June 26, 2017

Gay Activists Attack Cardinal Christian Day

Timothy Birdnow

The St. Louis Cardinals are taking heat from homosexual activists over their decision to host a Christian speaker at their annual "Christian Day".

Accuracy in Media states:

"The Saint Louis Cardinals plan to hold an annual "Christian Day” speech, this time from former Cardinals player Lance Berkman, and it upset a local LGBT group. The liberal media claimed Berkman is a homophobe, due to his Christian beliefs about homosexuality and opposition to transgender people entering a bathroom of their choice.

The local group demanded that Berkman not speak at the post-game event and that the team should hold a ‘Pride Night.’

End excerpt.

So, let me get this straight; they should not host a former Cardinal to speak at "Christian night" because he, well, is Christian. And on top of that they MUST host a gay pride promotion.

Interesting; I thought all the homosexual community wanted was to get a fair shake, yet they are forever demanding special treatment.

The main complaint is that Berkman opposed the Houston ordinance allowing ment to use women's restrooms. The BASTARD!

The Cards defended their decision here. Sadly, and predictably, the Cards caved and will host a gay pride day.

Time to tell these radicals to pound sand.

Go Cards!

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Trump Wins Travel Ban at SCOTUS - Sort of

Timothy Birdnow

Trump wins at SCOTUS - at least temporarily.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/26/trump-travel-ban-allowed-by-u-s-supreme-court/

From Mercury News:

"But a day after Trump signed the first order, mass protests were staged across the country and on Jan. 28 a judge in New York temporarily blocked part of order. U.S. Judge Ann M. Donnelly held that the petitioners challenging the ban had a "strong likelihood of success” in establishing that their removal "violates their rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”

The Supreme Court opinion made clear it does not agree.

In fact, some of the justices would have gone even further, disagreeing that foreigners with clear connections to the U.S. should be able to skirt the ban. Three of them — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — said Monday they would have allowed the entirety of Trump’s travel ban to take effect while the court considers the case.

"For individuals, a close familial relationship is required,” the court said in its opinion. "A foreign national who wishes to enter the United States to live with or visit a family member . . . clearly has such a relationship. As for entities, the relationship must be formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading” Trump’s order, the high court order said.

Justice Thomas said he doubted those distinctions will hold up."

End excerpt.

While the law and the legal precedents are crytstal clear on this - and there is zero right to even review this by the Court system according to previous SCOTUS rulings - Obama appointed judges simply rewrote the law based on what they wanted. While the Supreme Court is hardly conservative, it at least did its job and followed its own precedent.

So why did they push this off until October? Is Atnthony Kennedy going to retire? This makes the case even stronger.

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More on the Minimum Wage Job Killer

Wil Wirtanen

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-seattle-minimum-wage-20170626-story.html

And another:

The last paragraph is the money statement.

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-minimum-wage-job-killer-strikes-again/

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Cruel Minimum Wage Joke in Seattle

Dana Mathewson

Seattle is in the process of factoring in its $15 dollar per hour minimum wage law, all designed to make the liberals feel all warm and cuddly about how charitable they are about improving the lives of the poor. But, surprise (to them, anyhow), it's not having the desired effect!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/


(Sigh) "We" keep telling them this sort of thing doesn't work, they keep ignoring us, and look what happens. Will they learn from this? Who knows?

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We should be glad the US is out

Paul Driessen and David Legates

Following President Trump’s exit from the Paris Climate Treaty, a number of states, cities, universities, companies and institutions formed a "We are still in” consortium. Its members insist that they remain committed to Paris and are determined to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and prevent climate change.

As our article explains, this is all puffery and belief in tooth fairies. The issues and questions we raise ought to shame and embarrass WASI members – for spending countless billions of other people’s dollars to prevent an undetectable and irrelevant 0.01 degrees of global warming. We also ask whether jurisdictions within WASI states can take the "progressive” route and declare themselves sanctuary cities or counties, to protect their jobs and families against WASI dictates. Perhaps our article will persuade more Americans to make their voices heard, ask hard questions – and start resisting The Anti-Trump Resistance.

We should be glad the US is out

States that claim they’re committed to Paris do nothing for the climate and ill serve their citizens

Paul Driessen and David R. Legates

Ten states, some 150 cities, and 1,100 businesses, universities and organizations insist "We are still in” – committed to the Paris climate agreement and determined to continue reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing climate change. In the process, WASI members claim, they will create jobs and promote innovation, trade and international competitiveness. It’s mostly hype, puffery and belief in tooth fairies.

Let’s begin with the climate. When Delaware signed on to WASI, for example, Governor Carney cited rising average temperatures, rising sea levels, and an increase in extreme weather events. In Delaware, sea level rise is almost entirely due to subsiding land resulting from compaction of glacial outwash, isostatic response from the retreat of the ice sheets more than 12,000 years ago, and groundwater extraction.

The biggest threat to homes, roadways and wildlife habitats lies not in sea level rise – but in the effects of nor’easters, tropical storm remnants and other weather events that impact Delaware’s sand-built barrier islands. Moreover, not a single category 3-5 hurricane has struck the US mainland for a record 11.5 years.

