Judge Kills Virginia’s Redistricting Referendum

By William Teach April 23, 2026 – 10:30 am

There were many reasons for it to be killed, starting with it being unconstitutional

You knew that the minute this was passed there would be lawsuits

(Fox News) Virginia Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley ruled Wednesday, one day after the Democrat redistricting referendum passed, that all votes for or against the proposed redistricting amendment were unconstitutional, citing rules that impose certain requirements that the referendum did not meet.

There are a handful of cases making their way through the Virginia court system challenging various aspects of the referendum, including the one Hurley ruled on Wednesday.

“The Tazewell Circuit Court just ruled the referendum unconstitutional. The Judge entered an injunction blocking certification of the election & denied a motion to stay pending appeal. A final order will be entered once drafted, & it will be immediately appealed,” former Republican Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said on X after Hurley’s ruling.

Cuccinelli, who heads the American Principles Project Election Transparency Initiative, indicated Wednesday there are four constitutional challenges to the referendum making their way through the courts, three of which are challenges to the amendment process itself.

The whole process bypassed the actual Virginia Constitution, so, it will be interesting to see what happens when this gets to the Va Supreme Court, and then possibly beyond that to federal courts.

Democrats’ Virginia Gerrymander is GOP’s Sign to Play Hardball

On Tuesday, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that will allow Democrats to draw new maps, handing them control of 10 of 11 U.S. House seats in a state that Kamala Harris won by just five points in 2024. The result should be a shock to the senses for Republicans nationwide that it’s time to get serious about redistricting – starting with a push in Florida next week. (big snip)

But while a post-mortem of this specific election is perhaps in order, Republicans’ biggest takeaway should be that Democrats are willing to be as ruthless as necessary – even violate the law – in pursuit of power. Republicans’ only option is to respond with similar determination.

Yeah, well, good luck with that. The vast majority of them have failed to learn this lesson for the better part of this century. They’ve wanted to be comrades and The Adults In The Room, reasonable, all while Democrats have gotten more and more vicious. Republicans “don’t want to play that game.” There are too many who go Squish. They do not learn.

Read: Judge Kills Virginia’s Redistricting Referendum »

Posted in Democrats, GOP, Politics | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Climate Cultists Embracing Joy To Fight Doom Or Something

By William Teach April 23, 2026 – 7:15 am

Well, there’s always some outlier, right?

Climate doom and gloom? Try laughing instead. Activists embrace joy in the fight to save Earth

When several different team-building groups shared space at a retreat center in New York’s Hudson Valley, one bunch of people stood out because of their constant laughter — so much that someone from another group eventually asked, “Who are you guys?”

They were activists meeting to figure out how to better fight against worsening climate change, a cause usually associated with failure, sacrifice and doom. (snip)

“I believe that joy is all the more necessary and maybe all the more holy in difficult times,” said Katharine Wilkinson, an activist who led the Hudson Valley seminar that got the other groups’ notice. “Joy is like, how do we take part in the shimmy and the shimmer even as the world lurches?”

People like Wilkinson want to harness happiness to power those fighting to curb the burning of coal, oil and gas and the heat-trapping gases they emit, causing Earth to warm. In a recent speech at American University, Wilkinson called power and joy “a really potent portal to the gifts that we want to offer in this time of immense trouble and yet also immense possibility.”

So, um, exactly how are they doing this?

Emphasizing sacrifice “is counterproductive,” said Zhao, who teamed with Dunn to write the book “Leave the Lights On.”

“Instead of asking people to sacrifice the things that bring them joy, our book is making the exact opposite claim: Do more of the stuff that brings you pleasure but also have a low carbon footprint,” she said.

“We’re actually trying to get people to change their behaviors. And joy is the missing ingredient here,” Zhao said. “All we’re saying is give this a shot.”

Dunn, using biking to work as an example, said, “If we enjoy doing something, it is a lot easier to stick with it.”

I’m not buying it.

Read: Climate Cultists Embracing Joy To Fight Doom Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

9th Circuit Crushes California’s Mask Ban For ICE

By William Teach April 23, 2026 – 7:00 am

I mean, seriously, one would have thought that all those lawyers in the People’s Republik Of California’s General Assembly would have realized this

Bummer, I was really looking forward to seeing some idiot in California’s state, county, or local law enforcement try and arrest a federal law enforcement agent

That California Ban on Masked ICE Agents Just Got Struck Down

A three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit just made permanent an injunction that blocks the enforcement of California’s law banning masks on federal agents — basically because a state can’t tell a federal agency what to do.

In a 3-0 ruling, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that California’s law, SB 627, which was co-authored by state Senator Scott Wiener, likely violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, and runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent that prevents states from prosecuting federal agents acting in the course of their duties.

