Gun Control

Perspective on the Barr memorandum.

From Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro professor of public Interest law at George Washington University and a practicing criminal defense attorney.

After reading JT's column, you will appreciate how disingenuous or uninformed are those who claim that Barr's memorandum disqualifies him from being the Attorney General.  In the case of politicians, "disingenuous" is the most likely.

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The Senate confirmation of William Barr to become attorney general should be an easy matter, even in Washington. After all, he previously held the position with distinction.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government may be the only employer where prior experience and prior insights are a liability. The fact that Barr is a brilliant lawyer and previously served as President George H.W. Bush’s attorney general from 1991 to 1993 seems to count for little.

Opponents of President Trump’s nomination of Barr to become attorney general are seizing on a memo Barr sent June 8 to Justice Department officials.

In the memo, Barr expresses his opinion on some legal aspects of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. The president has repeatedly said “there was no collusion.”

Specifically, Barr’s memo discusses allegations that President Trump may have obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey to stop an investigation of Trump-Russia cooperation to help Trump win the presidential election.

Barr’s memo went to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel. The memo identifies what Barr thought was a potentially serious flaw in the use of the most likely federal provision on obstruction of justice that could be used to accuse President Trump of obstructing the Russia probe.

If there was an essay requirement on the job application to become attorney general, Barr’s memo would get him the position. The 19-page single-spaced memo is an extraordinary and insightful analysis of a little-explored part of our criminal code.

Instead, Barr’s willingness to share his views with top Justice Department officials is now being portrayed by opponents of his nomination as somehow disqualifying or a conflict of interest that should prevent him from becoming attorney general again.

“Mr. Barr’s memo reveals that he is fatally conflicted from being able to oversee the Special Counsel’s investigation and he should not be nominated to be attorney general,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “Mr. Barr believes presidents in general – and more frighteningly, President Trump, who has shown less respect for the rule of law than any president – are above the law.”

Critics are correct about one thing. Everyone should read the memo, first reported by The Wall Street Journal. However, far from being a disqualifying factor, the memo is precisely why Barr should be confirmed.The memo is dispassionate, detailed and insightful. It shows precisely why Barr is widely viewed as a lawyer’s lawyer. Barr thrives on the intricacies of the law. There is nothing casual in legal analysis for Barr, which is anchored to the express language and authority for a given act.

The memo concerns a problem that some of us raised back in 2017 about obstruction allegations concerning President Trump’s firing of Comey as FBI director.

At the time, there was no relevant formal proceeding or grand jury for Trump to obstruct. Mueller would need to allege that Trump’s firing of Comey was designed to obstruct an anticipated proceeding – a very difficult case to make in the best of cases.

Yet President Trump has (at least so far) not been accused of destroying or tampering with evidence – making a case of obstruction against him virtually unprecedented under the law.

The law against obstruction would have to be stretched as it never has been before to show that the president tried to “obstruct, influence or impede” a legal proceeding that had not even begun at the time.

Some of us have noted that there were ample and independent reasons for firing Comey, who was widely denounced by former and current Justice Department officials. Comey came under fire for violating core policies and protocols of the Justice Department regarding the FBI investigation of the scandal surrounding the emails of Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

After being fired by President Trump, Comey became the best witness against himself. He admitted to removing FBI memos and having a friend leak the contents to the media. He recently admitted to ignoring Justice Department protocols in sending agents to the office of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn without informing either then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates or then-White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Barr, however, focused on another problem involving allegations of obstruction of justice against President Trump. Mueller wants to use the obstruction provision to demand an interview with Trump to learn the president’s “state of mind” when he fired Comey.

Barr questions the statutory basis for Mueller’s theory that the president may have obstructed justice by firing Comey. Barr warns in his memo that the Mueller theory could establish an “unbounded interpretation” where any action influencing a future proceeding could be treated as a potential crime.

In addition, Barr addresses how the Mueller theory would influence future prosecutions for obstruction of justice against executive branch officials – not just President Trump.

If the Mueller theory of obstruction is upheld, Barr argues, it would allow for interrogations of executive branch officials on their motivations in exercising a broad range of discretionary powers.

Barr’s critics ignore that he does not criticize the Mueller investigation as a whole, and ignore this important statement from Barr early in his memo:

“Obviously, the President and any other official can commit obstruction in this classic sense of sabotaging a proceeding’s truth-finding function,” Barr states in the memo. “Thus, for example, if a President knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction.”

Barr’s memo continues: “Indeed, the acts of obstruction alleged against Presidents Nixon and Clinton in their respective impeachments were all such ‘bad acts’ involving the impairment of evidence. Enforcing these laws against the President in no way infringes on the President’s plenary power over law enforcement because exercising this discretion – such as his complete authority to start or stop a law enforcement proceeding – does not involve commission of any of these inherently wrongful, subversive acts.”

With the above comments, Barr’s memo advances a strong and compelling argument in favor of charging presidents for conduct in office, including the misuse of official powers to destroy evidence or tamper with witnesses.

To say that the Barr memo gives presidents a blank check to do as they please and supports the view that “presidents in general … are above the law,” as Schumer claimed, is a gross mischaracterization of Barr’s memo.

One can disagree with aspects of Barr’s analysis, as I do. I believe that a court could legitimately uphold a subpoena to compel Trump to testify on obstruction.

However, Barr impressively marshals dozens of court decisions, statutory provisions, and Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinions to lay out the problem with Mueller’s interpretation of the law regarding obstruction of justice.

More importantly, the Barr memo does not suggest that Barr would interfere with Mueller’s investigation.

First, if the legal issue of Comey’s firing was raised on the extension of the obstruction provision, it would not be unilaterally answered by Barr but addressed by a wide circle of experts, including Rosenstein, the Office of Legal Counsel and even the Justice Department’s solicitor general.

Just because an attorney general may be skeptical of an interpretation does not mean that the Justice Department will not advance that interpretation, particularly if made by a special counsel.

Mueller, however, will have to make the case that he is making a defensible and reasonable interpretation of the obstruction of justice statute. All prosecutors must make such cases on novel interpretations and show that they are consistent with other positions taken by the Justice Department.

Second, the problems associated with the obstruction theory on Comey’s firing are shared by a wide range of experts. Mueller is unlikely to peg a prosecution of Trump on such an anemic and untested theory.

Finally, on a practical level, there is every indication that the Mueller investigation is wrapping up. Barr might have a role in deciding what to do with the report or reports issued by the special counsel, but it is extremely unlikely that he would have a material impact on Mueller’s obstruction investigation.

Barr is first and foremost an institutionalist. He is the least likely person to shut down the Mueller investigation unilaterally.

What is clear from Barr’s memo is that his primary concern is for the Justice Department, not for President Trump. Barr clearly acknowledges that the president could be charged on a variety of other grounds if supported by evidence.

Barr warns that “in an increasingly partisan environment, these concerns are by no means trivial. For decades, the (Justice) Department has been routinely attacked both for its failure to pursue certain matters and for its decisions to move forward on others.”

In other words, particularly in an age of rage, a crime without limiting principles can easily envelop of the Justice Department and the government as a whole. It is the type of problem that would not concern a partisan, but does concern an attorney general. That is what Barr was and – if there is any sense left in Washington – that is what he will be again in 2019.

FDA Policies Kill

Here is a column by Walter Williams at townhall.com.

WW is on target.

Government health policies are bound to be biased toward no damage at the expense of poorer health.

Government should not be determining what medical treatment you get - you should.

Government should ensure that available information about medical treatments, or the lack thereof, is provided to you.

WW's last paragraph is telling.
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Among the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's responsibilities are approval and regulation of pharmaceutical drugs. In short, its responsibility is to ensure the safety and effectiveness of drugs. In the performance of this task, FDA officials can make two types of errors -- statistically known as the type I error and type II error. With respect to the FDA, a type I error is the rejection or delayed approval of a drug that is safe and effective -- erring on the side of over-caution -- and a type II error is the approval of a drug that has unanticipated dangerous side effects, or erring on the side of under-caution.

Let's examine the incentives of FDA officials. If FDA officials err on the side of under-caution and approve a drug that has unanticipated dangerous side effects, the victims of their mistake will be highly visible. There may be congressional hearings, embarrassment to the agency and officials fired.

