The New Pathway to Citizenship

Forgiving the breaking of the law is the new pathway to citizenship. Assimilation is no longer the goal of immigration. Immigration used to be assimilation into the American culture, becoming an American citizen. But the left has devised a new requirement for bringing the “frightened people” who broke the law “out of the shadows.” Never mind that they live among us in plain sight, free to come and go as they please, taking advantage of our country and of our hospitality.

The new pathway to citizenship is forcing Americans to accept law breakers as equals, as citizens with the same rights and benefits but not the same responsibilities we have as American citizens. 

Busing children through Central America or flying them over Mexico and dumping them in Arizona, Texas, and all over the country sick and diseased, is the new forced immigration aimed at changing demographics in the United States.

It is not that we don’t want people to succeed, to have the opportunity of freedom; we are after all a nation of legal immigrants who chased their American dream. We want them to come here legally, to respect our laws and culture, not try to change them according to the troglodyte laws in the home countries they’ve fled, pretending that they are offended by our culture, our national anthem, our flag, displaying their national flags, flaunting their allegiance to someone else, even suing to prevent us to display or wear symbols of our national pride.

Multiculturalism has been a failure in Europe and many leaders have admitted it. It failed because it allowed ethnic ghettos to thrive within a country, self-governed ghettos where violence and uncivilized customs rule.

Multiculturalism is acceptable to the extent that all immigrants assimilate into the American culture and practice their customs at home.

Illegals must pay taxes, not accept cash pay under the table. They must self-support, not demand welfare and rob from the hard-working Americans. Illegals are not entitled to the fruits of American taxpayers’ labor. You are a foreign national, do not demand the same rights as an American; you may not and should not vote.

You are not Dreamers; you are robbing from the American citizens’ children who are carrying on the American Dream. You have to earn the American Dream the legal way. Stop accepting silver platter bribery awards just because you broke our laws setting foot in this country.

Frank P., a prolific writer, explained that, if you look up the word “nation” in a law dictionary and correlate it with our Founders’ recipe for our “nation” in the second Federalist Paper, you will see that “nations” develop from a primal family; they are populated by kindred blood relatives descended from a common ancestor. Our Founders added, “Profess the same religion (the source of the nation’s Organic Law) and speak a common language.” These are our founding principles of unity.

Frank continued, “The 14^th Amendment after the Civil War allowed for ‘step-children’ to be adopted into this founding demographic. They are assimilated into someone else’s family and are expected to conduct themselves according to the rules of the house they occupy as guests. Just because we invite someone over for dinner does not entitle them to the deed of our house.”

Your anchor babies should not be American citizens with the same birthright.

You should learn to speak English.

You should go through a health screening/quarantine before you are allowed to immigrate to the United States because our national health is in the best interest of our American citizens.

Immigration laws were put in place to protect American citizens, not in your economic interest. It is not America’s fault that you hail from a country where you vote in office decades after decades the same corrupt socialist dictatorships that rob your country blind.

When we chose to immigrate to this country legally, we gave up our respective ethnic claims in order to become an American national family. You may not demand that our founding principles must be abolished in order to accommodate your foreign and alien customs and religious beliefs. Some of you are not coming here to become “Americans,” you told us you are coming here to take our country over for a foreign god.

How fair is it for illegals, who just crossed our southern border, to get Social Security numbers and benefits in one day while our veterans have to wait months for Social Security disability payments into which they’ve paid for years?

Why bend the rules and issue foreign national passports at the Social Security office while Americans must wait weeks to have their passports issued or renewed by the proper authorities?

The liberal mantra we keep hearing,” there is strength in diversity,” is a form of brainwashing.  “Our diversity turkey has come home to roost.” Diversity is a “divide and conquer” strategy developed to weaken and destroy a nation from within.  Europe is a prime example of this failed diversity.

Frank P. said that our country was founded for “Ourselves and our Posterity,” not for the minorities that we’ve adopted into it as a privilege through an act of hospitality and generosity. It is high time that the “Posterity,” as government’s “principal,” assert control over the birthright before it is gone completely.

 

National Security Action Summit

The Center for Security Policy, Breitbart News, and the EMPAct America hosted on September 29, 2014, The National Security Action Summit II. The Washington, D.C. Marriott Wardman Park Hotel venue headlined former Vice President Dick Cheney, Dinesh D’Souza, and Dr. Ben Carson.

LTC Allen West, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (OK-1), and Andrew McCarthy spoke about the ever increasing threats to our national security made possible by the administration’s foreign and defense policies.

The threat of ISIS which has already landed on our American shores with the first beheading of an Oklahoma woman by a convert to Islam, our porous borders, lack of enforcement of immigration laws, lack vetting of illegal immigrants carrying various communicable diseases that have spread among the U.S. population at large and in our schools, and the insurmountable national debt are issues important to the American people.

Senator Ted Cruz, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rep. Louise Gohmert, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, and Rep. Trent Franks addressed the audience in person or by video link.

