September 15, 2021

AEstimare 15/09/2021 #001

Filed under: Business, Climatology, Education, Historical context — Tags: History — justplainbill @ 11:21 pm

ÆSTIMARE

September 15, 2021

#001

Much is spoken and written of information sources without any coherent over view of what’s what and why. Digital, print in its various forms, video, and general broadcast should all be viewed as methods of publishing.

Black’s Law Dictionary 9^th Edition (2009 p 1352 – 2):

publish, vb, (14c) 1. To distribute copies (of a work) to

the public. 2. To communicate (defamatory words) to

someone other than the person defamed. See INTENT TO

PUBLISH. [testamentary & procedural definitions follow]

Digital is the current popular format using computers, ‘smart’ phones, tablets, and any other device, such as an automobile, using a screen, touch or otherwise, wherein one views the ‘printed’ material through a display. The source material is generally unverifiable and subject to change at the server by anyone with access to the server. Wikipediais an excellent example of the problems with all digital sources. Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has been telling of the abuse by the company in changing facts and articles to suit the management’s various agendas, for more than ten years. One of many such changes involves the treatment of various scientists in their biographies to even edit one to declare that the person in question has stated a direct belief that the moon is actually made up of green cheese. The reliability of digital sources because of the ability of server accessors to it, is low, especially with ‘fact checkers’ being unknown sources with no reliability. Recent articles in The Wall Street Journal from verified sources and documentation show that Facebook has knowingly and willfully falsified news stories through picking and choosing what gets posted using their XCHECK algorithm. Another series of articles in TWSJ regarding FB and its subsidiary Instagram, again from inside sources with documentation, shows the knowledge set of management in how detrimental their services are to users, especially young women and girls.

Much has been made of how Google and other search engines present search results to comply with both their personal agendas and placement payments. Pay Google a fee, and your product or service, regardless of its quality or desirability, will be placed higher on the search results. Be in accord with their personal agendas of arrogant ignorance, and your personal agenda will also be placed higher up than competing positions, provided, of course, that your competitors are not completely censored +/or canceled. The climate change hoax, the attacks on News Corp’s FOXNEWS and the attempts to shut them down are only two of many examples. One need only point to how digital media treated the pervert and convicted felon William J. Clinton, and the 45^th president, Donald J. Trump.

The only control over digital that I can see is that of when it is published in conjunction with a print copy as when one dual subscribes to TWSJ. News Corp. allows clients to purchase a stand-alone digital edition, a stand-alone print edition delivered to your door or nearby newsstand, or one subscription where you will receive both. Most newspapers follow this model, with a few exceptions such as The Denver Gazette, which is all digital. With the print edition in one’s hand, available at most public libraries, one may compare articles, op-eds, &c, thus making it impossible to claim that one said one thing when one did not as the print edition will always be, barring forensic shenanigans that are generally provable in court, proof dispositive of the initial communication. Note how video broadcasts, such as when Madeleine Albright declared at the United Nations that Clinton Foreign Policy towards The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was to make the PRC a super-power because we couldn’t allow These United States to be the stand-alone superpower. Her statements on camera are no longer available for viewing. Another such incident involves Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees. Video coverage of the days immediately after the storm show a barge, negligently docked in Lake Pontchairtrain, breaking from its moorings, floating through the canal, an ear mark for a local congressman, and smashing into the levee and breaching it, thus flooding the residential neighborhood. This bit of video has also ‘disappeared’ thereby making FEMA and The Army Corps of Engineers responsible and the national taxpayer on the hook for the incompetence and corruption of politicians and the crony capitalist who owns that barge company.

For those who claim that making a PDF and then printing it, thereby making a ‘hard copy’, all rules require that the original source be the proved sourced as anyone with any know-how will know how to enable the editing function regardless of how blocked by the author. This issue was discussed, and in my opinion decided wrongly, by the American Bar Association in determining whether or not the courts should allow electronic filings, which the courts have decided to allow.

The number of such changes can only be guessed at. Consider Janet Reno and the FBI’s assault at Ruby Ridge TX; or how many changes have been made during Biden’s Afghan withdrawal debacle, or how none of the major networks are showing the old statements and documentation to what they are now broadcasting.

The only method available to proof such news video is to be able to record it, save it to an untouchable source, and to be able to compare, or ‘proof’, it to the original by yourself or within your own organization. Considering the amount of time and resources necessary, and then to be able to publish your own refutation of the fraud published, it’s not going to happen. A most notable example is how Judicial Watch has done this, and even litigated these fraudulent publishings, to no avail. JW’s seminal work on voter fraud shows that 54 of Colorado’s counties have over 100% of those eligible to vote as registered voters and since Colorado has had mail-in voting for several years, those ‘registered voters’ over the 100% have been getting ballots mailed to them. On a personal note, we have lived in this apartment for over three years. For the 2020 election, we received from a source claiming to be Denver Voting Registrar, three registration forms each with a cover letter declaring that their records showed that no one at our address had voted recently. Each of these six forms had the last four SSN numbers pre-entered on the form.

Video’s reliability is dependent upon the archival source and whoever controls the archive.

General broadcast is unreliable on its face. Standing on a soap box in Hyde Park without any reliable recording of the event is so open to misrepresentations that it is not worth commenting on.

Context of edited segments has been dealt with elsewhere on the blog. Suffice it to say, only the print version of anything used as a proof can show whether or not something is being repeated in or out of context. Again, all that one has to do in looking for examples, is compare how media sources treated the Democrat candidates and President Trump in this last election. Both Harris and Biden campaigned stating that they would not take Trump’s vaccination as it was probably detrimental to your health, and how now they are mandating that everyone be vaxxed even though those with natural immunity and those with certain morbidities should not be exposed to either the vaccine or the substance used in its manufacture. Checks on these videos are only available because FOX is making them using their own archives and archivists.

Print presents in four major categories: newspapers, magazines, correspondence, and books.

Newspapers, whether daily such as The New York Times (NYT), or weekly, such as Barron’s, are on pulp paper in columned broadsheet format. Content was determined by the publisher who was usually the owner, until the acceptance of corporate ownership became prominent. Before corporate ownership, publishers could be held personally liable and were accountable for the paper’s content under libel laws, which have gradually become irrelevant to the point that, as the NYT’s has proven so many times during the last, recent twenty years, claiming an anonymous source for calumny is accepted by the courts. Now, the claim of protection by virtue of the 1^st Amendment of the Bill of Rights of The Constitution of the United States, a false claim constantly denied by the courts as law but allowed by not citing or holding the paper/publisher accountable in any meaningful way, is still presented to protect such fraud.

Newspapers, outside of these United States, are, with no exception that I can think of, predominantly biased to specific points of view of politics and economics, thus giving propaganda outlets to their core markets by their editorial boards. Keep in mind that the transition from individual ownership to corporate, did not in most cases mean anything more than that the family owning the paper was able to get capital financing for plant improvements, while in fact keeping complete control over all facets of the enterprise. Note how the NYT is still owned, published, and edited by the same family as it was 100 years ago. The most humorous and accurate delineation of this is a bit in the BBC series Yes, Minister, where Sir Humphrey in conversation with Sir Arnold mentions each London paper and who reads it.

Newspapers with these United States still, regardless of provable fact, claim to be unbiased, with the possible exception of Mother Jones. Where the divergence between fact and bias is most significant, is that between business and professional news sources, and everything else. This is why the Murdoch Family’s News Corp., including its New York Post, are so superior to other sources for general news for the general population and The Enquirer not even fit for toilet paper, although it has a circulation in the millions.

Consider: all non-business papers rely on emotional content, most especially fear and hate, to attract readers. It matters not at all if the reporting is accurate as long as the reader gets his fillip, up or down, thereby guaranteeing continued readership. However, if TWSJ is inaccurate, the reader will invest badly and lose money. Continued loss of money by the reader means that the reader will stop buying the paper. The success of News Corps. weekly publication, Barron’s, over the span of its existence, proves this. Those who have subscribed to Barron’s and followed its analyses of the various industries and the equity and debt instruments used by those businesses, and done the appropriate personal research which rarely means no more than reviewing the technical charts, over the long haul have shown a 40% annual return above the market indices.

The almost exception to this is Bloomberg. Prior to Bloomberg’s presidential candidacy, all of the Bloomberg business publishing has been considered golden. However, during his very short campaign, he was recorded on an all-hands editorial phone call telling everyone to not publish anything detrimental to any Democrat or the Democratic Party. Further, they were to go after Trump. Thus, Bloomberg Services, as did all of the non-News Corps. entities, refuse to publish the Hunter Biden lap-top stories as well as reminders of such events as quid pro quo China Joe’s Burisma escapade in interfering with the internal affairs of Ukraine.

Magazines are the hybrid of newspapers and books. Unlike newspapers, magazines are almost exclusively single subject publications of various sizes and shapes. Veracity and accuracy follow the same pattern as do newspapers. Some are gossip rags, US and People, some in-depth analysis of a particular subject, Journal of the American Bar Association, some are general analyses and reporting, Popular Science, but they all have the central facet of dedication to one subject.

Books are divided into the general categories of fiction and non-fiction. Occasionally various fiction works will purport to some truthful foundation, but they are still fiction and should always be treated as such no matter how much one wants to believe. Roots is just one such example. Completely based on unverifiable familial oral traditions, the author and publisher claimed to be real, and it was, in fact, unproven familial stories not even of the author’s family. Too many people accepted this tale as fact.

Non-fiction, is books based on facts, scholarly and academic research. Keeping to Roots as an example, the reality of history and the enslavement of Africans brought to the Americas, of which less than 9% ended up in the British colonies, is much, much worse than Alex Haley portrays. For those interested, read Roots, then read Hugh Thomas’, the Slave Trade; a history of the North Atlantic Slave Trade, and Charles Adams’ Slavery, Secession and Civil War. The Truth of the matter is much more horrific than Haley’s portrayal.

As noted earlier, once published in a book, the author cannot go back on what he’s broadcast to the public.

As important as format is, content is more important. Those that ignore this, harm, frequently extensively, everyone else while whining that they did not mean for this result. Notice how The Left, particularly when they don’t get what they want regardless of the cost to the rest of us, particularly the taxpaying citizen, claim that they have failed in their messaging +/or perception of the issue to the voters. The legal community refers to this as form over content.

The obvious recent example is how people perceived Biden as a unifier, as competent, as a leader, &c., even though his fifty years in government even led to people in his own party declaiming as to how he’s been wrong on every foreign affairs issue in his life time; how publicly he had bragged about the Burisma quid pro quo; how his medical records showed several brain aneurysms and the necessary surgeries and obvious cognitive deterioration, &c., all being public record for those who did the research. Posed against Trump’s vocal extravaganzas, blustering, exaggerations, and being a Twitter Twit, but ignoring his very successful policies and the Deep State interference, all substance, form won over substance.

There are two main viewpoints in the news. One, and the dominating source, is The New York Times. The second, and much less respected as it is considered nouvous since becoming owned by the Murdoch Family, is News Corps. The Wall Street Journal. Broadcast and published news is centered in New York City. When the editors and producers of news broadcasting get on the train to go to their offices, they buy one of these papers to read on the train, or in their chauffeur driven company limos, and they base their day’s work and the direction on the news broadcasts exclusively on what they read in their preferred papers. This is what accounts for the similarities for both format and content in all of the major networks and the less major cable broadcasts. The wire services, The Associated Press (the “A” “P”), Reuters, and International Press (IP), are where the NYT gets much of its source material. TWSJ, as readers will attest by pointing to the by-lines, is mostly done by individuals, as well as by editors selecting items off of the wire services. The NYT editors pick and chose their stories and the other papers editors and TV & Cable producers read the NYT and broadcast what they’ve read in the paper. This is readily seen in the conformity of the substance in those sources.

The ‘news’ cycle is divided into two segments; midnight to noon, and noon to midnight. Sports and weather are not included in this. Notice the similarity between the morning and noon broadcasts, now that there is only one edition in print news, and that of the Six O’clock and News at Eleven, as proof of this. As noted in the prior paragraph, across the broadcast spectrum, what the NYT thinks is important, is what is published.

Moving passed form and into substance, we’re forced to deal with the European model of bias as news, news as bias, and in some circumstances, information used for rational decision making.

At the Far Left is CNN and MSNBC for the general subscription cable channels. There are podcasts and specialty channels available through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google/Alphabetand the like who cater to specific interests and emotional interests. Fear of facts +/or reality need not enter here. Two of the obvious examples are Joy Reid and her insanity, and Chris Cuomo. Look how Reid, in a fifteen minute “interview,” refused to let Rufo explain the climate hoax as she harangued him and yelled at him. As far as Cuomo is concerned, while infected with COVID he was wandering around Nassau County without a mask and in public spreading the disease. Then, when Andrew Cuomo was being removed from office, a reporter found and started to interview Chris Cuomo as to the ethics of his involvement, and right behind Chris Cuomo was his Ford F-250 Heavy Duty pick-up truck, which is obvious that his work as a CNN pundit required him to drive in order to pollute so that he could personally prove man-made climate change.

The NYT, one-time premier news source, is almost as bad as CNN. It is hard left of center having left facts and truth behind in order to inflame its readers into its erroneous, pro-global, anti-American politics and global economy. Too many stories have been proven false with no apologies or retractions from the NYT. One only need look to the years of Jason Blair, the NYT having full knowledge of the reporter’s falsehoods, and letting them occur. The Blair tradition having been so successful, it was taken up by the others, and it fostered approval by the owners and editors.

TWSJ has a split personality. Many in the news room are left of center. The editorial staff and business reporters are, because of the business accuracy requirements, center. It’s not until you get to Barron’s that News Corp., moves slightly right of center. So far, it’s here and with the other Murdoch sources, such as the New York Post, that reliable news pokes out its head. FOX cable news is pretty much fair and balanced as advertised on the general access cable channels.

Here’s where we start getting some serious, steady reporting still generally accessible or with a small subscription fee, broadcast or print.

One America News Network (OANN), Glenn Beck TV, The Epoch Times, American Greatness, Lifetime (not the TV channel), YouTube Podcasts, various individuals, and these are but a few.

By no means are either list exclusive. There are many more sources, most are biased one way or the other or in or for some specific issue or position. However,

The most perceptive and accurate news and information source that I have come across is a centuries old naval intelligence agency gone private. You have probably seen books published by them on several military issues, predominantly on weaponry or military readiness. Janes. You can get a surface subscription on a bunch of different subjects where you will get four or five paragraphs on your chosen subjects, such as ‘terrorist activity in South America’, or ‘cartels’, or ‘weapons sales’ (at least the publicly known ones) ‘force readiness assessments’ or, if you have the resources, you can get a full subscription.

Throughout I’ve pointed to the climate hoax. There are too many books to list proving that it is a hoax, however, I’m trying to point out news/information postulates and hope to get you to start looking for reliable sources, and get away from digital propaganda as your information source for making informed decisions.

There may be more, but there aren’t less, these are the ones that I am aware of and my source material may be suspect, so y’all will need to check on these things before stating them as solid facts. Joe Bastardi runs a global meteorological service out of, I believe, Dallas-Fort Worth. Joe is a real meteorologist. He predicts global weather patterns. He is a climate denier. Why? Because he understands and has a grasp of the whole system. He predicts weather patterns for shipping companies so that their ships don’t get sunk costing him, his insures, and his clients, billions of dollars. Airlines also use his services. Without getting the corporate weeds, I cannot tell who owns them, but there appear to be two more such services, one in London, and one at the Yokohama ship yards. None of these people believe in man-made climate change.

In order to make rational decisions, you need a good-sized knowledge base, truly only available by reading books, and then have a subscription or access to a subscription of fact-based news. I have tried to point out that the starting point should be TWSJ, News Corp., and move right a little, not to far, from there. Access Janes as much as possible, but stick to TWSJ and Barron’s.

Books for your foundation, news for decisions.

[Reported today, 11/12/2021, now that the Durham investigation into the Steele Dossier has started handing out indictments, The Washington Post has gone back over its articles for the last five years and started deleting whole articles, sections of articles, and ‘facts’ from articles, that the Durham indictments have shown to be false. This means that anyone doing research on the matter of Trump Russian Collusion who uses The Washington Post as a reference source, will get false material and their research conclusion will be inaccurate!]

[Op-Ed commentator Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., In Durham vs. the Press, … Mr. Jenkins recites how the Washington Post retracted numerous stories on the Russia Hoax because of Mr. Durham’s investigation bringing out so much that news sources should’ve done. Digitalization has allowed the corrupt to corrupt history. Stick to print! TWSJ p A-15, Sat/Sun Feb 19-20, 2022 Vol. CCLXXIX No 41]]

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November 26, 2019

Does this make sense? by Ramin Pasa, thanks to Jfasb for sending

Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, Historical context, Iran, Islam, Media Check, Obama Foreign Policy, Political Commentary, Putin, Russia — justplainbill @ 4:56 am

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

*************************************************

A Genius strategy

This is relayed from a friend who is Greek and teaches in Kurdistan – she has friends worldwide and widely distributed her assessment of the situation in northern Syria.

—————————————————————————————–

Update on situation here!

By pulling US troops out of Syria, Turkey invaded Syria and assaulted the Kurds.

Russians sent an envoy to Damascus to make a deal between the Kurds and Syrian government to unite them against Turkey.

Iran is not happy the Turks are in Syria and brought their troops to the border of Turkey.

Germany hits Turkey with sanctions.

Do you see what a chess player Trump is?

As long as U.S was there, those forces were united against U.S. He is pitting these former allies against each other and they neutralize each other and didn’t cost U.S. anything.

Formerly Turkey, Iran, Russia and Syria were united against U.S.

Europeans were not involved and were enjoying U.S. protecting their interest, but now they are busy fighting for their interests.

It’s good for Israel because Iran has to defend Syria against Turkey instead of focusing on harming Israel.

Three enemies of Israel: Iran, Turkey and Syria are facing off against each other.

This invasion is going to cost Turkey a lot!

So, it brought unity between Syria and Kurds, and division between Russia, Turkey and Iran.

This is just unbelievable what President Trump is doing! This guy is a genius. A modern-day Otto von Bismarck.

Submitted by

-Ramin Parsa

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November 16, 2019

TWSJ Investigative Report: Google [16/11/2019]

Filed under: Business, Econonics, Elections, Global Intel, Historical context, Media Check, Political Commentary, Racism, Religion, US Constitution — justplainbill @ 11:37 pm

WSJ Investigation

How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results

The internet giant uses blacklists, algorithm tweaks and an army of contractors to shape what you see

Kirsten Grind,

Kirsten Grind

The Wall Street Journal

Sam Schechner,

Sam Schechner

The Wall Street Journal

Robert McMillan and

Robert McMillan

The Wall Street Journal

John West

The Wall Street Journal

Nov. 15, 2019 8:15 am ET

Every minute, an estimated 3.8 million queries are typed into Google, prompting its algorithms to spit out results for hotel rates or breast-cancer treatments or the latest news about President Trump.

They are arguably the most powerful lines of computer code in the global economy, controlling how much of the world accesses information found on the internet, and the starting point for billions of dollars of commerce.

Twenty years ago, Google founders began building a goliath on the premise that its search algorithms could do a better job combing the web for useful information than humans. Google executives have said repeatedly—in private meetings with outside groups and in congressional testimony—that the algorithms are objective and essentially autonomous, unsullied by human biases or business considerations.

The company states in a Google blog, “We do not use human curation to collect or arrange the results on a page.” It says it can’t divulge details about how the algorithms work because the company is involved in a long-running and high-stakes battle with those who want to profit by gaming the system.

But that message often clashes with what happens behind the scenes. Over time, Google has increasingly re-engineered and interfered with search results to a far greater degree than the company and its executives have acknowledged, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

Those actions often come in response to pressure from businesses, outside interest groups and governments around the world. They have increased sharply since the 2016 election and the rise of online misinformation, the Journal found.

Google’s evolving approach marks a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear.

More than 100 interviews and the Journal’s own testing of Google’s search results reveal:

• Google made algorithmic changes to its search results that favor big businesses over smaller ones, and in at least one case made changes on behalf of a major advertiser, eBay Inc., contrary to its public position that it never takes that type of action. The company also boosts some major websites, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

• Google engineers regularly make behind-the-scenes adjustments to other information the company is increasingly layering on top of its basic search results. These features include auto-complete suggestions, boxes called “knowledge panels” and “featured snippets,” and news results, which aren’t subject to the same company policies limiting what engineers can remove or change.

• Despite publicly denying doing so, Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results. These moves are separate from those that block sites as required by U.S. or foreign law, such as those featuring child abuse or with copyright infringement, and from changes designed to demote spam sites, which attempt to game the system to appear higher in results.

• In auto-complete, the feature that predicts search terms as the user types a query, Google’s engineers have created algorithms and blacklists to weed out more-incendiary suggestions for controversial subjects, such as abortion or immigration, in effect filtering out inflammatory results on high-profile topics.

• Google employees and executives, including co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have disagreed on how much to intervene on search results and to what extent. Employees can push for revisions in specific search results, including on topics such as vaccinations and autism.

• To evaluate its search results, Google employs thousands of low-paid contractors whose purpose the company says is to assess the quality of the algorithms’ rankings. Even so, contractors said Google gave feedback to these workers to convey what it considered to be the correct ranking of results, and they revised their assessments accordingly, according to contractors interviewed by the Journal. The contractors’ collective evaluations are then used to adjust algorithms.

THE JOURNAL’S FINDINGS undercut one of Google’s core defenses against global regulators worried about how it wields its immense power—that the company doesn’t exert editorial control over what it shows users. Regulators’ areas of concern include anticompetitive practices, political bias and online misinformation.

Far from being autonomous computer programs oblivious to outside pressure, Google’s algorithms are subject to regular tinkering from executives and engineers who are trying to deliver relevant search results, while also pleasing a wide variety of powerful interests and driving its parent company’s more than $30 billion in annual profit. Google is now the most highly trafficked website in the world, surpassing 90% of the market share for all search engines. The market capitalization of its parent, Alphabet Inc., is more than $900 billion.

Google made more than 3,200 changes to its algorithms in 2018, up from more than 2,400 in 2017 and from about 500 in 2010, according to Google and a person familiar with the matter. Google said 15% of queries today are for words, or combinations of words, that the company has never seen before, putting more demands on engineers to make sure the algorithms deliver useful results.

A Google spokeswoman disputed the Journal’s conclusions, saying, “We do today what we have done all along, provide relevant results from the most reliable sources available.”

Lara Levin, the spokeswoman, said the company is transparent in its guidelines for evaluators and in what it designs the algorithms to do.

AS PART OF ITS EXAMINATION, the Journal tested Google’s search results over several weeks this summer and compared them with results from two competing search engines, Microsoft Corp. ’s Bing and DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused company that builds its results from syndicated feeds from other companies, including Verizon Communications Inc. ’s Yahoo search engine.

The testing showed wide discrepancies in how Google handled auto-complete queries and some of what Google calls organic search results—the list of websites that Google says are algorithmically sorted by relevance in response to a user’s query. (Read about the methodology for the Journal’s analysis.)

Ms. Levin, the Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on specific results of the Journal’s testing. In general, she said, “Our systems aim to provide relevant results from authoritative sources,” adding that organic search results alone “are not representative of the information made accessible via search.”

The Journal tested the auto-complete feature, which Google says draws from its vast database of search information to predict what a user intends to type, as well as data such as a user’s location and search history. The testing showed the extent to which Google doesn’t offer certain suggestions compared with other search engines.

Typing “Joe Biden is” or “Donald Trump is” in auto-complete, Google offered predicted language that was more innocuous than the other search engines. Similar differences were shown for other presidential candidates tested by the Journal.

The Journal also tested several search terms in auto-complete such as “immigrants are” and “abortion is.” Google’s predicted searches were less inflammatory than those of the other engines.

See the results of the Journal’s auto-complete tests

Use the lookup tool below to select the search terms analyzed. Percentages indicate how many times each suggestion appeared during the WSJ’s testing.

   Abortion is
   Bernie Sanders is
   Boeing is
   Democratic debate
   Donald Trump is
   Elizabeth Warren is
   Guns are
   Heroin dosage
   Hobbs and Shaw
   How do I kill myself
   Ilhan Omar is
   Immigrants are
   Joe Biden is
   Kamala Harris is
   New England Patriots
   Recession
   Where do I buy heroin

View more auto-complete suggestions:

Donald Trump
Immigrants
Abortion
Democratic debate

View Interactive

See results of the Journal’s auto-complete tests

Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo’s chief executive, said that for certain words or phrases entered into the search box, such as ones that might be offensive, DuckDuckGo has decided to block all of its auto-complete suggestions, which it licenses from Yahoo. He said that type of block wasn’t triggered in the Journal’s searches for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

A spokeswoman for Yahoo operator Verizon Media said, “We are committed to delivering a safe and trustworthy search experience to our users and partners, and we work diligently to ensure that search suggestions within Yahoo Search reflect that commitment.”

Said a Microsoft spokeswoman: “We work to ensure that our search results are as relevant, balanced, and trustworthy as possible, and in general, our rule is to minimize interference with the normal algorithmic operation.”

In other areas of the Journal analysis, Google’s results in organic search and news for a number of hot-button terms and politicians’ names showed prominent representation of both conservative and liberal news outlets.

ALGORITHMS ARE effectively recipes in code form, providing step-by-step instructions for how computers should solve certain problems. They drive not just the internet, but the apps that populate phones and tablets.

Algorithms determine which friends show up in a Facebook user’s news feed, which Twitter posts are most likely to go viral and how much an Uber ride should cost during rush hour as opposed to the middle of the night. They are used by banks to screen loan applications, businesses to look for the best job applicants and insurers to determine a person’s expected lifespan.

In the beginning, their power was rarely questioned. At Google in particular, its innovative algorithms ranked web content in a way that was groundbreaking, and hugely lucrative. The company aimed to make the web useful while relying on the assumption that code alone could do the heavy lifting of figuring out how to rank information.

But bad actors are increasingly trying to manipulate search results, businesses are trying to game the system and misinformation is rampant across tech platforms. Google found itself facing a version of the pressures on Facebook, which long said it was just connecting people but has been forced to more aggressively police content on its platform.

A 2016 internal investigation at Google showed between a 10th of a percent and a quarter of a percent of search queries were returning misinformation of some kind, according to one Google executive who works on search. It was a small number percentage-wise, but given the huge volume of Google searches it would amount to nearly two billion searches a year.

By comparison, Facebook faced congressional scrutiny for Russian misinformation that was viewed by 126 million users.

Google’s Ms. Levin said the number includes not just misinformation but also a “wide range of other content defined as lowest quality.” She disputed the Journal’s estimate of the number of searches that were affected. The company doesn’t disclose metrics on Google searches.

Google assembled a small SWAT team to work on the problem that became known internally as “Project Owl.” Borrowing from the strategy used earlier to fight spam, engineers worked to emphasize factors on a page that are proxies for “authoritativeness,” effectively pushing down pages that don’t display those attributes.

Other tech platforms, including Facebook, have taken a more aggressive approach, manually removing problem content and devising rules around what it defines as misinformation. Google, for its part, said its role “indexing” content versus “hosting” content, as Facebook does, means it shouldn’t take a more active role.

One Google search executive described the problem of defining misinformation as incredibly hard, and said the company didn’t want to go down the path of figuring it out.

Around the time Google started addressing issues such as misinformation, it started fielding even more complaints, to the point where human interference became more routine, according to people familiar with the matter, putting it in the position of arbitrating some of society’s most complicated issues. Some changes to search results might be considered reasonable—boosting trusted websites like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, for example—but Google has made little disclosure about when changes are made, or why.

Businesses, lawmakers and advertisers are worried about fairness and competition within the markets where Google is a leading player, and as a result its operations are coming under heavy scrutiny.

The U.S. Justice Department earlier this year opened an antitrust probe, in which Google’s search policies and practices are expected to be areas of focus. Google executives have twice been called to testify before Congress in the past year over concerns about political bias. In the European Union, Google has been fined more than $9 billion in the past three years for anticompetitive practices, including allegedly using its search engine to favor its own products.

In response, Google has said it faces tough competition in a dynamic tech sector, and that its behavior is aimed at helping create choice for consumers, not hurting rivals. The company is currently appealing the decisions against it in the EU, and it has denied claims of political bias.

GOOGLE RARELY RELEASES detailed information on algorithm changes, and its moves have bedeviled companies and interest groups, who feel they are operating at the tech giant’s whim.

In one change hotly contested within Google, engineers opted to tilt results to favor prominent businesses over smaller ones, based on the argument that customers were more likely to get what they wanted at larger outlets. One effect of the change was a boost to Amazon’s products, even if the items had been discontinued, according to people familiar with the matter.

The issue came up repeatedly over the years at meetings in which Google search executives discuss algorithm changes. Each time, they chose not to reverse the change, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Google engineers said it is widely acknowledged within the company that search is a zero-sum game: A change that helps lift one result inevitably pushes down another, often with considerable impact on the businesses involved.

Ms. Levin said there is no guidance in Google’s rater guidelines that suggest big sites are inherently more authoritative than small sites. “It’s inaccurate to suggest we did not address issues like discontinued products appearing high up in results,” she added.

Many of the changes within Google have coincided with its gradual evolution from a company with an engineering-focused, almost academic culture into an advertising behemoth and one of the most profitable companies in the world. Advertising revenue—which includes ads on search as well as on other products such as maps and YouTube—was $116.3 billion last year.

Some very big advertisers received direct advice on how to improve their organic search results, a perk not available to businesses with no contacts at Google, according to people familiar with the matter. In some cases, that help included sending in search engineers to explain a problem, they said.

“If they have an [algorithm] update, our teams may get on the phone with them and they will go through it,” said Jeremy Cornfeldt, the chief executive of the Americas of Dentsu Inc.’s iProspect, which Mr. Cornfeldt said is one of Google’s largest advertising agency clients. He said the agency doesn’t get information Google wouldn’t share publicly. Among others it can disclose, iProspect represents Levi Strauss & Co., Alcon Inc. and Wolverine World Wide Inc.

One former executive at a Fortune 500 company that received such advice said Google frequently adjusts how it crawls the web and ranks pages to deal with specific big websites.

Google updates its index of some sites such as Facebook and Amazon more frequently, a move that helps them appear more often in search results, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“There’s this idea that the search algorithm is all neutral and goes out and combs the web and comes back and shows what it found, and that’s total BS,” the former executive said. “Google deals with special cases all the time.”

Ms. Levin, the Google spokeswoman, said the search team’s practice is to not provide specialized guidance to website owners. She also said that faster indexing of a site isn’t a guarantee that it will rank higher. “We prioritize issues based on impact, not any commercial relationships,” she said.

Alphabet’s net income

$30

billion

2005

’10

’15

Note: 2017 figure reflects a one-time charge of $9.9 billion related to new U.S. tax law. Alphabet was created through a corporate restructuring of Google in 2015. Figures for prior years are for Google Inc.

Source: FactSet

Online marketplace eBay had long relied on Google for as much as a third of its internet traffic. In 2014, traffic suddenly plummeted—contributing to a $200 million hit in its revenue guidance for that year.

Google told the company it had made a decision to lower the ranking of a large number of eBay pages that were a big source of traffic.

