Myths vs Facts

Nice to Know!

The age of the Internet grants anyone who can access it an opportunity to learn a great deal about virtually anything in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, the published information can be incorrect. Anyone who Googles "The John Birch Society" will see this problem demonstrated almost immediately. From the slanted view given of the Society at Wikipedia to the crazed rantings of detractors, much of the information provided is either distorted or downright false. Thus, we offer this page where we seek to set the record straight.

Myth: The JBS is a radical organization full of right-wing extremists.-

Fact: The JBS is dedicated to restoring the Republic according to the vision of the Founding Fathers: limited government, individual liberty, and the rule of law. Along with America's Founders, we believe that governments are instituted to protect individual rights and liberties, and are not formed to provide for the wants of individuals. To label JBS radical or extreme for agreeing with our nation's Founders is to place that same label on them.

Myth: The JBS message is hate-filled.-

Fact: There never has been any hate in our agenda and it will never be employed as a tactic. From the outset, membership in JBS has been strictly denied to haters and, should any member adopt a racist or anti-Semitic attitude or behavior, the membership of such a person will be permanently revoked.

Myth: The JBS Founder Robert Welch called President Dwight Eisenhower a Communist.-

Fact: Originally detailing some of Pres. Eisenhower's history in a 1954 letter sent privately to a few friends, Mr. Welch's research grew over several years into a full-length book entitled The Politician (1963). Once the book was published, its very existence was ignored while critics continued to dwell on only one of several possible conclusions offered by Mr. Welch.The book provides 300 pages and 150 pages of footnotes and documentation, including covering one of Mr. Eisenhower's most immoral and despicable acts of authorizing "Operation Keelhaul"; which used American soldiers to repatriate anti-communist Poles to their certain death or torture. Read the book for yourself and discover what Mr. Welch did say and learn the role played by Mr. Eisenhower over his many years as one of our nation's military and political leaders.

Myth: The JBS considers public water fluoridation part of a Communist mind-control plot.-

Fact: While the JBS doesn't agree with water fluoridation because it is a form of government mass medication of citizens in violation of their individual right to choose which medicines they ingest, it was never opposed as a mind-control plot. If citizens want to add fluoride to their diet or daily routine, there are plentiful opportunities for them to do so. It’s a choice they should make, not their local government. Furthermore, opposition to fluoridation was never a major action item of any JBS campaign.

Myth: The JBS is nothing more than a group of conspiracy theorists.-

Fact: The John Birch Society reports on those that create and influence public policy and the motivations behind their actions. JBS directs members to counter unconstitutional actions through peaceful, educational means, including supporting or blocking legislation, setting up relationships with key elected officials and local leaders, and holding elected officials accountable to their oath of office. By definition, a conspiracy exists when two or more persons work secretly for an evil or unlawful purpose. Given the state that America is in today, one could argue that an unconstitutional agenda is no longer secret, but in the open for all to see. Those that continue to work against the Constitution do so brazenly, continuing to make promises and entitlements to citizens that the country cannot afford while committing future generations to crushing debt and ever decreasing prosperity at the expense of liberty.

Myth: The JBS was booted out of the conservative movement by William F. Buckley.-

Fact: In the mid-1950s on more than one occasion, John Birch Society Founder Robert Welch financially helped an up-and-coming conservative leader, and recommended that others do the same, so this rising young star could get his new magazine off the ground. That newcomer was William F. Buckley and his magazine was National Review. A few short years later, Mr. Buckley attacked Robert Welch in a lengthy article in his magazine. Over the past several decades, Buckley carried out a campaign of attacking or disparaging Welch and the Society. On numerous occasions, he boasted to friends that he intended to destroy The John Birch Society. He didn't succeed. Read more in John McManus' book, William F. Buckley: Pied Piper for the Establishment.

Myth: The JBS is against civil rights because it opposed several Civil Rights acts.-

Fact: Correcting civil rights abuses that do exist should be accomplished at the state and local level, something The John Birch Society members - of all races, colors and ethnic backgrounds - have always supported. Civil rights legislation should have come from the states and the communities rather than being used as a steppingstone toward our present-day out-of-control federal government.