The topics discussed included the worldwide threat and instability, the hollowing out of the U.S. military and its replacement with illegal aliens, the ideology and menace of the global jihad, Benghazi, the border insecurity, and the importance of Israel to American security interests.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy said, “Americans are increasingly aware that the world is becoming an ever-more-dangerous place.  They expect their leaders to protect them and our vital interests around the world.  The National Security Action Summit is a place where the best minds convene to lay out the best ideas for doing that.”

Yet the biggest threat to our national security, the escalating and impossible-to-ever-repay national debt, was not part of the discussion.

Brigitte Gabriel Explains Islamic Jihad

Warriors for freedom: Judge Jeanine Pirro and  Brigitte Gabriel
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2014

Brigitte Gabriel, founder and CEO of ACT for America, opened their annual conference in Washington, D.C. on September 10, 2014, with a rousing speech and a five minute lesson on Islam.

The ACT for America conference was held around September 11 in order to remind our government that they work for the American people and have a duty to protect them from Islamic terrorism. The conference also educated members of Congress about the threat of Islam and honored chapter leaders from various states for the incredible amount of work that they do as soldiers on the ground.

“ACT for America is non-profit, non-partisan, and the nations’ largest grassroots organization devoted to promoting national security and defeating terrorism. ACT for America has 280,000 members organized in more than 890 chapters nationwide and 11 countries worldwide.”  The goals of ACT for America are confronting terrorism, preserving the U. S. Constitution, securing the border, energy independence, empowering women – protecting children, and supporting Israel. http://www.actforamerica.org/

Brigitte Gabriel spoke at the Global Anti-Semitism Summit at the United Nations in New York City on September 9, 2014. She addressed the 500 people in attendance with passion and conviction, in defense of Jews worldwide and against the evil of anti-Semitism. She proudly wore a Star of David necklace given to her by the husband of a woman who passed away. She considered Brigitte the champion of freedom from terrorism.

Brigitte described the demonization by the MSM that Jews have committed genocide against the Palestinians, yet the Palestinian population has increased more than 600% since 1948. “Israel must be the most incompetent mass murder in the history of the world,” she said.

She spoke about the double standard Israel is subjected to every day. It is held to a standard that no other country in the world is held. Human rights are respected in Israel, yet the Human Rights Commission at the United Nations spends most of its time investigating and condemning Israel while they gloss over and ignore the continued human rights violations in Iran, Cuba, China, North Korea, and many other brutal and repressive regimes. 

Why is it that the Jewish people do not have the right to exist as a state? Why are the Jewish people denied their history and connection to their land dating back 5775 years?  It is anti-Semitism and morally repugnant, she said. Israel has the fundamental right of self-preservation.

Hamas has been waging war on Israel for decades. It is the same war that ISIS wages now against the world. The difference is focus, Gabriel said. ISIS wants a worldwide Caliphate and “They commit genocide in the name of Allah.”

“ISIS is persecuting members of every community they encounter; ISIS is slaughtering Syrians, Lebanese, Christians, Sunnis, Alawites, Kurds, and Yazidis, terrorizing anyone who does not submit to their version of Islam.”

Hamas rejoiced at the death of Israeli children while they glorified the death of their own children. They love death more than they love their own children. “They use them as human shields, wrapping them in nails and strapping bombs on them to detonate in crowded Jewish neighborhoods and shopping centers. They used my own family as human shields by firing rocket propelled grenades from above our shelter, leaving the area quickly and abandoning us to the devastation of return fire.”

Dr. Michael Savage said in his September 15, 2014 broadcast, “If a religion preaches death, dying, and destruction, it is not a religion, it is a death cult.”

Hamas uses schools, mosques, and other civilian locations to fire rockets at Israel. Jews don’t hide behind civilians, they defend themselves. They learned from history that if someone wants to kill them, they mean it. They are now armed and ready to fight for western civilization, for the all of us. “Those who seek the extermination of the Jews are not going to stop with the Jews. That should have been the lesson of the Holocaust,” said Gabriel.

Islamic terrorism has turned the entire world into their target. “Evil dwells where courageous men become bystanders, when the informed become silent.  ACT for America stands up and defends the Jewish people. Make sure that people of all faiths can live in peace and harmony and that Jews are never persecuted again.”

Gabriel explained that terrorist organizations, whether they call themselves ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, or the Muslim Brotherhood, operate from the same doctrine and ideology.  And the beheadings and killings of Christians and journalists do not indicate that they want to “coexist.”

Expressing her concern over ISIS finding well trained recruits and suicide bombers with lightning speed, she brought up the very real possibility that these operatives have already arrived into our country through our porous southern border, and could walk into a mall and shut down our economy with a small operation of suicide bombers.

Giving the listeners a five minute history of Islam, she explained why “They are not the extreme version of Islam.” They did not change recently from an ideology to a violent ideology, it happened long time ago.

