientific expertise:  An evaluation of the arguments on ‘personhood’”, Linacre Quarterly February 1993, 60:1:18-46, at:  http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_04person1.html;   also "What is 'bioethics'?" (June 3, 2000), at:  http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_36whatisbioethics01.html].

I do wonder what kind of “academic” organization would even want to post the following hypothetical space-alien perspective of the "independent observer" using symbolic mathematical/utilitarian philosophical/bioethical  “analysis” to argue for the possible social-constructed “personhood” for posthumans based on infinity.   But I’m sure NBIC and WTEC -- and Roddenberry -- will love it.  PS -- if you can’t follow the “logic” of the following article, or get dizzy, it’s not you.  The article first appeared here. --  DNI]



]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1334932 2018-10-22T05:11:00Z 2018-10-22T17:11:32Z

by Anonymous


In today’s world with President Trump getting hit daily I decided a little Bible Lesson might be
appropriate. Remember what Jesus said: 'Goats on the left, sheep on the right' (Matthew 25:33).

Jesus also told Peter that if he wanted to catch fish do it from the right side of the boat He did and filled the boat with fish.

John 21:6 (NIV) ... He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some."  When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish."

 Origin of Left & Right..

I have often wondered why it is that Conservatives are called the "right" and Liberals are called the "left".

By chance I stumbled upon thisverse in the Bible: Ecclesiastes10:2 (NIV) - "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."

Thus saith the Lord.

It surely can't get any simpler than that.

Spelling Lesson: The last four letters in American......... I Can

The last four letters in Republican:....... I Can

The last four letters in Democrats:....... Rats

End of lesson! ...Test to follow on November 6, 2018.

Remember, November 2018 is to be set aside as Rodent Removal month.  

Please share this Bible Lesson with all your friends and email buddies to help achieve that

Never grow a wishbone where a backbone ought to be.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1333879 2018-10-19T15:05:00Z 2018-10-19T15:12:25Z

by Gerald Weston


We are hearing this week of a record mega-lottery here in the United States. Some people tweeted the following answers to the question, “What would you do if you won a billion dollars?” One said he would build the wall between Mexico and the U.S. Another said he would rebuild Mexico Beach on the Gulf coast, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. And another said he would give some to charity and spend the rest of his life hunting and fishing.

Perhaps you dream about what you would do with a billion dollars, or a significant fraction of that amount. After all, one hundred million, or even ten million, will go a long way! Many people, when asked the question, say they would give a portion to charity. I’m sure they are sincere in saying this, but would they really build the wall or give it all to rebuild a destroyed city? Maybe, but probably not.

Have you ever considered that, in principle, you have already won the lottery? Let me explain.

Jesus made it plain that His message was not understandable by the majority. For example, Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44), repeating this truth to His disciples shortly afterward (v. 65). How few understand this! Consider also, why did Jesus speak in parables? It is not the reason I heard in Sunday school. Jesus’ own disciples asked Him this very question. Here was His answer: “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matthew 13:11). A parallel account on this same occasion adds, “But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples” (Mark 4:34).

If you understand these things you are part of a very small group of people. You understand, not because you are more intelligent or better than others, but because God has specially selected you to do His end-time Work. He opened your mind to precious truth not generally understood by billions on earth today! No, it is not a lottery based on chance. It is selection by the Creator of the universe! But as with lotteries, only a precious few win, and you have been called to win!

Jesus’ parables reflect the value of knowledge you receive from Tomorrow’s World and the Living Church of God, the sponsor of Tomorrow’s World. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44–46).

The Apostle Peter wrote an encouraging passage regarding the difficult and painful things we experience in life. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6–7). And Paul wrote, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

These passages and parables all point to one great truth: Everything physical will perish, but the choices we make in life and the faith in God that we express by our actions are of far greater value than the things for which most people crave. As John instructs us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.    And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15, 17).

We do not like to think about it, but we will all come to the end of this physical existence, and the end of the trail comes sooner than we once thought. Young people may know this academically. Older folks measure the days (Psalm 39:4).

What if you did win the mega-lottery? How long would it last? What would you do with it? What truly lasting value would hunting and fishing give you in the end? Now please understand. Hunting and fishing have worthy recreational value, and I personally try to take off a few days each year to go fishing, but should that be the purpose of one’s life? What happens when the end of the trail comes? Then what?

The fact that you are reading this indicates you are probably one who sees more to life than another fishing trip, a game of golf, or winning the mega-lottery. Your contributions and your prayers show your love for God and your love for others (Matthew 22:35–40).

Our offices around the world receive a continual stream of letters from individuals thanking us for what we give them free of charge. We also receive some not too flattering letters, but that is fine. We know that we are reaching beyond the choir! However,  I want to share a few comments with you, because you make them possible and these people want to thank you. I have embolden a few words for emphasis.

Here is a letter from Colorado from a reader who appreciated our booklet explaining the purpose of life. “Good Day. I just want to thank you for the Booklet: Your Ultimate Destiny! Awesome!!! Really opened my mind! Keep up the Good Work! GOD Bless You All.” If you have not read this booklet, please let us know and we will send you a free copy. It explains the very purpose of life straight from the pages of the Bible. Can there be any more valuable truth?

A writer from South Africa wants you to know how much he appreciates you. “I just want to thank you for the booklet and the Bible Study Course. Thanks for all the People at Tomorrow's World. You are Highly Appreciated! GOD Bless!”

A woman shared her thoughts by e-mail regarding a Tomorrow’s World article. “I read ‘Which Jesus Do You Worship,’ and it left me wondering and wanting to know more. Cause it is my heart’s desire to follow Christ Jesus. Thank you for waking me up.” You make the magazine possible, so we share her thanks with you!

Earlier this year someone from Perth, Australia wrote regarding Dr. Roderick C. Meredith’s series on the Protestant Reformation. “I am in receipt of May-June 2018 T/W magazine, for which as always, I am deeply grateful. . . . May Almighty God through Christ Jesus, continue to Bless each of you in this Wonderful Work that you are doing, and [I] look forward to receiving a copy of Dr. Meredith’s brilliant work.”

A subscriber from Toronto, Ontario wrote to express his appreciation. “Thank you so much for your ministry, you are helping people to understand we are living in the last days, and we have to live a life according to God’s Word. Thank you again. God Bless this Ministry.”

Some of our subscribers are in prison for serious sins committed earlier in life. This man writes from Hunlock, Pennsylvania. “Thank you for your magazine, Tomorrow’s World. . . . I am a life sentence prisoner serving a life without parole sentence. I have 30 years served so far. Your magazine helps me to keep my sanity in a world with so much misinformation and injustice. Your publication keeps me aware of what’s truly important.”

Another prisoner, this one from Marino, Ohio writes regarding Tomorrow’s World, “This magazine has been truly one of the most consistently read pieces of Christian literature in my 13½ years of incarceration. You guys are truly a blessing and exemplary of what a Christian today is to ‘look like’ and ‘sound like.’

There are so many more I could share with you, but I’ll give just one more. This one is from Gatundu, Kenya. “I have been transformed by your magazines. The word of God is real, [and has] become simpler and clearer each day.”

Okay, I cannot resist. Here is one more, from a woman in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. “Other than the Holy Bible itself, I have been searching for a teaching program [that] teaches ‘Sound Christian doctrine.’ I applaud your ‘FREE’ teachings that other programs want to charge a lot of money for. How else would poor people be able to understand this wicked world?

Once again, thank you for your part in making it possible to reach people of all races, nationalities, economic conditions, and ages. I pray that God fully opens your minds and hearts to the very purpose of life and that you will stand before the Son of God upon His return. You are making a difference through your tithes, offerings, and heartfelt prayers! Thank you dear friends!

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1333581 2018-10-18T15:55:39Z 2018-10-18T16:34:09Z

by Randy DeSoto

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doubled down Wednesday on a claim Sen. Kamala Harris made regarding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s views on birth control that multiple fact-checkers have already determined to be false.

“I want to be sure we’re all clear about something that Brett Kavanaugh said in his confirmation hearings last week. He referred to birth-control pills as ‘abortion-inducing drugs,'” Clinton tweeted. “That set off a lot of alarm bells for me, and it should for you, too.”

“Kavanaugh didn’t use that term because he misunderstands the basic science of birth control—the fact that birth control prevents fertilization of eggs in the first place. He used that term because it’s a dog whistle to the extreme right,” she added.

Hillary Clinton‏Verified account @HillaryClinton Sep 12


I want to be sure we're all clear about something that Brett Kavanaugh said in his confirmation hearings last week. He referred to birth-control pills as "abortion-inducing drugs." That set off a lot of alarm bells for me, and it should for you, too.

20,281 replies 41,031 retweets 137,358 likes



Kavanaugh didn't use that term because he misunderstands the basic science of birth control—the fact that birth control prevents fertilization of eggs in the first place. He used that term because it's a dog whistle to the extreme right.

6:14 AM - 12 Sep 2018


The Washington Post awarded Harris with four Pinocchios for sharing a selectively edited video about Kavanaugh while arguing that he is “going after” birth control.

The California Democrat tweeted footage of an exchange Kavanaugh had with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas during the judge’s confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cruz asked Kavanaugh about his dissent in the 2014 Priests for Life case before the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals involving the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.