Myth: The JBS is nothing more than controlled opposition, pretending to be a friend to the cause of liberty. Robert Welch sold his candy company to the leftist, internationalist Rockefellers.-

Fact: Robert Welch was out of the candy manufacturing business (retiring in 1956) when his brother (for whom he used to work) sold the James O. Welch Candy company to Nabisco in 1963. JBS has never been funded by any Rockefeller money. Nelson Rockefeller publicly attacked JBS, and JBS has exposed the Rockefeller support for the United Nations and its goal of a new world order more than any other organization.

Myth: The John Birch Society played a role in the assassination of President Kennedy.-

Fact: This is perhaps the most despicable myth. The truth is that The John Birch Society has always lived by the age-old adage that foul means can never be employed to accomplish a goal, no matter how important that goal. While JBS and its members called attention to the many dangerous and unconstitutional acts and programs promoted by President Kennedy, it has always been the Society’s position that anything harmful to our country emanating from the White House should be countered by congressional or judicial action urged upon our nation’s leaders by concerned American citizens. Immediately after the assassination, founder Robert Welch canceled the “For God and Country” rally that thousands had committed to attend in Boston the following day. He then sent a telegram of condolences to Mrs. Kennedy. In that brief message, published by the Boston Globe on November 23, 1963, Robert Welch stated: “On behalf of the Council of the John Birch Society and myself, I wish to express our deep sorrow at the untimely loss to our nation of its youngest elected President and to convey more particularly to you and all members of President Kennedy’s family our sincere and heartfelt sympathy in your overwhelming personal loss.

FBI now believes aliens exist (Thanks X-Files!)

In a recently leaked memo, the FBI has confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life, though the claim is now being denied by the bureau. However, despite their denial, there is still plenty of evidence that is out there that shows that aliens do in fact exist and they have visited our planet, possibly for quite some time. The memo is from the early 1950’s and talks about a UFO being discovered by the government in New Mexico. Of course, in typical fashion the FBI has denied it, claiming it to be a fabricated hoax designed to mislead the public, but we know better now. More and more evidence is coming out that proves UFO’s exist and that we have been visited by alien lifeforms.
A recent video from the government shows footage of fighter pilots encountering a UFO with a disk-like shape. The fact that the government would even release such footage is proof enough that there are aliens out there interacting with humans, and based on how advanced their flight technology is, they have been visiting us for quite some time. Watch the video closely and you will notice that the disk-like object moves in a way that a normal aircraft could not, and there is no other explanation than the object being an advanced piece of alien technology that is well beyond our comprehension.
The Secret Pentagon UFO Program
When you think about it, it makes total sense that our government has been lying to us. If the public knew about what was really going on behind closed doors with regards to alien life, we would collectively freak out.
Additionally, a former top Pentagon official confirmed the existence of a top-secret government program to track UFO’s, called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. The former Pentagon official, Luis Elizondo, recently spoke with CNN about the inner workings of the program and how the unidentified aircraft discovered by the program is unlike anything that has ever been seen on earth. He went on to explain that these aircraft could seemingly defy the laws of aerodynamics and contained advanced technology. Here we have a former government worker finally telling us the truth and confirming our long-held suspicions. The Pentagon tried to hide the existence of this program, despite the fact that it received over 22 million dollars annually as part of the budget, but now we know the truth.
The American public is scared to admit that these cases continue to crop up and that the alien visitations are increasing in number and stature. Tom DeLonge, known for his work in Blink-182, quit the band so that he could focus all of his energy on proving the aliens exist. Tom has gotten himself into deep trouble with the government, but he has overwhelming evidence that supports the fact that we have been visited by aliens. He recently went on the Joe Rogan podcast to talk about it. Tom is staking his professional career on finding evidence that aliens exist and that our government has been concealing their existence for quite some time.
CIA Releases Over 13 Million Pages of Declassified Documents
The CIA recently released over 13 million pages worth of previously classified documents, with many of them talking about the existence of UFO’s. How can it be a conspiracy when both the FBI and CIA talk about UFO’s and alien technology? It is clear that they are withholding even more material than what has been released. The fact that they continually reference UFO’s in these documents is yet another piece of evidence that proves aliens exist and have visited our planet recently. Detractors who have labeled these truth seekers as conspiracy theorists will be happy to know that the declassified documents also show the existence of the CIA’s Stargate program, which attempted to use the power of psychic phenomena for use in military and espionage. For a long time, many people refused to believe the program existed, labeling it as a conspiracy theory. However, the truth will always see the light, so it was only a matter of time before these revelations became public.
The Truth About Aliens and UFO’S
There are too many UFO and alien sightings for it just to be a misidentification or a hallucination unless of course, the chemicals the government is poisoning us with are causing us to hallucinate, which is possible. A more plausible reason is that our technology is advancing at a high rate and now aliens wish to have more contact with us. It always amazed me that so many people in this country were so quick to dismiss any UFO sightings as an optical illusion or some misidentification of an aircraft, come on. The American public has been lied to for long enough, and now the truth is beginning to come out, and there is nothing that the government can do to stop this.

