Archives for April 2016

For one day only, theaters across America will screen a new documentary aiming to expose the “scientific nonsense” of the climate change movement and show it’s nothing but a huge wealth redistribution scheme.

“Climate Hustle” will be in theaters this coming Monday, May 2.  It’s a project spearheaded by Marc Morano, executive editor and chief correspondent at climatedepot.com.

“This is a film aimed for the general public and what we’re trying to do is reinforce what they know in their gut that what they’ve seen every night on the nightly news, all the propaganda, all the academia, coming from Hollywood, coming from the United Nations, coming from Al Gore means they’re being hustled scientifically and politically,” said Morano.

“They’ve juiced the science,” added Morano, citing former United Nations who expose the system in “Climate Hustle.”  “They discard data that doesn’t support them.  They suppress scientists, they threaten journal editors.  Mostly they intimidate scientists who don’t go along.”

He says the film shreds the conventional wisdom that political moves will somehow allow humans to control the earth’s climate.

“There are hundreds of factors influencing our climate.  Carbon dioxide is but one of them.  The idea we can tweak carbon dioxide on the margins and come up with a predictable climate or some impact on the climate, as one scientist says in the film, it’s scientific nonsense,” said Morano.

Morano says there is also humor in the film, as a result of some of the dire climate predictions over the years.

“We go through the tipping points.  We show how the United Nations in the 1980’s was predicting a 10-year tipping point, where we must act in order to fight global warming,” said Morano.

“We have Prince Charles.  We have Al Gore and a whole host of other people making ridiculous tipping points that have come and gone but they just draw a line and scratch out the old date and enter a new date,” added Morano.

“Climate Hustle” contends that the insistence of liberals that climate change is our greatest global challenge is simply a way from distracting the public form the real agenda: spreading the wealth around.

“We have the UN on record as saying they want to redistribute wealth by climate policy.  We have the EU climate commissioner saying that even if they’re wrong on the science, they’re doing the right thing by policy.  So they don’t even care about the science,” said Morano.

“They’re admitting the science is irrelevant.  They’re using a climate scare in order to achieve their agenda,” said Morano.

While important scientific concepts and political ideas are discussed, Morano stressed again that the film is also very entertaining.

“It’s very simply laid out so people can just sit back and enjoy.  It’s a popcorn munching film, I promise,” he said.

Tickets for “Climate Hustle” can be purchased at the film’s website or at the box office of theaters where it will be shown.  A list of participating theaters is also available at the site.

Bishop E.W. Jackson, the former Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia and  fervent Ted Cruz supporter, says the GOP must unite around its presidential nominee, even if it’s Donald Trump, in order to stop Hillary Clinton from returning to the White House.

Jackson, who still holds out hope for Cruz at the moment, wrote an open letter to all Republicans, urging them to stop the personal bickering over their preferred candidates and prepare to confront Clinton in the general election.

“I’m profoundly concerned about the stark and mean-spirited differences that are emerging between these candidates that are by and large personal, not always policy, and that this is going to interfere with their ability to mend fences and come together,” said Jackson in an interview conducted in response to his letter.

“I’ve heard them make statements that they’ll never support each other.  That’s terrible for the party.  That’s terrible for the general election.  I decided I’d had enough of it,” he said.  “We need to call for unity and we need to prepare to defeat Hillary Clinton.”

Exit polls in various states show anywhere from 25-40 percent of non-Trump voters in Republican contests plan will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee.  The #NeverTrump campaign among many grassroots activists is also vowing to hold firm.

Jackson strongly disagrees.

“Would they prefer Hillary Clinton?” laughed Jackson.  “It’s very simple.  Would they prefer Hillary Clinton.  She is the alternative.  We’re not dealing with this in a vacuum.  It’s not wither Trump or Jesus.  It’s Trump or Hillary Clinton,” said Jackson.

Reiterating that he thinks Cruz would be a better president than Trump, Jackson says Trump’s stand on several issues convince him it is worth the effort to help the front-runner defeat Clinton if Trump emerges as the nominee.

