Al Gore’s Sequel
Posted: July 31, 2017 Filed under: Climate Change, energy | Tags: Al Gore, Carbon Dioxide, carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, global warming, science 2 CommentsAl Gore’s Sequel
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Soon to be in theaters across the nation, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Sequel” will repeat, even add to, the apocalyptic claims shown in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” In the decade since Gore’s earlier film, however, the numbers of scientific realists who counter the stance put forth by Gore and others has grown enormously. There will, therefore, be plenty of outright denials of the former vice president’s fright-peddling insistence about warming and mankind’s role in it.
Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Sequel” will soon be in theaters across the nation. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Kasey Baker CC BY 3.0)
Don’t expect any apology for misinformation in this film. And don’t look for details from an important report examining how data from weather stations have been doctored to buttress Gore’s scares. A conservative news purveyor known as PJ Media has recently shown that temperature figures making up the Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) have been manipulated to favor the position favored by Gore. The culprits include the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), and the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research.
Figures used to create GAST’s summary conclusion do not coincide with actual temperature readings and have been dubbed “not a valid representation of reality.” In fact, the year 2016 was not “the hottest year on record” as claimed by NOAA. That year produced “a below average’” number of hot days that ranked it 80th from the hottest since 1895 when recording temperatures began.
NOAA’s charts and graphs portray U.S. temperature higher by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century. But its own figures disproving that very claim have been altered to conform to the increased amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. CO2 is “supposed” to be a dangerous substance driving temperatures upward; however, mounting numbers of climate realists and allies in other fields point to the needed and beneficial effects of CO2. And they don’t adjust temperature data to conform to their expectations regarding temperature fluctuations.
According to many climate alarmists, deniers of “inconvenient truths” are bought-and-paid-for agents of energy companies. No mention is made of the millions Al Gore and his climate allies have accumulated from government grants and green-energy subsidies. Gore alone has become a multi-millionaire.
Nor should anyone be conned into believing that any denier is a self-indicted and dangerous kook just because of the claim that “97 percent of scientists” believe the CO2 con and mankind’s pernicious role in causing its increase. There’s “consensus” among scientists say Gore and his allies. There isn’t. But, as the late physician, researcher and author Michael Crichton stated in his 2003 Caltech lecture, “In science consensus is irrelevant…. There’s no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
There happens to be a political agenda behind all of the hoopla about climate change. The Paris Agreement President Trump refused to sign turns out to be a key step toward wealth redistribution. Former head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri openly pointed to that goal. Christiana Figueres, who led the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) until 2016, said the Paris Agreement provided tools to “replace capitalism.” Former UNFCCC official Ottmar Edenhofer summarized, “we de facto redistribute the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
Climate realists, adamant deniers of the message put forth by Gore and others, are today’s heroes not the enemies of mankind. That their number continues to grow is welcome news.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American
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Another Neoconservative Startup
Posted: July 28, 2017 Filed under: foreign policy, Military, neoconservatism, Unconstitutional Wars, United Nations | Tags: ASD, FPI, Irving Kristol, military, neoconservatism, PNAC, world government 1 CommentAnother Neoconservative Startup
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Here we go again! The champions for socialism, militarism, and world government have a new organization. A successor to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) is the latest think tank formed to promote big government, war, and the destruction of national sovereignty through economic and political entanglements.
U.S. Marines with Iraqi POWs. Why is war always the answer? Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain, United States Marine Corps.
One after the other, these organizations are bastions of neoconservatism, the political philosophy launched by Irving Kristol in 1972. Joyfully dubbed “the Godfather of Neoconservatism,” Kristol wrote about his brand of skullduggery in his 1995 book Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. For its basic goals, he supported “the New Deal in principle” and condemned “the kind of isolationism that then permeated American conservatism.” That’s socialism and internationalism, each an antithesis of Americanism. In addition, neoconservatives have always supported involvement in wars to further their goals.
PNAC debuted in 1997. Founded by Irving Kristol’s son William and veteran internationalist Robert Kagan, its dozens of members included holdovers from the first Bush administration: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, Dan Quayle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Robert Zoellick to name a few. They wanted President Bush the elder to reinvade Iraq after the UN-limited goal in that unhappy country had been achieved via the 1991 Desert Storm invasion.