According to Brigitte Gabriel, Prophet Muhammad tried to preach and recruit followers in his city, Mecca, for 12 years and failed. People did not want to follow him. He then went to Medina, a Jewish hub at the time, to preach his message. If they would accept him, his own people would accept him.  In order to preach to the Jews, Muhammad incorporated a lot of the Old Testament into his preaching such as praying two times a day, not eating pork, fasting for Ramadan like the Jews do for Yom Kippur, washing hands before prayers, etc. But the Jews of Medina refused to accept him. That became the turning point into militarism, attacking Jews, killing them, or expelling them from their city. At this point, she said, “Islam changed from a strictly spiritual movement to a military/political movement clothed in religion.”

“The Muslims base their annual calendar not on the day when Muhammad received his revelation from the Angel Gabriel but on the day when Muhammad became a military warrior, twelve years later in Medina. That is when the official Islamic calendar began.”

Prophet Muhammad called the Jews “dhimmis,” second class citizens, who stayed alive by either paying the “jizya,” the protection tax, or by converting to Islam. Jews had to wear a necklace to prove that they paid “jizya.” 

Jews and Christians were not allowed to pray publicly or ring their church bells, or to build churches and synagogues. Jews were called “Negis” under Islam. An explanation of “Negis” (loathing, impure) is included here. http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/halal-haram-and-negis/

The second Caliph of Iraq invented the yellow star of the Jews in the 9^th century. Jews were required to walk down the street on the opposite side of the Muslims. The yellow star of the Jews was not a Nazi invention, said Brigitte Gabriel; it was a Muslim invention which the Nazis borrowed 1,000 years later. Christians were forced to wear a belt, the “zunar.”

Gabriel ended her history lesson reminding the audience that the Crusades were launched to liberate Jerusalem. “After 300 years the Crusaders failed and dissipated because they could not defeat Islam. Islam spread to India, China, and central Europe. By 1600, Islam covered more surface than the Roman Empire did at its peak.”

Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) abolished the Islamic Empire (Ottoman Sultanate) in 1922 after a rule of 1400 years. “This is why the Muslims want to rebuild the Caliphate. Most people do not understand that this is what drives ISIS. If ISIS disappears today, another organization will spring up to rebuild the Caliphate. This is what drives our Islamist enemies.” Islamists are not builders and peaceful “coexisters,” they dedicate their lives to the destruction of our civilization. The peaceful majority of Islam is irrelevant.

The Climate Change Industry

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” 
-  John Adams, a Defense of the American Constitutions

Sunset on York River Photo: Ileana Johnson, 2014

I am not sure who coined the term “climate change industry” but it is an apt description of the snake oil salesmen who have become billionaires on the unfounded fear of debunked global warming and of climate change based on manufactured consensus science.

The climate has been changing for millennia in cyclical periods dominated by either unusually cold or unusually hot temperatures. It is convenient to the promoters of the climate change industry to deliberately confound weather events with climate.

Having declared that the “science is settled,” the global warming scaremongering environmentalists are moving on to the next target of limiting our property rights and freedoms via taxation. Case in point, the Washington Post reported that the “U.S. Forest Service wants to charge $1,500 to take photos on federal wild lands.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/24/us-forest-service-wants-to-charge-1500-to-take-photos-on-federal-wild-lands/

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden stated that “The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone. Especially where reporters and bloggers are concerned, this policy raises troubling questions about inappropriate government limits on activity clearly protected by the First Amendment.” http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/09/forest_service_says_media_need.html

The “climate change industry” is admitting through a Freudian slip that their agenda of climate change is “disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow.” OK, they were referring to the fact that global warming/climate change is affecting our lives. Of course climate has been changing and we are in a cooling period now but truth cannot impede the liberal political advocates’ agenda of taxing rich countries more, spreading the wealth, and destroying our economy in the name of protecting Mother Earth.

The “climate change industry” has managed to transform a natural phenomenon of climate change into a global disaster that needs to be addressed by bureaucrats through taxation and through weather modification spraying of chemicals into the atmosphere. This spraying of chemicals (chemtrails) is really affecting the weather and the growing season for agriculture, reducing yield.

Electricity costs are going up, smart meters that catch on fire have been installed everywhere in order to control people’s energy consumption and in-home ambient temperature, and many electricity generation plants are scheduled to be closed due to EPA regulations passed under the guise of climate change. The government’s all-out assault to redress climate change through regulatory and financial control is having a serious impact on our economy, the coal industry, the oil industry, and on everybody’s lives.

The “climate change industry” has become such a religion of environmentalism gone berserk that they are now trying to ban farming.

Because the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law in 2014, also known as the Boneta Bill, named after activist farmer Martha Boneta, a law meant to protect small farming but highly opposed by conservationist activists and environmental NGOs, a “land war” is taking place in the historic York County. According to Watchdog.org, “more than 130 Dandy residents have signed a petition asking the Board of Supervisors to ban commercial farming.”

The “land war” started with a court challenge by Anthony Bavuso, a local oysterman, who is of the opinion that York County cannot require him to purchase a special use permit for his oyster-farming operation at York Point.

