I’m going to give those claiming they want to save President Trump from a potential impeachment the benefit of the doubt, although at times like these I seriously wonder whether such benefit should be extended.
I mean, when someone like myself, who didn’t even vote for Trump, seems more earnest in salvaging his presidency than those who shill for him, I have to wonder if some of these people really care about the country. Or do they just want the show (see that as clicks)?
Because advising Trump to fire independent counsel Robert Mueller is arguably the single dumbest strategic advice I’ve ever heard. Beyond it dragging Trump into a credibility war he cannot possibly win versus a man with an impeccable service record (whom the Trump administration appointed in the first place), it also incentivizes Trump to do more of why he has a historically low approval rating.
It’s the political equivalent of telling a friend trying to kick a meth habit, and struggling through withdrawal, to just take a little tweak to tide him over. (When that “little tweak” is what led him to being a junkie in the first place.)
But there is something Trump can absolutely do to make this all go away — at least in the minds of anyone who would even entertain ever voting for him. And he can do it right now, before Mueller issues a single subpoena or conducts a single deposition.
Trump can take a page out of the playbook of his old friends, the Clintons, when they were besieged by scandal, and simply govern well.
Back then, we caught a president committing a crime on tape. Yet most Americans simply shrugged and said, “Why should I care more than his wife does?” They did so because we were in the midst of a robust economic recovery, primarily fueled by the dot.com boom, when the economy was growing three times the current rate.
In other words, the people didn’t want to rock the boat while things were going well. That is especially so since that Al Gore guy would then take over, and he actually believes that crazy economy-killing environmentalist wacko stuff Bubba only paid lip service to.
Since then, the American people’s overall disdain for their political class has only grown. And their expectations for their politicians have eroded all the more as a result — to the point the character of our leaders is largely irrelevant now. Not even those supposedly Sola Scriptura fundamentalist Christians believe character counts anymore.
I don’t approve of that, and I wish that wasn’t the case. But I also wish I had six-pack abs, too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in politics, it’s that you can’t change an environment any more than you change the weather forecast. So when the meteorologist tells you winter is coming, you can either howl at the monitor or equip yourself to thrive in that environment.
Instead of encouraging Trump to pursue a course of action that will likely end with him before Speaker Pelosi’s Congress pressing impeachment in 2019, supporters of the president should be urging him to use this cynical environment to his advantage. See, the vast majority of those who voted for Trump knew he wasn’t Mr. Virtue. They did so because the other damaged option, Hillary Clinton, would use government as the means to damage them as well.
This is the reason so many Trump voters aren’t moved by his alleged misbehavior. Most who voted for Trump aren’t in this because of his notorious cult of personality, but “because Hillary.” And when your primary investment in a politician is who they aren’t rather than whom they are, you didn’t really have expectations to begin with.
Thus, if Trump just does what he promised to do – repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, protect the border, and kill lots of terrorists – names like Comey and Mueller will simply pass into the Netherrealm of the comments sections of the lefty blogosphere. The rest of America will simply shrug their shoulders and say, “They’re all crooks anyway, but this one at least leaves me alone and kills the bad guys before they kill us.”
I want Trump’s presidency to be successful, regardless of my reservations, for he makes decisions each day that could determine our kids’ futures. If I wanted my previous NeverTrump stance vindicated, I’d just sit by and say nothing while he chose the road to political perdition, and then pridefully utter, “I told you so.”
However, Trump has done some good things when it comes to judicial appointments (I hope), the regulatory state, and foreign policy I’d like him to continue doing. But the odds he’ll get to do so decline every day his focus isn’t on good governing. (For more from the author of “Do This If You Really Want to Save Trump From Impeachment” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Donald_Trump_Rally_Dallas.jpg8481280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:45:122017-06-18 01:34:55Do This If You Really Want to Save Trump From Impeachment
Facebook announced Thursday that it plans to use artificial intelligence to help remove inappropriate content from the social media platform.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post that the efforts will be directed at removing terrorist content, but suggested that other “controversial posts” could be removed too.
Noting that human reporting does not always catch terrorist posts in a timely fashion, he explained, “That’s why we’re also building artificial intelligence that lets us find potential terrorist content and accounts faster than people can.”
The software uses “natural language understanding” and “image matching” to find content. “And when we identify pages, groups, posts or profiles that support terrorism, we use algorithms to find related material across our platform.”
“There’s an area of real debate about how much we want AI filtering posts on Facebook,” Zuckerberg conceded. “It’s a debate we have all the time and won’t be decided for years to come. But in the case of terrorism, I think there’s a strong argument that AI can help keep our community safe and so we have a responsibility to pursue it.”
The CEO also announced the launch of Facebook’s “Hard Questions” blog, which will tackle such issues as:
How much should we monitor and remove controversial posts, and who gets to decide what’s controversial?
How do we make sure social media is good for democracy?
How aggressively should social media companies monitor and remove controversial posts and images from their platforms?
Who gets to decide what’s controversial, especially in a global community with a multitude of cultural norms?
Who gets to define what’s false news — and what’s simply controversial political speech?
In a post to which Zuckerberg linked in announcing the blog, Facebook’s vice president for public policy and communications, Elliot Schrage, further elaborated that it will be a place for the social media giant to explain its editorial decisions.