It's an entirely different story if FDA officials err on the side of over-caution and either disapprove or delay the approval of a drug that is both safe and effective. In that case, the victims will be invisible. They will have no idea that their suffering could have been eliminated, or in the case of death, their loved ones will have no idea why they died. Their suffering and/or death will be chalked up to the state of medicine rather than the status of an FDA drug application. Their doctor will simply tell them there's nothing more that can be done to help them. The FDA officials go scot-free.

Let's look at some of the history of the FDA's erring on the side of over-caution. Beta blockers reduce the risk of secondary heart attacks and were widely used in Europe during the mid-1970s. The FDA imposed a moratorium on approvals of beta blockers in the U.S. because of their carcinogenicity in animals. Finally, in 1981, the FDA approved the first such drug, boasting that it might save up to 17,000 lives per year. That means that as many as 100,000 people died from secondary heart attacks waiting for FDA approval. (http://tinyurl.com/ydxpvd54). Those people are in the "invisible graveyard," a term to describe people who would have lived but died because the cure that could have saved them was bottled up in the FDA's regulatory process.

Today, the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute is leading the battle to bring some sanity and compassion to the drug approval process. It recently published a paper by Mark Flatten, titled "Studied to Death: FDA Overcaution Brings Deadly Consequences." Flatten examined the FDA's approval process and made some important recommendations. Flatten criticized some FDA practices, saying, "Instead of having to prove a new treatment is safe for its intended use, the FDA now reviews drugs based on how they might be used by doctors to treat individual patients, effectively substituting the judgment of agency regulators for that of practicing medical professionals." He added: "Instead of proving a drug achieves the medically beneficial results that its makers claim, the FDA requires proof the new treatment will improve long-term outcomes. So it is no longer enough, for instance, to prove a new drug will reduce blood glucose levels for diabetics. Drugmakers must show, somehow, that this will make patients live longer."

One Goldwater Institute suggestion is to allow drugs approved in certain other countries, such as Canada and the European Union, to receive nearly automatic U.S. approval. After all, those countries have drug regulatory structures similar to that in the U.S. Why should treatments approved in those countries not be available here?

The Goldwater Institute is also calling for a bill to restore free speech in medicine. It thinks Congress should allow drug manufacturers to provide information about "off-label use." This is a common practice in which doctors prescribe FDA-approved drugs to treat conditions other than those the FDA originally approved them for after new beneficial uses arise.

Strong evidence of FDA over-caution bias comes in the 1974 words of then-FDA Commissioner Alexander M. Schmidt: "In all of FDA's history, I am unable to find a single instance where a congressional committee investigated the failure of FDA to approve a new drug."

Freedom takes another hit

Here is a column from Jonathan Turley's blog.

Too many people fail to appreciate the nature of freedom.  They may once the current trend of reducing it goes far enough.  By then, it may be too late.

What is clear is that the United States is no longer free.
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I have been critical of the widening charges of cultural appropriation and microaggressions on our campuses as statements and even programs are targeted with little resistance from faculty or administrators. We previously discussed how yoga classes were denounced in Ottawa as cultural appropriation. Now American University in Washington has become embroiled in the same charge after a single student objected to white individuals performing an Indian epic as part of university’s Bhakti yoga group. American University student Maya Krishnan seems to believe that the school should limit performances on the basis of race and national origin — and that objection appears to have succeeded with the dissolution of the group as well as the resignation of the group’s faculty adviser, student president and vice president.

Krishnan filed a complaint with the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion on white people daring to perform an Indian epic. She then wrote an op-ed in the student paper, The Eagle on the performance of “The Ramayana,” by American University’s Bhakti Yoga Club. She complained that “Having my culture represented by an almost entirely white troupe of dancers is incredibly frustrating.” While that frustration would seem discriminatory on the basis of race and national origin, Krishnan was somehow excused by declaring it’s all cultural appropriation. Indeed, Krishnan simply rejects the notion that such groups are celebrating her cultural: “Additionally, the director and other representatives of the theater company absolve themselves of cultural responsibility by saying that the point of the show is to increase exposure of Hinduism and its traditions.”

The Bhakti Yoga Club had invited Viva Kultura, a multinational performing arts group, to perform”The Ramayana.” However, Krishnan could not see beyond the race and national origin of the performers. Indeed, it did not matter to her if the epic was performed perfectly because the performers were the wrong race. Indeed even converting to the religion seemed to be an effort to rob Krishnan of her “intersectional experience’:

The sponsors of this show and the artists acted as if their actions were acceptable because they have converted to the Hare Krishna sect of Hinduism. The reality of this is that white European dancers will never know my intersectional experience as a Hindu woman, being a brown bodied person and the other aspects of systematic racism that I, as well as other South Asian people, have experienced. These people will never know my experience and will never have to think about knowing it. To place their narrative over mine and other people who practice Hinduism is a disservice.

Instead of defending (and encouraging) the right of all students and faculty to immerse and participate in such performances, American University was largely silent as the race of its students and faculty was used in this fashion.

Ironically, we discussed not long ago how the show “Hamilton” has refused to audition white performers despite anti-discrimination laws. Of course the original figures were white but the performance has been confined to minority performers. That was generally accepted as artistic license. Moreover, there is a common practice now in rejecting race as limiting actors like confining Shakespeare plays to white performers.

This brings us back to American and the perception that students are limited by race or national origin by what they can experience and perform. The school should expressly support students and clubs that reject limitation based on such criteria.

Jonathan Turley puts Comey in Perspective

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.  He is not a Conservative.

Here is his column from his blog.

The message is twofold.  First, Comey lacks a moral center.  Second, so do those that approve of his behavior.

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“I probably wouldn’t have … gotten away with it.” Those words this week from former FBI Director James Comey could well be chiseled in marble as his epitaph. He was explaining another violation of bureau policy during his tenure days after meeting behind closed doors with House members.

What was shocking was not that Comey violated protocols or policies again but the reaction of the audience to his admission. In describing how he set up a critical meeting with Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Trump, the audience was audibly thrilled by his cleverness in keeping Flynn unrepresented by legal counsel and unaware of the true nature of the meeting. Scheduled to testify to House members again next week, Comey may find a less rapturous reception in Congress.

In his interview in New York City, Nicole Wallace asked him, “It’s hard to imagine two FBI agents ending up in the State Room. How did that happen?” The audience erupted when Comey said dryly, “I sent them. Something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration. In the George W. Bush administration … or the Obama administration, two men that all of us, perhaps, have increased appreciation for over the last two years. In both of those administrations there was process.” He revealed, “So if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel and there would be discussions and approvals and it would be there. I thought, ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple of guys over.’”

Just send a couple of guys over. One line could not more aptly capture Comey and his own professed view of “ethical leadership.” The interview confirmed what some of us have written about Comey for more than two years. The media consistently reinforced his image as a rules driven and principled public servant, often referring to him as an almost naive Eagle Scout. The Washington Post even ran the headline, “Boy Scout James Comey is no match for Donald Trump.” Yet, the history of Comey shows both an overriding interest in his own actions as well as a willingness to violate rules to achieve that interest. But his comments, including a call to the public to defeat Trump in a “landslide” in the next election, have stripped away any remaining pretense. The fact is, there often was more pretense than principle in his final years as director.

Consider his conduct during the 2016 presidential election, leading up to his controversial press conference and public announcements, which were widely condemned by both Republicans and Democrats. As here, Comey failed to inform the Justice Department or the attorney general of his intended action. In doing so, he was far outside the clear policies and protocols. Indeed, the first public act of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was to issue a memo excoriating Comey for his “serious mistakes” and citing former federal judges, attorneys general, and leading prosecutors who believed that Comey “violated longstanding Justice Department policies and tradition” along with “his obligation to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the traditions of the department and the FBI.” Rosenstein further added that Comey “refused to admit his errors.”

Then there was Comey’s response to being fired. He removed memos on his meetings with President Trump related to the Russia investigation, then leaked those to the media. The Justice Department rejected Comey’s claims that these were his memos, not FBI material. Some of the material was classified. He violated core FBI rules in removing the memos, and the man tasked to find leakers became a leaker as soon as it suited his own interests. He also undermined the investigation by revealing to Trump and others that the memos existed, information that investigators likely preferred to remain secret before they conducted key interviews.

