Dick Morris: The Increasing Weaponization of Public Opinion

Op-Ed

Dick Morris: The Increasing Weaponization of Public Opinion

Pro-democracy protesters take part in a Thanksgiving Day rally at Edinburgh Place on Nov. 28, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.Chris McGrath / Getty ImagesPro-democracy protesters take part in a Thanksgiving Day rally at Edinburgh Place on Nov. 28, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)

In a conversation with French right-wing politician Pierre Laval in 1935, Joseph Stalin famously inquired when told that the pope had endorsed a certain point of view in international affairs, “The pope? How many divisions has he got?”

Such was the power of global public opinion one hundred years ago.

But it’s very different now. We are watching as the British monarchy, the Kremlin autocracy, and the authoritarian government in China are each hobbled by global public opinion, unable to ignore its devastating political effect.

In the U.K., a member of the royal family — the Queen’s younger son — has been laid low by a public outraged by his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and his public debauchery on his private island in the Caribbean.

While Prince Andrew’s personal guilt or innocence in Epstein’s practice of blatant sex with underage girls, the formerly third in line to the throne has been de-royaled by a Queen forced by public opinion to act.

TRENDING: Bloomberg Campaign Manager Breaks Bad News to Democrats: ‘Trump Is Winning’

His very friendship with the mogul, the frequency of their visits, and his degree of involvement have all created a perfect storm that has led the Queen to strip him of his royal income and status. The common people of the UK have ousted a Royal in a bloodless coup.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have stood up to the Beijing powers as millions have poured into the streets to protest usurpation of their democratic rights by the communist regime.

Allowed to hold a referendum on the issue, right under China’s nose and despite her outspoken threats and objections, three million people voted to sustain their democracy.

No tanks rolled into Hong Kong. Though troops massed threateningly at the border, none crossed it and the masses have, at least for now, won. Their victory was made possible, of course, by the power of the Trump administration’s strong stand against Beijing in its bilateral trade war with America.

Suffering badly (and unilaterally) against America’s economic might and our demand for trade fairness, the rulers in Beijing were loath to provoke and even stronger reaction from the U.S. — again driven by public opinion here — by military action in Hong Kong.

And Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has made no new moves against Ukraine since the moment Trump took office. His brazen fomenting of a civil war there has stopped and there are no more Georgia-style or Crimea-like invasions and occupations by Russian forces.

While President Trump’s strong impositions of sanctions to punish Putin’s past incursions have a lot to do with Moscow’s passivity, so does the flow of American military aid (also only started by Trump). With Trump solidly behind the democratic forces in Ukraine, global public opinion is enough to stay Putin’s hand.

In both China and Russia, America’s economic and sanction pressure have combined with public opinion to stay the hand of the tyrant.

While public opinion would not have had much power without Trump’s backing, nor would the president have had any mandate for bold action without public sentiment being so vigorously expressed.

RELATED: President Trump’s WTO Win Over the EU Is Great for America and Long Overdue

And who can doubt that the Me Too movement and the outrage at the victimization of women have not played a big role in keeping Hillary Clinton at bay even as opportunity beacons her into the Democratic primaries?

But with the internet to help to galvanize and catalyze public opinion and to bring it to bear on decision-makers, the tyrant’s of the world are learning to listen. We are making great progress as a civilization when the number of divisions a force has means less than it power to enlist and persuade the world.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com

Black Friday: Holiday Shopping Gets a Trump Economy Boost

The odds are you are shopping this weekend.

An estimated 165 million Americans will shop between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation. That includes 39.6 million who said they were considering shopping on Thanksgiving Day, 114.6 million on Black Friday, 66.6 million on Small Business Saturday and 33.3 million on Sunday. On Cyber Monday, 68.7 million are expected to take advantage of online bargains.

To put that into context, the total number of votes cast in the 2016 presidential contest amounted to 136.6 million.

But like voting, shopping has changed dramatically over the last few years. Black Friday is no longer really the beginning of holiday shopping or holiday bargains. Many of the biggest retailers introduced steep discounts at the start of November. And like early voting, early shopping is growing. The National Retail Federation said recently 56% of shoppers had begun gift buying in the first week of November. Twenty-four percent had already completed their shopping.

That takes away some of the sting for retailers from the fact that this will be the shortest post-Thanksgiving shopping season in years, with six fewer days between our turkey-laden feast and Christmas. Retailers do not need the kind of shenanigans deployed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, when the president moved Thanksgiving from the fourth to the third Thursday in November in hopes that a longer shopping season would boost the bottom lines of American businesses. (The move was unpopular and not as effective as hoped and after a few years, FDR moved it back to the fourth Thursday.)

The longer shopping season inexorable rise of online shopping also means that it is harder to judge the strength of consumer spending based on older metrics like mall and department store foot traffic, lines outside of big box stores, and parking lot vacancies. Many of the biggest retailers–including Walmart and Target–now have very popular online stores that compete with Amazon on both prices and convenience. There’s far less reason to wait outside a store for an early opening–and less incentive to brawl with other customers for a limited stock of sale items.