York County Attorney James Bennett believes that local officials can obstruct the law, “asserting that the county of 66,000 people could cite lot sizes and other considerations to quash farming activities.”  www.watchdog.org/170548/county-farming-ban/

Martha Boneta told watchdog.org that “Property rights and freedom are inseparable, and I am heartbroken that family farmers may no longer be able to engage in farming on their land.”

Joel Salatin, a farmer and farming rights advocate, said, “I think we have too many people trying to tell other people what to do.” That is exactly the intent of the environmentalist/property rights control agenda.

 

 

 

My Mom Has Become the Obama Care "Unit"

My Beloved Mom

The first golden day of autumn has become the cold, barren winter of my Mom’s life.

A week ago I was planning to take Mom on a flight to Romania to see her siblings one last time. As I attempted to renew her passport, I remember wondering if the bureaucratic wheels will turn fast enough in sixty days. Would she still be able to travel then? How prophetic those words have become! Now she is locked inside a body that can no longer move. One moment she was vibrant and mobile, and the next moment her life was turned upside down.

The doctors ordered tests and more tests but were unable to find what caused her ataxia. The hospital staff operated a tight business around the elderly “units” of Obama Care. Everyone wore a cardio monitor and the beds were fitted with alarms in case the patients decided to wonder unauthorized. The goal was to have as few accidents and falls as possible and an ideal infection control.

The nursing staff was fantastic, well trained, and highly dedicated. The doctors, hailing from many third world nations, were too busy with private practices to meet with patients’ families. Their orders for tests, drugs, and charts were relayed through third parties. Most did not even make eye contact with other humans, keeping their faces down in the elevator.

It seemed to a keen observer that the lost art of humane face to face medicine has been replaced by mounds of paperwork, electronic dictation, and non-medically trained baby sitters.

How would they function if the entire Obama Care-mandated electronic system crashes? Would they still be able to write down the patient’s name, medical history, the type of drugs administered, and do simple math to calculate medicine dosage? Who will control and share the patients’ sensitive data and how will it be used to help them or against them?

I had to fill out tons of Medicare paperwork with some highly intrusive and unnecessary questions. Mom had to sign one sheet herself. With shaky hands, she was able to muster the first four letters of her name; the rest became a blob of black ink, a far cry from the beautiful cursive writing of the past.

Without a stroke, a heart attack, or any obvious cause for her distress, Mom was a patient in urgent need of discharge. Her “case worker,” a very cold and businesslike individual, made arrangements to discharge this “unit” before the infection cleared up. The last antibiotic IV dose was finished 15 minutes before she was whisked away in an ambulance. Her bed was needed for the next case.

I wished I could carry mom to the deck, and sit her on her favorite glider. Her colorful straw hat that shielded her eyes from the sun is still resting on the floor. Mom’s usual eagle eyes are dim and clouded with fear and confusion now. She sat in this chair for hours every day, watching the birds, the squirrels, the occasional blue heron, the resident pair of red foxes, the regular deer family grazing in our back yard, and the beaver running from the pond into the woods.

On this beautiful first day of fall, Mom became resident in a rehab nursing home, hoping to relearn how to walk. My eyes filled with tears as Mom scanned my face for answers and I had none, just words of encouragement. She misses Bogart, our Snowshoe Siamese. A highly co-dependent cat, Bogart senses her absence. Meowing at her closed bedroom door, he decides to sleep on the floor as if waiting for her immediate return.

Few well established and desirable rehab nursing homes take Medicare patients. Most are now private enterprises or advertised as faith-based, keeping unwanted individuals away.

Mom survived communism, the drab life there, and socialized medicine. She is making a full circle back to the drab life of survival in a nursing home in the most civilized nation on earth that chose to replace its stellar medical care with the failed socialist model a la Castro Care, in which rationing and “death panels” force Americans past the age of 70 into “unit” status.

I am not sure if Mom will every walk again. God only knows and we pray that she does. It is scary enough being old and sick, but even more frightening for someone who does not speak much English, having to function in an unfamiliar environment, among total strangers who are paid to help her survive, far away from home, far from everything and everyone she holds familiar and dear.

 

"If they are not Islamic fanatics, what are they, Martians?"

Judge Jeanine Pirro

The keynote speaker at the ACT for America conference on September 11, 2014 was Judge Jeanine Pirro. ACT for America is a non-profit organization led by Brigitte Gabriel, author and terrorism expert.

Judge Pirro’s speech centered on the threat of ISIS, mirroring the non-profit organization’s goal of fighting Shariah Islamic Law in the United States and maintaining our freedoms and our Judeo-Christian foundation as intended by our Founding Fathers.

Echoed by many speakers during the three day conference, Judge Pirro challenged the deliberate misrepresentation that ISIS, the Islamic terrorist army alleged to number 30,000 in Iraq and Syria, is not about Islamic fanaticism. “If they’re not Islamic fanatics, what are they, Martians?” asked Pirro.

