Category Archives: Human Rights Violations United Nations

Poll Tested Social Engineering, Religion and Policy

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Do you ever wonder where social issues, legislating behavior, growing policy on you personally really comes from? Any why now? Take note, those ‘Millennials’ are the target.

Enter Public Religion Research Institute who is in partnership with liberal think tanks, academia and the United Nations for world affair affects. No longer can you think independently as you are provided issues with liberal socialist bents and the matters are poll tested that require upgrades and new definitions to ensure cooperation and re-tooled attitudes. This is especially the condition as they relate to sex, gender and education. Those three items actually are as old as man so why do we need to be taught something new? Simple answer is money.

There is was a working draft of this platform created in 2009 by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Social Justice

America is becoming more religiously liberal with each generation, and religious conservatives, though more numerous now, will become dinosaurs. That’s the confident projection of a new poll from the liberal leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It’s predictably gotten good media play, as claims about irrelevance for religious conservatives often do. And it supplements other polls supposedly proving the rise of the religiously unaffiliated in America.

The Left, in its alternative cosmology, believes in its own nonreligious providential destiny. But history moves in more crooked, unpredictable paths. And religious traditionalists, most of them conservative, believe that history has a another ultimately inexorable direction, guided by The Lord of history. The Left’s own more secular faith is often buttressed by short term trends.

“Our new research shows a complex religious landscape, with religious conservatives holding an advantage over religious progressives in terms of size and homogeneity,” PPRI admitted when releasing its poll. “However, the percentage of religious conservatives shrinks in each successive generation, with religious progressives outnumbering religious conservatives in the Millennial generation.”

Nearly half of the older than age 66 crowd is religiously conservative, while less than 20 percent of the under 33 crowd is. Only 12 percent of oldsters are religiously liberal while almost a quarter of the young are. So — presto — the future belongs to the Religious Left. As the much vaunted Millennial Generation ages into leadership, the Religious Right’s doom supposedly will be sealed.

This determinism of course assumes that these Millennials will not change their views as they age. And it assumes subsequent generations will not react against previous generations, even though most generations, when young, assume they are wiser and therefore must be different from their immediate predecessors. In the future, a new crop of youngsters will look somewhat smugly on the by-then aging Millennials.

Transform America

Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilizing for Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization, says shifts are due to young people choosing to identify with Jesus and his teachings as opposed to a particular political party. Harper believes the GOP is being pulled to the far right by extremists on issues like abortion, thus forgetting and alienating those whom Jesus affirmed and advocated for: poor people, ethnic minorities, and women.

“I think the focus on the person of Jesus is birthing a younger generation inspired by [Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount],” she says. “Their political agenda is shaped by Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, make sure the thirsty have clean water, make sure all have access to healthcare, transform America into a welcoming place for immigrants, fix our inequitable penal system, and end abject poverty abroad and in the forgotten corners of our urban and rural communities.”

Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ senior director of mobilizing, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community.

She has written extensively on tax reform, comprehensive immigration reform, health-care reform, poverty, racial justice, and transformational civic engagement for publications and blogs including The National Civic Review, God’s Politics blog, The Huffington Post, Urban Faith, Prism, and Slant33.

There is more including a magazine. Topics include ‘Divest from Nuclear Weapons, Testing Jesus, Divest from Fossil Fuels and the Christian Nation vs. Secular Country.

 

No Longer Nuclear Zero

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The nuclear weapons chatter is rising by the day. The Saudis paid for much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program that included an agreement to access to weapons at a future date. The ongoing talks the P5+1 with Iran has Saudi Arabia dusting off their immediate options. The White House and John Kerry are seeing a final date slippage with regard to the June 30 deadline, but to what end?

There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.

Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.

Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.

Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.