Out of office after Clinton defeated the elder Bush in 1992, the PNAC neocons gathered under William Kristol and pushed hard for another invasion of Iraq. They sought help from President Clinton who had personal problems to deal with and couldn’t comply. Then they went to House Speaker Gingrich who evidently didn’t want adopt their agenda. So the proposed re-invasion of Iraq got shelved.
After George W. Bush replaced Clinton in 2001, PNAC members Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others were back in the saddle. They put together a plan to reinvade Iraq even before the devastating 9/11 attack. That attack supplied their rationale (a crisis that wasn’t wasted!) to reinvade Iraq. And, revealingly, they sought and obtained authorization not from Congress but from the United Nations.
In 2009, six years after the second invasion of Iraq and the huge mess it produced, PNAC folded its tent and made room for the FPI. Its top leaders just happened to include William Kristol and Robert Kagan, the founders of PNAC. New potential targets turned out to be “China and Russia” along with “Al Qaeda and its affiliates.” FPI’s underlying neoconservative goals were only a little different from those of its PNAC predecessor: “rejection of isolationism,” “strong military budget,” “international economic integration,” etc.
Here we are in 2017 and FPI has been discontinued in favor of the ASD. The new neocon venture lists members such as leading Democrats national security adviser for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton Jake Sullivan, Obama CIA director Mike Morrell, and Obama Ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul. Calling itself “a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative,” and funded generously by the German Marshall Fund, its Republican neocons are led by William Kristol and Michael Chertoff. Democrats within ASD delight in having common cause with GOP neocons because of their shared loathing of Donald Trump. The potential enemies of these individuals would be Iran and Russia.
Why war? The answer isn’t hard to decipher. War always leads to larger government, increased indebtedness, moral decline, and cries for internationalism. These were common goals of the now defunct PNAC and FPI, and now the ASD. Then-German Chancellor Willy Brandt (a secret Communist) announced the creation of the German Marshall Fund in a speech at Harvard University in 1972. A U.S.–based organization, the GMF is headquartered in Washington DC. from which it will fuel the efforts of the new ASD and other highly questionable ventures.
Learn more how the neoconservatives are changing American politics and take action by getting involved with The John Birch Society today.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American
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The Supreme Court and Cake
Posted: July 13, 2017 Filed under: freedom of speech, marriage, Religious Persecution | Tags: marriage, religious persecution, same-sex marriage, union, Wedding Cake Leave a commentThe Supreme Court and Cake
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Five years have passed since a Colorado baker of cakes refused to create one of his masterpieces for two men who wanted it to celebrate their “marriage.” It’s hard to believe that this incident is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. But it is, and the fact that it has reached such heights indicates how far our nation has descended toward destruction of common sense and the commonly held values that formerly undergirded our nation.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons by Michael Prudhomme, CakesMadeEasy.com under the terms GNU Free Documentation License.
Cake maker Jack Phillips says he has a right to refuse the business of a particular customer whose fundamental intention is not to purchase a decorated cake but to use the transaction to force acceptance of homosexual “marriage.” On religious grounds, he doesn’t approve of “gay marriage” and his refusal to build a fancy cake for a homosexual duo supposedly violates a portion of the U.S. Constitution banning discrimination. I searched but I couldn’t find the particular part of the Constitution on which this case is built. Legal beagles claim it’s discrimination, and that’s something terribly bad. Half a century ago, discrimination was so highly regarded that the Herbert-Tareyton cigarette company advertised its product as “the cigarette for discriminating people.” And a common assessment of the esteem accorded discrimination back then insisted that the only people who don’t discriminate “are prostitutes and fools.”
Sadly, commonly held attitudes of 50 years ago have been pushed aside in the rush to overturn cultural, religious, and even economic mores. Some would claim this development to be “progress.” But that’s another word whose meaning has been turned upside down.
Shouldn’t Jack Phillips have a right to refuse the business of someone who walks into his store and intends, not so much to buy a cake, but to have the planned transaction force acceptance of something abhorred by Phillips and many others? Why does Phillips have to provide an approved reason for saying “No” to a potential customer he knows has an agenda that far exceeds buying a cake? Isn’t his business his property, his “castle,” a place where his right to refuse entry to someone is supposed to be sacrosanct?