“Trump does espouse pro-life positions.  Trump does espouse the importance of the free market and creating jobs.  Trump does express his concern about the erosion of religious liberty in our country,” said Jackson.  “He has said some things that give me hope.  I have absolutely no hope with Hillary Clinton.”

 

“Some of the other issues we may not always agree on, but my goodness, I have far more agreement with him than I do with her,” said Jackson.

Jackson then rattled off several issues that terrify him if Clinton is elected.

“Hillary Clinton was a Saul Alinsky devotee.  She was discipled by him.  She clearly uses the free market when she wants to but I have no doubt that she sees the free market as the enemy of equality and the enemy of fairness and will do the same thing that Barack Obama has done,” said Jackson.

Trump has offered kind words about Planned Parenthood in this campaign but has also denounced its abortion practices.  Jackson says Hillary is far more cozy with the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“Hillary Clinton is clearly a major supporter of Planned Parenthood.  She thinks it’s just the greatest thing since Carter’s Little Liver Pills were invented.  She’s going to do everything in her power, not only to preserve, but to expand the power of Planned Parenthood.  And Hillary Clinton has not even once spoken about any threat to religious liberty,” said Jackson.

In his letter, Jackson says he’s personally experienced the disastrous effects of a fractured party.  In 2013, Jackson was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia on the ticket that included gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli and attorney general candidate Mark Obenshain.  All three lost.

In our interview, Jackson elaborated on why the lack of unity was lethal for the GOP in a tight race.

“Very prominent Republicans who, for personal reasons perhaps and maybe reasons I don’t fully understand, decided they were going to do everything in their power to undermine the ticket.  In effect, for a short time there, we didn’t really have a party,” said Jackson.

“It was just a gang of individuals who were divided against each other and didn’t care whether the party won or not.  They just cared that the people they didn’t like lost.  And of couurse, they got their wish,” said Jackson.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe was elected governor and Democrats Ralph Northam and Mark Herring won the lieutenant governor and attorney general races respectively.

“The commonwealth has suffered as a result.  I don’t want our country to suffer as a result of the same kind of behavior at the national level,” said Jackson.

Jackson stated that if Trump gets within 100 delegates of the 1,237 he needs for a majority, then it’s in the GOP’s best interest to choose Trump as the nominee.

“I think to deny Donald Trump the nomination (if he is within 100 delegates) is going to fracture the party, perhaps irreparably.  At that point, I would really have some soul-searching to do,” said Jackson.

As much as he prefers Cruz, Jackson says he may well back Trump on the convention floor for the sake of the party.

“I might just have to say, ‘It’s time to wait.  Ted Cruz is young enough that he can come back, young enough that maybe we’ll see him as president of the United States one day.  Maybe this is not his time,'” said Jackson.

“Now we’re not there yet, but we may come to that point,” he added.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud former CNN and NBC reporter Campbell Brown, who is blasting the news media for making their networks all Trump all the time in a quest for ratings. They also slam the people behind a new film that intends to mock Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s Disease and pretend he had it while president. And they discuss the wild first night of the NFL Draft, where a top prospect watched his prospects plummet after a sudden video of bong hits and admissions he was given money by coaches in college.

Update: Actor Will Farrell has pulled out of the Reagan film project.

A top Ted Cruz supporter says former House Speaker John Boehner’s characterization of Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh” is a “badge of honor” for the campaign, as he denounced Boehner, touted Carly Fiorina and vowed the race for the GOP nomination is far from over.

Largely absent from public since stepping down as speaker last October, Boehner slammed Cruz during an appearance Wednesday at Stanford University.  When asked to offer thoughts on Cruz, Boehner considered the Texas senator “Lucifer in the flesh.”  But he wasn’t done.

“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life,” said Boehner, according to the Stanford Daily.

At a campaign stop in Indiana, Cruz said Boehner seemed to be “channeling his inner Trump.”

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a top Cruz surrogate, was even more blunt.