“The President says ISIS is not Islamic. Really? What is it, German? Have your read the Quran. Read the d-n thing and you’ll figure it out.”

Pirro criticized in her speech the administration’s domestic policy in regard to Islam. “They’ve removed all references to Islam and jihad from the training manuals and label the shooter of Fort Hood as committing an act of workplace violence,” even though the jihadi major talked to Anwar al-Awlaki, “a guy who was so dangerous that we had to kill him,” and the major carried around business cards with the words, “Soldier of Allah.”

She questioned this administration’s true allegiance and intent as reflected by U.S. actions in Egypt.

“We take out Mubarak who was actually an ally. We take out Gadhafi. We supported the Arab Spring, and it wasn’t democratic. But, Morsi gets elected. Obama’s first speech he gave in Cairo was about apologizing for who we are. We support Morsi because he was democratically elected. So was Hitler. They kick out Morsi and elect al-Sisi and the administration is still holding back. The administration is angry that the Muslim Brotherhood is out in Egypt. The Egyptians had the strength to throw out the Muslim Brotherhood! Shame on us because we don’t have the strength to throw them out of the U.S.”

Emphasizing that we need to be “morally right,” not “politically correct,” Judge Pirro said, “The people who started this country are turning over in their graves asking what in the world they did all of that for.” She repeated her warnings that the jihadist killing Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East “are coming for us,” here on U.S. soil, and are probably already here, entering through the southern border sieve.

Judge Pirro discussed the Benghazi attack and its implications. “I think about Benghazi. I wonder if the people in our government really want to protect us.” The four Americans who died two years ago “didn’t choose to be victims of that attack. Then our President and Secretary of State blamed the Benghazi attack on a video. Are you kidding me?”

It was certainly moving to hear the heartbreaking testimony of Tyrone Woods’ father. Tyrone chose to disobey orders and tried to save Ambassador’s Stevens’ life, paying with his own life in the process.

Judge  Pirro explained how the administration “took Islam out of the talking points on Benghazi because we didn’t want to offend Muslims,” and how a video was purposefully blamed for the vicious attack even though, she reminded the audience, if a video was the culprit, which it was not, we still have freedom of speech in this country.

Why would officials deliberately misrepresent the reality that Islamists are out of control worldwide? “What do they gain by lying to us? They gain political office by lying to us,” Judge Pirro emphatically stated. Spending taxpayer money to apologize to the man who made the video was a fantasy to cover up for the claim that “Libya was normalized.”

She criticized the fact that this administration took two years to capture the mastermind of Benghazi. “They could not get him because he would say they were stupid for believing that a video caused it. The mastermind would say that we are stupid. It doesn’t take a video to make them hate us!”

Referring to the CIA operative, identified as Bob, who ordered the stand down and delay to save our trapped men, Pirro asked, “Who’s the stupid idiot that we have in our government that would order something like that?”

Judge Pirro ended her speech by warning Americans about the weakness of the electric grid, a grid vulnerable to terrorist physical and cyber-attacks. She reminded the audience about the attack on Silicon Valley a year ago when two individuals lifted heavy concrete slabs and cut the fiber optic cables underneath, and then shot transformers with AK47s. She told the audience that an “attack on the power lines left the entire nation of Yemen (23 million people) without power for a day.”

According to Forbes, “shortly after the damage of the first attack was repaired, militants reappeared for a second round, which led to the national power outage. The military responded with an operation that killed two attackers while wounding another six.”  http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/06/19/terrorist-attack-left-all-of-yemen-in-darkness-last-week-another-wake-up-call/

 

 

Butler on Business September 11, 2014

I discuss the GAO report on the social cost of CO2-driven global warming and how the government arrived at arbitrary consensus numbers. I come on at the 34 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//27621.mp3

If You are Illegal, Passport and Social Security Numbers in One Day

I spent three hours yesterday at the Consulate, trying to obtain a passport renewal for my 82 year old mother who wants to travel to visit her sister and brother she had not seen for a long time. It may be her last trip.

Because her passport had expired in 1998, it must be verified that she is still a Romanian citizen and that she has not given up her citizenship to another country without their knowledge, even though I provided them with her resident alien U.S. re-entry permit (a form of passport for legal immigrants) that also expired in late 90s, and her resident alien card.

The Consulate must check that she is a legal entity, that she exists, that she’s still a Romanian citizen, said the condescending clerk in the consular office, for the fee of $81 in cash.  How do they know that she has not sworn allegiance to another country in the interim?

After an alleged wait period of 60 days, she will be eligible for a new passport, providing that the right paperwork, filled out correctly according to bureaucratic speak, name and surname, her deceased parents, my deceased father, her life story, etc.  will be filed. I have no clue what the fee will be or how long that would take, hopefully her siblings will still be alive and mom will be ambulatory and/or able to travel.

But that is not all. I must then proceed with the renewal of her U.S. re-entry permit, facing the legal immigration bureaucracy gauntlet of the United States, and I have no idea how long that would take, considering the backlog of 4 million legal immigrants who are awaiting patiently the resolution of their cases, and the priority that the flood of illegal aliens from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador are receiving.

