Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics. He can be found on Twitter at @srayne_ca
A report from El Universal documents skyrocketing asylum applications from Venezuelans seeking to enter the United States in recent years.
According to American immigration authorities, the number of applications from this South American country tripled between 2013 and 2014. The U.S. government is becoming increasingly concerned about immigration fraud from this region, likely linked -- at least in part -- to Venezuela's economic decline.
As the United States and Canada struggle with geopolitical challenges abroad, the potential weak link in continental defense sits at the U.S. southern border. For too long has Mexico forged a political path that often acts at cross-purposes to the goals of its democratic northern neighbors. And the problems run far deeper than just Mexico's internal difficulties with the drug cartels. The nation's true allegiances remain undefined.
An Angus Reid poll in late April illustrates the lack of commitment to, and deep skepticism about, carbon pricing in Canada.
Only one-third of Canadians "strongly support" Canada as a whole joining or forming a cap and trade system. No region of the country has a majority of strong support. Support is weakest among the western provinces and Ontario, and lowest overall in Alberta.
There is no greater threat to the national security of Western nations than the nuclear abolitionist movement. If you want to talk about radical extremists who live among us, the Global Zero crowd are the most radical, the most extreme, and the most dangerous. They pose a far greater civilizational threat to the West than radical Islamists, radical environmentalists, and radical anti-capitalists combined -- although many of these other categories also play a role in the anti-nuclear weapons movements. And yes, Ronald Reagan's crazy talk about seeking a world without nuclear weapons was dangerous, naive fantasy land dreaming, assuming he actually believed what he was saying.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raises concerns over long-term risks to U.S. Navy ships assigned to overseas homeports.
The study found that "casualty reports -- incidents of degraded or out-of-service equipment -- have doubled over the past 5 years and that the material condition of overseas-homeported ships has decreased slightly faster than that of U.S.-homeported ships."
While liberal economists try to convince us that British Columbia's carbon tax -- brought in on July 1, 2008 -- hasn't harmed its economy, the evidence continues to pile up against proponents of this tax.
The latest release of Statistics Canada's labour force survey shows the problems this province's economy has been having since the carbon tax implementation.
At Politico, Daniel McGraw has an interesting article on how “The GOP Is Dying Off. Literally”:
It turns out that one of the Grand Old Party’s biggest -- and least discussed -- challenges going into 2016 is lying in plain sight, written right into the party’s own nickname. The Republican Party voter is old -- and getting older, and as the adage goes, there are two certainties in life: Death and taxes. Right now, both are enemies of the GOP and they might want to worry more about the former than the latter..
In an interview with Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman revealed that the United States is, in effect, subsidizing Russia’s increasing nuclear weapons capacity -- weapons that could be used against the U.S. in any major war with the West
Gertz’s report describes how the “Energy Department plans to spend more than $60 million in Russia for nuclear security activities at the same time U.S. and European Union sanctions are punishing Moscow for aggression against Ukraine.”