We have seen an unpreceded explosion in information being released to the public in recent years, and now the information that was once inaccessible to most of the nation is available to everyone. Extraterrestrial life exists, one only has to think about the enormity of the universe to realize we are not alone, and now more and more evidence continues to come out that proves this is a fact. It really does make you think about what else the government has been hiding from us, and what other secrets will finally be revealed.

Minneapolis 's Ilhan Omar’s District is the #1 Terrorist Recruitment Area of the U.S.

According to the FBI, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar represents the terrorist recruitment capital of the United States.
As reported by Fox News:

More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.

Geez.
During that period, 45 Somalis left Minnesota to join either ISIS (based in Iraq and Syria) or the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab. Additionally, as of 2018, a dozen had been apprehended by authorities while trying to leave in order to support ISIS.
No other American area of Muslim refugee resettlement scores nearly as high.


Authorities are worried:

So what has made the area such a hotbed for such activity? And what has been Rep. Ilhan Omar’s record in addressing the issue — either before she was elected, or since?
The answers matter because federal authorities say they remain “highly concerned” about the terrorist connection with the Minneapolis Somalis – even though al-Shabab is struggling against the Somali government, and the so-called ISIS “caliphate” has crumbled under a sustained U.S.-led military campaign.

One official told Fox the area’s turn toward ISIS was particularly shocking:

“We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time. Based on historical experience, we had (an uptick) in 2007 and 2008 going for al-Shabab, then a lull. Then, as ISIS came back, we saw a whole bunch of people no longer headed for Somalia. They were headed for Iraq and Syria. That really caught us off-guard, we didn’t see that coming. It didn’t make sense to us. We understood why kids were going back to Somalia, but going to Syria was another we issue.”

What’s Ilhan Omar’s place in all this? Is she making matters worse?
In 2015 — when the left-wing politician was a state representative — six Somalis were arrested trying to sneak into Mexico and join ISIS. In response, she wrote a letter to the judge — asking for “compassion” along with a lighter sentence for one of the men.
Rudolph Atallah, former Africa Counterterrorism Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, claimed a disturbing misunderstanding of America on the part of Ilhan:

“Rep. Omar is asking for our justice system to support known terrorists, this sets an extremely poor precedence and should not be allowed. She clearly has a bias and an agenda and does not understand what the United States truly stands for.”

What of the intersection of terrorism and anti-Semitism? As I covered in January, she previously tweeted a prayer to Allah to break the world from Israel’s spell (here).
The media has hailed Ilhan’s election, which serves to create a more diverse landscape in the legislature. Her district voted her in, and there is nothing more American than democracy. Except for, perhaps, liberty. Let’s hope she understands that, above all. It’s liberty which makes America worth fighting for, and never fighting against. If she’s certain of our nation’s greatness, may she not only represent the 5th district; may she lead. And if not, next time around, may she lose.

-Alex

Five Reasons calming an National Emergency for the Border Wall is a Great Idea

Obama did it. Since the invention of the presidential mechanism every president since has used “national declarations of emergency” for one reason or another. As the president pointed out in his announcement several of them for much less significant “emergencies” than his much argued “national security threat” with which he passionately claims dangerous elements are invading our nation. President Obama used the declaration a dozen times. And this writer would wager that unless you’ve gone recently to look them up, you would be hard pressed to name any of the dozen. At minimum, two dealt with immigration, and the need of the executive to enforce law and protect America.