Then Comey published a book, a sharp departure from prior directors, that discussed the ongoing Russia investigation. He did not pause before rushing it to the shelves, revealing details of the investigation and various meetings while making a fortune for himself. Now Comey has again admitted to violating rules and protocols, by setting up Flynn. Ironically, Comey criticized Trump for breaking protocols in meeting with him alone and asking about an ongoing investigation. He was right in that criticism because there is a formal process for communications between the FBI and the White House. Yet, the same protocols go the other way. If the FBI seeks to interview White House officials in an investigation, they go through the Justice Department, which communicates with White House counsel to arrange the interview. He evaded both in ordering the move.

What was Comey’s justification? Because he could. He refers to the “process” of other administrations. That process, however, was still in place and did not change. Moreover, he noted that he thought he could get away with it because this was “early” in the administration. That is not principle. It is opportunism. He was supposed to work through the Justice Department and not simply follow the rules only if he might be caught breaking them. Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates is cited in some recently released FBI material as being irate over his decision.

There is a reason for the policy of conferring with counsel. It protects not just the individual but the institution. It prevents rogue or impulsive actions and maintains a clear chain of command within the Justice Department. It is part of the internal rules in how the components of the executive branch function and communicate with each other to preserve both independence and proper review. It is part of the very delicate relationship that Comey accused Trump of violating. There was nothing noble in Comey seeking to reduce the chance that Flynn might have legal counsel. Those same liberals applauding him wildly would presumably be appalled if a police detective proudly described how he prevented a criminal suspect from speaking to a lawyer simply because he could.

Flynn ultimately bears responsibility for any false statements. As special counsel Robert Mueller noted in a court filing, he should have known better, and we should not forget that Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to lying. However, that does not mean the circumstances or the conduct of FBI officials are irrelevant. The agents, including Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, who were both later fired by the FBI for their actions in this investigation, admitted that they discussed warning Flynn about criminal liability for false statements. They warned other witnesses, like former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. Yet, they not only omitted that warning with Flynn but did not raise a conflict in his denying that sanctions were discussed with Russian diplomats. They also encouraged Flynn not to bring a lawyer or to inform the White House counsel. Instead, they arranged a meeting just hours after a telephone call with McCabe.

Ultimately, the agents recounted that they did not believe Flynn deliberately lied at the time. Moreover, Flynn told McCabe that he assumed McCabe had read the full transcript of his conversation with the Russian ambassador, an apparent reference to his knowledge that Russian embassy phones were tapped. The comment further raises the question of why Flynn would lie about discussing sanctions if he recalled the discussion and knew of the wiretap. Yet, Comey seemed to delight the audience by taking credit for keeping Flynn in the dark about the FBI interview. When Wallace asked what Flynn thought the FBI agents wanted, Comey replied, “I don’t think he knew. I know we didn’t tell him.” Actually, Comey didn’t tell anyone. Not the White House counsel, not the acting attorney general, not the Justice Department. He “just sent a couple of guys over” to the White House because he could “get away with it.”

A convincing climate change theory

Henrik Svensmark explains his work on climate change.

The LINK.

My impression is that you don't hear about Svensmark's work because it implies less importance for the kinds of climate change assessments you do hear about.

This video should convince you that climate change as bandied about in the media is not "settled science" and that those who throw out the term "climate denier" are really the ones who are denying the likely validity of other explanations.

My view is that those who use the term "climate denier" or "settled science" are not credible.

Miseducated or Stupid?

Walter Williams gets it right at Townhall.

As to miseducated or stupid - if it is only the former, facts and logic should prevail.  They seldom seem to.
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A recent Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation survey found that 51 percent of American millennials would rather live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist country. Only 42 percent prefer the latter. Twenty-five percent of millennials who know who Vladimir Lenin was view him favorably. Lenin was the first premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Half of millennials have never heard of Communist Mao Zedong, who ruled China from 1949 to 1959 and was responsible for the deaths of 45 million Chinese people.

The number of people who died at the hands of Josef Stalin may be as high as 62 million. However, almost one-third of millennials think former President George W. Bush is responsible for more killings than Stalin. By the way, Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was responsible for the deaths of about 20 million people. The Nazis come in as a poor third in terms of history's most prolific mass murderers. According to professor Rudolph Rummel's research, the 20th century, mankind's most brutal century, saw 262 million people's lives destroyed at the hands of their own governments (http://tinyurl.com/lu8z8ab).

Young people who weren't alive during World War II and its Cold War aftermath might be forgiven for not knowing the horrors of socialism. Some of their beliefs represent their having been indoctrinated by their K-12 teachers and college professors. There was such leftist hate for former President George W. Bush that it's not out of the question that those 32 percent of millennials were taught by their teachers and professors that Bush murdered more people than Stalin.

America's communists, socialists and Marxists have little knowledge of socialist history. Bradley Birzer, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, explains this in an article for The American Conservative titled "Socialists and Fascists Have Always Been Kissing Cousins." Joseph Goebbels wrote in 1925, "It would be better for us to end our existence under Bolshevism than to endure slavery under capitalism." This Nazi sentiment might be shared by Sen. Bernie Sanders and his comrade Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Goebbels added, "I think it is terrible that we and the Communists are bashing in each other's heads."

When the tragedies of socialist regimes -- such as those in Venezuela, the USSR, China, Cuba and many others -- are pointed out to America's leftists, they hold up Sweden as their socialist role model. But they are absolutely wrong about Sweden. Johan Norberg points this out in his documentary "Sweden: Lessons for America?" Americans might be surprised to learn that Sweden's experiment with socialism was a relatively brief flirtation, lasting about 20 years and ending in disillusionment and reform. Reason magazine reports: "Sweden began rolling back government in the early 1990s, recapturing the entrepreneurial spirit that made it a wealthy country to begin with. High taxation and a generous array of government benefits are still around. But now it's also a nation of school vouchers, free trade, open immigration, light business regulation, and no minimum wage laws." School vouchers, light business regulation and no minimum wage laws are practices deeply offensive to America's leftists.

Our young people are not the first Americans to admire tyrants and cutthroats. W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the National Guardian in 1953, said, "Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature." Walter Duranty called Stalin "the greatest living statesman" and "a quiet, unobtrusive man." There was even leftist admiration for Hitler and fellow fascist Benito Mussolini. When Hitler came to power in January 1933, George Bernard Shaw described him as "a very remarkable man, a very able man." President Franklin Roosevelt called Mussolini "admirable," and he was "deeply impressed by what he (had) accomplished." In 1972, John Kenneth Galbraith visited Communist China and praised Mao and the Chinese economic system. His Harvard University colleague John K. Fairbank believed that America could learn much from the Cultural Revolution, saying, "Americans may find in China's collective life today an ingredient of personal moral concern for one's neighbor that has a lesson for us all."

Are Americans who admire the world's most brutal regimes miseducated or stupid? Or do they have some kind of devious agenda?

Climate change Is not settled science - at least not the popular models

Here is a link to a video where Henrik Svensmark presents research results for his Climate Model.

HS's theory incorporates the effect of solar activity and cosmic rays.  It looks plausible and, if true, would be the dominant effect on climate change.  Moreover, it does not imply the disastrous climate future that the so called "settled climate science" implies.

I think that there is a good chance that HS is closer to the truth than the "settled science" crowd.  In any case, those who believe climate change, as popularly portrayed, is settled science and throw about terms like "climate change deniers" in an attempt to discredit people like HS strike me as anti-science - I interpret their attitude and behavior as providing evidence for concluding that they are not credible.

Brain-computer interface enables people with paralysis to control tablet devices

From Science Daily.
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Tablets and other mobile computing devices are part of everyday life, but using them can be difficult for people with paralysis. New research from the BrainGate* consortium shows that a brain-computer interface (BCI) can enable people with paralysis to directly operate an off-the-shelf tablet device just by thinking about making cursor movements and clicks.

In a study published November 21 in PLOS ONE, three clinical trial participants with tetraplegia, each of whom was using the investigational BrainGate BCI that records neural activity directly from a small sensor placed in the motor cortex, were able to navigate through commonly used tablet programs, including email, chat, music-streaming and video-sharing apps. The participants messaged with family, friends, members of the research team and their fellow participants. They surfed the web, checked the weather and shopped online. One participant, a musician, played a snippet of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" on a digital piano interface.

