Month: January 2017

Valerie Jarrett Says Obama’s Been Scandal-Free. Here Are His Top 13.

Valerie Jarrett, who has been the Rasputin of the Obama administration, offered a laughable line to ring in the new year: President Barack Obama’s presidency has been free of scandals.

“The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself,” Jarrett told CNN on Sunday. “That’s because that’s who he is — that’s who they are — and I think that’s what really resonates with the American people.”

Jarrett’s assertion is demonstrably false, as the Daily Wire has highlighted. Below are 13 of Obama’s top scandals, the first 11 of which are excerpted from our previously compiled list:

1. Operation Fast and Furious. This egregious example of a reckless government endangering lives and then scrambling to cover it up has haunted Obama for years. As Daily Wire has explained, “Operation Fast and Furious involved the Obama administration arming drug cartels and thugs south of the border as a means to undermine the Second Amendment. The program resulted in the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. One of the Islamic terrorists in the Garland, Texas, attack also used a gun that was obtained through the Fast and Furious program.” …

2. Benghazi. The terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya resulted in four brave Americans dying despite the fact that help could have been sent, but wasn’t. Requests for security prior to the attack were repeatedly denied, and after the attack Obama and Hillary Clinton falsely blamed it on a video considered offensive to Muslims. During the election, Benghazi became associated with Clinton—and rightly so—but it is also Obama’s scandal as well. It is still not known what Obama was doing that night.

3. The IRS targeted conservative organizations. In 2013, Lois Lerner, who directed the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations Unit, admitted that Tea Party organizations were targeted under the agency, but blamed it on lower-level employees. Such organizations were heavily scrutinized with invasive questions. Since then, Lerner and IRS commissioner John Koskinen have denied any wrongdoing and have stonewalled congressional efforts to investigate the matter, citing computer crashes for being unable to turn over related emails.

Meanwhile, a federal court concluded in August that conservative groups might still be facing targeted scrutiny from the IRS. It has also been reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) knew about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups as early as 2011.

4. The DOJ seized Associated Press phone records as well as phone and email records from Fox News reporter James Rosen. In the AP’s case, the DOJ was investigating a story involving “a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled an al-Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to set off a bomb on an airplane headed to the United States,” according to the Washington Post. The DOJ seized two months of phone records from the AP without informing the news outlet. …

In the Rosen case, the DOJ was investigating a story Rosen did involving North Korea and tracked “his movements and conversations,” according to Fox News, including phone numbers belonging to Rosen’s parents. The DOJ had listed Rosen as a “co-conspirator” under the Espionage Act in regards to the story—allegedly pressing a source for classified information. Rosen was never charged with a crime. …

5. The NSA conducted mass surveillance against American citizens without a warrant. Thanks to leaking from former government contractor Edward Snowden, it was revealed that the National Security Agency had been conducting mass surveillance against American citizens—a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. In 2015, the NSA eventually ended their bulk data collection of phone records.

6. The Obama administration paid ransom to Iran for hostages, and lied to the American people about it. As the Daily Wire has explained, the Obama administration claimed that they were giving a total of $1.7 billion to Iran to settle a failed arms deal with the previous Iranian regime, and it just happened to coincide with the release of four American hostages. The Obama administration also didn’t reveal the details of the agreement to Congress. It was obvious though that it was a ransom deal and the Obama administration lied about it. 

7. Hillary’s email scandal. Clinton’s use of a private email server that was unapproved and unsecured has been written about extensively, but it is also Obama’s scandal as well, since it has been revealed that not only did Obama know about her private email server, he also communicated with her under the use of a pseudonym. If their email exchanges involved classified information, then Obama also would have violated the Espionage Act.

8. The Environmental Protection Agency poisoned a Colorado river. The EPA breached the Gold King mine in the state and “mistakenly dug at the bottom” as well as didn’t test for pressure, leading to “three million gallons of toxic mine waste” being dumped into a river, according to The Daily Caller. The EPA has not been held accountable for this.

9. The EPA also broke federal law in promoting a regulation. The Daily Wire reported in 2015 that the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded that the EPA broke the law in using Thunderclap to tout their “Waters of the United States” regulation as well as their use of “hyperlinks to the [Natural Resources Defense Council] and Surfrider Foundation webpages provided in the EPA blog post.”

10. The GSA scandal. The General Services Administration was busted in 2012 for spending $823,000 on an extravagantly decadent conference in Las Vegas, and it became a shining example of government waste. Several people in the agency were fired, with one facing an indictment. Despite the scandal, lavish spending still occurred within federal agencies under the Obama administration.