A deeper look into this matter shows that the homosexual couple seeking a cake from Phillips planned to have it at their ceremony in New York, not in Colorado. They obviously chose to challenge the Lakewood, Colorado, baker’s distaste for gay marriage. So, the issue isn’t really one of mere refusal to do business with someone. It’s about forcing acceptance of homosexual marriage. By definition, marriage has always been the union of one man and one woman. Homosexual marriage is no more a “marriage” than labeling something water when it isn’t a combination of hydrogen and oxygen.
It’s no surprise to find a spokesman for the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) division taking the side of the supposedly aggrieved cake customers. James Essex of the ACLU claims: “You have freedom to believe and to preach your faith until your actions harm other people.” Does refusal to cooperate with the demands of homosexuals amount to harm? If so, what about possible harm done to a baker who refuses to participate, even in a slight way, in a practice he considers reprehensible, even sinful? Also, what about harming the moral character of this nation?
The Supreme Court will hear Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in the fall. The case progressed from rulings at lower levels favoring the claims of the two men who insist that they are victims of unjust discrimination. Phillips’s attorney David Cortman rightly states, “Every American should be free to choose which art they will create and which art they won’t create without fear of being unjustly punished by the government.”
That makes sense, of course. But good sense doesn’t always prevail, especially when so much more than discrimination is at stake. The high court’s willingness to rule in this case about cake signals that there are far more important matters at stake.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American
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Let ’Em Be Redskins
Posted: July 12, 2017 Filed under: freedom of speech | Tags: discrimination, freedom of speech, logo, Redskins, trademarks, Washington Redskins Leave a commentLet ’Em Be Redskins
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Yes, the federal government has an office created to protect trademarks. It’s at this office that one goes to register a nickname, a team logo, a chosen moniker, even a name that someone might find offensive.
Washington Redskins helmet image from Flickr by Keith Allison CC BY-SA 2.0 .
The U.S. Copyright and Trademark Office branch of the federal government is unlike one of those dangerously meddlesome bureaus whose rulings chop away at freedom. The most well known trademark under attack for years has been “Redskins,” Washington’s professional football team. The team’s owner actually registered its long-standing trademark(s) in 1967, 1974, 1978, and 1990.
Busybody liberals have claimed that the term “Redskins” is offensive and have campaigned to force the team to cease using it. Some Washington detractors have suggested that the name Washington Redskins ought to be changed by dropping “Washington” and referring to the team to as “Redskins” alone.
Just before ending its term in June, the Supreme Court issued a ruling favoring the use of the term “Slants” by an Asian-American dance-rock band. In that 8-0 decision (Justice Gorsuch was not yet a Court member when the matter was heard early in 2017), the justices split on their reasoning. Writing for himself and Justices Thomas, Roberts and Breyer, Justice Samuel Alito stated:
Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful. But the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought we hate.”
Writing for himself and Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, Justice Kennedy said the issue amounted to “viewpoint discrimination.” He and his three colleagues believed that banning “viewpoint discrimination” in this or any case amounts to “Government censorship.” That’s a welcome summation.
The “Slants” insisted they weren’t trying to disparage anyone. Instead, they felt that using such a term would help make it a “a badge of pride.” Justice Kennedy agreed and cited their attitude in his ruling, even labeling the term “Slants” as “happy talk.”
For years, some overly sensitive meddlers have sought to force Florida State University to cease calling its team “the Seminoles.” But representatives of the Florida’s Seminole tribe said they were proud to be so recognized by the university. In North Dakota, a state university bowed to pressure and ceased calling its athletes the “Fighting Sioux.” Maybe the ruling about the “Slants” will encourage North Dakota to rethink its decision.
Had common sense not prevailed in the case brought against the “Slants,” more mischief loomed on the horizon. Would Holy Cross College be forced by an aggrieved Muslim to junk the use of “Crusaders” for its athletes? Providence College calls its teams “Friars.” Surely there are some who would like to change that. Many other team names likely bother somebody.
Washington Redskins lawyer Lisa Blatt believes the case against her client has essentially been decided with the ruling handed down in the “Slants” case. We hope she is correct. And we hope that the Supreme Court will never again have to render an opinion in such a trivial matter.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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