Climate models have long overstated the supposed rise in air temperature. Recently, even alarmist scientists like Ben Santer have agreed that a warming hiatus has kept air temperatures unchanged for over 15 years, even as plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere rose to 400 parts per million.

No trends exist in tropical cyclones, tornadoes, floods, droughts or other weather extremes. Contentions that these changes will pose health risks and threaten our economy are purely scare tactics. Climate has always changed and weather is always variable, due to complex, powerful natural forces. Insisting that these events must be caused or exacerbated by human activity reflects a denial of basic climate science.

Full adherence to the Paris Treaty by all nations would prevent an undetectable 0.3°F (0.2°C) rise by 2100 – assuming that all climate change is driven by humans and not by natural forces. This meaningless achievement, by switching to 100% renewable energy, would cost $12.7 trillion to $93 trillion by 2030.

Surely, WASI members and the rest of the world have better uses for that money than chasing climate chimeras. Paying their massive state debt, pension, welfare and retirement obligations, for instance; in developing nations, getting electricity and safe water to people and ending their poverty and disease.

But substantially reducing CO2 emissions will create jobs, won’t it? For every job these mandates and subsidies create, multiple jobs will be lost in businesses that require affordable, reliable energy. Your local or statewide CO2 emissions may decrease. But in 150+ countries that are under no obligation under Paris to reduce their fossil fuel use, emissions will increase. WASI groups may take pride in "resisting Trump,” but their actions really hurt America’s working class families, who had no vote on the matter.

WASI members California, Connecticut, Hawaii and New York already have among the worst unfunded pension liabilities. Their residential electricity prices are already outrageous: 17 cents a kilowatt-hour in NY, 19 in CA, 20 in CT and 29 in HI – versus 9 cents in North Dakota. Honoring "Paris commitments” would send rates skyrocketing to German and Danish levels: 37 cents per kWh. Expensive energy will hurt poor and minority families the most and send jobs to countries where energy costs less.

Just imagine what your WASI actions would do to households, hospitals, businesses, factories, malls and schools. How it would kill jobs and swell unemployment and welfare rolls – while creating a lot of low-pay, largely part-time jobs. Rather than producing jobs, the Paris Treaty is a job-killer for the USA.

For all these reasons, we should be glad we are out! We ask those who have told their constituents they are "still in,” How exactly will you meet your Paris commitments, and what exactly will you achieve?

How will you slash your CO2 emissions by 26-28% by 2025, as required for the USA under the Paris pact? The United States reduced CO2 emissions by 12% between 2005 and 2015. But that was accomplished by a downturn in the economy and increased reliance on natural gas, most of which is produced by hydraulic fracturing. Will you support fracking and build more gas-fired power plants?

Or will you build new nuclear and hydroelectric power plants to reduce your fossil fuel dependence? You cannot rely on wind and solar, as they currently account for barely 2% of overall US energy needs and the mining required to get rare earth metals, cadmium, iron, copper, limestone and other raw materials for these technologies has extensive, often horrendous environmental, health and human rights impacts.

Growing populations mean more energy will be needed. Do you expect wind and solar to grow to cover the new demand? These highly expensive technologies require vast land areas, much of it taken from wildlife habitats – and huge government/taxpayer subsidies. From whom will you take this money?

What will you get for your efforts? The cost is enormous, for minimal benefits. Higher electricity prices will affect businesses, hospitals, jobs and families in your state. The impact of 30, 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour electricity will be devastating – especially for the poor, minority and blue-collar workers and families you say you care deeply about. They will be forced to choose among energy, food, clothing, shelter, health and safety. How will this serve climate and environmental justice?

By contrast, a change in global air temperature of about 0.01°F will have zero impact. That’s how much reduced warming the world is likely to see from all the sacrifices imposed by "We are still in” programs. Storms, floods and droughts are not linked to CO2 concentrations, so your actions will have no effect in these areas. Avoidance of an un-measurable increase in air temperature is simply not worth the cost.

Governors who have committed their states to this climate-centered resistance movement have done so without approval from the legislature or their constituents. How do you propose to pay for this unilateral executive decision? With tax increase and soaring energy costs? How will your constituents react to that?

The "We are still in” press release proudly proclaims that its members contribute $6.2 trillion a year to the US economy. That’s one-third of the United States $18.5 trillion GDP in 2016.

Under the Paris formula, the United States is to contribute $23.5 billion per year initially to the Green Climate Fund – with the US contribution rising to some $106 billion per year by 2030, based on the same percentages. Your one-third WASI share of that would be $7.8 billion in 2017, rising to $35 billion a year by 2030. Is this part of your vaunted commitment to the Paris treaty? How do you anticipate paying that?

Can individual cities and counties opt out of your pact, and become sanctuary cities or counties, to protect their jobs and families against runaway energy costs, climate fund payments and more autocratic actions?

By deciding that their schools will stay in the Paris Treaty, college and university presidents will drive up energy and other costs on their campuses. Did you consult with and get approval from your boards of trustees, legislators, taxpayers, students and parents – or was this simply another executive decision?

