If All You See…

…are palm trees which will soon grow in the Arctic, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Right Scoop, with a post on Trump approving tiny cars.

Read: If All You See… »

Bummer: Immigration Agents Arrested Illegals Replacing A Roof

The NY Times is Very Concerned

Her Roof Was About to Be Fixed. Then Immigration Agents Showed Up.

After Hurricane Francine damaged Althea Vallotton’s house in suburban New Orleans last year, puddles formed on her floors whenever it rained. But she saved up money and lived in a mobile home on her front lawn for months, until she finally obtained a loan to pay for a stronger, metallic covering.

The cost? About $49,000.

On Wednesday, several workers — hired by a “legitimate contractor,” she said — arrived around 7 a.m. and got to work on the roof. She, in turn, drove to her job at a nearby school, relieved that her home repair odyssey was ending. It was a one-day job, after all.

Then her phone buzzed. Friends and relatives were asking if she had seen the videos online of federal immigration agents in Kenner, La., ordering the roof repairers to get down. Some sent screenshots of a masked agent pointing a weapon at the workers.

They were at her house.

Ms. Vallotton was stunned. She found the principal. “I got to go now — ICE is at my house,” she told her.

By the time Ms. Vallotton got home, the action was over, but she pieced together what had happened: The largely Hispanic construction crew on her roof had become the latest target of a federal immigration crackdown that had arrived in New Orleans that morning.

Sniffles. Anyhow, perhaps she should have gone with a company that was not using workers ineligible and illegally working in the United States. Not necessarily her fault, it’s hard to know when you deal with a top end person doing the paperwork and setting things up. Regardless, the people running the roofing company should be arrested for hiring illegals. In fact, it would be better if federal law enforcement prioritized going after companies that hire and use illegal aliens and throwing the book at them, which would cause most to stop hiring them, which would cause a lot of illegals to self deport as there is no work.

(BBC News) It is day one of “Catahoula Crunch”, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labelled its operation, taking its name from an American leopard dog known for being well-muscled, powerful and territorial.

“These people came to work today to provide for their families and themselves,” said Zoe Higgins, an activist documenting the Border Patrol operation in New Orleans.

“That they could just be abducted, removed from all stability – I can’t imagine how terrifying that is,” she said, shortly after the agents coaxed the men down and detained them.

Are legal U.S. citizens “abducted” when the police arrest them violating the law?

Meanwhile,

A civil violation like speeding is still a crime. The law says so. And there are penalties. This includes those who overstayed their visas.

Read: Bummer: Immigration Agents Arrested Illegals Replacing A Roof »

Climate Cult Super Excited To Force Internet Platforms To Catch “Misinformation”

Funny, they call us Authoritarians and Fascism, but, they’re the ones doing all they can to shut down opposing Free Speech

Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That

Green Climate Thought PoliceClimate misinformation presents a troubling paradox: while most Americans believe that climate change is real and human-caused, online misinformation continues to erode public trust in climate science. Many platforms lack specific policies addressing climate disinformation, and even those with policies in place struggle to enforce them effectively. Why do platforms fail to adequately address this problem, and what would it take to change?

Why? Because their job is to allow the free exchange of information, as long as it is not illegal stuff, like child p0rnography (which Democrats are fine with), not to censor people, for the most part. There are certain websites which certainly won’t allow certain points of view, like, say, The Democratic Underground (yes, it is still around). Heck, they barely tolerate squishy Democrats.

The problem is structural. Trust and safety teams typically operate within frameworks that triage based on three criteria common to risk management across domains: imminence of harm, likelihood of occurrence, and severity of impact.

What if platforms/sites do not want to take the cult view? Or be neutral? Hey, what if those “trust and safety teams” where made up of conservatives knocking down leftist content? Leftists would be OK with that, right?

TikTok offers an instructive case study. The platform maintains a policy stating that climate misinformation will be removed or suppressed from recommendation algorithms. In practice, enforcement seemingly remains minimal — not due to technical limitations, but because climate content moderation lacks the crisis urgency, institutional backing and political consensus that drive resource allocation within trust and safety organizations.

Or, because in practice they really do not care. Let’s skip ahead

Rather than pursuing a single solution, seminar participants identified several leverage points that could collectively shift platform behavior:

Regulatory action, particularly in the EU: Platforms operate globally and must satisfy the most stringent regulatory environment. European regulations on climate-related claims and content governance create compliance requirements that can have spillover effects in other jurisdictions. The United Kingdom’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act now allows sanctions for greenwashing without litigation — a model that could extend to platform-hosted content.

Surprise! They want lots and lots of laws and regulations to shut views down. Not that I am surprised in the least.

And then they want to go after advertisers, harassing and badgering them in the way Leftists tend to do, and a bunch of other stuff. But, it’s using government that should be concerning.