“As we proceed, we certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with all the choices we make. We don’t always agree internally,” wrote Scharage. “We’re also learning over time, and sometimes we get it wrong. But even when you’re skeptical of our choices, we hope these posts give a better sense of how we approach them — and how seriously we take them.”
During the presidential election in May 2016, the tech blog Gizmodo broke a story, based on reports by former Facebook news curators, that the platform regularly suppressed conservative news and injected liberal topics into its “trending” news section.
Zuckerberg strongly denied that Facebook engaged in this practice.
“We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it,” he responded at the time.
To further reassure conservatives that Facebook is playing the fair online arbiter, the company invited various conservative personalities to its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., that month.
After Donald Trump’s upset victory of Hillary Clinton last fall, Facebook faced criticism for allowing purveyors of so-called “fake news” to flourish, which supposedly helped swing the election in Trump’s favor.
Zuckerberg wrote a post on Facebook days after the election expressing his doubts that his platform played any such role.
“Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic,” he related. “Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”
He added, “We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here. We have made progress, and we will continue to work on this to improve further.”
The clear danger in trying to identify and remove “fake news” lies in using that as a guise to take down content with which the Facebook editors do not agree.
Liftable Media CEO Patrick Brown commended Facebook following the presidential election for its “insistence upon free and open dialogue and debate.”
He contended that “fake news has suddenly come to the foreground for one main reason. For many years the same few media entities have largely controlled the media discourse in this country. This includes the major TV networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. They have decided what is newsworthy, what is worthy of discussion, and, ultimately, what is ‘true.’”
Joe Miller, publisher of Restoring Liberty — the most popular political blog in Alaska — conjectured that Facebook’s use of artificial intelligence may be employed to give it cover.
“Given Facebook’s atrocious past track record in suppressing free speech under the guise of ‘social responsibility,’ its new hybrid approach involving artificial intelligence is probably just a thinly-disguised way to shift direct responsibility for political manipulation away from Zuckerberg,” said Miller.
Shaun Hair, Liftable’s vice president of digital content, said, “The stated good intentions of Facebook still assumes that they are worthy to hold the keys of truth for the rest of us.”
He added, “The purveyors of false news usually get shut down over time because the truth wins.” (For more from the author of “Facebook Plans to Use Artificial Intelligence to Review for Extremist Posts” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logo-facebook.png512512Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:44:322017-06-17 21:06:31Facebook Plans to Use Artificial Intelligence to Review for Extremist Posts
The New York Times has had a leftward bias for decades. But the bias has gotten much worse in recent years. It became insufferable when Trump entered the presidential race. Like so many elite institutions who pick their employees from today’s academic consensus mills, the Times saw no reason to treat Trump fairly. To respect his voters or their concerns. Or even to sort out legitimate skepticism about Donald Trump’s attitude toward Russia. You know, from elaborate and poorly-sourced crank conspiracy theories.
And now the Times has done the unforgivable. Rep. Steve Scalise still fights for his life, his family around his hospital bed. America still processes a terrorist attack against one of its three branches of government. And the Times let its bias goad it into lying. Not just lying, libeling.
The Weekly Standard Gets it Right
I can’t improve on Mark Hemingway’s synopsis in The Weekly Standard. So let me just quote him at some length. (Do go read his piece—a scrupulous autopsy of the Times’ credibility.) Hemingway writes:
Yesterday, following the news that a Republican congressmen was shot playing baseball, along with four others, in Virginia, the New York Times wrote what one conservative website is calling the “Worst Editorial In Human History.” Discussion of it has dominated social media, and even a number of notable liberal pundits are appalled.
Here’s the original masthead editorial from the Times:
Not all the details are known yet about what happened in Virginia, but a sickeningly familiar pattern is emerging in the assault: The sniper, James Hodgkinson, who was killed by Capitol Police officers, was surely deranged, and his derangement had found its fuel in politics. Mr. Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter and campaign volunteer virulently opposed to President Trump. He posted many anti-Trump messages on social media, including one in March that said “Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”
Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.
Conservatives and right-wing media were quick on Wednesday to demand forceful condemnation of hate speech and crimes by anti-Trump liberals. They’re right. Though there’s no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack, liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standard of decency that they ask of the right.
After a firestorm of criticism, the Times released a brief, incomplete correction:
An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a link existed between political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords. In fact, no such link was established.
Hemingway unpacks that:
Just to recap, Sarah Palin and Tea Partiers were blamed widely for incitement in the media in the immediate aftermath of the Giffords shooting (quite notably in the pages of the Times), even though it was apparent on the day of the shooting that Jared Lee Loughner was paranoid schizophrenic who believed that grammar was a conspiracy to keep people from thinking correct thoughts, a man with no rational political beliefs.
Further, there’s absolutely no evidence that he ever saw the map circulated by Sarah Palin’s political action committee, and the idea that using cross hairs on a map to rhetorically “target” politicians for defeat counts as an incitement to violence is absurd. Politics, like everything else, is full of martial metaphors—”campaign” is a term borrowed from war.
Despite this, two years after the Giffords shooting and long after we knew all about Loughner’s motivations (or lack thereof), a news story in the Times noted that “many criticized Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential nominee, for using cross hairs on her Web site to identify Democrats like Ms. Giffords who she said should be defeated for re-election,” without noting there’s no link between Loughner and Palin.
Can You Get Fired for Libel Anymore?
