Should We Take out Assad?

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Secretary of State Tillerson says that Bashar Assad is guilty of using chemical weapons against his own people. Former senator Ron Paul says there’s no way Assad would do this at this time. A report on Alex Jones’ Infowars claims that Syrian rebels are responsible for the attack. President Trump blames Obama’s inaction for what happened in Syria.

Do we really know what’s going on in Syria? And even if we did, should we try to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad?

According to Rex Tillerson, “There is no doubt in our mind and the information we have supports that Syria, the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad are responsible for this attack and I think further it’s very important that the Russian government consider carefully their continued support for the Assad regime.”

According to Ron Paul, “[I]t doesn’t make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poison gasses,” he continued. “I think there is a zero chance he would have done, you know, this deliberately.”

According to Infowars, “the White Helmets, a al-Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British government, reportedly staged the sarin attack on civilians in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun to lay blame on the Syrian government.”

Who’s right?

Obviously, the Trump administration has far more intel than any of us, and America has already launched its first attack on an airfield in Syria.

But our previous missteps in the Middle East call for caution. We should not act unilaterally until we have a long-term plan.

Remember Iraq

Think back to Iraq.

We may have had the best intentions in removing Saddam Hussein from power. He was guilty of horrific crimes. But his removal created a vacuum of power in the region. This contributed to the rise of ISIS and the terrible persecution of Christians (and others). What happens if we take out Assad?

Right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson expressed his concerns in one tweet: “Regime change in Syria = More dead children More terrorism More refugees ISIS taking the entire country Possible war with Russia. Disaster”.

The problem is that the sarin attack is so ghastly that it feels criminal not to act.

Who can forget the images of the gassed children? Who can forget the picture of the father holding his dead baby twins?

If war is hell, the war in Syria has been a special kind of hell, a literal inferno of suffering. Yet this latest attack has crossed yet another line. But that’s why we must act cautiously and carefully, especially now that we have struck our first retaliatory blow.

Letting Atrocities Force Our Hand

Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost. Unspeakable atrocities have already been committed. People have been blown to bits, ripped apart, maimed, tortured, and more.

Children have lost their parents and parents have lost their children. Whole families have been destroyed in a single day. The peace-loving have been butchered side by side with the terrorists. And really bad guys are present on all sides of the battle.

In short, while the sarin attack crossed a definite line, other lines have been crossed time and again. (Do you remember President Obama’s red line?) And so we must act, but we must act prudently. The most recent atrocity, as appalling as it is, cannot force our hand.

Pray for Divine Intervention

What then do we do?

First, if we are not 100 percent sure that the Assad regime is responsible for the chemical attack, we must continue gathering information, even after our first strikes. The lasting controversy over WMDs in Iraq serves as a cautionary warning.

Second, we must think through the long-term regional implications of whatever actions we take. We don’t want to add even greater suffering and instability to the region.

Third, we must do what we can to support the best players in this bloody drama (if such players exist) while doing our best to protect and aid the innocent, like Syrian Christians who have been caught in the crossfire.

Fourth, we must pray for God’s kingdom to come to Syria, in the words of the Lord’s prayer. Only divine intervention can bring real healing to that ravaged nation. (For more from the author of “Should We Take out Assad?” please click HERE)

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Why Is the Religious Left Not More of a Force?

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Recently in Religion Dispatches Daniel Schultz criticized a Reuters column that claimed that the religious left is becoming a strong political force. Schultz is a United Church of Christ pastor, and very much on the left himself. He’s right that some media mistake slight bouts of liberal religious activism as signs of broader revival. Such stories may highlight a rally of religious leaders wearing clerical collars and robes for show. Do these demonstrators have a popular following among the religious? It’s not clear that they do.

But I don’t think Schultz understands why the religious left has so little influence. He thinks it has too much diversity — ethnic and otherwise — to ever unite and draw on a larger popular base. Perhaps, but I think that misses the larger point.

It’s true that the religious right is largely made up of conservative white evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons and Jews. But the religious left is largely made up of white liberal mainline Protestants, Catholic social justice activists and Jewish groups. It’s been that way for a long time. Black Protestant church leaders sometimes work with the religious left. But their religious and moral differences have hindered full unity.