The nominee answered by recounting the plaintiff priests’ position in the case regarding filling out a Department of Health and Human Services form to obtain a waiver from the contraception mandate, which, if accepted by HHS, required health insurance providers to offer the coverage free of charge to those who were interested.


Harris’s video omitted Kavanaugh saying, “they said,” making it appear that he was offering a statement about his views on the matter, and even birth control more broadly.

Harris wrote of the exchange in a tweet on Friday.

Kamala Harris‏Verified account @SenKamalaHarris



11:45 AM - 7 Sep 2018
8,538 replies 15,061 retweets 

Here is Kavanaugh's full answer. There's no question that he uncritically used the term "abortion-inducing drugs," which is a dog whistle term used by extreme anti-choice groups to describe birth control.




Kavanaugh explained to Cruz that the reason he dissented in the case was based on the Supreme Court’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores decision, which found business owners have the right not to provide contraception coverage to employees if it runs contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.

It should be noted that Hobby Lobby’s owners did not object to providing birth control coverage, which they were in fact doing, but did object to providing contraceptives they believe cause abortions, including “morning-after pills” and two types of intrauterine devices.

There are 16 other FDA-approved contraception methods that the company did not object to, as they prevent the egg from being fertilized in the first place.

However, the four methods of contraception at issue in the case “may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from developing any further by inhibiting its attachment to the uterus.” Thus, the concern was that by providing these abortifacients, they would be facilitating abortion.


After receiving significant criticism for her misleading tweet, Harris included Kavanaugh’s comments in context in a subsequent post, but argued, “There’s no question that he uncritically used the term ‘abortion-inducing drugs,’ which is a dog whistle term used by extreme anti-choice groups to describe birth control.”

The Washington Post was not buying the senator’s explanation.

“Harris’s decision to snip those crucial words (‘they said’) from her first post on the video is certainly troubling,” wrote Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler.

Regarding her follow up tweet, he added, “But there was no acknowledgment by Harris that the original tweet was misleading.”


Kessler concluded, “She earns Four Pinocchios — and her fellow Democrats should drop this talking point.”

Politifact also found Harris’ Twitter post in error.


“In Harris’ tweet, Kavanaugh appears to define contraception as abortion-inducing. But the video failed to include a crucial qualifier: ‘They said,’” Politifact reported.

“In fact, he was citing the definition of the religious group Priests for Life. He has not expressed his personal view,” the fact-checker added. “We rate this statement False.”

David French‏Verified account @DavidAFrench


David French Retweeted Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton comes barreling back into the conversation with a timely reminder that she’s one of the more prolific liars in modern American politics.

David French added,

Hillary ClintonVerified account @HillaryClinton
Show this thread
7:18 AM - 12 Sep 2018
175 replies 652 retweets 2,373 likes

National Review’s David French chastised Clinton for grabbing onto Harris’ claim against Kavanaugh, which she should have known to be false.



He tweeted, “Hillary Clinton comes barreling back into the conversation with a timely reminder that she’s one of the more prolific liars in modern American politics.”

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1333281 2018-10-17T16:41:00Z 2018-10-17T16:41:17Z



by H. Sterling Burnett


If finalized the proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to freeze fuel-economy targets at 2020 levels through 2026 is good news for anyone concerned about consumer choice, vehicle affordability, and highway safety.

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s determination freezing fuel-economy standards would benefit the American people should surprise no one, because in April EPA announced it would revoke the Obama-era standards requiring cars and light trucks sold in the United States to achieve an average of more than 50 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025.

President Obama signed off on the 50 mpg standards just before leaving office in December 2016, two years before the previous standards were scheduled to be reviewed. Studies show the 50 mpg standard would substantially increase the price of cars, change the composition of the nation’s automobile and light truck fleet, and put lives at risk.

The “Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks” is a culmination of EPA’s consultation with NHTSA to determine how fuel-economy standards can best balance consumers’ concerns about automobile affordability, vehicle safety, and fuel economy. 


“There are compelling reasons for a new rulemaking on fuel economy standards for 2021-2026. More realistic standards will promote a healthy economy by bringing newer, safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles to U.S. roads and we look forward to receiving input from the public,” stated Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

EPA calculates freezing fuel-economy standards at 2020 levels through 2026 will save more than 500 billion dollars in societal costs over the next 50 years and reduce highway fatalities by 12,700 lives. 

Fuel standard mandates began in 1975, when Congress established Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to reduce dependence on foreign oil following the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo. The law required car manufacturers to meet mandated fuel-economy targets or else pay a hefty tax on gas-guzzling sedans. What happened? Some people bought smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Others, however, started driving trucks, and new categories of vehicles were born: SUVs and minivans.

Over the years, compact cars have become less popular because of low fuel prices, underpowered engines, and lack of passenger and storage space. Most full-sized cars and trucks can seat five adults, and minivans and many SUVs can seat between seven and nine people. Numerous SUVs, trucks, and minivans offer ample cargo space and are capable of hauling a trailer or boat, which no subcompact can do safely. 

Ironically, the high popularity of trucks, SUVs, and minivans is at least partially a result of environmentalists’ efforts to reduce the appeal of large, powerful cars. EPA’s stringent fuel-economy standards didn’t apply to trucks, SUVs, or minivans, which didn’t then exist. So, to keep the features they liked, millions of people replaced the family sedan or station wagon with an SUV or truck. As fuel efficiency increased and driving became cheaper, people drove more miles — thereby negating the marginal gains of owning more-fuel-efficient vehicles.

CAFE standards did not reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil — it would take the fracking revolution to do that — but they did have deadly unintended consequences. To meet federal fuel-economy guidelines, carmakers reduced vehicle size, weight, and power. By doing so, manufacturers compromised cars’ safety, resulting in tens of thousands of unnecessary injuries and deaths in vehicle crashes. For every 100 pounds shaved off new cars to meet CAFE standards, between 440 and 780 additional people are killed in auto accidents, amounting to 2,200 to 3,900 lives lost per year, according to researchers at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution. As a result, CAFE has resulted in more deaths than all U.S. soldiers lost in the Vietnam War and every U.S. military engagement since then.

The laws of physics will never change. In a vehicle crash, larger and heavier is safer than lighter and smaller. EPA’s fuel-economy freeze will prevent unnecessary deaths while protecting consumer choice.

If fuel economy is the driving force behind your purchasing decisions, nothing changes under EPA’s decision to freeze current fuel-economy standards. You are free to continue buying the electric, hybrid, or clean diesel vehicle of your choice. If, however, comfort, power, vehicle safety, and the ability to haul a boat or ferry a little league team are your goals, EPA’s CAFE freeze ensures you can continue to make that choice as well. 

Ain’t freedom grand!

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1332952 2018-10-16T17:20:59Z 2018-10-18T13:09:51Z

by Allen Williams



Kansas Gas Corporation is back for another rate increase in just two years, Docket No.:18-KGSG-560 RTS   The last one having been approved in 2016.  KGS is a subsidiary of ONE Gas.  ONE Gas Inc is another large conglomerate supplying Oklahoma, Eastern Kansas and parts of Texas where guaranteed levels of income are desired regardless of overall consumption.    

Breitbart reports that Electric, Gas, and Water Rates Falling Due to Trump Tax Cuts 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut the corporate rate from 35% to 21%.. Utility companies are passing on the tax savings in the form of lower rates for customers,” – Americans for Tax Reform.

But this phenomenon is apparently not true in Kansas where utility rates continue to rise.  


The ONE Gas financial report at http://investor.onegas.com/news/news-releases/news-details/2018/ONE-Gas-Announces-First-quarter-2018-Financial-Results/default.aspx  shows:

Net margin increased by $0.8 million compared with first quarter 2017, which primarily reflects:

  • A $5.1 million increase from new rates primarily in Texas and Kansas;
  • A $2.5 million increase from the impact of the weather-normalization mechanisms in Kansas and Oklahoma;
  • A $2.5 million increase due primarily to higher transportation volumes;
  • A $1.2 million increase attributed to net residential customer growth in Oklahoma and Texas;
  • A $0.9 million increase due to a compressed natural gas excise tax credit that was enacted in February 2018 and retroactive to 2017; and
  • A $0.8 million increase in rider and surcharge recoveries due to a higher ad-valorem surcharge in Kansas, which is offset with higher regulatory amortization expense; offset by
  • A $12.3 million decrease related to the deferral of potential refund obligations from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

So KGS admits revenues are up from a combined increase in Texas and Kansas but it’s NOT enough! There appears to be no end to KGS rate and new cost factor requests, the latest being the Kansas  Gas System Reliability Surcharge which now is to include Cyber attacks.  Why not include impact from the stock market impact in a cost factor as well?

SOURCE:  http://investor.onegas.com/investors/financial-reporting/earnings-and-guidance/default.aspx

 “ONE Gas 2018 net income is expected to be in the range of $167 million to $178 million, or $3.15 to $3.35 per diluted share. The midpoint for ONE Gas’ 2018 net income guidance is $172 million, or $3.25 per diluted share.”