11. The Secret Service scandal. The Secret Service was caught in 2012 engaging with prostitutes during a trip to Cartegena, Columbia, with one Secret Service agent emailing another: “Swagg cologne-check/Pimp gear-check/ Swagg sunglasses-check/Cash fo dem hoes-check.” They “also left sensitive government documents unprotected in their Cartagena rooms,” according to The Daily Caller.

Below are two other scandals that occurred under the Obama administration.

12. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) placed veterans on secret waiting lists so agency executives could enrich themselves with bonuses. The veterans placed on these lists would languish without receiving the care they needed and around 307,000 have reportedly died as a result. Yet department executives would claim bonuses up to $400 million a year deceptively stating that waiting times had declined. The VA has yet to be held to any serious accountability and face structural reforms, and the problems the agency are ongoing.

13. The Department of Energy (DOE) fired one of their chief scientists because she advocated for a program that would divert money from Obama’s Climate Action Plan. Dr. Noelle Metting, who managed the Low Dose Radiation Research Program, said that the DOE terminated her because she refused to repeat their propaganda and stated the factual results of the program instead.

“DoE placed its own priorities to further the president’s Climate Action Plan before its constitutional obligations to be candid with Congress,” the House Committee on Science, Space Technology stated in a report. “The DoE’s actions constitute a reckless and calculated attack on the legislative process itself, which undermines the power of Congress to legislate. The committee further concludes that DoE’s disregard for separation of powers is not limited to a small group of employees, but rather is an institutional problem that must be corrected by overhauling its management practices with respect to its relationship with the Congress.”

Lead emissions from planes may be costing billions in lost earnings

(David Trilling)

Airplanes are now the largest source of lead pollution in the United States. A new study suggests Americans hurt by lead exposure may be suffering billions in lost wages.

The issue: Decades of research have shown how lead correlates with aggressive behavior, lower intelligence, learning problems in children and lower earnings later in life. Cars used leaded gas until the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated it be phased out in the 1980s. Federal law banned lead in house paint in 1978. Scientists have not identified any safe amount of lead in children’s bloodstream.

Some researchers believe that the fall in murders in the 1990s is associated with the declining use of lead over the previous 20 years, that fewer children exposed to lead in the early 1980s meant a smaller number of violent young people hitting the streets in the 1990s.

Nowadays, we often speak about lead when there’s a big story – like the Flint water crisis or the traces found in small-town armories that are used as sports facilities. But across the country, lead remains a persistent concern – in our air.

Most commercial airplanes use unleaded jet fuel. But piston-driven aircraft – generally small propeller planes – use aviation gasoline (“avgas”), which contains lead to prevent a chance of sudden engine failure. That’s 167,000 planes in the United States, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Avgas is the only transportation fuel still used in the U.S. that contains lead. Fuel manufacturers have experimented with lead-free avgas for decades, but have yet to bring such a fuel to market. The FAA intends for most aircraft to use an unleaded replacement by 2018.

An academic study worth reading: “Cost of IQ Loss from Leaded Aviation Gasoline Emissions,” in Environmental Science and Technology, 2016.

Study summary: Philip J. Wolfe and his colleagues at MIT look at the amount of leaded avgas used in the continental U.S. in 2008 (248 million gallons) to calculate aviation-attributable lead concentrations in the atmosphere. With those amounts, they calculate the IQ impact on children and then estimate, when those children grow up, the economic impacts from their lower IQs.

Based on government earnings data, they determine a static estimate (the net present value of future earnings reductions) and a dynamic estimate (the impacts of the children’s IQ loss on the economy as a whole). Overall, Wolfe and his colleagues examine three cases based on different airborne lead-exposure levels, offering a broad range of dollar figures and insight into the marginal costs of lead exposure.

Findings:

  • At current average airborne-lead levels caused by the planes, the average cost to the American economy is $1.63 billion annually (calculated with a 3 percent discount rate over 15 years). That is the value in lost productivity.
  • To American individuals suffering lower IQ from lead exposure, the annual cost in lost wages is a combined $1.06 billion. (Some of the researchers’ models put the total figure as high as $11.3 billion.)
  • Avgas is responsible for “a wide dispersion of low concentrations of fine particulate lead emissions.” 
  • Airborne lead particles fell 94 percent between 1980 and 2013 as lead was phased out of automobile gasoline.
  • Relative to gasoline, aviation fuel was an “insignificant source” of airborne lead during the 1960s and 1970s, when driving cars with leaded fuel peaked. Today — along with lead dust in soil from the period of peak leaded driving, as well as residual lead paint — aviation fuel is one of the most significant sources of lead.