So why isn’t the religious left more of a force in politics?

The religious left had weight years ago because it was made up of strong mainline Protestant denominations. It had large ecumenical groups like the National Council of Churches. The “God Box” at 475 Riverside Drive in New York was their headquarters. They had hundreds of staffers and millions of dollars. They were protected by church bodies that founded and sustained American democracy.

Most of that old liberal Protestant world is now gone or much deflated. Most of those church agencies have left New York. The old mainline seminaries became the hotbed of the religious left a century ago. Most are now marginalized with far fewer students and reduced funding. A few have closed despite storied histories.

What institutions represent the religious left today? There is Jim Wallis’s Sojourners, the Interfaith Alliance and Faith in Public Life, among a few others. Much of their constituency is the ever-dwindling base of liberal Mainline Protestants. They can organize petitions and small demonstrations. But they don’t have wide, broad-based followings. That’s why the media usually ignore them, as do politicians. The National Council of Churches worked with the Clinton Administration 20 years ago. There was nothing like this during the Obama Administration.

The religious right, in contrast, came about through groups that work with churches, not denominational heads. The right was often headed by well-known evangelicals followed by Christian media. They were supported by mail campaigns. The Moral Majority and later the Christian Coalition were the early models. After the fall of a pastor or advocacy group, there were many early claims that the religious right was dead. But always there are new leaders and new organizations that have popular appeal.

The religious right is inventive while the religious left is still stuck to declining liberal Protestantism. Even now, most lay mainline Protestants ignore their own denominations and vote conservative.

Here’s the twist that most claims about religious left revival ignore or don’t appreciate: religious left activism is almost always the work of elites who have lost touch with their religious base. Take evangelicalism. It is now the largest religious demographic. But many evangelical colleges, relief and other groups have moved left. Many of the evangelical elite tilt left and don’t want to be associated with the conservative base in their own denominations. Most political witness jamborees for young college educated evangelicals are left-leaning. Much of the evangelical blogosphere is left-leaning.

In short, much of evangelicalism is retracing the steps of Mainline Protestantism 100 years ago. As the elites move left, they also lose touch with their religious roots.

This is why the religious left will never have a very wide following. Religion is about keeping traditions and holding fast to teachings that may go against the culture. Religious people are committed to Scripture, family, and real church institutions. They may engage in politics, but it will never be their top concern. The religious left may have religious motives, at least at first. But it’s often more wedded to politics than to the religious convictions of the ordinary faithful. As a result, it slowly loses its religious identity in favor of secular politics and activism.

This cycle at least in American Protestantism never seems to end. Religious liberals may stretch the boundaries of their faith or leave it altogether. Then, a new generation of excited converts rediscover the old orthodoxy and replace those who are content to provide a religious gloss to left wing politics. (For more from the author of “Why Is the Religious Left Not More of a Force?” please click HERE)

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Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind’

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With his surprise, 180-degree decision to avenge innocents in Syria, President Donald Trump entered the particle accelerator that is foreign affairs.

The barrage of urgencies—inhumanity, chemical weapons, Syrian civil war, North Korean missiles, Russian warships, truck bombings, ISIS—has streamed his focus into a statesmanship that impresses even his detractors. This reminds us of Trump’s speech to Congress in February where he grew visibly into his presidential shoes.

Taking decisive action in Syria indeed was in the U.S. national interest, not only an understandable human response to a human atrocity. How is it in the national interest? Chemical weapons cannot be tolerated a bit. No excuse exists. Any shadow of their acceptability would quickly become a black cloud over a world cowed into suspicion and fear. Our national interest depends upon a world open to itself and to the future.

How else was this in the U.S. national interest? Well, it also re-establishes U.S. credibility abroad. For friends and foes alike the bombing is a North Star reference point to White House foreign policies still in formulation. And certainly, that point is not a line, red or other. That point? No more “leading from behind.”

From military giants to lone wolves, today’s range of actors has expanded up, down, and sideways. And with their real-time access to global affairs, they are weaponizing most anything, be it information, chemicals, national debt, online data, or delivery trucks.

With his action in Syria, Trump chose to weaponize leadership. And he showed that the United States will use it to its best effect. (For more from the author of “Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind'” please click HERE)

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Who Gassed the Syrians?