“John Boehner has been part of the problem for a long time.  When he opposes somebody because they fight him at every turn, that person who is fighting him is well worthy of every American’s consideration.  In this case, that happens to be Ted Cruz.  That’s a badge of honor for us,” said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli says Boehner deserves a good share of the blame for the nation’s current condition.

“The people that John Boehner is happy to see move forward are exactly the people that are miring America in debt and less freedom and dragging us down into nothing much more than another European-like welfare state,” said Cuccinelli.

The Stanford Daily reported Boehner as saying he had a high-maintenance relationship with John Kasich but loves him nonetheless.  Boehner also revealed he was “texting buddies” with Donald Trump.  The former speaker said he would back Trump as the nominee but would not vote for Cruz.

Cuccinelli is not surprised.

“He and people like him in Washington would be perfectly happy to work with Donald Trump.  ‘Hey, let’s just make more deals.’  Doesn’t matter what the basis of the deal is.  Doesn’t matter that the American people get the short end of the stick, that our children have more debt and less freedom or that we’re less secure.  But all the power people will continue to be happy.  God forbid, we wouldn’t want to make John Boehner cry,” said Cuccinelli.

The Boehner comments came just hours after Cruz, who trails Trump by more than 400 delegates, announced former GOP rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate if Cruz is able to beat out Trump at a contested convention.  Cuccinelli says Fiorina is a nightmare for Democrats and Hillary Clinton in paritcular.

“She has been one of the best and most articulate messengers against the Democrats during this whole presidential race.  I think she’s proven over the past two months while she’s been campaigning on Senator Cruz’s behalf what a real asset she is to the team,” said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli says Fiorina was chosen by Cruz on the merits and that Cruz thinks she could be a fine president if necessary.  However, Cuccinelli admits Trump’s huge unfavorable numbers with women also played a factor.

Cruz scored a big win over Trump in Wisconsin April 5, but Trump has dominated the past six contests, easily winning a majority in all of the eastern states, in some cases eclipsing 60 percent of the vote and hauling many more delegates than expected.

Next up is Indiana on May 3.  Cuccinelli says it is not a must win, but the campaign is expecting a very strong showing.

“We’d like to see a performance like Wisconsin.  We’re working for that.  Carly is helping us do that on the ticket.  We have high hopes for Indiana.  Ted has been very warmly received there.  We think that’s going to turn out very well for us,” said Cuccinelli.

He is also rejecting the media narrative that Trump’s domination over the past two weeks essentially wraps up the nomination for the front-runner.

“The media have signed Ted Cruz’s death certificate on more than one occasion.  So this is just one more added to the heap.  It doesn’t really matter what network you’re talking about.  Fox does this just as badly and horrifically and inaccurately as anyone else,” said Cuccinelli.

He says the press want to declare Trump the nominee because he is ratings gold.

“The media would love to see Donald Trump for six months.  He’s an entertainer.  He wouldn’t be much of a president.  But let’s face it, from a media perspective, they’d love to have him for six months for just pure entertainment value and ratings,” said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli is also swinging back against the Trump narrative, which many in the media have joined after the past two weeks, that even if Trump fails to clinch a majority of pledged delegates, the party will have no choice but to nominate him if he’s anywhere close to the magic number of 1,237.

“These are the same people who think you should give a trophy to every kid who plays.  This kind of whining, let’s roll over and not compete attitude is gutting America and Donald Trump fits very nicely in there.  All talk, no action,” said Cuccinelli.

He says the campaign itself proves Trump doesn’t have what it takes to be a good president.

“We’re killing him on the ground,” said Cuccinelli.  “When it comes to the actual mechanics of running a campaign, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  I don’t know why anybody thinks someone who can’t get through that process competently can be president of the United States competently,” said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli says if Trump has 1,237 delegates or more come convention time, the nomination is all his.  But if Trump has 1,236 or fewer, delegates, Cruz plans to fight it out in Cleveland.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review figure Ted Cruz has nothing to lose by naming Carly Fiorina as his running mate and trying to take advantage of Donald Trump’s terrible numbers with women.  They also rip former House Speaker Dennis Hastert to shreds for sexually abusing high school boys and then covering it up for decades.  And they rip a Virginia state senator for publicly standing with the Assad regime in Syria and the media for thinking it was a U.S. senator and never bothering to check.