Other research:

Among the many papers testing the relationship between lead and aggressive crime is this 2016 study in Environmental Health.

A 2013 EPA study, the Integrated Science Assessment for Lead, reviews the vast research on airborne lead exposure and the history of American efforts to remove the element entirely from the environment.

Several papers have looked at the economic benefits that seem to be correlated with the elimination of lead from gasoline.

Water packaged in glass bottles contains 26-57 times more lead that waters bottled in plastic, though those lead levels are still far below amounts allowed in Europe and North America, according to a 2012 study in Environmental Health Perspectives. 

A widely cited 2003 paper found children more sensitive than adults to the negative health effects of lead.

Journalist’s Resource looked at the physiological effects of lead poisoning and American health policy in light of the Flint emergency that started in 2014 and caught national attention in 2016.

Other resources: 

The FAA hosts data on general aviation, airport and fuel use, and industry forecasts. This 2013-2033 forecast includes data on the future consumption of leaded avgas.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is a large advocacy and education organization for pilots.

Keywords: neurotoxicity, poisoning, lead, inequality, children, pollution

    Writer: | Last updated: December 16, 2016

    Citation: Wolfe, Philip J.; et al. “Cost of IQ Loss from Leaded Aviation Gasoline Emissions,” Environmental Science and Technology, 2016. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.6b02910.

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    Livestock’s Long Shadow and Green House Gases

    Greenhouse Gas Emissions from EPA, 2014. Stock Image.Greenhouse Gas Emissions from EPA, 2014. Stock Image.

    In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released a report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. The report aimed to assess the total environmental impact of global livestock and determined this sector of agriculture is among the world’s top contributors to negative environmental impacts, including Green House Gases (GHG).

    Following its release, the UN admitted flaws in reporting data that exaggerated the negative impacts of animal agriculture that resulted in livestock ranking higher in emissions than transportation. A UN policy officer was quoted saying, “we factored in everything for meat emissions, and we didn’t do the same thing with transport” – a factor that would have a significant impact on the findings.

    Despite this admission of error, opponents to animal agriculture have consistently avoided that correction and used the report as an argument to minimize, or even eliminate, animal agriculture and meat consumption. More recently, the propaganda documentary films, such as Cowspiracy, rely heavily on this report for its tirade against livestock agriculture.

    To contrast these perspectives, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data show that all of agriculture contributes only 9% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions while livestock production accounts for only 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. To compare, transportation accounts for 26% and 12% of GHG emissions come from Commercial/Residential sources. You can read more about these numbers from EPA’s Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions page.

    Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Cattle

    Use of better tools and management means fewer resources required for more beef per animal in fewer days.Use of better tools and management means fewer resources required for more beef per animal in fewer days.

    Animal agriculture has consistently been working to reduce these numbers and mitigate GHG emissions, producing more food, fiber and fuel products with fewer inputs. Many of our modern technology adaptations and management practices help to lower the resource consumption and GHG emissions from beef production.

    Modern beef production requires considerably fewer resources than the equivalent system in 1977, with 69.9% of animals, 81.4% of feedstuffs, 87.9% of the water, and only 67.0% of the land required to produce 1 billion kg of beef. Waste outputs were similarly reduced, with modern beef systems producing 81.9% of the manure, 82.3% CH4, and 88.0% N2O per billion kilograms of beef compared with production systems in 1977. The C footprint per billion kg of beef produced in 2007 was reduced by 16.3% compared with equivalent beef production in 1977. Source: The environmental impact of beef production in the United States: 1977 compared with 2007

    These innovations include better knowledge of cattle nutrition and digestion, which result in better diet formulation on pastures and in pens; better management to keep cattle healthy, improving reproductive efficiency, and understanding of genetics to breed cattle more efficient at beef (and milk) production.

    As reported by Dr. Jude Capper at Washington State University in 2012, Conventional beef production (finished in feedlots with growth-enhancing technology) required the fewest animals, and least land, water and fossil fuels to produce a set quantity of beef. The carbon footprint of conventional beef production was lower than that of either natural (feedlot finished with no growth-enhancing technology) or grass-fed (forage-fed, no growth-enhancing technology) systems. All beef production systems are potentially sustainable; yet the environmental impacts of differing systems should be communicated to consumers to allow a scientific basis for dietary choices.