EBay executives debated pulling their quarterly advertising spending of around $30 million from Google to protest, but ultimately decided to step up lobbying pressure on Google, with employees and executives calling and meeting with search engineers, according to people familiar with the matter. A similar episode had hit traffic several years earlier, and eBay had marshaled its lobbying might to persuade Google to give it advice about how to fix the problem, even relying on a former Google staffer who was then employed at eBay to work his contacts, according to one of those people.

This time, Google ultimately agreed to improve the ranking of a number of pages it had demoted while eBay completed a broader revision of its website to make the pages more “useful and relevant,” the people said. The revision was arduous and costly to complete, one of the people said, adding that eBay was later hit by other downrankings that Google didn’t help with.

“We’ve experienced significant and consistent drops in Google SEO for many years, which has been disproportionally detrimental to those small businesses that we support,” an eBay spokesman said. SEO, or search-engine optimization, is the practice of trying to generate more search-engine traffic for a website.

Google’s Ms. Levin declined to comment on eBay.

Companies without eBay’s clout had different experiences.

Dan Baxter can remember the exact moment his website, DealCatcher, was caught in a Google algorithm change. It was 6 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 17. Mr. Baxter, who founded the Wilmington, Del., coupon website 20 years ago, got a call from one of his 12 employees the next morning.

“Have you looked at our traffic?” the worker asked, frantically, Mr. Baxter recalled. It was suddenly down 93% for no apparent reason. That Saturday, DealCatcher saw about 31,000 visitors from Google. Now it was posting about 2,400. It had disappeared almost entirely on Google search.

Mr. Baxter said he didn’t know whom to contact at Google, so he hired a consultant to help him identify what might have happened. The expert reached out directly to a contact at Google but never heard back. Mr. Baxter tried posting to a YouTube forum hosted by a Google “webmaster” to ask if it might have been a technical problem, but the webmaster seemed to shoot down that idea.

One month to the day after his traffic disappeared, it inexplicably came back, and he still doesn’t know why.

“You’re kind of just left in the dark, and that’s the scary part of the whole thing,” said Mr. Baxter.

Google’s Ms. Levin declined to comment on DealCatcher.

(The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp, which has complained publicly about Google’s moves to play down news sites that charge for subscriptions. Google ended the policy after intensive lobbying by News Corp and other paywalled publishers. More recently, News Corp has called for an “algorithm review board” to oversee Google, Facebook and other tech giants. News Corp has a commercial agreement to supply news through Facebook, and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services. Google’s Ms. Levin and News Corp declined to comment.)

GOOGLE IN RECENT months has made additional efforts to clarify how its services operate by updating general information on its site. At the end of October it posted a new video titled “How Google Search Works.”

Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard Law School professor and faculty director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, said Google has poorly defined how often or when it intervenes on search results. The company’s argument that it can’t reveal those details because it is fighting spam “seems nuts,” said Mr. Zittrain.

“That argument may have made sense 10 or 15 years ago but not anymore,” he said. “That’s called ‘security through obscurity,’ ” a reference to the now-unfashionable engineering idea that systems can be made more secure by restricting information about how they operate.

Google’s Ms. Levin said “extreme transparency has historically proven to empower bad actors in a way that hurts our users and website owners who play by the rules.”

“Building a service like this means making tens of thousands of really, really complicated human decisions, and that’s not what people think,” said John Bowers, a research associate at the Berkman Klein Center.

On one extreme, those decisions at Google are made by the world’s most accomplished and highest-paid engineers, whose job is to turn the dials within millions of lines of complex code. On the other is an army of more than 10,000 contract workers, who work from home and get paid by the hour to evaluate search results.

The rankings supplied by the contractors, who work from a Google manual that runs to hundreds of pages, can indirectly move a site higher or lower in results, according to people familiar with the matter. And their collective responses are measured by Google executives and used to affect the search algorithms.

Mixed Results

Google’s results page has become a complex mix of search results, advertisements and featured content, not always distinguishable by the user. While these features are all driven by algorithms, Google has different policies and attitudes toward changing the results shown in each of the additional features. Featured snippets and knowledge panels are two common features.

Other features

Organic search results

Featured snippet

Knowledge panel

Highlights web pages that Google thinks will contain content a user is looking for. Google says it will remove content from the feature if it violates policies around harmful and hateful content.

Information Google has compiled from various sources on the web, such as Wikipedia, that provides basic facts about the subject of your query. Google is willing to adjust this material.

search term

Organic search results

Links to results that Google’s algorithms have determined are relevant to your query. Google says it doesn’t curate these results.

Other features

Organic search results

Knowledge panel

Featured snippet

Highlights web pages that Google thinks will contain content a user is looking for. Google says it will remove content from the feature if it violates policies around harmful and hateful content.

Information Google has compiled from various sources on the web, such as Wikipedia, that provides basic facts about the subject of your query. Google is willing to adjust this material.

search term

Organic search results

Links to results that Google’s algorithms have determined are relevant to your query. Google says it doesn’t curate these results.

Other features

Organic search results

Featured snippet

Knowledge panel

Highlights web pages that Google thinks will contain content a user is looking for. Google says it will remove content from the feature if it violates policies around harmful and hateful content.

Information Google has compiled from various sources on the web, such as Wikipedia, that provides basic facts about the subject of your query. Google is willing to adjust this material.

search term

Organic search results

Links to results that Google’s algorithms have determined are relevant to your query. Google says it doesn’t curate these results.

Other features

Organic search results

Featured snippet

Highlights web pages that Google thinks will contain content a user is looking for. Google says it will remove content from the feature if it violates policies around harmful and hateful content.

search term

Organic

search results

Knowledge panel

Information Google has compiled from various sources on the web, such as Wikipedia, that provides basic facts about the subject of your query. Google is willing to adjust this material.

Links to results that Google’s algorithms have determined are relevant to your query. Google says it doesn’t curate these results.

One of those evaluators was Zack Langley, now a 27-year-old logistics manager at a tour company in New Orleans. Mr. Langley got a one-year contract in the spring of 2016 evaluating Google’s search results through Lionbridge Technologies Inc., one of several companies Google and other tech platforms use for contract work.

During his time as a contractor, Mr. Langley said he never had any contact with anyone at Google, nor was he told what his results would be used for. Like all of Google’s evaluators, he signed a nondisclosure agreement. He made $13.50 an hour and worked up to 20 hours a week from home.

Sometimes working in his pajamas, Mr. Langley was given hundreds of real search results and told to use his judgment to rate them according to quality, reputation and usefulness, among other factors.

At one point, Mr. Langley said he was unhappy with the search results for “best way to kill myself,” which were turning up links that were like “how-to” manuals. He said he down-ranked all the other results for suicide until the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was the No. 1 result.

Soon after, Mr. Langley said, Google sent a note through Lionbridge saying the hotline should be ranked as the top result across all searches related to suicide, so that the collective rankings of the evaluators would adjust the algorithms to deliver that result. He said he never learned if his actions had anything to do with the change.

Mr. Langley said it seemed like Google wanted him to change content on search so Google would have what he called plausible deniability about making those decisions. He said contractors would get notes from Lionbridge that he believed came from Google telling them the “correct” results on other searches.

He said that in late 2016, as the election approached, Google officials got more involved in dictating the best results, although not necessarily on issues related to the campaign. “They used to have a hands-off approach, and then it seemed to change,” he said.

Ms. Levin, the Google spokeswoman, said the company “long ago evolved our approach to collecting feedback on these types of queries, which help us develop algorithmic solutions and features in this area.” She added that, “we provide updates to our rater guidelines to ensure all raters are following the same general framework.”

Lionbridge didn’t reply to requests for comment.

AT GOOGLE, EMPLOYEES routinely use the company’s internal message boards as well as a form called “go/bad” to push for changes in specific search results. (Go/bad is a reporting system meant to allow Google staff to point out problematic search results.)

One of the first hot-button issues surfaced in 2015, according to people familiar with the matter, when some employees complained that a search for “how do vaccines cause autism” delivered misinformation through sites that oppose vaccinations.

At least one employee defended the result, writing that Google should “let the algorithms decide” what shows up, according to one person familiar with the matter. Instead, the people said, Google made a change so that the first result is a site called howdovaccinescauseautism.com—which states on its home page in large black letters, “They f—ing don’t.” (The phrase has become a meme within Google.)

Google’s Ms. Levin declined to comment.

In the fall of 2018, the conservative news site Breitbart News Network posted a leaked video of Google executives, including Mr. Brin and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, upset and addressing staffers following President Trump’s election two years earlier. A group of Google employees noticed the video was appearing on the 12th page of search results when Googling “leaked Google video Trump,” which made it seem like Google was burying it. They complained on one of the company’s internal message boards, according to people familiar with the matter. Shortly after, the leaked video began appearing higher in search results.

“When we receive reports of our product not behaving as people might expect, we investigate to see if there’s any useful insight to inform future improvements,” said Ms. Levin.

FROM GOOGLE’S FOUNDING, Messrs. Page and Brin knew that ranking webpages was a matter of opinion. “The importance of a Web page is an inherently subjective matter, which depends on the [readers’] interests, knowledge and attitudes,” they wrote in their 1998 paper introducing the PageRank algorithm, the founding system that launched the search engine.

PageRank, they wrote, would measure the level of human interest and attention, but it would do so “objectively and mechanically.” They contended that the system would mathematically measure the relevance of a site by the number of times other relevant sites linked to it on the web.

Today, PageRank has been updated and subsumed into more than 200 different algorithms, attuned to hundreds of signals, now used by Google. (The company replaced PageRank in 2005 with a newer version that could better keep up with the vast traffic that the site was attracting. Internally, it was called “PageRankNG,” ostensibly named for “next generation,” according to people familiar with the matter. In public, the company still points to PageRank—and on its website links to the original algorithm published by Messrs. Page and Brin—in explaining how search works. “The original insight and notion of using link patterns is something that we still use in our systems,” said Ms. Levin.)

By the early 2000s, spammers were overwhelming Google’s algorithms with tactics that made their sites appear more popular than they were, skewing search results. Messrs. Page and Brin disagreed over how to tackle the problem.

Mr. Brin argued against human intervention, contending that Google should deliver the most accurate results as delivered by the algorithms, and that the algorithms should be tweaked only in the most extreme cases. Mr. Page countered that the user experience was getting damaged when users encountered spam rather than useful results, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google already had been taking what the company calls “manual actions” against specific websites that were abusing the algorithm. In that process, Google engineers demote a website’s ranking by changing its specific “weighting.” For example, if a website is artificially boosted by paying other websites to link to it, a behavior that Google frowns upon, Google engineers could turn down the dial on that specific weighting. The company could also blacklist a website, or remove it altogether.

Mr. Brin still opposed making large-scale efforts to fight spam, because it involved more human intervention. Mr. Brin, whose parents were Jewish émigrés from the former Soviet Union, even personally decided to allow anti-Semitic sites that were in the results for the query “Jew,” according to people familiar with the decision. Google posted a disclaimer with results for that query saying, “Our search results are generated completely objectively and are independent of the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google.”

Finally, in 2004, in the bathroom one day at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Mr. Page approached Ben Gomes, one of Google’s early search executives, to express support for his efforts fighting spam. “Just do what you need to do,” said Mr. Page, according to a person familiar with the conversation. “Sergey is going to ruin this f—ing company.”

Ms. Levin, the Google spokeswoman, said Messrs. Page, Brin and Gomes declined to comment.

After that, the company revised its algorithms to fight spam and loosened rules for manual interventions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google has guidelines for changing its ranking algorithms, a grueling process called the “launch committee.” Google executives have pointed to this process in a general way in congressional testimony when asked about algorithm changes.

The process is like defending a thesis, and the meetings can be contentious, according to people familiar with them.

In part because the process is laborious, some engineers aim to avoid it if they can, one of these people said, and small changes can sometimes get pushed through without the committee’s approval. Mr. Gomes is on the committee that decides whether to approve the changes, and other senior officials sometimes attend as well.

Google’s Ms. Levin said not every algorithm change is discussed in a meeting, but “there are other processes for reviewing more straightforward launches at different levels of the organization,” such as an email review. Those reviews still involve members of the launch committee, she said.

Today, Google discloses only a few of the factors being measured by its algorithms. Known ones include “freshness,” which gives preference to recently created content for searches relating to things such as breaking news or a sports event. Another is where a user is located—if a user searches for “zoo,” Google engineers want the algorithms to provide the best zoo in the user’s area. Language signals—how meanings change when words are used together, such as April and fools—are among the most important, as they help determine what a user is actually asking for.

Other important signals have included the length of time users would stay on pages they clicked on before clicking back to Google, according to a former Google employee. Long stays would boost a page’s ranking. Quick bounce backs, indicating a site wasn’t relevant, would severely hurt a ranking, the former employee said.

Over the years, Google’s database recording this user activity has become a competitive advantage, helping cement its position in the search market. Other search engines don’t have the vast quantity of data that is available to Google, search’s market-leader.

That makes the impact of its operating decisions immense. When Pinterest Inc. filed to go public earlier this year, it said that “search engines, such as Google, may modify their algorithms and policies or enforce those policies in ways that are detrimental to us.” It added: “Our ability to appeal these actions is limited.” A spokeswoman for Pinterest declined to comment.

Search-engine optimization consultants have proliferated to try to decipher Google’s signals on behalf of large and small businesses. But even those experts said the algorithms remain borderline indecipherable. “It’s black magic,” said Glenn Gabe, an SEO expert who has spent years analyzing Google’s algorithms and tried to help DealCatcher find a solution to its drop in traffic earlier this year.

ALONG WITH ADVERTISEMENTS, Google’s own features now take up large amounts of space on the first page of results—with few obvious distinctions for users. These include news headlines and videos across the top, information panels along the side and “People also ask” boxes highlighting related questions.

Google engineers view the features as separate products from Google search, and there is less resistance to manually changing their content in response to outside requests, according to people familiar with the matter.

These features have become more prominent as Google attempts to keep users on its results page, where ads are placed, instead of losing the users as they click through to other sites. In September, about 55% of Google searches on mobile were “no-click” searches, according to research firm Jumpshot, meaning users never left the results page.

Two typical features on the results page—knowledge panels, which are collections of relevant information about people, events or other things; and featured snippets, which are highlighted results that Google thinks will contain content a user is looking for—are areas where Google engineers make changes to fix results, the Journal found.

Curated Features

Google has looser policies about making adjustments to these features than organic search results. The features include Google News and People also ask.

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Top stories

News articles surfaced as being particularly relevant. Google blocks some sites that don’t meet its policies.

People also ask

A predictive feature that suggests related questions, providing short answers with links. Google says it weeds out and blocks some phrases in this feature as it does in its auto-complete feature.

Organic

search results

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Top stories

News articles surfaced as being particularly relevant. Google blocks some sites that don’t meet its policies.

People also ask

A predictive feature that suggests related questions, providing short answers with links. Google says it weeds out and blocks some phrases in this feature as it does in its auto-complete feature.

Organic

search results

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Top stories

News articles surfaced as being particularly relevant. Google blocks some sites that don’t meet its policies.

People also ask

A predictive feature that suggests related questions, providing short answers with links. Google says it weeds out and blocks some phrases in this feature as it does in its auto-complete feature.

Organic

search results

Other features

Organic search results

Top stories

News articles surfaced as being particularly relevant. Google blocks some sites that don’t meet its policies.

search term

Organic

results

People also ask

A predictive feature that suggests related questions, providing short answers with links. Google says it weeds out and blocks some phrases in this feature as it does in its auto-complete feature.

In April, the conservative Heritage Foundation called Google to complain that a coming movie called “Unplanned” had been labeled in a knowledge panel as “propaganda,” according to a person familiar with the matter. The film is about a former Planned Parenthood director who had a change of heart and became pro-life.

After the Heritage Foundation complained to a contact at Google, the company apologized and removed “propaganda” from the description, that person said.

Google’s Ms. Levin said the change “was not the result of pressure from an outside group, it was a violation of the feature’s policy.”

On the auto-complete feature, Google reached a confidential settlement in France in 2012 with several outside groups that had complained it was anti-Semitic that Google was suggesting the French word for “Jew” when searchers typed in the name of several prominent politicians. Google agreed to “algorithmically mitigate” such suggestions as part of a pact that barred the parties from disclosing its terms, according to people familiar with the matter.

In recent years, Google changed its auto-complete algorithms to remove “sensitive and disparaging remarks.” The policy, now detailed on its website, says that Google doesn’t allow predictions that may be related to “harassment, bullying, threats, inappropriate sexualization, or predictions that expose private or sensitive information.”

GOOGLE HAS BECOME more open about its moderation of auto-complete but still doesn’t disclose its use of blacklists. Kevin Gibbs, who created auto-complete in 2004 when he was a Google engineer, originally developed the list of terms that wouldn’t be suggested, even if they were the most popular queries that independent algorithms would normally supply.

For example, if a user searched “Britney Spears”—a popular search on Google at the time—Mr. Gibbs didn’t want a piece of human anatomy or the description of a sex act to appear when someone started typing the singer’s name. The unfiltered results were “kind of horrible,” Mr. Gibbs said in an interview.

He said deciding what should and shouldn’t be on the list was challenging. “It was uncomfortable, and I felt a lot of pressure,” said Mr. Gibbs, who worked on auto-complete for about a year, and left the company in 2012. “I wanted to make sure it represented the world fairly and didn’t leave out any groups.”

Google still maintains lists of phrases and terms that are manually blacklisted from auto-complete, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company internally has a “clearly articulated set of policies” about what terms or phrases might be blacklisted in auto-complete, and that it follows those rules, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Blacklists also affect the results in organic search and Google News, as well as other search products, such as Web answers and knowledge panels, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google has said in congressional testimony it doesn’t use blacklists. Asked in a 2018 hearing whether Google had ever blacklisted a “company, group, individual or outlet…for political reasons,” Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of public policy, responded: “No, ma’am, we don’t use blacklists/whitelists to influence our search results,” according to the transcript.

Ms. Levin said those statements were related to blacklists targeting political groups, which she said the company doesn’t keep.

Google’s first blacklists date to the early 2000s, when the company made a list of spam sites that it removed from its index, one of those people said. This means the sites wouldn’t appear in search results.

Engineers known as “maintainers” are authorized to make and approve changes to blacklists. It takes at least two people to do this; one person makes the change, while a second approves it, according to the person familiar with the matter.

The Journal reviewed a draft policy document from August 2018 that outlines how Google employees should implement an anti-misinformation blacklist aimed at blocking certain publishers from appearing in Google News and other search products. The document says engineers should focus on “a publisher misrepresenting their ownership or web properties” and having “deceptive content”—that is, sites that actively aim to mislead—as opposed to those that have inaccurate content.

“The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product sites,” the document states.

Ms. Levin said Google does “not manually determine the order of any search result.” She said sites that don’t adhere to Google News “inclusion policies” are “not eligible to appear on news surfaces or in information boxes in Search.”

SOME INDIVIDUALS and companies said changes made by the company seem ad hoc, or inconsistent. People familiar with the matter said Google increasingly will make manual or algorithmic changes that aren’t acknowledged publicly in order to maintain that it isn’t affected by outside pressure.

“It’s very convenient for us to say that the algorithms make all the decisions,” said one former Google executive.

In March 2017, Google updated the guidelines it gives contractors who evaluate search results, instructing them for the first time to give low-quality ratings to sites “created with the sole purpose of promoting hate or violence against a group of people”—something that would help adjust Google algorithms to lower those sites in search.

The next year, the company broadened the guidance to any pages that promote such hate or violence, even if it isn’t the page’s sole purpose and even if it is “expressed in polite or even academic-sounding language.”

Google has resisted entirely removing some content that outsiders complained should be blocked. In May 2018, Ignacio Wenley Palacios, a Spain-based lawyer working for the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit that funds litigation to protect Jewish people, asked Google to remove an anti-Semitic article lauding a German Holocaust denier posted on a Spanish-language neo-Nazi blog.

The company declined. In an email to Mr. Wenley Palacios, lawyers for Google contended that “while such content is detestable” it isn’t “manifestly illegal” in Spain.

Mr. Wenley Palacios then filed a lawsuit, but in the spring of this year, before the suit could be heard, he said, Google lawyers told him the company was changing its policy on such removals in Spain.

According to Mr. Wenley Palacios, the lawyers said the firm would now remove from searches conducted in Spain any links to Holocaust denial and other content that could hurt vulnerable minorities, once they are pointed out to the company. The results would still be accessible outside of Spain. He said both sides agreed to dismiss the case.

Google’s Ms. Levin described the action as a “legal removal” in accordance with local law. Holocaust denial isn’t illegal in Spain, but if it is coupled with an intent to spread hate, it can fall under Spanish criminal law banning certain forms of hate speech.

“Google used to say, ‘We don’t approve of the content, but that’s what it is,’ ” Mr. Wenley Palacios said. “That has changed dramatically.”

Business Model

Google’s search results page has changed over the years, becoming much more ad-heavy.

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Ads

Ads in recent years claim more space at the top of the results page.

Vertical search results

Various features that present specialized results for specific topics, like hotels or places, often with photos or maps. The results in some of these features are paid advertisements.

Organic search results

As Google has placed more ads and verticals at the top of the page, organic search results have shrunk.

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Ads

Ads in recent years claim more space at the top of the results page.

Vertical search results

Various features that present specialized results for specific topics, like hotels or places, often with photos or maps. The results in some of these features are paid advertisements.

Organic search results

As Google has placed more ads and verticals at the top of the page, organic search results have shrunk.

Other features

Organic search results

search term

Ads

Ads in recent years claim more space at the top of the results page.

Vertical search results

Various features that present specialized results for specific topics, like hotels or places, often with photos or maps. The results in some of these features are paid advertisements.

Organic search results

As Google has placed more ads and verticals at the top of the page, organic search results have shrunk.

Other features

Organic search results

Ads

Ads in recent years claim more space at the top of the results page.

search term

Vertical

search results

Organic

search results

Various features that present specialized results for specific topics, like hotels or places, often with photos or maps. The results in some of these features are paid advertisements.

As Google has placed more ads and verticals at the top of the page, organic search results have shrunk.

Health policy consultant Greg Williams said he helped lead a campaign to push Google to make changes that would stifle misleading results for queries such as “rehab.”

At the time, in 2017, addiction centers with spotty records were constantly showing up in search results, typically the first place family members and addicts go in search of help.

Google routed Diane Hentges several times over the last year to call centers as she desperately researched drug addiction treatment centers for her 22-year-old son, she said.

Each time she called one of the facilities listed on Google, a customer-service representative would ask for her financial information, but the representatives weren’t seemingly attached to any legitimate company.

“If you look at a place on Google, it sends you straight to a call center,” Ms. Hentges said, adding that parents who are struggling with a child with addiction “will do anything to get our child healthy. We’ll believe anything.”

After intense lobbying by Mr. Williams and others, Google changed its ad policy around such queries. But addiction industry officials also noticed a significant change to Google search results. Many searches for “rehab” or related terms began returning the website for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the national help hotline run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as the top result.

A spokesman for SAMHSA said the agency had a partnership with Google.

Google never acknowledged the change. Ms. Levin said that “resources are not listed because of any type of partnership” and that “we have algorithmic solutions designed to prioritize authoritative resources (including official hotlines) in our results for queries like these as well as for suicide and self-harm queries.”

Google’s search algorithms have been a major focus of Hollywood in its effort to fight pirated TV shows and movies.

Alphabet’s revenue, by type

Advertising

Other

$150

billion

100

2005

’10

’15

Note: Alphabet was created through a corporate restructuring of Google in 2015. Figures for prior years are for Google Inc.

Source: the company

Studios “saw this as the potential death knell of their business,” said Dan Glickman, chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America from 2004 to 2010. The association has been a public critic of Google. “A hundred million dollars to market a major movie could be thrown away if someone could stream it illegally online.”

Google received a record 1.6 million requests to remove web pages for copyright issues last year, according to the company’s published Transparency Report and a Journal analysis. Those requests pertained to more than 740 million pages, about 12 times the number of web pages it was asked to take down in 2012.

A decade ago, in concession to the industry, Google removed “download” from its auto-complete suggestions after the name of a movie or TV show, so that at least it wouldn’t be encouraging searches for pirated content.

In 2012, it applied a filter to search results that would lower the ranking of sites that received a large number of piracy complaints under U.S. copyright law. That effectively pushed many pirate sites off the front page of results for general searches for movies or music, although it still showed them when a user specifically typed in the pirate site names.

In recent months the industry has gotten more cooperation from Google on piracy in search results than at any point in the organization’s history, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Google is under great cosmic pressure, as is Facebook,” Mr. Glickman said. “These are companies that are in danger of being federally regulated to an extent that they never anticipated.”

Mr. Pichai, who became CEO of Google in 2015, is more willing to entertain complaints about the search results from outside parties than Messrs. Page and Brin, the co-founders, according to people familiar with his leadership.

Google’s Ms. Levin said Mr. Pichai’s “style of engaging and listening to feedback has not shifted. He has always been very open to feedback.”

CRITICISM ALLEGING political bias in Google’s search results has sharpened since the 2016 election.

Interest groups from the right and left have besieged Google with questions about content displayed in search results and about why the company’s algorithms returned certain information over others.

Google appointed an executive in Washington, Max Pappas, to handle complaints from conservative groups, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Pappas works with Google engineers on changes to search when conservative viewpoints aren’t being represented fairly, according to interest groups interviewed by the Journal, although that is just one part of his job.

“Conservatives need people they can go to at these companies,” said Dan Gainor, an executive at the conservative Media Research Center, which has complained about various issues to Google.

Google also appointed at least one other executive in Washington, Chanelle Hardy, to work with outside liberal groups, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ms. Levin said both positions have existed for many years. She said in general Google believes it’s “the responsible thing to do” to understand feedback from the groups and said Google’s algorithms and policies don’t attempt to make any judgment based on the political leanings of a website.

Mr. Pappas declined to comment, and Ms. Hardy didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Share Your Thoughts

Does Google give you what you expect in search results? Join the discussion below.

Over the past year, abortion-rights groups have complained about search results that turned up the websites of what are known as “crisis pregnancy centers,” organizations that counsel women against having abortions, according to people familiar with the matter.

One of the complaining organizations was Naral Pro-Choice America, which tracks the activities of anti-abortion groups through its opposition research department, said spokeswoman Kristin Ford.

Naral complained to Google and other tech platforms that some of the ads, posts and search results from crisis pregnancy centers are misleading and deceptive, she said. Some of the organizations claimed to offer abortions and then counseled women against it. “They do not disclose what their agenda is,” Ms. Ford said.

In June, Google updated its advertising policies related to abortion, saying that advertisers must state whether they provide abortions or not, according to its website. Ms. Ford said Naral wasn’t told in advance of the policy change.

Ms. Levin said Google didn’t implement any changes with regard to how crisis pregnancy centers rank for abortion queries.

The Journal tested the term “abortion” in organic search results over 17 days in July and August. Thirty-nine percent of all results on the first page had the hostname http://www.plannedparenthood.org, the site of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nonprofit, abortion-rights organization.

By comparison, 14% of Bing’s first page of search results and 16% of DuckDuckGo’s first page of results were from Planned Parenthood.

Ms. Levin said Google doesn’t have any particular ranking implementations aimed at promoting Planned Parenthood.

View Interactive

See results of the Journal’s search tests

See the results of the Journal’s search tests

Use the lookup tool below to select search terms analyzed. Percentages indicate how many times each web page appeared during the WSJ’s testing.

   Abortion
   Bernie Sanders
   Boeing
   Democratic debate
   Donald Trump
   Elizabeth Warren
   Guns
   Heroin dosage
   Hobbs and Shaw
   How do I kill myself
   Ilhan Omar
   Immigrants
   Joe Biden
   Kamala Harris
   New England Patriots
   Recession
   Where do I buy heroin

google Show

Abortion – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion100%
Abortion Information | Information About Your Optionshttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion100%
An Overview of Abortion Laws | Guttmacher Institutehttps://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws100%
What facts about abortion do I need to know? – Planned Parenthoodhttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/considering-abortion/what-facts-about-abortion-do-i-need-know67%
In-Clinic Abortion Procedure | Abortion Methods – Planned Parenthoodhttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/in-clinic-abortion-procedures52%
National Abortion Federation: Homehttps://prochoice.org/44%
Abortion | Center for Reproductive Rightshttps://reproductiverights.org/our-issues/abortion38%
What Happens During an In-Clinic Abortion? – Planned Parenthoodhttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/in-clinic-abortion-procedures/what-happens-during-an-in-clinic-abortion38%

bing Show duckduckgo

Abortion – Pros & Cons – ProCon.orghttps://abortion.procon.org/100%
Abortion – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion99%
Abortion Information | Information About Your Optionshttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion98%
Abortion: Get Facts About the Procedure and Statisticshttps://www.emedicinehealth.com/abortion/article_em.htm97%
Abortion – The New York Timeshttps://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/abortion92%
Abortion | Medical Abortion | MedlinePlushttps://medlineplus.gov/abortion.html89%
Sterling Abortion Clinic | AWFC Abortion Clinic in …http://www.abortionva.com/sterling-va-abortion-clinic.htm77%
Mosaic Virginia • Mosaic Virginia®, Loudoun County, VAhttps://mosaic-virginia.org/21%

duckduckgo Show bing

Abortion – Pros & Cons – ProCon.orghttps://abortion.procon.org/100%
Abortion – The New York Timeshttps://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/abortion100%
Abortion Information | Information About Your Optionshttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion100%
Abortion: Get Facts About the Procedure and Statisticshttps://www.emedicinehealth.com/abortion/article_em.htm100%
AbortionFacts.com – Information on Abortion You Can Usehttps://www.abortionfacts.com/100%
Abortion – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion99%
Abortion | Medical Abortion | MedlinePlushttps://medlineplus.gov/abortion.html98%
Abortion Procedures During First, Second and Third Trimesterhttps://americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/abortion-procedures/76%

View more search results:

Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump
Guns
Recession

The practice of creating blacklists for certain types of sites or searches has fueled cries of political bias from some Google engineers and right-wing publications that said they have viewed portions of the blacklists. Some of the websites Google appears to have targeted in Google News were conservative sites and blogs, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. In one partial blacklist reviewed by the Journal, some conservative and right-wing websites, including The Gateway Pundit and The United West, were included on a list of hundreds of websites that wouldn’t appear in news or featured products, although they could appear in organic search results.

Google has said repeatedly it doesn’t make decisions based on politics, and current and former employees told the Journal they haven’t seen evidence of political bias. And yet, they said, Google’s shifting policies on interference—and its lack of transparency about them—inevitably force employees to become arbiters of what is acceptable, a dilemma that opens the door to charges of bias or favoritism.

Google’s Ms. Levin declined to comment.

DEMANDS FROM GOVERNMENTS for changes have grown rapidly since 2016.

From 2010 to 2018, Google fielded such requests from countries including the U.S. to remove 685,000 links from what Google calls web search. The requests came from courts or other authorities that said the links broke local laws or should be removed for other reasons.

Nearly 78% of those removal requests have been since the beginning of 2016, according to reports that Google publishes on its website. Google’s ultimate actions on those requests weren’t disclosed.