If mom was an illegal alien freshly arrived from Mexico, she would be getting her passport and visa on the same day, and from the Social Security office.

That is exactly what happened to a busload of Mexicans who arrived from Laredo in Memphis, Tennessee. According to the video posted by therightscoop.com, an American citizen confronted some of the members of the group who spoke no English, had been in the U.S. one day, but already had Social Security numbers and new Mexican passports issued not by the Mexican Consulate but by the Social Security office in Memphis. http://therightscoop.com/report-obama-admin-giving-illegals-new-passports-and-social-security-numbers-video/

As the videographer says in his citizen video, “They should get these [passports] in Mexico. We need jobs, we have no money in our country, we are giving it all away, and look at this, our tax dollars hard at work, there’s your bus full of people, there’s the Social Security office, and they are giving passports away to illegals.

Chances are, after writing about this egregious issue and the concerned American citizen videographer, my mom will never get travel papers from the United States.  

We have to stop the flood of illegal aliens into our country who claim bogus refugee status.  They are here for jobs because of bad economic conditions in their countries, and to receive welfare from the strapped American taxpayers. American businesses want illegals here for cheap labor, replacing American workers. We have our own severe economic problems in the United States and our middle class is struggling under the heavy burden of taxation, the loss of jobs, and the lack of job creation.

 

 

Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon-Driven "Consensus" Global Warming

March 17, 2014 Snow
Photo: Ileana Johnson

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released a 36 page review on August 25, 2014 about the regulatory impact the “development of social cost of carbon estimates” would have on our economy and what methods the developers used to assess the social cost. www.gao.gov/assets/670/665016.pdf
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Council of Economic Advisors led a working group composed of four offices from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and six federal agencies:  the EPA, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Transportation, and the Treasury. The working group had expertise in economics, climate science, and academic modeling.
“Social cost of carbon, measured in dollars per metric ton of carbon dioxide, is the monetized net effects (damages and benefits) associated with an incremental increase in carbon emissions in a given year.” Estimates vary widely depending on how data is used and what computer modeling calculates them.

The use of the word “carbon” is deceptive. Carbon is a chemical element whereas carbon dioxide (CO2) is a gas exhaled or released in the atmosphere, the gas of plant life found to be in a concentration of 0.04 percent.

Damage categories can include projected changes in net agricultural productivity, human health, and property damage from “increased flood risk due to increased carbon emissions.” The first legitimate question that pops in my mind is, in a truly scientific study, how do you control for other variables that affect agricultural productivity, human health, and property damage in order to tell with accuracy that carbon dioxide is the culprit?

The methods used by the working group were based on three values:
      
1.       Decisions were made using “overall consensus” when developing the 2010 and 2013     estimates.
2.       The working group “relied largely on existing academic literature and models” to develop its estimates. They used three “prevalent academic models that integrate climate and economic data to estimate future economic effects from climate change.” 

The EPA, with help from the model developers (the academics), calculated the estimates once the group “reached agreement.” Model assumptions and features were not changed, only updated to incorporate new scientific information such as “sea level rise and associated damages.”

Three different models converted carbon dioxide emissions scenarios into changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, then the gas concentration changes into temperature changes, and finally temperature changes into damages and benefits. Each of the three models used its own method to estimate the above effects.

The three models are cited often in peer-reviewed literature and by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its climate assessments. (p. 13)

The three key inputs used to run each model were:

-          scenarios for future population and economic growth

-          how the climate responds to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in atmosphere

-          discount rates.

The discount rates of 2.5, 3, and 5 percent were chosen to reflect the current academic literature because there was no “consensus” about the appropriate rate. It seems rather arbitrary and non-scientific to leave out so many other variables. GAO’s report says that “academic literature shows that the social cost of carbon is highly sensitive to the discount rate chosen,” but there is no consensus on the appropriate rate.

 
3.       Disclosures about limitations and incorporation of new information.

The Technical Support Document suggested that estimates should be revisited when “substantially updated models become available.” Decisions are thus made using imperfect “scientific consensus.” Consensus does not constitute fact, it is just an opinion.

Executive Order 12866 directed federal agencies to make public the economic effects of their proposed “significant regulatory actions,” and to disclose if the regulation’s benefits justify the cost. (EO 12866, 58 Fed. Reg. 51,735, September 30, 1993)

DOT was told by a federal appeals court in 2008 to “update a regulatory impact analysis with an estimate of the social cost of carbon.” The social cost referred to was the “dollar value of the net effects (damages and benefits) of an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.” (GAO-14-663 Social Cost of Carbon)

The DOE, the EPA, and DOT developed separately estimates of the social cost of carbon, derived from academic literature; they ranged from $0 to $159 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted. Some estimates included domestic and global cost. The median value for the social cost of carbon emission per metric ton was $19 (in 2006 dollars), calculated by using five different discount rate scenarios. (GAO-14-663, Social Cost of Carbon, p. 6)

Academics agreed by “consensus” and “settled science” that carbon dioxide is a “major contributor to climate change.” Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases trap heat in the air and prevent it from returning to space.