Precedent. National Review Fellow and Contributing Editor, and former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy began his analysis of President Trump’s announcement by stating on my show, “While I may not like a President having this power, Constitutionally he’s been absolutely empowered to be able to do exactly what he’s done.” McCarthy is right. From Clinton who most accessed the action to Bush “43” and Obama the courts have consistently determined the chief executive was within his Constitutional right to declare such actions. Unlike the raging crazy stew boiling on Twitter, there is no requirement that Trump have an “invading uniformed force.” He also isn’t taking money that isn’t allocated and appropriated. All of the funds he is claiming will have been. These will include not only the billion plus of the monies in this year’s budget legislation but an additional three billion plus that will easily be properly defined from the Pentagon and Homeland Security as usable for border barrier development on the southern border. Of the eight billion he is laying claim to less than half of it will end up being budget reworks and even marginally questionable application of use. In addition McCarthy confirmed on my show that the President is on his strongest judicial grounds when the issue is framed as an act of “national defense.” Courts almost always back executive branch power to decide what constitutes such defense. They did so with Bush and Obama in launching man powered attacks with our military, and they did ultimately with every and ALL of Trump’s travel ban actions. Lastly the 9th Circuit—a court that sided against the President on multiple travel bans—just on Monday, ruled that the executive branch had broad discretion in building, repairing, and extending southern border barriers in a couple of limited locales. The President’s critics barely knew this ruling occurred and once brought to their attention usually attempt to argue that it was limited to the issues of public use and notification. Certainly it applies to those two areas. Nonetheless the use of the term “broad discretion” points to a consistent viewpoint in even our most liberal circuit that the president gets to make the decisions when it comes to national security.

It IS National Security. For some reason as soon as the president declared the national emergency the left side of twitter and the extreme left in America began to make memes about the President’s golf schedule, his ability to walk and chew gum, and attempt to discredit his declaration because of (get this) how long it took for him to declare it. (Back to what I was saying above this is oft-forgotten nearly biblically aged idea of being “long suffering.” Hence giving Congress every last chance possible to do the right thing.) The left’s actual argument that they honestly believe but dishonestly portray is that they just don’t care about security on the southern border. During the shutdown Democrat leadership was presented a combined report compiled by the military and the heads of each agency within the Department of Homeland Security in a private, closed door meeting. Upon the attempt to have the report explained to her—which had been based on years of data gathered from the military and DHS, Nancy Pelosi—the top elected Democrat in the nation—pushed back and said she rejected “the facts.” A literal refusal to acknowledge the conditions on the ground by the public servants who work there is what this amounted to. So with a heavy heart and having been given no other choice, the president had to decide, “Do we allow thousands more criminal aliens (17,000 apprehended since 2015,) more terrorists attempt to penetrate our territory (3,000 apprehended since 2015,) more drugs to kill our communities (enough fentanyl to kill more than 50 million Americans seized in the past ninety days,) and more human trafficking of women and children to occur?” President Trump decided these are national security threats. It is extremely unlikely that a court will decide they aren’t.

Democrats Are Working Against America. Nothing may be as overtly political in this debate as having watched the Democratic talking point on Immigration go from Presidents Clinton and Obama being in favor of “tougher border measures,” of seeing Obama build a few hundred miles of border barriers, and the current de facto position for Democrats of Beto O’Rourke saying we should “tear the existing walls down.” As someone who speaks with and hears from Americans daily this pendulum swing by Democratic leadership has not resonated with their base, and certainly not with the “rust belt” Trump Democrats that swung history’s most improbable election into an electoral landslide of 30 of 50 states on election night. Make no mistake, with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar questioning America’s right to defend herself... With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez definitively calling America’s courts “anti-American” for affirming Trump’s travel bans that were found to be 100% Constitutional... And with Beto O’Rourke now openly saying that by building barriers on our southern border we are killing women and children... The Democratic personalities that have become the media darlings are making the “rust belt” equation worse for them. The church-going pro-union blue collar workers in the midwest that wondered if Trump would fight for their jobs, wages, and borders are being presented with an alternative of socialism, post birth abortions (infanticide), and open borders. The Democrats will lose this choice in historic numbers and by a larger margin than in 2016 if they do not change course.