Requests for Kansas utility rate increases are a revolving door chiefly to guarantee satisfactory dividends to ONE Gas investors.  The current KGS request increase is a 10% rate hike to consumers when inflation currently stands at 2.3%.

Is there ANYTHING the rate payer is NOT being asked to fund?  Where is the promise of lower rates to get the earlier rate increase approvals?  Just lies as the market for gas has improved revenues rather than diminished them. Instead rate payers are asked to pay dividends of $3.35 a share. But why stop there? Why not $5.15 or even $10 a share? 

General Motors a for profit corporation is paying just $0.38 cents per share as of their 1st Quarter 2018 financial report:  http://quote.morningstar.com/stock-filing/Quarterly-Report/2018/3/31/t.aspx?t=:GM&ft=&d=8ba56ee4bdd422dcb28a39f579bc9cda while Kansans are forced to pay dividends in the dollar range. WHY?

Extraneous surcharges mask the true price users pay for gas services and in effect are automatic rate bumpers that increase consumer bills unfairly for such things as weather, reliability etc. It is an effective hedge against conservation.  These charges are designed to keep utility bills from advantaging consumers by being too low.  The KGS COG delivery charge is an example.   In Sept of 2018 the service charge was 0.4 MCF at a stated rate of $3.85 per 1000 ft3. 


This $0.4*1000 ft3 * $3.8523/1000 ft3 = $1.54 COG

So the ratio of gas consumption to the charge for providing it is $16.70/$1.54 or 10.84 nearly 11 times the cost of the gas which illustrates my point.  Now KGS wants to increase the delivery service charge from $16.70 to $22.66 which is $22.66/ $1.54 or 14.7 times the cost of the gas.

The result is that KGS customers will pay nearly 15 times as much for the gas to be delivered to their home as for the actual gas consumed not to mention all the other ‘hedge factors’.  The rest of the bill is local taxes.  When service charges exceed the cost of a product by double digits the company is gouging consumers.


BreitBart continues:  “Thus far, ATR has found 102 utility companies that have lowered rates or ceased rate hikes due to President Trump’s tax cuts.”

Why do ONE Gas/KGS customers have to fund dividends at a higher rate than General Motors, #21 on the 2017 fortune 500 list despite a record federal tax cut?

I seriously question the company’s claim that it has “experienced increases in payroll expenses and supplier costs” to justify their current rate request. These cost claims appear to be creative paper expenses towards the end of providing investor dividends.

102 other utilities have either decreased rates or ceased rate requests but not Kansas?  

Commission Consultants are not tantamount to citizen ratepayer oversight of a regulated monopoly

The KGS rate increase is nothing short of rubber stamp legalized robbery.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1332575 2018-10-15T05:11:00Z 2018-10-15T17:18:59Z



WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 17: U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the inaugural meeting of the Presidents National Council for the American Worker in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on September 17, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Oliver Contreras - Pool/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump ordered the declassification of several documents and texts related to the FBI’s Russia investigation during the 2016 presidential election.

Included among the documents are the 21 pages of the FISA court application used by the FBI to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Monday.

Sanders added that the president has also directed the release of all reports by the FBI of interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr in relation to the Russia investigation.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Trump further ordered the public release of all text messages concerning the Russia investigation, “without redaction,” from former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, and Ohr.
The House Intelligence and House Oversight and Government Reform committees have both been seeking the unredacted FISA applications on Carter Page for months.
Fox News reported sources familiar with the matter do not know how soon the documents will be released, but the release covered “pretty much everything that (House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes) wanted … and the text messages are a bonus.”
Nunes stated on FNC on Sunday, “If the president wants the American people to really understand just how broad and invasive this investigation has been to many Americans and how unfair it has been, he has no choice but to declassify” key documents.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise praised Trump’s decision to release the FISA documents and text messages, tweeting, the president “made the right call. Americans deserve the truth about these egregious actions by government officials.”


Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Mark Meadows tweeted after Trump’s announcement, “Transparency wins.”

“It’s time to get the full truth on the table so the American people can decide for themselves on what happened at the highest levels of their FBI and Justice Department,” he added.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., accused Trump of “ordering the selective disclosure of classified materials he believes helpful to his defense.”

“The DOJ and FBI have previously informed me that release of some of this information would cross a ‘red line,’” he wrote.

On Monday morning, Trump tweeted about a Fox News report concerning Lisa Page’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in July during which she stated the FBI had found no evidence of Russia collusion by May 2017, when special counsel Robert Mueller was named to take over the investigation.

“Therefore, the case should never have been allowed to be brought. It is a totally illegal Witch Hunt!” wrote the president.

In another tweet, he wrote, “Immediately after Comey’s firing Peter Strzok texted to his lover, Lisa Page ‘We need to Open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy (McCabe, also fired) is acting.”


“Page answered, ‘We need to lock in (redacted). In a formal chargeable way. Soon.’ Wow, a conspiracy caught?” Trump wondered.

Senior Staff Writer

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]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1331583 2018-10-12T16:28:00Z 2018-10-12T16:28:45Z

by Robert Oscar Lopez


{An excellent 2014 article that exposes the insipidness of gay adoption:  Lopez considers himself a “children’s advocate” in rejecting gay marriage and gay adoption.  In the process he is also addressing one of the greatest threats to the survival of the family in recent history, especially with the global explosion of gay surrogacy and gay adoption.  Some of the dark “underworld” agendas he hints at need more attention -- publicly.  Read his own story at:  http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065. -- DNI]


S.E. Cupp is one of the latest media figures to make a pitch on gay marriage and adoption.  As is often the case, she throws out so many canards in this cocktail of insipidness, one scarcely knows where to begin

I will say conservatives have got to move on gay marriage....[and] on gay adoption. If abortion is the abhorrent option – and I believe it is – then adoption by any two loving people has got to be the better option. 

First of all, the latest estimates indicate that somewhere between 12-15% of heterosexual couples struggle with infertility.  Currently many of these viable homes, rather than adopting, are being steered to the artificial reproduction market and contributing to the 1.5% (and rising) of live American births tied to in vitro technology.  The alternative to abortion is obviously to get more of these viable straight couples to avoid sperm-banking or surrogacy, and to consider adopting instead.

Anyone who’s lost a birth parent to death, divorce, or a tragedy knows that a kid feels the absence of a father or mother.  This is square one for adoptees, orphans, children of divorce, or children of same-sex couples – someone was there when you were born, and now he or she is not there.  That person is a very real human being, tied to you by flesh and blood.  A kid mourns the missing person, thinks about him, longs to reconnect with him.  It hurts to be cut off from a mother or father.  I was cut off from my dad because he divorced my lesbian mother; I was reared by two women.

It’s not a small thing to make a kid grow up without a father because a bunch of self-centered adults can’t get their acts together.  I’ve had enough of pundits like S.E. Cupp being so glib about things that are incredibly painful for people who are actually in these situations, and powerless about it to boot.  If you haven’t been raised by a gay couple and you haven’t been adopted, it might be hard to understand how offensive it is to hear people on TV talk about fraught transactions like adoption and same-sex parenting with such confident nonchalance.

One of the unnoticed ironies in the debate on gay adoption has to do with David Brock, the chieftain at Media Matters, whose subdivision Equality Matters has gone after me more than once for my views on a child’s right to his mother and father.  Brock spent much of his 2002 memoirs, Blinded by the Right, on the pain he felt about being adopted.  In fact, his adoption weighed on him and complicated his relationship with his father much more than did his gayness. You would think that Brock would understand why it’s not such a simple thing to yank kids from a birth family and toss him into a home with one or two adults unrelated to him.  Ironic self-awareness is apparently lacking on the left.  {And with Child Protective Services who often remove children from their true parents with out sufficient justification. - ED}

The truth is that adoption in the United States is too expensive, and many heterosexual couples find the costs prohibitive, so they are priced out of the market by gay couples, who have much higher incomes and are, 100% of the time, forced to take babies from other people since they cannot conceive them on their own.  In fact, gay adopters have such an insatiable desire to parlay their high incomes into cash-for-kids that they waged a war against Catholic Charities adoption centers, going as far as forcing many such agencies to shut down as punishment for not giving gay couples other people’s abandoned children.

The dirty secret about gay adoption is that most often when homosexual couples adopt, one of their pair is the biological parent.  Usually the child comes from a former heterosexual relationship that broke down.  So when they “adopt,” they typically have to put a bunch of people through the mud fight that my dear friend Janna endured: they have to drag the opposite-sex parent to family court, strip him or her of custody, and then force the poor little kid to submit to the parental authority of a new, sometimes creepy, person who’s sleeping with a biological parent and very likely caused the breakup of that child's original family.

That’s the real-life adoption story that doesn’t make for great gay headlines.  Gay adoption has unfortunate but ineluctable ties to divorce.  In fact, by encouraging gay adoption so much, we are encouraging a whole new generation of homewreckers – gays who want to be parents and figure out that the cheapest way to do it is to seduce someone of the same sex who is currently in a rocky marriage with children.