Let’s review. The New York Times
distorted the truth about a vicious attack on a U.S. congresswoman.
Attributed real political views to a raving, bipartisan psychotic.
Blamed the attack on a conservative Christian U.S. politician.
It did so on zero evidence, out of clear partisan animus.
All to deflect attention from a murder attempt against a dozen Republican congressmen.
That meets the standard for libel in my book. I’ve read that Gov. Palin is considering a lawsuit, and I hope that she pursues it. The key criterion in court is that the story show “reckless indifference to the truth,” and evidence of malice. The Times managed to check both boxes.
Keep in mind that this is a paper which years back met charges of rampant bias by appointing an independent “Public Editor” to supervise its content. They just dismissed him as unnecessary. Oops.
Journalistic Malpractice
This is not just an instance of left-wing bias. It is a journalistic scandal. To see how profound it is, turn things around. Imagine if:
Some pro-lifer had shot at Supreme Court justices, shouting, “I want to kill all the pro-Roe judges!”
Then the next day Fox News tried to deflect the political fallout by citing the violence committed by some drooling meth-addict with a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker.
And it blamed Clinton for inciting him.
That’s how unhinged are the minds, cankered the souls, that produced that masthead editorial in the New York Times.
The New York Times should do more than publish some bland, incomplete retraction. It should fire every member of the editorial board who approved that toxic and cruel editorial. The Times should apologize to Governor Palin, and give her a weekly Op-Ed column for six months. It should then try to locate some fair-minded liberals. Writers with a deep respect for the truth and some emotional distance. Then appoint them instead to run its editorial page.
They will be hard to find. The “elite” schools that produce such writers have abandoned objectivity, fairness, free speech, and other Western values as products of the white male patriarchy. Scholars at such schools routinely denounce biology and even physics for failing to reflect their leftist agenda. (Follow New Real Peer Review for dozens of such instances.) Instead, students learn a deep-seated relativism toward facts, science, and morals. The only anchor that guides them is naked political aggression, the will to power. The opportunity to crush the morally loathsome, “deplorable” opponent. That’s the hiring pool for the New York Times and most other media.
And that’s how you end up printing libel in the nation’s “paper of record.” (For more from the author of “The New York Times Just Attempted Suicide” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/New_York_Times_Building_0210.jpg32404320Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:40:362017-06-16 23:40:36The New York Times Just Attempted Suicide
Wednesday afternoon, in a brazen disregard for the lives of the preborn and good stewardship of your money, the Alaska State House voted to give Planned Parenthood an extra nearly million dollars from the state’s capital budget.
The Senate had previously passed the capital budget (SB23) without the funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest child killing chain. Democrat leadership in the House then added it into the bill. On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Eastman moved an amendment to strip the money out of the capital budget. The amendment failed 28 to 12 with many Republicans voting to keep Planned Parenthood’s blood money in the budget
I want to focus on one legislator in particular who betrayed the pro-life movement – Palmer Rep. DeLena Johnson. Rep. Johnson came to us last summer seeking the Alaska Right to Life endorsement to help her get elected. Here is a copy of her signed Personhood affirmation and promises to us.
Not only has Rep. Johnson voted to give Planned Parenthood an extra million dollars, but she also refused to keep her commitment to co-sponsor HB250 the Life at Conception Act of 2017. This is the first bill in Alaska history that will give total protection to the preborn.
Politicians often give lip service to the pro-life movement during election season but shove us to the back of the bus during legislative season. This is why Alaska Right to Life requires a signed Personhood affirmation before candidates are considered for endorsement. Because of Rep. Johnson’s promises to us, we did grant her an endorsement. This is a completely brazen betrayal of her commitment!
We can’t let this betrayal go unpunished or the pro-life movement will never be taken seriously.
Contact Rep. Johnson and let her know how disappointed you are:
Representative DeLena Johnson
Email: [email protected]
Toll-Free: 866-465-4958
Planned Parenthood’s puppets have already started spreading the lie that a judge ordered the payment therefore we have to give Planned Parenthood this money. This will be the line many politician will peddle to obfuscate their complicity. The Constitution gives the legislature the purse strings for a reason. It’s called “separation of powers”. The truth is that Planned Parenthood only gets this money if the legislature willing votes to give it to them. Period.
Here is Alaska Right to Life’s position statement sent to legislators before the vote. They were duly warned.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill allowing faith-based foster care and adoption agencies to deny LGBT parents Thursday.
Abbott signed HB 3859 into law, effectively protecting faith-based agencies from being sued for choosing not to place children with gay, lesbian, transgender or other LGBT couples.
Democrats argue the bill is redundant because the law already protects the rights of faith-based agencies to make child placement decisions based on an agency’s religion. The new law, however, further ensures that the state cannot sue agencies for denying potential parents based on religious criteria.
State Rep. James Frank, author of the bill, said it would not only defend the rights of religious agencies, but also help solve the housing crisis that plagues the foster and adoption systems.
“This is a defensive bill. It allows everyone to participate,” said Frank. “It requires [Child Protective Services] to maintain a diverse network of homes and provides reasonable accommodations to those who are helping solve our foster care capacity crisis.” (Read more from “Religious Adoption Agencies Can Reject LGBT Parents in Texas” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/family-730320_960_720-1.jpg678960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:35:492017-06-16 23:35:49Religious Adoption Agencies Can Reject LGBT Parents in Texas
The Russian defense ministry claims to have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a May 28 airstrike in Raqqa, Syria.