The law, dubbed the No Vigilantes Act, which took effect in January, bans the wearing of masks by law enforcement officers, in the interest of public safety.

The judges said that the state law “purports to override the federal government’s power to determine whether, how, and when to publicly identify its officers.” And they add, “in so doing, it aims to regulate the manner and conditions under which federal agents can enforce federal law.”

Pretty much everyone saw this coming. Not sure why the CA GA bothered, except maybe to whip up their unhinged base.

At the same time, same ruling

Federal court makes stunning ruling on California law forcing ICE agents to wear IDs

A California appeals court has blocked a move by Gov. Gavin Newsom to force ICE agents to wear identification, saying that the state couldn’t regulate actions by the federal government.

The three judge panel in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday agreed with the Trump administration that the California law violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by interfering with federal officers’ duties. It had previously granted a temporary administrative injunction to block the implementation of the law.

Nice try, Gavin.

Read: 9th Circuit Crushes California’s Mask Ban For ICE »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Climate Doom, Environmental Justice Removed From Portland Area Bridge Plans

By William Teach April 22, 2026 – 3:10 pm

It took them 21 months to build the huge St. John’s Bridge in Portland, starting in 1929. These days it takes longer than that just to figure out what kinds of dumb crap they’re going to consider

Climate change, environmental justice sections removed from Interstate Bridge project final analysis

The arrival of a new presidential administration in 2025 prompted significant changes to the federal environmental review process for the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project, including abandoning or downplaying much of the review’s climate change and environmental justice impact analysis, according to a final version of the project’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement released last week.

The Environmental Impact Statement is the culmination of the federal review process for infrastructure megaprojects, providing a comprehensive analysis of how a project will affect the surrounding environment and community. It is typically produced in conjunction with agencies such as the Federal Highway Administration, and its release is one of the last steps for a project to win final federal approval.

I’m fine with environmental reviews when they make sense and are realistic, but, they tend to be the very definition of turning the amp up to 11 in practice.

The final IBR document comes in at 944 pages, excluding appendices, making it 16 pages shorter than the draft version released in 2024. The final version is fairly similar to the draft, with some sections expanded and most largely unchanged — but while the climate change and environmental justice chapters totaled over 70 pages in the draft, the final version reduces them to a single paragraph each.

Those paragraphs explain that a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in January 2025 and a subsequent memo from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy directed the federal government to stop considering greenhouse gas emissions and climate analysis in the federal review process.

Good. None of that is necessary, especially the unhinged, political “environmental justice” garbage.

Some of the replacement paragraphs reference a new document called the State Environmental Policy Addendum, which is intended to satisfy the requirements for climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental justice analyses under Washington and Oregon state law — though it adds that the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transportation Administration “were not involved in the development of the SEPA Addendum” and “did not consider the document in the Final SEIS.”

None of this is necessary to build a bridge. Of course, with or without the crap it will probably take a decade to build the bridge, especially in deep Dem Portland. The lawsuits will surely fly the minute the plan is approved. And when construction is about to start.

Read: Bummer: Climate Doom, Environmental Justice Removed From Portland Area Bridge Plans »

Posted in Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 22, 2026 – 1:00 pm

…is flooding from carbon pollution driven Extreme Weather, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Geller Report, with a post on lawmakers introducing bill to deport immigrants with extremist ideologies.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

DOJ Charges Southern Poverty Law Center With Fraud, Money Laundering

By William Teach April 22, 2026 – 10:30 am

Oh, and then there’s the whole part about funding extremist groups to create raaaaacism and hate

DOJ Charges Far-Left SPLC with Fraud, Money Laundering, ‘Manufacturing Racism to Justify Its Existence’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was charged with fraud and money laundering involving “violent extremist groups.”

In a press release from the Office of Public Affairs for the DOJ it was revealed that the SPLC was charged by an Alabama grand jury “with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.”

According to the press release, an indictment says that “starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of individuals who were either associated with violent and extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan”:

According to the indictment starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of individuals who were either associated with violent and extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. Unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.

The SPLC also allegedly “funneled more than $3 million donated funds to individuals who were associated” with groups such as the National Socialist Movement, United Klans of America, and the Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, between 2014 and 2023, according to the press release.

Oh, and how about this

I wonder how many who fomented on January 6th were funded by the SPLC? Let’s check this utterly unbiased BBC article

The SPLC has long had a sour relationship with the Trump administration. In October, the FBI ended its relationship with the group after accusing it of being a “partisan smear machine”.

Some Republicans have also accused the group of unfairly targeting conservative groups such as Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council and Moms for Liberty, as well as individuals aligned with the Trump administration.