Read: Climate Cult Super Excited To Force Internet Platforms To Catch “Misinformation” »

FBI Finally Arrests J6 Pipe Bomber, Now That Trump Is In Office

The story gets really wild

FBI arrests man in Jan. 6 DC pipe bomber investigation

The FBI arrested a man from Woodbridge, Virginia, on Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Pam Bondi identified the man as Brian Cole Jr.

“Let me be clear, there was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work,” Bondi said at the 1:30 p.m. ET press conference.

Cole has been charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and malicious destruction by means of explosion.

Wait, what was that about no new information?

(Breitbart) Evidence leading to the arrest of a suspect for planting pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC was “sitting there collecting dust” at the FBI during the four years of the Biden administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed Thursday.

In a press conference Thursday afternoon, Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others praised the herculean months-long work to arrest a suspect after years of inactivity during Joe Biden’s administration. (snip)

“This cold case languished for four years until Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino came to the FBI,” Bondi explained. “The FBI along with U.S. Attorney Piero and all of our prosecutors have worked tirelessly for months sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden administration for four long years.”

The damning evidence was in the FBI’s position before Trump took office, Bondi emphasized. “There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work,” she explained.

This apparently could have been solved years ago. So, why wasn’t it?

Biden’s DOJ was all in on arresting grandmas walking peacefully through The People’s House (if you weren’t aware, that is the nickname for the Capitol Building), asking security guards when they are going to find a nice girl (or guy) and settle down. But, they sat on this, and the media wonders why there were so many conspiracy theories surrounding the bomber. And now it will be interesting to see what this guy is all about.

They had all this video and information, and did nothing 4 years under Biden.

Read: FBI Finally Arrests J6 Pipe Bomber, Now That Trump Is In Office »

Nature Pulls Economic Impact Of Climate (scam) Doom Paper

Obviously, the Warmists are saying “well, sure, the study was wrong, but, we know the effects are real. It was flawed, fake but accurate

Climate change study that overestimated economic impact is pulled — but not before banks relied on it

surprise surprise surpriseThe scientific journal Nature retracted an influential paper that overestimated the economic toll of climate change – but not until after central banks around the world had used it to create risk management scenarios.

The three scientists who worked on the study on Wednesday cited “substantial” issues with the paper, which was originally published in Nature in April 2024.

The article estimated a massive 62% drop in worldwide economic output by 2100 if carbon emissions continue unabated.

But earlier this year, a Nature article by a separate team of economists noted that the climate study’s findings were largely skewed by problems with the data for just one country, Uzbekistan.

If numbers for the Central Asian nation were excluded from the data set, instead of a 62% decline in economic output, there would be a 23% drop – still a big blow, but not nearly as catastrophic as initially suggested.

You know it was all done on purpose, because the science of climate has been totally perverted into a political, cultish “science”. And, realistically, the whole drop thing is surely crap in total. Effects of climate and weather (the long term weather becomes climate) always have positives and negatives. Growing wine in England during the Medieval Warm Period while have a few more problems in France.

The faulty number – which was roughly three times typical estimates – quickly made headlines and was cited by policymakers around the world, including the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

It was also used by the Network for Greening the Financial System last year as it updated its scenarios modeling the expected economic impact of climate change.

Yeah, so banks around the world relied on this study, and Warmist politicians took it to heart and even tried to pass, and in some cases, did pass, laws, along with rules and regulations

Over the summer, the climate study’s authors – Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann and Leonie Wenz of the Potsdam Institute in Germany – reviewed and amended the paper in light of the critical findings.

But they later acknowledged that their errors were “too substantial for a correction,” leading to the retraction this week.

And rather than resigning in disgrace, they are going to redo the paper, because the cult never stops, and no one is ever punished for doomsday cult behavior.

Let’s check The Paper Of Record

Top Journal Retracts Study Predicting Catastrophic Climate Toll
While growing evidence shows that carbon emissions are harming the economy, the journal Nature found that an outlier paper had deep flaws.

Just from the subhead you can see the NY Times is going with “fake but accurate”, and much of the fable reads that way.

(National Review) Associated PressReutersForbesBloombergAxios, and Voice of America, among other outlets, covered the study when it was released. National Review has reached out to each of the outlets to ask whether they will revise the articles. In response, AP pointed to a follow-up article the news wire published on Wednesday, “Researchers slightly lower study’s estimate of drop in global income due to climate change.”

Those were lead articles for the aforementioned and many others, but, now, if they do something, it’s buried. The Times’s story was not on the front page when I cruised it yesterday. It’s buried back in Business.

Read: Nature Pulls Economic Impact Of Climate (scam) Doom Paper »

If All You See…

…is an area turning to desert from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Geller Report, with a post on Muslim mob mayhem at Milan Christmas market.