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While world leaders are pointing fingers at several possible groups responsible for the recent chemical attacks in Syria, at least one man says a definitive answer on who perpetrated the crime is unknowable.

Who is Responsible for the Chemical Strike?

In an interview with The Stream, Johannes de Jong, director of the Christian Political Foundation for Europe, said people may never know which of the possible perpetrators gassed the city of Khan Scheichun. De Jong cooperates with the Syriac-Assyrians in Iraq and Syria to “support a political solution of the communities in both countries in order to secure their free and safe future.” The chemical weapons killed 86 people, including children, reported The Associated Press. De Jong said that both Assad and Turkey-backed rebels have access to chemical weapons. Either party could have committed the massacre. “At this point, you simply can’t know.”

And it’s because of that de Jong said the world leaders must not react hastily. “The last thing a big actor should do is take action. … The U.S. should be careful regardless of the chatter everywhere,” he said. But there are at least three possibilities that could have happened.

Assad.

“But why?” asked de Jong. “There’s no obvious gain [to Assad]. … The scale of the attack would suggest that he did it.” But we just don’t know for certain, he added.

Infighting.

De Jong explains that there are multiple factions of fighting parties in the area. The area has been taken over by Al-Nusra, a terrorist group. The area has experienced a lot of unrest, particularly in the last few months, he said. It’s possible that rebel factions are using captured chemical weapons against each other.

Turkey-backed rebels.

This group has been producing and using chemical weapons. “We know they’ve committed chemical attacks,” de Jong explained, “When it happened in Aleppo the media wouldn’t cover it.” The group did operate a chemical lab in Aleppo, he said.

Another possibility is that Assad accidentally hit a chemical deposit. “That’s not completely impossible,” De Jong said. “We simply cannot know.”

Partisan Reporting

Part of the problem is that the information coming out of the area is highly partisan. Western journalists who could report nonpartisan information won’t take the chance of getting kidnapped, he said, and the chance of getting kidnapped in that area is very high. Even the churches in the area are not reliable because they depend heavily on the “good will” of the Assad regime. De Jong said they’ve decided, “Let’s go with the devil [we] know.”

The Blame Game … Russia?

But the charges of guilt are flying in every direction. President Trump lays the blame squarely on Assad. In a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, President Trump said that “heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated.” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley suggested that the U.S. may take action, so confident was the Trump administration in Assad’s guilt. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson connected Syrian allies to the chemical attack. “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May called for an investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, The Guardian reported yesterday. May said there cannot be a future for Assad in a “stable Syria.” She added, “I call on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad. We cannot allow this suffering to continue.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also blamed Assad. “All the evidence I have seen suggests that it was the Assad regime who did it, in full knowledge they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people,” he said at a meeting on Syria in Belgium.

The Russian Defense Ministry posted on Facebook that a Syrian airstrike hit rebel workshops, which produced the gas attack. They also allege that terrorists had been moving the chemicals to Iraq. For its part, Russia said its planes were not in the area at the time of the attack. But this theory was quickly shot down by doctors and experts, who agree that the gas was made up of more than just chlorine. A chemical expert, Hamish de Bretton Gordon, said that Russia’s scenario is “completely untrue.” He said that Russia is trying to protect their allies. “…I think this [claim] is pretty fanciful,” he said. …if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”

Nerve Gas?

Chemical weapons specialist Dan Kaszeta told CNN that Russia’s story is “highly implausible.” “Nerve agents are the result of a very expensive, exotic, industrial chemical process … it’s much more plausible that Assad, who’s used nerve agents in the past, is using them again.”

The World Health Organization said that victims had symptoms consistent with a nerve agent exposure, reported the BBC.

Jerry Smith, leader of the team that oversaw the 2013 removal of Syria’s sarin stockpiles, said yesterday’s film footage shows no physical or trauma injuries. “There is foaming and pinpointed pupils, in particular. This appears to be some kind of organo-phosphate poison. In theory, a nerve agent. What is striking is that it would appear to be more than chlorine. The toxicity of chlorine does not lend itself to the sort of injuries and numbers that we have seen.”