Delaware gets 95% of its electricity from natural gas, coal and oil. How exactly will the University of Delaware slash its fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions by the 26-28% required by Paris? How will George Mason University, with Virginia getting 63% of its electricity from fossil fuels?

Have you calculated how much this will cost? Will you make up the difference by increasing tuition? How will you compensate those who can least afford these increasing expenses? In the interest of integrity, accuracy, transparency and ethics, have you made those analyses public (if they exist)?

Did all you "socially responsible” companies and organizations in WASI get approval from your boards of directors, shareholders, customers and clients before committing to stay in Paris? Did you analyze and discuss the likely economic and employment ramifications? Or are you the real climate deniers – denying the costs of anti-fossil fuel, renewable energy commitments, regulations, subsidies and mandates?

Finally, for the millions of voters, taxpayers, citizens, students, workers and consumers who are being impacted by "We are still in” states, cities, colleges, universities, businesses and organizations, we ask:

Are you still in with expending trillions of dollars to have an undetectable effect on Earth’s future climate? If not, perhaps it’s time you made your voices heard – and started resisting The Resistance.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death. David R. Legates is professor of climatology at the University of Delaware and a former Delaware State Climatologist.

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June 25, 2017

Global Warming - the Original Russian Collusion

Dana Mathewson

Yep. The Left is so-o-o-o incensed about (supposed) collusion between the Russkies and Trump's campaign, but they sure don't want you to find out about THIS: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/why-the-russians-conceived-the-global-warming-scam/?utm_source=AIM+-+Weekly+Email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Email%20Jun-24-2017&utm_medium=email

This article contends that the international Global Warming (read: transfer of money) scheme/scam was cooked up under the Gorbachev administration, as a way to destabilize the West. Makes sense. Spoiler alert: watch for the name Al Gore!

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Target Digging it's own Grave

Dana Mathewson

Put another way, Target obviously still "doesn't get it."

http://mommyunderground.com/this-retailers-latest-campaign-may-lead-to-its-demise/

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The Whalebacks

Dana Mathewson

We got a glimpse into tough way of life. Took a tour yesterday of the only surviving "whaleback" steamer, the SS Meteor, moored in Superior, WI. Launched in 1896 as the next-to-the-last of its kind, it stayed in service longer than any other whaleback, finally being taken out of service in the early 1960's and converted into a museum. In its last manifestation it was an oil carrier, and it had most of the modern amenities such as radar and radio. Looking around, it appeared to be pretty comfortable, all things considered (after all, they wanted to keep the same crewmen coming back to sail on her). The beds didn't have mattresses but they looked decent enough. Certainly a lot nicer than the hammocks the British Navy used to use! The tour guide blew the whistle and they must have heard it twenty miles away! What a beautiful sound!

Her designer, Capt. Alexander McDougall, had a number of innovative designs to his credit, not limited to the whaleback steamship and whaleback barge. (In the late 1800's, the best way to haul a lot of cargo was with a loaded steamer towing a loaded barge.) Later, as locks were widened and deepened, it became more economical to build larger ships, and due to their design, whalebacks could only be built to a certain length. After 1896 or so, no more were built.

Among other things, McDougall designed a very innovative rudder. Also some ahead-of-their-time warships and machinery that never were put into production.

Whalebacks were designed for the Great Lakes, but -- mission creep being alive and well in those days too -- one actually went down the St. Lawrence (in the days before the Seaway, basically acting like a whitewater raft), down the Atlantic Coast all the way to Cape Horn (this being in the days before the Panama Canal), through the Straights and up the Pacific Coasts of South and North America to eventually deliver cargo to the Pacific Northwest. McDougall would have been proud of that feat!

Great Lakes ships tended to do poorly out on the ocean because the distance between swells is greater there and it stresses hulls differently. Nowadays ships can apparently be designed for both environments. My mother and my aunt once watched a couple of "salties" pass eastward through the Welland Canal. The first was a Danish cargo hauler that, I later learned, had been on Superior and had helped search for the Edmund Fitzgerald the night she went down.

And that's your nautical lesson for the day.

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June 24, 2017

All Bets(y's) are off; Department of Edwina still pushing transgenderism

Timothy Birdnow

I was not happy about the appointment of Betsy Devos as secretary of Education. Devos may have been a proponent of school choice but had little else in the way of conservative credentials, and she did little to dispel my fears, appointing a string of deputies who promote the insanity of Leftist identity politics. According to the New York Times:

"But while Ms. DeVos has been reluctant to express sympathy for those groups, she has stacked her administration with appointees whose personal and professional backgrounds challenge the narrative that she has no interest in protecting those vulnerable students.

Among her appointees: a progressive Democrat who believes a broken education system is a form of white supremacy; a sexual assault survivor who is currently in a same-sex marriage; and a second-generation American who ran a federal program that helped undocumented immigrants."

End excerpt.

Devos and her husband founded a "green energy" company. She is very rich and very connected, a classic swamp dweller albeit in Michigan. Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney both really liked her, which speaks volumes.