You will hear, from time to time, about hundreds of thousands of children in foster care who can’t find families to adopt them.  This is a favorite statistic for gay marriage gurus to throw out as a kind of emotional Shock and Awe, a debate-stopper of the first order, especially if you can cough up an example of special-needs children being raised by adorable lesbians in Michigan.  There has never been a backlog of infants, so these holdouts are typically older children who landed in the child protective services system because of a crisis.  Many of them are kids who don’t want to placed with gay couples, or kids whom gay couples don’t want, either.  What people don’t tell you – because they don’t want to and don’t have to, until you push them on it – is that most of those children have living parents, or living kin networks, and the foster care system has to work on reuniting them with their struggling birth families.  Otherwise, the government would merely be an oppressive police state taking people’s kids away and signing them over to rich folks in exchange for cash, as happened in dictatorships like the kind that governed Argentina in the 1970s.

Most people don’t have the time to work through the nuances of foster care versus adoption.  Fewer still are aware of how many people in “Adoption Land” – the community of adoptees and adoptive families – are calling for massive reform in both foster care and adoption.  What gay activists are asking for, on both fronts, would actually be moving in the precisely wrong direction; gay lobbyists want agencies to speed up the process by which foster kids are cut off from their birth mothers and fathers and subordinated permanently to same-sex couples eager to acquire them.  On the international adoption front, even gay adoptive father Frank Ligtvoet has faced the painful reality that adoption systems are overemphasizing the desire of wealthy childless families rather than the needs of impoverished communities that are struggling to provide for their children (in the Huffington Post, no less).

It took a while for brave activists like Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy to apply the same critiques on the domestic fronts, but now, too, people are scrutinizing domestic adoptions and finding much to improve.  (The film Philomena, ironically, humanizes the pain of a birth mother who is pressured to give up her infant who turns out to be gay; despite the film’s sympathy for homosexuals, the gay movement is pushing to create more Philomenas nowadays so they can build their rainbow families.)

Foster care costs the public money, whereas adoption is a huge moneymaker for certain attorneys and even, in the United Kingdom and here, for social service agencies (see this article on the blowback that resulted from rewarding people too handsomely for placing foster kids in adoptive homes).  So the mentality that it’s always best to get kids out of foster care and into adoption is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, we have ample evidence that life in foster care is hard, and we know that many adoptive homes are great places to save suffering children from such instability.

(I should confess: when I was fifteen, there were problems in my home, and my father did not want to take me in, so he drove me to a “boarding school” in Maine, where I stayed while my home situation might improve.  It was very hard to feel abandoned, essentially, at the moment that my dad dropped me off at the main office with a check, but would it have made sense for some couple to adopt me at that point?  In the end I returned to my mothers’ home and finished high school early, going to college as a de facto emancipated minor.)

On the other hand, we have much to worry about when we envision rushing kids out of foster care into gay adoption.  Gay adoptive parents have proved just as capable as straight foster parents of kidnappingmurderabuserapechild pornography, and neglect involving the children they acquire.  So everything that’s painful about foster care with straight people is also painful about gay adoption; the difference is that in a gay adoption, the child loses forever his chance at having a mom and dad.  Whether adopters are gay or straight, it’s not a good idea to incentivize social services agencies’ power to remove children from troubled homes and transfer all parental equivalence to a new home without making a good-faith effort to repair problems with the birth family.

It sounds ominous to be in the position of “aging out” of foster care without having been adopted.  But it’s not necessarily as bad as it sounds.  You can still maintain contact with foster parents, but once you are emancipated, it is your choice to do that (not something forced on you by law), and you also have the choice to rebuild your relationship with your birth kin network, the way I rebuilt a relationship with my father as an adult.  My mother’s lesbian partner never adopted me, and that was probably the right decision.

Robert Oscar Lopez edits English Manif.  [See also his own “bio”: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065/ The article first appeared here.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1331226 2018-10-11T16:35:00Z 2018-10-11T16:34:47Z

By Jack Davis

An attorney who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration is under investigation for his role in dealings linked to the case against Paul Manafort, according to a report from CNN, citing sources “familiar with the matter.”

Manafort, who briefly served as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, was the target of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Manafort pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice, both having to do with dealings in Ukraine that took place years before his involvement with the Trump campaign.


CNN reported Friday that attorney Greg Craig, who was White House counsel from 2009 to 2010, is under scrutiny over whether he lobbied for Ukrainian leaders without registering as a foreign agent.

The investigation also touches on the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where Craig was a partner at the time.

Craig’s actions were taken after he left the White House, according to the report.

Connections between Manafort, the firm and Craig were revealed in filings in the Manafort case.

Craig’s attorney William Taylor III said his client did nothing wrong.

“Greg Craig was not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” Taylor said in a statement, Law.com reported.

Craig himself would not comment on the investigation.

This is not the first controversial case for Taylor, who represented Fusion GPS, the firm involved in the production of a dossier of discredited claims against Trump.

NBC News reported that Craig was the supervisor of Alex van der Zwaan, a Skadden lawyer who has pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and about communications concerning the Ukrainian politician for whom Manafort was also working.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and Justice Department have not yet decided if they will file charges against either Craig or the law firm, CNN reported.

The law firm was paid more than $4.6 million, which Manafort sought to hide, the court filing said.

Bloomberg reported that the law firm is also facing questions of conflict of interest in the issues surrounding former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Skadden lawyers, which would have included Craig,  may have violated their ethical responsibilities through their actions, said Rebecca Roiphe, who provides instruction on legal ethics at New York Law School.

“Skadden could face some problems with disciplinary authorities in D.C., assuming this is as bad and as baseless as described,” she said.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1330863 2018-10-10T16:42:00Z 2018-10-10T16:42:09Z

Owen Sullivan
By Owen Sullivan
Derek Walters was stuck in rush hour traffic when he got the call.

“Mr. Walters, this is Officer Rick Selznick of the Department of Treasury.”

The voice on the other end of the line was a gravelly, pack-a-day voice. It sounded serious.

“We need to have a little chat.”

Rick said Derek owed the government $5,000 in back taxes.

Rick said there was a warrant out for Derek’s arrest.

Rick said Derek was in big trouble.

Derek’s heart dropped into his stomach. His mouth went dry.

He couldn’t go to jail. He had a family, two kids in school and a new job to worry about.

He drove straight to the bank.  He was sure there had been a mistake. But now wasn’t the time to argue. He would pay the money to get the warrant squashed and try to get the money back later.  He withdrew $5,000 from his savings account and wired it to a bank account provided by Officer Selznick. All the while, never got off the phone with Rick.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Walters. You did the right thing.”

And just like that, Derek had fell for the biggest tax scam in American history.

Wrong Number

This week in Money & Crisis, we’ve been investigating a bombshell report that claims almost 50% of all phone calls in 2019 will be scam phone calls.  That means that every time you pick up the phone, there’s a 50/50 chance the person on the other end of the line will try to scam you out of your money.

Derek fell for one of the most prevalent scam techniques known as the “back taxes” scam.

“When I was explaining it to my wife, it was obvious it was a scam,” says Derek. “I mean, of course the Treasury Department doesn’t call you up and force you to wire money to them on the spot!  “But they put so much pressure on you, you don’t have time to think. It was like an action movie. ‘Do this NOW and the bomb won’t go off.’ That’s why they keep you on the phone. So you don’t have time to think.”

This is a common thread in reports of phone scams. The thieves will use the fear of jail time or financial ruin to manipulate their marks. But today, their attacks and techniques have become so varied, that it’s getting harder and harder to tell scams apart from legitimate phone calls. Sometimes, even saying one word is enough to get you into heaps of trouble.

Today, we’re going to delve the most common scams people fall for and some strategies for beating them.

The Robot

One of the most common types of scams is known as a robocaller. This is a pre-recorded message — usually that of a pleasant sounding woman — that will try to get you to fork over your credit card information.

They’ll hide their scam behind the pretense of collecting money for emergency relief, local charities and even political parties.

When you hear that pleasant sounding robot’s voice, hang up.

WARNING: Some of these robocallers will give you the “option” to unsubscribe by hitting nine on your keypad. Don’t do it. This just tells the scammers that this is an active phone line to be targeted for more scams.

The Silent Caller

Some scammers have found the best moneymaking strategy is…

Complete silence.

They simply call you up… say nothing… and record anything you say while you’re on the line. The goal is try and get you to say “yes” or anything else that could be used as a verbal contract. They’ll try and use this recording of you saying “yes” to sign you up to expensive subscriptions services.

There are variations on this strategy, where callers will ask you questions to trick you into saying yes, such as “can you hear me?” or “are you a homeowner?”

If you get caught by one of these scammers, know that your “yes” isn’t a valid contract. They will try and intimidate you and manipulate you psychologically into paying up. But you don’t owe these thugs jack.

Too Good to Be True

As a rule, if a stranger calls you to tell you “good news” they’re after your money.

Callers will make wild claims of extravagant prizes and free products. But in reality, these “awesome prizes” are nothing more than bait.

Scammers are just buttering you up to get you to listen to a sales pitch or to trick you into forking over your credit card details.

Common claims to watch out for are:

Foreign Lotteries: The winning ticket was purchased in your name or as a gift. All we need is a “small fee” to transfer the funds.

Free or Low Cost Travel Packages: These travel packages often have sky-high hidden fees. While others don’t exist at all. The scammer just takes your money and disappears.