Syria’s Denial

The Syrian government vehemently denied gassing the residents of Khan Scheichun. Syria’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. blame “terrorist groups” for the massacre. Mounzer Mounzer added that “Syria also reaffirms that the Syrian Arab Army does not have any form or type of chemical weapons. We have never used them, and we will never use them.” ABC News reported that Syria’s military denied it used chemical weapons against civilians because the military is too “honorable” to carry out the “heinous” crimes.

They’ve Done It Before

If it was sarin gas, it wouldn’t be the first time Assad used it on his own people. Smith said that the attack “…absolutely reeks of 2013 all over again,” referring to the gas attacks in Damascus that year. The Washington Times reported that victims of the 2013 attack believed rebels were responsible. Following that attack, Smith’s U.N. team oversaw the removal of sarin from Syria. Many believed that Assad had not declared or surrendered all of the chemical weapon. Tuesday’s strike was the largest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 attack.

Rebels Aren’t Capable

Even though Assad denies attacking his own people with chemical weapons, many believe the rebels in the area do not have the capability to either produce the deadly chemicals or drop a bomb. British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said that the U.K. doesn’t believe that rebels have weapons that could cause yesterday’s symptoms, reported The Associated Press. However, in a civil war, rebels often capture government weapons and use them themselves.

Planes Dropped the Bombs

Witnesses and victims believe they saw a chemical attack perpetrated by Assad’s regime. Many claimed to have seen gas bombs dropping from military planes. One hospitalized woman told CNN that she “saw blue and yellow after the plane dropped a … bomb.” Another victim described being overcome with the gas “carried by three rockets.” A teenage girl saw a bomb drop from a plane and land on a building nearby. There was an explosion, then what appeared to be a yellow mushroom cloud. “It was like a winter fog,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, told Reuters, “Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas.”

‘My Son Died Yesterday’

Still, residents of the area aren’t holding out much hope that the latest chemical attack will alter anything. “If the world wanted to stop this, they would have done so by now,” a woman said to The Washington Post. “One more chemical attack in a town the world hasn’t heard of won’t change anything.” She added, “I’m sorry. My son died yesterday. I have nothing left to say to the world.”

Now What?

President Trump, along with leaders from Britain and France, drafted a resolution Tuesday night for the U.N. Security Council. The resolution would condemn the attack and order the Syrian government to “provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations to … international investigators.”

Just today, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “steps are underway” with an international coalition to remove Assad from power. Fox News reported that President Trump will be briefed Friday in Florida by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on retaliatory options for the chemical strikes. (For more from the author of “Who Gassed the Syrians?” please click HERE)

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Is the Trump-Putin Bromance Over for Good?

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President Trump appears to be following the lead of his predecessors in eventually recognizing that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is no friend to America.

Throughout his campaign for president, Trump entertained the idea that America could partner with Moscow’s leadership to work on mutual goals such as targeting the Islamic State terror group.

On the campaign trail, Trump praised Putin as a strong leader and someone he could possibly “get along” with. “You know that, if Putin wants to knock the hell out of ISIS, I’m all for it 100 percent and I can’t understand how anybody would be against that,” Trump opined.

Upon becoming president, Trump still held Putin as a man who he could partner with, holding off on harsh labels and denouncing the Russian dictator. Moreover, choosing Rex Tillerson — who had very close business ties to Russia as CEO of ExxonMobil — as secretary of state seemed to amplify his commitment to making things work with Moscow.

But now, it appears as if Trump’s attempt for détente with Russia has run into inevitable geopolitical realities. Putin refuses to back away from his support of the Assad regime in Syria and the nuclear weapon-seeking mullahs who rule Iran. On the domestic front, the Russian president’s behavior hasn’t changed, either. (And Putin’s critics continue to end up dead under unusual circumstances.)

This week, Bashar Assad reportedly committed a massive chemical weapons attack against his own people, killing dozens of civilians with weapons of mass destruction. Images and videos emerged showing the horrific aftermath, with bodies of tortured innocents lining the streets. Without Putin’s backing of Assad, such a crime against humanity probably would not have happened. Assad’s staying power in Damascus is largely thanks to boots-on-the-ground military support from Russia and Iran.