Sales between November and December are expected to increase between 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent compared with last year despite the 18 percent drop in the number of days of the old-school Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday shopping, according to the National Retail Federation. That would put us above the 3.7 percent average annual sales growth over the previous five years and well above the disappointing 2.1 percent growth during the recession scare and volatile stock market last year.

The retail group said it expects online and other non-store sales to increase between 11 percent and 14 percent for the holiday period.

Consumer optimism is running high, unemployment is low, wages are rising and rising fastest at the bottom on the income ladder, and many workers are confident they could find a new job at good pay if they lost their current jobs. All of these factors are likely to boost consumer spending. What’s more, the personal saving rate has been higher this year than in the recent past, indicating that consumers may have more to spend if merchants to convince them to part with some of their saving.

 

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

London Bridge Attack Comes as Knife Crime Up 80 Percent

The London Bridge attack on November 29, 2019, comes as knife crime is increased 80 percent in England and Wales.

Breitbart News reported that Friday’s attack occurred just yards from the 2017 Islamic terror attack where nine were killed and dozens injured.

Video footage tweeted by Conflict News reportedly shows police shooting the knifeman:

On April 1, 2018, the London Times reported “a dramatic surge in knife crime,” and homicides went on to reach a ten-year high in 2018.

On September 17, 2019, Breitbart News reported that the number of murders in London had reached 110 for the year. That represented two more murders than the city had experienced by September 25, 2018, according to the Telegraph. Many of the homicides were attributable to a 52 percent increase in knife crime from 2016-2018.

More broadly speaking, on July 18, 2019, the BBC reported that knife attacks in England and Wales were up 80 percent over the low point for knife crime reached in 2014.

Ironically, the rise in knife crimes comes as restrictive gun controls all but eliminated the ability to defend oneself in Britain. The corresponding violence was already evident by 2014.

On September 24, 2014, Breitbart News reported that gun control had made Britain extremely violent. Gun controls were put in place during the twentieth century via a relentless, incremental push, which began with laws similar to firearm owner identification cards and background checks and ended with a virtual ban on all handguns via the Firearms Act 1997.

In 2009, just 12 years after the passage of the Firearms Act, the Daily Mail described Britain as “the most violent country in Europe.” It reported that Britain had “a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Oklahoma Police Officer Given Starbucks Coffee Labeled ‘Pig’

Kiefer Police Chief Johnny O’Mara says when one of his officers went to pick up a Starbucks coffee, he received five cups labeled “Pig.”

“This is what he gets for being nice,” O’Mara wrote in Facebook post on Thanksgiving Day. “What irks me is the absolute and total disrespect for a police officer who, instead of being home with family and enjoying a meal and a football game, is patrolling his little town,” the chief said, continuing:

This cup of coffee for a ‘pig’ is just another little flag. It’s another tiny symptom and a nearly indiscernible shout from a contemptuous, roaring and riotous segment of a misanthropic society that vilifies those who stand for what’s right and glorifies the very people who would usher in the destruction of the social fabric. It’s another tiny pinprick into the heart of men and women who are asking themselves more often: ‘Why am I doing this?’

“Just dealing with – when we’re dealing every day with anybody – a little courtesy goes a long way,” he concluded. The unidentified Starbucks employee later called to apologize, claiming it was a joke between them and a co-worker. Nevertheless, Starbucks has confirmed through a corporate spokesperson the employee has been suspended, and the company has launched an investigation:

This is absolutely unacceptable, and we are deeply sorry to the law enforcement officer who experienced this. We have also apologized directly to him and are working to connect with the police chief as well to express our remorse.

The barista has been suspended pending the outcome of our investigation into this matter. This language is offensive to all law enforcement and is not representative of the deep appreciation we have for police officers who work to keep our communities safe.

To a similar statement replying to his original post, O’Mara offered a pragmatic outline, along with hope for resolution:

Starbucks, You’re a corporation trying to sell a product. I’m certain you don’t condone this kind of juvenile activity. The employee made an unfortunate decision which, in turn, negatively effects your company’s image. I appreciate you reaching out to my officer and I also appreciate the employee reaching out and apologizing on her own. Our society needs a touch of old fashioned civility restored. Maybe we could use this bad event and convert it into something better.

All told, O’Mara does not appear to harbor any lingering hostility toward the international franchise. When asked what response he would like from the company, he explained: “It’s not Starbucks. It’s on the individual level. There needs to be a little bit more decency in the world. There needs to be a little bit more common sense from people.”

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Delingpole: Greta the Teenage Climate Puppet Goes Full Marxist

Greta Thunberg the teenage Climate Puppet has gone full Marxist.

In her latest public statement, she says that the ‘climate crisis is not just about the environment’:

It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all.

To anyone familiar with the workings of the green movement, Greta’s statement will come as no surprise whatsoever.

That’s why I called my book on the subject Watermelons.

Environmentalists are often green on the outside, red on the inside. Their movement is essentially a global socialistic redistribution exercise hiding behind a mask of green righteousness.

Meanwhile, the consequences of little Greta’s hissy fits are being felt across Europe and hitting ordinary people hard.