*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below:

 

5th Circuit Dealt Blow to WH Immigration Scheme

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Simply stated, on a 2-1 decision, the court ruled the ‘stay’ on Barack Obama’s executive action remains in place however, two options remain. The 5th Circuit Court sends the case back down to the lower court while the other option is for the administration to ‘rocket-docket’ the case to the Supreme Court. To advance the case to SCOTUS may not be a prudent decision as the next judge in line of rotation at the Supreme Court is Justice Scalia, who would likely rule adversely on Obama’s executive action. The Obama legal team as well as Hillary Clinton have pushed back hard on the court’s decision, so the showdown will likely continue or where the administration will alter terms used for immigration to redefine those here, as told are in the shadows to a refugee or under asylum status. Another nefarious plan B could be in place and about to be launched.

If you are under the notion that members of congress are not doing anything on the Obama executive action, mostly you would be correct. However, there are some that are taking an aggressive stance and they need our support. Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Sessions are two that are pushing back hard. Please note Senator Johnson’s position here.

Meanwhile, eyes should be also focused again on the insurgency season upon America for the 2015 incursion at the Southern border. The United States is a generous and benevolent country and such is the condition with those desperately needing to escape violence.

The only viable solution is to install solutions in home countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador such that safety and viability is restored. No politician speaks to that solution, demand those answers.

Deaths, gang activity surge as illegals flood border, 30,000 expected

A crackdown on children attempting to illegally enter the United States by Mexico and other Latin American nations has cut this year’s surge to a still-high 30,000, but proponents believe that has made the situation even more desperate for kids, leading to greater crime and deaths.

“Those that are fleeing and trying to get out of their countries are now using even more dangerous tactics with more criminal entities and costing them even more money to get through to safety,” said Kimberly Haynes, director of children’s services for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Baltimore-based LIRS is a key player in caring for unaccompanied children crossing into the United States and advocates for joining the kids with their parents already in the United States. Haynes told Secrets that those they have interviewed this year arrive with horrible stories of how smugglers got them through Mexico and into the United States.

Worse, she said, many arrive minus a brother or sister, believed to have died in the process.

“While riding the [illegal immigration freight] train was horrendous in its own right and the journey was already scary enough, being locked in the back of a truck for four days or being smuggled in other ways through the border has only created a heightened amount of risk,” Haynes said of how illegals now travel.

“There are several siblings that we know never made it. We don’t know what happened to them. One of their brothers made it, one sister made it, there’s something, but there’s no understanding, no knowledge. They left at the same time, smuggler’s separated them, nobody knows. So there’s a huge population of loss that’s happening out of these countries that can’t even try to immigrate back if things become stable enough because they’re just a lost generation,” she said.

“Nobody’s heard from them, nobody knows what’s happened, so whether they got exploited, killed, went into criminal entities or died in the process, it’s an unknown,” added Haynes.

What’s more, she said the smuggling prices has jumped from $1,000 to at least $1,600, and sometimes gangs demand more money before making the final delivery.

So far, the numbers of illegals crossing into the United States has been about half of last year’s numbers. Haynes said that while about 68,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border last year, current numbers suggest a total of about 30,000 this year.

But at 30,000, it is still very high and equal to fiscal 2013’s numbers.

She said that Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have cracked down on families and children trying to leave. And, she added, that some still try is a sign that the political and humanitarian situation in those countries has not improved.

“To know that families are risking that level of life means that there is something bigger going on down there,” said Haynes.

 

Can We Save Ourselves, Can We Save This Marine?

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Muslims on our college campuses are getting particular special treatment. Then they are also placed in positions that put other students at risk.

Muslims are have created programs out of alleged Islamophobia.

There is a real detriment and this Marine tells his story.

Student vet with PTSD suspended, labeled ‘threat’ to peers after requesting to meet with non-Muslim counselor

  • Jeremy Rawls, a former active-duty Marine and senior at Mississippi College was recently suspended and labeled a threat to himself and other students after requesting to meet with a non-Muslim counselor.
  • Rawls has been diagnosed with several combat-related disabilities including lung disease and post traumatic stress disorder.

Months after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pledged to improve its treatment of veterans, disabled student veteran Jeremy Rawls is hoping his college might do the same.