Credit and Loans: These loans might look good up front. But hidden costs and sky-high interest means you’ll end up paying back far more than you bargained for.

Extended Car Warranties: Scammers will find out what car you drive and try to sell you overpriced, worthless warranties.

Scam Beating Strategies

  1. Don’t answer calls you don’t recognize. If it’s important they’ll leave a message. Some scammers will leave a message. But this will give you time to think and google the phone number. Scam numbers will often be listed online.
  2. If you pick up the phone and suspect someone is impersonating a government employee or legitimate business, say you will call them back and hang up. Instead of using the number they called you from, look up their number online and ask for the person by name. If they protest, it’s a scam.
  3. Download a scam blocker app. Nomorobo catalogues all the scam numbers and blocks them from connecting to your phone. True Caller is a similar app that uses its database of 2 billion numbers to identify incoming calls. True Caller won’t actually block any calls but it will give you the information you need to screen the calls yourself. Both apps are available on Apple and Google Play.

And with that, I’ll leave you with a piece of wisdom from Laissez Faire’s Editorial Director Justin Fritz.

“I knew it wasn’t a scam, because they sent me a letter!”

What about you? Have you had any close calls with a scam caller? What was the lie they told you? When did you realize they weren’t legit?

All the best,

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1330574 2018-10-09T17:00:00Z 2018-10-09T17:00:41Z



by H. Sterling Burnett


A direct challenge to the hardcore enviros who heretofore controlled and corrupted the agency.

President Donald Trump committed to fundamentally transforming the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from an agency producing politicized science to one instilling sound scientific standards for research. By doing so, Americans should expect improved environmental and health outcomes.

Currently, regulatory costs top $1.9 trillion annually, which amounts to $14,842 per U.S. household. That’s nearly $15,000 less for Americans to pay for health insurance, medical bills, education expenses, groceries, gasoline, or entertainment. Because the economic and social implications of regulations are profound, the science they are built upon must be impeccable.

Over the last few decades — under Republican and Democratic administrations — EPA formed a cozy relationship with radical environmental activists and liberal academic researchers. With the support of environmental lobbyists who despise capitalism (expressed by consumers’ free choices in the marketplace) EPA bureaucrats, in pursuit of more power and expanded budgets for the agency, funded researchers who, because they were largely dependent on government grants for the majority of their funding, were only too happy to produce results claiming industry was destroying the earth.

Of course, the only way to prevent environmental collapse was more government control of the economy. However, these reports were produced despite the fact poverty and hunger have steadily declined and people are living longer and more productive lives than ever before.


As Jay Lehr, a colleague and science director at the Heartland Institute told me once, “For decades, EPA has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the environmental left. Together, radical environmentalists and EPA bureaucrats, including the members of all their advisory panels, have used their considerable power to thwart American business at every turn.

Under Trump, EPA changed how it pursues science to pay greater fealty to the scientific method and remove temptations for scientific self-aggrandizement and corruption.

Not surprisingly, researchers, environmentalists, and bureaucrats, seeing their power curtailed and their gravy train ending, are crying foul saying the Trump administration is undermining science. However, in reality this is simply not true.

EPA’s scientific advisory panels are tasked with ensuring the research the agency uses to develop and justify regulations is rigorous, has integrity, and is based on the best available science.

To better ensure this, EPA ceased automatically renewing the terms of board members on various panels. EPA is now filling its scientific panels and boards on a competitive basis as each board member’s term expires.

This should improve the science EPA uses to inform its decisions, by expanding diversity — diversity of interests, diversity of scientific disciplines, and diversity of backgrounds — thus bringing in a wider array of viewpoints to EPA decision-making.

In addition, to reduce opportunities for corruption, EPA ceased allowing members of its federal advisory committees to apply for EPA research grants and instituted policies to ensure advisory panel members and grant recipients have no other conflicts of interest. It was always a foolish practice to allow those recommending, often determining, who gets EPA grants to also be in the running for those grants. However, this was business as usual at EPA, where grant makers awarded themselves, research teams they were members of, or their friends billions of taxpayer dollars over the years.

In April, then EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declared “The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end.” Pruitt proposed requiring the data underlying scientific studies used by EPA to craft regulations be available for public inspection, criticism, and independent verification.

For years, EPA bureaucrats have used the results of studies by researchers who would not disclose the data underlying their results to be examined and retested for confirmation or falsification. Fortunately, EPA is finally ending this unjustifiable practice.

Many scientists have objected to EPA’s new secret science policy because they claim the studies EPA uses have undergone “peer review.” However, the peer review process is often nothing more than other researchers, often hand-picked by the scientists whose research is being reviewed, sitting around in their ivory towers reading the reports and saying, “this looks okay or reasonable to me.”

Unless the reviewers are able examine the underlying data and assumptions, and attempt to replicate the results, peer review is unable to ensure the validity of studies used to underpin regulations. Absent transparency and replicability, peer review is hollow.

Another long overdue EPA regulatory reform was the decision to end exclusive use of the “Linearity No Threshold” (LNT) model when assessing the dangers of radiation, carcinogens, and other toxic substances in the environment. Going forward, EPA will incorporate uncertainty into its risk assessments using a variety of other, more realistic models.

The LNT model assumes there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation or exposure to various other chemicals or toxins. Relying on flawed studies from the effect of ionizing radiation on fruit flies from the 1950s, EPA and other regulatory agencies have used LNT as a basis for regulation of environmental clean-ups, setting safety standards for nuclear plants, and limiting low dose radiation treatments for medical patients, a policy that has cost lives and billions of taxpayer dollars.

Although science has progressed phenomenally since the 1950s, with copious amounts of research showing the LNT model is seriously flawed, EPA and other agencies never questioned the LNT standard. That is, until now.

In fact, adverse effects from low dose exposures to radiation and most other chemicals and potential toxins are often non-existent. Indeed, substances that may be harmful in large quantities can be beneficial in small amounts, a process known as hormesis.

In the commonly paraphrased words of Swiss physician and astronomer Paracelsus, “the dose makes the poison.” Vitamins, which are valuable in small quantities, and even water, which is literally necessary for life, can become deadly if too much of either is taken over a short period of time. Or consider sun exposure. While exposure to too much sunlight can contribute to skin cancer, sunlight is required to catalyze the final synthesis of Vitamin D, which strengthens the bones, helping prevent osteoporosis and rickets. There is also ample evidence sunlight can help fight depression and several skin and inflammatory ailments.

Replacing reliance on the untenable LNT model with other models of exposure and response will result in better safety and health protocols, potentially saving billions of dollars and thousands of lives each year.


In service of the American people and the pursuit of continued American greatness, science practices at EPA are improving under President Trump. One can only hope equivalent changes are adopted at other executive agencies so the regulations they produce are grounded in the best available science, free of political corruption and bureaucratic incentives for agency mission creep and growth.

The article first appeared here.]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1330268 2018-10-08T15:44:00Z 2018-10-08T15:44:51Z


Bad economics can bring about or grow out of bad politics. But the question is, what are bad economics and bad politics?

Bad economics can bring about or grow out of bad politics. But the question is, what are bad economics and bad politics? Unless this is clearly and correctly identified, a bad situation can be made worse, and a good situation can be turned into a bad one. So sorting this out is crucial to having a free and prosperous society.

British economist, Robert Skidelsky, is confident that he knows the answer. In a recent article on “Good Politics, Bad Economics,” he states that bad economics and bad politics are free markets and limited government along classical liberal lines. How does he know that such economics and politics are “bad” in their effects on the society? The financial crisis of 2008-2009, Skidelsky says, was due to unbridled financial markets combined with “hands-off” economic policies once the downturn set in, in 2009-2010.

Good politics and good economics, in his view, comprise an openness and sensitivity to the concerns of many in the society for social securities and job assurances in a changing and uncertain world. Oh, Adam Smith’s invisible hand of unhampered free markets is fine enough when taking the long view, but, Skidelsky says, they are “also highly disruptive and prone to periodic breakdown,” in the shorter run.

Skidelsky: Populist Demagogues as Good Economists

Adhering to such Smithian free market policies opens the door to “populist” demagogues, such as Victor Orban in Hungary who has instituted illiberal political policies attempting to restrict civil liberties and personal freedom. But, on the other hand, as far as Skidelsky is concerned Orban has a highly redeemable set of good fiscal policies, based on a “sound Keynesian footing.”

This echoes back to the infamous forward that John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) wrote for the German translation of his, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), that “The theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions in a totalitarian state than . . . under conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire . . .”

It is worth recalling that in 1936, the only remaining academic economists to whom the content of Keynes’s book could be addressed in recommending it as a guide for government economic policy were Nazi economists, since all others already had been removed from university and related positions by Hitler’s National Socialist regime.

Following in the footsteps of his intellectual mentor (being the author of a highly regarded three-volume biography of Keynes), Skidelsky points out that illiberal nationalist regimes such as Orban’s find it far easier “to pursue policies of social protection.” Why? They can use the heavy hand of government control to impose such policies on society without the type of resistance or public criticism possible in a more politically open liberal system.