Americans Still Demand It. Following the government shutdown that concluded on January 25, the day that the president signed the 21-day government authorization, and the day I predicted what “would happen” that has since occurred, another reality revealed itself. During the shutdown the media conducted snap polls asking America poorly worded questions about Trump building a concrete wall, 2000 miles, across the southern border. Even Trump supporters would answer that question negatively and with breathless wonder the media would then report the “unpopularity of Trump’s border security plans. Lulling themselves to sleep, believing the results of the fake polls, the Speaker of The House, withdrew an invitation for the President’s State Of The Union address. Believing themselves on even firmer ground they smirked as the shutdown continued. And when President Trump signed the 21 day government into existence they gloated. They even then re-invited the State of The Union to Capitol Hill. That night a turning point happened. 72%-76% of viewers liked the President’s speech of which a large chunk was used to lay out the rationale for the border protection. From that night until Friday’s declaration of a national emergency and the multiple national addresses the President has had to reinforce that rationale the President’s support and approval had increased in every poll taken. Ipsos, Harris, CNN, FoxNews, YouGov, Gallup all showed movement in Trump’s direction and in some of them he hit new highs. And in the Rasmussen poll—the only one two measure “likely voters” (as opposed to mere “registered voters”) Trump showed a 10% swing spending more than a week above 50%, and hitting a high of 52% (an amount greater than his election margin.) Latino support even surged from the mid-30’s to a record 51%. When asked about what all of this means, a staffer of a declared 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, “nothing good” came her reply.
Voters don’t turn to Twitter to get their information and the noise there is certainly disproportionate by comparison. So let me make this plain.
These five indicators explain why the Democrats have to some degree lost their minds in recent weeks.
These five indicators are as sound as they are sure.
Twitter hates them and mocks them but it can’t refute them.
The wall is being built. Trump is doing it.
Having given them every chance to partner with him in it, the Democrats now are forced in to a corner opposing it.

Which means they lose in 2020.

A real wall emergency

Two days ago, President Donald Trump announced he would declare the situation at the border to be a national emergency to enable him to move previously allocated money to fund a border wall. This was a long-telegraphed punch that had already sent leftists and some Republicans clutching their pearls since the idea was first floated weeks ago. Lost in all of this is the fact that this action, while taken by the president, is 100 percent the fault of Congress.
I have to say at the outset, I want a wall built where a wall is needed. I don’t claim to have the expertise on where those places are, but the people who have the job of protecting this country do and they have spoken. Our elected politicians, particularly Democrats, would rather play identity politics and appeal to their radical base than protect our country. It’s disgraceful.
That said, I’m not a fan of the declaration of the national emergency. It’s not that I don’t think hundreds of thousands of un-screened illegal aliens and millions of pounds of drugs flowing across the border constitutes an emergency, it clearly does. It’s that I don’t like the idea of a president, any president, being able to subvert the will of legislative branch.
Yes, half the legislative branch is currently in the hands of people uninterested in their constitutional duties, but they didn’t seize power, they were elected because the people they defeated didn’t do the things they promised they’d do. Actions have consequences.

But consequences and horrible people do not override the Constitution. I opposed it when Barack Obama created laws with his magic pen not because I thought DACA was bad (which I do), but because it was an unconstitutional action.
In this case, President Trump has some cover with the National Emergencies Act of 1976 which grants the President the ability to declare a national emergency and activate special powers to address that emergency.
The situation on the border is an emergency, no matter what Democrats say. One American killed by an illegal alien is an emergency, a completely avoidable tragedy they are content to ignore. The draw of identity politics is all they have, and it works. While combating that is crucial, violating the Constitution to do it shouldn’t be the pathway to do it.

Democratic Party Marxist-Leninist

Use the Communist Control Act of 1954 on the Democratic Party. An Act to outlaw the Communist/Democratic Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes. “”

http://keywiki.org !!!!!

 

Vote Dems out!

Green New Deal is terrible

A 21st-century take on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto was introduced in the form of a nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The resolution effectively does nothing other than express the sense that Congress should pass a so-called “Green New Deal” whose wholly unattainable goals would almost certainly wreak havoc on the economy and drive the United States further into debt.
The term “insane” understates how bad the ideas presented in this resolution really are. Both the Green New Deal resolution and the FAQ document released with it read like something concocted in a drunken haze in a college dorm room. Although it’s certainly imaginative, it’s not remotely close to serious public policy. Perhaps that explains why Rep. Ocasio-Cortez removed the documents from her congressional website.