Russian forces in Syria launched the airstrike after receiving intelligence that ISIS leaders were planning a meeting in the outskirts of Raqqa.
“According to the information that is being verified through various channels, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi also attended the meeting and was killed in the airstrike,” the ministry said in a statement Friday, according to the Associated Press.
In addition to several senior ISIS leaders, Russia estimates around 30 field commanders and 300 personal guards were killed in the strike.
The ministry claims it informed the U.S. of the airstrike in advance. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, the spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition, said he could not confirm the Russian report of Baghdadi’s death. (Read more from “Russia Claims It Killed ISIS Leader Baghdadi in Airstrike” HERE)
I grew up in a small town without a lot going on. There were two types of girls at my high school: those who dropped out, and those who played basketball.
We had other sports, too, but they served mainly to keep us in shape. Kids at my school couldn’t name our (female!) senators, but they knew everything about legendary coach Pat Summitt. At sleepovers we watched the movie Love and Basketball or a screening of A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back.
When Seattle got their WNBA franchise in 2000, girls in my class drove three hours to watch their first games with Lauren Jackson. When they made the playoffs in 2002, we celebrated Sue Bird, the fresh, energetic rookie from UConn.
So I was surprised when I saw that Bird is still playing. And my heart sunk when I saw the headline at The Seattle Times: “Storm Partners With Planned Parenthood for Fundraising Rally.”
For the first time ever, the abortion giant is getting public support from a professional sports team. Given the abortion provider’s history of exploiting women, I would have expected the Pittsburgh Steelers. But no, it’s the WNBA’s Seattle Storm who will raise money for Planned Parenthood.
Raising Money for Organ Harvesters
The Storm’s owners announced a rally on July 18, with proceeds going to Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaii (PPGNHI).
And guess where infamous Planned Parenthood organ harvester Deborah Nucatola is now? After undercover videos exposed her practice of changing abortion procedures and profiting from the sale of human organs, Nucatola moved … to Hawaii. She is now the Hawaii Medical Director for PPGNHI.
Which means that ticket sales on July 18 will help support the work of a doctor who illegally performed partial-birth abortions. Remember that Nucatola is the one who taught other abortionists the best methods to harvest organs “intact” by ignoring federal law.
Storm owner Dawn Trudeau explained the move to support Planned Parenthood in a statement: “Access to affordable, quality health care, including a full range of reproductive care, is a critical precondition for anyone — especially girls and women, to pursue their dreams and grow into their best selves.”
Basketball is a great thing. It teaches girls how to grow strong, focused and disciplined, and it brings communities together. But any dream that requires killing children in the womb is not going to lead to anyone’s best self.
Abortion is Hurting Female Athletes
Female athletes already face tremendous pressure to abort. Olympic runner Sanya Richards-Ross just wrote a book about her abortion and her post-abortive journey to healing, by God’s grace. But her story is too common.
“I literally don’t know another female track and field athlete who hasn’t had an abortion,” Richards-Ross told Sports Illustrated. “And that’s sad.”
Partnering with America’s largest abortion provider may benefit the team’s owners, but it doesn’t help women. It only compounds the pressure they already feel. And raising money for an organization that harvests human organs is the opposite of empowering.
The Storm’s decision to partner with Planned Parenthood is heartbreaking for pro-life fans. They were a team we once looked to with excitement and pride. But with this partnership, they’re choosing a side in the fight for life — and it’s the side of despair and greed. (For more from the author of “When Your Basketball Team Partners With Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/basketball-933173_960_720.jpg639960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:30:432017-06-16 23:30:43When Your Basketball Team Partners With Planned Parenthood
Kate Hall won the 100m sprint at regionals her sophomore year. But a year later, Hall was beat by Andraya Yearwood, a high school freshman. Yearwood was born male but “identifies” as female. At the time of the race, he had not undergone hormone treatment or surgery to “transition from male to female.”
More Than Testosterone
Much of the debate about “transgender” athletes has focused on testosterone. Consider the NCAA policy for such transgender athletes focuses only on testosterone. According to the NCAA’s policy for men transitioning to women:
A trans female [male transitioning to a female] student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism, for the purposes of NCAA competition may continue to compete on a men’s team but may not compete on a women’s team without changing it to a mixed team status until completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment. (NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes, 2011)
Notably, a trans male (female identifying as male) does not have to wait a year before competing on a men’s team.
Testosterone plays a big role in athletic performance. But when we start talking about high-performance competition, especially in track and field, small variations make all the difference. These go well beyond testosterone.
Hip Structure and Center of Mass
Some differences can’t be changed, even with surgery and hormone treatments.
One of the major differences between male and female runners is the hip structure along with everything attached to hip movement. It’s not just a matter of having wide or narrow hips. A key difference is the ratio between hip width and femur length. Women tend to have a greater hip width-to-femur length ratio, which leads to greater hip adduction — that is, movement toward the center of the body. This difference has a domino effect that results in small differences in joint rotation and muscle recruitment.
In other words, men and women differ in how the lower parts of their bodies move as a coordinated wholes.
Other Differences
Men also tend to have more fast-twitch muscles than women. According to experts this isn’t something that can change with training. Fast-twitch muscles are what you want for sprinting because they help you explode off the starting line. They also help produce the kind of “anaerobic” energy you need for sprinting . Slow-twitch muscles are good for conserving energy. They’re the kind of muscles you want in a distance race.