The Bigger the Government, the Better for Keynesians

The smaller the government’s fiscal presence in the economic activities within a country, the less is likely to be the impact from “activist” government spending policies, since government expenditures and taxation would be relatively small to start with. If there is, say, a $1 trillion economy, with government taxing and spending only representing one percent (or $10 billion), a 20 percent increase in government spending in the form of a budget deficit only comes to an additional $2 billion.

But if, on the other hand, out of a $1 trillion economy, government taxing and spending comes to, say, 20 percent that is equal to $200 billion. If, now, the government increases it’s spending by only 5 percent through deficit financing that comes to $10 billion, or five times as much as in the first case.

Keynes’s point, and Skidelsky’s, is that the greater the degree of government influence or control over the economic activities within a country to begin with, including the size of government spending as a percent of the economy as a whole, the larger the impact from any increase in spending by that government. The bigger the government, the more policy-relevant is the introduction or expansion of Keynesian-type fiscal policies.

In fairness, Keynes had no sympathy for the ideology or the politics of the Nazi regime in Germany, and Robert Skidelsky is equally unsympathetic with the political and cultural policies of Orban’s government in Hungary. But Skidelsky believes that the best way to prevent or make less likely the coming to power of a populist, “right-wing” government like Orban’s is for a more liberal and democratic government to introduce “good” Keynesian and other interventionist policies before economic circumstances become so bad in a country that the citizens turn to an Orban-type of leader, due to the affects of “bad” free market policies that limit the size and scope of a government to “fix” and set things right.

Bastiat and Hazlitt: Good Economists Look Beyond the Short Run

Slightly modernizing the insight of the French free market economist, Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) in his famous essay, “What is Seen and What is Not Seen,” economic journalist Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) explained the crucial difference between a “bad” and  “good” economist in his classic, Economics in One Lesson (1946):

“The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group, the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups . . .

“The long-run consequences of some economic policies may become evident in a few months. Others may not become evident for several years. Still others may not become evident for decades. But in every case those long-run consequences are contained in the policy as surely as the hen was in the egg., the flower in the seed . . . The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences not merely for one group but for all groups.”

Now no personal or moral slight is intended by implying that Robert Skidelsky, by Bastiat’s and Hazlitt’s definition, is a “bad” economist. It simply means that it is “bad economics” if the analyst, for whatever reason, exclusively or primarily focuses on the immediate or nearer effects from a government policy while ignoring or downplaying the possible or likely impact of such policies when taking the longer-run perspective on what the consequences of a policy may be.

The reason being, as the old adage says, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It is clear from Skidelsky’s argument that he is concerned that if a “good” or well-intentioned government pursues “bad” economic policies, it may create the political conditions in which an authoritarian or populist demagogue may be able to promise “good” interventionist economics, some of which he might even successfully deliver, but at the cost of reduced or lost political and civil liberties.

However, a “good” diagnosis requires a correct judgment concerning the cause and nature of the (social) ailment. Otherwise, the illness may be made worse, or at a minimum recovery may be delayed or prolonged more than otherwise might have been necessary.

Short-Run Policies Created the 2008-2009 Crisis

What Skidelsky interprets as the economic system prevailing in the United States and most other Western countries has little to do with how classical liberals define a “free market.” Financial markets have been and are heavily regulated by government regulatory agencies. The creation of money and credit and the rates of interest they charge to borrowers are not truly market-based. Central banks set the regulatory and loan-creating rules for the member banks within the banking systems.

Governments and their central banks created the financial crisis of 2008-2009. For years the Federal Reserve had been increasing the quantity of loanable funds in the banking system, and when adjusted for price inflation as measured by the consumer price index, some real interest rates were negative. (See my article, “Interest Rates Need to Tell the Truth”.)

In other words, loan money was being handed out for free in terms of real buying power that a borrower was paying back to lenders for the period of their loans. To get the central bank-created money in the banking system out the door, besides the equivalent of negative interest charges on some loans, the banks were induced to extend loans to uncredit-worthy home buyers with the promise that government agencies like Fanny Mae Freddie Mac would pick up the tab if and when the loans went bad – which many eventually did.

Bad Economics and Short-Run Politics Cause Society’s Ills

What had motivated these policies? In the case of the Federal Reserve, a fear in the early years of the 21st century that there might be a tendency for price deflation, which the Fed Board of Governors decided had to be prevented at all costs through counter-acting monetary expansion. The longer run consequence was an unsustainable financial and investment bubble that came crashing down in 2008-2009. (See my article, “Don’t Fear ‘Deflation,’ Unless Caused by Government”.)

In the case of the housing market, pressures by members of Congress were placed on the government’s home loan guaranteed agencies – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – that not enough people were attaining the American dream of having their own home, especially among members of minority communities in the United States. So credit standards were lowered or seemingly almost waved. Banks were told not to worry; just extend home loans to those not meeting the traditional credit-worthy standards of income and work history or not enough of a usual down payment, because if things went wrong those government agencies guaranteed to cover any that went “bad.”

Misplaced fears about possible price deflation and the pressures of politicians looking no further than needing votes from happy home-owning constituents; these were the short-run policy contexts that created the longer run disaster of one of the severest economic downturns of the post-World War II period.

Macroeconomic Mindset Prevents Understanding of Markets

Both factors reflected the bad economics of focusing on the short-run. The Keynesian mindset is to have the monetary central planners try to micro-manage every twist and turn in the financial and economic climate, and frequently turn the money-creation and interest rate dials in an attempt to keep the macro-economy on an even keel, as the defined by the Keynesian-oriented policy makers.

The same applies to using government taxing and spending to try to influence investment, employment and wages in the economy as a whole. But, again, what this mindset summarizes away in the macroeconomic aggregates used as indicators and targets are the complex and interconnected microeconomic relationships in the structure of relative prices and wages, relative profitabilities of directing productions to satisfy multitudes of different consumer demands, and the need for on-going and continuous adaptations and adjustments in prices and wages, and the allocation of resources (including labor) for successful economy-wide coordination of what everyone is doing in the social system of the division of labor. (See my article, “Macro Aggregates Hide the Real Market Processes at Work”.)

The Best Short and Long Run Policy: Limited Government

For a market economy to succeed in this endeavor the only long run set of policies for any government needs to undertake is to protect the individual and private property rights of the citizenry, enforce all contracts and agreements peacefully and voluntarily entered into that are not fraudulent or misrepresentations, and prevent foreign aggressors from invading and plundering the people within a country.

This represents the “good politics” of a (classical) liberal political order that helps secure people’s liberty and assures the economic setting most conducive to prosperity and price-guided market coordination. A stable and healthy market order such as this precludes the likelihood of the disruptions and distortions that are central to Skildelsky’s concerns.

If such disruptions do arise for some external reason, it remains nonetheless the best long run and short run policy for open and competitive markets to be left free to rebalance and recoordinate in the most appropriate and timesaving ways possible. Government planners, regulators and bureaucrats can never know or acquire the needed and necessary microeconomic knowledge of time and circumstance that only the actors within the various sectors of the economy can discover and attempt to utilize in the most effective manner.

Following this type of economic policy approach is most likely to preclude the emergence and attractiveness of the populist demagogues that Skidelsky fears as threats to political freedom and civil liberties. His proposed policies are far more likely to bring about the very “bad politics” about which he is rightly concerned.

[Originally Published at the American Institute for Economic Research]



]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1329333 2018-10-05T16:24:00Z 2018-10-05T16:23:50Z

by Rich Panessa

Will it be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Several "protest candidates" have sprouted up which usually indicates they don’t have enough money, or they’re in it to try to upset the election results. As a former member of The Spectrum & Daily News
’ Writer’s Group for six years, I prognosticated about the country’s future under an unqualified Barack Obama. His dynamic speeches inspired the nation, but failed to ignite a fire under him. Predictably, his two terms as president doubled our debt and welfare enrollment, sent race relations back to pre-MLK, while his naive "lead-from-behind" foreign policy became a joke to our enemies, and a death knell to our allies. Nice job.
As if his tenure wasn’t destructive enough, Obama highly recommended Hillary Clinton as his successor. Hillary is an unscrupulous politician who has made a fortune on the backs of the taxpayers. As Bill Clinton’s "point woman" during the scandals that plagued them in Arkansas, she skillfully managed to keep him a few steps ahead of the hangman. Her public life (and Bill’s) has been one shameful scandal after another with recent breaches in national security, "pay for play" implications between foreign governments and the State Department, while lying to Congress. Her investment outcomes have been "miraculous," while record books and sometimes "Arkansas bodies" disappeared just like in an old B-movie mystery.
The difference is the Clinton who-doneit never ends ... and they’re never solved. Whitewater, File Gate, Travel Gate, Bi! ll’s impeachment and trial, a fistful of sexual assaults, Monica, Vince Foster, or why they were gifted a million-dollar New York home by none other than the current governor of Virginia. Then there’s the current FBI and IRS investigations into the Clinton Foundation. Move over Bonnie and Clyde. Donald Trump is not a politician but a businessman who turned his father’s $10 million dollar real estate company into a $10 billion empire. In his ascent, he honed his business skills alongside other powerful moguls like Helmsley, Blau, and Bloomberg, et al., not to mention savvy foreign investors from China, Russia and Japan. He has keen management skills and is a top-notch negotiator.
Like him or not, Trump will re-establish America’s financial and production superiority to regain worldwide trade advantages. He’s a staunch supporter of law ! enforcement and is committed to modernize the military. He’ll allow companies with trillions offshore to repatriate that money with minimal penalties as long as the money remains in the U.S., to help pay for infrastructure investments and tax cuts across the board. His leadership and motivational skills will inspire Congress to reach impossible goals with precision, on time, and unlike before, under budget. For these reasons, regardless of his political missteps so far, I believe he’ll lead our nation from political correctness into an era of "Americanism." Most media outlets in their liberal bias criticize Trump for his gaffes and inexperience at campaigning, but admit he’s not a liar or a thief. He’s someone who will get much done, won’t speak in platitudes, and vehemently protect and defend the Constitution of United States, while never placing himself above the welfare and safety of this nation.
Could you make the same claim about Hillary Cl! inton? Rich Panessa is a resident of St. George.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1328923 2018-10-04T16:47:31Z 2018-10-04T16:47:31Z

by Bryan Chai

Few things are sweeter than watching a Democratic plot blow up spectacularly in their faces.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has been thrust into the public spotlight as a result.