In Germany the car industry is ailing badly:

Daimler, the German company that makes Mercedes-Benz cars, will slash at least 10,000 jobs worldwide in a major cost-cutting drive to help finance the switch to electric cars.

“The total number worldwide will be in the five-digits,” said personnel chief Wilfried Porth. More than 1,000 managers stand to lose their jobs.

As it is also in the UK:

Production this year is down by 14 per cent on the same period in 2018. The only month to rise was August, when output was artificially raised because many plants were shut in the same month a year earlier.

“Yet another month of falling car production makes these extremely worrying times for the sector,” said SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes.

Germany’s electricity prices have rocketed to their highest ever:

More than 340,000 German households had their electricity turned off last year because they couldn’t pay their electricity bills.  A mother is sitting with her son in her darkened apartment in Hanover (Source: DPA)

While wholesale electricity prices in Germany have increased by about 13 percent in 2019, taxes and levies on electricity have reached their highest level ever and will cost German families and consumers a staggering 44 billion euros in 2020.

And yet again the latest UN Climate Summit – COP25 – which Greta Thunberg is attending is destined to be a damp squib, with lots of scaremongering talk and little concerted action.

Any carbon dioxide emissions cuts it agrees on will be more than offset by the growth of Chinese industry.

Astonishingly, over the past 18 months China has added enough new coal-based electricity generation (43GW) to power 31 million homes. King coal has returned. Not only that, China is also financing 25% of all new proposed coal plants outside of its own borders, e.g., South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They’ve gone coal gaga.

In less than two years, China is once again immersed in a vast “coal boom,” similar to its “one new coal plant per week” 2006-2015 commitment, resulting in air pollution so thick it could be cut with a knife, now replenished as new coal power plant construction is planning an additional 148GW, a number that equals the current total coal generating capacity of the EU.

To add insult to injury, China is trolling the COP25 climate talks by mocking their puny efforts:

Beijing. CHINA on Wednesday accused developed countries, including the US, of doing too little to curb global warming, ahead of a UN summit discussing controversial issues including climate compensation.

China is the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, but has repeatedly argued that developed nations should lead on tackling international climate obligations.

“Developed countries’ insufficient political will to provide support” is the “biggest problem” currently facing international climate efforts, said Zhao Yingmin, Vice-Minister of ecology and environment, at a press conference on Wednesday.

And with most of the West so eager to destroy its industrial capacity just because an annoying little girl in pigtails got radicalised by watching Ice Age 2, is it any wonder that China treats it with such ill-disguised contempt.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

President Trump Scoring with Black Voters, and Dems Are Terrified

Ana Navarro-Cardenas managed to produce one of the most offensive tweets of the year in response to the news that multiple polls show black job approval of President Donald Trump now at 34%. 

She tweeted, “Zero chance this is accurate.  Zero.  The poll must have only been conducted in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies.” 

You can almost smell the fear oozing from her keystrokes, competing with the hate that was already there.  This is so blatantly racist that only a liberal could have spouted it.  And, to my knowledge, not a single liberal has called her out on it, choosing to celebrate her instead.  She wasn’t just mocking the polls, as Newsweek suggests.  She was mocking courageous black Americans.

First, she charmingly assumes that black Americans have no right to form their own political opinions and belong to the Democrats, which is an odd position for somebody who plays a “Republican” on CNN. 

Second, she insults prominent and accomplished Americans who support the president and intentionally refuses to name three of them, even though surely she could have looked up the names of David Clarke and Diamond and Silk (Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson), in seconds.  She chose to marginalize them by focusing on appearance choices that offend her delicate sensibilities instead of engaging their arguments. 

In the liberal hive mind where she dwells, they don’t deserve their names because they support Trump.  Candace Owens doesn’t apparently even warrant mention, despite the tremendous work she has done to reveal Democrat racism while encouraging people to walk away from the party.

For decades, some of the most courageous people in America have been black conservatives.  They have faced racism, hatred, and persecution beyond belief.  Often, they have been ostracized from communities and even families.  They show more courage and fortitude on a daily basis than liberal groupthink CNN clowns like Navarro even know is possible.

Racism and sexism are indeed alive and a driving force in one of the country’s main political parties.  It just isn’t the party that is routinely smeared with those charges. 

It is enlightening when a liberal starts to wake up from the media fog, such as when Marianne Williamson noticed how awful liberals were acting toward her.

“I know this sounds naïve,” Williamson said.  ”I didn’t think the left was so mean.  I didn’t think the left lied like this.  I thought the right did that, I thought we were better.”

Tulsi Gabbard is also getting a front-row seat to the sheer awfulness of her Democrat colleagues.  Last I checked, no Republican has slandered her as a Russian agent.  For Hillary Clinton, that was all in a day’s work. Again, notice the liberal silence in responding to Clinton when she casually vomited out such an outrageous and evidence-free attack against a minority female member of her own party.

Democrats are just assuming that the polls are wrong because the possibility that they are even remotely true is too horrifying for them to contemplate.  They have long counted on winning over 90% of the black vote and know that just the loss of a few points would be deadly.

These polls will cause a panic response, as clearly happened with Navarro.  Look for an escalation in the racist and supremacist language emanating from the Left. 