And then there is this:

"In their opposition to DeVos, Republican moderates have unlikely company. If the election of Trump as president and the presence of Steve Bannon in Trump’s inner circle has proved anything, it’s that the far-right fringe of the party wields clout. In DeVos, they don’t like what they see. Some members of this constituency—which includes states rights activists, nationalists, and small-government conservatives (not to mention the outright racists and xenophobes)—voted for a Trump administration in the hope it would bring an end to Common Core, their favorite education policy bête noire. But that isn’t on DeVos’ radar. Coupled with DeVos’ pledge to keep implementing the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act—the bipartisan successor to the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act that cleared Congress in 2015—conservative activists see the president’s choice as an abject betrayal. "Despite Trump’s lambasting of Jeb Bush’s education policies, the list of staffers looks more like the choices that would have been made under a Jeb Bush administration,” wrote Erin Tuttle of Hoosiers Against Common Core last month, citing a Politico story pointing out the number of former Jeb staffers hired by the new administration. On Breitbart, writer Susan Berry has been driving home this argument too. DeVos won’t put "the needs of students and their parents’ decision for their education first,” she’s declared."

End excerpt.

Yes, old Bets has supported Common Core in the past and probably still does.

She is a member of Jeb Bush's think tank promoting Rotten Core, and hobnobs with the likes of Bill Gates and other Progressive educzars.

She believes in Federal control of education.

Well, turns out that under her watch her deputies are
pushing transvestism in public education with nary a pause. According to Breitbart:

"The instruction was part of a jargon-filled memo dated June 6, and signed by Candice Jackson, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Education Department, which provides instructions to staff concerning "complaints involving transgender students.”

The memo tells department lawyers how to respond when they get complaints involving "transgender students.” It says the department’s left-wing lawyers can use recent and disputed federal court decisions — not the elected President’s popular policies — to justify high-pressure lawsuits against teachers who have normal attitudes about the equal, different and complementary status of males and females.

For example, lawyers can investigate a case of "hostility” where school personnel are "refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred name or pronouns when the school uses preferred names for gender-conforming students or when the refusal is motivated by animus toward people who do not conform to sex stereotypes,” the document says.

The his-her pronoun issue is especially sensitive because federal support for the transgender ideology would mean that a child can use federal lawyers to threaten other students and teachers in school until they submit by referring to the child by the biologically incorrect pronoun, even in science class."

End excerpt.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying "the buck stops here" which meant he was the final authority. Devos is the boss at the Department of Education and she is ultimately responsible for this sort of thing.

Funny how the these un-American values continue to be pushed by our government even after we won the political fight. And it violates a specific Trump politcy which reversed Obama's mandated fake speech injunction.

If Betsy, billion heiress, can't handle her own department she shouldn't be there. If she is actually showing her true blue-blood colors she lied about her beliefs. Either way, this is despicable and in stark violation to everything the American People voted for in the last election.

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June 23, 2017

James Comey Leaking on Camera

Timothy Birdnow

James Comey and his wife were caught on camera going into the offices of the New York Times.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/06/james-comey-spotted-entering-new-york-times-office/

Comey isn't even trying to hide the fact that he is violating his oath of office and leaking.

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Mike Brown Family Hits the Jackpot

Timothy Birdnow

Michael Brown, the "gentle giant" who robbed a convenience store and assaulted the clerk, then assaulted a police officer and was shot to deeath, has won a posthumus victory as his family reached a settlement with the much maligned Ferguson Missouri.

According to cNN:

"While the details of the settlement were not disclosed to the public, US Federal Judge Richard Webber called the settlement, "fair and reasonable compensation."

Brown, who was black, was shot and killed by white Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in August 2014. The incident sparked outrage and protest across the country. An investigation by the Justice Department into the incident brought no charges against Wilson, who argued he shot Brown in self-defense as Brown charged at him.

The civil lawsuit brought by Brown's family said Wilson "unjustifiably shot and killed (Brown), using an unnecessary and unreasonable amount (of) force in violation of (Brown's) constitutionally guaranteed right to life."
Details of the settlement were not made public, however, the original lawsuit shows the Brown family was seeking punitive and compensatory damages in excess of $75,000, in addition to attorney's fees. "

End excerpt.

This is proof that in our liberal controlled post-America, crime actually does pay. Brown's step father shouted "burn this bitch down!" when the police officer who shot Brown - a huge man who had just punched him in the face and tried to take his gun (and forensics showed this version of events was clearly correct) and now his family gets money, money, money!

You can't blame Ferguson; with limited resources they simply did not have the money to fight this thing to the end. The U.S. government was pushing this, as was a plethora of Soros-funded organizations (Soros spent 33 million dollars to promote the rioting that burned half the town down.) But it is galling that these people hit the jackpot when they raised a punk who met a bad end.

I never met Mike Brown but I saw him in Ferguson on one or two occasions occasions walking down West Florissant; he was HUGE and I remember thinking "boy I'd hate to tangle with that guy!" Also it's important to remember Brown had an accomplice who looped around behind Wilson's squad car and posed a threat. A lone police officer would have little choice but to shoot him if he attacked. Many liberals try to say "(officer) Wilson didn't know that Brown had just robbed the store, so he had no justification shooting him) as though BROWN didn't know what he had just done. OF COURSE Brown attacked a cop who stopped him after a robbery.