Look, the entire thing is murky.

There is a startling lack of evidence, especially considering the assault allegedly took place over 30 years ago, so it’s unfair to paint Kavanaugh in a negative light. Not that that’s stopped far-left Democrats from trying to do so.

But by that same token, Ford, and all sexual assault victims, should still be given an opportunity to be heard. Sexual assault is never okay, and any allegation is worth looking at.

So let’s pump the brakes on presuming innocence or guilt, and refrain from attacking either Ford or Kavanaugh until due process plays out.

You know who does deserve to be attacked? The Democrats who have weaponized an alleged sexual assault victim’s apparent trauma to attack a Supreme Court nominee whose only sin seems to be that he was nominated by President Donald Trump.

It’s disgusting, reprehensible and deserves to be looked into.

That’s exactly what’s going to happen, according to Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton. Appearing on CBS’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday, Cotton reamed Democrats for failing to uphold the confidentiality that Ford had requested when she first made her allegations against Kavanaugh.

“They have betrayed her,” Cotton said. “She has been victimized by Democrats … on a search-and-destroy mission for Brett Kavanaugh.”

Regardless of the veracity of Ford’s accusations, it’s inarguable that Democrats have opted to use her plight in an attempt to take down Kavanaugh. One of the tactics that Democrats have been accused of is supplying Ford with lawyers who were looking to serve the Democratic Party before their own client.

Mitchell: Were you even told that the Senate Judiciary Committee offered to fly out to your home to meet you?



Remember how the Kavanaugh hearing was initially delayed because Ford didn’t want to fly from California to Washington? Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley apparently made it crystal clear that the GOP was willing to bring the hearing to her in California.

Did Ford’s lawyers, supplied by Democrats, intentionally not tell her that important bit of information to drag the process into the mid-terms? I’m not saying they did, but if it smells like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s not an iguana.
Cotton wasn’t about to let that type of behavior fly, however.

“(Democratic leadership) pointed her to lawyers who lied to her and did not tell her that the committee staff was willing to go to California to interview her,” Cotton said on “Face The Nation.”

Cotton then dropped some bad news on those lawyers.

“Those lawyers are going to face a D.C. bar investigation into their misconduct,” Cotton said. Ouch.

They should absolutely be investigated if they misled their client in any way, shape or form to help out the Democrats’ attempts to derail the Kavanaugh investigation. That is antithetical to everything the American justice system stands for.


Everything the Democrats have done to stop Kavanaugh from being nominated has had zero repercussions. That may be about to change in massive fashion.

And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1328527 2018-10-03T16:50:00Z 2018-10-03T16:50:12Z

by Mike Adams | Natural News


Funded by foundation linked to ‘computational psychosomatics’ neuro-hijacking









…assist in the retrieval of important memories,and create artificial situations that would permit the client to express ego-dystonic emotions in a safe manner.



















Some other interesting text from the study:








“Computational psychosomatics”


In the language of the science authors:


Additional details about the Mental Insight Foundation




Codding Enterprises
Levi Strauss Foundation
McKesson Foundation
Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.
The Public Affairs Council
Sparkletts/Alhambra Water Company
Science Alliance






David Herskovits of Brooklyn, NY
Robert P. Bunje of Foster City, CA
Isabelle Kimpton of Incline Village, NV
Graham Kimpton of Fairfax, CA
Barry Bunshoft of San Francisco, CA
Len Dell’Amico of Fairfax, CA
Jennifer Catherine Egan of Brooklyn, NY
Laura Kimpton of Vineburg, CA
Kay Kimpton Walker of San Francisco, CA



Hoffman Institute, San Anselmo, CA
Amazon Watch, San Francisco, CA
Center for Mind Body Medicine, Washington, DC
Institute for Integrative Health, Baltimore, MD
Jericho Project, Brisbane, CA
Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, CA


Is The FBI Investigation A Set Up Of Judge Kavanaugh

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1326515 2018-09-27T17:55:00Z 2018-09-27T17:55:50Z

by Anonymous


'Hello Barry, how are you today?'

'They are good, Barry. How's your Ma?'

'Fine. Gittin' stronger alla' time.'
'Good. Anything I can help you with?'
'All I got's my prize marble here.'
'Here 'tis. She's a dandy.'

'Not zackley but almost.'
'Sure will. Thanks Mr. Miller.'



Your keys found right where you left them.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1325867 2018-09-26T13:20:59Z 2018-09-26T13:20:59Z Christine Blasey Ford head shot

MSNBC screen shot of Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. (MSNBC screen shot)

By Bryan Chai

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s bombshell sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have taken yet another turn after the last named witness came forward with what they knew.

Based on what the witness had to say, the current narrative doesn’t bode particularly well for Ford.

Leland Ingham Keyser, the last named witness, is also “a longtime friend of Ford” according to CNN.

Advertisement - story continues below

CNN had learned that Republican staffers were attempting to interview anyone who could contribute information regarding the alleged incident. Keyser, by being a named witness, was an obvious choice to ask.

Keyser’s lawyer, Howard Walsh, issued a statement Saturday night addressing the allegations.

TRENDING: Alert: Ted Cruz, Wife Attacked — Escape After Staff Struggle With Door


Ford’s lawyer, Debra Katz, promptly issued a response to Walsh’s statement.

Advertisement - story continues below


Despite the explanation from Katz, this is still a notable blow against Ford’s accusations, especially considering what the other named witnesses had to say about the alleged incident.

Will Democrats be successful in derailing Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court?

Yes No

First and foremost, Kavanaugh has vociferously denied the allegations.

“This is a completely and totally false allegation,” Kavanaugh said when the accusations first surfaced. “I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone.”

Besides Kavanaugh and Keyser, Mark Judge and Patrick J. Smith were also named as witnesses. Their statements reflect Keyser’s.

Advertisement - story continues below

“I have no memory of this alleged incident,” said Mark Judge in a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Smith issued an even stronger statement than his other named witnesses.

RELATED: Panicking NYT Deletes Source Name, Caught Hiding Game-Changing Facts on Kavanaugh

“I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as ‘PJ’ who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post,” Smyth said in his statement. “I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh.”

Smyth then went on to defend Kavanaugh.

“Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh toward women. To safeguard my own privacy and anonymity, I respectfully request that the Committee accept this statement in response to any inquiry the Committee may have.”

For the record, every named witness in Ford’s accusations has now categorically denied ever attending such a party or witnessing sexual assault.

Whether your believe Ford or not, you can’t deny that these latest developments do not bode well for her claims.

]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1325601 2018-09-25T21:41:00Z 2018-09-25T21:41:51Z

by Anonymous


by Anonymous


Charity Hospital run by the sisters of Charity in New Orleans, along with the Upjohn company developed the plasma system in the 1930's that saved so many lives in WWII, Korea, Vietnam and in the middle east
now.  During the Civil War most of the nurses were nuns. 
Even if you are not Catholic, this is eye opening: 
When the Catholic Church was  founded, there were no schools. Today, the Catholic Church teaches 3 million students a day, in its more than 250 Catholic Colleges and Universities, in its more than 1200 Catholic High Schools and in its more than 5000 Catholic grade schools. 
The Obama Health Mandate could have ended all this and the tax payers would have had to make up the loss. 
Also, all Catholic adoption services would come to an end... a human disaster. 

Former president Obama said, "The USA  is not a Christian Nation". He is wrong – we are a Christian Nation founded on Judaeo-Christian values allowing all religions in America to  worship and practice freely....something that Islam will never do.
Oh, by the way, on MUSLIM HERITAGE IN America ....Have you ever been to a Muslim hospital, heard a Muslim orchestra, seen a Muslim band march in a parade, know of a Muslim charity, ever seen Muslims shaking hands with a Muslim Girl  Scout, or ever seen a Muslim Candy Striper volunteering in a hospital?

I am asking all of you to go to the polls in 2018 and be united in replacing all Senators and Congressional Representatives with someone who will respect the Catholic Church, all Christians, and all Religions.   
One more note most every church or synagogue I have ever been in in the United States, I have always seen an American flag. No mosque in the United States carries an American flag.