Although the resolution isn’t a serious public policy proposal, conservatives and libertarians do need to take it seriously. Why? Because this is how far to the left the Democratic Party has drifted. Although some wave the banner of “democratic socialism,” others who share socialist ideals avoid the label that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez claims by identifying as “progressives” who support green policies. When one peels back the initial layer of green, the same tired and failed ideas of socialism are there.
The resolution begins with basic findings. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey take the most recent report from the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as though it was handed down from God to Moses on Mount Sinai on stone tablets. Although humans do contribute to climate change, many of the IPCC’s previous claims have been proven wrong. Remember, it was just 2007 when the IPCC warned that the world had only eight years to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The most recent report, released in October 2018, claims that we have 12 years to avoid the worst of climate change. When proven inaccurate, just move the goalposts.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey complain that the United States is “responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, having emitted 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014.” Well, during periods of increased prosperity, emissions have been higher. Emissions have declined during periods of slow growth and recessions. As recently as 2017, the United States saw a decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
Eventually, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey offer a long list of things Congress should do in a so-called “Green New Deal.” The resolution is chock full of policy recommendations that radical environmentalists have long demanded. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey want the United States to “achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” by eliminating fossil fuels. The Green New Deal FAQs document also states that the United States should also eliminate nuclear energy, although the resolution itself doesn’t include such language.
The goal of this aspect of the Green New Deal is to transition the economy to renewable energy. If that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. Under the Paris Agreement, from which the United States withdrew, Americans were expected to see $2.5 trillion in lost gross domestic product (GDP), the loss of some 400,000 jobs, and an increase in energy costs between 13 and 20 percent. On top of that, the U.S. has led the world in carbon emissions reduction since withdrawing from the agreement. The difference between the Paris Agreement and the Green New Deal is that the Paris Agreement, by comparison, wouldn’t have been nearly as economically destructive.
Americans have a love affair with their vehicles. But under the Green New Deal, that car you’re so proud of would be banned. Since the economy will transition away from fossil fuels, your gas-powered vehicle must be given up for an electric vehicle. Forget about the trade-in value; it’s not like the dealership can resell your old car.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey would have Congress invest heavily in high-speed rail. Again, that may sound great, but high-speed rail has proven to be nothing short of a boondoggle in the United States. Take California’s high-speed rail system. This project is years behind schedule and far more expensive than originally projecting, now estimated to cost $100 billion. Although the Green New Deal promises to ensure that the power of eminent domain doesn't abuse, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey fail to explain how they expect to protect private property while also building costly high-speed rail lines across the country, which would require land acquisition through eminent domain on a massive scale.
International travel would, presumably, become impossible. Those occasional steak dinners you enjoy might be a thing of the past, too. Although the resolution doesn’t explicitly say this, the Green New Deal FAQs document, no joke, states that the sponsors of the resolution “aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.” Cows, by the way, emit methane primarily through belching, not flatulence. Livestock represents nearly 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Another wild idea from the resolution is the goal of “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings.” The FAQs for the resolution are more straightforward. That document states that the goal is to “[u]pgrade or replace every building in U.S. for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.” There are, uh, a lot of buildings in the United States. The resolution doesn’t specify which buildings would need to be upgraded or rebuilt. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “there were 5.6 million commercial buildings in the United States in 2012, comprising 87 billion square feet of floorspace.” The cost of this would be immense.
The Green New Deal resolution also includes other leftist policy priorities, such as guarantees of “high-quality health care,” “safe, affordable, and adequate housing,” and “economic security.” The resolution doesn’t explicitly state this, but the FAQs document states that the federal government will provide “economic security”  to those who are “unwilling to work.” This is socialism. If you’re completely able-bodied, but you’re too lazy to work, the producers in the economy -- well, the few who are left under the Green New Deal -- will pick up your tab. That’s not okay.
Finally, there’s the cost of this incoherent, ridiculous monstrosity. The Green New Deal resolution calls for heavy “investments” by the government, claiming that “World War II and the New Deal created the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen.” Well, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey are very wrong about the New Deal. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., told the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”
The FAQs document claims that the United States “invested 40-50% of GDP into our economy” during World War II. It’s true that federal spending rose dramatically between 1942 and 1945, peaking at 42.7 percent of GDP in 1944. Of course, the United States was fighting a major war at the time. Spending declined immediately after the war ended. By 1948, federal spending was 11.3 percent of the economy. Federal spending as a percentage of the economy didn’t rise above 20 percent again until 1975.
In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office projects that federal spending will consume about 20.8 percent of GDP, or about $4.4 trillion. It appears that the sponsors of the resolution are suggesting that Congress more than double federal spending, pushing federal spending around $9 trillion to cover the cost of this unrealistic, incoherent, and absurd plan.