Five military judges heard oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of a U.S. Marine punished through a court-martial for refusing to remove bible verses from her workstation, and a retired general says the case could determine whether there really is religious freedom in the U.S. military.

Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling lost her original court case, as the court ruled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not apply to the the type of religious expression she was displaying and did not protect her from punishment for refusing to remove the verses.

A decision is expected this summer.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin was in the United State Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces for Wednesday’s oral arguments before the five-judge panel.  Boykin says it’s likely to be a 3-2 decision.

“Two of them were supporting the actions of the Marine Corps.  Two of them were supporting the defendant, Monifa Sterling.  The chief judge held his cards very close to his chest.  We came out thinking the decisive vote will be the chief judge,” said Boykin.

However the court rules, Boykin says it will reverberate throughout the military.

“If they uphold her appeal and she is exonerated on this, it’s a strong, strong message to all of the military that you must protect the religious rights of service members.  On the other hand, if it is upheld and her special court-martial stands, I think it portends the situation in the military with regards to religious freedom is going to decline,” said Boykin.

In recent weeks, the military has shown a tendency to accommodate religious freedom.  The U.S. Army is now permitting hijabs and turbans to be worn by service members.  Boykin says that ruling shows the punishment aimed at Sterling shows selective application of religious freedom rights.

“I think it’s selective.  I think if she had been anything other than a Christian this would have been one of those situations in which political correctness would have been the dominant factor.  Because she’s a Christian, I think they feel very comfortable infringing on her first amendment rights,” said Boykin.

He points out service members do give up a few rights when joining the military, like the right to publicly identify with political candidates or publicly criticize the commander-in-chief.  But he says the Bill of Rights is fully intact for everyone in uniform.

“What it does not require you to do is sacrifice your first amendment right to the freedom of religion.  You are supposed to be able to exercise your religion.  That’s the most fundamental of all our rights.  Remember, that’s the first freedom articulated in the first amendment.  That is not to be sacrificed as a member of our military,” said Boykin.

Boykin believes Sterling should never have been ordered to remove the verses, but is mystified at how intense the punishment was when she refused to take them down.

“I had 36 years in the Army.  I’ve seen it all.  I have never seen anybody go to a bad conduct special court martial for something like this.  Normally, you handle this with non-judicial punishment,” he said, noting typical penalties would have included docked pay or some time restricted to barracks.

He says the Marine Corps dropped the hammer for a bigger purpose.

“Frankly, I think the leaders in the Marine Corps, certainly those who were dealing with her situation were trying to send a message to the other Marines,” said Boykin.

While noting the refusal of military leaders to stand up for religious freedom for several years, Boykin says he didn’t see this case coming.

“Actually it did surprise me from the Corps.  The Corps is our smallest branch but, as I think we all know, the Corps has historically maintained some rock-solid leadership, leaders that were willing to stand up and leaders that have shown a lot of moral courage,” said Boykin.

Boykin says military leaders in all branches are forgetting where their true loyalty belongs.

“What’s happened to all our military?  What’s happened to the leadership of our military and why are they so willing to compromise on such fundamental things.  Remember this: every member of the military takes an oath to the Constitution, not to the president.  They take an oath to the Constitution,” said Boykin.

So why won’t military leaders stand up for religious freedom?

“America is becoming a Marxist nation.  I say that and get criticized, but how many people are supporting Bernie Sanders?  What’s the enthusiasm level for Bernie Sanders?  America is becoming a Marxist nation,” said Boykin.