Russia has been by far the most prolific, demanding the removal of about 255,000 links from search last year, three-quarters of all government requests for removal from Google search in that period, the data show. Nearly all of the country’s requests came under an information-security law Russia put into effect in late 2017, according to a Journal examination of disclosures in a database run by the Berkman Klein Center.

Google said the Russian law doesn’t allow it to disclose which URLs were requested to be removed. A person familiar with the matter said the removal demands are for content ruled illegal in Russia for a variety of reasons, such as for promoting drug use or encouraging suicide.

Requests can include demands to remove links to information the government defines as extremist, which can be used to target political opposition, the person said.

Google, whose staff reviews the requests, at times declines those that appear focused on political opposition, the person said, adding that in those cases, it tries not to draw attention to its decisions to avoid provoking Russian regulators.

The approach has led to stiff internal debate. On one side, some Google employees say that the company shouldn’t cooperate at all with takedown requests from countries such as Russia or Turkey. Others say it is important to follow the laws of countries where they are based.

“There is a real question internally about whether a private company should be making these calls,” the person said.

Google’s Ms. Levin said, “Maximizing access to information has always been a core principle of Search, and that hasn’t changed.”

Google’s culture of publicly resisting demands to change results has diminished, current and former employees said. A few years ago, the company dismantled a global team focused on free-speech issues that, among other things, publicized the company’s legal battles to fight changes to search results, in part because Google had lost several of those battles in court, according to a person familiar with the change.

“Free expression was no longer a winner,” the person said.

—Keach Hagey, Andrea Fuller, Rob Copeland, Jim Oberman and Mythili Sankara contributed to this article.

—Illustrations by Martin Tognola

—Graphics by Elliot Bentley and Kara Dapena

Write to Kirsten Grind at kirsten.grind@wsj.com, Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com and Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com

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November 12, 2018

Catholic Priests & Child abuse

Filed under: Historical context — Tags: child abuse, ordination of women, Roman Catholic Church, The Vatican — justplainbill @ 11:38 pm

1. what do you expect when the job posting declares, “heterosexuals need not apply.”

Just as a matter of legal fact, let’s consider that there is no actual Christian prohibition to the ordaining of women or married men.

As a matter of fact and law, consider that The Roman Catholic Church actually allows both. Let us consider the facts:

1. If a married Episcopal or Anglican priest wants to accept RC doctrine & dogma, all that he actually needs to do is apply and then take the oath of obedience to the Pope. He is not required to divorce; &
2. RC doctrine accepts any Episcopalian or Anglican priest into its fold if he applies and takes the oat of obedience. This is proof that the RC Church accepts completely the ordination of Episcopalian and Anglican priests. Thus, gender is irrelevant to the ordination process. There is no LEGAL barrier to a woman being ordained Episcopalian, then applying to the Roman Church, taking the oath of obedience, and thereby becoming a Catholic Priest.

Only the arrogance of the Catholic heirarchy prevents Roman Catholic priest from marrying and from women being ordained.

The heirarchy should read the Letters of Paul!

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November 5, 2018

Song of the Open Road, by Walt Whitman [nc]

Filed under: equalizers, Historical context, Political Commentary, Politicians, Racism — justplainbill @ 10:48 pm

Song of the Open Road
By Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose,

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune – I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road . . .

. . . From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me . . .

. . . I inhale great draughts of space;
The East and the West and mine, and the North and the South are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,
I would do the same to you.

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

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August 27, 2017

The Fate of Empires, by Sir John Glubb, thanks to Butch [c]

Filed under: Anti-American Politicians, Bail-out, Business, Education, Elections, Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, Historical context, Media Check, Police, Political Commentary, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Russia, self-defense, US Constitution — Tags: Christianity, civil rights, Economics, federal government, Government, History, legal trends, liberty, Media Watch, Military, News Media, Politics, Racism, Secession, Socialism, tea party, us constitution, Welfare — justplainbill @ 4:02 pm