The St. Louis area has some of the highest crime rates in America, and for reasons like this. Crime must be punished or it flourishes. That was why there were nightly riots and looting in Ferguson; the authorities simply refused to stop it. It would ahve been easy; close the protests when violence first erupted. There is no right to protest when violence breaks out. When criminals shot at cops they should have shot back. But Obama and Eric Holder were leaning on local authorities, and the Governor was AWOL. This was a purely political issue, ultimately.

I have pointed out in the past that black politicians in the area were furious at the loss of black St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley in the Democrat primary. They wanted to show black power, and so many of them supported - often quite enthusiastically - the rioting in Ferguson.

So now the Brown family is being compensated for raising a thug in training. And this tells everyone that you can attack police officers and beat up store clerks and get away with it.

No wonder St. Louis is getting to be as dangerous as Guatemala.

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Hawaii Goes All in on Marxism with Guaranteed Minimum Income

Timothy Birdnow

Hawaii, the state that cursed America with Barack Hussein Obama, continues the vengence of Queen Liliuokalani on the nation that overthrew her with this little slice of Marxian hell. Yes, they want to be the first state to impose a basic minimum income on the body -politic.

Hew boy! This is straight out of Marx "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". And it has been tried time and again with abject failure.

You are stealing money from the productive to give to people just for existing. What could go wrong with that?

According to the Daily Mail article:

"Hawaii's cost of living - the highest in the country - motivated the passing of the resolution in May along with the states reliance on low-paid service industry jobs.

According to Lee, Hawaii has a very limited manufacturing and tech sector which puts the service-focused economy at risk.

The text of the measure mentions the impact of technological advancements which have helped kill jobs in the state."

End excerpt.

Gee, now THAT'S the way to deal with rising prices! Why is it that liberals can never grasp the most basic fundamentals of economics? You can't help afford expensive things by just giving them money; it drives prices even higher. A casual look at the healthcare disaster in America should have disabused anyone of that notion; prices of health insurance have skyrocketed since the creation of Medicare, and doubly so since Obamacare. Doctors charge more because there is more money in the system. Where a person could afford minor medical care in the old days they now must pay a fortune out of pocket.

Never would the liberals in Hawaii consider promoting economic growth and free markets. Instead they seek to take money from the productive and give it to the unproductive, the freeloaders, and the lazy.


Of course, if Hawaii enacts this every other Democrat in America will seek to do likewise.

I despair of the stupidity of Man.

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Antarctic Sea Ice at 35 Year High - Global Warming to Blame

Timothy Birdnow

Last Saturday Antarctic sea ice reached a 35 year high. There hasn't been as much of it since 1982! Naturally, global warming is to blame.

Smithsonian twists itself into pretzel knots trying to explain it and still keep the meme alive:

"In the last 30-odd years, though, the world has been slowly warming due to global climate change—which is not usually associated with an increase in ice. So what's going on?

Well, honestly, no one really knows. "It's really not surprising to people in the climate field that not every location on the face of Earth is acting as expected – it would be amazing if everything did,” said one scientist with NASA.

Researchers, according to NASA's release, do have a number of hypotheses about why is the ice extent going up, though:

Melting ice on the edges of the Antarctic continent could be leading to more fresh, just-above-freezing water, which makes refreezing into sea ice easier, Parkinson said. Or changes in water circulation patterns, bringing colder waters up to the surface around the landmass, could help grow more ice.

Snowfall could be a factor as well, Meier said. Snow landing on thin ice can actually push the thin ice below the water, which then allows cold ocean water to seep up through the ice and flood the snow – leading to a slushy mixture that freezes in the cold atmosphere and adds to the thickness of the ice. This new, thicker ice would be more resilient to melting."

end excerpt.

First, there has been no warming of the world since 1997, at best (from their perspective) so the point the author makes is moot. But let us consider the rest:

Yes, there is ice loss on the western side of the continent, but the Eastern is gaining ice, so this explanation makes little sense. IF the notion that cold water from melting land ice is driving an increase in sea ice is true then the sea ice should be much more prominent on the warmer side. And research has shown a largely largely stable continental temperature over the last fifty years.

As for changing water circulation patterns bringing cold water to the surface? Antarctic water patterns are fairly well understood and dominated by the circumpolar current, a very cold, very deep, and very wide water pattern that keeps Antarctica frigid. There is little chance for deep, cold water to move to the surface past the Antarctic convergence. This is sophistry.

And it ignores the basics of global warming theory. The theory works like this; sunlight reaches the Earth's surface and is reflected back toward space (warming the rocks and water and whatnot in the process). Increasing levels of carbon dioxide (an additional molecule of CO2 has been added to every 10,000 molecules of air by human emissions) creates a "blanket" in the troposphere which reflects this escaping infrared radiation back to Earth. This means that the atmosphere should warm. Naturally, a warmer atmosphere means a warmer world, but a. there is no evidence]/link] of any real tropospheric warming and b. warmer air would mean less ice, not more. Certainly snowfall has remained fairly constant over the last half century. Nobody has any good mechanism to explain how the "missing heat" somehow dives deep into the oceans against the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.

