Trump Signs Two Bills For Hong Kong Democracy, Angering China Or Something

The bills he signed are a good thing. Somehow, the NY Times almost makes it out, it’s very subtle, like this is a bad thing, and that Trump didn’t really want to do it

Trump Signs Hong Kong Democracy Legislation, Angering China

President Trump on Wednesday signed tough legislation that authorizes sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong, signaling support for pro-democracy activists and escalating tensions with Beijing as Mr. Trump tries to negotiate a trade deal with Chinese leaders.

China’s Foreign Ministry was furious, saying the bill “seriously interfered with Hong Kong affairs, seriously interfered with China’s internal affairs, and seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relations.” The ministry warned the United States against acting arbitrarily and said that any consequences would “be borne by the United States.”

Whether Mr. Trump would sign the legislation had been a subject of debate. He refused to commit to doing so as late as last Friday, saying that he supported the protesters but that President Xi Jinping of China was “a friend of mine.” But Mr. Trump was left with few options: The bill had passed both the House and the Senate by veto-proof majorities.

So, instead of congratulating Trump for signing in, they go with “China mad!” and subtlety positioning Trump signing the bills as something he didn’t really want to do.

The second bill that Mr. Trump signed bans the sale of crowd-control munitions like tear gas and rubber bullets to the Hong Kong police.

The pro-Beijing government in Hong Kong expressed its strong displeasure, calling the two measures “unnecessary and unwarranted, and would harm the relations and common interests between Hong Kong and the U.S.”

We care what Beijing thinks why? Oh, right, it’s supposed to make it seems as if Trump was doing things without thinking.

The main measure, titled the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, would compel the United States to impose sanctions on officials. It would also require the State Department to annually review the special autonomous status it grants the territory in trade considerations. That status is separate from the relationship with mainland China, and revoking it would mean less favorable trade conditions between the United States and Hong Kong.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Evan S. Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was the senior Asia director on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council staff, said Mr. Trump’s action could be his attempt to look tough on China to American voters without entirely upsetting the negotiations.

Um, it was passed almost unanimously. Does this mean Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Booker, Harris, Sanders, and the rest of the Dems were attempting to look tough?

Read: Trump Signs Two Bills For Hong Kong Democracy, Angering China Or Something »

Narrative Fail: Battleground Voters Who Went Democrat In 2018 Switching Back To Trump

This had to really, really hurt the NY Times to publish. After all the scaremongering, the negative stories on Trump, the refusal to run any but a handful of stories buried deep on the good things Trump has done (the story on Trump signing the animal cruelty bill was nowhere on the front page on the web nor the paper), all the negative opinion pieces, spinning good news as bad, telling us the economy is cratering and a recession is coming, all the impeachment theater, etc, and we get this

They Voted Democratic. Now They Support Trump.

Midterm victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin gave Democrats hope of retaking the Rust Belt battleground states that handed the presidency to Donald J. Trump in 2016.

Yet success in the midterms might not mean as much for Democratic presidential candidates as the party might think. Nearly two-thirds of voters in six battleground states who voted for President Trump in 2016 — but for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 — say they intend to back the president against each of his top rivals, according to recent polling by The New York Times Upshot/Siena College.

The results suggest that the party’s winning formula in last year’s midterms may not be so easy to replicate in a presidential election. The Democrats’ relatively moderate House candidates succeeded in large part by flipping a crucial segment of voters who backed the president in 2016. If these voters remain open-minded again in 2020, Democrats will have a ready-made blueprint for winning back the crucial Rust Belt battlegrounds.

Of course, the Times attempts to spin this, denigrating the voters as “overwhelmingly white, 60 percent are male, and two-thirds have no college degree”, because, obviously, they aren’t allowed to have an opinion.

Other voters say they are preparing to take an even greater leap: vote for Mr. Trump after supporting Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 and Mrs. Clinton in 2016.

In the survey, 7 percent of those who supported Mrs. Clinton in 2016 said they now approved of the president’s performance — despite his personality and his Twitter account, many said.

What this really is is a warning for Democrats to get their buts in gear to attempt to find a way to win.

Many of the voters cited economic strength as a major reason to support Mr. Trump in 2020, even if they didn’t support him last time. Also, certain voters who support Trump said they had soured on Democrats because of partisan fighting, culminating in impeachment hearings.

So, he’s doing pretty good and Democrats are unhinged.

Read: Narrative Fail: Battleground Voters Who Went Democrat In 2018 Switching Back To Trump »

If All You See…

…is wonderful low carbon sailboat needed for when the land is swamped by the seas, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Real Climate Science, with a post on NOAA blocking access to their temperature data.

Read: If All You See… »

EU Parliament Considers Declaring “Climate Emergency” Or Something

Let’s see: all the EU nations were members of the Kyoto Protocol, and failed. They’ve instituted all sorts of taxes and fees and restrictions and such, and they’ve failed. They hailed being part of the “historic” Paris Climate agreement, yet, none of them are even close to their own stated goals. So, sure, declare a climate emergency, right? Fourth times the charm, right?