"For years, the BrainGate collaboration has been working to develop the neuroscience and neuroengineering know-how to enable people who have lost motor abilities to control external devices just by thinking about the movement of their own arm or hand," said Dr. Jaimie Henderson, a senior author of the paper and a Stanford University neurosurgeon. "In this study, we've harnessed that know-how to restore people's ability to control the exact same everyday technologies they were using before the onset of their illnesses. It was wonderful to see the participants express themselves or just find a song they want to hear."

The investigational BrainGate BCI includes a baby aspirin-sized implant that detects the signals associated with intended movements produced in the brain's motor cortex. Those signals are then decoded and routed to external devices. BrainGate researchers and other groups using similar technologies have shown that the device can enable people to move robotic arms or to regain control of their own limbs, despite having lost motor abilities from illness or injury. This study from the collaboration includes scientists, engineers and physicians from Brown University's Carney Institute for Brain Science, the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Stanford University.

Two of the participants in this latest study had weakness or loss of movement of their arms and legs due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive disease affecting the nerves in the brain and spine that control movement. The third participant was paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury. All were enrolled in a clinical trial aimed at assessing the safety and feasibility of the investigational BrainGate system.

For this study, neural signals from the BrainGate BCI were routed to a Bluetooth interface configured to work like a wireless mouse. The virtual mouse was then paired to an unmodified Google Nexus 9 tablet. The participants were then asked to perform a set of tasks designed to see how well they were able to navigate within a variety of commonly used apps, and move from app to app. The participants browsed through music selections on a streaming service, searched for videos on YouTube, scrolled through a news aggregator and composed emails and chats.

The study showed that participants were able to make up to 22 point-and-click selections per minute while using a variety of apps. In text apps, the participants were able to type up to 30 effective characters per minute using standard email and text interfaces.

The participants reported finding the interface intuitive and fun to use, the study noted. One said, "It felt more natural than the times I remember using a mouse." Another reported having "more control over this than what I normally use."

The researchers were pleased to see how quickly the participants used the tablet interface to explore their hobbies and interests.

"It was great to see our participants make their way through the tasks we asked them to perform, but the most gratifying and fun part of the study was when they just did what they wanted to do -- using the apps that they liked for shopping, watching videos or just chatting with friends," said lead author Dr. Paul Nuyujukian, a bioengineer at Stanford. "One of the participants told us at the beginning of the trial that one of the things she really wanted to do was play music again. So to see her play on a digital keyboard was fantastic."

The fact that the tablet devices were entirely unaltered and had all preloaded accessibility software turned off was an important part of the study, the researchers said.

"The assistive technologies that are available today, while they're important and useful, are all inherently limited in terms of either the speed of use they enable, or the flexibility of the interface," said Krishna Shenoy, a senior author of the paper and an electrical engineer and neuroscientist at Stanford University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "That's largely because of the limited input signals that are available. With the richness of the input from the BCI, we were able to just buy two tablets on Amazon, turn on Bluetooth and the participants could use them with our investigational BrainGate system right out of the box."

The researchers say that the study also has the potential to open important new lines of communication between patients with severe neurological deficits and their health care providers.

"This has great potential for restoring reliable, rapid and rich communication for somebody with locked-in syndrome who is unable to speak," said Jose Albites Sanabria, who performed this research as a graduate student in biomedical engineering at Brown University. "That not only could provide increased interaction with their family and friends, but can provide a conduit for more thoroughly describing ongoing health issues with caregivers."

As a neuroscientist and practicing critical care neurologist, senior author Dr. Leigh Hochberg of Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Providence VA Medical Center sees tremendous potential for the restorative capabilities of BCIs exemplified in this study.

"When I see somebody in the neuro-intensive care unit who has had an acute stroke and has lost the ability to move or communicate, I'd like to be able to say, 'I'm very sorry this has happened, but we can restore your ability to use the technologies you were using before this happened, and you'll be able to use them again tomorrow,'" Hochberg said. "And we are getting closer to being able to tell someone who has been diagnosed with ALS, 'even while we continue to seek out a cure, you will never lose the ability to communicate.' This work is a step toward those goals."

Gun free zones invite mass shootings

John Lott's column in the Chicago Tribune.

JL is on target.

See JL's book "More Guns Less Crime" for the best discussion and summary of the research done on these topics.  The best statistical studies (many done by JL and his colleagues) implies that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns is associated with a material reduction in the violent crime rate, including murders.  It also shows that the vast majority of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones.

The anti-gun crowd advocates disallowing concealed carry and increasing the number of gun-free zones.  These actions are likely to increase mass shootings and increase the violent crime rate.

The anti-gun crowd also lies about JL and his research in an attempt to discredit him.
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This doesn’t happen anywhere else on the planet,” said California’s Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom. “We stand alone in the world in the number of mass shootings," echoed U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. These were typical comments after an alleged shooter murdered 12 people in Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

People have been acting for a long time like the United States is the world’s hotbed of mass public shootings. Following a 2015 mass shooting during his administration, President Barack Obama declared: “The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.”

This belief is constantly used to push for more gun control. If we can only get rid of guns in the United States, we will get rid of these mass public shootings and be more like the rest of the world, gun-control supporters preach.

But America doesn’t lead the world in mass public shootings. We’re not even close. Just last month, a school shooting in Crimea, Russia, claimed 20 lives and wounded 65 others. But Americans usually don’t hear about such events.

The Crime Prevention Research Center, of which I am president, recently finished updating a list of mass public shootings worldwide. These shootings must claim four or more lives in a public place. Following the FBI definition, the shootings we list are carried out simply with the intention of killing. We exclude gang fights because they tend to be motivated by battles for drug turf. Murders that arise from other crimes are also excluded.

Then there are politically motivated attacks, either by or against governments. Some shootings occur in the course of guerrilla wars for sovereignty. These attacks do not meet our definition. This meant excluding a lot of very deadly shootings such as those in the Russian-Chechen conflict. The Russian Beslan School siege of Sept. 1, 2004, left 385 dead and another 783 wounded. In a three-day siege of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow in 2002, 130 were killed and more than 450 were wounded.

Over the course of 18 years, from 1998 to 2015, our list contains 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside the United States and 53 attacks and 57 shooters within this country. By our count, the U.S. makes up 1.49 percent of the murders worldwide, 2.20 percent of the attacks, and less than 1.15 percent of the mass public shooters. All these are much less than America’s 4.6 percent share of the world population.

Of the 97 countries where we identified mass public shootings, the U.S. ranks 64th per capita in its rate of attacks and 65th in fatalities. Major European countries, such as Norway, Finland, France, Switzerland and Russia, all have at least 25 percent higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings.

While Americans are rightly concerned by the increased frequency and severity of mass public shootings, the rest of the world is experiencing much larger increases in per capita rates of attack. The frequency of foreign mass public shootings since 1998 has grown 291 percent faster than in the U.S.

The media bias on this is overwhelming. Even after President Donald Trump again raised the danger of gun-free zones, the news media still refuse to mention this fact in its reporting of mass shootings. The attack earlier this month at Borderline Bar & Grill occurred in a gun-free zone. Unlike in 39 states, concealed handgun permit holders in California are banned from carrying permitted concealed handguns into bars. The mass shooting Monday at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital & Medical Center in Bronzeville was at a place where law-abiding citizens were banned from having guns.

Most gunmen are smart enough to know that they can kill more people if they attack places where victims can’t defend themselves. That’s one reason why 98 percent of mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where citizens are banned from having guns.

The national media tend to ignore case after case of mass public shootings being stopped by armed private citizens. Just a couple of days before the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh a concealed handgun permit holder stopped an alleged killer who was shooting blacks at a Kroger grocery store in Louisville, Ky.

National media outlets such as ABC and NBC covered the attack, noting that the alleged gunman told another white man that: “Whites don’t kill whites.” It sounded as if the gunman was merely reassuring a bystander that he had nothing to worry about. But reporters left out the crucial first part of the quote. The killer said: “Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.” The other white person was pointing a permitted concealed handgun at the killer.

It is understandable that the media dosn´t cover most mass public shootings in other countries. But as much as it might not fit the media’s narrative, the U.S. is a relatively safe place from these shooting attacks. Still, we need to let people protect themselves and each other. We need to get rid of gun-free zones.

Fruits of college indoctrination

Walter Williams at townhall.com has it right.