In the end, this desperate attempt to keep an exploded theory alive and causing trouble leads to ridiculous nonsense like this Smithsonian piece. They simply refuse to accept that global warming just isn't happening.

It's sad really; like watching geocentrists argue against Copernicanism after Galileo and Kepler.

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Oregon Legalizes Murder of Senile Patients

Timothy Birdnow

It is said that the best way to judge a nation is by how it treats it's most vulnerable. America has for years been quite bad about that, allowing children to be ripped from their mother's wombs because they are inconvenient. Well, now we are going farther.

The West Coast is always the place for madness, and Oregon appears prime for mental disorders (I guess it's all the rain falling on people.) The Oregon state legislature just made it legal to starve dementia patients to death if they are bothersome.

From Lifesitenews:

"SB494 would remove safeguards in Oregon law that protect the right of patients to receive food and water as part of basic treatment. It would give healthcare representatives power to potentially coerce doctors into starving patients against their will.

Under current Oregon law, if it's unclear what a mentally incompetent person desires or wants, the person's healthcare representative does not have the authority to end the incompetent person’s life unless the person is in a specific end-of-life situation.

SB494 was introduced after a dispute between the husband of an Alzheimer's patient and her nursing home. The patient, Nora Harris, had filled out an advance directive saying she didn't want to be fed intravenously.

She began needing helping using utensils. Harris could still eat with her hands and was still expressing a desire to eat.

Her husband filed a lawsuit to get her nursing home to stop feeding her.

The nursing home, Fern Gardens, said it would not force Harris to eat but that it only wanted to continue providing her the option of basic food and water. Mr. Harris lost; the Harris family maintains that their mother would want to be starved and dehydrated rather than live in such a state.

The way advance directives currently work in Oregon preserves Oregonians’ ability to receive food and hydration even if they lose mental competency. SB494 would undermine this."

End excerpt.

We knew this was coming when the Left fought so desperately to kill poor Terri Schiavo in Florida back in 2005. I wrote about it then and explained that the Left seeks the power of death over people as a way to ape the Creator. If you can't create life you can at least take it. Since Man is the measure of all things in the Progressive mind he is the one to choose the time and place for death.

If I may quote myself:

"Liberalism also prides itself on championing reason, and sees the life of the individual as deriving its meaning and purpose from the service that individual can render. The Deathheads are utilitarian; when the individual can no longer contribute in a meaningful way to the betterment of the larger community, that individual no longer has any real worth and should be removed in the least painful manner possible.�

We already see this principle applied at the other end of the life spectrum with abortion; the fetus is unwanted and contributes nothing to the community, and therefore can be eliminated.� This is what we see in Brave New World with the sick and the elderly; they no longer serve a useful social purpose and can thus be disposed of.

The matter of human reason cannot be emphasized enough.� What the liberal movement did was substitute man and reason for Jesus and God, and early on they began a war to exterminate the 'superstition' of Christianity.� (Remember, the French had their 'cult of reason' in which a nude prostitute, representing a goddess of reason, paraded about the streets of Paris.)�

The liberals have fought a three hundred year war against Christ, and if man and reason are to make suitable replacement gods, they must have certain divine powers.� But what powers can a substitute god have?� God is the Author of life, but man can be the author of death."

[...]

"By controlling the time, place, and manner of death, the deathheads have a semblance of the powers of the divine.� Possibly, that is why the death of Terri Schiavo is so important to them.� They want the right to control the end of life as a means to reinforce and sanctify their own inner beliefs. They also know that the Schiavo case is going to set a memorable public precedent.� If they could force the death of Terri despite the pro—life forces arrayed against them, they would establish their right to command death for the innocent.� If they have the right to kill when their reason adjudges it necessary, they have established their coequality with the Creator."

End excerpts.

The "death with dignity" crowd is really championing utilitarianism and humanistic power. Little else.

As someone who just laid my mother to rest I can attest that there is no such thing as "death with dignity"; it is an undignified, messy, and generally painful experience. And as my mother suffered from dementia I have an unique perspective on what they are trying to do - and think it is abominable. Mom may have been out of it for the last few years but her life still held a great deal of meaning and purpose. My father, who is suffering greatly from her loss, would agree. HE didn't see her dementia as a dehumanization of her.

In the end this is a powser grab of the ultimate sort. The Left has followed Lucifer into the abyss, and arrogates itself the right to sit as God. Well, there is only one God and they aren't Him.

But so many in this country are slowly adopting the utilitarian mindset, and that is a terrible thing for the future of our country. God is just, and He isn't going to put up with this forever.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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McConnell Care

Robert Romano at Ameicans for Limited Government has an analysis of the proposed Obamacare replacement deal.  Some hopeful signs:

By Robert Romano

The GOP Senate majority has released itsdiscussion draftof its plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor that "There will be ample time to analyze, discuss, and provide thoughts before legislation comes to the floor."

The American people should be pleased that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not rushed to bring the final version of the Senate proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare to the floor, for there is much to discuss.

The discussion draft ends the tyranny of the individual and employer mandates, phases out Medicaid expansion although perhaps not soon enough but also provides states more flexibility in implementing Medicaid.