So is this movement real and enduring? 

My guess is that the actual voting number for the president will be somewhat south of 34%.  As Frank Luntz pointed out, President Trump’s approval numbers before the 2018 election did not translate to votes for Republican candidates. 

But I also wouldn’t rule it out.  The truth is that Trump doesn’t need to win anywhere close to 34% of the black vote.  If he wins 20%, the Democrats are going to be shellacked, especially if the polls showing rising support among Hispanic Americans also translate to the ballot boxes.  Democrats know this and fear it.  They are so dependent on these voters that small shifts are dramatic.  Barack Obama won 94% of the black vote and cruised to election.  Hillary Clinton won 88% of that vote to Trump’s 8% and lost thirty states. 

Polls are only confirming what is already becoming more visible.  To quote an old song, there’s something happening here, and what it is ain’t exactly clear.

So, what is causing this dramatic movement?  There are a number of factors at work.  President Trump has quietly done tremendous outreach to majority-black communities.  He never misses a chance to tout his performance in this area, which is wise because the media sure won’t do it.  When over 90% of media attention is negative, there isn’t much room for reporting on actual news.  The president’s argument that he has done more for black Americans than Democrat presidents before him is compelling and true.  He has achieved economic results that Obama could only dream about, even as Obama put policies in place that ensured that they would never happen. 

A lot of credit should also be given to courageous black Americans like Candace Owens and those disparaged by Navarro like Kanye West, who see the Democratic Party for what it is — a Marxist and godless anti-American nightmare — and have taken that message to the masses.  They are knifing through the media blockade.

One of my black colleagues consistently voted Democrat in the past.  She cannot stand any of the current crew of Democrat candidates, especially Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and proudly told me today that this is America spelled with a C and not a K while furiously lashing out at socialism.  I was taken aback, since I had never talked politics with her before.  Count her among the likely new Trump voters.

Her comment speaks to the biggest factor of all.  This is not the Democratic Party of even a decade ago, let alone the one that elected Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy.  It is anti-God, anti-American, and anti-sanity.

It’s hard to point to what it actually stands for at this point, other than butchering unborn babies, putting non-Americans first, advocating for men to beat women in sports, advocating for socialism, and spending America into collapse.  None of these issues is particularly compelling to black Americans.  Even the radical anti–law and order push is likely not translating the way Democrats hope, since it is often black Americans who are harmed the most by these policies.  Even impeachment madness, like much of the Democrat agenda, is a white liberal obsession.

If this is indeed the biggest factor, support for Republicans will eventually translate beyond President Trump, even if that support has not yet materialized.

Seismic shifts in the electorate sometimes do happen almost overnight, like water pressure building up on a dam that finally smashes it and runs free.  Republicans would be foolish to count on it. But liberals would be even more foolish to dismiss this possibility out of hand.

I believe that the 2020 election will be razor-close, with President Trump hanging on to the presidency by a small margin.  But if polls are correct and he significantly expands his share of the black and Hispanic votes, the celebration and rioting will start that much earlier on November 3, 2020. 

Fletch Daniels can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.

Ana Navarro-Cardenas managed to produce one of the most offensive tweets of the year in response to the news that multiple polls show black job approval of President Donald Trump now at 34%. 

She tweeted, “Zero chance this is accurate.  Zero.  The poll must have only been conducted in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies.” 

You can almost smell the fear oozing from her keystrokes, competing with the hate that was already there.  This is so blatantly racist that only a liberal could have spouted it.  And, to my knowledge, not a single liberal has called her out on it, choosing to celebrate her instead.  She wasn’t just mocking the polls, as Newsweek suggests.  She was mocking courageous black Americans.

First, she charmingly assumes that black Americans have no right to form their own political opinions and belong to the Democrats, which is an odd position for somebody who plays a “Republican” on CNN. 

Second, she insults prominent and accomplished Americans who support the president and intentionally refuses to name three of them, even though surely she could have looked up the names of David Clarke and Diamond and Silk (Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson), in seconds.  She chose to marginalize them by focusing on appearance choices that offend her delicate sensibilities instead of engaging their arguments. 

In the liberal hive mind where she dwells, they don’t deserve their names because they support Trump.  Candace Owens doesn’t apparently even warrant mention, despite the tremendous work she has done to reveal Democrat racism while encouraging people to walk away from the party.

For decades, some of the most courageous people in America have been black conservatives.  They have faced racism, hatred, and persecution beyond belief.  Often, they have been ostracized from communities and even families.  They show more courage and fortitude on a daily basis than liberal groupthink CNN clowns like Navarro even know is possible.

Racism and sexism are indeed alive and a driving force in one of the country’s main political parties.  It just isn’t the party that is routinely smeared with those charges. 

It is enlightening when a liberal starts to wake up from the media fog, such as when Marianne Williamson noticed how awful liberals were acting toward her.

“I know this sounds naïve,” Williamson said.  ”I didn’t think the left was so mean.  I didn’t think the left lied like this.  I thought the right did that, I thought we were better.”