Freedom of speech was a good idea - to bad it's gone.
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Much of today's incivility and contempt for personal liberty has its roots on college campuses, and most of the uncivil and contemptuous are people with college backgrounds. Let's look at a few highly publicized recent examples of incivility and attacks on free speech.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, were accosted and harassed by a deranged left-wing mob as they were leaving a dinner at Georgetown University. Sen. McConnell was harassed by protesters at Reagan National Airport, as well as at several venues in Kentucky. Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife were harassed at a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Afterward, a group called Smash Racism DC wrote: "No -- you can't eat in peace -- your politics are an attack on all of us. You're (sic) votes are a death wish. Your votes are hate crimes." Other members of Congress -- such as Andy Harris, Susan Collins and Rand Paul -- have been physically attacked or harassed by leftists. Most recent is the case of Fox News political commentator Tucker Carlson. A leftist group showed up at his house at night, damaging his front door and chanting, "Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!" "Racist scumbag, leave town!"

Mayhem against people with different points of view is excused as just deserts for what is seen as hate speech. Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray discovered this when he was shouted down at Middlebury College and the professor escorting him was sent to the hospital with injuries. Students at the University of California, Berkeley shut down a controversial speaker and caused riot damage estimated at $100,000. Protesters at both UCLA and Claremont McKenna College disrupted scheduled lectures by Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has discovered so-called bias response teams on hundreds of American college campuses. Bias response teams report to campus officials -- and sometimes to law enforcement officers -- speech that may cause "alarm, anger, or fear" or that might otherwise offend. Drawing pictures or cartoons that belittle people because of their beliefs or political affiliation can be reported as hate speech. Universities expressly set their sights on prohibiting constitutionally protected speech. As FIRE reported in 2017, hundreds of universities nationwide now maintain Orwellian systems that ask students to report -- often anonymously -- their neighbors, friends and professors for any instances of supposed biased speech and expression.

A recent Brookings Institution poll found that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. That's nonsense; it is. Fifty-one percent of college students think they have a right to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. Nineteen percent of students think that it's acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking. Over 50 percent agree that colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might offend certain people. One shouldn't be surprised at all if these visions are taught and held by many of their professors. Colleges once taught and promoted an understanding of Western culture. Today many professors and the college bureaucracy teach students that they're victims of Western culture and values.

Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech." Much later, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." From the Nazis to Stalinists to Maoists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, just as American leftists did during the 1960s. Their support for free speech is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. The right to say what they please is their tool for indoctrination, propagandizing and proselytization. Once the leftists gain control, as they have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses. Much of the off-campus incivility we see today is the fruit of what a college education has done to our youth.

Moral Bankruptcy

From Thomas Sowell in the Jewish World Review.

TS is on target.
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People who follow politics, even casually, learn not to expect high moral standards from politicians. But there are some outrages that show a new low, even for politicians.

Among the consequences of Democrats' recent election victories, especially at the state and local levels, is the election of officials who have publicly announced their opposition to charter schools, and their determination to restrict or roll back the growth of those schools.

What have the charter schools done to provoke such opposition?

Often located in low-income, minority neighborhoods, these schools have in many cases produced educational outcomes far better than the traditional public schools in such neighborhoods.

A Success Academy charter elementary school in Harlem had a higher proportion of the children in one of its classes pass the statewide math exam than in any other class at the same grade level, anywhere in the state of New York.

As a result of the charter schools' educational achievements, it is not uncommon for thousands of children to be on waiting lists to get into such schools — in New York City, tens of thousands.

This represents a huge opportunity for many low-income, minority youngsters who have very few other opportunities for a better life. But, to politicians dependent on teachers' unions for money and votes, charter schools are expendable.

In various communities around the country, charter schools are already being prevented from moving into empty school buildings, which would allow them to admit more children from waiting lists.

Denying these children what can be their one chance in life is a new low, even for politicians.

Political rhetoric can camouflage what is happening. But the arguments against charter schools are so phony that anyone with a decent education should be able to see right through them. Unfortunately, the very failure of many traditional public schools to provide a decent education enables their defenders to get away with arguments that could not survive any serious analysis.

Consider the incessantly repeated argument that charter schools are "taking money away from the public schools." Charter schools are themselves public schools, educating children who have a legal right to be educated with taxpayer money set aside for that purpose. When some fraction of children move from traditional public schools to charter schools, why should the same fraction of money not move with them?

What is the money for, if not to educate children? The amount of taxpayer money spent per child in charter schools is seldom, if ever, greater than the amount spent per child in traditional public schools. Often it is less.

Another argument used in attacking charter schools is that, despite particular charter schools with outstanding results, by and large charter school students' results on educational tests are no better than the results in traditional public schools. Even if we accept this claim, it leaves out one crucial fact.

White students and Asian students together constitute a majority of the students in traditional public schools. Black students and Hispanic students together constitute a majority of the students in charter schools.

On virtually all educational tests, black and Hispanic students score significantly lower than white and Asian students. If charter schools as a whole just produce educational results comparable to those in traditional public schools as a whole, that is a big improvement.

If you want to make a comparison of educational results with comparable students, you can look at results among children living in the same neighborhood, at the same grade levels — and with both charter school children and children in a traditional school being educated in the very same building.

Such comparisons in New York City showed, almost every time, a majority of the students in the traditional public school scoring in the bottom half in both math and English, while the percentage of charter school students scoring in the top half was some multiple of the percentage of other students scoring that high.

This is what the teachers' unions and the politicians want to put a stop to. Who will speak up for those children?

Economic myths

Here are some economic myths, courtesy of Armen Alchian and William Allen. Both taught economics at UCLA. The list is an excerpt from their book “Universal Economics”.

Try these on the “intellectuals” you run across to find out if they know what they are talking about.

•  Price controls prevent higher costs to consumers. 
•  Reducing unemployment necessarily requires creation of more jobs. 
• Larger incomes for some people require smaller incomes for others. 
• Free, or low, tuition reduces costs to students. 
• All unemployment must be wasteful. 
• Stockbrokers and investment advisors predict better than the alternatives of throwing a dart at a list of stocks or the use of horoscopes. 
• Taxes are borne entirely by consumers of taxed items. 
• Employers pay for “employer-provided insurance”. 
• Minimum wage legislation helps the unskilled and minorities. 
• Housing developers drive up the price of land. 
• Foreign imports reduce the total of domestic jobs. 
• “Equal pay for equal work” laws aid women, minorities, and the young. 
• Economic efficiency is a matter only of technology and engineering. 
• Agricultural and other surpluses stem from productivity outrunning demand. 
• Capitalism requires a social “harmony of interests” – but also capitalism is the source of competitiveness and conflict. 
• Property rights commonly conflict with human rights. 
• Business people are self-centered and rapacious, while government people are self-sacrificing and altruistic. 
• Labor unions protect the natural brotherhood and collective well-being of workers against their natural enemies, employers. 
• Charging a higher price always increases the seller’s profits. 
• The American economy is increasingly dominated by monopolists who arbitrarily set prices as high and wages as low as they please. 
• Rent control improves and expands housing. 
• There is unemployment because workers outnumber jobs. 
• Fluctuating prices create wasteful uncertainty and rising prices constitute inflation, so government should make it illegal to raise prices. 
• We cannot compete in a world in which most foreign wages are lower than wages paid to domestic workers.

The Number of Mass Public Shootings by year since 1998, comparison to international number of such shootings over time

Here is a link to an article by John Lott that addresses mass public shootings in the US and elsewhere.

Lott shows that the US mass murder rate is not particularly high relative to the rest of the world.  He also shows how flawed can be even the FBI's statistics.

Here is an excerpt.
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The FBI’s claims about Active Shootings increasing over time are completely flawed. Below is part of the discussion of this from Dr. Lott’s The War on Guns.

People ask me how I relax

Here is the link to a video about how to relax.

A promising new therapy to stop Parkinson's disease

From Science Daily.
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A promising new therapy to stop Parkinson's disease in its tracks has been developed at The University of Queensland.

UQ Faculty of Medicine researcher Associate Professor Trent Woodruff said the team found that a small molecule, MCC950, stopped the development of Parkinson's in several animal models.

"We have used this discovery to develop improved drug candidates and hope to carry out human clinical trials in 2020," Dr Woodruff said.

"Parkinson's disease is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide, with 10 million sufferers, whose control of body movements is affected.

"The disease is characterised by the loss of brain cells that produce dopamine, which is a chemical that co-ordinates motor control, and is accompanied by chronic inflammation in the brain.