Men also tend to have larger internal organs. This sounds like a disadvantage for sprinters, but larger lungs and heart result in more oxygen uptake. The more oxygen you can take in, the more that can be transported to your muscles. VO2max measures an athlete’s maximum oxygen uptake. It’s higher in men than it is in women, even for men and women that have the same body mass and equivalent lean muscle mass. Biologically, men have a higher VO2max, all other things being equal.
As a result, men also tend to have a higher concentration of hemoglobin in their blood than women do. For athletes, that’s an advantage. This is why doping with EPO, a protein that increases your oxygen-carrying hemoglobin, is illegal in sports. A runner who is born male, therefore, has an advantage over most female athletes wanting to run a clean race.
The Body Can’t Be Completely “Reformatted”
Even with surgery, doping, and hormone treatment, you can’t change every piece of your body. The body functions as a cohesive whole. The skeletal system, the size of major internal organs, and one’s center of mass are all fundamental components of the body. We see this in athletes who use steroids. They often sustain injuries because steroids change muscle mass without changing the ligaments and tendons connected to the muscle.
Doctors can change some things about the body. But they can’t “reformat” the body to become something else completely. A biological male is going to have the fundamental structures of a male body. That’s an inherent advantage in many sports.
Subordinating Athletes Who are “Born Female”
Separating men and women in sports has opened the door for many opportunities for women. Title IX has allowed women athletes to attend college on a scholarship and compete at a high level. Women athletes have also served as role models to other women.
Consider some of the great female runners. Joan Benoit Samuelson took gold the first year the women’s marathon was part of the Olympics. Paula Radcliff holds the women’s marathon world record. Jackie Joyner Kersee holds the best heptathlon score and the second farthest women’s long-jump. Florence Griffith Joyner, considered the fastest woman of all time, ran the women’s 100m in 10.49 and the 200m in 21.34.
All these female athletes have made huge contributions to running. Yet even Florence Joyner’s times would not have qualified her for the men’s semi-finals. In fact, the top twenty-five fastest men in 100m have times under 10 seconds, beating Joyner’s time of 10.49.
Of course elite athletes are by definition outside the norm. But there’s something wrong when half of the population has an inherent disadvantage. If biological males can compete against biological females, it won’t be long, especially in elite sports, before males win all the races and hold all the records.
Women will, in effect, but pushed out of competition because they were born with female bodies. Does that make any sense? As Jeff Jacobs asks in his thoughtful article in the Hartford Courant, “What do we tell these girls? A transgender’s journey is more important than your journey?”
Kate Hall showed grace and maturity in the face of disappointment. But how many more young women will have to say what Hall said in response to her defeat, “It’s frustrating … but that’s just the way it is now”? (For more from the author of “Transgender Sports: Men and Women Have Physical Differences That No Surgery or Hormone Treatment Can Change” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/runners-304972_960_720.png708960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:22:172017-06-16 23:22:17Transgender Sports: Men and Women Have Physical Differences That No Surgery or Hormone Treatment Can Change
This was the comment made by the lead reporter covering Joe Miller and his upstart race for senate, for the then little known, and financially unviable Alaska Dispatch, the night of the primary when Miller pulled off the biggest upset in the history of Alaskan politics, in Trumpian style, back in 2010.
The power, and sheer hubris of the media – had never been more on display – for those attuned to it, than in that race. To be clear- All the powers that be, the media, the left, the establishment GOP, the “deep state” – as it’s now referred to (those sitting in the bureaucracy taking an active hand against a populist or independent minded candidate), all had been taken off guard, and reacted with the full might of their power, doing all they could to sink his campaign in the general election. And, with some help from his own missteps and those of his well meaning staff of honest novices-none of whom, admittedly, had ever been on such a stage, against such seasoned foes- it worked.
It is fair to say, never had Alaskan politics experienced such an upset- and never had that upset been followed by such an assault, from all quarters. Page one lies, followed a week later by page seven retractions. Over an 8 week period of the general election, a count was done of the published articles on each candidate; 26 negative on Miller, 3 on McAdams (the Democrat) and 5, all favorable, on Murkowski, running as a write-in. The myriad of laws broken by state and federal election officials, the slanders by the media, and the betrayals by the party whose primary he won, are legion – too many to list here – but needless to say, the fix was in, and it was heaped on all sides, by all sides.
Fast forward 6 years – and on a much grander stage – a similar event takes place. An unprecedented and more importantly, unpredicted win takes place, and the pillars of power shake.
The response was immediate. The strategy predictable: discredit the win, disavow the mandate.
Never, in the recorded history of our national political scene, has the media, the left wing, the establishment right, and the “deep state” lifelong bureaucrats, all coordinated such a prolonged attack against a sitting president, over.. in realty, nothing..and yet, in a battle, essentially for everything. Make no mistake, the country’s soul is what is up for grabs, and if you do not think so, please take a moment to consider the stage that is set, and where we find ourselves.
A concocted narrative, with no facts, no evidence, and no proof, has dominated the last 8 months of American politics, and is all but insuring the failing of a legislative and executive agenda, which puts as it’s primarily goals, restoring peace and security to the nation and its peoples, and returning freedom and prosperity to the American body, and the individuals of which it’s made, as it’s central goals.