The Senate bill even improves on the House version by eliminating the"continuous coverage" penalty—which as reported by Kaiser Health News, "increases premiums for people who buy insurance if they have gone 63 consecutive days without a policy during the past 12 months. Their premiums would rise by 30 percent and that surcharge would last for a year." That's gone now, leaving no vestige of the individual mandate.

Overall, the Senate bill appears to stick to many of the parameters of the House legislation, including creating a meaningful opt-out for states to get out from under Obamacare's crushingSection 1302 regulations as the House version did via the MacArthur amendment.

These state waivers should be strengthened by providing for automatic approval as the MacArthur Amendment does, that way, a future president cannot attempt to administratively reinstitute Section 1302 nationwide.This is critical. State opt-outs were the cornerstone of the compromise that got through the House, and should be fully reflected in the Senate version—and protected to avert any future implementation of Obamacare regulations without a vote of Congress.

Elsewhere, there is obviously more that can be done.

Neither the House nor Senate bills endthe American Medical Association's monopoly on doctor certification via control of medical schools,the Food and Drug Administration monopoly on approving new drugs, and the government-created state-by-state insurance monopolies. They do not address medical malpractice reform.

Also, solo physicians and small practices could be given a waiver toMACRA, which requires electronic medical records in order for doctors to treat Medicare patients. At a time when there are more seniors than ever entering the Medicare program, they will need as many doctors as possible to treat them.

Forcing electronic medical records on Medicare doctors is compelling many doctors to simply stop treating Medicare patients. With a limited waiver for smaller practices, seniors could get at least a few more options for care.

Other obvious areas for improvement would be to give consumers the option of going across state lines to purchase insurance, as Republicans have been promising on the campaign trail for several election cycles.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opened the door for additional changes focused upon lowering consumer healthcare costs in a joint statement saying, "Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor. There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs."

And this is how legislation should happen, drafts proposed, individual Senators providing input and negotiating changes, the public informed in advance of votes, and eventually passage through both houses with the President's signature. A far cry from the you'll have to pass it to read it approach taken by Obama, Reid and Pelosi that delivered the nation the failed Obamacare plan.

The framework for a deal is basically in place, and if through the efforts of Cruz, Johnson, Lee and Paul the health care system becomes more free market and less state-control focused providing more individual choices, the legislative process will have worked the way it is supposed to. And most importantly, the American people will no longer be compelled to buy health insurance packages that they cannot afford with deductibles that make it useless in all but the most extreme circumstances.

The Obamacare replacement bill has turned an important corner and with a few improvements, will hopefully soon be heading for home.

Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government. Rick Manning contributed to this report.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sniper Makes World Record

Dana Mathewson forwards this:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/22/canadian-sniper-sets-world-record-with-2-1-mile-pickoff-isis-fighter.html


Shooting experts say a Canadian sniper’s fatal shot of an ISIS fighter at a world-record distance of 2.2 miles or 11,316 feet, underscores just how scientifically sophisticated military snipers have become.

Sent via the Fox News App. Download the app here.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Gun Control Does Not Work

Wil Wirtanen

Good article some of the comments not so

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/22/commentary-face-it-gun-control-doesnt-work/

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James Hodgkin son - Look for the Union Label

(Here is my article that was published at American Thinker yesterday.)

Timothy Birdnow

A good deal of analysis has gone into James Hodgkinson, the Friend of Bernie and neosocialist wacko who tried to murder the Republicans in Congress by an act of terrorism. Yes, he hated Trump and all Republicans. Yes, he waxed poetic over high taxes and MSNBC. Yes, he was abusive to his foster children (one committed suicide by immolating herself with gasoline while the other ran away - after Jimmy beat her up - and eventually died of a heroin overdose as a young adult.) Yes, he was estranged from his wife (gone since March to live in his van in the D.C. area.) But one aspect of his life that caught my eye is that he was a union carpenter.

Many years ago I worked at a grocery store. I was responsible for opening up for deliveries and checking in the product. Once there was a strike against a major beer distributor, a particularly ugly one. The distributor hired temporary delivery workers. One day I opened the door for a delivery and the driver came in - white as a sheet. He said "look at this" and showed me the shotgun blasted windshield of his truck; the striking union thugs tried to MURDER him to keep him from doing the job that these union people just wouldn't do.

Now our good friend Hodgkinson was a union man. A member of the Carpenter's Regional Council - a carpenter's union - and was an independent contractor before becoming a home inspector. I think this is important.

The fact is, union thuggery has always been a tool of the Democrats and the Progressive Left. It is generally laughed off as harmless pranksterism by the media and local authorities, who are infuriatingly unwilling to crack down on violence by union thugs. Take, for example, the assault on a vendor at a St. Louis townhall meeting a number of years back. Kenneth Gladney, an out-of-work black man who was trying to earn a few bucks selling flag pins at a townhall meeting held by then Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan - was viciously assaulted and beaten by SEIU members who didn't like a black guy leaving the plantation. Gladney's attackers were naturally acquitted by a kangaroo court in ST. Louis County. St. Louis is a union town.

I met Gladney at a rally for justice for the man. He was in a wheel chair and clearly in pain but felt it was his duty to come to the rally in his defense. I felt bad for him; he was accompanied by a nurse who frequently checked his vitals.