Now, it appears as if President Trump has come to the realization that he can no longer bear to entertain an alliance with a man who could support the genocidal campaign against an entire citizenry. Regime forces are responsible for the vast majority of the Syrian civil war body count, which has already killed hundreds of thousands. The chemical weapons attack may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

President Trump described the attack as an “affront to humanity,” noting that it had a “big impact” on him personally.

“My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” the president added.

Trump has unleashed U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who on Wednesday tore into the Russian regime for their silence on the Syria massacre. Russia “cannot escape responsibility,” Haley said, adding that Russia has “no interest in peace.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson followed suit, claiming Russia and Iran “bear moral responsibility” for the WMD attack.

President Trump follows his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama in their initial outreach to Putin, only to renege on the idea in the end.

Bush infamously once said of Putin: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Bush would later completely change course due to Putin’s domestic power grab, his reaffirming of alliances with enemies of America, and his military aggression against our allies.

President Obama utilized the services of his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to offer the Russians an actual “reset” in an attempt to set aside differences. Obama personally pledged “more flexibility” to work with the Russians on various issues. This did not change Putin’s behavior. Russia invaded Ukraine (an American ally), continued committing domestic atrocities, and united his country by spewing rally-around-the-flag, anti-American propaganda.

Donald Trump, too, has come to understand that Vladimir Putin is a tyrant. Any illusions Trump had that Putin would possibly come to see the United States as anything other than an enemy nation appear to be over for good. (For more from the author of “Is the Trump-Putin Bromance Over for Good?” please click HERE)

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Is There a Constitutional Crisis in the USA No One Is Addressing?

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Everyone is so smitten with high tech and other political correctness ‘awareness’ goings on, no one is paying attention to the fact our Constitutional Rights, especially those emphasized in the first ten amendments, aka the Bill of Rights, originally proposed and then written by James Madison, are being overlooked, denied and, basically, thrown to the winds as if they did not exist!

As I hear the drumbeats of what’s going on around the country with regard to all sorts of consumer and taxpayer issues, I think I understand how all these crises are being rolled out simultaneously so everyone thinks they are the new norm. Well, let’s think again! I say. We still have the U.S. Constitution, which is the basic law of the USA, and also we have individual state’s Constitutions which, in most cases, parrot some of the rights in the U.S. Constitution. So, what’s gone wrong, you say?

Well, there are two perfect examples in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The first occurs in a sleepy little Borough of Pottstown. Pottstown’s ‘city fathers’ apparently enacted a biannual rental inspections policy requiring rental properties to be inspected, even against the renter’s wishes!

Question: Doesn’t that type of inspection require a warrant based upon probable cause? According to KYW 1060 radio news reports, those inspections can include moving beds, looking into closets—actions which are “off limits for government” unless there is “probable cause.”

Dorothy and Omar Rivera, who rent a home from landlord Steven Camburn, filed a lawsuit against the borough to prevent such inspection. Coincidentally, their landlord also joined in the suit! The Riveras contend such inspections are unconstitutional; they are represented by an attorney with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice.

So, which Constitutional rights are the Riveras concerned about? According to Dorothy Rivera, “I’m a private person. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I don’t want people snooping around my house.” Add to that the fact their landlord says, “Everybody deserves privacy. If there’s no real probable cause, they should not be entering a house that is occupied.”

Meagan Forbes, the plaintiffs’ attorney, says, “People should know about how intrusive these searches are.” However,

In the lawsuit, attorneys claim that Pottstown’s policy is too broad, allowing for inspectors to conduct “highly-intrusive, wall-to-wall searches for compliance with on-the-spot standards that inspectors are free to make up as they go along.”

What’s going on in Pottstown regarding rental property inspections is NOTHING compared with what’s happening to every Pennsylvania utility customer who is supplied electric, natural gas and water with more than 100,000 customers.

Customers’ appliances and usage are being monitored, collected and SOLD to third parties unknown to consumers without their knowledge and consent, nor a legal warrant to collect such personal information. Check out Onzo and what that algorithm does with smart meter data and information.

AMI Smart Meters surveil and collect information, plus interact with customers’ appliances 24/7/365 in total violation of Amendments IV, V, and XIV §2 of the U.S. Constitution, including the Pennsylvania Constitution art. 1 §1.