THE FATE OF EMPIRES
and
SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL
Sir John Glubb
John Bagot Glubb was born in 1897, his father being a regular officer in the Royal Engineers.
At the age of four he left England for Mauritius, where his father was posted for a three-year
tour of duty. At the age of ten he was sent to school for a year in Switzerland. These youthful
travels may have opened his mind to the outside world at an early age.
He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in September 1914, and was
commissioned in the Royal Engineers in April 1915. He served throughout the first World War
in France and Belgium, being wounded three times and awarded the Military Cross. In 1920 he
volunteered for service in Iraq, as a regular officer, but in 1926 resigned his commission and
accepted an administrative post under the Iraq Government.
In 1930, however, he signed a contract to serve the Transjordan Government (now Jordan).
From 1939 to 1956 he commanded the famous Jordan Arab Legion, which was in reality the
Jordan Army. Since his retirement he has published seventeen books, chiefly on the Middle
East, and has lectured widely in Britain, the United States and Europe.
William Blackwood & Sons Ltd
32 Thistle Street
Edinburgh EH1 1HA
Scotland
© J. B. G. Ltd, 1976, 1977
ISBN 0 85158 127 7
Printed at the Press of the Publisher
Introduction
As we pass through life, we learn by
experience. We look back on our behaviour
when we were young and think how foolish
we were. In the same way our family, our
community and our town endeavour to avoid
the mistakes made by our predecessors.
The experiences of the human race have
been recorded, in more or less detail, for
some four thousand years. If we attempt to
study such a period of time in as many
countries as possible, we seem to discover
the same patterns constantly repeated under
widely differing conditions of climate,
culture and religion. Surely, we ask
ourselves, if we studied calmly and
impartially the history of human institutions
and development over these four thousand
years, should we not reach conclusions
which would assist to solve our problems
today? For everything that is occurring
around us has happened again and again
before.
No such conception ever appears to have
entered into the minds of our historians. In
general, historical teaching in schools is
limited to this small island. We endlessly
mull over the Tudors and the Stewarts, the
Battle of Crecy, and Guy Fawkes. Perhaps
this narrowness is due to our examination
system, which necessitates the careful
definition of a syllabus which all children
must observe.
I remember once visiting a school for
mentally handicapped children. “Our
children do not have to take examinations,”
the headmaster told me,” and so we are able
to teach them things which will be really
useful to them in life.”
However this may be, the thesis which I
wish to propound is that priceless lessons
could be learned if the history of the past
four thousand years could be thoroughly and
impartially studied. In these two articles,
which first appeared in Blackwood’s
Magazine, I have attempted briefly to sketch
some of the kinds of lessons which I believe
we could learn. My plea is that history
should be the history of the human race, not
of one small country or period.
The Fate of Empires
I Learning from history
‘The only thing we learn from history,’ it
has been said, ‘is that men never learn from
history’, a sweeping generalisation perhaps,
but one which the chaos in the world today
goes far to confirm. What then can be the
reason why, in a society which claims to
probe every problem, the bases of history are
still so completely unknown?
Several reasons for the futility of our
historical studies may be suggested.
First, our historical work is limited to short
periods—the history of our own country, or
that of some past age which, for some
reason, we hold in respect.
Second, even within these short periods,
the slant we give to our narrative is governed
by our own vanity rather than by objectivity.
If we are considering the history of our own
country, we write at length of the periods
when our ancestors were prosperous and
victorious, but we pass quickly over their
shortcomings or their defeats. Our people
are represented as patriotic heroes, their
enemies as grasping imperialists, or
subversive rebels. In other words, our
national histories are propaganda, not wellbalanced
investigations.
Third, in the sphere of world history, we
study certain short, usually unconnected,
periods, which fashion at certain epochs has
made popular. Greece 500 years before
Christ, and the Roman Republic and early
Roman Empire are cases in point. The
intervals between the ‘great periods’ are
neglected. Recently Greece and Rome have
become largely discredited, and history tends
to become increasingly the parochial history
of our own countries.
To derive any useful instruction from
history, it seems to me essential first of all to
grasp the principle that history, to be
meaningful, must be the history of the
human race. For history is a continuous
process, gradually developing, changing and
turning back, but in general moving forward
in a single mighty stream. Any useful lessons
to be derived must be learned by the study of
the whole flow of human development, not
by the selection of short periods here and
there in one country or another.
Every age and culture is derived from its
predecessors, adds some contribution of its
own, and passes it on to its successors. If we
boycott various periods of history, the
origins of the new cultures which succeeded
them cannot be explained.
_______________________________
Sir John Glubb, better known as Glubb
Pasha, was born in 1897, and served in
France in the First World War from 1915 to
1918. In 1926 he left the regular army to
serve the Iraq Government. From 1939 to
1956, he commanded the famous Jordan
Arab Legion. Since retirement, he has
published sixteen books, chiefly on the
Middle East, and has lectured widely.
The Fate of Empires
2
Physical science has expanded its knowledge
by building on the work of its predecessors,
and by making millions of careful experiments,
the results of which are meticulously
recorded. Such methods have not yet been
employed in the study of world history. Our
piecemeal historical work is still mainly
dominated by emotion and prejudice.
II The lives of empires
If we desire to ascertain the laws which
govern the rise and fall of empires, the
obvious course is to investigate the imperial
experiments recorded in history, and to
endeavour to deduce from them any lessons
which seem to be applicable to them all.
The word ‘empire’, by association with the
British Empire, is visualised by some people
as an organisation consisting of a homecountry
in Europe and ‘colonies’ in other
continents. In this essay, the term ‘empire’ is
used to signify a great power, often called
today a superpower. Most of the empires in
history have been large landblocks, almost
without overseas possessions.
We possess a considerable amount of
information on many empires recorded in
history, and of their vicissitudes and the
lengths of their lives, for example:
The nation Dates of rise and fall Duration in years
Assyria 859-612 B.C. 247
Persia 538-330 B.C. 208
(Cyrus and his descendants)
Greece 331-100 B.C. 231
(Alexander and his successors)
Roman Republic 260-27 B.C. 233
Roman Empire 27 B.C.-A.D. 180 207
Arab Empire A.D. 634-880 246
Mameluke Empire 1250-1517 267
Ottoman Empire 1320-1570 250
Spain 1500-1750 250
Romanov Russia 1682-1916 234
Britain 1700-1950 250
This list calls for certain comments.
(1) The present writer is exploring the facts,
not trying to prove anything. The dates given
are largely arbitrary. Empires do not usually
begin or end on a certain date. There is
normally a gradual period of expansion and
then a period of decline. The resemblance in
the duration of these great powers may be
queried. Human affairs are subject to many
chances, and it is not to be expected that they
The Fate of Empires
3
could be calculated with mathematical
accuracy.
(2) Nevertheless, it is suggested that there is
sufficient resemblance between the life
periods of these different empires to justify
further study.
(3) The division of Rome into two periods
may be thought unwarranted. The first, or
republican, period dates from the time when
Rome became the mistress of Italy, and ends
with the accession of Augustus. The imperial
period extends from the accession of
Augustus to the death of Marcus Aurelius. It
is true that the empire survived nominally
for more than a century after this date, but it
did so in constant confusion, rebellions, civil
wars and barbarian invasions.
(4) Not all empires endured for their full lifespan.
The Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar,
for example, was overthrown by
Cyrus, after a life duration of only some
seventy-four years.
(5) An interesting deduction from the figures
seems to be that the duration of empires
does not depend on the speed of travel or the
nature of weapons. The Assyrians marched
on foot and fought with spears and bow and
arrows. The British used artillery, railways
and ocean-going ships. Yet the two empires
lasted for approximately the same periods.
There is a tendency nowadays to say that
this is the jet-age, and consequently there is
nothing for us to learn from past empires.
Such an attitude seems to be erroneous.
(6) It is tempting to compare the lives of
empires with those of human beings. We
may choose a figure and say that the average
life of a human being is seventy years. Not all
human beings live exactly seventy years.
Some die in infancy, others are killed in
accidents in middle life, some survive to the
age of eighty or ninety. Nevertheless, in spite
of such exceptions, we are justified in saying
that seventy years is a fair estimate of the
average person’s expectation of life.
(7) We may perhaps at this stage be allowed
to draw certain conclusions:
(a) In spite of the accidents of fortune, and
the apparent circumstances of the human
race at different epochs, the periods of
duration of different empires at varied
epochs show a remarkable similarity.
(b) Immense changes in the technology of
transport or in methods of warfare do not
seem to affect the life-expectation of an
empire.
(c) The changes in the technology of transport
and of war have, however, affected the
shape of empires. The Assyrians, marching
on foot, could only conquer their neighbours,
who were accessible by land—the
Medes, the Babylonians, the Persians and
the Egyptians.
The British, making use of ocean-going
ships, conquered many countries and subcontinents,
which were accessible to them
by water—North America, India, South
Africa, Australia and New Zealand—but
they never succeeded in conquering their
neighbours, France, Germany and Spain.
But, although the shapes of the Assyrian
and the British Empires were entirely
different, both lasted about the same
length of time.
III The human yardstick
What then, we may ask, can have been the
factor which caused such an extraordinary
similarity in the duration of empires, under
such diverse conditions, and such utterly
different technological achievements?
The Fate of Empires
4
One of the very few units of measurement
which have not seriously changed since the
Assyrians is the human ‘generation’, a period
of about twenty-five years. Thus a period of
250 years would represent about ten generations
of people. A closer examination of the
characteristics of the rise and fall of great
nations may emphasise the possible significance
of the sequence of generations.
Let us then attempt to examine the stages
in the lives of such powerful nations.
IV Stage one. The outburst
Again and again in history we find a small
nation, treated as insignificant by its
contemporaries, suddenly emerging from its
homeland and overrunning large areas of the
world. Prior to Philip (359-336 B.C.), Macedon
had been an insignificant state to the
north of Greece. Persia was the great power
of the time, completely dominating the area
from Eastern Europe to India. Yet by 323
B.C., thirty-six years after the accession of
Philip, the Persian Empire had ceased to
exist, and the Macedonian Empire extended
from the Danube to India, including Egypt.
This amazing expansion may perhaps he
attributed to the genius of Alexander the
Great, but this cannot have been the sole
reason; for although after his death everything
went wrong—the Macedonian generals
fought one another and established rival
empires—Macedonian pre-eminence survived
for 231 years.
In the year A.D. 600, the world was divided
between two superpower groups as it has
been for the past fifty years between Soviet
Russia and the West. The two powers were
the eastern Roman Empire and the Persian
Empire. The Arabs were then the despised
and backward inhabitants of the Arabian
Peninsula. They consisted chiefly of wandering
tribes, and had no government, no
constitution and no army. Syria, Palestine,
Egypt and North Africa were Roman
provinces, Iraq was part of Persia.
The Prophet Mohammed preached in
Arabia from A.D. 613 to 632, when he died.
In 633, the Arabs burst out of their desert
peninsula, and simultaneously attacked the
two super-powers. Within twenty years, the
Persian Empire had ceased to exist. Seventy
years after the death of the Prophet, the
Arabs had established an empire extending
from the Atlantic to the plains of Northern
India and the frontiers of China.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century,
the Mongols were a group of savage tribes in
the steppes of Mongolia. In 1211, Genghis
Khan invaded China. By 1253, the Mongols
had established an empire extending from
Asia Minor to the China Sea, one of the
largest empires the world has ever known.
The Arabs ruled the greater part of Spain
for 780 years, from 712 A.D. to 1492. (780
years back in British history would take us to
1196 and King Richard Coeur de Lion.)
During these eight centuries, there had been
no Spanish nation, the petty kings of Aragon
and Castile alone holding on in the
mountains.
The agreement between Ferdinand and
Isabella and Christopher Columbus was
signed immediately after the fall of Granada,
the last Arab kingdom in Spain, in 1492.
Within fifty years, Cortez had conquered
Mexico, and Spain was the world’s greatest
empire.
Examples of the sudden outbursts by
which empires are born could be multiplied
indefinitely. These random illustrations must
suffice.
The Fate of Empires
5
V Characteristics of the outburst
These sudden outbursts are usually
characterised by an extraordinary display of
energy and courage. The new conquerors are
normally poor, hardy and enterprising and
above all aggressive. The decaying empires
which they overthrow are wealthy but
defensive-minded. In the time of Roman
greatness, the legions used to dig a ditch
round their camps at night to avoid surprise.
But the ditches were mere earthworks, and
between them wide spaces were left through
which the Romans could counter-attack. But
as Rome grew older, the earthworks became
high walls, through which access was given
only by narrow gates. Counterattacks were
no longer possible. The legions were now
passive defenders.
But the new nation is not only distinguished
by victory in battle, but by unresting
enterprise in every field. Men hack their way
through jungles, climb mountains, or brave
the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans in tiny
cockle-shells. The Arabs crossed the Straits
of Gibraltar in A.D. 711 with 12,000 men,
defeated a Gothic army of more than twice
their strength, marched straight over 250
miles of unknown enemy territory and seized
the Gothic capital of Toledo. At the same
stage in British history, Captain Cook discovered
Australia. Fearless initiative characterises
such periods.
Other peculiarities of the period of the
conquering pioneers are their readiness to
improvise and experiment. Untrammelled by
traditions, they will turn anything available
to their purpose. If one method fails, they try
something else. Uninhibited by textbooks or
book learning, action is their solution to
every problem.
Poor, hardy, often half-starved and ill-clad,
they abound in courage, energy and
initiative, overcome every obstacle and
always seem to be in control of the situation.
VI The causes of race outbursts
The modern instinct is to seek a reason for
everything, and to doubt the veracity of a
statement for which a reason cannot be
found. So many examples can be given of the
sudden eruption of an obscure race into a
nation of conquerors that the truth of the
phenomenon cannot be held to be doubtful.
To assign a cause is more difficult. Perhaps
the easiest explanation is to assume that the
poor and obscure race is tempted by the
wealth of the ancient civilisation, and there
would undoubtedly appear to be an element
of greed for loot in barbarian invasions.
Such a motivation may be divided into two
classes. The first is mere loot, plunder and
rape, as, for example, in the case of Attila
and the Huns, who ravaged a great part of
Europe from A.D. 450 to 453. However, when
Attila died in the latter year, his empire fell
apart and his tribes returned to Eastern
Europe.
Many of the barbarians who founded
dynasties in Western Europe on the ruins of
the Roman Empire, however, did so out of
admiration for Roman civilisation, and
themselves aspired to become Romans.
VII A providential turnover?
Whatever causes may be given for the
overthrow of great civilisations by
barbarians, we can sense certain resulting
benefits. Every race on earth has distinctive
characteristics. Some have been distinguished
in philosophy, some in administration,
some in romance, poetry or religion, some in
The Fate of Empires
6
their legal system. During the pre-eminence
of each culture, its distinctive characteristics
are carried by it far and wide across the
world.
If the same nation were to retain its
domination indefinitely, its peculiar qualities
would permanently characterise the whole
human race. Under the system of empires
each lasting for 250 years, the sovereign race
has time to spread its particular virtues far
and wide. Then, however, another people,
with entirely different peculiarities, takes its
place, and its virtues and accomplishments
are likewise disseminated. By this system,
each of the innumerable races of the world
enjoys a period of greatness, during which its
peculiar qualities are placed at the service of
mankind.
To those who believe in the existence of
God, as the Ruler and Director of human
affairs, such a system may appear as a
manifestation of divine wisdom, tending
towards the slow and ultimate perfection of
humanity.
VIII The course of empire
The first stage of the life of a great nation,
therefore, after its outburst, is a period of
amazing initiative, and almost incredible
enterprise, courage and hardihood. These
qualities, often in a very short time, produce
a new and formidable nation. These early
victories, however, are won chiefly by
reckless bravery and daring initiative.
The ancient civilisation thus attacked will
have defended itself by its sophisticated
weapons, and by its military organisation
and discipline. The barbarians quickly
appreciate the advantages of these military
methods and adopt them. As a result, the
second stage of expansion of the new empire
consists of more organised, disciplined and
professional campaigns.
In other fields, the daring initiative of the
original conquerors is maintained—in
geographical exploration, for example:
pioneering new countries, penetrating new
forests, climbing unexplored mountains, and
sailing uncharted seas. The new nation is
confident, optimistic and perhaps contemptuous
of the ‘decadent’ races which it has
subjugated.
The methods employed tend to be practical
and experimental, both in government and
in warfare, for they are not tied by centuries
of tradition, as happens in ancient empires.
Moreover, the leaders are free to use their
own improvisations, not having studied
politics or tactics in schools or in textbooks.
IX U.S.A. in the stage of the pioneers
In the case of the United States of America,
the pioneering period did not consist of a
barbarian conquest of an effete civilisation,
but of the conquest of barbarian peoples.
Thus, viewed from the outside, every
example seems to be different. But viewed
from the standpoint of the great nation,
every example seems to be similar.
The United States arose suddenly as a new
nation, and its period of pioneering was
spent in the conquest of a vast continent, not
an ancient empire. Yet the subsequent life
history of the United States has followed the
standard pattern which we shall attempt to
trace—the periods of the pioneers, of
commerce, of affluence, of intellectualism
and of decadence.
X Commercial expansion
The conquest of vast areas of land and
their subjection to one government
The Fate of Empires
7
automatically acts as a stimulant to commerce.
Both merchants and goods can be
exchanged over considerable distances.
Moreover, if the empire be an extensive one,
it will include a great variety of climates,
producing extremely varied products, which
the different areas will wish to exchange with
one another.
The speed of modern methods of transportation
tends to create in us the impresssion
that far-flung commerce is a modern
development, but this is not the case. Objects
made in Ireland, Scandinavia and China
have been found in the graves or the ruins of
the Middle East, dating from 1,000 years
before Christ. The means of transport were
slower, but, when a great empire was in
control, commerce was freed from the
innumerable shackles imposed upon it today
by passports, import permits, customs,
boycotts and political interference.
The Roman Empire extended from Britain
to Syria and Egypt, a distance, in a direct
line, of perhaps 2,700 miles. A Roman
official, transferred from Britain to Syria,
might spend six months on the journey. Yet,
throughout the whole distance, he would be
travelling in the same country, with the same
official language, the same laws, the same
currency and the same administrative
system. Today, some twenty independent
countries separate Britain from Syria, each
with its own government, its own laws,
politics, customs fees, passports and
currencies, making commercial co-operation
almost impossible. And this process of
disintegration is still continuing. Even within
the small areas of the modern European
nations, provincial movements demanding
secession or devolution tend further to
splinter the continent.
The present fashion for ‘independence’ has
produced great numbers of tiny states in the
world, some of them consisting of only one
city or of a small island. This system is an
insuperable obstacle to trade and cooperation.
The present European Economic
Community is an attempt to secure commercial
cooperation among small independent
states over a large area, but the plan meets
with many difficulties, due to the mutual
jealousies of so many nations.
Even savage and militaristic empires
promoted commerce, whether or not they
intended to do so. The Mongols were some of
the most brutal military conquerors in
history, massacring the entire populations of
cities. Yet, in the thirteenth century, when
their empire extended from Peking to
Hungary, the caravan trade between China
and Europe achieved a remarkable degree of
prosperity—the whole journey was in the
territory of one government.
In the eighth and ninth centuries, the
caliphs of Baghdad achieved fabulous wealth
owing to the immense extent of their
territories, which constituted a single trade
bloc. The empire of the caliphs is now
divided into some twenty-five separate
‘nations’.
XI The pros and cons of empires
In discussing the life-story of the typical
empire, we have digressed into a discussion
of whether empires are useful or injurious to
mankind. We seem to have discovered that
empires have certain advantages, particularly
in the field of commerce, and in the
establishment of peace and security in vast
areas of the globe. Perhaps we should also
include the spread of varied cultures to many
races. The present infatuation for indepenThe
Fate of Empires
8
dence for ever smaller and smaller units will
eventually doubtless be succeeded by new
international empires.
The present attempts to create a European
community may be regarded as a practical
endeavour to constitute a new super-power,
in spite of the fragmentation resulting from
the craze for independence. If it succeeds,
some of the local independencies will have to
be sacrificed. If it fails, the same result may
be attained by military conquest, or by the
partition of Europe between rival superpowers.
The inescapable conclusion seems,
however, to be that larger territorial units are
a benefit to commerce and to public stability,
whether the broader territory be achieved by
voluntary association or by military action.
XII Sea power
One of the more benevolent ways in which
a super-power can promote both peace and
commerce is by its command of the sea.
From Waterloo to 1914, the British Navy
commanded the seas of the world. Britain
grew rich, but she also made the Seas safe for
the commerce of all nations, and prevented
major wars for 100 years.
Curiously enough, the question of sea
power was never clearly distinguished, in
British politics during the last fifty years,
from the question of imperial rule over other
countries. In fact, the two subjects are
entirely distinct. Sea power does not offend
small countries, as does military occupation.
If Britain had maintained her navy, with a
few naval bases overseas in isolated islands,
and had given independence to colonies
which asked for it, the world might well be a
more stable place today. In fact, however, the
navy was swept away in the popular outcry
against imperialism.
XIII The Age of Commerce
Let us now, however, return to the lifestory
of our typical empire. We have already
considered the age of outburst, when a littleregarded
people suddenly bursts on to the
world stage with a wild courage and energy.
Let us call it the Age of the Pioneers.
Then we saw that these new conquerors
acquired the sophisticated weapons of the
old empires, and adopted their regular
systems of military organisation and
training. A great period of military expansion
ensued, which we may call the Age of
Conquests. The conquests resulted in the
acquisition of vast territories under one
government, thereby automatically giving
rise to commercial prosperity. We may call
this the Age of Commerce.
The Age of Conquests, of course, overlaps
the Age of Commerce. The proud military
traditions still hold sway and the great
armies guard the frontiers, but gradually the
desire to make money seems to gain hold of
the public. During the military period, glory
and honour were the principal objects of
ambition. To the merchant, such ideas are
but empty words, which add nothing to the
bank balance.
XIV Art and luxury
The wealth which seems, almost without
effort, to pour into the country enables the
commercial classes to grow immensely rich.
How to spend all this money becomes a
problem to the wealthy business community.
Art, architecture and luxury find rich
patrons. Splendid municipal buildings and
wide streets lend dignity and beauty to the
wealthy areas of great cities. The rich
merchants build themselves palaces, and
money is invested in communications,
The Fate of Empires
9
highways, bridges, railways or hotels,
according to the varied patterns of the ages.
The first half of the Age of Commerce
appears to be peculiarly splendid. The
ancient virtues of courage, patriotism and
devotion to duty are still in evidence. The
nation is proud, united and full of selfconfidence.
Boys are still required, first of all,
to be manly—to ride, to shoot straight and to
tell the truth. (It is remarkable what
emphasis is placed, at this stage, on the
manly virtue of truthfulness, for lying is
cowardice—the fear of facing up to the
situation.)
Boys’ schools are intentionally rough. Frugal
eating, hard living, breaking the ice to
have a bath and similar customs are aimed at
producing a strong, hardy and fearless breed
of men. Duty is the word constantly drummed
into the heads of young people.
The Age of Commerce is also marked by
great enterprise in the exploration for new
forms of wealth. Daring initiative is shown in
the search for profitable enterprises in far
corners of the earth, perpetuating to some
degree the adventurous courage of the Age of
Conquests.
XV The Age of Affluence
There does not appear to be any doubt that
money is the agent which causes the decline
of this strong, brave and self-confident
people. The decline in courage, enterprise
and a sense of duty is, however, gradual.
The first direction in which wealth injures
the nation is a moral one. Money replaces
honour and adventure as the objective of the
best young men. Moreover, men do not
normally seek to make money for their
country or their community, but for themselves.
Gradually, and almost imperceptibly,
the Age of Affluence silences the voice of
duty. The object of the young and the
ambitious is no longer fame, honour or
service, but cash.
Education undergoes the same gradual
transformation. No longer do schools aim at
producing brave patriots ready to serve their
country. Parents and students alike seek the
educational qualifications which will
command the highest salaries. The Arab
moralist, Ghazali (1058-1111), complains in
these very same words of the lowering of
objectives in the declining Arab world of his
time. Students, he says, no longer attend
college to acquire learning and virtue, but to
obtain those qualifications which will enable
them to grow rich. The same situation is
everywhere evident among us in the West
today.
XVI High Noon
That which we may call the High Noon of
the nation covers the period of transition
from the Age of Conquests to the Age of
Affluence: the age of Augustus in Rome, that
of Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad, of Sulaiman
the Magnificent in the Ottoman Empire, or
of Queen Victoria in Britain. Perhaps we
might add the age of Woodrow Wilson in the
United States.
All these periods reveal the same
characteristics. The immense wealth accumulated
in the nation dazzles the onlookers.
Enough of the ancient virtues of courage,
energy and patriotism survive to enable the
state successfully to defend its frontiers. But,
beneath the surface, greed for money is
gradually replacing duty and public service.
Indeed the change might be summarised as
being from service to selfishness.
The Fate of Empires
10
XVII Defensiveness
Another outward change which invariably
marks the transition from the Age of
Conquests to the Age of Affluence is the
spread of defensiveness. The nation, immensely
rich, is no longer interested in glory or
duty, but is only anxious to retain its wealth
and its luxury. It is a period of defensiveness,
from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s
Wall on the Scottish Border, to the Maginot
Line in France in 1939.
Money being in better supply than courage,
subsidies instead of weapons are employed
to buy off enemies. To justify this departure
from ancient tradition, the human mind
easily devises its own justification. Military
readiness, or aggressiveness, is denounced as
primitive and immoral. Civilised peoples are
too proud to fight. The conquest of one
nation by another is declared to be immoral.
Empires are wicked. This intellectual device
enables us to suppress our feeling of
inferiority, when we read of the heroism of
our ancestors, and then ruefully contemplate
our position today. ‘It is not that we are
afraid to fight,’ we say, ‘but we should
consider it immoral.’ This even enables us to
assume an attitude of moral superiority.
The weakness of pacifism is that there are
still many peoples in the world who are
aggressive. Nations who proclaim themselves
unwilling to fight are liable to be conquered
by peoples in the stage of militarism—
perhaps even to see themselves incorporated
into some new empire, with the status of
mere provinces or colonies.
When to be prepared to use force and when
to give way is a perpetual human problem,
which can only be solved, as best we can, in
each successive situation as it arises. In fact,
however, history seems to indicate that great
nations do not normally disarm from
motives of conscience, but owing to the
weakening of a sense of duty in the citizens,
and the increase in selfishness and the desire
for wealth and ease.
XVIII The Age of Intellect
We have now, perhaps arbitrarily, divided
the life-story of our great nation into four
ages. The Age of the Pioneers (or the
Outburst), the Age of Conquests, the Age of
Commerce, and the Age of Affluence. The
great wealth of the nation is no longer
needed to supply the mere necessities, or
even the luxuries of life. Ample funds are
available also for the pursuit of knowledge.
The merchant princes of the Age of
Commerce seek fame and praise, not only by
endowing works of art or patronising music
and literature. They also found and endow
colleges and universities. It is remarkable
with what regularity this phase follows on
that of wealth, in empire after empire,
divided by many centuries.
In the eleventh century, the former Arab
Empire, then in complete political decline,
was ruled by the Seljuk sultan, Malik Shah.
The Arabs, no longer soldiers, were still the
intellectual leaders of the world. During the
reign of Malik Shah, the building of
universities and colleges became a passion.
Whereas a small number of universities in
the great cities had sufficed the years of Arab
glory, now a university sprang up in every
town.
In our own lifetime, we have witnessed the
same phenomenon in the U.S.A. and Britain.
When these nations were at the height of
their glory, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and
Cambridge seemed to meet their needs. Now
almost every city has its university.
The Fate of Empires
11
The ambition of the young, once engaged
in the pursuit of adventure and military
glory, and then in the desire for the
accumulation of wealth, now turns to the
acquisition of academic honours.
It is useful here to take note that almost all
the pursuits followed with such passion
throughout the ages were in themselves
good. The manly cult of hardihood, frankness
and truthfulness, which characterised
the Age of Conquests, produced many really
splendid heroes.
The opening up of natural resources, and
the peaceful accumulation of wealth, which
marked the age of commercialism, appeared
to introduce new triumphs in civilisation, in
culture and in the arts. In the same way, the
vast expansion of the field of knowledge
achieved by the Age of Intellect seemed to
mark a new high-water mark of human
progress. We cannot say that any of these
changes were ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
The striking features in the pageant of
empire are:
(a) the extraordinary exactitude with which
these stages have followed one another, in
empire after empire, over centuries or even
millennia; and
(b) the fact that the successive changes
seem to represent mere changes in popular
fashion—new fads and fancies which sweep
away public opinion without logical reason.
At first, popular enthusiasm is devoted to
military glory, then to the accumulation of
wealth and later to the acquisition of
academic fame.
Why could not all these legitimate, and
indeed beneficent, activities be carried on
simultaneously, each of them in due moderation?
Yet this never seemed to happen.
XIX The effects of intellectualism
There are so many things in human life
which are not dreamt of in our popular
philosophy. The spread of knowledge seems
to be the most beneficial of human activities,
and yet every period of decline is characterrised
by this expansion of intellectual
activity. ‘All the Athenians and strangers
which were there spent their time in nothing
else, but either to tell or to hear some new
thing’ is the description given in the Acts of
the Apostles of the decline of Greek
intellectualism.
The Age of Intellect is accompanied by
surprising advances in natural science. In the
ninth century, for example, in the age of
Mamun, the Arabs measured the circumference
of the earth with remarkable
accuracy. Seven centuries were to pass
before Western Europe discovered that the
world was not flat. Less than fifty years after
the amazing scientific discoveries under
Mamun, the Arab Empire collapsed. Wonderful
and beneficent as was the progress of
science, it did not save the empire from
chaos.
The full flowering of Arab and Persian
intellectualism did not occur until after their
imperial and political collapse. Thereafter
the intellectuals attained fresh triumphs in
the academic field, but politically they
became the abject servants of the often
illiterate rulers. When the Mongols conquered
Persia in the thirteenth century, they
were themselves entirely uneducated and
were obliged to depend wholly on native
Persian officials to administer the country
and to collect the revenue. They retained as
wazeer, or Prime Minister, one Rashid al-
Din, a historian of international repute. Yet
The Fate of Empires
12
the Prime Minister, when speaking to the
Mongol II Khan, was obliged to remain
throughout the interview on his knees. At
state banquets, the Prime Minister stood
behind the Khan’s seat to wait upon him. If
the Khan were in a good mood, he
occasionally passed his wazeer a piece of
food over his shoulder.
As in the case of the Athenians,
intellectualism leads to discussion, debate
and argument, such as is typical of the
Western nations today. Debates in elected
assemblies or local committees, in articles in
the Press or in interviews on television—
endless and incessant talking.
Men are interminably different, and
intellectual arguments rarely lead to
agreement. Thus public affairs drift from bad
to worse, amid an unceasing cacophony of
argument. But this constant dedication to
discussion seems to destroy the power of
action. Amid a Babel of talk, the ship drifts
on to the rocks.
XX The inadequacy of intellect
Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of
the Age of Intellect is the unconscious
growth of the idea that the human brain can
solve the problems of the world. Even on the
low level of practical affairs this is patently
untrue. Any small human activity, the local
bowls club or the ladies’ luncheon club,
requires for its survival a measure of selfsacrifice
and service on the part of the
members. In a wider national sphere, the
survival of the nation depends basically on
the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the citizens.
The impression that the situation can be
saved by mental cleverness, without unselfishness
or human self-dedication, can only
lead to collapse.
Thus we see that the cultivation of the
human intellect seems to be a magnificent
ideal, but only on condition that it does not
weaken unselfishness and human dedication
to service. Yet this, judging by historical
precedent, seems to be exactly what it does
do. Perhaps it is not the intellectualism
which destroys the spirit of self-sacrifice—the
least we can say is that the two,
intellectualism and the loss of a sense of
duty, appear simultaneously in the life-story
of the nation.
Indeed it often appears in individuals, that
the head and the heart are natural rivals. The
brilliant but cynical intellectual appears at
the opposite end of the spectrum from the
emotional self-sacrifice of the hero or the
martyr. Yet there are times when the perhaps
unsophisticated self-dedication of the hero is
more essential than the sarcasms of the
clever.
XXI Civil dissensions
Another remarkable and unexpected
symptom of national decline is the intensification
of internal political hatreds. One
would have expected that, when the survival
of the nation became precarious, political
factions would drop their rivalry and stand
shoulder-to-shoulder to save their country.
In the fourteenth century, the weakening
empire of Byzantium was threatened, and
indeed dominated, by the Ottoman Turks.
The situation was so serious that one would
have expected every subject of Byzantium to
abandon his personal interests and to stand
with his compatriots in a last desperate
attempt to save the country. The reverse
occurred. The Byzantines spent the last fifty
years of their history in fighting one another
in repeated civil wars, until the Ottomans
The Fate of Empires
13
moved in and administered the coup de
grâce.
Britain has been governed by an elected
parliament for many centuries. In former
years, however, the rival parties observed
many unwritten laws. Neither party wished
to eliminate the other. All the members
referred to one another as honourable
gentlemen. But such courtesies have now
lapsed. Booing, shouting and loud noises
have undermined the dignity of the House,
and angry exchanges are more frequent. We
are fortunate if these rivalries are fought out
in Parliament, but sometimes such hatreds
are carried into the streets, or into industry
in the form of strikes, demonstrations,
boycotts and similar activities. True to the
normal course followed by nations in
decline, internal differences are not
reconciled in an attempt to save the nation.
On the contrary, internal rivalries become
more acute, as the nation becomes weaker.
XXII The influx of foreigners
One of the oft-repeated phenomena of
great empires is the influx of foreigners to
the capital city. Roman historians often
complain of the number of Asians and
Africans in Rome. Baghdad, in its prime in
the ninth century, was international in its
population—Persians, Turks, Arabs, Armenians,
Egyptians, Africans and Greeks
mingled in its streets.
In London today, Cypriots, Greeks,
Italians, Russians, Africans, Germans and
Indians jostle one another on the buses and
in the underground, so that it sometimes
seems difficult to find any British. The same
applies to New York, perhaps even more so.
This problem does not consist in any
inferiority of one race as compared with
another, but simply in the differences
between them.
In the age of the first outburst and the
subsequent Age of Conquests, the race is
normally ethnically more or less
homogeneous. This state of affairs facilitates
a feeling of solidarity and comradeship. But
in the Ages of Commerce and Affluence,
every type of foreigner floods into the great
city, the streets of which are reputed to be
paved with gold. As, in most cases, this great
city is also the capital of the empire, the
cosmopolitan crowd at the seat of empire
exercises a political influence greatly in
excess of its relative numbers.
Second- or third-generation foreign
immigrants may appear outwardly to be
entirely assimilated, but they often constitute
a weakness in two directions. First, their
basic human nature often differs from that of
the original imperial stock. If the earlier
imperial race was stubborn and slowmoving,
the immigrants might come from
more emotional races, thereby introducing
cracks and schisms into the national policies,
even if all were equally loyal.
Second, while the nation is still affluent, all
the diverse races may appear equally loyal.
But in an acute emergency, the immigrants
will often be less willing to sacrifice their
lives and their property than will be the
original descendants of the founder race.
Third, the immigrants are liable to form
communities of their own, protecting
primarily their own interests, and only in the
second degree that of the nation as a whole.
Fourth, many of the foreign immigrants
will probably belong to races originally
conquered by and absorbed into the empire.
While the empire is enjoying its High Noon
of prosperity, all these people are proud and
The Fate of Empires
14
glad to be imperial citizens. But when decline
sets in, it is extraordinary how the memory
of ancient wars, perhaps centuries before, is
suddenly revived, and local or provincial
movements appear demanding secession or
independence. Some day this phenomenon
will doubtless appear in the now apparently
monolithic and authoritarian Soviet empire.
It is amazing for how long such provincial
sentiments can survive.
Historical examples of this phenomenon
are scarcely needed. The idle and captious
Roman mob, with its endless appetite for
free distributions of food—bread and
games—is notorious, and utterly different
from that stern Roman spirit which we
associate with the wars of the early republic.
In Baghdad, in the golden days of Harun
al-Rashid, Arabs were a minority in the
imperial capital. Istanbul, in the great days
of Ottoman rule, was peopled by inhabitants
remarkably few of whom were descendants
of Turkish conquerors. In New York,
descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are few
and far between.
This interesting phenomenon is largely
limited to great cities. The original conquering
race is often to be found in relative
purity in rural districts and on far frontiers.
It is the wealth of the great cities which
draws the immigrants. As, with the growth of
industry, cities nowadays achieve an ever
greater preponderance over the countryside,
so will the influence of foreigners increasingly
dominate old empires.
Once more it may be emphasised that I do
not wish to convey the impression that
immigrants are inferior to older stocks. They
are just different, and they thus tend to
introduce cracks and divisions.
XXIII Frivolity
As the nation declines in power and
wealth, a universal pessimism gradually
pervades the people, and itself hastens the
decline. There is nothing succeeds like
success, and, in the Ages of Conquest and
Commerce, the nation was carried
triumphantly onwards on the wave of its own
self-confidence. Republican Rome was
repeatedly on the verge of extinction—in 390
B.C. when the Gauls sacked the city and in
216 B.C. after the Battle of Cannae. But no
disasters could shake the resolution of the
early Romans. Yet, in the later stages of
Roman decline, the whole empire was deeply
pessimistic, thereby sapping its own
resolution.
Frivolity is the frequent companion of
pessimism. Let us eat, drink and be merry,
for tomorrow we die. The resemblance
between various declining nations in this
respect is truly surprising. The Roman mob,
we have seen, demanded free meals and
public games. Gladiatorial shows, chariot
races and athletic events were their passion.
In the Byzantine Empire the rivalries of the
Greens and the Blues in the hippodrome
attained the importance of a major crisis.
Judging by the time and space allotted to
them in the Press and television, football and
baseball are the activities which today chiefly
interest the public in Britain and the United
States respectively.
The heroes of declining nations are always
the same—the athlete, the singer or the
actor. The word ‘celebrity’ today is used to
designate a comedian or a football player,
not a statesman, a general, or a literary
genius.
The Fate of Empires
15
XXIV The Arab decline
In the first half of the ninth century,
Baghdad enjoyed its High Noon as the
greatest and the richest city in the world. In
861, however, the reigning Khalif (caliph),
Mutawakkil, was murdered by his Turkish
mercenaries, who set up a military dictatorship,
which lasted for some thirty years.
During this period the empire fell apart, the
various dominions and provinces each
assuming virtual independence and seeking
its own interests. Baghdad, lately the capital
of a vast empire, found its authority limited
to Iraq alone.
The works of the contemporary historians
of Baghdad in the early tenth century are still
available. They deeply deplored the
degeneracy of the times in which they lived,
emphasising particularly the indifference to
religion, the increasing materialism and the
laxity of sexual morals. They lamented also
the corruption of the officials of the
government and the fact that politicians
always seemed to amass large fortunes while
they were in office.
The historians commented bitterly on the
extraordinary influence acquired by popular
singers over young people, resulting in a
decline in sexual morality. The ‘pop’ singers
of Baghdad accompanied their erotic songs
on the lute, an instrument resembling the
modern guitar. In the second half of the
tenth century, as a result, much obscene
sexual language came increasingly into use,
such as would not have been tolerated in an
earlier age. Several khalifs issued orders
banning ‘pop’ singers from the capital, but
within a few years they always returned.
An increase in the influence of women in
public life has often been associated with national
decline. The later Romans complained
that, although Rome ruled the world, women
ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar
tendency was observable in the Arab Empire,
the women demanding admission to the
professions hitherto monopolised by men.
‘What,’ wrote the contemporary historian,
Ibn Bessam, ‘have the professions of clerk,
tax-collector or preacher to do with women?
These occupations have always been limited
to men alone.’ Many women practised law,
while others obtained posts as university
professors. There was an agitation for the
appointment of female judges, which,
however, does not appear to have succeeded.
Soon after this period, government and
public order collapsed, and foreign invaders
overran the country. The resulting increase
in confusion and violence made it unsafe for
women to move unescorted in the streets,
with the result that this feminist movement
collapsed.
The disorders following the military takeover
in 861, and the loss of the empire, had
played havoc with the economy. At such a
moment, it might have been expected that
everyone would redouble their efforts to save
the country from bankruptcy, but nothing of
the kind occurred. Instead, at this moment of
declining trade and financial stringency, the
people of Baghdad introduced a five-day
week.
When I first read these contemporary
descriptions of tenth-century Baghdad, I
could scarcely believe my eyes. I told myself
that this must be a joke! The descriptions
might have been taken out of The Times
today. The resemblance of all the details was
especially breathtaking—the break-up of the
empire, the abandonment of sexual morality,
the ‘pop’ singers with their guitars, the entry
of women into the professions, the five-day
The Fate of Empires
16
week. I would not venture to attempt an
explanation! There are so many mysteries
about human life which are far beyond our
comprehension.
XXV Political ideology
Today we attach immense importance to
the ideology of our internal politics. The
Press and public media in the U.S.A. and
Britain pour incessant scorn on any country
the political institutions of which differ in
any manner from our own idea of
democracy. It is, therefore, interesting to
note that the life-expectation of a great
nation does not appear to be in any way
affected by the nature of its institutions.
Past empires show almost every possible
variation of political system, but all go
through the same procedure from the Age of
Pioneers through Conquest, Commerce,
Affluence to decline and collapse.
XXVI The Mameluke Empire
The empire of the Mamelukes of Egypt
provides a case in point, for it was one of the
most exotic ever to be recorded in history. It
is also exceptional in that it began on one
fixed day and ended on another, leaving no
doubt of its precise duration, which was 267
years.
In the first part of the thirteenth century,
Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Ayoubid
sultans, the descendants of the family of
Saladin. Their army consisted of Mamelukes,
slaves imported as boys from the Steppes
and trained as professional soldiers. On 1st
May 1250, the Mamelukes mutinied,
murdered Turan Shah, the Ayoubid sultan,
and became the rulers of his empire.
The first fifty years of the Mameluke
Empire were marked by desperate fighting
with the hitherto invincible Mongols, the
descendants of Genghis Khan, who invaded
Syria. By defeating the Mongols and driving
them out of Syria, the Mamelukes saved the
Mediterranean from the terrible fate which
had overtaken Persia. In 1291, the Mamelukes
captured Acre, and put an end to the
Crusades.
From 1309 to 1341, the Mameluke Empire
was everywhere victorious and possessed the
finest army in the world. For the ensuing
hundred years the wealth of the Mameluke
Empire was fabulous, slowly leading to
luxury, the relaxation of discipline and to
decline, with ever more bitter internal
political rivalries. Finally the empire collapsed
in 1517, as the result of military defeat
by the Ottomans.
The Mameluke government appears to us
utterly illogical and fantastic. The ruling
class was entirely recruited from young boys,
born in what is now Southern Russia. Every
one of them was enlisted as a private soldier.
Even the sultans had begun life as private
soldiers and had risen from the ranks. Yet
this extraordinary political system resulted
in an empire which passed through all the
normal stages of conquest, commercialism,
affluence and decline and which lasted
approximately the usual period of time.
XXVII The master race
The people of the great nations of the past
seem normally to have imagined that their
pre-eminence would last for ever. Rome
appeared to its citizens to be destined to be
for all time the mistress of the world. The
Abbasid Khalifs of Baghdad declared that
God had appointed them to rule mankind
until the day of judgement. Seventy years
ago, many people in Britain believed that the
The Fate of Empires
17
empire would endure for ever. Although
Hitler failed to achieve his objective, he
declared that Germany would rule the world
for a thousand years. That sentiments like
these could be publicly expressed without
evoking derision shows that, in all ages, the
regular rise and fall of great nations has
passed unperceived. The simplest statistics
prove the steady rotation of one nation after
another at regular intervals.
The belief that their nation would rule the
world forever, naturally encouraged the
citizens of the leading nation of any period to
attribute their pre-eminence to hereditary
virtues. They carried in their blood, they
believed, qualities which constituted them a
race of supermen, an illusion which inclined
them to the employment of cheap foreign
labour (or slaves) to perform menial tasks
and to engage foreign mercenaries to fight
their battles or to sail their ships.
These poorer peoples were only too happy
to migrate to the wealthy cities of the empire,
and thereby, as we have seen, to adulterate
the close-knit, homogeneous character of the
conquering race. The latter unconsciously
assumed that they would always be the
leaders of mankind, relaxed their energies,
and spent an increasing part of their time in
leisure, amusement or sport.
In recent years, the idea has spread widely
in the West that ‘progress’ will be automatic
without effort, that everyone will continue to
grow richer and richer and that every year
will show a ‘rise in the standard of living’. We
have not drawn from history the obvious
conclusion that material success is the result
of courage, endurance and hard work—a
conclusion nevertheless obvious from the
history of the meteoric rise of our own
ancestors. This self-assurance of its own
superiority seems to go hand-in-hand with
the luxury resulting from wealth, in
undermining the character of the dominant
race.
XXVIII The welfare state
When the welfare state was first introduced
in Britain, it was hailed as a new high-water
mark in the history of human development.
History, however, seems to suggest that the
age of decline of a great nation is often a
period which shows a tendency to
philanthropy and to sympathy for other
races. This phase may not be contradictory
to the feeling described in the previous
paragraph, that the dominant race has the
right to rule the world. For the citizens of the
great nation enjoy the role of Lady Bountiful.
As long as it retains its status of leadership,
the imperial people are glad to be generous,
even if slightly condescending. The rights of
citizenship are generously bestowed on every
race, even those formerly subject, and the
equality of mankind is proclaimed. The
Roman Empire passed through this phase,
when equal citizenship was thrown open to
all peoples, such provincials even becoming
senators and emperors.
The Arab Empire of Baghdad was equally,
perhaps even more, generous. During the
Age of Conquests, pure-bred Arabs had
constituted a ruling class, but in the ninth
century the empire was completely
cosmopolitan.
State assistance to the young and the poor
was equally generous. University students
received government grants to cover their
expenses while they were receiving higher
education. The State likewise offered free
medical treatment to the poor. The first free
public hospital was opened in Baghdad in
The Fate of Empires
18
the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), and
under his son, Mamun, free public hospitals
sprang up all over the Arab world from Spain
to what is now Pakistan.
The impression that it will always be
automatically rich causes the declining
empire to spend lavishly on its own
benevolence, until such time as the economy
collapses, the universities are closed and the
hospitals fall into ruin.
It may perhaps be incorrect to picture the
welfare state as the high-water mark of
human attainment. It may merely prove to
be one more regular milestone in the lifestory
of an ageing and decrepit empire.
XXIX Religion
Historians of periods of decadence often
refer to a decline in religion, but, if we
extend our investigation over a period
covering the Assyrians (859-612 B.C.) to our
own times, we have to interpret religion in a
very broad sense. Some such definition as
‘the human feeling that there is something,
some invisible Power, apart from material
objects, which controls human life and the
natural world’.
We are probably too narrow and
contemptuous in our interpretation of idol
worship. The people of ancient civilisations
were as sensible as we are, and would
scarcely have been so foolish as to worship
sticks and stones fashioned by their own
hands. The idol was for them merely a
symbol, and represented an unknown,
spiritual reality, which controlled the lives of
men and demanded human obedience to its
moral precepts.
We all know only too well that minor
differences in the human visualisation of this
Spirit frequently became the ostensible
reason for human wars, in which both sides
claimed to be fighting for the true God, but
the absurd narrowness of human
conceptions should not blind us to the fact
that, very often, both sides believed their
campaigns to have a moral background.
Genghis Khan, one of the most brutal of all
conquerors, claimed that God had delegated
him the duty to exterminate the decadent
races of the civilised world. Thus the Age of
Conquests often had some kind of religious
atmosphere, which implied heroic selfsacrifice
for the cause.
But this spirit of dedication was slowly
eroded in the Age of Commerce by the action
of money. People make money for
themselves, not for their country. Thus
periods of affluence gradually dissolved the
spirit of service, which had caused the rise of
the imperial races.
In due course, selfishness permeated the
community, the coherence of which was
weakened until disintegration was
threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the
period of pessimism with the accompanying
spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, byproducts
of despair. It was inevitable at such
times that men should look back yearningly
to the days of ‘religion’, when the spirit of
self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make
men ready to give and to serve, rather than
to snatch.
But while despair might permeate the
greater part of the nation, others achieved a
new realisation of the fact that only readiness
for self-sacrifice could enable a community
to survive. Some of the greatest saints in
history lived in times of national decadence,
raising the banner of duty and service
against the flood of depravity and despair.
The Fate of Empires
19
In this manner, at the height of vice and
frivolity the seeds of religious revival are
quietly sown. After, perhaps, several
generations (or even centuries) of suffering,
the impoverished nation has been purged of
its selfishness and its love of money, religion
regains its sway and a new era sets in. ‘It is
good for me that I have been afflicted,’ said
the psalmist, ‘that I might learn Thy
Statutes.’
XXX New combinations
We have traced the rise of an obscure race
to fame, through the stages of conquest,
commercialism, affluence, and intellectualism,
to disintegration, decadence and
despair. We suggested that the dominant
race at any given time imparts its leading
characteristics to the world around, being in
due course succeeded by another empire. By
this means, we speculated, many successive
races succeeded one another as superpowers,
and in turn bequeathed their
peculiar qualities to mankind at large.
But the objection may here be raised that
some day the time will come when all the
races of the world will in turn have enjoyed
their period of domination and have
collapsed again in decadence. When the
whole human race has reached the stage of
decadence, where will new energetic conquering
races be found?
The answer is at first partially obscured by
our modern habit of dividing the human race
into nations, which we seem to regard as
water-tight compartments, an error responsible
for innumerable misunderstandings.
In earlier times, warlike nomadic nations
invaded the territories of decadent peoples
and settled there. In due course, they
intermarried with the local population and a
new race resulted, though it sometimes
retained an old name. The barbarian
invasions of the Roman Empire probably
provide the example best known today in the
West. Others were the Arab conquests of
Spain, North Africa and Persia, the Turkish
conquests of the Ottoman Empire, or even
the Norman Conquest of England.
In all such cases, the conquered countries
were originally fully inhabited and the invaders
were armies, which ultimately settled
down and married, and produced new races.
In our times, there are few nomadic
conquerors left in the world, who could
invade more settled countries bringing their
tents and flocks with them. But ease of travel
has resulted in an equal, or probably an even
greater, intermixture of populations. The
extreme bitterness of modern internal political
struggles produces a constant flow of
migrants from their native countries to
others, where the social institutions suit
them better.
The vicissitudes of trade and business
similarly result in many persons moving to
other countries, at first intending to return,
but ultimately settling down in their new
countries.
The population of Britain has been
constantly changing, particularly in the last
sixty years, owing to the influx of immigrants
from Europe, Asia and Africa, and the exit of
British citizens to the Dominions and the
United States. The latter is, of course, the
most obvious example of the constant rise of
new nations, and of the transformation of
the ethnic content of old nations through this
modern nomadism.
The Fate of Empires
20
XXXI Decadence of a system
It is of interest to note that decadence is
the disintegration of a system, not of its
individual members. The habits of the
members of the community have been
corrupted by the enjoyment of too much
money and too much power for too long a
period. The result has been, in the
framework of their national life, to make
them selfish and idle. A community of selfish
and idle people declines, internal quarrels
develop in the division of its dwindling
wealth, and pessimism follows, which some
of them endeavour to drown in sensuality or
frivolity. In their own surroundings, they are
unable to redirect their thoughts and their
energies into new channels.
But when individual members of such a
society emigrate into entirely new surroundings,
they do not remain conspicuously
decadent, pessimistic or immoral among the
inhabitants of their new homeland. Once
enabled to break away from their old
channels of thought, and after a short period
of readjustment, they become normal
citizens of their adopted countries. Some of
them, in the second and third generations,
may attain pre-eminence and leadership in
their new communities.
This seems to prove that the decline of any
nation does not undermine the energies or
the basic character of its members. Nor does
the decadence of a number of such nations
permanently impoverish the human race.
Decadence is both mental and moral
deterioration, produced by the slow decline
of the community from which its members
cannot escape, as long as they remain in
their old surroundings. But, transported
elsewhere, they soon discard their decadent
ways of thought, and prove themselves equal
to the other citizens of their adopted country.
XXXII Decadence is not physical
Neither is decadence physical. The citizens
of nations in decline are sometimes
described as too physically emasculated to be
able to bear hardship or make great efforts.
This does not seem to be a true picture.
Citizens of great nations in decadence are
normally physically larger and stronger than
those of their barbarian invaders.
Moreover, as was proved in Britain in the
first World War, young men brought up in
luxury and wealth found little difficulty in
accustoming themselves to life in the frontline
trenches. The history of exploration
proves the same point. Men accustomed to
comfortable living in homes in Europe or
America were able to show as much
endurance as the natives in riding camels
across the desert or in hacking their way
through tropical forests.
Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease,
resulting from too long a period of wealth
and power, producing cynicism, decline of
religion, pessimism and frivolity. The
citizens of such a nation will no longer make
an effort to save themselves, because they
are not convinced that anything in life is
worth saving.
XXXII Human diversity
Generalisations are always dangerous.
Human beings are all different. The variety
in human life is endless. If this be the case
with individuals, it is much more so with
nations and cultures. No two societies, no
two peoples, no two cultures are exactly the
same. In these circumstances, it will be easy
The Fate of Empires
21
for critics to find many objections to what
has been said, and to point out exceptions to
the generalisations.
There is some value in comparing the lives
of nations to those of individuals. No two
persons in the world are identical. Moreover
their lives are often affected by accidents or
by illness, making the divergences even more
obvious. Yet, in fact, we can generalise about
human life from many different aspects. The
characteristics of childhood, adolescence,
youth, middle and old age are well known.
Some adolescents, it is true, are prematurely
wise and serious. Some persons in middle
age still seem to he young. But such
exceptions do not invalidate the general
character of human life from the cradle to
the grave.
I venture to submit that the lives of nations
follow a similar pattern. Superficially, all
seem to be completely different. Some years
ago, a suggestion was submitted to a certain
television corporation that a series of talks
on Arab history would form an interesting
sequence. The proposal was immediately
vetoed by the director of programmes with
the remark, “What earthly interest could the
history of medieval Arabs have for the
general public today?”
Yet, in fact, the history of the Arab imperial
age—from conquest through commercialism,
to affluence, intellectualism, science and
decadence—is an exact precursor of British
imperial history and lasted almost exactly
the same time.
If British historians, a century ago, had
devoted serious study to the Arab Empire,
they could have foreseen almost everything
that has happened in Britain down to 1976.
XXXIV A variety of falls
It has been shown that, normally, the rise
and fall of great nations are due to internal
reasons alone. Ten generations of human
beings suffice to transform the hardy and
enterprising pioneer into the captious citizen
of the welfare state. But whereas the life
histories of great nations show an unexpected
uniformity, the nature of their falls
depends largely on outside circumstances
and thus shows a high degree of diversity.
The Roman Republic, as we have seen, was
followed by the empire, which became a
super-state, in which all the natives of the
Mediterranean basin, regardless of race,
possessed equal rights. The name of Rome,
originally a city-state, passed from it to an
equalitarian international empire.
This empire broke in half, the western half
being overrun by northern barbarians, the
eastern half forming the East Roman or
Byzantine Empire.
The vast Arab Empire broke up in the
ninth century into many fragments, of which
one former colony, Moslem Spain, ran its
own 250-year course as an independent
empire. The homelands of Syria and Iraq,
however, were conquered by successive
waves of Turks to whom they remained
subject for 1,000 years.
The Mameluke Empire of Egypt and Syria,
on the other hand, was conquered in one
campaign by the Ottomans, the native
population merely suffering a change of
masters.
The Spanish Empire (1500-1750) endured
for the conventional 250 years, terminated
only by the loss of its colonies. The homeland
of Spain fell, indeed, from its high estate of a
The Fate of Empires
22
super-power, but remained as an independent
nation until today.
Romanov Russia (1682-1916) ran the
normal course, but was succeeded by the
Soviet Union.
It is unnecessary to labour the point, which
we may attempt to summarise briefly. Any
regime which attains great wealth and power
seems with remarkable regularity to decay
and fall apart in some ten generations. The
ultimate fate of its component parts,
however, does not depend on its internal
nature, but on the other organisations which
appear at the time of its collapse and succeed
in devouring its heritage. Thus the lives of
great powers are surprisingly uniform, but
the results of their falls are completely
diverse.
XXXV Inadequacy of our historical
studies
In fact, the modern nations of the West
have derived only limited value from their
historical studies, because they have never
made them big enough. For history to have
meaning, as we have already stated, it must
be the history of the human race.
Far from achieving such an ideal, our
historical studies are largely limited to the
history of our own country during the
lifetime of the present nation. Thus the timefactor
is too short to allow the longer
rhythms of the rise and fall of nations even to
be noticed. As the television director
indicated, it never even crosses our minds
that longer periods could be of any interest.
When we read the history of our own
nation, we find the actions of our ancestors
described as glorious, while those of other
peoples are depicted as mean, tyrannical or
cowardly. Thus our history is (intentionally)
not based on facts. We are emotionally
unwilling to accept that our forbears might
have been mean or cowardly.
Alternatively, there are ‘political’ schools of
history, slanted to discredit the actions of
our past leaders, in order to support modern
political movements. In all these cases,
history is not an attempt to ascertain the
truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted
to the furtherance of modern projects, or the
gratification of national vanity.
Men can scarcely be blamed for not
learning from the history they are taught.
There is nothing to learn from it, because it
is not true.
XXXVI Small nations
The word ‘empires’ has been used in this
essay to signify nations which achieve the
status of great powers, or super-powers, in
the jargon of today—nations which have
dominated the international scene for two or
three centuries. At any given time, however,
there are also smaller states which are more
or less self-contained. Do these live the same
‘lives’ as the great nations, and pass through
the same phases?
It seems impossible to generalise on this
issue. In general, decadence is the outcome
of too long a period of wealth and power. If
the small country has not shared in the
wealth and power, it will not share in the
decadence.
XXXVII The emerging pattern
In spite of the endless variety and the
infinite complications of human life, a
general pattern does seem to emerge from
these considerations. It reveals many
successive empires covering some 3,000
years, as having followed similar stages of
The Fate of Empires
23
development and decline, and as having, to a
surprising degree, ‘lived’ lives of very similar
length.
The life-expectation of a great nation, it
appears, commences with a violent, and
usually unforeseen, outburst of energy, and
ends in a lowering of moral standards,
cynicism, pessimism and frivolity.
If the present writer were a millionaire, he
would try to establish in some university or
other a department dedicated solely to the
study of the rhythm of the rise and fall of
powerful nations throughout the world.
History goes back only some 3,000 years,
because before that period writing was not
sufficiently widespread to allow of the
survival of detailed records. But within that
period, the number of empires available for
study is very great.
At the commencement of this essay, the
names of eleven such empires were listed,
but these included only the Middle East and
the modern nations of the West. India, China
and Southern America were not included,
because the writer knows nothing about
them. A school founded to study the rise and
fall of empires would probably find at least
twenty-four great powers available for
dissection and analysis.
The task would not be an easy one, if
indeed the net were cast so wide as to cover
virtually all the world’s great nations in 3,000
years. The knowledge of language alone, to
enable detailed investigations to be pursued,
would present a formidable obstacle.
XXXVIII Would it help?
It is pleasing to imagine that, from such
studies, a regular life-pattern of nations
would emerge, including an analysis of the
various changes which ultimately lead to
decline, decadence and collapse. It is
tempting to assume that measures could be
adopted to forestall the disastrous effects of
excessive wealth and power, and thence of
subsequent decadence. Perhaps some means
could be devised to prevent the activist Age
of Conquests and Commerce deteriorating
into the Age of Intellect, producing endless
talking but no action.
It is tempting to think so. Perhaps if the
pattern of the rise and fall of nations were
regularly taught in schools, the general
public would come to realise the truth, and
would support policies to maintain the spirit
of duty and self-sacrifice, and to forestall the
accumulation of excessive wealth by one
nation, leading to the demoralisation of that
nation.
Could not the sense of duty and the
initiative needed to give rise to action be
retained parallel with intellectual development
and the discoveries of natural science?
The answer is doubtful, though we could
but try. The weaknesses of human nature,
however, are so obvious, that we cannot be
too confident of success. Men bursting with
courage, energy and self-confidence cannot
easily be restrained from subduing their
neighbours, and men who see the prospect of
wealth open to them will not readily be
prevented from pursuing it.
Perhaps it is not in the real interest of
humanity that they should be so prevented,
for it is in periods of wealth that art,
architecture, music, science and literature
make the greatest progress.
Moreover, as we have seen where great
empires are concerned, their establishment
may give rise to wars and tragedies, but their
periods of power often bring peace, security
and prosperity to vast areas of territory. Our
The Fate of Empires
24
knowledge and our experience (perhaps our
basic human intellects) are inadequate to
pronounce whether or not the rise and fall of
great nations is the best system for the best
of all possible worlds.
These doubts, however, need not prevent
us from attempting to acquire more
knowledge on the rise and fall of great
powers, or from endeavouring, in the light of
such knowledge, to improve the moral
quality of human life.
Perhaps, in fact, we may reach the
conclusion that the successive rise and fall of
great nations is inevitable and, indeed, a
system divinely ordained. But even this
would be an immense gain. For we should
know where we stand in relation to our
human brothers and sisters. In our present
state of mental chaos on the subject, we
divide ourselves into nations, parties or
communities and fight, hate and vilify one
another over developments which may
perhaps be divinely ordained and which
seem to us, if we take a broader view,
completely uncontrollable and inevitable. If
we could accept these great movements as
beyond our control, there would be no
excuse for our hating one another because of
them.
However varied, confusing and contradictory
the religious history of the world may
appear, the noblest and most spiritual of the
devotees of all religions seem to reach the
conclusion that love is the key to human life.
Any expansion of our knowledge which may
lead to a reduction in our unjustified hates is
therefore surely well worth while.
XXXIX Summary
As numerous points of interest have arisen
in the course of this essay, I close with a brief
summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.
(a) We do not learn from history because
our studies are brief and prejudiced.
(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years
emerges as the average length of national
greatness.
(c) This average has not varied for 3,000
years. Does it represent ten generations?
(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great
nations seem to be:
The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence.
(e) Decadence is marked by:
Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion.
(f) Decadence is due to:
Too long a period of wealth and power
Selfishness
Love of money
The loss of a sense of duty.
(g) The life histories of great states are
amazingly similar, and are due to internal
factors.
(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are
largely the result of external causes.
(i) History should be taught as the history
of the human race, though of course with
emphasis on the history of the student’s own
country.