At the rally a couple of SEIU thugs tried to incite violence, getting in the faces of Tea Party protesters and generally causing trouble. Heavy police presence and good sense kept the situation calm, but the intent was clear.

This is standard operating procedure for many of the union thugs, who act as shock troops for the Left and Democrats.
And it's been this way for longer than I have been alive.

So it should come as no surprise that a loyal union guy would think nothing of shooting up Republicans; his experience was always that union people got away with it.

Labor unions are little more than an arm of the Democratic Party. They donate almost entirely to the Democrats, and are generally exempted from campaign finance laws. They force people to join their organizations then take money to promote radical leftist ideology and violence. Fourteen of the nation's top political donors are labor unions. They donated almost entirely to the Clinton campaign, even while a large number of their members voted for Donald J. Trump.

Labor unions have a long and nasty history of violence in the United States. And the Courts have supported this as excusable

From the Blaze:

"It’s a huge caveat worth noting anytime union members spiral down toward lethal behavior: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that certain labor union violence—even when involving homicide—cannot be prosecuted under federal law. The controversial U.S. v. Enmons verdict deemed in 1973 that labor violence against employers—including property damage, assault, and homicide—isn’t federally punishable when it’s carried out for legitimate union pursuits, such as wage or benefit increases."

End excerpt.

U.S. v. Emmons was the 1973 case where the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was indicted under the Hobbs anti-racketeering act for firing rifles at electrical substations and damaging company equipment (and thus impacting interstate commerce). SCOTUS ruled that the union may not be tried under Hobbes, which subjected the union members to be fined "not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both." Wit this ruling by the Supreme Court prosecution of unions for violence dropped precipitously (even though state laws against individual violence are still supposed to apply.) According to a 1998 report by the CATO Institute:

"Under the Supreme Court’s 1973 Enmons decision, vandalism, assault, even murder by union officials are exempt from federal anti-extortion law. As long as the violence is aimed at obtaining property for which the union can assert a "lawful claim”—for example, wage or benefit increases— the violence is deemed to be in furtherance of "legitimate” union objectives. By the Court’s peculiar logic, such violence does not count as extortion.

The result has been an epidemic of union-related violence. The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has recorded 8,799 incidents of violence from news reports since 1975. Those reports show only 258 convictions, suggesting a conviction rate of less than 3 percent. Moreover, local law enforcement authorities often get many more reports of strike violence than journalists can possibly cover.

Many states have taken a cue from the high Court by enacting their own extortion laws with exemptions similar to those established by Enmons. As a result, employees trying to support their families during a violent strike are now denied protection against extortion under both state and federal laws."

End excerpt.

No wonder the Progressive Left has enlisted the unions. And they have been happy to oblige, supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement and endorsing Black Lives Matter violence. And don't forget the violence in Wisconsin perpetrated by the labor unions from across the country in opposition to Scott Walker.

So why would the Congressional shooter NOT attack Republicans? He has been told all his working life (and probably his youth as well) that it is o.k. to use violence if you are a union man. While most grounded individuals who are union members won't do this, those less balanced, egged on by the endless stream of hatred from the media and their political buddies, can decide it's time for a good old-fashioned bloodletting.

Back in the '70's labor unions ran a television commercial with a catchy song "look for the union label". Well, I see that label on the blood soaked hands of James Hodgkinson.




Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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June 22, 2017

A Message From Georgia

Tom Joseph

To The Democrat Party Establishment In Washington

Georgia is not for sale. The People of the State of Georgia can not be bought.

Take your money, your lies, and your false promises back to Washington where your friends work against the Freedoms and Rights of all Americans.

One day soon, "We the People" will come for you, and that will be the end of your plots against our Democracy.

The People will deport you back to where you came from.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 02:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Missouri Opposes Continued Immigration

Timothy Birdnow

Missourians want to cut the deluge of LEGAL immigrants. According to Breitbart:

"In the survey by Pulse Opinion Research of 1,000 likely midterm voters in Missouri, 59 percent said they supported a 40 percent or more reduction of legal immigration.

advertisement

Additionally, when voters were asked how many legal immigrants should be admitted to the U.S. and given lifetime work visas every year, 63 percent said they favored only 500,000 or less gaining the privilege.

When that figure is broken down and voters were allowed to choose more specific levels of yearly immigration, 25 percent said no lifetime work visas should be given, while 22 percent said only 250,000 legal immigrants should be given the work visas.

On family-chain migration, the process which currently runs the U.S.’s legal immigration system where family members of immigrants take priority of merit-based immigrants, 64 percent of likely voters said they favored a system that would eliminate this option.

About 56 percent of likely voters also said they want to see the elimination of the visa lottery, where 50,000 new legal immigrants from all over the world are brought to the U.S. after they are randomly selected. The lottery is solely based in adding "diversity” to the U.S. and does not weigh the skill-sets or education."

End excerpt.

One in five people in this country are immigrants - sixty million. There comes a time when the "No Vacancy" sign needs to be lit. America is the third most populous nation on Earth, behind only China and India. Isn't it time to try to assimilate some of these people?

We are immigrating ourselves out of a country.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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