And the most egregious part about the AMI Smart Meter snooping without a warrant is that AMI Smart Meters and their incessant snooping are mandated ‘supposedly by law’ by an erroneous interpretation of the PA Public Utility Commission’s “belief” interpretation of HB2200/Act 129 (2008), which actually was enacted in reality as an Opt-In Smart Meter bill as publicly published of record in section 2(i) below:

HB2200 §2807(f)7(2)

(2) Electric distribution companies shall furnish smart meter technology as follows:

(i) Upon request from a customer that agrees to pay the cost of the smart meter at the time of the request.

(ii) In new building construction.

(iii) In accordance with a depreciation schedule not to exceed 15 years.

Furthermore, PA State Senator Fumo is on record in PA Senate Journal October 8, 2008 (pp. 2626-2631) stating, “In addition we did not mandate smart meters, but we made them optional.”

However, the piece de resistance is this most damning of admissions by the PA PUC’s Office of Communications’ Dave Hixson in his letter to Thomas A. McCarey dated March 22, 2017 wherein Hixson says:

As I stated in my earlier email correspondence with you, the Commission believes that it was the intent of the General Assembly to require all covered electric companies to deploy smart meters system-wide.

[CJF emphasis added. Thereby supposedly and illegally, the PA PUC made smart meters mandatory—not the state legislature!]

But that’s not all!

Every U.S. state—bar none, except those states which provide opt-outs from AMI Smart Meters—are breaking federal law! Did you know that? The federal law which individual states are violating when they mandate smart meters is Public Law 109-58, The Energy Policy Act of 2005, §1252 Smart Metering. Nothing is said about AMI smart meters being mandated! That would be unconstitutional, I contend, so that’s why “mandated” is not in the language! However, the feds offered a few ‘carrots’ i.e., grants and monetary incentives, to those utilities that would implement AMI Smart Meters. What does that tell you? Follow the money!

In essence, sleepy little Pottstown is “small potatoes” compared with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in denying Constitutional rights to citizens.

What’s going on in your state?

Have you looked into your state’s AMI Smart Meters ‘law’; how AMI SMs are snooping on you; and that you don’t have to have them retrofitted; plus how your constitutional rights are being abrogated? (For more from the author of “Is There a Constitutional Crisis in the USA No One Is Addressing?” please click HERE)

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Profiling Is Perfectly Reasonable. In Fact, We All Do It.

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Profiling is needlessly a misunderstood concept. What’s called “profiling” is part of the optimal stock of human behavior and something we all do.

Let’s begin by describing behavior that might come under the heading of profiling.

Prior to making decisions, people seek to gain information. To obtain information is costly, requiring the expenditure of time and/or money. Therefore, people seek to find ways to economize on information costs.

Let’s try simple examples.

You are a manager of a furniture moving company and seek to hire 10 people to load and unload furniture onto and off trucks. Twenty people show up for the job, and they all appear to be equal except by sex. Ten are men, and 10 are women.

Whom would you hire? You might give them all tests to determine how much weight they could carry under various conditions, such as inclines and declines, and the speed at which they could carry.

To conduct such tests might be costly. Such costs could be avoided through profiling—that is, using an easily observable physical attribute, such as a person’s sex, as a proxy for unobserved attributes, such as endurance and strength.

Though sex is not a perfect predictor of strength and endurance, it’s pretty reliable.

Imagine that you’re a chief of police. There has been a rash of auto break-ins by which electronic equipment has been stolen. You’re trying to capture the culprits.

Would you have your officers stake out and investigate residents of senior citizen homes? What about spending resources investigating men and women 50 years of age or older?

I’m guessing there would be greater success capturing the culprits by focusing police resources on younger people—and particularly young men. The reason is that breaking into autos is mostly a young man’s game.

Should charges be brought against you because, as police chief, you used the physical attributes of age and sex as a crime tool?

Would it be fair for people to accuse you of playing favorites by not using investigative resources on seniors and middle-aged adults of either sex even though there is a non-zero chance that they are among the culprits?

Physicians routinely screen women for breast cancer and do not routinely screen men. The American Cancer Society says that the lifetime risk of men getting breast cancer is about 0.1 percent.