Since February, the rising senior at Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss. has struggled to maintain good grades and reclaim his work-study position after MC administrators allegedly suspended him and labeled him a threat to himself and other students.

In an exclusive interview with Campus Reform, the former active-duty Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq said his suspension came after he requested to meet with a different counselor in the school’s Office of Counseling and Disability Services. Rawls, who is diagnosed with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), was originally paired with a female counselor who wore traditional Muslim dress during his initial visit to the office.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to participate… I didn’t want to traumatize her and it wasn’t a good environment to be talking about [my disabilities] with that specific person,” Rawls said.

Rawls’s original reason for visiting the school’s counseling office was to pick up paperwork intended for his professors, a task that had been delayed because of a lengthy recovery from knee surgery.

“Every semester I have to identify with the school as disabled and they give me letters to give to my professors,” Rawls explained. “This semester I had a surgery at the beginning which caused some issues in getting some letters.”

According to Rawls, his attempts to meet with staff members to discuss the school’s policy about changing counselors were repeatedly ignored and it wasn’t until a recent meeting with administrators that he was able to speak with staff.

“Their response was suspending me pending a mental evaluation which I provided and then they put me on further restriction and a reintegration program,” Rawls said.

In an email notifying Rawls of his suspension, Associate Dean of Students Jonathan Ambrose said administrators and the Student Intervention Team have a “due diligence in not only the protection of yourself, but also the campus community as a whole from potential harm or the threat there of.”

“You are not permitted to be on campus for any reason or attend class during the duration of the Interim Suspension unless you have written permission,” states an email sent to Rawls on Feb. 26 and later obtained by Campus Reform.

“To have been a marine and to tell us we’re a threat…that’s actually a compliment,” said Rawls. “But telling me I’m a threat to others was extremely offensive.”

According to Rawls, who is pursuing a degree in English with a minor in education, the school never spoke with “a single professor” about his grades or behavior prior to suspending and subsequently removing him from a work-study position which he’d procured through the local VA.

On March 16, Rawls was notified of his permission to reintegrate back into academics after fulfilling the school’s request for an independent mental evaluation.

“At this time, you are only allowed integration back into academics, meaning: attending class, lectures, or any other academic related matter that is pertinent to a class or graded assignment,” Ambrose wrote in a second email to the student veteran.

In addition to a provision restricting Rawls from attending on-campus events or participating in student organizations, the school’s Integration Action Plan required that he “show ability to handle [his] academic course load” and “demonstrate regular attendance in mental health therapy at a licensed therapist” of his choice.

“The college itself is very supportive, there is just an ignorance toward veterans with PTSD and they are demonized so much by the media which led to confusion about what they [MC administrators] were dealing with,” Rawls said.

According to Rawls, the university also requested that he provide access to his medical records to the very counseling department where he encountered the original problem.

After successfully filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Rawls began seeking legal representation—a task he says has been more difficult than anticipated.

“Lawyers generally see veterans as an issue,” Rawls explained, adding that “every single one has told me ‘Yes, this is an issue,’ but they don’t do civil rights law or they’re not in the right location or they’re too busy.”

“I’ve been given every excuse imaginable,” Rawls said.

Last Thursday, Rawls met with administrators in an effort to begin resolving the matter and to ensure that he is able to fully participate in academics and extracurricular activities in the coming school year.

“They asked me what I wanted and I told them I want to be a normal student and I want my job back,” Rawls said.

In addition to serving in the Marine Corps, Rawls worked as a private contractor in Afghanistan and was a member of the Army National Guard for seven years. He was on active-duty in Iraq during the Second Battle of Fallujah—named the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War—and says he’s lost many friends to suicide due to PTSD.

The committed student and proud veteran believes his school’s actions reflect the need for “cultural change.”

“If they’ll do this to me, and I’m one of the most outspoken veterans on campus, they’ll definitely do this to others,” Rawls said.