We got that high in the article before we got the real details like

It states that the SPLC sent more than $270,000 to a person who helped to plan, and attended, the deadly white nationalist Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. It does not specify why that person was paid or what type of work they did for the organisation.

It’s an old media trick: bury the details in the article where people will have already moved on. The BBC, like many other news outlets, are making this look like a hit job before discussing the reality.

In a news conference, Blanche said: “The SPLC is a non-profit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups.”

“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

How many made it to that quote, with the 3 paragraphs/30 second rule? The AP finally gets around to the heart of the matter deep in their article

The indictment says the center told donors the money would be used to help dismantle violent extremist groups, but did not disclose that some of the funds would actually be used to pay members of those groups. Some legal experts say it’s an unusual legal approach.

“That’s a new way of going after a charity — I’m somewhat surprised,” said Phil Hackney, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Typically, when a nonprofit group is charged with fraud, it’s because someone is accused of pilfering donated funds to line their own pockets, Hackney said.

But in this case, the government is targeting the method and intent in which a nonprofit used its money, he said.

This should be fun, as more and more information comes to light.

Read: DOJ Charges Southern Poverty Law Center With Fraud, Money Laundering »

Posted in Liberal World, Unhinged Tools | 21 Comments | Trackback URL

And Now Your Cooking Oils Are Bad For Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach April 22, 2026 – 7:15 am

These cultists are always looking for something to be doomy over

Are Vegetable Oils High Carbon & Bad For Climate Change?

After writing about some of the worst foods for climate change, which are beef and dairy products, farmed shrimp, lamb, and pork, I wondered if vegetable oils too have a high carbon footprint. It turns out, they do, according to this article about a 2022 study: ““Whilst vegetable oils might not seem like one of the biggest food groups, they can in fact be found everywhere. Production of the crops that produce vegetable oil also takes up around 20 percent of arable land worldwide, so vegetable oil production is definitely a big contributor to global GHG emissions, as well as other sustainability issues such as biodiversity loss,” says Alcock.”

Vegetable oils, though commonly used, are actually not necessary for health nutrition or consumption. There is an idea that they are better for human health than using butter and lard, for example. However, no one must consume lard or butter and therefore, there is nothing mandatory about consuming vegetable oils either. Some cuisines may have used butter and lard for many years before nutrition and health science discovered how unhealthy they can be and how they have contributed to heart disease in humans.

So, it seems logical to replace them with healthier alternatives, but in fact, there is an alternative which is simply to stop consuming butter, lard, margarine, and vegetable oils. None of them have ever been essential for human consumption and in fact can be detrimental to human health.

These people are just so depressing.

Read: And Now Your Cooking Oils Are Bad For Hotcoldwetdry »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

NY Times Super Concerned Over All Those USAID Employees Still Out Of Work

By William Teach April 22, 2026 – 7:00 am

This might play well with the hardcore Dem base, but, not with average Americans

A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss

She was fired by email while on maternity leave, given 24 hours to clear out her desk and left with three days of health insurance and no severance pay. She had worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development or related groups for more than two decades. She made $175,000 a year.

That was Jan. 28, 2025. Today Amy Uccello and her husband, who also lost his job when U.S.A.I.D. funding for his nonprofit dried up, rely on food stamps, Medicaid and a supplemental nutrition program for women and children that helps with their now 19-month-old daughter.

Does anyone think it, I don’t know, a massive conflict of interest that her husband’s NGO was getting gobs of money from the wife’s government agency? Did they consider saving money? Maybe it’s time to audit them to see where the money to the NGO was going

When the Trump administration dismantled the sprawling global aid agency last year, it wiped out virtually an entire industry — international development — that had been based in Washington since U.S.A.I.D.’s creation in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy. Nearly all of the agency’s 16,000 employees were laid off. An estimated 280,000 contractors, partners and local hires worldwide lost their jobs as well.

A year later, people have plowed through savings, cashed out retirement funds and moved in with friends and relatives. Former U.S.A.I.D. workers who have done informal surveys estimate that less than half have found full-time work, with many making less than before. An estimated third are unemployed. Others are in part-time work. The District of Columbia currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 6.7 percent, in large part because of major reductions in the federal work force, including U.S.A.I.D., and cuts to government grants and contracts.

It’s almost like they really have few work skills that have value in the real world.

Jobs are also gone at the many nonprofits and partner agencies once funded by U.S.A.I.D. “Everyone I know is also up the creek, all my bosses, my mentors, the people you would normally go to, the people providing me references,” said Catherine Baker, 36, who, as a contractor, made $127,000 a year recruiting staff and helping to start up U.S.A.I.D. projects. Ms. Baker now volunteers as a manager for OneAid, which helps former U.S.A.I.D. workers, and works nine hours a week as a companion for two elderly women.