According to GAO, the working group consulted with the lead authors of a chapter on climate change sensitivity that appears in The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm

GAO pointed out that “none of the three models accounts for damages from wildlife loss or ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions.” The jury is still out on ocean acidification being caused by atmospheric CO2.

“The models cannot completely predict how technology may adapt to warmer temperatures.” Some models factor damage from sea level rise. The report continued, … “the models may not fully consider the effects of damages due to potential catastrophic events, such as the melting of Antarctic ice sheets,” resulting in underestimating damages from increased carbon emissions. (pp. 18-19)

In 2007 Al Gore predicted, “The ice cap is falling off a cliff. It could be completely gone in as little as seven years from now.” In the last two years, the Summer Polar Ice cap has grown by 43 percent, an area of 5.62 million square miles from the previous 3.91 million square miles on August 25, 2012.

Climate Depot showed remarkable satellite images from the University of Illinois Cryosphere project. Marc Morano quoted Judith Curry, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who said, “The Arctic Sea ice spiral of death seems to have reversed.” http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/08/30/paper-myth-of-arctic-meltdown-stunning-satellite-images-show-ice-cap-has-grown-by-an-area-twice-the-size-of-alaska-in-two-years-despite-al-gores-prediction-it-would-be-ice-free-by-now/

“As the end of the southern winter draws closer, Antarctic sea ice extent remains higher than average.” http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Natural variability, oceanic currents, solar flares, and volcanic eruptions are often overlooked variables in global warming modeling.

                                                                                        
Does this “consensus” modeling deal with cooling temperatures? Does modeling value other greenhouse gases? Does it factor in the increased ice surface? Has the modeling been independently reviewed?

At the end of the day, consumers are going to pay more taxes and higher prices for all goods and services because of “consensus” global warming and its social costs as determined by omnipotent governments, academicians, and the United Nation’s IPCC. The science is not settled but the fix on our pockets is.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

Tattoos, Artistic Expression, Fashion Statement, or Self-Mutilation

Tattoos used to represent gang affiliation, prison time, or brotherhood in the military. Hollywood’s narcissistic behavior has changed that; imitation has become a misguided form of flattery.

Tattoos are a billion dollar industry. Considered now a form of self-expression, my body is my canvass, tats are not cheap. Tats are so desired that unemployed and partly-employed youth go into debt to pay for tattoos.

Tattoos and body piercings are considered a rite of passage in primitive cultures, and are more painful and more expensive to remove in western cultures. Some Christians object to tattooing because it defaces the perfect body that God has created.
On any given day, it is hard to scan any crowd without finding more and more people of all ages with visible and huge tattoos, body piercings, hooks, horns, chains, facial holes, gauged piercings, and other forms of body enhancement. There has been an explosion of young people covering their arms, their legs, their backs, necks, faces, and hands with colorful tattoos and body piercings in painful places.

A few tats are beautiful, masterfully done by skilled artists, some are ugly caricatures or stretched blotches of black ink, others picture words in foreign scripts the wearer does not understand, some represent kinship or brotherhood with an organization, a few make delicate or indelicate fashion statements, some are obscene, others represent prison time, the number of people murdered and gang affiliation, and others pay homage to a place, a person, a special date, a life-altering event, or a decision made while inebriated. No matter what the reason, tattoos become an indelible part of how that person is perceived for a lifetime regardless of their good, imperfect, or bad character.

Pirates had only one ear pierced because they believed it improved their visual acuity.

Holocaust victims at Auschwitz had numbers tattooed on their forearms by their jailers and torturers, a vivid expression of the utter brutality of Nazism and its attempt to dehumanize Jewish people.

When I first saw Otzi, the Iceman, the well-preserved mummy of a man who lived about 3300 B.C., in Bolzano, Italy, I focused on many details besides his belongings. Discovered in 1991 on the Austrian-Italian border between Bolzano and Innsbruck, Otzi had 57 tattoos. Scientists revealed that some tats were located near modern acupuncture points and they may have treated his degenerative arthritis. If that is indeed true, tattooing for medicinal purposes, a form of rudimentary acupuncture, occurred way before acupuncture was known to be in use in China around 1000 B.C.

“Otzi had several carbon tattoos including groups of short, parallel, vertical lines to both sides of the lumbar spine, a cruciform mark behind the right knee, and various marks around both ankles.” http://www.crystalinks.com/otzi.html

Two mummies, a man and his wife, from 2,500 years ago remained frozen in Pazyryk on the Altai steppes near the Mongolian border and western Siberia until it was found by Russian archeologist Sergei Rudenko in 1948. The man’s body was covered with tattoos, his arms, legs, and trunk – “monsters with wings and cats’ tails, lion-griffins with snakelike bodies, deer with huge antlers and eagles’ beaks.”