[The Heartland Plan and the same section in The Albany Plan Re-Visited offer solution to some of these problems. Ex. the article creating a federal university from which the federal government must get its statistics and facts solves some of the problems listed above as does the Article on federal citizenship. Another example is the section that requires the death penalty for official corruption.

Along with this essay, should be read Chittum’s Civil War Two and Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed.]

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August 25, 2017

Dr. Hanson’s response to Southern Poverty Law Center [c]

Filed under: Business, Econonics, Historical context, Illegal Aliens, Political Commentary — Tags: California, Reconquista, Southern Poverty Law Center, Victor Davis Hanson — justplainbill @ 1:21 pm

From An Angry Reader:

Angry Reader Southern Poverty Law Center:

Cf: (https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/22/american-freedom-alliance-event-blames-immigrants-california’s-destruction)

“They keynote speaker for the event was Victor Davis Hanson, a Hoover Institute (sic) fellow and author of Mexifornia, a book that romanticizes the California of old, when whites were a large majority of the state’s population. Davis Hanson (sic) talked about how in parts of California, you can go 10 miles in another direction and it ‘looks like you’re in a different country.’ Hanson also attacked California’s Democrats, saying:

We don’t want assimilation so we’re going to give you as much amnesty, sanctuary states, sanctuary cities, we’ll do whatever we can so you can remain tribal in your outlook. Your tribal racial and ethnic identity is essential, not irrelevant to your character.

Hanson also expounded upon the reconquista conspiracy theory promoted by anti-immigrant activists. It stems from the ‘Plan Espiritual de Aztlan,’ a document produced by MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) in the 1960s calling for Chicanos to reclaim land. It is not endorsed by any mainstream groups, but for nativists it serves as the genesis of a conspiracy theory claiming that Latinos want to take back American land for themselves.

Davis Hanson ended by saying, “The state is regressing into a Third-World country.” He also attacked undocumented immigrants, essentially claiming they are incapable of being law-abiding residents, stating, ‘When I came to the States, the first thing I did was break the law, so why would I follow the rules out of necessity now?’”

________________________
Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Angry Reader Southern Poverty Law Center,

A few preliminaries: Mexifornia, written nearly 15 years ago, was not a romance about “white” California, but a warning that if assimilation, intermarriage, and melting-pot integration continued to be caricatured and eroded, and if massive immigration continued to be illegal, non-diverse, and not based on ethnically blind meritocratic criteria, then one day California would be faced with ethnic polarization, given its various ethnic groups, large numbers of struggling newcomers without legality, English, or high school diplomas, and a state unable to meet its commitments to ensure first-rate public education, infrastructure, transportation, and safety for all its residents. I feel the book was prescient; if you disagree, find an argument instead of using the buzz word “white.”

You state that MEChA advocated “reclaiming” land for “Chicanos,” but then incoherently state that such a supposition is a “conspiracy theory claiming that Latinos want to take back American land for themselves.” Is it a fact or a “claim,” both or neither? And what are “mainstream groups,” given that MEChA for decades has had a sizable presence on most California and southwestern campuses and claims a number of prominent alumni.

When you write “essentially claiming” rather than quoting what I actually wrote in full, we know that “essentially” is a catalyst for more fiction to follow.

In general, I rarely have seen a puerile attack like this in which everything you have alleged is demonstrably false. Since there was an apparent video of my 30-minute speech on “Two Californias” (presented at a Los Angeles symposia on the crisis of California) about the inordinate wealth of the Pacific Coastal strip from La Jolla to Berkeley and the poverty of the state’s interior, you obviously choose not to quote from it accurately if much at all.

And it is easy to see why, since my argument did not serve your circular purposes of fabricating “hate” in turn to whip up hysterias in turn to raise money in turn to justify your comfortable existence in turn to fabricate more “hate.” In contrast, you found that reporting the truth—the lecture offered statistics on education, energy, health care, infrastructure, and taxes in suggesting that Californians are not receiving value for the inordinate taxes and regulations they endure, largely because of incompetent, one-party governance—would have been of utterly no value to your careerist and financial aims.

The lecture was not even on illegal immigration per se, but on the tripartite role of (a) Silicon Valley’s and coastal California’s vast wealth and (in the case of multibillion-dollar tech companies) corporate exemptions from traditional antitrust scrutiny, (b) the aggregate flight of nearly 4 million middle class Californians to no-tax or low-tax states, and (c) the aggregate effects of massive illegal immigration in which the traditional allegiance to melting pot assimilation, integration, and intermarriage has waned due to politics, sheer numbers, and illegality.

Let me detail your fabrications in the order you made them:

1) One truly can go 10 miles in one direction in California and see the radical change from affluence to dire poverty. And that abyss is, as I noted, because that 1/3 of all welfare recipients in the nation live in California, where 1/5 of the population lives below the poverty line, and a fourth of the residents were not born in the United States and in many cases do not have English facility or high school diplomas, critical in a competitive market economy.

I suggest the SPLC staff drive just 3 miles from Woodside or Atherton to Redwood City or East Palo Alto and see whether my assertion is flawed. The proposition rests, as I noted and you omitted, on the fact that California is both the wealthiest of states by a variety of measurements and also by some data the poorest. Or as I colloquially put it, California is a sort of weld of Massachusetts and Mississippi under single state governance.

I am writing this reply on an avenue in which there are numerous houses with inoperative trailers, shacks, and near lean-tos arranged around a single-family dwelling, compounds in which the poor live without proper zoning, in structures that do not meet building codes, and under conditions that would be empirically described as Third World.

Less than 4 miles away there are also 10,000 square-foot gated mansions. That dichotomy illustrates California culture, demography, and governance, in the medieval sense of two classes rather than the past three.

The contrast certainly does look like two different countries: again, in the sense that in the gated mansions English is spoken, there are all the accouterments of upward mobility, and gates keep others out; in the multifamily/trailer residences, Spanish only is spoken, residents are often here illegally, and poverty is endemic. The contrast reflects a vanishing middle class and a state politics designed to reward the connected hyper-wealthy and subsidize the poor and to ignore those in-between—which is why the latter may have fled in droves.

Your next assertion is a flat-out untruth: “Hanson also attacked California’s Democrats, saying: We don’t want assimilation so we’re going to give you as much amnesty, sanctuary states, sanctuary cities, we’ll do whatever we can so you can remain tribal in your outlook. Your tribal racial and ethnic identity is essential, not irrelevant to your character.”

I did not say what you are alleging, but made it very clear that the quote was a reflection of the mentality of the Democratic elite and the La Raza activist leadership. A simpleton in journalism can fathom that the collective “we” is not the person “I, Victor Hanson” but refers to progressive groups, as I carefully noted, who are not eager to see assimilation, integration, and intermarriage proceed in rapid fashion. Such a development might result in a fully integrated immigrant society (in the fashion of the 19th-century and early 20th-century trajectory of Italian-Americans), one that would be less helpful to Democratic tribal politics. Even with the quote out of context anyone can see through your childish effort to suggest the quote reflects my own sentiments rather than my views of the operating principles of progressive identity politics activists.

You allege: “Hanson also expounded upon the reconquistaconspiracy theory promoted by anti-immigrant activists. It stems from the “Plan Espiritual de Aztlan,” a document produced by MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) in the 1960s calling for Chicanos to reclaim land. It is not endorsed by any mainstream groups, but for nativists it serves as the genesis of a conspiracy theory claiming that Latinos want to take back American land for themselves.”

In fact, I did not discuss in detail Mexican nationals or Mexican-Americans seeking to “take back” land, nor did I even go into detail about the racist heritage of MEChA, which is becoming an embarrassment only because its racist sloganeering (e.g., “a bronze state for a bronze people” “everything for the race, nothing for the others”) was so egregious that it has been airbrushed off MEChA sites. What I did say was that La Raza was and is a racialist term (“the Race” [sc. Latin radix] and deliberately employed to resonate racial chauvinism—illustrative of an unfortunate effort to divide and polarize groups.

I added and you omitted that the 1960s rebirth of the term in popular usage was similar to Franco’s and Mussolini’s political use of Raza/Razza (Franco wrote a novel Raza), as a way of copy-catting Hitler’s racist use of the German Volk to denote race as the key criterion of citizenship and definition of one’s “essence.” Apparently, the National Council of La Raza (a key element of the Democratic Party coalition) was recently embarrassed into agreement. After the election of Donald Trump, it suddenly has changed its name to UnidosUS from the former “the race”, and that is a laudable improvement. (Note what Cesar Chavez once said about the La Raza movement: “Today it’s anti-gringo, tomorrow it will be anti-Negro. We had a stupid guy who just wanted to play politics with the union, and he began to whip up La Raza against the white volunteers, and even had some of the farm workers and the pickets and the organizers hung up on la raza.”)

What do you mean when you write “nativist”? Someone who objects to racist terminology, and supports melting-pot integration and assimilation—in contrast to ethnic bigots like those in MEChA and La Raza groups who insist that their race defines their personas to the exclusion of others? What an Orwellian mindset, in which integration is defined as nativism.

You end your slander by more untruths: “Davis Hanson ended by saying, ‘The state is regressing into a Third-World country.’ He also attacked undocumented immigrants, essentially claiming they are incapable of being law-abiding residents, stating, ‘When I came to the States, the first thing I did was break the law, so why would I follow the rules out of necessity now?’”

Would you quote from the transcript of the speech? If you would, you will see that I ended with a call for unity, adding that there had to be more integration between poor and rich, and the restoration of a middle class, given that the state cannot do well when there is such an abyss between classes and a shortage of revenue to address long neglected infrastructure.

I did not attack undocumented immigrants, but said that the restoration of law (such as the end of illegal sanctuary cities and the enforcement of existing immigration statutes) is essential, yet would be difficult when millions of immigrants have not just entered the country illegally, but have done so as their first choice when arriving at a new homeland—a decision that the host de facto unfortunately overlooks or perhaps even rewards. When one breaks the laws without consequences, it insidiously erodes all laws and chaos is the inevitable result.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been in the news recently as a recipient of millions of dollars of grants from large corporations and movie stars, so I am not denying that fictions like the present one are effective in more or less leveraging money through hysteria. Yet your methods are not justified by your ends; the former are reprehensible and the latter self-centered. A growing number of Americans are learning about your group and discovering that when it cannot uncover hate, it invents it—and finds the ensuing smears and slanders quite profitable, resulting ironically in short-term lucre, but in the long-term continued diminution of your reputation. For a fair account of the meeting and speech, see http://citizensjournal.us/afa-focuses-decline-ca/

Davis Hanson

[In various venues, I have had people use the SPLC as a source. It is not. As Dr. Hanson refutes its nonsense, I must point out to all who use it, that, like the ACLU, it is a Leftist agenda agency and not a reliable, non-biased, source.

This is especially directed toward those who criticize without doing extensive research, or at the least going beyond wikipedia, a notoriously inaccurate source.]

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May 10, 2017

And Texas Makes Eleven

Filed under: Econonics, Elections, Historical context, Political Commentary, US Constitution — justplainbill @ 3:09 pm

And Texas Makes Eleven

United States Constitution Article V:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress (no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One Thousan Eight Hundred and Eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article) (no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate).

Texas has become the 11th State requesting a Constitutional Convention.

Those who have followed my posts, know that the 1787 Constitution has been nullified for over 100 years. The nullification took place through improper Supreme Court rulings, the failure of both the Executive Branch and the Legislature to fulfil their Constitutional obligations and responsibilities. The use of the regulatory process to pass to the Civil Service the duties of both branches in order to avoid the politically inconvenient has led to our current set of crises. The open borders, illegal legalization of drugs, murdering of police, abuse of taxes, theft from taxpayers for unconstitutional purposes, and on and on, are as do to taxpayer ignorance as politicians’ apostacy.

In 1787, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, took numerous templates for consideration. At the convention, Alexander Hamilton, to his enemies’ delight, even proposed a Monarchy so that the convention could cover all workable government forms in their debates.

There are numerous books available to us, which cover this period extensively. I recommend Edwin Meese, III’s “The Heritage Guide to the Constitution”, and that you visit Brion McClanahan’s website, http://www.brionmcclanahan.com and pick from his numerous works, I suggest starting with his “The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution”.

As much as I dislike Mark Levin, his American Trilogy in which he explains, quite accurately and comprehensively, the origins of the 1787 constitution, where it was felled, and what can be done about it, including his 27 recommended amendments, is another work I recommend.

Judge Andrew Napolitano has several works I recommend and for the same reasons.

“The Albany Plan Re-Visited”, has a template that includes variations and reasons for them including an Article on aggregation, and how weighted voting may be a much better form of direct representation than any proffered so far. ( http://www.bn.com/ebooks ).

Why?

With Texas now on board for an Article V Constitutional Convention, we are now 1/3 of the way there. YOU may soon be asked to vote for delegates from your state to attend and decide on what our next Federal government will have power to do and not do.

In the XVIIIth Century, politics was a major form of entertainment for the populace. Currently, VR, XBOX, & Playstation are the major forms of entertainment. In order for us to pick the correct delegates to such a convention, we must know of the various forms of governments and the templates for constitutions. Waiting until the last minute to educate ourselves on the possibilities, is a losing strategy.

Learn the templates, learn the variations, learn the possibilities available to us that will free all of us, and allow all of us to keep our wealth, and not have it taken at gun point and sent to foreign and domestic tyrants.

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How to Blow an Election, by Victor Hanson, [c]

Filed under: Elections, Historical context, Political Commentary, US Constitution — Tags: Freedom, Government, History, Socialism — justplainbill @ 2:43 pm

How to Blow an Election — in Five Easy Steps
May 9, 2017 12:27 pm / Leave a Comment / victorhanson
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

Counting the ways, and Comey is not among them.

Hillary Clinton recently took “full responsibility” for her 2016 loss. Only she didn’t. Instead of explaining what the historian Thucydides once called the “truest causes” (aitiai), she went on to list at least three pretexts (prophases) for her defeat: sexism, FBI director James Comey, and the purported Russian hacking of her unsecured e-mail server and the John Podesta e-mail trove.

Clinton’s accusations also raise the larger question of why a presidential candidate wins or loses an election.

In general, there seem to be five hinges of fate: personality, positions on the issues, the general political atmosphere of the era, the quality of the campaign, and sudden and unforeseen outside events such as depression, scandal, or war. Even a biased media or lots of money pales in comparison.

The Pretexts
We can fairly dismiss Clinton’s pretexts.

Take sexism. Hillary Clinton found her sex an advantage in being elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. For a generation, among the most powerful and successful figures in U.S. politics were three progressive, multimillionaire, Bay Area women who, in a most non-diverse fashion, lived within 50 miles of one another: Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi.

From 1997 to 2013 women of both parties were in charge of U.S. foreign policy as secretary of state, for twelve out of 16 years. One could make the argument that “the first female president” was an advantageous campaigning point, not a drawback; it was certainly designed to bookend Barack Obama’s successful trumpeting of being the first African-American president.

Blaming a deer-in-the-headlights FBI director James Comey is equally problematic. His passive-aggressive pronouncements irrationally first exonerated her, then did not, then did again. Faulting the FBI for her own likely felonious behavior of sending and receiving classified communications on an unsecured server (or of Bill Clinton’s trying to leverage Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac) is sort of like blaming the defeat at Pearl Harbor on the Japanese — true, but hardly the whole story given America’s responsibility for its own unpreparedness.

In similar fashion, had Donald Trump lost, he might have faulted the Washington Post for airing the decade-old Access Hollywood tape that nearly destroyed his campaign, as if the clear ill will and partisanship of Jeff Bezos’s Post were not empowered by Trump’s own private, hot-mic — but nonetheless crude — statements. The Germans claimed that harsh snows and the last-minute campaign in the Balkans had delayed and thus doomed their 1941 Russian offensive, as if the Red Army did not have a say or as if Germans were a tropical people.

As far as the Russians, they are Russians — always seeking to throw wrenches into the gears of U.S. elections. The Republicans claimed that their firewalls kept the Russians out of RNC e-mail; John Podesta using “password” for his password invited them in. And, of course, no one forced Washington journalists to collude through e-mail with the Clinton campaign, and no one ordered Hillary to jerry-rig a home-brewed server. The Russian-collusion bogeyman was probably as effective a campaign prop for Clinton as the supposed Russian-inspired e-mail revelations were for Trump.

1. McMurphy Trumps Nurse Ratched
More likely, Clinton lost the key, Rust Belt states that swung the electoral vote to Trump for our five classic reasons.

Her personality, in far different ways, was as polarizing as Trump’s. But Trump was far better as a TV showman, given his long stint on reality TV. Hillary’s voice, facial expressions, and comportment were not winning. Even on the rare occasions that she told the truth, she seemed more insincere than Trump, even when he was spinning a yarn.

Trump’s image as a bad boy was less damaging than Hillary’s as a scold. Both are roughly the same age and, to the eye, not in the best of shape, but Trump displayed an almost animal energy while Clinton often appeared frail, worn, and on occasion ill on the stump. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader sympathizes with the pseudo-patient and con Randle McMurphy, who does everything haywire, rather than “Big Nurse” Mildred Ratched, who does everything by the book; the former was at least undeniably alive, the latter only ostensibly so.

2. Against Something Is Not For Something
Second, Hillary Clinton had no real sincere position on any issue other than a desire to stay in public office for nearly a quarter-century, and her willingness to extend the eight years of the Obama agenda — an agenda that had never achieved 2 percent economic growth and that saw record labor non-participation, a doubling of the national debt to $20 trillion, and a world in chaos abroad.

Once Obama got wise in January 2016 that he was the most popular when he was not seen or heard, he dropped out of sight and kept silent. Meanwhile, 17 Republicans along with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton hogged the national spotlight and tore one another apart. Through it all, Obama’s eight-year-long stream of dismal popularity ratings gradually improved. But his newfound transient popularity did not mean that most Americans liked Obama’s policies or judged them as successful.

The result was that Hillary played a losing 1968 Hubert Humphrey to Obama’s lame-duck Lyndon Johnson — she risked an occasionally meek nip on the administration’s ankles but was otherwise silent about her own positions to the extent they even existed. In a year when people wanted a change from the prior eight years, Clinton offered none. “I am a woman” and “Trump is a monster” were not serious campaign issues, but they sum up the totality of why Clinton wished Americans to vote for her. Most still did, but not in the key states where Obamism had wrought disaster.

3. Populists Bite Back
Third, voters had, once again, tired of Washington politics. The aura of 2016 was “drain the swamp” change. A septuagenarian socialist, who was not a Democrat, nonetheless almost won the Democratic primary on the theme that a Washington insider Bernie Sanders was at least not a Clintonian apparatchik mired in quid-pro quo beltway payola.

In a normal year, a sober and judicious Jeb Bush, or a proven competent governor such as Scott Walker, or a charismatic ascendant such as Marco Rubio would have won the Republican nomination.

But not in 2016, when voters wearied of sermons about their ethical shortcomings delivered by liberal and conservative grandees who were not subject to the consequences of their own ideologies — whether on trade, globalization, illegal immigration, health care, the budget, or foreign policy. Many voters saw Hillary, accurately, as the epitome of self-interested professional politics, leading always to personal enrichment. Trump’s supposed vulgarity and crudity only enhanced his image as a reckless (but nonetheless defiant) Samson determined to pull down the supporting pillars of the rotten Washington temple — even if the wreckage fell on himself, he’d ensure rubble on everyone else as well. Hillary was the EU; Trump was Brexit.

4. Super Bowl III: The Colts Upset the Jets
Fourth, arrogance, ignorance, and sloth are a fatal trifecta—sort of like the conditions that led the Baltimore Colts to be disastrously upset by the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. The Colts’ tried and true and careful Johnny Unitas proved no match for erratic and flamboyant Joe Namath.

Haughtiness, insularity, and laziness characterized the conduct of the Clinton campaign. Even a novice outsider could see that Obama’s successful electoral matrix — record minority turnout and bloc voting, coupled with the drop-off in turnout by a disengaged white working middle class (tired both of left-wing identity politics and Republican bluestocking elitism) — was not going to be transferrable to an off-putting 69-year-old, white multimillionaire.

Not only did Hillary Clinton lack Obama’s youthful vigor and mellifluousness; she also seemed at times geriatric, snarky, and screechy. The result was that she did not win the minority vote at the levels she needed. Further, she galvanized the supposedly ossified and irrelevant white working classes to finally come out and vote, in their own bloc fashion, against her. Obama had guaranteed her his downside but never delivered his upside.

Clinton’s only chance to make up for missing identity-politics voters by appealing to the working classes of the Midwest was to replay her 2008 Annie Oakley Democratic-primary role — by drinking boilermakers in Milwaukee, or bowling in Scranton, or reminiscing about shooting guns as young gal. But eight years ago, the Democratic party was still aw-shucks Bill Clinton’s. In 2016, it was captive to the identity-politics polarization so effectively deployed, in community-organizer style, by Barack Obama.

So instead Clinton doubled down on the tired theme that Rust Belt losers needed to shape up and get with the globalized progressive project and a demography-is-destiny new America. Obama had deprecated Pennsylvanians as has-beens clinging to their Bibles and guns; Hillary updated them, adding “half of Trump’s supporters” as irredeemables and deplorables. Miners were toxic losers who needed to learn how to build solar panels rather than mine coal. In contrast, Trump called them “our miners.”

She made her disdain concrete by never campaigning in Wisconsin and only sporadically visiting the Blue Wall states eastward to the Carolinas. And she was convinced that demography had doomed the white working classes and empowered Latinos and blacks in red states such as Arizona and Georgia. Clinton’s inept campaign aimed, then, not just at a win (which was attainable by nonstop populist barnstorming and message massaging in the Rust Belt) but, greedily, at a “mandate” that was impossible, given minority-vote falloff and Democratic estrangement from the working classes. Apparently, no one told the campaign that open borders were not a popular national issue, and that Democrats could not win Texas even with Latino bloc voting, and that they could do so in deep-blue California but without any electoral significance.

Clinton surrounded herself with Pajama Boy whizz kids who looked and sounded as if they were on vacation from DuPont Circle in D.C., or Manhattan’s Upper West Side (and who appeared as Stanley and Livingston explorers to the natives of southern Michigan or eastern Pennsylvania). Meanwhile, Trump advisers, such as Kelly Ann Conway and Steven Bannon, acted and talked like they had been around the proverbial American block.

Hillary had the money edge, all the establishment endorsements, a united Democratic party, and a captive toadyish media. Yet she still lost to an outspent Trump, who had never run for a single public office and whose own party and media elite damned him as much as they did his enemies. His victory will remain one of the most amazing campaign outcome in U.S. election history — especially in a postmodern electronic age in which “analytics” and “data” are supposed to make human capriciousness a relic of the past.

5. From Clinton Cash to Non-secure E-mail
In 2016, there was nothing comparable to the unpopular Iraq War or the frightening 2008 financial meltdown that had propelled Obama to the White House. But there was a succession of scandals — almost all Clinton’s — that confirmed the image that she was not just unethical, but predictably so.

Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash is underappreciated for its effect on the campaign. Through painstaking research, it tied together all the strands of Clinton nefariousness: the Clinton Foundation as an excuse to hire political flunkies and provide free jet travel; the quid pro quo State Department nods to those who hired Bill Clinton to speak; and corruption under Hillary Clinton, from cellphone concessions in Haiti to North American uranium sales to Russian interests.

Add to the Clinton sleaze Hillary’s unsecured server and communications of classified material, the creepy New York and Washington careerists who turned up in the Podesta archives, and the political rigging that warped the conduct of the Democratic National Committee.

The result was that Hillary could no longer play the role of the “good” Clinton who “put up” with her husband’s “good ole boy” sleaze. Her new image was that of an equal partner in crime — or perhaps even a godmother who used the capo Bill as muscle. In comparison, Trump steaks, Trump University, Trump taxes, and Trump ties were old-fashioned American hucksterism, but with one important difference: Trump’s excesses were a private person’s; Clinton’s were those of a public servant.

The correct exegesis for losing in 2016 should explain the Democratic strategy for winning in 2020: Run a vigorous, mellifluent, and sympathetic candidate; put forth new solutions to old problems; empathize with noncoastal America and camp out there, too; run a campaign as if it were in danger of losing rather than already past the finish line; and prune away Washington, D.C., hangers-on, with their acceptance of corruption as the new normal.

Or instead maybe Democrats can nominate another 69-year-old, multimillionaire female political insider who will run an identity-politics campaign on her gender, on the fact that she is not the monstrous Donald Trump — and on the premise that all the world, from the FBI to the Russians, are out to get her.

[One of many reasons that I like Dr. Hanson’s posts, is his adherence to practical history. One may take out all personal content, and then be able to use this, as so many of his columns, as a guide to “how to” do something. If we take his posts analyzing the 2016 election, remove the personality components, we have a book that explains both how to win an election and how to lose an election.

The same may be said of his columns on social issues. His analytical approach allows us to see how to run a government properly, or not, through is writings on the conditions in California.]

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March 28, 2017

UN Amb Haley Statement, by Joseph John, Capt USN [nc]

Filed under: Anti-American Politicians, Econonics, Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, gun control, Historical context, Iran, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama Foreign Policy, Political Commentary, Politicians, Racism, self-defense, US Constitution — Tags: Christianity, civil rights, democrats, dhs, Economics, federal government, hillary clinton, Islam, Lamestream Media, liberty, Media Watch, Obama, Politics, Socialism, tea party, us constitution, Welfare — justplainbill @ 3:18 pm

Joseph R. John
To jrj@combatveteransforcongress.org
Today at 8:55 AM

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Statement At The UN And A major Change That Must Take Place

By Capt Joseph R. John, March 28, 2017: Op Ed # 342

If you click on the below listed link, you will be able to view President Donald J. Trump’s UN Ambassador, Niki Haley make a short statement at the UN. Israel recently entered into a defensive alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

The defensive alliance was prompted by the Obama administrations very dangerous Nuclear Weapons Agreement with Iran, which is allowing Iran to develop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that will be able to strike the US, with a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration allowed them to develop.

https://www.facebook.com/plugi ns/video.php?href=https%3A%2F% 2Fwww.facebook.com%2Funwatch% 2Fvideos%2F10154172073611561% 2F&show_text=0&width=560

After 8 years, the United States has a frank & responsible UN Ambassador who will ensure that Israel is treated in the same manner as every other member nation!

The US Congress should terminate all funding for the UN Middle East and African “Muslin Only” Refugee & Resettlement Program, controlled by representatives from 43 majority Muslim member nations and members of the Muslim Brotherhood in leadership positions in the UN. The UN Refugee & Resettlement Program has been discriminating against 300,000 Middle East Syrian and Assyrian Christian Refugees being housed by the Greek Catholic Relief Agency for the last 8 years. That UN Program, funded by the Obama administration, has been involved in an ongoing violation of the US Constitutions’ “Freedom of Religion” and US Federal Laws.