Should doctors and medical insurance companies be prosecuted for the discriminatory practice of prescribing routine breast cancer screening for women but not for men?

Some racial and ethnic groups have higher incidence and mortality from various diseases than the national average.

The rates of death from cardiovascular diseases are about 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. Cervical cancer rates are five times greater among Vietnamese women in the U.S. than among white women.

Pima Indians of Arizona have the world’s highest known diabetes rates. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as it is among white men.

Using a cheap-to-observe attribute, such as race, as a proxy for a costly-to-observe attribute, such as the probability of some disease, can assist medical providers in the delivery of more effective medical services.

For example, just knowing that a patient is a black man causes a physician to be alert to the prospect of prostate cancer. The unintelligent might call this racial profiling, but it’s really prostate cancer profiling.

In the real world, there are many attributes correlated with race and sex. Jews are 3 percent of the U.S. population but 35 percent of our Nobel Prize winners.

Blacks are 13 percent of our population but about 74 percent of professional basketball players and about 69 percent of professional football players.

Male geniuses outnumber female geniuses 7-to-1. Women have wider peripheral vision than men. Men have better distance vision than women.

The bottom line is that people differ significantly by race and sex. Just knowing the race or sex of an individual may on occasion allow us to guess about something not readily observed. (For more from the author of “Profiling Is Perfectly Reasonable. In Fact, We All Do It.” please click HERE)

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What the Death of the Penny Means for Our Money

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The dollar’s reign as the world reserve currency will come to an end some day. But before that happens, the penny will likely go into the dustbin of monetary history.

U.S. pennies have already been debased – going from 95% copper before 1982 to just 2.5% copper (and 97.5% zinc) since. Now there’s a push afoot in the Senate to junk the penny entirely.

All the sound and fury Republican leaders made about repealing Obamacare signified nothing. They aren’t eager to betray the healthcare lobby, insurance providers, and pharmaceutical companies who worked with Congress to write the law and who paid so handsomely into campaign funds. They would rather betray voters.

Supporters of eliminating the penny note that it no longer makes any economic sense to produce them.

They argue that few people would care if their purchases were rounded to the nearest $0.05, as is now done in Canada.

That’s pretty much true. You cannot buy anything for one cent anymore. The days of penny arcades are long gone.

The decline of the value of the penny toward functional obsolescence is a sad statement about our monetary system. But rather than address the underlying problem of inflation and exploding national debt, politicians like John McCain want to just eliminate the evidence of the financial establishment’s misdeeds.

According the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own historical inflation data, a penny in 1913 (the year the Federal Reserve was created) had the same buying power as a quarter does today. But decades of steady currency devaluation through inflation have taken their toll on our once valuable circulating coins.

Even though pennies are no longer made of copper and may soon be on their way out of circulation entirely, copper pennies haven’t disappeared.

There is still a market for them based on their intrinsic copper value.

Money Metals Exchange sells pre-1983 copper pennies by the pound. While far less valuable by weight than silver, copper pennies could come in handy in barter situations. They also provide diversification into an alternative industrial metal that could become scarcer and pricier in the years ahead.

And even though dimes and quarters are no longer made of silver (as of 1965), today there is a thriving retail market for pre-1965 U.S. silver coins. They typically sell based on their silver melt value plus a small bullion-like premium.

Sometimes premiums for these historic coins surge when retail supplies become tight. But today you can obtain 90% silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars at historically low premiums – making this category of retail silver product the best overall value currently available in our opinion. You get a low-premium entry point plus the potential for a “doubly play” profit if buy-back premiums rise down the road. (For more from the author of “What the Death of the Penny Means for Our Money” please click HERE)

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The Greatest Engine for Good: The Local Church

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This is one of those times of year where people who don’t usually attend church may find themselves attending services. Maybe it’s part of a family visit. Maybe it’s tradition. Maybe it’s an itch in need of scratching. Or maybe it’s a desire. Whatever the cause, it could be fuel for civic renewal.

While the country seems obsessed with what’s happening in Washington, D.C. — with emotions and reactions ranging from encouragement, concern, dread, outrage and just about every other feeling in between — we’re missing something that should be more fundamental to the everyday life of our country.