The Green New Deal has already drawn the support of several Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D- N.Y.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). After reading through the Green New Deal resolution and FAQs document, one has to wonder if these Democrats regret that decision.

Google+ shutting down

Shutting down Google+ for consumer (personal) accounts on April 2, 2019

January 30, 2019

In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content.

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events. See the full FAQ for more details and updates leading up to the shutdown.

If you’re a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community. Learn more

If you sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working in the coming weeks but in some cases may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. You’ll still be able to sign in with your Google Account wherever you see Google Sign-in buttons. Learn more

If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019. Learn more

If you’re a G Suite customer, Google+ for your G Suite account should remain active. Contact your G Suite administrator for more details. You can also expect a new look and new features soon. Learn more

If you're a developer using Google+ APIs or Google+ Sign-in, click here to see how this will impact you.

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Gnutella (Limewire) MP3 Parties and Social Life

Gnutella / Limewire died in 2010, and about 2012-2013 was when the house gatherings stopped. Connection here?  I had 70,000 mp3s & m4as in 2013.  I was using heavy metal / classic rock mp3s at house gatherings / parties in the 2000s.  Its weird. It's like Gnutella ended just before Mayan Ca-lender mainstream media chaos in 2012.  It hasn't been the same since 2012. There was some others like iMesh, and Kazaa, but Gnutella was the best source for music & social life. I had a Creative Zen Touch. In 11th grade, I had a Archos Jukebox 20 mp3 player with 20 Gigabytes hard drive during lunch break.
 

I still have all the mp3s/m4as that I ever downloaded off Limewire, but I haven't found anyone wanting free mp3s! Its like people refuse to spend time with me in their house.  I had this opportunity in the 2000s and I took m mp3s and came to their house on Flickr. Non-existent in 2019.

MP3 death greatly exaggerated!

Reports of the MP3's death have been greatly exaggerated. Earlier this month, one of the patent holders for the audio file type, the German technology institute Fraunhofer, announced that in April it had allowed its patents to expire.

Fraunhofer releasing its patents doesn’t mean MP3s will cease to exist, though — it simply means the ubiquitous file type has been released into the wild, making it easier for developers who had previously been unable to support the file type to now go forth and use the file extension any way they want.

But many in the media saw it differently, churning out a sea of articles on the “death” of the MP3 file and declaring that Fraunhofer released the patents because the institute “didn’t want to keep it on life support.”

Was the tolling of the death knell premature? Though the MP3 file might have been eclipsed among audiophiles by other file compression technology that arguably delivers better sound quality, it has yet to be replaced in the public eye; after all, we still refer to audio devices as “MP3 players,” not, for example, “AAC players.”

Then again, with so much music consumption happening through streaming media and phone apps, MP3 players themselves seem like analog technology — and major music technology players like Apple jettisoned the MP3 years ago for greener pastures in the form of these “better” file types.

So which is it — are MP3s DOA, or finally free?

The answer is kind of complicated. Sure, the MP3 isn’t what it used to be — an inescapable, ubiquitous part of the digital musical landscape — but it’s also not going anywhere.

Be free, MP3, be free

The expiration of Fraunhofer’s patents means that as of April, the MP3 is no longer tethered to the host of encoding licenses that hindered its development since the first patent was filed in 1987. In practical terms, that means that anyone making a piece of audio software can now support encoding and compression for MP3 files without having to pay a licensing fee.

This open access to the file type is a good thing, both for developers who need to make their software support the greatest range of file formats possible, and for laypeople who may be familiar with “.mp3” as a file extension but not much else.

For most of us, the news might not change much, because MP3s come pre-licensed on most of our phones and computers. But for app developers, open source software nerds, and especially Linux users, the news is significant. For example, before the Fraunhofer announcement, several pieces of software that run on Linux, like Fedora, Tumbleweed, and Vivaldi, had to use third-party hacks in order to work around MP3 licensing requirements. After the licenses expired, developers began to immediately enable support.