I feel zero sympathy for these people who pretty much made a boatload of money off the taxpayers for very little in return. Remember how Marco Rubio said that only about 20% of the aid was making it to recipients? Here are some things as noticed by Robert Sterling from the article

EVERY person in this story was making well into six figures:

USAID employee: $175,000
USAID contractor: $127,000
USAID-funded NGO employee: $272,000(!)
USAID advisor at the DOD: $195,000
USAID contractor: $200,000

There were 16,000 employees at USAID, and the New York Times was only able to interview one making less than $175k. Worldwide, there were an estimated 280,000 contractors.

Oh, and the NY Times notes

Others acknowledged that there was bloat and waste in the agency and a need for reform. Much of the $35 billion it managed in 2024 went to Washington-based contractors, not directly to people in need overseas. The success of many projects was hard to measure.

But all of those interviewed said they were still incredulous that an agency that amounted to less than 1 percent of the federal budget had been so quickly obliterated and reduced to a skeletal operation within the State Department. U.S.A.I.D. workers who once thought of themselves as ambassadors for American “soft power” said they worried about the trust in the United States that was lost overseas. They said they were still burning from President Trump’s characterization of them as “radical-left lunatics.”

You know how it could have stayed in business? By not being 80% graft and waste, full of Do Gooders who were enriching themselves, friends, and family. They dug their own pink slips.

Read: NY Times Super Concerned Over All Those USAID Employees Still Out Of Work »

Posted in Government | 23 Comments | Trackback URL

Dozens Of Governments Will Take Fossil Fueled Trips To Try And End Fossil Fuels

By William Teach April 21, 2026 – 3:00 pm

This is being pushed by the governments of Columbia and The Netherlands

To avoid COP mistakes, Santa Marta conference must be shielded from fossil fuel influence

Next week, dozens of governments will gather in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The conference is a first of its kind, in name and in practice. It’s a welcome change to see a platform for global climate action actually acknowledge the primary cause of the climate crisis – fossil fuels. This sends a clear message about what needs to be done to avoid tumbling off the climate cliff edge we are precariously balancing on.

The agenda set for governments to hash out goes further than any other multilateral space has managed to date. Over the week, participants will discuss how to overcome the economic dependence on fossil fuels, transform supply and demand, and advance international cooperation to transition away from fossil fuels.

Alongside the conference, academics, civil society, movements and others are convening to put forward their visions of a just and forever fossil fuel phase out. The conference can help shape pathways and tools governments can use to achieve a fossil-fuel-free future, particularly if the dialogue begins with an honest assessment of “fair shares.”

They couldn’t do this over a zoom call to avoid all those fossil fueled flights?

Unless platforms like the UNFCCC take concerted action to protect climate policymaking from the profit-at-all-costs agenda of polluters, the world will not deliver the climate action people and the planet deserve.

And the fuck are you to tell the rest of us what to do? To tell us how we can live our lives? If you really want to end fossil fuels why not spend all this money to create a working, affordable, dependable alternative?

See that link in the 2nd paragraph of the first excerpt? Read that whole thing. It is an amazing bit of Modern Socialism, unhinged and pretty much devoid of science, because that’s what this whole thing is, a political movement. Economic liberation? Transforming supply and demand? These are phrases for, really, far far right Authoritarianism. Coming from people who really have no clue how to run a business.

  1. Thirty years of climate negotiations have not addressed the poison in the system: fossil fuels. Santa Marta must be the summit that starts designing the cure: a binding global Treaty to transition away and phase them out.

  2. We face not a single crisis, but a web of them — climate chaos, mass extinction, economic instability, and conflict — all fueled by the same source. The Fossil Fuel Treaty is the comprehensive solution that addresses them all at once.

  3. The recent International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion changed the rules. New fossil fuel projects are not just dangerous, they risk breaking international law. Santa Marta is where governments must act on this new legal reality.

  4. Real security in the 21st century doesn’t come from controlling oil & gas fields, but from liberating every nation from the tyranny of fossil fuel dependency and debt entrapments. The Treaty is our shared security strategy.

Real security comes from the government owning your life, you know. While the big wigs take long fossil fueled trips to beautiful seaside vacations spots. Seriously, this conference is really giving the game away.

Read: Dozens Of Governments Will Take Fossil Fueled Trips To Try And End Fossil Fuels »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 21, 2026 – 1:00 pm

…is an area flooding from too much carbon pollution Bad Weather, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Cold Fury, with a post on the plane that would not die.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 16 Comments | Trackback URL
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