Tulsi Gabbard is also getting a front-row seat to the sheer awfulness of her Democrat colleagues.  Last I checked, no Republican has slandered her as a Russian agent.  For Hillary Clinton, that was all in a day’s work. Again, notice the liberal silence in responding to Clinton when she casually vomited out such an outrageous and evidence-free attack against a minority female member of her own party.

Democrats are just assuming that the polls are wrong because the possibility that they are even remotely true is too horrifying for them to contemplate.  They have long counted on winning over 90% of the black vote and know that just the loss of a few points would be deadly.

These polls will cause a panic response, as clearly happened with Navarro.  Look for an escalation in the racist and supremacist language emanating from the Left. 

So is this movement real and enduring? 

My guess is that the actual voting number for the president will be somewhat south of 34%.  As Frank Luntz pointed out, President Trump’s approval numbers before the 2018 election did not translate to votes for Republican candidates. 

But I also wouldn’t rule it out.  The truth is that Trump doesn’t need to win anywhere close to 34% of the black vote.  If he wins 20%, the Democrats are going to be shellacked, especially if the polls showing rising support among Hispanic Americans also translate to the ballot boxes.  Democrats know this and fear it.  They are so dependent on these voters that small shifts are dramatic.  Barack Obama won 94% of the black vote and cruised to election.  Hillary Clinton won 88% of that vote to Trump’s 8% and lost thirty states. 

Polls are only confirming what is already becoming more visible.  To quote an old song, there’s something happening here, and what it is ain’t exactly clear.

So, what is causing this dramatic movement?  There are a number of factors at work.  President Trump has quietly done tremendous outreach to majority-black communities.  He never misses a chance to tout his performance in this area, which is wise because the media sure won’t do it.  When over 90% of media attention is negative, there isn’t much room for reporting on actual news.  The president’s argument that he has done more for black Americans than Democrat presidents before him is compelling and true.  He has achieved economic results that Obama could only dream about, even as Obama put policies in place that ensured that they would never happen. 

A lot of credit should also be given to courageous black Americans like Candace Owens and those disparaged by Navarro like Kanye West, who see the Democratic Party for what it is — a Marxist and godless anti-American nightmare — and have taken that message to the masses.  They are knifing through the media blockade.

One of my black colleagues consistently voted Democrat in the past.  She cannot stand any of the current crew of Democrat candidates, especially Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and proudly told me today that this is America spelled with a C and not a K while furiously lashing out at socialism.  I was taken aback, since I had never talked politics with her before.  Count her among the likely new Trump voters.

Her comment speaks to the biggest factor of all.  This is not the Democratic Party of even a decade ago, let alone the one that elected Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy.  It is anti-God, anti-American, and anti-sanity.

It’s hard to point to what it actually stands for at this point, other than butchering unborn babies, putting non-Americans first, advocating for men to beat women in sports, advocating for socialism, and spending America into collapse.  None of these issues is particularly compelling to black Americans.  Even the radical anti–law and order push is likely not translating the way Democrats hope, since it is often black Americans who are harmed the most by these policies.  Even impeachment madness, like much of the Democrat agenda, is a white liberal obsession.

If this is indeed the biggest factor, support for Republicans will eventually translate beyond President Trump, even if that support has not yet materialized.

Seismic shifts in the electorate sometimes do happen almost overnight, like water pressure building up on a dam that finally smashes it and runs free.  Republicans would be foolish to count on it. But liberals would be even more foolish to dismiss this possibility out of hand.

I believe that the 2020 election will be razor-close, with President Trump hanging on to the presidency by a small margin.  But if polls are correct and he significantly expands his share of the black and Hispanic votes, the celebration and rioting will start that much earlier on November 3, 2020. 

Fletch Daniels can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/

Can You Trust What Medical Journals Publish?

I have repeatedly questioned the validity of medical journal claims in regards to politically charged issues like air pollution and climate change, as well as global warming here at AT.  More recently, I showed how a major medical journal violates basic rules on scientific inquiry.

There is another important problem with medical research as reported in medical journals and then often expanded by the lay press as big news: that medical journal articles are often proven wrong for unreliable results or promotion of treatments that are not beneficial or not any more efficacious than treatments they propose to replace.

I was reminded recently of this problem by an article in Emergency Medicine News, a medical specialty newspaper, that reported on a study by Dr. Vinay Prasad, a comprehensive review of randomized clinical trials in the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine identifying 396 medical reversals.  Reversals are cases where medical journal articles are found to be faulty, misleading and just plain wrong.

When high-flying medical researchers on environmental issues use bad methods and report false results, it is motivated by political agendas usually, but when medical researchers report what end up being unreliable results in other areas, it is often due to biases and fallacious thinking and lack of effort to assiduously test their results and repeat them to assure that the hypothesis is valid and reliable and the results are testable and verified.

Some “rules” turned out to be wrong, for example tight blood sugar control, mechanical chest compressions, protocols for treatment of sepsis (infections with severe complications).  The unreliability problem is troublesome, since the study shows that many recommended treatments and strategies are not efficacious.  