The Scyths (Scythians), Iranian equestrian tribes, who lived in central Asia from 7th to 3rd century B.C., were famous for their tattoos. The Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.) wrote, “the whole mass of the Scyths, as many as are nomads, cauterize their shoulders, arms, and hands, chests, thighs, and loins, for no other purpose than to avoid weakness and flabbiness and to become energetic.”

Tattooing then was a painful status symbol for Scythians. Skilled tattooists punctured deeply into the flesh of their customers elaborate designs of real and imaginary creatures and then “filled the holes with a black liquid.”

Another Pazyryk people discovery was made in 1993 in Novosibirsk, a 25 year old blond princess preserved in the Siberian permafrost. The Ukok Princess had perfectly preserved 2,500 year old tattoos on both arms. Dr. Polosmak postulated that tattoos were a means of personal identification, status and position in society, as well as the ability for the people of the same clan to find each other in the afterlife. “The more tattoos were on the body, the longer it meant the person lived, and the higher was his position.”

Other bodies found in 1929 in the Siberian permafrost, such as that of a man, exhibit animal tattoos from head to toe:  mountain sheep called argali, griffons with vulture beaks, winged snow leopards, and fish.

(Photo: The Siberian Times reporter, August 14, 2012)

 

 

This is the photograph reconstructing a warrior’s tattoos, warrior found on the same plateau as the Ukok Princess. The drawing of tattoos was made by Elena Shumakova of the Institute of Archeologyand Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science.

The princess’ tattoos were highly intricate and artistic, representing mythological animals and fantastical creatures: “a deer with a griffon’s beak and a Capricorn’s antlers. The antlers are decorated with the heads of griffons. And the same griffon’s head is shown on the back of the animal. The mouth of a spotted panther with a long tail is seen at the legs of the sheep. She also has a deer’s head on her wrist, with big antlers. There is a drawing on the animal’s body on the thumb on her left hand.” http://siberiantimes.com/culture/others/features/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos/

Tattoos are as old as our civilization and, for whatever complicated reasons humans seek and get tattoos today, they appear to be an outer expression of the inner self screaming to be noticed.

 

Artsy Cows

Pennington corn fields

On a partly cloudy Labor Day weekend, we drove to rural New Jersey.  After passing through Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, we arrived at our destination, a pastoral heaven with corn fields, small towns, farms, dairy cows, luscious gardens, and farmer’s markets.

As I scanned the peaceful fields looking for signs of life, my attention was drawn to a colorful cow at the edge of a pasture. It was the most unexpected place to find a statue in the middle of nowhere.  I could see a tall hill in the distance, an extinguished volcano whose caldera is now filled with the water of a huge lake.

To say that this is was serendipity on a day that was turning drizzly, it is an understatement. My husband stopped the car and I had to walk through knee-deep grasses in my sandals to photograph the unusual open air exhibit consisting of one ornate and artistic ox, staring at the country road. Unanswered questions swirled in my mind. Who would place a fiberglass cow in the middle of a pasture? It was evident that the artist had spent a great deal of time to create his highly ornate cow with a whimsical name.

As we reached Pennington, New Jersey, more artsy cows with creative names popped in the most unexpected places, a bank, a visitor’s center, a museum, a garden center, businesses, and a day care; a theme and a purpose emerged.

Hopewell Valley Arts Council had organized The Stampede Outdoor Exhibition from August 15 through October 19, 2014, turning the entire area into an outdoor museum that exhibited 68 fiberglass oxen. Originally white, these oxen were painted, drawn, collaged, armored, and decorated by local artists. An online auction will open September 19-October 19 to bid for some of the oxen on display. A live auction and gala will be held at the Grounds for Sculpture on January 24, 2015. Proceeds from the select auctioned oxen will go to the development of the Hopewell Valley Arts Council. http://www.hvstampede.org/

Because some of the exhibits are delicate, exposure to the elements requires temporary removal and repair. There is a map guiding visitors to each exhibit displayed around the township. It is so much more entertaining and fun for kids and adults, who follow giddily the marked numbers as a “treasure hunt.” The oxen have fanciful names such as Jersey Strong, Beaux Vine, Think Inside the Ox, Ox Populi, Ox Nouveau, Van Gox, Cointreau on the Ox, Newton, and Babe the Blue Ushi.

This is America that I love, creative, bold, artistic, colorful, thinking outside the ox, and down to earth.

                 Van Gox by Cindy Laliwala, Britanny Pezillo, Vince Di Paolo, and Cait Higgins

                                                             Newton by Guy Ciarcia

                                                        Ox Nouveau by Cecile Vidican

                                                           Ox Populi by Joann Lee Kim

                                         

                                      Greetings from Hopewell Valley by Kit Greener and Kyle Willie

                                                   Cointreau on the Ox by Mike & Sara Keeler

                                                  Babe and Blue Ushi by Kate Eggleston

                                    “Lenni Lenapi” Our Native Residents by Morris E. Docktor

© Ileana Johnson 2014