For the last 8 years, hundreds of thousands of Middle East Christians have been murdered by ISIS, Al Q’ieda, and the Muslim Brotherhood genocide. They have been crucified, burned alive, beheaded, drowned in cages, shot in the back of the head, throw to their deaths from the roofs of tall buildings, buried alive, their children have been cut in half, their female children &women of all ages have been raped, and they have been sold into slavery.

Yet the Muslim UN Administrators of UN Refugee Relief & Resettlement Program refused to allow any of the 300,000 Middle East Christians refugees being housed by the Greek Catholic Relief Agency from entering the US thru the UN’s corrupt program, which has been funded for 8 years, to the tune of billions of US taxpayer dollars, by the Obama administration.

At the same time, Obama accepted over 900,000 Middle East Muslim Refugees thru the corrupt UN Refugee Relief & Resettlement Program. Then they were resettled in 187 cities across the nation, while refusing to allow the FBI to interview them, to determine if they have terrorist ties, while at the same time, preventing local, county, state, and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies from knowing where those un-vetted Muslim refugees were resettled.

Despite a petitions by 56 US Congressmen from both sides of the aisle, who pleaded with the Obama administration to provide Syrian and Assyrian Christians suffering genocide, with self-defensive small arms weapons, so they could protect their families from the on-going genocide, Obama refused to authorize the delivery of small arms weapons for self-defense.

The net result of the corrupt UN Refugee & Relief Resettlement Program is that there have been 82 terrorist incidents and attacks on Americans in the US over the last 8 years, killing hundreds of Americans citizens, listed in the attachment. Those attacks, for the last 8 years, were covered up by the left of center liberal media establishment, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were in senior appointive positions in The White House, the Justice Department, the State Department, and in DHS. That corrupt UN Refugee Resettlement Program, which violated the US Constitution and US Federal Laws, must be defunded by Congress.

Copyright by Capt Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. The material can only posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author. It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without the permission from the author.

Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62

Capt USN(Ret)/Former FBI

Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC

2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184

San Diego, CA 92108

http://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8

Itemized below are 82 of the 192 Radical Islamic Terrorists attacks on US soil perpetrated since 9/11, by Jihadist, by Muslim refugees, by descendants of Muslim refugees, by Islamists who were radicalized thru the Internet, or Radical Islamic Terrorists who traveled to train with ISIS in Syria. The Radical Islamic Terrorist’s countries of origins were primarily the countries of Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Libya; except for Iran, those countries had little control over the identity of terrorists operating and training within their countries.

The terrorist attacks on US soil, occurred in Sacramento (CA), Houston (TX), Morganton (NC), Philadelphia (PA), San Bernardino (CA), Times Square (NYC), Moore (OK), Detroit (MI), Boise (ID), Orlando (FL), West Orange (NJ), Fort Hood (TX), Portland (ME), Chattanooga (TN), Garland (TX), Boston (MA), Portland (OR), Minneapolis (MN), Buffalo (NY), Jonesboro (GA), Ashtabula (OH), Bingham (NY), Glendale (AZ), Phoenix (AZ), Little Rock (AR), Merced (CA), Marquette Park (IL), Seattle (WA), Skyway (WA), Denver (CO), Aspen Hill (MD), Baltimore (MD), Oakland (CA), Arlington (VA), Fredricksburg (VA), Montgomery County (MO), St Louis (MO), Bowling Green (KY), Scottsville,(NY), Richmond (CA), Washington (DC), Irving (TX), Port Bolivar (TX), Warren (MI), Waltham (MA), Manassas (VA), Buena Vista (NJ), Baton Rouge (LA), Montgomery (AL), Aberdeen, (SD), Hamden, (CT), Colorado Springs (CO), Denver (CO), Niskayuna (NY), Twin Falls (ID). and many other cities too numerous to be listed here.

After each Radical Islamic Terrorist instigated attack, the identity of the attackers were covered up by the Obama administration for 8 years, working in concert with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the left of center liberal media establishment to mislead Americans of the 192 terrorist attacks. They used politically correct language to cover up the identity of the Radical Islamic Terrorists who repeatedly murdered Americans. It was a continuing conspiracy that resulted in the injury and murder of hundreds of American citizens and the cover up undermined the National Security of the United States!

The foreign nationals listed below executed 80 Radical Islamic Terrorists attacks against American citizens in the above listed US cities during the 8 years of the Obama administration, and is a partial list of the 192 Radical Islamic Terrorist attacks perpetrated in US cities by Radical Islamic Terrorists since 9/11:

Bilal Abood was a translator who came here on an Special Immigration Visa for Iraqi nationals who provided services for American Forces. He even briefly joined the US Army. On the surface he was exactly the sort of Iraqi Refugee that the media likes to depict as the ideal immigrant, but Abood was also a member of ISIS. When he was arrested, he insisted “America was the enemy of Allah”.
Jasim Mohammed Hasin Ramadon and Ali Mohammed Hasan Al Juboori came to this country with Special Immigration Visas. Then Ramadon, Juboori and three other Iraqi refugees brutally assaulted a 53-year-old Colorado Springs woman. When the police arrived at the scene of the Iraqi Refugee sexual assault, they found blood splattered on the walls. The Iraqi Refugee rapists lured in their victim by complaining about how hard it was living in America and being called terrorists. The victim, a night nurse, took pity on them because they reminded her of her son. By the time the Iraqi Refugees were done, she had been violated and left near death.
Abdullatif Ali Aldosary an Iraqi Refugee who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program set off a bomb outside a Social Security office in Phoenix, Arizona. The authorities found plenty of bomb making materials in his home. He was also accused of a murder that had taken place a few days before the bombing and had previously been sent to jail for harassment. His case had been put on hold for “terrorism-related grounds of inadmissibility”, but he still couldn’t be deported.
On March 3, 2017 Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan came here from Iraq as a refugee thru the UN Refugee Program. When the FBI searched his Houston apartment, agents found an ISIS flag. Hardan had been planning to leave bombs in the trash cans of two Houston malls. He had contemplated an attack on the Grand Prairie military base in Texas.
On February 14, 2017, 35 year old Adam Nauveed Hyat of Pakistani descent and a former Marine wrote “Explosives” on a closet door mirror in a Denver, CO Sheraton Downtown Hotel, leading police to find pipe bombs after running up a bill of $10,000 at the hotel; guests were removed from the hotel while the pipe bombs were defused. After flying to Los Angeles on February 17th, Hyat was tracked down and arrested, armed with knives, near the Los Angeles Airport. Adam’s father, Sultan Hyat, said his son has mental problems.
On January 31, 2017, 29 year old Ahmad Bahjat of New Haven, an Iraqi Refugee who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program, posing as Uber Driver, was arrested for raping a woman. The woman had left a New Haven bar and walked to a parking area designated for Uber and taxi drivers, according to Hamden Police who arrested him. Bahjat pretended to be an Uber driver and the woman got into his car, believing he was the Uber driver.
On November 28, 2016, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a 18 year old Somali refugee who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program drove his car into a crowd students on the campus of Ohio State University, then got out of his car and attacked students with a butcher knife injuring 11.
On September 19, 2016 Ahmed Khan Rahimi, a 28 year old Afghani refugee, who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train as a Radical Islamic Terrorist and set off a bomb in the Chelsea District of Manhattan, NY. The explosion injured 29 people; he was arrested after a shootout with Police Officers in Linden, New Jersey, where he wounded two police officers. Ahmed was charged with 5 counts of murder. Earlier in the day, he set off a pipe bomb in Seaside Park, New Jersey; five other bombs were found at his residence.
On September 17, 2016 Dar Ahmed Adnan, a Somali refugee who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program perpetrated a knife attack on 9 shoppers at the St Cloud Crossroads Mall in Minnesota, and was shot to death by an off duty St Cloud police Officer.
In July 8, 2016, Abdirhman Ahmed Noor, a 24 year4 old refugee from Somalia, who entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program, jumped bail and remains at large after being charged with 2 counts of attempted murder in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Noor chased two men down, firing at them. One man, Dar’na Tansmore, was hit and laid wounded on the ground when Noor allegedly walked up, stood over his victim and shot him again. Lutheran Social Services South Dakota has been paid by the federal government to resettle 947 Somali refugees in South Dakota since 2002.
On June 12, 2016, Omar Saddiqul Mateen, the son of Afghan refugees, massacred 49 gentle & innocent Americans, and wounded 53 others, in the Orlando night club, Pulse, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
On June 2, 2016, one Sudanese refugee boy 14, and two Iraqi refugee boys, aged 7 and 10, stripped a 5 year old special needs girl naked and savagely raped her under knife point in the laundry room of the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls, Idaho. An alert 89 year old retired nurse, Jaylene Payne, interrupted the attack when she saw all three of the refugees boys with their clothes off.
On March 24, 2016 seven Iranians working on behalf of the Iranian Government were indicted for a series of cyber-crimes that cost US financial institutions tens of millions of dollars and compromised critical controls of a New York Dam.
On February 16, 2016, a court magistrate ruled, after hearing the FBI testimony, that Khalil Abu-Rayyan, a 21 year old Iraqi man from Dearborn, MI, who is a son of an Iraqi Refugee. He was considered too much of a threat to public safety and was ordered held without bail. He got excited by thoughts of beheading Americans, burning people alive, and throwing homosexuals off of tall buildings. In conversations with an undercover FBI agent, he actually made plans to shoot 6,000 member of a Christian Church in Detroit. (If I) can’t go do Jihad at the Middle East, I would do my Jihad over here.” He also told the agent that “shooting and death make me excited. I love to hear people begging and screaming. … I wish I had my gun.” The FBI claims that since 2014, Abu-Rayyan used Twitter for “retweeting, liking and commenting” on Islamic State propaganda.
On February 12, 2016 a machete wielding assailant known to the FBI, identified as Mohammad Barry, a Somali refugee who entered the US on the UN Refugee Program, living in Ohio attacked Jewish and Christian patrons at a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, wounding four people. Witnesses said it was carnage. Some of the patrons fought back by throwing chairs. Police later shot and killed Barry after a short chase. Investigators are trying to determine if Barry attacked the Nazareth Mediterranean Restaurant because he thought the owner was Jewish. In actuality, the restaurant is owned by an Israeli Christian.
In Philadelphia, PA, Edward Archer, a 30 year old Jihadi, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire in the name of Islam, on Philadelphia Police Officer Jessie Hartnett, who was ambushed sitting in his car on January 8, 2016. Archer fired 11 shots and hit the Officer Hartnett three times, grievously wounding the officer; the officer returned fire and hit Archer three times.
In an unrelated case, also on January 7, 2016, Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, an Iraqi Refugee, was arrested in Houston, TX on charges of providing material support to ISIS and going thru terrorist training.
On January 7, 2016, Aws Mohammad Younis Al-Jayab, a Palestine born Iraqi, was arrested in Sacramento, CA on charges of assisting Jihadi organizations.
In December 2015, a Somali-American was arrested after encouraging several friends to leave the United States and join ISIS, and giving one individual over $200 for their passport application.
The son of an Pakistani immigrant Syed Rizwan Farouk, and Tashfeen Malik, who entered the United States on a fiancé visa thru Canada as Syed’s bride, and subsequently became a Lawful Permanent Resident, along with her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, who pledged allegiance to ISIS, killed 14 people at a Christmas Party in San Bernardino, CA on December 2, 2015 , and wounded 22 others, in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001. They were recruited to their jihad by a Muslim Somali refugee who has now moved to Syria, but continues to recruit Jihadist in America using social media.
Five Bosnian Muslim refugees (in the same family) were arrested on November 18, 2015, two in Missouri, two in Illinois and one New York for sending arms and cash to ISIS.
In November 17, 2015 A Uzbek Muslim refugee in Boise, ID was convicted of plotting to bomb US military bases.
On November 4, 2015. 18 year old Faisal Mohammad who had a black ISIS flag in his possessions and a terrorist manifesto, stabbed 4 of his fellow student at U C Merced; police had to shoot him to stop his stabbing spree. He had pro-ISIS propaganda on his computer. The FBI said he was a self-radicalized Islamic Jihadist.
A second Immigrant from India, who is married to a US citizen, who was indicted on charges of conspiring to provide thousands of dollars to Al Q’ieda in the Arabian Peninsula, in order to assist them in their global Jihad, and on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud (November 2015)
On October 1, 2015, Chris Harper Mercer, a black Islamist terrorist who traveled to Syria in September 2015, to train with ISIS, and was identified as a Radical Islamic Terrorist by the Russian Security Service, executed a mass shooting on the campus of Umpqua Community College in Rosebud, Oregon killed 9 people and wounded 7 others. He was associated with Mahmoud Ali Ehsani, but the Obama administration refused to accept the referral from the Russian Security Service, and when he returned from Syria in September, he wasn’t arrested, so he perpetrated his mass shooting. He was shot to death by Police Officers
An immigrant from Egypt, who subsequently was granted U.S. citizenship, was charged with providing, and conspiring to provide, material support to ISIS, for aiding and abetting a New York college student in receiving terrorist training from ISIS, and conspiring to receive such training. (August 2015)
An immigrant from Albania, who applied for and received Lawful Permanent Resident status, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for giving over $1,000 to terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, and for attempting to join a radical jihadist insurgent group in Pakistan. (August 2015)
A refugee from Uzbekistan was convicted of providing material support and money to a designated foreign terrorist organization. According to the Department of Justice, he also procured bomb-making materials in the interest of perpetrating a terrorist attack on American soil. (August 2015)
On August 14, 2015 three Somali Muslims, Mohamud Mohamed, 36, and Osman Sheikh, 31, Abil Teshome, 23, brutally beat and murdered Freddy Akoa, 49 a Christian in Portland, ME. The attack allegedly took place over the span of several hours, in which Akoa suffered cuts and bruises all over his body, a lacerated liver and 22 rib fractures. However, according to the autopsy, Akoa died as a result of blows to his head.
On August 12, 2015, a 39 year old Muslim Somali refugee, Libyan Mohamed, was sentence to three years in prison for attempted sexual assault on a 31 year old severely mentally handicapped woman sitting outside at a group home for the disabled in Aberdeen, South Dakota
Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez murdered five US Armed Forces (1 Navy and 4 Marines) in Chattanooga, TN in July 2015. Mohammad was an immigrant brought here by his family from Kuwait at a young age, and who was later approved for U.S. citizenship, who carried out the Islamist attack that killed the 5 military personnel in Chattanooga.
An Uzbek refugee living in Idaho was arrested and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization, in the form of teaching terror recruits how to build bombs. (July 2015)
An immigrant from Sudan, who applied and received US citizenship, tried to join ISIS and wage Jihad on its behalf after having been recruited on line(June 2015).
An immigrant from Ghana, who applied for and received US citizenship, pledged allegiance to ISIS and plotted a terrorist attack on the US soil (June 2015).
On May 3, 2015 an attack with gunfire was carried by two Radical Islamic Terrorists followers of ISIS at the entrance to the Curtis Culwell Center, in Garland, TX featuring cartoon images of Mohammad—both were shot and killed by a police officer. Just prior to the attack one of the gunmen posted “May Allah accept us as Mujahedeen”—he wrote both pledged allegiance to “Amirul Mu’mineen”, a likely reference to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
An Iraqi immigrant, who later applied for and received US citizenship, was arrested for lying to federal agents about pledging allegiance to ISIS and his travel to Syria (May 2015)
The Somali refugee who recruited the San Bernardino killers also recruited the jihadist who attacked the Garland, TX “Draw Mohammad” contest in May 2015, fled the United States.
On April 20, 2015, Six Somalian Muslim refugees were arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota for attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and fight for ISIS.
An immigrant from Saudi Arabia, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, swore allegiance to ISIS and pledged to explode a propane tank bomb on U.S. soil. (April 2015).
An immigrant from Yemen, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, along with six other men, was charged with conspiracy to travel to Syria and to provide material support to ISIS. (April 2015).
A Uzbek man in Brooklyn encouraged other Uzbeki nationals to wage Jihad on behalf of ISIS, and raised $1,600 for the terror organization. (April 2015)
An immigrant from Syria, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was accused by federal prosecutors of planning to rob a gun store to “go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style.” (April 2015)
A Kazakhstani immigrant with lawful permanent resident status conspired to purchase a machine gun to shoot FBI and other law enforcement agents if they prevented him from traveling to Syria to join ISIS. (February 2015)
A Bosnian refugee, along with his wife and five others, donated money and supplies, and smuggled arms, to terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. (February 2015)
On December 18, 2014 an radicalized ISIS supporter in Morganton, NC shot a 74 year old man in the head multiple times.
On December 14, 2014, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, born to a Muslim African American family, executed two NYC police officers as they sat in their patrol car. Brinsley is reported to have approached the two officers as they were sitting in their patrol car in the notorious crime ridden Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, New York and began firing rounds into the vehicle before fleeing on foot to the closest subway station where he later committed suicide.
Two Bosnian Muslim refugee in Portland, Oregon was arrested in November 21, 2014 for trying to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
In September 30, 2014, ex-con Alton Nolan, a Muslim convert, a proponent of Sharia Law, who was radicalized to Islam behind bars, wielding a knife, beheaded a female employee, Colleen Hufford, at the Vaughn Foods processing plant in Moor, OK, and was prevented from beheading a second female employee by the company COO, who shot Nolan to stop his rampage.
An immigrant from Afghanistan, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, and a legal permanent resident from the Philippines, were convicted for “join Al Q’ieda and the Taliban in order to kill Americans.” (September 2014)
Five Somali Muslim refugees were charged in July 2014 with fundraising for jihadi groups in Africa.
A Somali immigrant with lawful permanent resident status, along with four other Somali nationals, is charged with leading an al-Shabaab fundraising conspiracy in the United States, with monthly payments directed to the Somali terrorist organization. (July 2014)
An immigrant from Bangladesh, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, tried to incite people to travel to Somalia and conduct violent jihad against the United States. (June 2014)
On June 25, 2014 Ali Muhammad Brown, age 29, a devout Muslim, gunned down Brendan Brown, age 19, in Livingston, NJ. Ali said it was an act of retribution for US Military actions against Muslims in Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
On June,1, 2014, Ali Muhammed Brown confessed to the murder of a 30 year old man on April 27th. in Skyway, WA.
A Moroccan national who came to the U.S. on a student visa was arrested for plotting to blow up a university and a federal court house. (April 2014).
On April 3, 2014, Salam Al Haideri a 24 year old Iraqi Refugee from Niskayuna, NY who entered the US thru the UN Refugee program. He raped a 19 year old 4’11 teenager behind a “I Love NY” pizza place dumpster while slamming her head into the ground. The Iraqi Refugee’s 96-pound teenage victim was left with broken ribs and a fractured nose. Al Haideri was the third refugee to be convicted of a sex crime in the area. He was found guilty of aggravated assault and rape and was sentenced to 22 years to life.
On March 6, 2014 a Muslim man shoots his lesbian daughter and her lover to death a leave a copy of the Quran open to a page condemning homosexuality.
A college student who immigrated from Somalia, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, attempted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon. (Dec 2013)
On August 4, 2013 in Richmond, CA a radicalized Islamist convert “on a mission from Allah” stabbed a store clerk to death.
On April 19, 2013 in Boston, MA a Radical Islamic Terrorist, the Tsarnaev brothers (the Boston Marathon Bombers) gunned down a University police officer sitting in his car
The April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev; those brothers and their family were Muslim refugees. -The Boston Bombers were granted political asylum and were thus deemed legitimate refugees. The younger brother applied for citizenship and was naturalized on September 11th, 2012. The older brother had a pending application for citizenship.
On March 24, 2013 in Ashtabula, OH a Muslim convert walks into a church service Quran, and guns down his Christian father while praising Allah
On February 7, 2013 in Buena Vista, NJ a Muslim man beheaded two Coptic Christians Immigrants.
On November 11, 2012 in Houston, TX a 28 year old American man is shot to death by a radical Muslim over an alleged role of converting a woman to Christianity.
In September 15, 2012, Amine El Khalifi, and al Q’ieda Radical Islamic Terrorist plotted to do a suicide bombing of the US Capital.
On February 18, 2012, two Radical Islamic Terrorists from Pakistan, who later applied for and received US Citizenship, were apprehended trying to detonate a bomb in New York City
On January 1, 2012 in Houston TX a 30 year old Muslim convert to Christianity is shot to death by a devout Muslim for converting his daughter to Christianity
On September 11, 2011 in Waltham, MA three Jewish men have their throats cut by Radical Islamic Terrorists.
Two Al Qaeda members from Iraq who had spent years in Iraq using IEDs and participated in attacks that killed American soldiers (their fingerprints were recovered from IEDs). Mohamed Hammadi age 25 and Walid Alwan age 31, were arrested in Bowling Green, KY on May 25, 2011 while living in public housing and were receiving public assistance; both entered the US thru the UN Refugee Program as Iraqi refugees! Hammadi was recorded in a telephone conversation plotting a terrorist attack in the US. They were both convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
On April 30, 2011 Mohammad Alfatlawi a proponent of Sharia Law was charged with the “Honor Killing” of his wife and daughter in Detroit, Michigan.
In May 4, 2010 Faisal Shahzad conducted a terrorist car bombing plot in Times Square that failed.
In December 25, 2009, the bombing terror plot to kill 290 innocent passengers on a flight from the Netherland to Detroit the Nigerian Radical Islamic Terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutlallab (aka the Underwear Bomber) failed to detonate on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 because the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned, and passengers were able to subdue him until he was arrested.
On December 4, 2009 in Bingham, NY a non-Muslim Islamic Studies professor is stabbed to death by a Muslim graduate student in revenge for Muslims who have been persecuted.
On November 5, 2009, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 US Army soldiers and wounded 32 others in Fort Hood while yelling “Allah Akbar” at the top of his lungs—Obama insisted it was simply “Work Place Violence” and not a Radical Islamic terrorist attack by a disciple of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Prior to the shooting, in his previous assignment as an intern and resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center his colleagues and superiors were deeply concerned about his behavior and anti-American comments—but because they were cowered by the Obama’s administration’s warnings and perceived threats to their military standing, that they better be “politically correct’ and not disparage such anti-American comments—nothing was done to drum that Radical Islamic Terrorist out of the US Armed Forces.
On November 2, 2009 in Glendale, AZ a Muslim daughter dies from injuries suffered when her Muslim father runs her over with his car for being too “Westernized.”
On June 1, 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a convert to Islam, who had gone to Yemen in 2007 and stayed for about 16 months, open fire on a Little Rock, Arkansas US Armed Forces Recruiting Office in a drive by shooting with a rifle, against a group of US Army Soldiers standing in front of the Recruiting Office. He killed Private William Long and wounded Private Quinton Ezeagwula.
On April 12, 2009 in Phoenix, AZ a Muslim man shoots his Muslim brother-in-law and another man to death, after he finds out that they visited a strip club in contradiction to Islamic values.
On February12, 2009 in Buffalo, NY a Muslim founder of a Muslim TV Station beheads his wife in the hallway of the TV Station for seeking a divorce.
On July 6, 2008 in Jonesboro, GA a devout Muslim man strangles his 25 year old daughter in an honor killing.

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March 27, 2017

10 Gun Myths

Filed under: crime control, gun control, handguns, Historical context, Law Enforcement, Police, Political Commentary, self-defense, US Constitution — Tags: 2nd Amendment, civil rights, constitutional law, liberty, Politics, Socialism, tea party — justplainbill @ 3:26 pm

Myth #1- Semi-automatic rifles are ‘assault rifles’
Semi-automatic weapons only fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled. The media would have you believe that semi-automatic weapons are weapons of mass destruction. California has even limited the sale of them. While you can certainly do some damage with a semi-automatic rifle, it’ s not the ‘pull and spray’ imagery the media uses to explain these weapons. These weapons are frequently used as hunting rifles, and are can not always be considered ‘assault weapons’ . Which leads us to #2, click the right arrow…

Myth #2- You can tell an ‘assault rifle’ just by looking at it
Assault weapons by definition are used for battlefield applications. But the media and lawmakers have blurred the lines of this definition to include anything that ‘looks’ like an assault weapon. This includes broad, erroneous assumptions about the weapons including things like “a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon.” Up next, we tackle one of the most prevalent myths, click the right arrow below….

Myth #3 – Gun violence increases as gun ownership increases
This is debatable at best. The Washington Post recently pointed to a Duke University study that shows gun violence is high in the South, where gun ownership is high. But this study neglects to report that Utah and Minnesota have high rates of gun ownership and very low gun crime. A study by The Atlantic seems to how the real causation of gun violence: poverty. Which brings us to one of those ‘ viral’ myths that everyone talks about on Facebook…

Myth #4 – Australia’s gun confiscation reduced mass shootings to zero
This is a popular one on Facebook with the gun control crowd. It’ s true in some respect, Australia has had very few mass shootings since it’ s gun buy-back program in the 90’ s. But what everyone neglects to say is that gun deaths were falling drastically BEFORE the gun confiscation. And even Australia’ s own experts say attributing any decrease in violence to gun control is tenuous at best. Plus, Australia has seen a violent underground black market for guns blossom in the aftermath of gun control. Speaking of mass shootings, our next myth…

Myth #5- There were more mass shootings in 2015 than days of the year
This depends on your definition of ‘mass shooting’. Many media outlets, and the FBI in fact, define it as any case where 4 or more people were killed. And there were over 360 of those last year. But the overwhelming majority of those were the result of robbery, drugs, and gang violence. What we most think of as a ‘ mass shooting’ , in which the victims are random, occurs in a public place, and the shooter has some kind of political or social message, there were 4 (FOUR!) in 2015. Which brings us to the most common gun myth…

Myth #6 – Gun control reduces gun violence
Gun control advocates treat this as a forgone conclusion. But the data on whether gun control reduces crime is rarely decisive. Hundreds of studies have been done, and the data can really be parsed to support either side of the debate. There are cases where murder rates spike up after gun bans. In some places crime has been reduced after gun bans, but it’ s not clear if this has more to do with demographic shifts. In any case, when someone says definitively that gun control stops gun crime, they are probably using the only part of the data that suits their argument. But, don’ t most Americans favor gun control? Well….

Myth #7 – The majority of Americans favor gun control
Many media outlets treat the gun debate as if it’ s a forgone conclusion that Americans favor gun control. But Pew research polls show just how divisive this issue is. In a recent poll the data shows that about 50% of people want stricter gun laws. 50% of people support gun rights. But this all comes down to what you think guns are really used for….

Myth #8 – Guns are made to kill
Gun controllers believe that the only purpose of a gun is to kill someone or something. If that were true, guns are doing a pretty terrible job. According to Duke University, less than .02% of the guns in American households were used in a murder. And many of those guns were used in self-defense. The fact is that a gun’s best use is often to prevent crime, not perpetrate it. Which brings us to the contentious meaning of the 2nd Amendment…

Myth #9 – The Second Amendment doesn’t give anyone the right to own the weapons of modern society
It’ s a familiar refrain: our forefather’ s could not have anticipated modern technology and would never have wanted citizens to have assault weapons. ‘ They were talking about muskets!’ goes the argument. But the spirit of the Second Amendment was to ensure the right of the people to defend themselves from government and other oppressors. And they felt it was so important they made it SECOND on a list of rights. How would citizens defend themselves from anything if we applied this logic and guaranteed everyone a right to own 18th century weapons? And how would the First Amendment work in modern times if we only applied it to technology available in the 18th century? Finally, we’ll talk about easily the most ridiculous gun myth…

Myth #10 – Gun free zones stop gun violence
This is an easy one to refute. Even with common sense we know that criminals would prefer to target places where the people are unarmed. There is plenty of research that shows that not only do gun free zones not reduce gun crimes, but the only thing that does is concealed carry laws.
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10 Gun Debate Myths

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March 16, 2017

Strategika Issue #39, You Say You Want A Revolution? Thomas Donnelly [nc]

Filed under: Chinese Navy, Econonics, Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, Historical context, Invasion of Taiwan, Iran, naval assault ships, Political Commentary, US Marine Corps — Tags: Donald Trump, Economics, Freedom, Government, Military, Strategika, tea party, Thomas Donnelly, Trump DoD possibilities — justplainbill @ 8:05 pm

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Strategika
Issue 39
You Say You Want A Revolution?
by Thomas Donnelly
Wednesday, March 15, 2017

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Image credit: Poster Collection, CU 032, Hoover Institution Archives.

To paraphrase the Beatles: Well, you know, you’d better free your mind instead; you may want a revolution but ought to settle for some evolution.

It is an article of revealed religion among defense elites that “we live in a relentlessly changing and fiercely competitive world.” Those words were from former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, once a physicist and someone deeply imbued with the idea that technological change and competition were the elements propelling change, and that those who failed to “innovate” were doomed to defeat: “Today’s era of military competition is characterized by the additional variables of speed and agility, such that leading the race now frequently depends on who can out-innovate faster than everyone else, and even change the game.”

Such attitudes took root in the late Cold War, back when the Pentagon had a “director for defense research and engineering”—a powerful post separate from the actual weapons-buying bureaucracy—and invested substantial sums in the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. These agencies were dominated by engineers, practical people whose goal was not science per say but to find ways to put new technologies into the hands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. But the combination of the Cold War’s end and the endless small wars of the post-9/11 years has inverted this traditional approach; the leaders of the Defense Department have been driven by the immediate need to respond to today’s enemies—all of them unpredicted—and have luxuriated in an extreme form of futurism—dreams that must inevitably go unfulfilled.

The failure to build and field in important numbers the weapons designs of the 1990s has all but deprived U.S. forces of the conventional-force superiority that is a premise of their strategy. The past failures to innovate incrementally have added up, even though the Russians and Chinese—and, increasingly, their Iranian partners in what Walter Russell Mead has dubbed the “Axis of Weevils”—have done little more than attained the level of lethality and sophistication reached by U.S. forces during Desert Storm. And since the Weevils are, for the moment, entirely engaged in moving into the vacuum created by American withdrawals rather than testing their strength directly, it is hard to know what level of tactical competence they have really derived from their belated modernization, but the balance of military power has undoubtedly shifted. National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster put the matter succinctly: “When we minimize our Army, we maximize the risk to our soldiers, the risk that in a crisis they will be forced to enter a fight too few in number and without the training and equipment they need to win.”

In such circumstances, broad programs of military “transformation”—Donald Rumsfeld’s dream or a “third offset,” and Ash Carter’s homage to former Defense Secretary William Perry and the creation of “stealth” aircraft—are not relevant. Photon torpedoes, warp drives, and cloaking devices remain in the realm of the starship Enterprise. Better the urgency of President John Kennedy, who vowed to put an American on the moon “in this decade,” than the spirit of Captain James Kirk. And in fact, there are fairly mature military technologies that meet the test of restoring the tactical advantages that U.S. troops once enjoyed.

Perhaps the most tantalizing near-term technologies are related to the substitution of intense amounts of electrical energy for the explosive power of gunpowder. This comprises a kind of catch-all category that subsumes several developments and could have—at least to leaders with an engineering mindset—multiple applications. Fielding electrical-energy-based weapons depends upon the ability to generate and to store immense amounts of power, and then release it either as a destructive force on its own or to propel a projectile at extremely high speeds. Stored electricity might prove to be the gunpowder of the future.