So why has there been so much haste to declare the format dead?

For starters, the Fraunhofer Institute owns patents on another file format that is generally considered to be better — the AAC file, or Advanced Audio Codec. YouTube has plenty of videos attempting to audibly illustrate the difference between the sound quality of an MP3 file and an AAC, but the gist is that AAC files are generally thought to sound better at lower compression rates, or bitrates. Compared with a standard MP3 file, an AAC file sounds sharper and takes up less space on your computer.

This quality difference is partly why Bernhard Grill, director of Fraunhofer’s audio encoding initiatives, told NPR that the AAC file should be considered “the de facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones.”

However, there’s a huge catch: Fraunhofer also controls the licensing for the AAC file format, and makes money off the licensing fees. So of course Fraunhofer’s director wants it to be considered the “de facto standard” file format we should be using.

In actuality, there are already several other file formats, notably FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and Opus, that don’t come with the same licensing restrictions but do offer the same amount of quality as an AAC. So if developers were prioritizing musical quality, optimized storage space, and accessibility for all, the new “de facto standard” could easily be one of these other free, open source file formats.

But there are also plenty of other reasons why it’s a bit silly to declare the MP3 in its current state to be dead, and they all boil down to two facts: The MP3 is everywhere — and as digital audio formats go, it’s still pretty great.

Like other classic file formats before them, MP3s are here to stay

Marco Arment, developer of the Overcast podcast app, mounts a nice defense of the MP3 in a blog post about the inaccuracy of the media’s spin on the file. He notes that in terms of sound quality and file size, the difference between a standard-bitrate AAC and a standard-bitrate MP3 is pretty negligible for the average listener — though it’s arguable that what kind of music you’re listening to matters here as well. For most people, however, if you’re not doing a lot of deep sound editing and aren’t a hardcore audiophile, an MP3 is just fine.

This is especially relevant for the culture of podcasting, where the DIY nature of recording and uploading means most podcasts will gravitate toward the universal audio standard we all still use. Arment reports that, statistically, MP3 is the file extension of choice for podcasters, pointing out that “among the 50 million podcast episodes in Overcast’s database, 92 percent are MP3, and within the most popular 500 podcasts, 99 percent are MP3.”

Arment also compares the MP3 to another classic file extension that’s shaped the way we think about the internet — the JPEG:

MP3 is very old, but it’s the same age as JPEG, which has also long since been surpassed in quality by newer formats. JPEG is still ubiquitous ... because it’s good enough and supported everywhere, making it the most pragmatic choice most of the time.

In other words, most of us are going to keep using the MP3 for the same reason we still save images as JPEGs: The quality is fine for our purposes, it’s supported on all the software we use, and we’re used to it. Why wouldn’t we keep using it?

Expanding this comparison, one tech writer, Mac Observer’s Jeff Gamet, specifically compared the de-licensing of the MP3 to the GIF, which completely exploded across the internet and transformed internet culture as we know it — all after its patents expired in 2003. It’s hard to see how a file format as ubiquitous as the MP3 could become even more integral to the internet, but the beauty of unrestricted, open access to data is that you never know where that access is going to lead.

So don’t lower the flags for the MP3 just yet, or hold a funeral for your Zune. On the internet, things live and die not by license expiration dates, but by the public’s willingness to keep uploading and downloading them.

And by that standard, the MP3 is almost certainly here to stay.

I will be moving to Minnesota this year!

After Tony Evers won the election this year, I feel I am moving to Minnesota on a new avenue with new people. I've been looking at diary cows for the last 34 years, time to move to a different house! This new house will oversee different farms. I need to see different pubs, different pizzerias, different jobs other than ones I live by. The biggest problem is I lived in the same county for 34 years or 2/5 of my life. Its unfair that those high schoolers moved to Minnesota and got further in life than I did while my house was in a black hole socially, economically, politically, and location wise. Millennials like me should be in major cities. I'm going to live in a large house in Minnesota similar to size as the one I live in now. Fuck isolation. Time to move!

Why my college campus sucked

I know my college campus sucked, because they wouldn't allow my Cisco Flip Video (I owned this 720p camcorder) inside the building to record the whole time I was a student. I recommend educating some where you can take pictures & video. Then I see Youtube now and students got 100,000 views. I'm really jealous! #1 reason college sucked.