According to Rawls, friends of his who are familiar with the situation—namely fellow student veterans—are deeply offended by MC’s conduct.

“They believe that if they had an altercation, they are automatically going to be seen as the aggressor now or that because they have PTSD, they are going to be viewed as unstable,” Rawls said.

Although Rawls “doesn’t really see a long-term solution to this,” he remains dedicated to his academics and intends to graduate from MC next spring.

“I still wish to go to MC and I know the vast majority is conservative and veteran-friendly, I guess this issue has slipped through the cracks,” Rawls said.

Mississippi College did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

 

Military Dominance Under Obama, Lost

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Just about every country across the globe relies on the United States military for defense, support and technology. Yet under the current sequestration which was concocted by the Obama White House, the United States and NATO’s competitive edge is no longer a possibility or probability as compared to Russia and China.

The Air Force’s continued budgetary constraints are limiting its ability to maintain dominance over competitors such as China and Russia, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall said Sept. 17.“Today, the predominance that our military has enjoyed for decades confronts powerful enemies,” Kendall said at the Air Force Association’s annual conference at National Harbor, Maryland. Kendall was pinch-hitting for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who could not make it to the keynote address. Rather than deliver his own speech, Kendall read from Hagel’s prepared remarks.

 
The Air Force is tasked with being the greatest air power in the world, he said, but is being asked to maintain its edge with fewer resources. And the reason it has fewer resources is the current budget environment, he said.
The Obama White House predicted that the conflict with Islamic State, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Syria will bleed into the next administration, but at what cost and why?
At issue in Washington today is the The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which has passed the Senate. The dispute is this legislation required security clearance to gain access to the language and most have not read the framework while the entire bill is not fully written much less accessible. Another why? Well maybe it has something to do with China. One must ask could Barack Obama be setting the table for a future conflict with China and or Russia all while sequestration is destroying our military dominance and readiness?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is now being touted as the answer to U.S. security concerns with the People’s Republic of China. This is just the latest argument from TPP proponents to advance fast track trade negotiating authority in Congress and to ease passage for the TPP under expedited and preferential procedures. Unfortunately, this argument just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Over the last several years China has assumed an increasingly aggressive role in Asia. Its posture challenges the interests of many of its neighbors; Japan, for example, has scrambled jets repeatedly as China has tested the perimeters of its defense and confronted fishing and other vessels. China has challenged the maritime interests of other nations in the South and East China Seas. China has laid claim to small land masses as a way of expanding its territorial interests and is shoring up small reefs with airstrips and outposts to counter the interests of others in the region. China has tried to establish offshore oil rigs in waters claimed by Vietnam and is directly countering the interests of other nations in the region.
The following is a May 21, 2015 letter from Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter asking the Pentagon not to invite the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy to the international Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises in 2016 due primarily to China’s extensive reclamation efforts in contested areas in the South China Sea. Letter is found here.
There is no doubt that not only is there no defined campaign strategy to deal with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but looking ahead there is no strategy to deal with China and Russia.
Iran says ‘Obama has not done a DAMN THING to confront ISIS’, even accusing Obama of being ‘an accomplice in the plot’

“Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront ISIS; doesn’t that show that there is no will in America to confront it?”

This is what Qassem Suleimani said about U.S. President Obama, who has become the laughing-stock throughout the Muslim world, even accusing Obama as “being an accomplice in the plot”.

Suleimani is no small fry. He could only advance to his stature as result of Obama’s exit strategy in Iraq to become the head of Iran’s Quds Force as well as Iran’s appointee, to manage Iran’s external affairs (specifically in Iraq), which made him the most powerful operative in the Middle East. The U.S. has no say so in Iraq and Suleimani is flexing his muscle to tell the world that Iran is now roosting in Iraq.

In Iran, the daily newspaper Javan, which is seen as close to the Revolutionary Guard, quoted Soleimani as saying the U.S. didn’t do a “damn thing” to stop the extremists’ advance on Ramadi.