Here are some additional specifics from the Prasad study:

  • Mechanical compression was not better than manual compressions for CPR. (JAMA. 2014;311[1]:53)
  • Early and aggressive methods for care of patients with sepsis (severe infection) were no better than usual care. (JAMA. 2017;318[13]:1233)
  • The REACT-2 trial found that routine use of an immediate total-body CT did not impact mortality or benefit compared with conventional imaging and selective CT scanning in patients with severe trauma. (Lancet. 2016;388[10045]:673)
  • Platelet transfusion after acute hemorrhagic stroke was found by the 2015 PATCH study to worsen survival in the platelet transfusion group (68%) compared with the standard care group (77%). (Lancet. 2016;387[10038]:2605)

The authors were so alert to the problem that they created a website for best practices that, like other such practice websites, intends to alert physicians to the realities of the research mistakes and misinformation.

Medical reversals and rejection of medical protocols and suggested treatments are too common and the result of bad methods and scientific dishonesty.  Real science honesty would identify the problems and discover the unreliable information, and the studies would not be published. 

The reports of this or that new breakthrough should be assessed with care by the public and medical professionals.

In 2005, an obscure Greek physician, John Ioannidis, published a groundbreaking article on the unreliability of medical research, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” and he became famous — so famous that he is now at Stanford, heading a study project on scientific integrity, funded by a philanthropist.  What Ioannidis found was that medical research is driven by ambition, intellectual passion, and fallacious thinking.  He didn’t say researchers are dishonest; he just said they often put out false claims and make false assertions.  

I have, in these articles at AT, tried to warn the readers of the problems of dishonesty and malfeasance in medical research — the lay reader is warned to apply these rules as a way to avoid being taken in by bad research methods or just plain cheating and dishonesty.

There are some basic rules to help avoid being taken in by charlatans.

  1. The study should be a human study, or, if it is an animal study, the limits of such a study should be declared.
  2. The study should follow basic rules about how to determine causation, and avoid the trap of claiming that “association” or “coincidence” is proof of causation.
  3. The study should avoid surveys and questionnaires as a source of “evidence” since recall bias is always a problem in survey or response studies.
  4. The study should always be measured in terms of the magnitude of the “effect,” and the rule is that magnitude of effect should be “robust” — at least 2 or 3 times the increase in effect over the baseline.
  5. The study should establish a mechanism to explain the causal effect asserted — for example, ice cream consumption is associated with an increase in drowning deaths, but it is not a cause of those deaths.
  6. Although I could argue that peer review and publication are not a good standard for reliability, the source of the research and the reputation of that source as well as the reputation of the journal the research was published in is often worth something.  How much it is worth is the question.

The important thing is that professionals and citizens should be careful to question and evaluate what is pronounced by medical journals.  Too often, they are overwhelmed by self-esteem and ambition.

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.

I have repeatedly questioned the validity of medical journal claims in regards to politically charged issues like air pollution and climate change, as well as global warming here at AT.  More recently, I showed how a major medical journal violates basic rules on scientific inquiry.

There is another important problem with medical research as reported in medical journals and then often expanded by the lay press as big news: that medical journal articles are often proven wrong for unreliable results or promotion of treatments that are not beneficial or not any more efficacious than treatments they propose to replace.

I was reminded recently of this problem by an article in Emergency Medicine News, a medical specialty newspaper, that reported on a study by Dr. Vinay Prasad, a comprehensive review of randomized clinical trials in the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine identifying 396 medical reversals.  Reversals are cases where medical journal articles are found to be faulty, misleading and just plain wrong.

When high-flying medical researchers on environmental issues use bad methods and report false results, it is motivated by political agendas usually, but when medical researchers report what end up being unreliable results in other areas, it is often due to biases and fallacious thinking and lack of effort to assiduously test their results and repeat them to assure that the hypothesis is valid and reliable and the results are testable and verified.

Some “rules” turned out to be wrong, for example tight blood sugar control, mechanical chest compressions, protocols for treatment of sepsis (infections with severe complications).  The unreliability problem is troublesome, since the study shows that many recommended treatments and strategies are not efficacious.  

Here are some additional specifics from the Prasad study:

  • Mechanical compression was not better than manual compressions for CPR. (JAMA. 2014;311[1]:53)
  • Early and aggressive methods for care of patients with sepsis (severe infection) were no better than usual care. (JAMA. 2017;318[13]:1233)
  • The REACT-2 trial found that routine use of an immediate total-body CT did not impact mortality or benefit compared with conventional imaging and selective CT scanning in patients with severe trauma. (Lancet. 2016;388[10045]:673)
  • Platelet transfusion after acute hemorrhagic stroke was found by the 2015 PATCH study to worsen survival in the platelet transfusion group (68%) compared with the standard care group (77%). (Lancet. 2016;387[10038]:2605)

The authors were so alert to the problem that they created a website for best practices that, like other such practice websites, intends to alert physicians to the realities of the research mistakes and misinformation.

Medical reversals and rejection of medical protocols and suggested treatments are too common and the result of bad methods and scientific dishonesty.  Real science honesty would identify the problems and discover the unreliable information, and the studies would not be published. 

The reports of this or that new breakthrough should be assessed with care by the public and medical professionals.