And that, is exactly the problem.
And that, is exactly the point.
The powers that be, on all sides, may not be “colluding” as is the new en vogue phraseology- but they all may as well be. They have a common goal, status quo- and thus- a common enemy: the President. More importantly – his agenda – but there’s more to it than that. A visceral hate, on all sides, because he is beholden to none of them, and this is key; none of them ordained him. In essence- his affront to their sensibilities is three-fold; his goals are in opposition to theirs (no matter what they say in the GOP), they did not create him, thus they cannot control him, and thirdly- they did not predict him, thus he disapproves their all knowing omnipotence.
The last, is the greatest sin.
You can never underestimate the sheer insult it is to the ruling class, when someone they don’t own, and didn’t create, beats their expectations. By extension their lackeys and sycophants in the media and academia are likewise injured, after all- they are the keepers of knowledge and the “knowers of all that is and shall be”, far be it from any citizen, be he small town judge, father of eight and decorated veteran, or billionaire New York real estate magnate and pop culture icon. If they don’t approve you, you don’t get in. If they don’t control you, you don’t get to make decisions. And most importantly – if your basic existence refutes the premise that they know all..
..you must be destroyed.
It’s that simple.
As we watch good men, like former Senator and now Attorney General Jeff Session, get drug thru the mud and have to defend baseless accusations that he should not be subject to…as we watch a media hate cycle feed itself it’s own stories 24 hours a day seven days a week…as we watch craven political operatives and elected politicians shiver with fear in the corner of inaction and cowardice- we may ask ourselves “Why?” And “How did this come to be?” To be be frank, the answer is really not that hard to discern.
For certain, there is money, lots of money at stake. Power, mainline power, the kind that money can’t buy- that is there, to be sure, all of that as well..and all of that has contributed to the decline of nobility of service and replaced it with the utter sleaziness of “job security”, but if you want to know what is really driving all of this, in a word, it is simply this:
Arrogance.
Not just any arrogance.
The kind of arrogance that believes a story shouldn’t be a story unless it was thought of or predicted in the minds of the journalists writing it weeks, months or years before.
The kind of arrogance that thinks the citizen works for the government, and not the other way around.
The kind of arrogance that thinks the powers that be should brook no insolence from the serfs and slaves that tend the fields.
And finally, the kind of arrogance that corrupts a man when he wakes up one day and thinks, not only does he know better than his neighbor how his neighbor should live his life, but that he should be entitled to compel his neighbor- thru force- to live his life accordingly.
At best, this arrogance is giving in to a weakness in all men and women- a failure to discipline oneself against base instincts and poor character temptation that tests us all– at worst, it is the embodiment of evil, and a desire to control ones fellow man, and see them all as merely extras, in the grand Play of ones life, to be moved about to for purposes other than their own, and not deserving of power over their own lives, instead of individuals, with thoughts and opinions and hopes and dreams, and as the only true masters over their own destinies.
It is this arrogance that we are, those of us who hold these beliefs the founders annunciated so well, have been fighting for for centuries. It is this arrogance that we confront now, in the face of the farce that are these hearings and investigations, innuendos and insults, and the attack on our intelligence that is the daily media and pop culture assault, on anyone who dare challenge this arrogance, and those who hold to its self centered axiom, and it is why we must continue to persevere.
This is the world when they have no true power. Full of lies, rumor, slurs, defamation, and character assassination. They are losing right now, thru the grace of God alone.
Imagine the world in which they win?
In the midst of all this, now more than ever, we cannot waiver. We cannot relinquish our freedom and our intellect. We cannot fail to resist. We cannot afford to lose.
______________________________________________
Dr Walter Campbell is a lifelong Alaskan, former Marine, and physician.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/33013659951_835a5d52e0_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:15:462017-06-18 01:44:46“If We Knew He Would Win, We Would Have Stopped Him”
A Russian fighter jet last week intercepted a formation of 11 NATO aircraft, including U.S. bombers, as they flew within international airspace over the Baltic Sea as part of a military exercise.
This correspondent for The Daily Signal was onboard a U.S. Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tanker, part of the formation June 9, and witnessed the intercept by the Russian Su-27 fighter jet.
“It’s a game,” Air Force Lt. Col. Kristofer Padilla, commander of 52nd Operations Group Detachment 1, tells The Daily Signal afterward. “They [the Russians] broke no rules.”
Watch the video:
On this day, NATO warplanes join for an extraordinary aerial formation, comprising two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, one USAF B-52H bomber, two German Eurofighter Typhoon fighters, two Polish F-16 fighters, two U.S. Air Force F-16s, and a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft.
The aerial refueling tanker, which flies in front of and above the rest of the formation, carries The Daily Signal’s correspondent and other members of the media.
The event is part of an annual NATO maritime exercise in the Baltic Sea called BALTOPS, running from June 1 to 16.
The exercise dates to 1972. But with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and heightened tensions across Eastern Europe between NATO and Russia, the exercise is now more than just a chance for NATO forces to practice operating together in the high-stress environment of simulated combat.
Today, BALTOPS is a signal to NATO’s eastern members that the alliance is committed to their defense. It’s also a message of deterrence to Moscow, underscoring that military aggression against a NATO member could lead to war.