Read: If All You See… »

Treasury, House Oversight Committee Looking Into Minnesota Welfare Money Going To Al Shaabab

I wonder if the Credentialed Media considers this a Bad Thing?

Treasury investigating whether Minnesota welfare money went to al Shabaab

The Trump administration is looking into whether Minnesota tax money found its way to al Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization and al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday. And on Wednesday, House Oversight committee chairman Rep. James Comer announced he is launching an investigation into the widespread fraud allegations.

Bessent wrote on X that the Treasury is “investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.”

The Treasury secretary shared a Nov. 19 report in the conservative publication City Journal that alleged millions of dollars from Minnesota state welfare programs had “ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab,” citing law enforcement sources. Several Minnesota Republicans, including Rep. Tom Emmer, pushed federal prosecutors to look into the allegations.

Obviously, this must be a snipe hunt because the report was in a conservative publication.

Walz’s office pointed CBS News to remarks last week in which the governor said he welcomes an investigation into where defrauded welfare money went and would work with investigators.

Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, released an excerpt from a letter he sent Walz, saying the Oversight Committee “has serious concerns about how you as the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed millions of dollars to be stolen,” and requesting “documents and communications showing what your administration knew about this fraud and whether you took action to limit or halt the investigation.”

Let’s be honest, this a massive problem with all levels of government, where taxpayer money ends up where it’s not supposed to go. This case just happens to be worse than usual. Where were the governor’s people when the fraud was happening?

Minnesota has been racked by allegations of large-scale fraud in the state’s public assistance programs. Dozens of people have been charged in a $250 million scheme involving the nonprofit group Feeding Our Future and its partners, which federal prosecutors say stole federal nutrition aid by falsely claiming to help distribute meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials have also brought fraud charges involving housing aid and autism programs in the state.

Many of the defendants in these alleged fraud schemes are members of Minnesota’s large Somali community, a Somali American former investigator in the Minnesota attorney general’s office wrote in an opinion piece last year. The former investigator, Kayseh Magan, added that community members are also frequently victims of the schemes.

President Trump has repeatedly lashed out against Somali immigrants in Minnesota, claiming in a post last month that the state has become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” and announcing an end to temporary deportation protections for Somali people in the midwestern state. Last week, the president alleged, without evidence, that “hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once great state.”

And, there you go, Blame Trump. Regardless, Walz may want to lawyer up, along with a ton of other people in Minnesota government.

Read: Treasury, House Oversight Committee Looking Into Minnesota Welfare Money Going To Al Shaabab »

Heartache: Trump To Roll Back CAFE Standards

We already know that the ever increasing federal and state MPG mandates have made vehicles more expensive, and, at one time, made them more dangerous due to the use of lighter materials and smaller cars. Of course, over the years those vehicles got way more expensive to make them safer. And then there were the Biden standards, which were meant to force American citizens into EVs, even though Biden and the people who voted for them rarely travel in anything less than big SUVs

Trump announces plans to weaken fuel efficiency rules for cars and trucks

electric vehiclePresident Donald Trump announced the rollback of fuel efficiency and tailpipe emission rules for cars and trucks at a White House event attended by executives from the country’s biggest automakers Wednesday.

Under rules set by President Joe Biden, new cars sold in the United States would need to get more than 50 miles per gallon on average in 2031, effectively requiring automakers to sell more electric vehicles to meet the standard. The proposed rule change would lower that figure to 34.5 miles per gallon. Last year, new vehicles got about 28 miles per gallon on average, according to federal estimates.

34.5 is still a big jump, but, this would cause manufacturers to push more hybrids, rather than EVs. And, like I tell so many customers, if I stick you in a hybrid and don’t tell you it’s one, you won’t know, it’ll just be quieter. Today’s hybrids aren’t the same as ones from 20 years ago. I get 45mpg in my Accord, and I do not miss the ICE engine from my previous Civic or Accord (same 1.5 liter 4 cylindrical turbocharged engine) at all. I have way more than enough power.

50 would be absurd. Trump should put out an EO that any government vehicle Biden uses must be an EV. Too bad he can’t do that for Congress.

Trump also said his administration will “cancel” Environmental Protection Agency rules that limited greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles’ tailpipes. Turning to Ford CEO Jim Farley, Trump added, “Your people at Ford were coming to me all the time” to lobby for weaker rules.

“These rules are going to allow the automakers to make vehicles that Americans want to purchase, not vehicles that Joe Biden and [former transportation secretary Pete] Buttigieg want them to build,” Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said.

If people want EVs they’ll get them. They shouldn’t be forced into them. And, just to be clear, I think the $7,500 rebate should be reinstated. No big deal.

Lawmakers and executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis were at the White House to mark the announcement. Trump called on them one by one to praise his decision.