California businessman William E. Simon Jr. aims to remedy that with a group he’s founded, Parish Catalyst, and a book he’s written, Great Catholic Parishes: How Four Essential Practices Make Them Thrive. Having surveyed 244 parishes, he’s in the business now of sharing what works.

This was one of the most important things I’ve ever done,” Simon tells me. “It was (megachurch pastor) Rick Warren who pointed this out to me, and he’s right: The local church is the greatest engine for good in history. It’s got the biggest distribution system. It’s got the longest track record. It’s got the most committed people. It’s better than any government and bureaucracy, any agency. And it’s been around for 2,000 years, and there’s no sign that it’s not going to be around for another 2,000 years. You can’t say that about any other entity.”

Focusing on the Catholic piece of the engine, Simon points out that there are roughly 80 million Catholics in the United States, about 80 percent of them affiliated with a parish. “About 64 million Catholics are affiliated somehow or another with a parish. So, if only 10 percent of them are paying attention, that’s 6.4 million. If you could double that number, that’d be another 6.4 million. That’s a h*** of an opportunity.” (Read more from “The Greatest Engine for Good: The Local Church” HERE)

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The IRS Expects to Write-Off $129 Billion. Here Are Two Better Ideas

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The Government Accountability Office’s recent audit report of the IRS showed that the IRS collected an extra $54.3 billion through enforcement efforts. That is a great return on investment. However, a troubling fact was buried in Note 5 on the 110th page of the report: The IRS is owed $178 billion in back taxes, interest, and penalties, but expects to collect only $49 billion.

To put it in plain English: The IRS expects to write off as uncollectible $129 billion of its receivables. So, what is Congress’ answer to this challenge? They voted to place outstanding tax accounts with private debt collectors and let them keep a percentage of what they collect. This venture will fail just like a similar project 10 years ago. Let me explain.

Inevitable Crash and Burn

In 2004, Congress authorized a pilot program to assign delinquent tax accounts to private debt collectors.The IRS assigned about $1.87 billion in delinquent accounts to private debt collectors on a commission basis. According to a report by the IRS Taxpayer Advocate (an office that reports directly to Congress and not the IRS Commissioner), the private collectors managed to collect $86 million before the accounts were returned to the IRS. The IRS then collected a further $139 million. That means that the IRS collected $53 million more than the private debt collectors.

Congress now wants a do over. Alas, this program will crash and burn also for several reasons. First, Congress has placed several counterproductive restrictions on the private firms. For instance, the delinquent taxpayer can tell the private debt collector to send their accounts back to the IRS. I don’t think the private debt collectors will collect much money if the delinquent taxpayers can tell them to buzz off. Second, the private debt collector has no authority to settle the tax debt for a lower amount. So, the delinquent taxpayer will have little reason to bargain.

What’s wrong with this picture?

We Need to Stop Adding Debt

I would like to propose two better options:

1. President Trump could scrap his proposed $238 million cut in IRS funding in favor of a $2 billion increase. This increase would level the IRS budget at roughly the 2010 funding level (adjusted for inflation), and reverse over a half decade of budget cuts to the agency. The IRS would then be responsible for closing the $406 billion Net Tax Gap. That’s the amount of taxes the IRS fails to collect, due mostly to a lack of resources.

2. Auction the $178 billion in tax, interest, and penalties to the highest bidder. If the IRS can get more than $49 billion on the open market, then the federal government comes out ahead. Maybe the IRS can sell the debt on EBay. Or maybe they can entice U.S. multi-national corporations who have $1 trillion in cash overseas to repatriate the money (tax free of course) if they use the repatriated funds to buy the tax debts. The tax debts would be sold (in accounting parlance) “without recourse,” which means that all sales are final. The new owners of the debt would then be free to pursue collection actions against the delinquent taxpayer. They would earn a profit if they can collect more from the delinquent taxpayer than they paid to the IRS. This option, however, would require a major revision to IRS Disclosure Laws.

The federal government is $20 trillion in debt. It adds hundreds of billions more every single year. This can’t go on forever. We need an IRS that can enforce the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) to ensure that the government can pay more of its bills. It’s time for our congressional leaders to put partisanship aside and get to work. (For more from the author of “The IRS Expects to Write-Off $129 Billion. Here Are Two Better Ideas” please click HERE)

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