"We found a key immune system target, called the NLRP3 inflammasome, lights up in Parkinson's patients, with signals found in the brain and even in the blood.

"MCC950, given orally once a day, blocked NLRP3 activation in the brain and prevented the loss of brain cells, resulting in markedly improved motor function."

There are no medications on the market that prevent brain cell loss in Parkinson's patients, with current therapies focusing on managing symptoms rather than halting the disease.

UQ Institute for Molecular Bioscience researcher Professor Matt Cooper said drug companies had traditionally tried to treat neurodegenerative disorders by blocking neurotoxic proteins that build up in the brain and cause disease.

"We have taken an alternative approach by focusing on immune cells in the brain called microglia that can clear these toxic proteins," he said.

"With diseases of ageing such as Parkinson's, our immune system can become over-activated, with microglia causing inflammation and damage to the brain.

"MCC950 effectively 'cooled the brains on fire', turning down microglial inflammatory activity, and allowing neurons to function normally."

The study is published in Science Translational Medicine, and was made possible by generous support from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and Shake it Up Australia Foundation, which fund innovative research into therapies for Parkinson's disease.

"We are extremely grateful to our funders who have supported multiple research projects on this target at UQ, and to their donors who support medical research for those living with Parkinson's," Dr Woodruff said.

The study was undertaken at the School of Biomedical Sciences and involved UQCCR Group Leader in Clinical Neuroscience Dr Richard Gordon, an Advance Queensland Research Fellow, and PhD student Eduardo Albornoz.

"The findings provide exciting new insight into how the spread of toxic proteins occurs in Parkinson's disease and highlights the important role of the immune system in this process," Dr Gordon said.

"With continued funding support, we are exploring new treatment strategies including repurposing drugs to target mechanisms by which the immune system and the inflammasome contribute to disease progression."

Breakthrough in treating paralysis

From Science Daily.
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Three paraplegics who sustained cervical spinal cord injuries many years ago are now able to walk with the aid of crutches or a walker thanks to new rehabilitation protocols that combine targeted electrical stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord and weight-assisted therapy.

This latest study, called STIMO (STImulation Movement Overground), establishes a new therapeutic framework to improve recovery from spinal cord injury. All patients involved in the study recovered voluntary control of leg muscles that had been paralyzed for many years. Unlike the findings of two independent studies published recently in the United States on a similar concept, neurological function was shown to persist beyond training sessions even when the electrical stimulation was turned off. The STIMO study, led by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in Switzerland, is published in the 1 November 2018 issues of Natureand Nature Neuroscience.

"Our findings are based on a deep understanding of the underlying mechanisms which we gained through years of research on animal models. We were thus able to mimic in real time how the brain naturally activates the spinal cord," says EPFL neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine.

"All the patients could walk using body weight support within one week. I knew immediately that we were on the right path," adds CHUV neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch, who surgically placed the implants in the patients.

"The exact timing and location of the electrical stimulation are crucial to a patient's ability to produce an intended movement. It is also this spatiotemporal coincidence that triggers the growth of new nerve connections," says Courtine.

This study achieves an unprecedented level of precision in electrically stimulating spinal cords. "The targeted stimulation must be as precise as a Swiss watch. In our method, we implant an array of electrodes over the spinal cord which allows us to target individual muscle groups in the legs," explains Bloch. "Selected configurations of electrodes are activating specific regions of the spinal cord, mimicking the signals that the brain would deliver to produce walking."

The challenge for the patients was to learn how to coordinate their brains' intention to walk with the targeted electrical stimulation. But that did not take long. "All three study participants were able to walk with body-weight support after only one week of calibration, and voluntary muscle control improved tremendously within five months of training," says Courtine. "The human nervous system responded even more profoundly to the treatment than we expected."

The new rehabilitation protocols based on this targeted neurotechnology lead to improved neurological function by allowing the participants to actively train natural overground walking capabilities in the lab for extensive periods of time, as opposed to passive training like exoskeleton-assisted stepping.

During rehabilitation sessions, the three participants were able to walk hands-free over more than one kilometer with the help of targeted electrical stimulation and an intelligent bodyweight-support system. Moreover, they exhibited no leg-muscle fatigue, and so there was no deterioration in stepping quality. These longer, high-intensity training sessions proved crucial for triggering activity-dependent plasticity -- the nervous system's intrinsic ability to reorganize nerve fibers -- which leads to improved motor function even when the electrical stimulation is turned off.

Previous studies using more empirical approaches, such as continuous electrical stimulation protocols, have shown that a select few paraplegics can indeed take steps with the help of walking aids and electrical stimulation, but only over short distances and as long as the stimulation is on. As soon as the stimulation is turned off, the patients immediately return to their previous state of paralysis and are no longer able to activate leg movements.

The startup GTX medical, co-founded by Courtine and Bloch, will use these findings to develop tailored neurotechnology with the aim to turn this rehabilitation paradigm into a treatment available at hospitals and clinics everywhere. "We are building next-generation neurotechnology that will also be tested very early post-injury, when the potential for recovery is high and the neuromuscular system has not yet undergone the atrophy that follows chronic paralysis. Our goal is to develop a widely accessible treatment," adds Courtine.

Climate model accuracy

John R. Christy is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Alabama’s State Climatologist and Director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. He has served as Lead Author, Contributing Author and Reviewer of United Nations IPCC assessments, has been awarded NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and in 2002 was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Here is a link to his Congressional testimony concerning climate models and climate change.

Here are some excerpts.

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“Science” is not a set of facts but a process or method that sets out a way for us to discover information and which attempts to determine the level of confidence we might have in that information. In the method, a “claim” or “hypothesis” is stated such that rigorous tests might be employed to test the claim to determine its credibility. If the claim fails a test, the claim is rejected or modified then tested again. When the “scientific method” is applied to the output from climate models of the IPCC AR5, specifically the bulk atmospheric temperature trends since 1979 (a key variable with a strong and obvious theoretical response to increasing GHGs in this period), I demonstrate that the consensus of the models fails the test to match the real-world observations by a significant margin. As such, the average of the models is considered to be untruthful in representing the recent decades of climate variation and change, and thus would be inappropriate for use in predicting future changes in the climate or for related policy decisions.

The IPCC inadvertently provided information that supports this conclusion by (a) showing that the tropical trends of climate models with extra greenhouse gases failed to match actual trends and (b) showing that climate models without extra greenhouse gases agreed with actual trends. A report of which I was a co-author demonstrates that a statistical model that uses only natural influences on the climate also explains the variations and trends since 1979 without the need of extra greenhouse gases. While such a model (or any climate model) cannot “prove” the causes of variations, the fact that its result is not rejected by the scientific method indicates it should be considered when trying to understand why the climate does what it does. Deliberate consideration of the major influences by natural variability on the climate has been conspicuously absent in the current explanations of climate change by the well-funded climate science industry.

One way to aid congress in understanding more of the climate issue than what is produced by biased “official” panels of the climate establishment is to organize and fund credible “Red Teams” that look at issues such as natural variability, the failure of climate models and the huge benefits to society from affordable energy, carbon-based and otherwise. I would expect such a team would offer to congress some very different conclusions regarding the human impacts on climate.

Walter Williams gets it right on majority rule

Democrats are hoping the coming election will give them a majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans and much of our nation dread that prospect. My question is: What would a House majority mean for the Democrats? Let's look at it.

To control the House of Representatives, Democrats must win at least 218 seats, which many predict as being likely. To control the Senate, Democrats must win enough seats to get to 51, which many predict is unlikely. Let's say the Democrats do take the House. If they were to pass a measure that Republicans in both houses didn't like and President Donald Trump didn't like, either, he could use his veto pen. To override Trump's veto, Democrats would need to meet the U.S. Constitution's requirement that they muster a two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives (290 votes) and a two-thirds vote in the Senate (67 votes). Neither would be likely.

It's quite a challenge to override a presidential veto. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the veto king, with 635 vetoes. Only nine of them were overridden. President Grover Cleveland vetoed 584 congressional measures and was overridden only seven times. If the House Democrats were to do all that they promise to do and if President Trump were to marshal the guts of Presidents Roosevelt and Cleveland -- both Democrats, I might add -- the next two years would be a sight to behold.

But wait! Democrats are pushing for the elimination of the Electoral College and having presidents chosen by majority rule. Might they call for the same for all political decisions? That way, it would require only a simple majority vote, rather than two-thirds, to override a presidential veto.