The Defense Department and the military services have been experimenting with these technologies for a decade and more. The Army and Navy have tested a number of “railgun” designs. Railguns are electromagnetic launchers with a parallel set of conductors—the “rails”—that accelerate a sliding armature by passing a very strong current down one rail, along the armature to the other rail. In essence, it’s a 21st-century slingshot that hurls a very dense, but inert, projectile about twice as fast as a traditional cannon; the kinetic energy of these projectiles is enormous.

It does appear that the science of railguns has reached some level of maturity. The main technological challenges are generating and storing enough electrical power—that is to say, a big engine and a good set of batteries—to allow for repeated pulses of direct current that would yield militarily relevant rates of fire of something like six rounds per minute. Other challenges are to build durable and practical rails, since the launch process generates extreme heat that stresses the rail materials. Further, designing guidance mechanisms that can withstand the heat generated by the speed of the projectile may be difficult. On the plus side, the design of munitions ought to be simplified, as should storage, handling, and logistics, since there is no “warhead” atop a railgun round and explosives are not required. Moreover, the range of railguns would far exceed that of any cannon.

But again, the railgun literature strongly indicates that these are challenges for engineering, not basic science. The Navy is interested in railgun technology as a potential solution to the rising challenges of surface fleet air defense and, especially, cruise and ballistic missile defense. Ironically, the otherwise-disastrous Zumwalt-class destroyer—which is now a $4 billion-per-copy pocket battleship—would make a practical platform for a railgun-based system. The ship is huge for a “destroyer”; at almost 15,000 tons it’s almost twice the size of the current Arleigh Burke-class ships. And it has an electric engine that can not only drive the ship at 30 knots, but also generate huge amounts of additional electricity. The Navy originally planned to buy 32 Zumwalts, but the program has long since run aground—because of its technological and cost problems, but also, most importantly, because the ship was misconceived—and halted at just three. To redesign and revive the project would involve great further expense and be an engineering risk, surely. But it could also result in fielding a game-changing technology that would go far toward solving the “anti-access” problem posed by the growing arsenals of Chinese, Russian, and Iranian anti-ship missiles within the next decade rather than several decades. There is no reason to believe that designing a new class of ships would be any less expensive; indeed it is irrational to think that starting over would save money.

On a smaller scale, electromagnetic guns might become the main armaments on tanks and howitzers. While all the same challenges would recur and be compounded by the need to reduce both the source of the electricity and the storage device to the size of a ground combat vehicle, the fundamental engineering challenges are the same as for ships. And the Army already is experimenting with modifying existing howitzers to shoot the same projectile as an electromagnetic weapon. “It turns out that powder guns firing the same hypervelocity projectiles gets you almost as much as you would get out of the electromagnetic rail gun, but it’s something we can do much faster,” says Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who has been held over from the Obama Administration to ensure continuity in defense planning. “We are [saying to the next administration]: ‘Look, we believe this is the place where you want to put your money, but we’re going to have enough money in there for both the electromagnetic rail gun and the powder gun.’”

A related development, also resulting from the ability to generate and store immense amounts of power, that is on the cusp of science fiction and reality is the prospect of using directed energy itself as a weapon. Indeed, some low-level forms of directed energy have been employed by the military for some time: microwave systems that heat the water in skin cells, causing irritation, have been used as a crowd-control measure; microwaves also have been fielded to fry enemy electronic systems. Even the radars on combat aircraft may have limited applications in disrupting the sensors of attacking missiles. And, as far back as 2002, the U.S. Air Force began flying an “Airborne Laser”—basically, a giant high-energy chemical laser stuffed inside a 747 commercial aircraft body—as a missile defense test system. In January 2010 the system successfully passed an intercept test and a month later destroyed two targets in a single engagement. But shortly thereafter, amid one of the many rounds of defense budget reductions during the Obama Administration, the effort was scrapped. In many ways, fielding the system as designed was a bad idea—the laser itself needed to be more powerful and would have required a large and vulnerable aircraft to fly within range of enemy air defenses—but the underlying concept was sound and indicative that such systems were technologically feasible, if tactically immature. Also, it was clear that using electricity rather than chemistry as a power source was a better solution.

Electromagnetic guns, hypersonic projectiles or even directed energy death rays would by themselves not necessarily constitute a revolution in warfare. But these technologies could yield a substantial increase in the capabilities of a wide variety of legacy platforms—and, importantly, again provide U.S. forces with a significant battlefield edge. Most of all, such investments could get the American military back in the habit of continuous modernization and the operational innovation that comes from actually fielding new capabilities. The enthusiasts for “transformation” of the past generation have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope; their model of innovation was that, starved of funds, the U.S. armed services would have to think of new ways to fight. But, through history, the process of change in war has been one that more frequently rewards practical tinkering—matching organizations and doctrine to technologies—more than bold conceptualization. Imagining the tank or the fighter aircraft was the basis for a revolution, but to realize it demanded their integration into combined-arms formation and figuring out how to keep that organization supplied with fossil fuel.

Finally, the experience of recent decades ought to debunk the transformationists’ idea that the United States could afford a geopolitical “strategic pause” to pursue a strategy of innovation. Nor can a global power afford an “offset” approach. To paraphrase the Beatles one last time: Evolution is the real solution. And you can see the plan.

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February 10, 2017

Imprimis 9/16 – Restoring America’s Economic Mobility

Filed under: Econonics, Education, Historical context, Political Commentary, US Constitution — Tags: Business, Economics, Freedom, Socialism, tea party — justplainbill @ 3:04 pm

Restoring America’s Economic Mobility
September 2016 • Volume 45, Number 9 • Frank Buckley
Frank Buckley
Author, The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America
________________________________________
Frank Buckley is a Foundation Professor at Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he has taught since 1989. Previously he was a visiting Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and he has also taught at McGill Law School, the Sorbonne, and Sciences Po in Paris. He received his B.A. from McGill University and his LL.M. from Harvard University. He is a senior editor of The American Spectator and the author of several books, including The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America and The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America.
________________________________________

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on July 11, 2016, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that “the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.” Today the story of American politics is the story of class struggles. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. We didn’t think we were divided into different classes. Neither did Marx.

America was an exception to Marx’s theory of social progress. By that theory, societies were supposed to move from feudalism to capitalism to communism. But the America of the 1850s, the most capitalist society around, was not turning communist. Marx had an explanation for that. “True enough, the classes already exist,” he wrote of the United States, but they “are in constant flux and reflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding them up to one another.” In other words, when you have economic and social mobility, you don’t go communist.

That is the country in which some imagine we still live, Horatio Alger’s America—a country defined by the promise that whoever you are, you have the same chance as anyone else to rise, with pluck, industry, and talent. But they imagine wrong. The U.S. today lags behind many of its First World rivals in terms of mobility. A class society has inserted itself within the folds of what was once a classless country, and a dominant New Class—as social critic Christopher Lasch called it—has pulled up the ladder of social advancement behind it.

One can measure these things empirically by comparing the correlation between the earnings of fathers and sons. Pew’s Economic Mobility Project ranks Britain at 0.5, which means that if a father earns £100,000 more than the median, his son will earn £50,000 more than the average member of his cohort. That’s pretty aristocratic. On the other end of the scale, the most economically mobile society is Denmark, with a correlation of 0.15. The U.S. is at 0.47, almost as immobile as Britain.

A complacent Republican establishment denies this change has occurred. If they don’t get it, however, American voters do. For the first time, Americans don’t believe their children will be as well off as they have been. They see an economy that’s stalled, one in which jobs are moving offshore. In the first decade of this century, U.S. multinationals shed 2.9 million U.S. jobs while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. General Electric provides a striking example. Jeffrey Immelt became the company’s CEO in 2001, with a mission to advance stock price. He did this in part by reducing GE’s U.S. workforce by 34,000 jobs. During the same period, the company added 25,000 jobs overseas. Ironically, President Obama chose Immelt to head his Jobs Council.
According to establishment Repub¬licans, none of this can be helped. We are losing middle-class jobs because of the move to a high-tech world that creates jobs for a cognitive elite and destroys them for everyone else. But that doesn’t describe what’s happening. We are losing middle-class jobs, but lower-class jobs are expanding. Automation is changing the way we make cars, but the rich still need their maids and gardeners. Middle-class jobs are also lost as a result of regulatory and environmental barriers, especially in the energy sector. And the skills-based technological change argument is entirely implausible: countries that beat us hands down on mobility are just as technologically advanced. Folks in Denmark aren’t exactly living in the Stone Age.

This is why voters across the spectrum began to demand radical change. What did the Republican elite offer in response? At a time of maximal crisis they have been content with minimal goals, like Mitt Romney’s 59-point plan in 2012. How many Americans remember even one of those points? What we remember instead is Romney’s remark about 47 percent of Americans being takers. That was Romney’s way of recognizing the class divide—and in the election, Americans took notice and paid him back with interest.
Since 2012, establishment Republicans have continued to be less than concerned for the plight of ordinary Americans. Sure, they want economic growth, but it doesn’t seem to matter into whose pockets the money flows. There are even the “conservative” pundits who offer the pious hope that drug-addicted Trump supporters will hurry up and die. That’s one way to ameliorate the class struggle, but it doesn’t exactly endear anyone to the establishment.

The southern writer Flannery O’Connor once attended a dinner party in New York given for her and liberal intellectual Mary McCarthy. At one point the issue of Catholicism came up, and McCarthy offered the opinion that the Eucharist is “just a symbol,” albeit “a pretty one.” O’Connor, a pious Catholic, bristled: “Well, if it’s just a symbol, to Hell with it.” Likewise, the principles held up as sacrosanct by establishment Republicans might be logically unassailable, derived like theorems from a set of axioms based on a pure theory of natural rights. But if I don’t see them making people better off, I say to Hell with them. And so do the voters this year. What the establishment Republicans should ask themselves is Anton Chigurh’s question in No Country for Old Men: If you followed your principles, and your principles brought you to this, what good are your principles?

September 2016 • Volume 45, Number 9 • Frank Buckley

Had Marx been asked what would happen to America if it ever became economically immobile, we know what his answer would be: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. And also Donald Trump. The anger expressed by the voters in 2016—their support for candidates from far outside the traditional political class—has little parallel in American history. We are accustomed to protest movements on the Left, but the wholesale repudiation of the establishment on the Right is something new. All that was solid has melted into air, and what has taken its place is a kind of right-wing Marxism, scornful of Washington power brokers and sneering pundits and repelled by America’s immobile, class-ridden society.

Establishment Republicans came up with the “right-wing Marxist” label when House Speaker John Boehner was deposed, and labels stick when they have the ring of truth. So it is with the right-wing Marxist. He is right-wing because he seeks to return to an America of economic mobility. He has seen how broken education and immigration systems, the decline of the rule of law, and the rise of a supercharged regulatory state serve as barriers to economic improvement. And he is a Marxist to the extent that he sees our current politics as the politics of class struggle, with an insurgent middle class that seeks to surmount the barriers to mobility erected by an aristocratic New Class. In his passion, he is also a revolutionary. He has little time for a Republican elite that smirks at his heroes—heroes who communicate through their brashness and rudeness the fact that our country is in a crisis. To his more polite critics, the right-wing Marxist says: We are not so nice as you!

The right-wing Marxist notes that establishment Republicans who decry crony capitalism are often surrounded by lobbyists and funded by the Chamber of Commerce. He is unpersuaded when they argue that government subsidies are needed for their friends. He does not believe that the federal bailouts of the 2008-2012 TARP program and the Federal Reserve’s zero-interest and quantitative easing policies were justified. He sees that they doubled the size of public debt over an eight-year period, and that our experiment in consumer protection for billionaires took the oxygen out of the economy and produced a jobless Wall Street recovery.

The right-wing Marxist’s vision of the good society is not so very different from that of the JFK-era liberal; it is a vision of a society where all have the opportunity to rise, where people are judged by the content of their character, and where class distinctions are a thing of the past. But for the right wing Marxist, the best way to reach the goal of a good society is through free markets, open competition, and the removal of wasteful government barriers.

Readers of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose will have encountered the word palimpsest, used to describe a manuscript in which one text has been written over another, and in which traces of the original remain. So it is with Canada, a country that beats the U.S. hands down on economic mobility. Canada has the reputation of being more liberal than the U.S., but in reality it is more conservative because its liberal policies are written over a page of deep conservatism.

Whereas the U.S. comes in at a highly immobile 0.47 on the Pew mobility scale, Canada is at 0.19, very close to Denmark’s 0.15. What is further remarkable about Canada is that the difference is mostly at the top and bottom of the distribution. Between the tenth and 90th deciles there isn’t much difference between the two countries. The difference is in the bottom and top ten percent, where the poorest parents raise the poorest kids and the richest parents raise the richest kids.

September 2016 • Volume 45, Number 9 • Frank Buckley

For parents in the top U.S. decile, 46 percent of their kids will end up in the top two deciles and only 2 percent in the bottom decile. The members of the top decile comprise a New Class of lawyers, academics, trust-fund babies, and media types—a group that wields undue influence in both political parties and dominates our culture. These are the people who said yes, there is an immigration crisis—but it’s caused by our failure to give illegals a pathway to citizenship!

There’s a top ten percent in Canada, of course, but its children are far more likely to descend into the middle or lower classes. There’s also a bottom ten percent, but its children are far more likely to rise to the top. The country of opportunity, the country we’ve imagined ourselves to be, isn’t dead—it moved to Canada, a country that ranks higher than the U.S. on measures of economic freedom. Yes, Canada has its much-vaunted Medicare system, but cross-border differences in health care don’t explain the mobility levels. And when you add it all up, America has a more generous welfare system than Canada or just about anywhere else. To explain Canada’s higher mobility levels, one has to turn to differences in education systems, immigration laws, regulatory burdens, the rule of law, and corruption—on all of which counts, Canada is a more conservative country.

America’s K-12 public schools perform poorly, relative to the rest of the First World. Its universities are great fun for the kids, but many students emerge on graduation no better educated than when they arrived. What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor. One study has concluded that if American public school students were magically raised to Canadian levels, the economic gain would amount to a 20 percent annual pay increase for the average American worker.

The U.S. has a two-tiered educational system: a superb set of schools and colleges for the upper classes and a mediocre set for everyone else. The best of our colleges are the best anywhere, but the average Canadian school is better than the average American one. At both the K-12 and college levels, Canadian schools have adhered more closely to a traditional, conservative set of offerings. For K-12, a principal reason for the difference is the greater competition offered in Canada, with its publicly-supported church-affiliated schools. With barriers like America’s Blaine Amendments—state laws preventing public funding of religious schools—lower-class students in the U.S. must enjoy the dubious blessing of a public school education.

What about immigration? Canada doesn’t have a problem with illegal aliens—it deports them. As for the legal intake, Canadian policies have a strong bias towards admitting immigrants who will confer a benefit on Canadian citizens. Even in absolute numbers, Canada admits more immigrants under economic categories than the U.S., where most legal immigrants qualify instead under family preference categories. As a result, on average, immigrants to the U.S. are less educated than U.S. natives, and unlike in Canada, second- and third-generation U.S. immigrants earn less than their native-born counterparts. In short, the U.S. immigration system imports inequality and immobility. If immigration isn’t an issue in Canada, that’s because it’s a system Trump voters would love.

For those at the bottom of the social and economic ladder who seek to rise, nothing is more important than the rule of law, property rights, and the sanctity of contract provided by a mature and efficient legal system. The alternative—in place today in America—is a network of elites whose personal bonds supply the trust that is needed before deals can be done and promises relied on. With its more traditional legal system, Canada better respects the sanctity of contract and is less likely to weaken property rights with an American-style civil justice system which at times resembles a slot machine of judicially-sanctioned theft. Americans are great at talking about the rule of law, but in reality we don’t have much standing to do so.

Then there’s corruption. As ranked by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, America is considerably more corrupt than most of the rest of the First World. With our K Street lobbyists and our donor class, we’ve spawned the greatest concentration of money and influence ever. And corruption costs. In a regression model, the average family’s earnings would increase from $55,000 to $60,000 were we to ascend to Canada’s level of non-corruption, and to $68,000 if we moved to Denmark’s level.

In a corrupt country, trust is a rare commodity. That’s America today. Only 19 percent of Americans say they trust the government most of the time, down from 73 percent in 1958 according to the Pew Research Center. Sadly, that is a rational response to the way things are. America is a different country today, and a much nastier one. For politically engaged Republicans, the figure is six percent. That in a nutshell explains the Trump phenomenon and the disintegration of the Republican establishment. If the people don’t trust the government, tinkering with entitlement reform is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
American legal institutions are consistently more liberal than those in Canada, and they are biased towards a privileged class of insiders who are better educated and wealthier than the average American. That’s why America has become an aristocracy. By contrast, Canadian legal institutions aren’t slanted to an aristocracy.

The paradox is that Canadians employ conservative, free market means to achieve the liberal end of economic mobility. And that points to America’s way back: acknowledge that the promise of America has diminished, then emulate Canada.

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January 11, 2017

His (Obama’s) Legacy: Ignoring The Genocide Of Christians Over An 8 Year Period, By Capt Joseph R. John, January 9, 2017 [nc]

Filed under: Anti-American Politicians, Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, gun control, Historical context, Islam, Law Enforcement, Media Check, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama Foreign Policy, Political Commentary, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Treason, US Constitution — Tags: 2nd Amendment, affordable care act, Christianity, civil rights, democrats, dhs, federal government, Freedom, History, liberty, Media Watch, News Media, Obama, obamacare, Politics, Racism, Secession, Socialism, tea party, us constitution — justplainbill @ 4:02 pm

Joseph R. John
To
jrj@combatveteransforcongress.org
Jan 9 at 7:26 AM
His Legacy: Ignoring The Genocide Of Christians Over An 8 Year Period

By Capt Joseph R. John, January 9, 2017: 330

For 8 years Obama failed to condemn the genocide perpetrated by Al Q’ieda, ISIS, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) who continued to butcher over 200,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christians. Current media reports state Obama is trying to salvage, what he calls, “His Legacy.” Obama will never be able to salvage “His Legacy”, because he turned a blind eye to the genocide that Al Q’ieda, ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorist, and members of the MB perpetrated against Syrian and Assyrian Christians. Obama repeatedly ignored pleas by 56 US Congressmen, on both sides of the isle, to provide Christians families with small arms weapons to protect themselves.

Al Q’ idea, ISIS, and the MB crucified Christians, beheaded them, burned them alive, drowned them in cages, buried them alive, cut small children’s bodies in two, forced men to kneel in order to shoot them behind the head, and threw Christians from high buildings to their deaths. In the last 2 years, ISIS has perpetrated 143 “Radical Islamic Terrorists” attacks in 29 countries, murdering 2043 people in “Hate Crimes” and “Crimes Against Humanity”; those murderous acts were executed to prevent Christians from exercising their “Freedom of Religion.”

While Obama was ignoring the genocide in the Middle East, he minimized the 93 “Radica Islamic Terrorist” attacks in the United States (2/3rd of those attacks occurred in the last 4 years). Yet for 8 years, Obama refused to allow personnel in the White House, the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, Department of Defense, the Justice Department, 17 Intelligence Agencies, the US Armed Forces, and the State Department to properly identify terrorists killing Americans, as “Radical Islamic Terrorists” nor did he allow Government Agencies to associate ISIS, MB, MB Front Groups, or Al Q’ieda with Islam.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called President Obama’s failure to protect persecuted Christians “abysmal.” He said Obama has had a distinct disinterest in including “Religious Freedom” and the “Genocide of Christians”, among his foreign policy priorities. Obama even left the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom vacant for nearly two years.

On September 30th, the New York Times reported on a leaked recording of Secretary of State John Kerry conversing with leaders of the Syrian opposition fighting Syria’s President, Bashar Assad. It cast light on Obama’s “Laisez Faire” attitude toward ISIS, and his continued minimization of the strength of the ISIS, which he referred to as a “JV Team”.

In 2012, Kerry indicated that Obama believed that allowing ISIS to grow in strength and receive weapons delivered from Libya would serve his objective of helping oust Syria’s President, Bashar Assad, without the need to employ US Military combat personnel on the ground. WikiLeaks E-mails back up Turkish President Erdogen’s assertion that the US has given support to terror groups, including ISIS in Syria.

In 2008, Obama said the reason he ignored the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Intelligence community, and pulled all US Military forces out of Iraq, was because there wasn’t a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. Today there are nearly 5000 US Military combat personnel on the ground in Iraq, and hundreds of US Military combat personnel in Syria, and still there is no Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq (2 US Military combat personnel have been killed, and 14 were wounded in Syria in October).

According to the New York Times report on Kerry’s conversation with Assad’s Syrian opposition, Obama did not calculate that Assad would turn to Russia for military support, making ISIS’ opposition to his regime irrelevant. During the period when Obama was hoping ISIS would oppose Assad, ISIS genocide against Christians increased; Obama turned a blind eye to ISIS’ genocide and the rapid growth of ISIS from several thousand terrorists, to an multi-national trained force of over 50,000 “Radical Islamic Terrorists”.

Obama tried to minimize and ignore the growth in strength of what he called the ISIS “JV Team”. Obama’s continued minimization of ISIS resulted in 50 frustrated Central Command Intelligence Analyst co-signing a letter, protesting the fact that they were being pressured by Generals to produce intelligence reports that underestimate the true strength of ISIS and the danger ISIS’ Islamic State posed in the Middle East. Those Generals were, being pressured by their superiors in the Pentagon, to go along with Obama’s underestimated strength of ISIS.

In the last 8 years, while Obama occupied the Oval Office, ISIS easily grew rapidly because there were no longer a US Military force in Iraq, and it spread its tentacles into 29 countries, perpetrating over 8986 murders worldwide (1123/year), as well as the genocide of 200,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christians. In the previous 27 years Radical Islamic Terrorist murdered 4278 people worldwide (158/year).

In a 2013 Congressional hearings, evidence was presented from DIA intelligence reports that from 2011-2012, US Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens was shipping weapons from deposed Libyan Ruler, Muammar Gaddafi’s armory. Tons of weapons were being shipped from the port of Benghazi to Syria via Turkish ports, then on to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Q’ieda, and ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists, who were opposing Bashar Assad.

It was another of Obama’s “Gun Running Operations”, following the “Fast and Furious Gun Running Operation” to Mexican Drug Cartels, that resulted in the death of a US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

An April 22, 2014 report entitled, “How America Changed Sides in the War On Terror”, identified Hakim Belhaj, as a key Al Q’ieda operative, was known Libyan terrorist who the European Union banned, and who was identified as the principal organizer of the Radical Islamic Terrorist attack on the US Mission in Benghazi on September 11, 2011, played a major role in moving Gaddafi’s weapons from US Ambassador Chris Stevens to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Q’ieda, and ISIS in Syria.

The below listed comments and acts by Obama, reveals his state of mind, and why for 8 years, he refused to properly identify the terrorists killing Americans as “Radical Islamic Terrorists”, why he referred to ISIS as a “JV Team”, and why he refused to authorized the bombing of the Islamic State’s Capital of Raqqa (the Joint Chiefs recommended the strike, in order to decapitate the Islamic State’s leadership):

1) On ABC News Obama referenced—“My Muslim Faith.”

2) Obama wrote that in the event of a conflict—“I will stand with the Muslims.”

3) Obama refused to label the Ft Hood shooter who yelled “Allah Akbar” while he was killing 13 US soldiers as a “Terrorist.”

4) Obama provided $100 million of US Taxpayer dollars thru Hillary’s State Department to build “foreign” Mosques.

5) Obama exempted Muslims in the US from fines that Christians and Jews were forced to pay for, for not signing up for Obamacare.

6) Obama appointed members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Front Groups to NSA, DHS, CIA, DOD, STATE, & Justice.

7) Obama refused to join world leaders in Paris after the Paris massacres, to show US solidarity against “Radical Islamic Terrorists”.

8) Obama ordered Georgetown and Notre Dame to cover up all vestiges of Christianity before he would agree to speak there.

9) Obama freed 195 of the 240 most dangerous detainees in GITMO; 30% returned to combat and are killing US Military personnel.

10) Obama terminated the military tribunals established to put captured “Radical Islamic Terrorists” on trial in GITMO.

11) Obama assured Egypt’s Foreign Minister that—“I am a Muslim.”

12) Obama was the first US President in 240 years who refused to send a Christmas greeting from the White House.

13) Obama had Dept. ED install mandatory Arabic language, and Muslim Religious studies in the nation’s grammar schools.

14) Obama said NASA’s “Foremost Mission” would be to develop an outreach to Muslim communities.

15) In an Islamic Dinner with Muslims, Obama said—“I am one of you.”

16) Obama followed the Muslim custom of not wearing any jewelry (rings/watches) for 8 years during Ramadan.

17) Obama said the Muslim call to worship is “The most beautiful sound on earth.”

18) For 8 years, in the Executive Office Building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, DC, silence was enforced during the five times of
Islamic prayer each day (25 minutes/day, 7 days/week). Prayer rugs and crescent moon symbols were made available in several
areas of the Executive Office Building for Muslims visitors and Muslims working in The White House.

Millions of unprotected Assyrian Christians living in their ancient ancestral homeland of Mesopotamia, on the Plains of Nineveh, and Syrian Christians living in Syria who have practiced their religion since Christ walked the surface of the earth, were butchered by Al Q’ieda, ISIS, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, while Obama ignored their repeated requests for small arms for the self-defense of their families.

Despite the repeated petitions by 56 US Congressmen from both sides of the isle, who pleaded with Obama to provide Syrian and Assyrian Christians with self-defensive small arms weapons, to protect their families from the on-going genocide by ISIS, Obama refused to authorize self-defensive aid. At the same time, Obama was accepting over 900,000 Middle East Muslim refugees, he refused to accept any of the over 300,000 Middle East Christians Refugees who fled from the genocide by “Radical Islamic Terrorist”.

The US Congress must terminate all funding for the UN Middle East and African “Muslin Only” Refugee Program, run by Muslims in the UN—it has been discriminating against Christian Refugees for the last 8 years, and is an ongoing violation of “Freedom of Religion” and US Law.

While the genocide of Christians in the Middle East continued, Obama brought in over 900,000 Middle East and African Muslin Refugees into the US, thru the UN Refugee Relief Program. They were settled in 187 cities throughout the US, at a cost of billions of US tax payer dollars, while Obama prevented the FBI from determining if they had terrorist ties. Obama refused to inform local and state elected government officials, and Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Officers where those Middle East and African Muslim Refugees were resettled.

For 8 years, the “Republican” and “Democratic” leaders in Congress, worked closely with Obama and the US Chamber of Commerce to ensure the wide open Southern Border remained open. For those 8 years “Radical Islamic Terrorists”. who have set up terrorist training camps just south of the US/Mexican border, were able to simply walk into the United States thru that wide open southern border.

The FBI has opened over 1000 “Radical Islamic Terrorist” cases in all 50 states, to apprehend and prosecute “Radical Islamic Terrorist” operating in the United States. To date the FBI has disrupted and prosecuted over 100 “Radical Islamic Terrorist” potential attacks within the United States, resulting in the arrests and prosecutions of 180 “Radical Islamic Terrorists.”

Despite the 180 arrests, there have been 93 ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorist attacks within the United States by Muslim Refugees from the Middle East and Africa and/or from their off springs; 2/3rd of those attacks occurred in the last 4 years. Those attacks and threats of attacks have been covered up by the left of center liberal media establishment working very closely with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood Front Groups, and the Obama administration. The attachment details many, but not all of those “Radical Islamic Terrorist” attacks initiated in the United States, that resulted in the death of hundreds of Americans Citizens on US soil.

Please review the below listed article to fully understand the “Step by Step” procedure Obama and Hillary Clinton followed to incubate ISIS “Radical Islamic Terrorists”, that allowed ISIS to grow and gain in strength.

Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62
Capt USN(Ret)/Former FBI
Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC
2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184
San Diego, CA 92108

http://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org

https://www.facebook.com/combatveteransforcongress?ref=hl

Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WND EXCLUSIVE
STEP BY STEP: HOW HILLARY, OBAMA INCUBATED ISIS
Jerome R. Corsi
NEW YORK – By piecing together recently revealed WikiLeaks emails with evidence that has emerged over the past several years, it’s become increasingly clear that President Obama and his secretary of state at the time, Hillary Clinton in 2011, armed the Free Syrian Army rebels in an effort to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, mirroring a strategy already under way in Libya to help al-Qaida-affiliated militia overthrow Moammar Gadhafi. A consequence of the strategy was the emergence of ISIS out of the loosely coordinated Free Syrian Army coalition as well as the disastrous Benghazi attack in which a U.S. ambassador was murdered.

Various WikiLeaks emails examined by WND indicate the Free Syrian Army was among the first splinter rebel groups Clinton and Obama armed. The Obama administration apparently was hoping to replicate the regime-change strategy in which it armed al-Qaida-affiliated militia in Libya, including Ansar al-Sharia, the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012, attack at Benghazi.

The WikiLeaks email evidence shows a shift in policy in which Clinton and Obama appear to have decided in 2011 to topple the governments of Gadhafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, even if it meant arming “Radical Islamic Terrorist” groups that traced back to al-Qaida.

As WND reported last week, WikiLeaks emails back up Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s assertion that U.S.-led coalition forces have given support to terror groups, including ISIS in Syria.

The claim derived further support from a recording leaked to the New York Times of Secretary of State John Kerry admitting the Obama administration not only hoped ISIS would depose the Assad regime, it also gave arms to the jihadist army and its allies to carry out the task.

Blumenthal recommends Free Syria Army to Clinton

Hacked emails to Hillary Clinton from longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal that were published in October by WikiLeaks tell the story.

On June 20, 2011, Blumenthal sent a confidential email to Clinton at the State Department that included an article by David W. Lesch, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Trinity University in San Antonio. Lesch argued a strategy of regime change could be effected in Syria if the U.S. could find opposition groups in Syria capable of establishing “a Benghazi-like refuge from which to launch a rebellion and to which aid can be sent.”

In a subsequent confidential email July 24, 2012, Blumenthal further advised Clinton that the “growing success of the rebel forces of the Free Syria Army” caused him to believe the Assad regime was increasingly vulnerable to being toppled.

In an email Feb. 24, 2012, Blumenthal characterized the FSA as “loosely organized and uncoordinated,” noting it was “for the most part, local militias, many of them civilian based, that are simply calling themselves the FSA to appear to be part of a whole.”

Blumenthal commented in the email that the armed resistance to Assad “is not well funded or well armed.”

On Feb. 28, 2012, Jacob Sullivan, a State Department senior policy adviser to Secretary Clinton, forwarded to Clinton an opinion piece published in the New York Times by foreign correspondent Roger Cohen suggesting the strategy Obama and Clinton had used to topple Gadhafi in Libya should be used to bring down Assad in Syria.

“As the Bosnian war showed, the basis for any settlement must be a rough equality of forces. So I say step up the efforts, already quietly ongoing, to get weapons to the Free Syrian Army. Train those forces, just as the rebels were trained in Libya,” Cohen wrote. “Payback time has come around: The United States warned Assad about allowing Al Qaeda fighters to transit Syria to Iraq. Now matériel and special forces with the ability to train a ragtag army can transit Iraq – and other neighboring states – into Syria.”