    The Conventional system required 56.3% of the animals, 24.8% of the water, 55.3% of the land and 71.4% of the fossil fuel energy required to produce 1.0 × 109 kg of beef compared to the Grass-Fed system. The carbon footprint per 1.0 × 109 kg of beef was lowest in the CON system. Source: Is the Grass Always Greener? Comparing the Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-Fed Beef Production Systems

    When discussing the environmental impacts and GHG emissions related to raising cattle for beef, it is easy to focus solely on emissions with images of feedlot pens. Also, keep in mind it is inaccurate to compare livestock production from different parts of the world. While deforestation may be a concern in some countries, others may be growing their forested acres. Some countries have tighter regulations on waste management and inputs, while others may have more slacked regulations.

    It is important to recognize cattle spend the majority of their lives on pastures. These grasslands and farms sequester carbon and are large contributors to retaining open lands, providing wildlife habitat and are large sources of converting carbon to oxygen.

    We’re not perfect. We’re never finished with innovation and there are always areas to improve.

    Additional Reading on the Topic:

    Actually, Raising Beef Is Good for the Planet – Wall Street Journal

    15 Common Meat Myths That Need to be Crushed for Good – Buzzfeed

    Greenhouse Gases by Bovidiva (Dr. Jude Capper)

    Greenhouse Gas Emissions articles on Facts About Beef

    Cheeseburgers Won’t Melt the Polar Ice Caps – Dr. Jayson Lusk

    Beef Sustainability Research

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    Trump Knows, Media Don’t: One-Sided ‘Free Trade’ – Isn’t Free Trade

    The media (and the entire media-Left-NeverTrump contingent) remain steadfast in their opposition to now-President-elect Donald Trump.  In their attempts to deny him first the office and now legitimacy therein, they have come up with all sorts of shorthand descriptives that are either vague or outright disingenuous.

    One of the most annoying of these – is “Donald Trump is anti-(free) trade.”

    Trump Targets Free Trade, and G.O.P. Follows Suit – New York Times

    Many Republicans Are Embracing Donald Trump’s Fierce Trade Rhetoric – Business Insider

    Donald Trump’s Free-Trade Follies – TheWeek

    Trump’s Anti-Trade Talk Rankles Businesses on the U.S.-Mexico Border – Los Angeles Times

    Trump’s Anti-Trade Rhetoric Rattles the Campaign Message of Clinton and Unions – Washington Post

    Anti-Trade Rhetoric by Trump, Sanders Could Doom Millions to Poverty – MarketWatch

    Trump Escalates Economic Tirade Against Free Trade, China and Globalism – The Guardian

    Here’s How Donald Trump Could Spark a Trade War with Mexico and China – CNN

    Seton Motley | Red State | RedState.com

    Ah yes, the media Shibboleth “Trump wants to start trade wars.” Umm…we’re already in several.  They’re just one-sided – other nations waging war on us, while we blithely pretend they’re not, and blindly skip forward waving around the latest “free trade” deal.

    A parallel example: President Barack Obama can declare over the war on Islamist jihadism – but he can only stand down our side.  Until ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades,…(ad nauseam) also agree to stand down – the war on Islamist jihadism ain’t over.  It takes all parties to agree that something is over – for it actually to be over.

    So when people say what we have now with, say, China is “free trade” – and that Trump threatens it – they are either woefully, willfully ignorant or lying their faces off.  Trump wants to stop pretending our “free trade” is free trade – and for that he is roundly, loudly castigated.

    Some others have for a while been accurately pointing out Trump’s correctness.  Gordon Chang, for instance – author of the tome “The Coming Collapse of China.”  Chang was on CNBC on March 10, 2016 – stating the very obvious: “‘People say [Trump] would start a trade war. Well, no matter what The Donald does he can’t start a trade war because we’re already in a trade war with China. But only they are waging it,’ Chang told CNBC. ‘The question is how do we end it on terms not only advantageous to the United States but also to the international community.’”

    A simple Web search for “China Tariffs on US Goods” – tells much of the tale the media won’t.  China manipulating its currency to warp the world market – is trade warfare, not free trade.  Oh – and China stealing $300 billion per year in U.S. intellectual property is certainly all warfare all the time.

    Enter Trump.  Who is one of the only people (besides Chang – and every average American) who acknowledges the very obvious reality of our ridiculously one-sided “free trade.”  Who realizes that you can not unilaterally disarm in trade negotiations – or lots of money and jobs pour out of your country.  As we have spent the past several decades witnessing here.