]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1324076 2018-09-21T17:41:00Z 2018-09-21T17:41:20Z

by Jack Davis


A woman who said the 35-year-old alleged sexual misconduct incident Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh denies ever happened was all the buzz at school has deleted her tweet making that claim.

On Tuesday, Christina King Miranda entered the fray over allegations that Kavanaugh acted inappropriately toward Christine Blasey Ford at a party in the 1980s.

There's a well-established legal term of art for what Cristina King Miranda is peddling today: HEARSAY. http://archive.is/xz6AN 

“I graduated from Holton Arms, and knew both Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me, I remember her. I signed this letter. The incident was spoken about for days afterwords (sic) in school. Kavanaugh should stop lying, own up to it and apologize,” she tweeted.

The tweet was seized upon as corroboration of Ford’s allegation, but it raised questions because it offered details not mentioned in, or conflicting with, Ford’s version of events.

For example, Lisa Banks, Ford’s lawyer, said the incident took place over the summer, NPR reported. Miranda’s now-deleted post placed the party during the school year.

Also, Ford indicated in her interview with The Washington Post that she did not discuss the incident until 2012, while Miranda’s tweet indicates it was common knowledge at their school — Holton-Arms in Bethesda, Maryland — in the 1980s.

The questions raised by her comment might never be answered. Miranda deleted her tweet Wednesday.

“Hi all, deleted this because it served its purpose and I am now dealing with a slew of requests for interviews from The Wash Post, CNN, CBS News. Organizing how I want to proceed. Was not ready for that, not sure I am interested in pursuing. Thanks for reading,” she tweeted.



Hi, @reinabori. Why did you just delete this? pic.twitter.com/9JPtsGEDmT

View image on Twitter


Miranda then followed up that tweet with another making it clear she won’t be saying anything more.

“To all media, I will not be doing anymore interviews. No more circus. To clarify my post: I do not have first hand knowledge of the incident that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford mentions, and I stand by my support for Christine. That’s it. I don’t have more to say on the subject,” she tweeted.

— Cristina King Miranda (@reinabori) September 19, 2018


The tweet was perceived by some as an effort to avoid dealing with a story that was full of holes.


Well, SOMEONE'S lying. Ford said she told NO ONE about it until 2012. Seems you shot yourself in the foot with a tweet and I'm guessing your name isn't going to go away from the news cycle any time soon. You go girl! You've done more to ruin Ford's cred than the Republicans.

Miranda’s actions came as Patrick J. Smyth, another high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s, denied ever seeing inappropriate conduct from Kavanaugh and said that if Ford has identified him as being at a party where the alleged incident took place, she is wrong.

Politics US News

Classmate Deletes Tweet That Supported Ford’s Claim Against Kavanaugh

By Jack Davis
September 19, 2018 at 11:17am






Do you believe Christina King Miranda?

Yes No


TRENDING: Franklin Graham Calls Out ‘Socialist-Leaning Dems’ in Wake of Kavanaugh Accusations
















“I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as ‘PJ’ who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post,” Smyth said in a statement, CNN reported. “I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh.


Mark Judge, who was mentioned in Miranda’s deleted tweet, said in a letter to senators that he had “no memory of this alleged incident” and “never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”


]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1323614 2018-09-20T15:20:00Z 2018-09-20T15:19:50Z

by Cillian Zeal









Page declined to comment on the latest text.




That wasn’t all, though.







]]> tag:newpatriotsblog.com,2013:Post/1322940 2018-09-18T16:18:00Z 2018-09-18T16:17:58Z

Edited by Susan Benedict and Linda Shields

The ethics of nursing and midwifery, and how these were abrogated during the Nazi era. Nurses and midwives actively killed their patients, many of whom were disabled children and infants and patients with mental (and other) illnesses or intellectual disabilities. The book for the first time, explains the role of one of the world's most historically prominent midwifery leaders in the Nazi crimes... "a groundbreaking and chilling historical analysis of a medical system in which death becomes a medical cure and nursing professionals view their allegiance to the state, their superiors and society above that of individual patients."


The role of physicians in the crimes of the Nazi era in Europe has been extensively studied, but nurses and midwives have been largely ignored. Many of the crimes for which doctors were charged and punished occurred in hospitals, and nurses make up the main work force in any hospital; ergo, they, too, were at least complicit in, and often primarily responsible for,
many of the same crimes. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the so-called "euthanasia" programs, where people, including children, were systematically killed because they were considered "life unworthy of life" or "useless feeders". (It is worth noting here that the term "euthanasia" is a misnomer. While the word means "a good death" there was nothing
good about how these people died. However, it continues to be used in the context of these crimes.)
Midwives were mandated to report infants born with deformities so they could be killed, and the midwives were paid per capita to do so. Psychiatric hospitals were cleared of their patients and used for barracks to house soldiers. Killing took place in the hospitals, and often a crematorium was built on site to dispose of the dead. A telling film exists-now held by and publicly available from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum-which shows a nurse in uniform helping naked men and
boys into a gas chamber. The care she takes to put a blanket around their shoulders makes us wonder how a nurse, who is educated and trained to think that caring is the platform on which her/his work is based, can regard killing as a legitimate part of that caring. This is the essence of this book. 

While there is a large literature about the roles of the medical profession in the Third Reich, the reason that nursing and midwifery have been largely ignored until recently is open to supposition. Two authors have been dominant in the area (apart from the contributors to this book). A German nurse, Hilde Steppe (1947-1999), first published reports of the role of German nurses in the Nazi era in the early 1980s in German and then in the 1990s in English. Historian Bronwyn McFarland- Icke published a book about psychiatric nurses in Nazi Germany in 1999. Other investigations in the area have been piecemeal, and a conference held in Limerick in Irelandin 2004 highlighted the dearth of scholarship in this area of nursing and midwifery history. Perhaps this deficit relates to the fact that females have traditionally dominated these professions, and it has been assumed that women would not commit such crimes. It could be due to the fact that
people hold nursing and midwifery in high regard, and believe (as we have been told on several occasions) that "nurses would not do those things". Such unenlightened thinking inhibits full and proper examination of a dark side of the history of nursing and midwifery. Unless this is addressed, we cannot develop the professions to their full potential.

This book has eleven chapters. This first introductory chapter, called "Setting the Scene", does just that, with explanations of the primary political theories of fascism and Nazism, how the Nazis came to power, the role of propaganda in influencing the lives of the German people, and a description of the "T4" programs, which were the planned and systematic killing
of people with a range of illnesses and disabilities.
Chapter 2 examines the role played by eugenics in the development of the racially motivated killings in which nurses were complicit.
Chapter 3 discusses nursing in Nazi Germany, describing how the profession developed and was structured in that era.
Chapter 4 explains how psychiatric nursing was structured in Nazi Germany, and how it was the main specialty of nursing under which the killings were done.
Chapter 5 discusses the "euthanasia" programs in detail.
Chapter 6 explains the actions of nurses at Meseritz-Obrawalde, one of the psychiatric hospitals that were killing centers, and, using trial transcripts, examines the nurses' justifications for their roles in murder.

Chapter 7 includes more detail from another institution and testimonies
of the nurses who killed.

Chapter 8 describes the role of midwives

Chapter 9 is a discussion on how the lessons learned from the euthanasia
program can be taught to nurses and midwives today.

In Chapter 10, there is a discussion of the philosophical and sociological theories that could
account for the nurses' and midwives' actions, while

Chapter 11 rounds off the discussion with some questions as to whether this could happen again,
and some reflections on how similar things are happening in twenty-first century nursing and midwifery practice.
The book is available for download on online reading here.

Susan Benedict is Professor of Nursing, Director of Global Health, and Co­Director of the Campus-WideEthics Program
at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Nursing in Houston.
Linda Shields is Professor of Nursing-Tropical Health at James Cook Uni­versity, Townsville,Queensland,and Honorary
Professor, School of Medi­cine,The University of Queensland.

[Yep.  All over again.  I guess I am particularly sensitive to these seemingly separate issues because as a biochemistry major, and having already published research, my thesis director suggested that I so something more broadly relevant to research ethics.  Bottom line, I finally did my biochemistry thesis on the Nazi medical war crimes, finally narrowing the topic to Mengele's twin (TWIN  TWIN  TWIN) experiments.  It wasn't an "ethical" analysis, but a scientific analysis of his researcher evaluating his scientific method, procedures, data and conclusions.  Spend a year and a half at the Library of Congress researching it.  It has stayed with me all these years, and I finally wrote an article for people who kept wondering why I chose to do the doctoral dissertation I did:  “Me and Mengele” (October 18, 2003), at:  http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_136meandmengele.html  (also attached to this email).  Very worrisome. -DNI]


































The Transhumanist Declaration 2.0

05/31/2018 10:20
by Dirk Bruere   This was the winner of the competition for a new declaration that was held by Transhumanity. As such it is currently the definition adopted by Zero State. It is shorter than those it was based upon with many of the negative caveats concerning its dangers condensed into a single point. The Transhumanist Declaration 2.0 *  Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We assert the desire ability of transcending human limitations by overcoming aging, enhancing cognition, abolishing involuntary suffering, and expanding beyond Earth. We intend to become more than Human. *  The single defining factor...
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