Then, on Sept. 18, 2012, one week after the Benghazi terror attack, Blumenthal, in a confidential memo, alerted Clinton to the possibility of the FSA military taking over Damascus.

The prospect caused Assad’s wife and close relatives to urge Assad to flee Syria to avoid “the fate of Assad’s former ally Muammar al Qaddafi of Libya, who was captured and killed by rebel forces while attempting to flee his home territory in Sirte.”

Clinton sought to arm Free Syrian Army

In an Aug. 17, 2014, email released by WikiLeaks, Clinton, after her service as secretary of state, suggested to adviser John Podesta: “At the same time, we should return to plans to provide the FSA [Free Syrian Army], with some group of moderate forces, with equipment that will allow them to deal with a weakened ISIL, and stepped up operations against the Syrian regime.”

Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior policy fellow at the National Review Institute, tied the statement to the Obama administration’s plan to equip Syrian fighters, either the Free Syrian Army or “other moderate forces,” to a U.S.-led operation in coordination with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to steer weapons to Syria, “ostensibly to fight both Assad and ISIS.”

McCarthy noted, however, that Clinton’s 2014 memo to Podesta asserted the Saudi and Qatari governments both supported ISIS and other “radical Sunni groups.”

In September 2013, WND reported Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had relied on the work of Elizabeth O’Bagy, a 26-year-old graduate student, to argue in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Obama administration should send weapons to arm the “moderate” Free Syrian Army to oppose the Assad government in Syria.

In that article, WND detailed the extensive lobbying efforts conducted in Washington to advance the FSA as a “moderate group,” despite clear evidence the al-Nusra Front – operating under the FSA umbrella – had been declared a terrorist organization by the State Department; had pledged allegiance to al-Qaida’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri; and was the group of choice for foreign jihadi fighters pouring into Syria.

Clinton ‘changed sides in war on terror’

WND reported in 2015 the Obama White House and the State Department under the management of Hillary Clinton “changed sides in the war on terror” in 2011 by implementing a policy of facilitating the delivery of weapons to the al-Qaida-dominated rebel militias in Libya attempting to oust Gadhafi, the Citizens Commission on Benghazi concluded in its interim report.

The April 22, 2014, report, “How America Changed sides in the War on Terror,” alleges “the U.S. was fully aware of and facilitating the delivery of weapons to the Al Qaeda-dominated rebel militias throughout the 2011 rebellion.”

The report asserted the agenda of al-Qaida-affiliated jihadis in the region, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other Islamic terror groups represented among the rebel forces, was well known to U.S. officials responsible for Libya policy.

“The rebels made no secret of their Al Qaeda affiliation, openly flying and speaking in front of the black flag of Islamic jihad, according to author John Rosenthal and multiple media reports,” the interim report said. “And yet, the White House and senior Congressional members deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist organizations in order to topple a ruler who had been working closely with the West actively to suppress Al Qaeda.”

The report concluded: “The result in Libya, across much of North Africa, and beyond has been utter chaos, disruption of Libya’s oil industry, the spread of dangerous weapons (including surface-to-air missiles), and the empowerment of jihadist organizations like Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The report identified a key al-Qaida operative who played a major role moving U.S. arms into both Libya and Syria as Abdul Hakim Belhaj, (aka Abdallah al Sadeq). Belhaj was a veteran jihad fighter of Iraq and Afghanistan; commander of the al-Qaida franchise militia, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), aka Libyan Islamic Movement for Change; a post-revolution military commander of Tripoli; and the Libyan delegation leader to the Free Syrian Army in late 2011.

In September 2014, WND reported Elizabeth O’Bagy, who had been fired from her job with a Washington think-tank after her exposure by WND as a source for Kerry’s argument that the FSA is a “moderate” rebel force in Syria, had also arranged for McCain a trip to Syria in May 2013 in which senator met with Belhaj, who was then represented as a leader of the FSA.

In November 2013, WND reported trusted Libyan expatriates had claimed Belhaj was at large in Libya. The expatriates identified Belhaj as an al-Qaida operative, noting he was at the top of a list of Libyan terrorists banned by the European Union from obtaining entrance visas and was the principal organizer of the terrorist attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2011, in which Ambassador Stevens was murdered.
McCarthy reported Aug. 2 Ambassador Stevens had “moved an enormous shipment of weapons from Benghazi to the Syrian ‘rebels’ in Turkey,” as the Obama administration was working in 2011 to determine which Syrian “rebel” forces should be armed.

McCarthy pointed to a New York Times article in 2012, some three months before the Benghazi massacre, that reported CIA operatives were secretly in Turkey helping the Obama administration to decide which Syrian opposition fighters would receive arms clandestinely from the United States to fight the Syrian government.

The Times further reported the weapons including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons were being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries, including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

McCarthy further noted that before becoming ambassador, Christopher Stevens was the Obama administration’s official liaison to Gadhafi’s Islamist opposition in Libya, including its al-Qaida-linked groups. Among them were the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, with Stevens working directly with Belhaj.

Below is a partial list of Refugees and Radical Islamic Terrorists who have perpetrated Terrorist Attacks against American citizens—the partial list is truly unbelievable, and the Obama administration and the left of center liberal media establishment have done their best to cover up every one of those terrorist attacks for 8 years—it is part of a continuing criminal conspiracy that is damaging the National Security Interest of the United States!!!

The United States is under attack from coast to coast in places like Sacramento (CA), Houston (TX), Morganton (NC), Philadelphia PA), San Bernardino (CA), Times Square (NY), Moore (OK), Detroit (MI), Boise, Orlando, West Orange (NJ), Fort Hood (TX), Portland (ME), Chattanooga, Garland, Boston (MA), Portland (OR), Minneapolis, Buffalo (NY), Jonesboro (GA), Ashtabula (OH), Bingham (NY), Glendale (AZ), Phoenix (AZ), Little Rock (AR), Merced (CA), Marquette Park (IL), Seattle, Skyway (WA), Denver (CO), Aspen Hill (MD), Baltimore (MD), Arlington (VA), Fredricksburg (VA), Missouri, Kentucky, Scottsville,(NY), Richmond (CA), Washington (DC), Irving (TX), Port Bolivar (TX), Warren (MI), Waltham (MA), Manassas (VA), Buena Vista (NJ), and many more cities too numerous to list here.

The left of center liberal media establishment is working hand in glove with Obama, to covering up the fact that there have been 93 Radical Islamic Terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. To date, 100 ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorist plots have been foiled by the FBI, resulting in the arrests of over 180 ISIS Muslim Refugees and Radical Islamic Terrorists by the FBI across the United States, and there are 1000 FBI ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorist cases under investigation in all 50 states. We encourage all American citizens to put pressure on their Congress to pass the Terrorist Refugee Infiltration Act, and to get the Republican Leaders in Congress to finally do something after 8 years to protect American citizens and their children from Radical Islamic Terrorists.
The below “partial list” of the Muslim Refugees and Radical Islamic Terrorists who have participated in Jihad killings and attacks against the American citizens since Obama took office—are only listed, because the complete numbers of Radical Islamic Terrorist attacks are just too many, to all be listed here.
There are now over 900 open cases on potential ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists in all 50 states being prosecuted by the FBI, those terrorist are a percentage of the 900,000+ Muslim Refugees Obama forced fed into 180 cities resettling them throughout the US thru the UN Muslim Refugee Resettlement Program while ignoring FBI warnings that they cannot vet them to determine if they have terrorist ties. Now we find out that Obama had his appointees at DHS scrub clean the data base of hundreds of Radical Islamic Terrorist suspects they maintained records on—that was a conspiracy that damaged the national Security of the United States:
• On January 7, 2016, Aws Mohammad Younis Al-Jayab, a Palestine born Iraqi, was arrested in Sacramento, CA on charges of assisting jihadi organizations.
• In an unrelated case, also on January 7, 2016, Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, an Iraqi Refugee, was arrested in Houston, TX on charges of providing material support to ISIS and going thru terrorist training.
• In Philadelphia, PA, a jihadi opened fire on a cop on January 8, 2016. He fired 13 shots and hit the police officer three times, grievously wounding the man.
• On January 11, 2016, Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions said the number of people implicated in radical Islamic terrorist plots in the U.S. has jumped to 113.
• On January 16, 2016, Mohamed Elmi, 31, and Mohamed Salad, 29, both of Calgary,
Canada, were arrested after they invaded the doorway of a neighborhood bar and grievously wounded a 38-year old stranger.

• On February 16, 2016, a court magistrate ruled after hearing the FBI testimony that Khalil Abu-Rayyan, a 21 year old Dearborn, MI man was too much of a threat to public safety and ordered him held without bail. He gets excited by thoughts of beheading Americans, burning people alive and throwing homosexuals off of tall buildings. He’d actually made plans to shoot up a 6,000 member Christians in Detroit, in conversations with an undercover FBI agent.. (If I) can’t go do jihad at the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.” He also told the agent that “shooting and death make me excited. I love to hear people begging and screaming. … I wish I had my gun.” The FBI claims Abu-Rayyan has since late 2014 used Twitter for “retweeting, liking and commenting” on Islamic State propaganda.
•
On February 12, 2016 a machete wielding assailant known to the FBI, identified as Mohammad Barry, a Somali living in Ohio attacked Jewish and Christian patrons at a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, wounding four people. Witnesses said it was carnage. Some of the patrons fought back by throwing chairs. Police later shot and killed Barry after a short chase. Investigators are trying to determine if Barry attacked the Nazareth Restaurant because he thought the owner was Jewish. In actuality, the restaurant is owned by an Israeli Christian.

• On January 7, 2016, Aws Mohammad Younis Al-Jayab, a Palestine born Iraqi, was arrested in Sacramento, CA on charges of assisting jihadi organizations.
•
• On June 12, 21016, Omar Saddiqul Mateen, the son of Afghan refugees, massacred 49 gentle & innocent Americans, and wounded 53 others, in the Orlando night club, Pulse, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history

• In an unrelated case, also on January 7, 2016, Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, an Iraqi Refugee, was arrested in Houston, TX on charges of providing material support to ISIS and going thru terrorist training.
• In Philadelphia, PA, a jihadi opened fire on a cop on January 8, 2016. He fired 13 shots and hit the police officer three times, grievously wounding the man.
• On January 11, 2016, Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions said the number of people implicated in radical Islamic terrorist plots in the U.S. has jumped to 113.
• On January 16, 2016, Mohamed Elmi, 31, and Mohamed Salad, 29, both of Calgary,
Canada, were arrested after they invaded the doorway of a neighborhood bar and grievously wounded a 38-year old stranger.
• On February 16, 2016, a court magistrate ruled after hearing the FBI testimony that Khalil Abu-Rayyan, a 21 year old Dearborn, MI man was too much of a threat to public safety and ordered him held without bail. He gets excited by thoughts of beheading Americans, burning people alive and throwing homosexuals off of tall buildings. He’d actually made plans to shoot up a 6,000 member Christians in Detroit, in conversations with an undercover FBI agent.. (If I) can’t go do jihad at the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.” He also told the agent that “shooting and death make me excited. I love to hear people begging and screaming. … I wish I had my gun.” The FBI claims Abu-Rayyan has since late 2014 used Twitter for “retweeting, liking and commenting” on Islamic State propaganda.
•
On February 12, 2016 a machete wielding assailant known to the FBI, identified as Mohammad Barry, a Somali living in Ohio attacked Jewish and Christian patrons at a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, wounding four people. Witnesses said it was carnage. Some of the patrons fought back by throwing chairs. Police later shot and killed Barry after a short chase. Investigators are trying to determine if Barry attacked the Nazareth Restaurant because he thought the owner was Jewish. In actuality, the restaurant is owned by an Israeli Christian

• On May 3, 2015 an attack with gunfire was carried by two Radical Islamic Terrorists followers of ISIS at the entrance to the Curtis Culwell Center, in Garland, TX featuring cartoon images of Mohammad—both were shot and killed by a police officer. Just prior to the attack one of the gunmen posted “May Allah accept us as Mujahedeen”—he wrote both pledged allegiance to “Amirul Mu’mineen”, a likely reference to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• An immigrant from Ghana, who applied for and received US citizenship, pledged allegiance to ISIS and plotted a terrorist attack on the US soil (June 2015).
• An immigrant from Sudan, who applied and received US citizenship, tried to join ISIS and wage Jihad on its behalf after having been recruited on line(June 2015).
• In November 17, 2015 A Uzbek Muslim refugee in Boise, ID was convicted of plotting to bomb US military bases.
• On August 14, 2015 three Somali Muslims, Mohamud Mohamed, 36, and Osman Sheikh, 31, Abil Teshome, 23, brutally beat and murdered Freddy Akoa, 49 a Christian in Portland, ME. The attack allegedly took place over the span of several hours, in which Akoa suffered cuts and bruises all over his body, a lacerated liver and 22 rib fractures. However, according to the autopsy, Akoa died as a result of blows to his head.
• Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez murdered five US Armed Forces (1 Navy and 4 Marines) in Chattanooga, TN in July 2015. Mohammad was an immigrant brought here by his family from Kuwait at a young age, and who was later approved for U.S. citizenship, who carried out the Islamist attack that killed the 5 military personnel in Chattanooga.
• The Somali refugee who recruited the San Bernardino killers also recruited the jihadist who attacked the Garland, TX “Draw Mohammad” contest in May 2015, fled the United States.
• An Iraqi immigrant, who later applied for and received US citizenship, was arrested for lying to federal agents about pledging allegiance to ISIS and his travel to Syria (May 2015)
• An immigrant from Syria, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was accused by federal prosecutors of planning to rob a gun store to “go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style.” (April 2015)
• Six Somalian Muslim refugees were arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota for attempting to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.
• Five Muslim refugees (same family) were arrested in Missouri, Illinois and New York for sending arms and cash to ISIS.
• Five Somali Muslim refugees were charged in July 2014 with fundraising for jihadi groups in Africa.
• On December 14, 2014, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, born to a Muslim African American family, executed two NYC police officers as they sat in their patrol car. Brinsley is reported to have approached the two officers as they were sitting in their patrol car in the notorious crime ridden Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, New York and began firing rounds into the vehicle before fleeing on foot to the closest subway station where he later committed suicide.
• Two Bosnian Muslim refugee in Portland, Oregon was arrested in November 21, 2014 for trying to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
• On November 4, 2015 18 year old Faisal Mohammad who had a black ISIS flag in his possessions and a terrorist manifesto, stabbed 4 of his fellow student at U C Merced; police had to shoot him to stop his stabbing spree. He had pro-ISIS propaganda on his computer. The FBI said he was self radicalized.
• In San Bernardino in December 2015 two Middle East Radical Islamic Terrorist, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who said they were ISIS, attackers (immigrants) killed 14 civilians and wounded 21 others, were recruited to their jihad by a Muslim Somali refugee who has now moved to Syria, but continues to recruit Jihadist in America using social media.
• A refugee from Uzbekistan was convicted of providing material support and money to a designated foreign terrorist organization. According to the Department of Justice, he also procured bomb-making materials in the interest of perpetrating a terrorist attack on American soil. (August 2015)
• An immigrant from Albania, who applied for and received Lawful Permanent Resident status, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for giving over $1,000 to terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, and for attempting to join a radical jihadist insurgent group in Pakistan. (August 2015)
• An immigrant from Egypt, who subsequently was granted U.S. citizenship, was charged with providing, and conspiring to provide, material support to ISIS, for aiding and abetting a New York college student in receiving terrorist training from ISIS, and conspiring to receive such training. (August 2015)
• A second Immigrant from India, who is married to a US citizen, who was indicted on charges of conspiring to provide thousands of dollars to Al Q’ieda in the Arabian Peninsula, in order to assist them in their global Jihad, and on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud (November 2015)
• A Kazakhstani immigrant with lawful permanent resident status conspired to purchase a machine gun to shoot FBI and other law enforcement agents if they prevented him from traveling to Syria to join ISIS. (February 2015)
• An immigrant from Pakistan, who entered the United States on a fiancé visa thru Canada, and subsequently became a Lawful Permanent Resident, along with her husband, killed 14 people at a Christmas Party in San Bernardino, CA on December 2, 2015 , and wounded 22 others, in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001.
• A Somali-American was arrested after encouraging several friends to leave the United States and join ISIS, and giving one individual over $200 for their passport application. (December 2015)
• The son of Pakistani immigrants, along with his Pakistan bride, murdered 14 coworkers, and wounded two dozen, in that same terrorist attack. His Pakistani-born father has since been placed on the no-fly list (December 2015).
• A Bosnian refugee, along with his wife and five others, donated money and supplies, and smuggled arms, to terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. (February 2015)
• An Uzbek refugee living in Idaho was arrested and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization, in the form of teaching terror recruits how to build bombs. (July 2015)
• An immigrant from Saudi Arabia, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, swore allegiance to ISIS and pledged to explode a propane tank bomb on U.S. soil. (April 2015).
• An immigrant from Yemen, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, along with six other men, was charged with conspiracy to travel to Syria and to provide material support to ISIS. (April 2015).
• A Uzbek man in Brooklyn encouraged other Uzbeki nationals to wage jihad on behalf of ISIS, and raised $1,600 for the terror organization. (April 2015)
• An immigrant from Bangladesh, who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, tried to incite people to travel to Somalia and conduct violent jihad against the United States. (June 2014)
• In September 30, 2014, Alton Nolan, a proponent of Sharia and suspect Radical Islamic Terrorist, beheaded an employee of Vaughan Foods, and was prevented from beheading a second employee in Moor, Oklahoma.
• An immigrant from Afghanistan, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, and a legal permanent resident from the Philippines, were convicted for “join Al Q’ieda and the Taliban in order to kill Americans.” (September 2014)
• A Somali immigrant with lawful permanent resident status, along with four other Somali nationals, is charged with leading an al-Shabaab fundraising conspiracy in the United States, with monthly payments directed to the Somali terrorist organization. (July 2014)
• A Moroccan national who came to the U.S. on a student visa was arrested for plotting to blow up a university and a federal court house. (April 2014)
• The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev; those brothers and their family were Muslim refugees. -The Boston Bombers were granted political asylum and were thus deemed legitimate refugees. The younger brother applied for citizenship and was naturalized on September 11th, 2012. The older brother had a pending application for citizenship. (April 2013)
• A college student who immigrated from Somalia, who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, attempted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon. (December 2013)
• On February 18, 2012, two Radical Islamic Terrorists from Pakistan, who later applied for and received US Citizenship, were apprehended trying to detonate a bomb in New York City
• In September 15, 2012, Amine El Khalifi, and al Q’ieda Radical Islamic Terrorist plotted to do a suicide bombing of the US Capital.
• In 2011 Mohammad Alfatlawi a proponent of Sharia Law was charged with the “Honor Killing” of his wife and daughter in Detroit, Michigan.
• In May 4, 2010 Faisal Shahzad conducted a terrorist car bombing plot in Times Square that failed.
• On June 1, 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a convert to Islam, who had gone to Yemen in 2007 and stayed for about 16 months, open fire on a Little Rock, Arkansas US Armed Forces Recruiting Office in a drive by shooting with a rifle, against a group of US Army Soldiers standing in front of the Recruiting Office. He killed Private William Long and wounded Private Quinton Ezeagwula.
• On November 5, 2009, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 US Army soldiers and wounded 32 others in Fort Hood while yelling “Allah Akbar” at the top of his lungs—Obama insisted it was simply “Work Place Violence” and not a Radical Islamic terrorist attack by a disciple of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Prior to the shooting, in his previous assignment as an intern and resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center his colleagues and superiors were deeply concerned about his behavior and anti-American comments—but because they were cowered by the Obama’s administration’s warnings and perceived threats to their military standing, that they better be “politically correct’ and not disparage such anti-American comments—nothing was done to drum that Radical Islamic Terrorist out of the US Armed Forces
• In December 2009, the bombing terror plot to kill 290 innocent passengers on a flight from the Netherland to Detroit the Nigerian Radical Islamic Terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutlallab (aka the Underwear Bomber) failed to detonate on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 because the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned, and passengers were able to subdue him until he was arrested.
• Two Al Qaeda members who had killed American soldiers in Iraq were arrested in Kentucky in 2009 – and, both were refugees!

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December 17, 2016

Note on Pearl Harbor, Capt John [c]

Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Global Intel, Historical context, Political Commentary, Racism, Treason — Tags: civil rights, constitutional law, democrats, FDR, Freedom, History, Pearl Harbor, Racism, Secession, tea party, World War II — justplainbill @ 10:18 pm

To jrj@combatveteransforcongress.org
Dec 7 at 3:35 AM

December 7, 2016: The 75th Anniversary of the Sneak Attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Forces of Japan, executed by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s strike plan “Z”, commenced at 7:48 AM Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighters, bomber, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but the USS Arizona (BB-39) were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight the Imperial Forces of Japan in the WWII. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. In addition 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. However, important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light; 29 aircraft and five midget submarines were lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.

In the wake of the attack, 15 Medal Of Honor, 51 Navy Crosses, 53 Silver Stars, 4 Navy and Marine Corps Medals, one Distinguished Flying Cross, four Distinguished Service Crosses, one Distinguished Service Medal, and three Bronze Star Medals were awarded to the American servicemen who distinguished themselves in combat at Pearl Harbor. Additionally, a special military award, the Pearl Harbor Commemorative medal was later authorized for all military veterans of the attack

Japan’s Prime Minister’s Will Visit Pearl Harbor Today

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would travel to Pearl Harbor today, to recognize the 75th Anniversary of Japan’s attack on the home port of the, US Navy’s Pacific Fleet. Prime Minister Abe is the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor to “pay tribute [and] comfort the souls” of those who died from both countries during World War II. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor “awoke a sleeping giant”. The attack was labeled “A Day of Infamy” by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the next 3 years, 7 months, and 25 days, the US Armed Forces and their Allies in the Pacific Theatre, defeated the Imperial Forces of Japan. On September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur, USMA ’03, USA, representing the Combined Allied Forces, accepted the “Unconditional Surrender” of the Imperial Forces of Japan aboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay.

Pearl Harbor – 75 years on

In the below listed Op Ed, by Admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. USNA ’52, USN (Ret), who was the Commander–in-Chief, of the US Pacific Fleet, and the Senior US Military Representative to the United Nations, exposes the US military personnel who were responsible for failing to alert Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, and Lt. General Walter Short, who was responsible for the defense of Hawaii, of the pending attack by Japan, were accused of dereliction of duty following the attack. Admiral Kimmel was reduced in rank to Rear Admiral, and retired from the US Navy. Lt General Short was reduced in rank to Major General and retired from the US Army. Admiral Lyons recommends in the below listed Op Ed that Rear Admiral Kimmel and Major General Short have their honor, reputations, and ranks restored by Congress.

Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62

Capt USN(Ret)/Former FBI

Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC

2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184

San Diego, CA 92108

http://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org

https://www.facebook.com/combatveteransforcongress?ref=hl

Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8

From: James A. Lyons, Jr
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 6:27 AM
To: Joseph R. John
Subject: Op-Ed – Pearl Harbor – 75 years on

My latest op-ed published in the Washington Times.

As an aside, it made the cover of the National Enquirer.

All The Best
Ace

James A. Lyons, Jr.
Admiral, USN (Ret)

Pearl Harbor, 75 years on

Remembering the grim day and an ongoing injustice

By James A. Lyons – – Sunday, December 4, 2016

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The 75th anniversary of the Imperial Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will soon be remembered again as a “Day of Infamy.” On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched over 353 aircraft from six carriers, flawlessly executing Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto’s strike plan “Z” and succeeded in crippling the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

How could the commanders in Hawaii be so unprepared when in Washington both the Army and Navy intelligence organizations had broken key Japanese diplomatic codes, including the high level “Purple” code in which Japan was conducting its peace negotiations with the United States? Whether the Japanese naval code “JN-25” was broken prior to the attack remains unknown.

In their new book, “A Matter of Honor,” by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, the authors provide information never before revealed. The authors make the case for restoring the personal reputation, honor and ranks of the two Pearl Harbor commanders who were unjustly made the scapegoats.

The second new book, “Into the Lion’s Mouth” by Larry Loftis, discusses the most successful British double agent, “Dusko Popov,” the real life inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond and Popov’s relationship to Pearl Harbor. In short, the Japanese were fascinated by the British surprise airstrike at Taranto, which destroyed the Italian Fleet primarily by dropping torpedoes in relatively shallow water. They prepared questions and passed them to Germany who in turn gave them to Popov. He turned them over to the FBI on his arrival in New York in August 1941. The U.K. raid on Taranto became the blueprint for the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Mr. Loftis contends that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, never turned over the questions to the military or to the president. Former CIA Director William Casey made the same charges in 1988 and blamed Hoover for failing to share the information with the military. However, according to Mr. Summers and Ms. Swan, Hoover did turn over paraphrased versions of the question to military intelligence who failed to recognize the significance of this information.

Of the eight official inquiries, the most biased conducted was by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts shortly following the attack. Neither Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, or Lt. Gen. Walter Short, who was responsible for the defense of Hawaii, received any information from the decrypted codes which would have alerted them to the Japanese fleet’s intentions. Yet the Roberts commission declared Adm. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Short derelict in carrying their duties and held them solely responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster. None of the 10 Washington officials authorized to receive the decrypted information was held accountable. Cover up?

The Washington officials authorized to receive the decrypted “Purple” intelligence, referred to as “Magic,” included the Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall; Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark; Chief of Navy War Plans RADM Richmond K. Turner; Brig. Gen. Gerow; head of Army War Plans; heads of both Army and Navy Intelligence, Secretary of War (Army) Stimson; Secretary of Navy Knox; the president and the Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

The president only saw brief summaries of “Magic” decoded information and at times only received verbal briefings. Further, Marshall and Stark at one point denied the president and secretary of State any “Magic” information for four months because they didn’t trust people around them. Of course, one person who did see Magic was Winston Churchill. The U.S. provided three “Purple” machines to the U.K. to facilitate their breaking of the code. Another machine went to the U.S. Army and two went to the Navy. Interesting, one “Purple” machine was sent to the naval station CAST at Cavite in the Philippines for use by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Adm. Harold Hart. Astonishingly, none were provided to the Hawaii Commanders Adm. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Short. What use MacArthur made of the Purple intelligence is unknown. Further, he was unprepared for the Japanese attack that destroyed our FAREAST Air Force at Clark AFB nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was never held accountable.

One other aspect that is seldom mentioned is that the Dutch Army cryptanalysts had also broken the Japanese diplomatic code “Purple.” According to Brig. Gen. Elliot Thorpe, USA (ret.) when he was the army attaché in Java, Gen. Tec Pooten, CINC of Far East Dutch Army, provided him a decrypted message from Tokyo to the Japanese Ambassador in Bangkok which told of the upcoming attack on Hawaii, Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. After sending four messages about the upcoming attack, Thorpe as he recalled was directed by our War Department to send “no more on this subject.”

“Magic” decrypted information held a wealth of information. There was the “bomb plot” grid message #83 of Sept. 24, 1941, which divided the fleet anchorages in Pearl Harbor into bombing sectors. We also had the Nov. 30, 1941 message to designated Japanese Embassies to destroy their codes, files, etc. Washington cleared officials also had the 14-part message on Dec. 6 1941, the Japanese response to the secretary of State’s Nov. 26 ultimatum, ceasing all negotiations to which President Roosevelt remarked, “This means war.” Yet none of this critical intelligence was passed to the Hawaii Commanders. As an aside, Churchill was getting much of this information as well. We do know it was his goal to involve “isolationist” America in the war.

The three principals that should have been held accountable were Gen. Marshall, Adm. Stark and Adm. Turner, who assumed responsibility for distributing the decrypted information for the Navy. It clearly is time for Adm. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Short to have their honor, reputations and ranks restored. It is a matter of honor for the Navy, Army, and country to correct this terrible injustice.

• James A. Lyons, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.

[Personal note on this: for over 40 years I have been a proponent of the position that FDR withheld information for the purposes of involving the U.S.A. in the war and to get himself out of the Great Depression. The first purpose is self-evident. However, few know that FDR kept the U.S. in the depression for longer than necessary by, among several wrongful acts, allowing the dollar to become the global currency, and by fixing the dollar to gold during this economic crisis instead of letting it float. By 1938, most of Europe was out of the depression as they prepared for war. FDR did not. Instead, this stalwart liberal insisted on domestic policies that included the National Recovery Act, unconstitutional on its face, called the Negro Ruination Act by integrationists. The NRA permitted businesses to fire colored employees before firing white employees, just one of many discriminatory and crony features. JPB]

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December 1, 2016

All Hands FYI Armed Islamic Groups training in the U.S.A.

Filed under: Anti-American Politicians, Global Intel, gun control, Historical context, Illegal Aliens, Iran, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama Foreign Policy, Political Commentary, Religion, self-defense, Treason, Valerie Jarrett — Tags: 2nd Amendment, Christianity, constitutional law, democrats, Freedom, Government, History, Islam, Lamestream Media, liberty, Media Watch, Obama, Pakistan, pelosi, Secession, Socialism, tea party, us constitution — justplainbill @ 5:12 pm

FYI:

I’ve looked, it is true and verified by Stuart Varney of Varn&y Co., the most watched business news show on cable.

http://www.fuqrafiles.com

Be advised of the Islamaburg NYS compound and remember what happened with Bill Clinton’s AG, Janet Reno, and Ruby Ridge in Waco TX.

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November 30, 2016

Two new points on cultural change (30-11-16)

Filed under: gun control, handguns, Historical context, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Political Commentary, Racism, Religion — Tags: 2nd Amendment, Christianity, civil rights, Dearborn, federal government, History, Islamaburg, Secession, tea party — justplainbill @ 4:41 pm

Two things to review. See what you can learn about Islamaburg New York State, and review this video on Dearbon MI

From John, with thanks.

> This is the FUTURE,
> accept it, or disbelieve, (and hide
> in the closet). YOUR CHOICE!
> Near Chicago, here
> is Bridgeview,
> Illinois. You’ll be concerned!
> https://safeshare.tv/x/w5oLoW9jZJc#v
>
>

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November 10, 2016

Honor

Filed under: Education, Elections, Historical context, Military, Political Commentary, US Marine Corps, US Marine Corps. Patriots — Tags: 2nd Amendment, civil rights, constitution — justplainbill @ 3:57 pm

Honor, get some tissues. I did a bunch of these when I was stationed at Camp LeJeune. I won’t compare to the gits rioting against the election.

http://tinyurl.com/zom68at

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241 Years of Protecting Our Rights ooo Rah!

Filed under: Historical context, US Marine Corps — justplainbill @ 2:06 pm

Happy 241

Birthday cake ceremony:

Tweets by USMarineCorps

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October 24, 2016

A Question on American History

Filed under: Anti-American Politicians, Education, Elections, Historical context, Political Commentary — Tags: civil rights, democrats, federal government, Government, hillary clinton, History, liberty, Politics, Secession, tea party, us constitution, Welfare — justplainbill @ 3:15 pm

Hillary Clinton keeps talking that all U.S. transfers of government have been peaceful.

Am I the only person who has ever heard of The American Civil War or aka The War of 1861 or did all of those teachers lie to me and Lincoln not assassinated????

I’m just sayin’.

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