In 2005, an obscure Greek physician, John Ioannidis, published a groundbreaking article on the unreliability of medical research, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” and he became famous — so famous that he is now at Stanford, heading a study project on scientific integrity, funded by a philanthropist.  What Ioannidis found was that medical research is driven by ambition, intellectual passion, and fallacious thinking.  He didn’t say researchers are dishonest; he just said they often put out false claims and make false assertions.  

I have, in these articles at AT, tried to warn the readers of the problems of dishonesty and malfeasance in medical research — the lay reader is warned to apply these rules as a way to avoid being taken in by bad research methods or just plain cheating and dishonesty.

There are some basic rules to help avoid being taken in by charlatans.

  1. The study should be a human study, or, if it is an animal study, the limits of such a study should be declared.
  2. The study should follow basic rules about how to determine causation, and avoid the trap of claiming that “association” or “coincidence” is proof of causation.
  3. The study should avoid surveys and questionnaires as a source of “evidence” since recall bias is always a problem in survey or response studies.
  4. The study should always be measured in terms of the magnitude of the “effect,” and the rule is that magnitude of effect should be “robust” — at least 2 or 3 times the increase in effect over the baseline.
  5. The study should establish a mechanism to explain the causal effect asserted — for example, ice cream consumption is associated with an increase in drowning deaths, but it is not a cause of those deaths.
  6. Although I could argue that peer review and publication are not a good standard for reliability, the source of the research and the reputation of that source as well as the reputation of the journal the research was published in is often worth something.  How much it is worth is the question.

The important thing is that professionals and citizens should be careful to question and evaluate what is pronounced by medical journals.  Too often, they are overwhelmed by self-esteem and ambition.

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/

Alarmists Propose Rebranding ‘Climate Change’ for Greater Shock Value

Climate change alarmists are pushing for a change in vocabulary to scare people into taking global warming more seriously, starting with terms like “global meltdown” and “climate collapse.”

Writing for AdAge this week, Aaron Hall argues that in order to get people to “take action” against climate change, “rebranding” is crucial, since people have gotten too used to the idea that climate is changing and need to be shocked into the notion that the world as we know it is ending.

“Is there a better way to convey the urgency of the situation, while also encouraging folks to take action? Could the tools of branding and brand naming create a more resonant, powerful name?” Mr. Hall asks.

What he and his marketing team came up with was a series of much more frightening labels to stick on climate change in the hope of jolting people into meaningful engagement.

The terms “Global Meltdown” or “Global Melting,” for instance, deliver a more negative image than mere “Global Warming,” he contends. “The names signal that ice caps are melting, but also create a more visceral image in the mind — that real feeling of ‘melting’ when it’s too hot outside. A meltdown is a disastrous event that draws from the ultimate terror of a nuclear meltdown, an apt metaphor for global destruction.”

“Climate Collapse” and “Climate Chaos,” on the other hand, “instill a clear message or even a direct call to action,” Hall notes, adding that “there’s nothing neutral about collapse or chaos.”

To up the rhetoric even more, Hall proposes the weaponized term “Scorched Earth.”

“Sometimes a brand name needs to be hyperbolic to truly capture hearts and minds. If we don’t take massive action now, Earth will be uninhabitable — an irreversible barren wasteland,” he insists. “‘Scorched Earth’ paints the direst picture of what’s to come and what we must avoid and is likely the edgiest brand name from our exploration.”

“Whatever we call it, impending climate doom is upon us if we don’t act quickly,” Hall concludes. “Perhaps a new name will shift the needle, even if just a little.”

Mr. Hall’s contention that it does not matter if what is said is true as long as it elicits the necessary response is reminiscent of similar assertions by leaders of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement.

Spokespersons of the movement have acknowledged that their claims that billions of people are going to die from climate change have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact but are necessary to provoke the kind of response that is needed to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

Pressed last month on what the basis was for predictions of mass deaths, XR spokesperson Zion Lights acknowledged there is no real ground for these predictions, but contended that such incendiary language is necessary to motivate people, confessing that “alarmist language works.”

While it is clearly true that “alarmist language works” in some cases, it is also true that people tend to resent being lied to and manipulated.

Like Aesop’s fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, climate alarmists may wake up one fine day to find that nobody believes them anymore.

Such is the price of lying.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Man Responding to Screams Rearranges Face of Violent Burglar

Commentary News

Man Responding to Screams Rearranges Face of Violent Burglar

Mark KatsnelsonMiami-Dade Corrections and RehabilitationMark Katsnelson, 35, is being held without bond on charges of burglary with assault or battery. (Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation)

A would-be home invader picked the wrong home to try to force his way into Saturday night, and now his face shows the consequences of his foolish decision.

Fox News reported that the intruder was identified in court records as 35-year-old Mark Katsnelson, who is being held without bond in police custody on charges of burglary with assault or battery.

Judging by Katsnelson’s mugshot, he earned a black eye, broken nose, swollen jaw and other injuries to his face after he allegedly attempted to forcibly enter the home of a Miami man.

According to an arrest affidavit, homeowner Barry Sands was asleep at around 10:20 p.m. when he suddenly awoke to hear what he believed was a “hysterical female banging on the front door of the residence, asking for help.”