The New Normal
The NATO formation comes together while it orbits on a refueling track over the Baltic Sea within international airspace. Then, unannounced, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter merges to intercept the NATO aircraft.
Out of the rear refueling boom operators station, with a window facing down and behind the aircraft, this correspondent observes as the Russian fighter jet, painted in light blue camouflage, approaches.
The Russian fighter moves in from the front right side, merging to intercept within a few hundred meters laterally and at the same altitude as two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers—approximately what the Air Force calls tactical formation.
The Russian warplane cuts laterally across the formation from right to left, briefly trailing a U.S. B-52 bomber. The NATO formation does not modify due to its unanticipated presence. After a few minutes, the Russian Su-27 breaks off and the formation continues as planned.
U.S. pilots and their commanders downplay the Russian intercept, underscoring that it was not provocative and that U.S. and NATO aircraft never were in danger.
In an email to The Daily Signal, a U.S. military spokesman confirms the Su-27 had its transponder switched on, so the aircraft could be identified.
“We were flying with our allies in the Baltic Sea and we were intercepted by Russian fighters as expected,” writes Lt. James Fisher, an Air Force public affairs officer who was on the KC-135 flight to observe the Russian intercept.
“It was in international airspace and has been characterized as safe and routine,” Fisher says of the intercept. “It was all handled very professionally.”
Still, the sight of a Russian fighter jet merging alongside a pair of B-1B bombers and then cutting across the tail of a B-52 bomber is extraordinary, underscoring the new normal of NATO-Russian military encounters in the region.
The Western alliance is engaged in a delicate, peacetime back and forth with Russia, in which both sides are prone to see routine military operations and exercises by the other camp as provocative acts of brinkmanship, or regional power plays.
‘We Expect Intercepts’
Russia’s air activities over the Baltic Sea have been more aggressive since 2014, the year it invaded Crimea and launched a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. Resultantly, NATO has stepped up its air policing mission in the region, doubling the number of warplanes tagged to patrol the Baltic skies from four to eight in 2014.
“In 2014 and 2015, the number of NATO Air Policing flights over the Baltic and Black Sea areas increased significantly due to increased Russian air activities,” according to the 2016 NATO Secretary General’s Annual Report.
Russian warplanes now routinely intercept NATO warplanes and ships in the Baltic Sea. U.S Air Force personnel say that as long as Russian jets abide by international norms of air safety, they are free to do what they want within international airspace.
“We expect intercepts to happen,” Fisher, the Air Force public affairs officer says. “We act as professional airmen when they do. … There are a number of intercepts that take place on a regular basis. The vast majority are conducted in a safe manner.”
Russian state media and U.S. Air Force personnel portrayed the June 9 intercept in sharply contrasting ways.
Kremlin officials and Russian state-controlled media painted the intercept as an instance of Russia’s standing up to NATO aggression.
“The fact that NATO forces are converging near Russia’s borders and carrying out military exercises supported by strategic bombers from the USA capable of carrying nuclear weapons hardly helps de-escalate tensions in Europe,” Russian Foreign Ministry official Mikhail Ulyanov said, according to Sputnik, a Russian news agency.
For their part, U.S. pilots dismiss this intercept as a normal part of flying in international airspace.
“We’re professional fighter pilots; that’s not something that would be a distraction, or would require any focus to prep. That’s kind of normal ops for us,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Freeborn, commander of the 510th Fighter Squadron, says.
The 510th is an F-16 squadron based in Aviano, Italy, which deployed here to Krzesiny Air Base, Poland, to support BALTOPS and Saber Strike, a concurrent NATO exercise in the region.
“Everything we’ve seen in the exercise so far has been safe and professional,” Freeborn says.
Assurance and Deterrence
BALTOPS is an annual multinational, maritime-focused exercise. This year, 14 countries participate. The exercise involves 4,000 shipboard personnel, 50 ships and submarines, and more than 50 aircraft.
Like other military exercises in Eastern Europe involving NATO and its partners, the simulated enemy forces confronted by NATO in BALTOPS are not specifically labeled as Russian.
The simulated enemy aircraft, called aggressors, are considered to be near-peers—a hypothetical military adversary with technology and training on par with the U.S. and its allies.
The BALTOPS aggressors are, for the most part, simulating Russian military aircraft.
“It’s not focused in any cardinal direction or against any specific adversary,” Freeborn, the F-16 squadron commander, says.
The U.S. has no permanent Air Force bases in Poland. Yet, different units rotate throughout the country in a noncontinuous cycle, and U.S. pilots are embedded within the Polish Air Force as instructors and advisers.
Detachment 1, from the 52nd Operations Group, which is commanded from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, is the first U.S. permanent operational military unit in Poland.
Beginning in 2012, the detachment supports four annual U.S. aircraft rotations into Poland, two each of F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules planes.
Most U.S. pilots are too narrowly focused on their day-to-day mission to gauge the overall effect of their presence on how allies feel about U.S. security guarantees–or on deterring Russia.
Yet, at the back of their minds is the realization that every mission flown is not just about learning or perfecting a combat skill. Every sortie is also a diplomatic statement.
“Success for me is our unit getting to exercise our multirole airpower that we train to with our NATO partners, and hopefully that contributes to some sort of long-term stability, independence, and prosperity in the region,” Freeborn says.
Ambassadors
There is another, deeper, layer to exercises such as BALTOPS, and it involves more than just ironing out logistics or developing common tactics.