The Founding Fathers had utter contempt for majority rule. They saw it as a form of tyranny. In addition to requiring a supermajority to override a presidential veto, our Constitution has other anti-majority provisions. Proposing an amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress or two-thirds of state legislatures to vote for it. On top of that, it requires three-fourths of state legislatures for ratification of a constitutional amendment. Election of the president is done not by a majority popular vote, much to the disappointment of the left, but by the Electoral College.

Having two houses of Congress places another obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. As mentioned earlier, our Constitution gives the president veto power to thwart the wishes of a majority in each house of Congress. It takes two-thirds in each house of Congress to override the president's veto.

The Founders recognized that we need government; however, they also recognized that the essence of government is force and that force is evil. To reduce the potential for evil, they thought government should be as small as possible. They intended for us to have a limited republican form of government wherein human rights precede government and there is rule of law. Ordinary citizens and government officials are accountable to the same laws. Government intervenes in civil society only to protect its citizens against force and fraud; it does not intervene in cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange. By contrast, in a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. The law is whatever the government deems it to be. Rights may be granted or taken away.

For those Americans who see majority rule as sacrosanct, ask yourselves how many of your life choices you would like settled by majority rule. Would you want the kind of car you own to be decided through a democratic process? What about decisions as to where you live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink? I'm sure that if anyone suggested that these decisions should be subject to a democratic process wherein majority rules, we would deem the person tyrannical.

James Madison wrote, "Democracies ... have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

A good guy with a gun prevents a mass murder

From Edmund Demarche and Ryan Gados at Fox News.

Too bad nobody at the Pennsylvania Synagogue was armed.
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A brave dad armed with a pistol stopped what could have been a mass shooting Saturday inside an Alabama McDonald's when he took down a masked gunman who had stormed in and opened fire.

The unidentified father was leaving the establishment with his sons when a masked man walked into the Birmingham fast-food restaurant and started shooting, WBRC-TV reported. The father returned fire and, during the ensuing shootout, the gunman, the father and one of the man's teenage sons were struck, according to the station.

The gunman, who was not identified, later died of his injuries. The other two injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Markus Washington, one of the McDonald's employees, told WBRC-TV he was making two quarter-pounders when bullets started to fly. Washington said he ran into the freezer, where he heard about 15 shots fired.

“I’m feeling grateful,” he told the station. “Wrapping my head around it all, I was just wishing someone would come wake me up from this nightmare.”

Washington, oblivious to the shootout taking place outside the freezer door, feared the worst.

“All we hear is like different gunfire, so in my mind, I’m imagining everybody is dead. He’s looking for us,” he said. Washington added he was thankful the armed customer was there.

“He’s my hero. Because I can only imagine how it would’ve went if he wasn’t armed. We might not be here having this interview,” Washington said.

The father is not expected to face charges, police said.

Authorities are now working to determine if the gunman intended to rob the restaurant, was targeting an employee or planned something more nefarious.

“Things like this are difficult for both families. The gentleman who unfortunately lost his life, the teenage boy who is in the hospital recovering from his injuries and the father who is also recovering from his injuries,” Birmingham police spokesman Sgt. Bryan Shelton said, according to WVTM-13. “It's not easy being a father and watching your child get injured, get hurt like that. It's a really heart-wrenching experience."

Should we take the "me too" movement seriously?

The following information about Michael Avenatti and Julie Swetnick should make you think twice about believing accusations of sexual misconduct.

People who believe that such accusations are 100% true are <insert your own adjectives denoting a disconnect with reality - or worse>
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Here is the link.

Goodbye freedom

Freedom is not the natural state of affairs.

Europe has been on a path of curtailing free speech for awhile now.  Jonathan Turley's post, below is an example.

The United States is following the same path.  Much of our freedom has been lost already and more will follow.  All it takes is a Supreme Court that believes that the Constitution is a living document.
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A new decision from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) confirms the all-out assault on free speech that has taken hold of Europe. In a chilling decision, the ECHR upheld a fine levied against an Austrian woman who called Muhammad a pedophile for his arranged marriage with a young girl while in his 50s. The court ruled that such views are not protected by free speech because they violate “the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.” The decision confirms the near complete subjugation of free speech to religious and other views in society.

In 2009, the defendant held two seminars entitled “Basic Information on Islam,” in which she compared Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl, Aisha, to pedophilia.

Most accounts put Aisha’s birth around late 613 or early 614. She was six or seven years old when she was married to Muhammad in Mecca and he consummated the marriage when she was reportedly ten. Muhammad was around 50 at the time.

For most of us in the free speech community, the differing views of this marriage is immaterial to the right of both sides to be free to state their views. However, complainants have sought to silence critics like this woman by seeking criminal fines.

Moreover, I am not particularly interested in how the woman expressed her views since they raise core religious and political values. The court said that she stated that Muhammad “liked to do it with children” and “… A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? … What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?” That was found to be “disparaging religion” and lower courts upheld the conviction.

The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that the woman’s “right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”

The ECHR engaged in what is now an all-too-familiar effort to deny its obvious denial of free speech by saying that freedom of religion did not protect religions from criticism but they upheld the punishment of someone for doing precisely that. It simply declared that the woman’s comments “could only be understood as having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not worthy of worship.”

The opinion is perfectly Orwellian in saying that you cannot get away with using free speech by simply claiming the right of free speech. The court rejected that people are entitled to free speech by simply “pack[ing] incriminating statements into the wrapping of an otherwise acceptable expression of opinion and claim that this rendered passable those statements exceeding the permissible limits of freedom of expression.”

That type of circular logic would be laughable if it were not so chilling.

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. These prosecutions are part of a new and dangerous attack on free speech. We previously discussed the rise of anti-blasphemy laws around the world, including the increase in prosecutions in the West and the support of the Obama Administration for the prosecution of some anti-religious speech under the controversial Brandenburg standard. The effort by Muslim countries to establish an international blasphemy standard ran into opposition in the West so a new effort to launched to use hate crimes and discrimination law to achieve the purpose.

This new ruling shows the rapid abandonment of the European courts of fundamental values of free speech. The ECHR has now established itself as legitimizing the criminalization of speech in Europe.

A quote from Hayek

We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.

Thomas Sowell on "Greed"

One of the curious inconsistencies of those who denounce "greed" is that this term is seldom applied to government, no matter how high its taxes.  While significant rises in gasoline prices almost invariably bring charges of "greed" against the oil companies, the earnings of these oil companies are just 4 percent of the price of a gallon of gas, while taxes are 17 percent.  But only Big Oil is accused of "greed."  Even when local governments seize people's homes, under their power of eminent domain, and then turn these properties over to private developers to build casinos or shopping malls - which will pay higher taxes than the homeowners paid - that is seldom called "greed" though it often means destroying homes that people of modest means have struggled and sacrificed for years to won, all in order to replace them with people who will provide politicians with more tax revenues to spend in order to get themselves re-elected.

Some cops are bad

Jay Weaver in the Miami Herald.

That some cops are bad should not obscure that the majority of cops are not.

Note that the investigation of the bad cops began because of letters to the Village Manager from other cops in the Department.

There are bad apples in every barrel.  The focus should be on removing them, not dumping the entire barrel.
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Five years ago, Guillermo Ravelo was a rookie cop in Biscayne Park when he framed a Haitian man for a pair of home burglaries under orders from the police chief.

Ravelo then pinned five unsolved vehicle break-ins on an innocent black man — again because the town’s police chief, Raimundo Atesiano, ordered him to do it to boost his department’s clearance rate for property crimes.

Between those false arrests, Ravelo slugged a handcuffed Hispanic man after he was stopped for a broken taillight while driving through the suburban town north of Miami.

On Thursday, the 37-year-old Ravelo faced his own punishment when a federal judge sentenced him to two years and three months of prison for conspiring to violate the civil rights of the two black men wrongly accused of the burglaries and for using excessive force on the Hispanic man during the traffic stop.

Ravelo, who was fired from the Biscayne Park police force and pleaded guilty in July, broke up as he apologized to U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga. Tearful family members and friends described him as a devoted father to his two sons who participated in church and school activities.

“I am not here to make excuses,” Ravelo said. “I let down my family, the people I serve and most of all my two boys.”