    A parallel example: “Free trade” of farm products.  Our ridiculous Farm Bill has not only created a domestic nightmare mess – it has warped the global market as well: “Our Farm Bill helped incept and foster an international regulatory arms race. A terrible multi-governments poker game – where farming nations everywhere saw and then raised everyone else’s taxes, tariffs and subsidies.  That’s a lot of governments – engaged in a lot of inanity.”

    Oh – and there’s China again waging war on us: “U.S. Calls Out China on Agriculture Subsidies: Upping the ante on efforts to show it can enforce its existing trade agreements, the Obama administration on Tuesday filed yet another World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute against China, accusing Beijing of exceeding allowable subsidy levels for rice, wheat and corn.”

    But it ain’t just China.  For instance: “Brazil is considered a developing country, but has become an economic power as a major exporter and agri-food now accounts for 28 percent of GDP.  The Brazilian government’s recent notification to the WTO of agricultural subsidies for the 2009/10 crop year has raised issues about Brazil’s positions on trade-distorting domestic support policies.  Total farm support by the Brazilian government as defined by the WTO was valued at $10.0 billion for 2009/10.”

    Unilaterally ending our participation in the Farm Trade War – against nations this weaponized – will work just as horrendously as unilateral disarmament has everywhere else.  And we’ll yet again watch coin and employment pour out of our country.

    And what’s worse than not making TVs and iPhones here?  Not growing food here.  Because before you fire up either of the former – you have to fire up the stove.  If things global really go sideways – our inability to import entertainment will be of far less import than our ability to bring in sustenance.  Far better we keep making food (and, while we’re at it, lots of other things) here.

    Florida Republican Congressman Ted Yoho has long had a solution.  He applies his solely to the sugar trade – but as Trump is now pointing out, we should be applying it to a whole lot more than just that: “Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., reintroduced a bill Friday that encourages the administration to target foreign sugar subsidies. Under the “Zero-for-Zero” plan, U.S. sugar policy would also be rolled back in exchange for the elimination of foreign programs, which Yoho says are distorting world prices and inhibiting a free market.”

    Indeed they are.  But as we’ve seen time and again, on all sorts of exports and imports, the U.S. alone not subsidizing and tariffing ain’t free trade.  And it ain’t good for us.

    If we want actual, actually free trade – and with it the jobs and wealth that will return and stay here – you want less government not just here, but everywhere.

    Climate change: denial in the US, failure at home

    Now rated as the warmest year on record, 2016 was the best of times and the worst of times for our environment, both locally and globally. By far the most significant development was the rapid ratification by more than 100 countries of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, less than a year after it was adopted by acclamation at the UN summit. But just days after the agreement came into force, notorious climate change denier Donald Trump was elected as president of the United States.

    And Trump’s subsequent nomination of fellow-deniers to key posts in his incoming administration clearly indicates that the US will now revert to its traditionally negative role in the context of international efforts to tackle global warming. Thus, China now looks likely to become the world leader in this vital arena, as it already is in renewable energy, while Trump’s America turns back to “beautiful clean coal”, as the president-elect has fatuously described the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet.

    At home, the abject failure of successive governments to treat climate change seriously was reflected in findings by the Environmental Protection Agency that Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions, which fell during the recession, are rising again as the economy recovers.

    In 2015 alone, agriculture was up by 1.5 per cent, transport by 4.2 per cent, domestic energy use by 5.1 per cent and energy production by 5.4 per cent; this upward trend is likely to continue in the absence of effective policies to reverse it. Yet Bord na Móna managed to get planning permission to continue burning peat at its Edenderry power plant until 2023 while no proposals are being put forward to replace the ESB’s much larger Moneypoint coal-fired plant – which belches out 4.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – with cleaner gas or renewables.

    Public policy is ruled by inertia, which is what one expects from a political system that can’t even see the provision of water services as a public utility that needs to be paid for, just like gas or electricity.

    As EPA director-general Laura Burke has said, “we must implement measures to decarbonise the transport and energy sectors … and ensure that increases in agricultural production aren’t at the expense of the environment”.

    But by deferring the introduction of pay-by-weight charges for waste disposal, failing to promote a shift away from diesel cars by making this polluting fuel more expensive and doing nothing to convert the bus fleet from diesel to more environment-friendly fuels. And while the moratorium on fracking is welcome, piping water from our greatest river directly to serve Dublin’s ever-growing population needs much more careful consideration.