A level of human-to-human trust develops when working side by side with other countries’ militaries in the high-stress environment of simulated combat.
“It takes time to build that trust,” Staff Sgt. Marcus Mathews, an F-16 crew chief with the 510th Fighter Squadron, tells The Daily Signal. “By week two, you start to feel things out. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s not about us, it’s about the whole NATO alliance.”
“We’re ambassadors of our nation,” Mathews says.
Mathews is from Killeen, Texas. He speaks in a measured clip and says “sir” a lot when talking to this correspondent. Walking among the 510th Squadron’s F-16 fighters lined up on the Polish ramp, he is upbeat and full of pride about his job.
Much of the media attention in an exercise such as BALTOPS focuses on the aircraft and the pilots—especially with B-1B and B-52 bombers in the mix.
However, some of the most important lessons learned, and the hardest work done, happens on the steaming hot tarmac of airfield ramps such as here at Krzesiny Air Base. That’s where Mathews and other crew chiefs work day and night to keep jets flying.
Transplanting the squadron’s maintenance infrastructure from Aviano Air Base in Italy up to Poland requires maintainers like Mathews to start from scratch in many ways.
Even the simplest things–where to get fuel, where to throw out the trash–can be headaches at an unfamiliar base. Then there’s the language barrier with Polish counterparts.
Those minutiae of day-to-day operations are some of the biggest hurdles to sort out in peacetime exercises.
“No matter where we’re at, our job doesn’t change,” Mathews says. “Every time a jet goes up, there’s a life in that seat that we’re responsible for. I never forget that.”
Deploying to an unfamiliar airfield is a challenge for pilots, too.
Freeborn says that flying daily simulated combat operations out of a new base, with unfamiliar airspace and local procedures, takes pilots out of their comfort zones and better simulates the real world complications that come from rapidly deploying away from home station to respond to a crisis.
“They have to adapt their normal habit patterns to an unfamiliar setting,” Freeborn says.
Enduring Bonds
BALTOPS is a peacetime military exercise occurring above the actual location where a conflict could break out. It comprises frequent aerial run-ins with NATO’s most likely adversary, Russia.
It’s not an exercise held over a desolate desert range in Nevada, or a swath of empty terrain in Alaska. NATO forces are not simulating, in some distant place, the battlefield over which they could fight the next air war. They’re at it. And the enemy is watching their every move.
As a result, this exercise is more than a chance to rehearse combat operations. It’s also a dry run of the logistics operation necessary to move U.S. military assets to the Baltic region.
“Even the simple things are difficult,” Freeborn, the F-16 commander, says.
Another novelty of the exercise for the Air Force is the battlespace.
Air Force pilots typically spend less time training to operate in the maritime environment than their Navy counterparts. Yet, as part of NATO’s air policing responsibilities in the Baltics and the Arctic to counter the Russian threat, many Air Force missions occur over the water.
BALTOPS is a chance to hone skills supporting maritime operations, which only can be simulated at other Air Force training sites.
“In day-to-day training we don’t have access to that level of joint assets,” Freeborn says, adding:
At least for us in the 510th, that’s an absolutely unique experience for us to actually get to physically work with the naval component of our joint team.
Certainly working with the physical assets and not having to simulate something is great. Both with the Army, the Marines, the Navy … those are just usually fake voices on the radio.
Team Players
The U.S. trains to go to war with its allies.
“I’m conditioned to operate and think as a coalition,” Padilla, an F-16 pilot based in Poland with Detachment 1, says. “At a minimum, to be joint minded. And to be humble and gracious enough to know we are not the big bear in the room.”
Poland, a former Warsaw Pact member state, joined NATO in 1999. Today, the U.S. F-16 pilots hold their Polish counterparts in high regard for the rapid transition they’ve made from a post-Soviet military into a valuable NATO asset.
“It’s remarkable what they’ve done in such a short amount of time,” Padilla says. “They’re motivated.”
On the ramp here at Krzesiny Air Base, Soviet-era Russian fighter jets that the Polish Air Force operated as part of the Warsaw Pact are lined up beside a U.S.-made F-16 fighter—the Polish Air Force’s modern workhorse, which it began flying in 2006.
Every so often, on this day, U.S. and Polish F-16s roar overhead.
On the ramp beside the old Russian fighter jets, Padilla, a seasoned American fighter pilot for whom jet noise is a humdrum part of his workday routine, can’t help but look up.
“What’s the modern day Warsaw Pact?” Padilla says. “There is none. But NATO endures.” (For more from the author of “Watch as Russian Fighter Jet Intercepts US Bombers Over Baltic Sea During NATO Exercise” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/military-aircraft-568641_960_720.jpg643960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:11:452017-06-16 23:11:45Watch as Russian Fighter Jet Intercepts US Bombers Over Baltic Sea During NATO Exercise
The power, and sheer hubris of the media – had never been more on display – for those attuned to it, than in that race. To be clear- All the powers that be, the media, the left, the establishment GOP, the “deep state” – as it’s now referred to (those sitting in the bureaucracy taking an active hand against a populist or independent minded candidate), all had been taken off guard, and reacted with the full might of their power, doing all they could to sink his campaign in the general election. And, with some help from his own missteps and those of his well meaning staff of honest novices-none of whom, admittedly, had ever been on such a stage, against such seasoned foes- it worked.