The young man who was assaulted by Ravelo during the April 2013 traffic stop in Biscayne Park told the judge that he understood Ravelo was a family man but questioned his becoming a police officer.

“This has had a really big impact on me,” said Jonathan Pereira, 27, who was falsely arrested by Ravelo for resisting an officer with violence and battery on a cop — charges that were eventually dismissed.

“It has made me look at law enforcement differently,” he said. “I can see where his family is coming from. ... I don’t know him personally, but that night I didn’t see him like that. It was a rough time for me.”

Altonaga ended up punishing Ravelo — who faced up to 10 years for the civil rights conspiracy and another year for excessive force — with a prison term that fell within the federal sentencing guidelines for his conviction. His sentence was jointly recommended by prosecutors Harry Wallace and Trent Reichling and defense attorneys Douglas Hartman and C. Michael Cornely.

Ravelo’s imprisonment followed Tuesday’s sentencing of two other former Biscayne Park police officers, Charlie Dayoub, 38, and Raul Fernandez, 62, who pleaded guilty in August to depriving a 16-year-old black suspect of his civil rights after falsely arresting him for four unsolved residential burglaries in 2013 at the direction of Atesiano, the chief. U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore chastised prosecutors for recommending home confinement for Dayoub and probation for Fernandez, based on their grand jury testimony against Atesiano.

Atesiano, 52, who pleaded guilty to a civil rights conspiracy charge before his trial in September, faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in November.

In the aftermath of Atesiano’s indictment in June, the Miami Herald obtained internal public records suggesting that during his tenure as chief, the command staff pressured some Biscayne Park officers into targeting random black people to clear cases — though the federal investigation did not identify any of the arrest victims by race. In a 2014 Biscayne Park report, four officers — a third of the small force — told an outside investigator they were under marching orders to file the bogus charges to improve the department’s crime stats.

While only one officer specifically mentioned targeting blacks, former Biscayne Park village manager Heidi Shafran, who ordered the 2014 investigation after receiving a string of letters from disgruntled officers, said the message seemed clear for cops on the street.

The town reported clearing 29 of 30 burglary cases during Atesiano’s tenure as chief in 2013 and 2014. But now that extraordinary record — once touted by Atesiano to town leaders — has been shattered by the reality that at least 11 of those cases were based on false arrest reports.

This summer, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into potentially dozens of criminal arrests during Atesiano’s tenure that have been called into question by the federal probe.

Ravelo testified before the grand jury in July about Atesiano’s policy of pinning unsolved property crimes on innocent victims to improve his department’s statistics.

In January 2013, Atesiano ordered Ravelo to arrest Clarens Desrouleaux, 35, for two unsolved home break-ins. The officer signed two arrest affidavits falsely claiming that Desrouleaux “had confessed to committing the burglary,” prosecutors allege in court papers. Desrouleaux, who had a criminal history, claims he was pressured into pleading guilty and was imprisoned for five years before being deported to his native Haiti.

In February 2014, Atesiano told Ravelo that he wanted him to arrest Erasmus Banmah, 31, for five unsolved vehicle burglaries, despite knowing there was “no evidence” that he had committed the crimes, prosecutors alleged in court records. A couple of days later, Ravelo filled out five arrest forms falsely accusing Banmah of the vehicle burglaries at five different street locations in Biscayne Park.

For each of the five burglaries, Ravelo “falsely claimed in an arrest affidavit that [Banmah] had taken him to the site of the respective burglary and confessed to the items that [he] had stolen.”

The coming tyranny of the majority

Jonathan Turley gets it right again.  Free speech has been under attack, literally, for awhile, and it is getting worse.

Too many people have lost their respect for freedom.
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When Republican senator Susan Collins joined 49 of her colleagues to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, critics pledged to defeat her in the next election. Indeed, advocates who oppose Kavanaugh raised millions in contributions that would be released to her next opponent if she dared to vote for his confirmation.

Faculty and alumni of St. Lawrence University, however, are not satisfied in changing her future. They want to rewrite part of her past. In a raw act of retaliation, they are demanding that the college rescind an honorary degree awarded to Collins in 2017. Just one year ago, Collins was honored for her independent thinking and integrity, but now professors and graduates want her stripped of the degree for exercising such values in opposition to their own views. For exercising such independence, she is now denounced as lacking “integrity and commitment” to justice.

The demand could easily be dismissed as the expression of the far left element at a well known liberal institution. In the end, it is unlikely that St. Lawrence will take this extreme action. Collins is, arguably, its most famous living graduate. However, it is part of a rising wave of intolerance across the country against conservative views, including actual assaults committed by faculties and students.

Before her Senate vote on Kavanaugh, Collins gave a thoughtful speech explaining why she had demanded further investigation into the allegations of sexual assaults raised against Kavanaugh and why she concluded those allegations remained unproven or refuted. One could certainly disagree with her logic or her view that no further investigation was necessary. According to one poll, more than 40 percent of Americans agreed with her, while 51 percent opposed the Kavanaugh confirmation.

Yet, almost 2,000 alumni and dozens of faculty at St. Lawrence want to punish Collins for reaching a conclusion opposite from theirs. She now is deemed to have deviated “from the path” and thus lacks the “core values” of the school. Of course, there was a time when “core values” were defined as tolerance of opposing views and the exercise of free speech.

If the letter of the graduates is hard to fathom, the cause becomes clearer when you read the letter from the roughly 100 professors supporting the action against Collins. The letter shows precisely why students could leave St. Lawrence with so little notion of intellectual integrity and tolerance. The professors implausibly assert that their call for this punitive action is “not rooted in partisan loyalties or disagreements.” Instead, their disagreement with her vote is considered sufficient justification to rescind the degree as a “fitting consequence to her detrimental and unprincipled actions.” The professors not only denounce the “rape culture” at St. Lawrence but declare that this culture “no doubt influenced the actions Senator Collins took during the Kavanaugh hearings.” That is right, Collins voted out of her own facilitation of a “rape culture.”

Across the country, faculty members have led students in shocking demonstrations against free speech and even violence against those with opposing views. While the violence is thankfully rare, the response can be unnerving. At the University of California at Santa Barbara, feminist studies professor Mireille Miller Young led her students in attacking pro-life advocates, stealing their display, and then committing battery on a young woman. Despite pleading no contest to criminal assault, Miller Young not only was retained but widely supported by faculty and students, including those who viewed the pro-life advocates as “terrorists” who should be kept off campus. This week, the University of Oregon gender studies department is featuring her as a speaker.

Last week, a Ryerson University employee attacked pro-life students on campus. Earlier, California State University assistant professor of public health professor Greg Thatcher led students in wiping out pro-life statements of students after telling them that they had no free speech outside of restricted zones. He is wrong but was still retained as faculty. Earlier this year, University of New Hampshire professor Joelle Ruby Ryanscreamed profanities and tried to shut down an online talk show host who was calling for free speech protections on campuses. Last year, Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger was injured by protesters after she merely accompanied a controversial speaker to campus.

For too many professors and students, free speech is now viewed as a privilege to be enjoyed only by those with whom they agree. Indeed, the intolerance shown in the St. Lawrence campaign is often disguised as principles in works like “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” by Dartmouth professor Mark Bray. This movement denounces classic liberalism. It rejects the notion of protecting free speech for its own sake and rejects “coexistence” in favor of a goal “to end their politics.”

Academic institutions once prided themselves on a broad array of divergent views and values. There was not a single “path” but rather common “principles” allowing students to find their own place in this world of ideas. It was based on mutual respect and tolerance for those holding opposing positions. Today, campaigns on campuses like the one at St. Lawrence reflect how ignorance of, and even hostility toward, these basic values is fueling our age of rage. Faculty are replicating their own intolerance in students who have been taught that free speech means the right to shut down or punish those with opposing views.

There is no longer a willingness to accept that people like Collins could come to good faith but opposing conclusions. It is easier to declare the Maine senator to be a champion of a “rape culture.” It may be true that critics will “end the politics” of Collins in the next election. That is fair game in a representative democracy. That is a right such as free speech protected by democratic institutions. However, this is different.

These professors and graduates are seeking to retroactively punish Susan Collins for reaching a conclusion different from their own. The professors denounced her for undermining the “crucial role of evidence based decision making in democratic processes” simply because she came to a different view of the evidence by using her once heralded independent judgment. These professors and students vividly demonstrate how power without principle is little more than a mob dressed up as a movement.