“Karl Marx said, ‘My objective is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.’  He also said religion is the opiate of the masses.  You cannot move through the socialist pathway to full Marxism unless you destroy this idea of unalienable rights, rights that come from God.  You do that by destroying people’s ability to openly worship their God,” said Boykin.

Boykin says the far left knows that engineering that change first in the military is the key to eradicating it from the public as a whole.

“You’ve got to change the military or you can’t change society.  That’s what this administration is all about,” said Boykin.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review freely admit that Donald Trump thoroughly crushed Ted Cruz and John Kasich in all five states voting on Tuesday and his delegate haul makes him the very likely nominee.  They also slam Kasich for a pathetic showing in states where he was supposed to be so appealing.  And they console themselves with the news that Chaka Fattah and Kathleen Matthews both lost their congressional races.

Just two years after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrambled to respond to cases of Ebola in the United States, the federal organization is now admitting it initially underestimated the threat posed by the Zika virus in the United States, leaving one expert to call for a major restructuring of the organization.

News of the Zika virus emerged earlier this year, when cases in Brazil, particularly among pregnant women, were reported in increasing numbers.  While the impact of Zika on adults and children is still being studied, medical experts have concluded the virus causes shrinking of the skulls in unborn babies, which leads to other serious health challenges.

At the start of the year, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, implored everyone to remain calm, stressing that mosquitoes carrying Zika could appear in the U.S. but the threat here is much lower than in Latin America.

Now, as the Obama administration presses for a $1.9 billion emergency response to Zika, the CDC’s Zika preview is much more serious.

“Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought,” said CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat.

For experts, that big of s shift is unacceptable.

“That’s not the kind of quote that you want from a government agency that is charged with protecting the citizens from infectious diseases,” said Dr. Tom Borelli, who earned degrees in microbiology and biochemistry and frequently writes on the impact of a bloated federal government and is now calling for Congress to restructure the CDC.

He says getting caught unprepared is becoming routine for the CDC.

“The CDC should not be surprised about epidemics.  First it was Ebola in 2014.  Now in 2016 we have the Zika virus.  Who knows what’s next?” said Borelli, who says the CDC has evidence as early as 2008 that Zika could be transmitted through sexual activity.

Borelli says the CDC started giving a more sober assessment of the Zika threat when new studies showed the mosquitoes carrying the disease could migrate to 40 of the 50 states.  He says a more focused agency would have been on top of this but the CDC has too many unnecessary irons in the fire.

“The CDC has been suffering its own disease of mission creep.  They’ve gotten into everything from salt, e-cigarettes, alcohol, guns, football injuries.  You name it, they’re doing it.  But they forgot about one of founding principles on which they were created, which is to protect us from infectious diseases.  They took the eye off the ball,” said Borelli, who notes the CDC receives about seven billion dollars a year from taxpayers.

So what would have been a competent response?

“First of all, they would have known that it would represent a public health risk if it did get to the United States,” said Borelli.  “Then, kind of like Ebola, what you do is make sure you can keep it contained and help Brazil out to keep the disease contained there.  And you implement procedures and methodologies to contain the mosquitoes.  But they didn’t.”

He says the same unpreparedness is seen in other health concerns.

“A recent document came out that showed that the CDC sent a memo to their staff that some of these kids coming over the border through Mexico are carrying tuberculosis.  here’s another infectious disease that we used to have a handle on.  Yet the CDC has its own private emails warning its staff but not the rest of the United States about what’s going on,” said Borelli.

Borelli says Congress needs to force the CDC to get back to its original mission through the power of the purse.

“You cut the budget and you have them focus on infectious diseases.  They’ve gotten a little bit lazy.  Once upon a time, we had really controlled infectious diseases.  But now we’re getting these exotic diseases from Africa just because of worldwide travel.  This is the focus that they really should be on,” said Borelli.

He fully expects any effort to shrink the CDC back down to size to be met with fierce protest from Democrats and the media as well as Democratic demands that the solution to CDC ineptness is to provide more taxpayer funding.

“That’s how we got into this mess.  Every issue they throw money at it to distract it from its core mission,” said Borelli.