“Today is a victory for common sense and affordability,” Farley said while standing over Trump’s shoulder, adding, “We believe that people should be able to make a choice, as you said, Mr. President, and we will invest more in affordable vehicles.”

Make what consumers want.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, lamented the latest blow to U.S. fuel economy rules.

“They’re going to raise costs for consumers at the gas pump and they’re going to signal to the Chinese that the world market is open to you and we’re just going to abandon it,” Dan Becker (director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the environmental nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity) said.

Do we care about Chinese selling EVs (stuffed with government spyware)? We want the cars we want. If Dan and the others want EVs, get one. Otherwise, mind your own f’ing business.

Read: Heartache: Trump To Roll Back CAFE Standards »

Wacko Federal Judge Says ICE Cannot Arrest Illegal Aliens Near Or In Courthouse In D.C.

Now, let’s start with this, which is going around

Similar misleading information is being published in many Credentialed Media outlets, but,

Judge orders Trump administration to halt warrantless immigration arrests in District of Columbia

A federal judge Tuesday night ordered the Trump administration to cease its campaign of arresting immigrants in Washington, D.C. without a warrant or probable cause of a flight risk, warning that the White House’s mistreatment of immigrants could put Americans overseas at risk.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that, while federal agents may have the authority to make warrantless immigration arrests, the way that authority has been used on the immigrant community in Washington was likely unlawful.

“Defendants are preliminarily enjoined from enforcing their policy of conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests without probable cause to believe that the arrestee is likely to escape before an administrative warrant can be obtained,” Howell wrote in the 88-page opinion.

Is this ruling based on actual federal law? Because there doesn’t seem to be any law that requires ICE to get warrants or not detain illegal aliens at or near courthouses. Beryl, who looks to be the very definition of an AWFL, looks to be making it up as she goes, and will surely be overruled on appeal. As usual.

“First, ‘as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States,’” Howell wrote, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. United States. “As a legal matter, an immigration status violation is a civil violation. Consequently, viewing all immigrants potentially subject to removal as criminals is, as a legal matter, plain wrong.”

Except, 8 U.S. Code § 1325 says anyone illegally present in the U.S. can get a small fine, potential incarceration, and then deportation. Anyhow, this ruling only applies to D.C., not nationally, but, as one Twitter reply notes

So let me get this straight:

An illegal alien with a deportation order can now walk into any courthouse in America, beat a domestic violence case, get custody of his kids, or literally anything else… and ICE is legally barred from touching him.

But if you or I miss a single court date for a traffic ticket, there’s a warrant out in 24 hours.

Yup.

Read: Wacko Federal Judge Says ICE Cannot Arrest Illegal Aliens Near Or In Courthouse In D.C. »

Surprise: USPS EV Fleet Way Behind Schedule

Color me shocked

Huh. Weird. From the link

The US Postal Service has spent more than $3 billion in tax dollars on a brand-new all-electric fleet of mail trucks — and gotten just 612 vehicles for its money, according to a letter sent to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and obtained by The Post.

Former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act set aside billions for what Ernst has since ripped as a green “boondoggle” that saw almost all of that amount paid to Wisconsin-based defense contractor Oshkosh to design and build 35,000 new environmentally friendly mail trucks.

But as of Nov. 10, only 612 of the battery-electric powered vehicles are on the road.

A separate group of electric delivery vehicles — Ford E-Transit vans — are more widely in operation, with 2,010 delivering mail and packages. However, more than 6,700 have been delivered and are just sitting idle — in part because they can’t drive all the routes that the specially designed Oshkosh vehicles can

“Instead of spending another billion dollars on an EV fleet that’s lost in the mail, it’s time to pull the plug on this boondoggle and return the money to sender — the taxpayers,” Ernst said.

How much of the money went up in flames for graft and waste? Ernst should require an audit on what has been spent so far.

Ernst, who chairs the Senate’s DOGE caucus, pronounced the taxpayer spending “a tremendous waste” in a statement after learning about the electric fleet’s poor progress from Peter Pastre, vice president of government relations and public policy at USPS, in the Nov. 17 letter.

Pastre and another USPS rep stressed that thousands more electric vehicles are being produced with IRA funds — though the 9,000 or so rolling off the lots in the three years since Biden’s signature climate law passed hasn’t inspired confidence in congressional Republicans like Ernst who want to rescind the funds.

In the four months since Ernst first inquired in July about the pace of mail trucks being produced, OshKosh has produced 362 trucks in a little more than 100 days, working out to a rate of between three and four trucks per day.

I wonder if the mailmen actually want them, especially ones that are more rural. Because I know many in Raleigh who do not want them. With the miles  put on them, how long till they are having to be put in the dump?

Read: Surprise: USPS EV Fleet Way Behind Schedule »

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