Sands proceeded to open his front door to see what was going on, and that is when Katsnelson allegedly barged into the home and immediately began to attack Sands.

TRENDING: Bloomberg Campaign Manager Breaks Bad News to Democrats: ‘Trump Is Winning’

The homeowner suffered some minor injuries of his own — a cut lip and cut toe — as Katsnelson struck him with his hands, but the tables were swiftly turned as Sands fought back and punched the intruder several times in the face, ending the attack.

The Daily Mail reported that Katsnelson was arrested by the police a short time later and was transported to Jackson North Medical Center for treatment for his facial injuries.

After receiving treatment for those injuries, Katsnelson was then transported and booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, where he remains without bond.

Sands, who acted in self-defense, has not been charged with any crime.

There was no word in either report about the source of the screams the homeowner said he heard. It’s unclear whether it was a woman who left the scene or a ploy from the burglar to more easily gain entry. Such a deceptive tactic is not uncommon among home invaders.

But what if it was a woman in distress and Sands had either not woken up to her screams or decided against opening the door to his home to survey the situation and potentially provide aid?

Alternatively, what if Sands hadn’t been able to overpower the home invader?

In both of those scenarios, wouldn’t they have been better able to defend themselves if armed with a gun?

These sorts of violent assaults and home invasions happen all of the time across the country, and more often than not, it is the targeted victim and not the criminal who comes out on the losing end of the battle and ends up injured or dead.

Do you believe Americans should be able to protect their home with a firearm?

0% (0 Votes)

0% (0 Votes)

RELATED: Gunman Allegedly Points AK-47 at 60-Year-Old, One ‘John Wick’ Move Left Punk Dead

A firearm can help a potential victim even the odds against an attacker or gain the upper hand, and the use of a gun in such a threatening situation would be entirely justifiable as an act of self-defense.

Unfortunately, there are those on the left who would strip away the rights of people to possess and use a firearm for self-defense, even in their own home, which is why there are those of us on the right who advocate every day in defense of the Second Amendment and our God-given right to be armed so we can protect ourselves from violent home invaders.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com

Teen Spends Seven Days on Top of a Semi Truck To Raise Money for a Faith-Based Nonprofit

A Florida teen spent seven days of his Thanksgiving break sleeping on top of a semi truck to raise money for a good cause.

Carson Rudy, 14, hopes to help Convoy of Hope, a faith-base humanitarian aid organization, purchase a brand new semi-truck to help their efforts by raising $250,000 by 2024.

The teen first heard about the organization while in Indiana for a conference, where he was being honored for raising over $100,000 for a variety of charities. When he saw a semi truck for the organization parked outside, he told his dad he wanted to raise money to help them buy another.

Convoy of Hope uses the semi trucks to transport vital supplies to those in need.

When Carson’s father, Shawn Rudy, reached out to Convoy of Hope to ask them how much a semi truck would cost, they were initially confused.

TRENDING: Bloomberg Campaign Manager Breaks Bad News to Democrats: ‘Trump Is Winning’

“They were like, ‘Excuse me?’” Shawn Rudy told The Lakeland Ledger. “I said, ‘My son wants to raise money to buy you a new truck and trailer,’ and the people said, ‘Oh wow, this kid is legit.’”

Carson said he supports the organization because they do more than just disaster relief.

“It also teaches people in third world countries how to grow their own food,” he said, adding that the faith-based organization also focuses on “women empowerment.”

His campaign caught the attention of Diesel Life, a diesel fan and trucker apparel company, which became his first corporate sponsor.

The company pledged 50 percent of their online sales from Nov. 19 to Nov. 26 to Carson’s campaign.

“You can probably find most 14 year old boys playing Fortnite, or glued to their cell phones, but not Carson Rudy,” the apparel company wrote on Facebook. “Although Carson did admit he loves playing games on his iPad he has a passion for charity work.”

Carson ascended the truck, donated for the week by Saccar Trucking, parked outside of his church on Nov. 19 and lived in a built “Truck House” that sat on top of the trailer, complete with a bathroom tent.

People brought Carson meals and came from all over to donate to “Carson’s Big Rig Project.”

RELATED: AOC Slammed Amazon for Taking Tax Breaks, But Wanted One for Her Business in 2012

Despite the rain and the cold, the determined teen stayed on top of the semi, only coming down for 10 minutes a day to take a shower.

This year, he is aiming to raise $20,000 toward his $250,000 goal. So far, he’s raised nearly $10,000 of that goal!

Sleeping outside to raise money for charity isn’t something new for Carson. In 2016, he spent his Thanksgiving break sleeping on top of a billboard to raise money to fund missionary work, according to WTVT. Carson raised over $100,000 during that “Up in The Air” project.

Even though many have commending the teen for his efforts, Carson remains humble and turns the focus back on the cause.

“Some people need help in faraway places that can’t always get it,” he told Bay 9 News. “It feels nice to know that you’re helping people.”

If you would like to donate to Carson’s campaign, benefiting Convoy of Hope, you can donate online through his church by clicking this link.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com