Borelli does believe the CDC should continue to exist as way to keep an eye on national and global trends regarding infectious diseases.  But he says that’s all it should do.

“If that’s all they did, they’d be a lot better at it,” said Borelli.

 

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged that an overwhelming majority of Americans reject Hillary Clinton’s push for gun makers to be sued over shootings.  They also slam Pres. Obama for once again telling a foreign audience that the world has never been more peaceful or more prosperous.  And they discuss the internal fight for control of the Trump campaign.

The president and CEO of the largest public policy women’s organization says conservative women have to make a commitment to get engaged in political and policy debates if they want to see the United States turn in a more favorable direction.

Penny Young Nance is also the author of “Feisty and Feminine: A Rallying Cry for Conservative Women.”  The book provides facts and ways to engage friends and neighbors on key issues while also explaining why Nance believes women are being sold destructive lies about policy and our culture as a whole.

The book comes as America moves closer to the first woman being nominated for president by a major political party, and Hillary Clinton has even suggested at times that her being a woman ought to be a reason women support her.

Nance says another female White House hopeful was much closer to the truth.

“Carly Fiorina said, and I thought it was so wise, ‘Don’t vote for me just because I’m a woman.  Vote for me because you think I’m the most qualified.  It is demeaning to suggest the only reason I deserve your vote is because I’m a woman,'” said Nance.

The fact remains that women tend to vote Democratic, especially in presidential elections.  But the problem for conservatives and Republicans is more specific.  While married women tend to vote their way, the ever-growing population of single women overwhelmingly back Democrats.

Nance says the reasons for that divide are easy to see but the instinct to look for the government to help needs to be confronted.

“We know if you’re a single mom, you’re much more likely to live in poverty and so are your children.  We also want to make sure that we’re securing a future for our kids so that they can do better.  When we settle for socialism, we are consigning them to a life no better than the one that they have,” said Nance.

Pointing out that there are many opportunities for finding well-paying careers outside of the traditional four-year college plan, such as vocational school and other educational opportunities, Nance says education is the key to success and to converting voters.

“The way for these kids to get out of poverty is for them to not be consigned and sent to these substandard schools, trapped in these schools.  We need to have school choice for these kids so that they can do better than the generation before them,” said Nance.

“When you talk to a mom on that level about opportunities for her children, she hears you,” said Nance.

In “Feisty and Feminine,” Nance says America is facing an Esther-like moment, referring to the biblical queen who risked her own life to expose a plot to exterminate Jews in Persia.  She says Christian and conservative women need to speak up.

“I believe we are called to be salt and light in our culture.  Part of that responsibility, when we’re caught in these moments, when people feel perfectly comfortable denigrating our beliefs right to our face, we need to be prepared with an answer.  We need to be able to clear our throats and lean in and be part of the conversation,” said Nance.

Nance says many people feel intimidated to speak out if they are outnumbered or believe they don’t have a strong enough command of the facts.  She says conservatives need to be well armed, both with scripture and other evidence.

“There are situations you are in where you can quote scripture, but you will not bring anyone to your side because they don’t believe scripture.  So we also need to be prepared with the facts and the stats and a story or science that can also help them understand why we believe what we believe,” said Nance.

In addition to the political debates. Nance is on a mission to help women reject lies that she says liberals have tried to force upon them, starting with her controversial claim that women are contributing to their own degrading.

“At some point we developed Stockholm Syndrome.  We started to cooperate with our captors.  There was a day when we believed that pornography objectified and hurt women.  Now the conventional wisdom, particularly among radical feminism, is that somehow it’s empowering,” said Nance.

Nance says she regularly speaks with young women and implores them to reject what society tells them they should want in favor of what God wants for them.

“Listen, forget ’50 Shades of Gray.’  You deserve 50 years from a man who loves you, who will support you, who will respect you, who will be your life partner and loves you and will be faithful.  Stop settling for pig slop when God has a banquet of filet mignon for you,” said Nance.