European parliament split on declaring climate emergency

The European parliament is split over whether to declare a global climate emergency before next week’s crucial UN summit.

If passed, the climate emergency resolution – to be voted on on Thursday – would throw down the gauntlet to incoming European Union leaders. The European commission’s president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, is expected to take office on 1 December, having promised “a European green deal” in her first 100 days.

The draft resolution states there is “an environment and climate emergency in Europe and globally” and declares the EU will “take action accordingly”.

“It is a message to European citizens, to young people, to say that Europe is the very first continent to declare a climate emergency and to act accordingly,” said Pascal Canfin, a French MEP who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee and co-authored the resolution.

Oh, good, they’re sending a message! Since they like platitudes, how about “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”?

The text also references the US president Donald Trump’s decision to begin formal withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement earlier this month.

“We need to send a signal that after Trump’s decision, Europe is more than ever committed to deliver,” said Canfin, an ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

They’re so committed that they are all failing on their Paris pledges.

While the climate emergency resolution is supported by many Liberals, Socialists, Greens and the radical left, the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) – the European parliament’s largest group – is uneasy about the word “emergency”. A source said the German word der Notstand was associated with the name of an infamous law of the Nazi era.

Hey, in that context, it’s the perfect word, considering the actual goals of the Cult of Climastrology, which really aren’t that different from the Fascists.

Read: EU Parliament Considers Declaring “Climate Emergency” Or Something »

Hotcold Take: East Coast Will See More Big Snowstorms But Less Overall Snow

This seems to be a variation on the old trope about being fewer hurricanes but them being much, much bigger. Of course, they mean that this is all your fault for your big carbon footprint, rather than something that keeps happening during the Holocene, ie, warm periods

With climate change, Washington may have entered era of more blockbuster snowstorms but less snow overall

As Washington’s winter climate has warmed several degrees over the past 120 years, average snowfall has declined by about half a foot, from roughly 21 inches to 15 inches. Yet recent decades have also featured several of the biggest snowstorms the city has ever recorded.

Snowfall trends in Washington, as well as other East Coast cities, are leading scientists to this conclusion: Global warming, while eating away at some snow events, may paradoxically be contributing to an uptick in big East Coast snowstorms.

Several recent studies show that this trend toward more blockbuster storms will continue into the coming decades, although there are open questions about how climate change is skewing the odds toward particular winter weather scenarios.

Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at AER, a Verisk Analytics company, has published multiple studies that link changing snowfall trends in the eastern United States to change in the Arctic. His research shows that the loss of Arctic sea ice is contributing to an increase in fall snowfall in parts of Siberia. This is, in turn, having an influence on weather across the Arctic, extending high into the atmosphere above the vast region, favoring weather patterns that tend to direct Arctic air into the Lower 48 states.

This kind of thing goes on for a bit, and, really, the whole point is to attempt to blame winter storms on anthropogenic climate change from greenhouse glasses, much like they’ve changed it from global warming to climate change so that all non-warming weather can be blamed. We’ve all seen them try this for several years, saying that snow storms and cold weather are worse due to carbon pollution.

For example, a computer modeling study published in Geophysical Research Letters last year found that smaller snowstorms will significantly diminish across a broad swath of the Northeast, including Washington, by late in the century. However, the bigger storms will get even more destructive and are unlikely to diminish in number, the study found.

Colin Zarzycki, the lead author of the study, says that as winters continue to warm, overall snowfall will decline in the Northeast, and the total number of snowfall events will also decline. However, when conditions align to produce snow, it will fall at more intense rates than typically occurs now. This will increase the odds of having a big snowstorm, he says.

Computer models.

However, all hope for D.C. snow lovers is far from lost. Big snowstorms still occur, and they may become more routine as air and sea surface temperatures warm, supercharging coastal storms. In addition, snow events have not dropped sharply yet in January and February, which tend to be the coldest winter months. But instead of expecting a winter full of small snow events to keep things looking wintry, it’s possible we’ve already entered a climate characterized more by a feast-or-famine scenario, in which a major snowstorm or two accounts for the bulk of our seasonal snowfall.

They love their doomsaying, eh?

Read: Hotcold Take: East Coast Will See More Big Snowstorms But Less Overall Snow »

According To Reports, San Francisco Is Super Racist For Citing Blacks For Eating On Trains

I wonder if anyone has explained to the UK Guardian and the SF Examiner that this is high caliber friendly fire

Police cited 55 people for eating on San Francisco trains. Only nine were white

Police officers for the San Francisco Bay Area commuter train system disproportionately target black riders with citations for eating and drinking, according to new data that has renewed concerns about racial profiling.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) data was released following a viral video showing police handcuffing a 31-year-old black man who was cited for eating a breakfast sandwich on his way to work. The new records show that more than 81% of people who have been stopped for eating and drinking on Bart since 2014 were people of color, and that the vast majority of them were black.

Stops for eating and drinking on trains or platforms are infrequent within Bart, the train system that runs between San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding suburbs. Of 55 people cited for this offense over the last five years, 33 were black passengers, representing 60% of the citations. Nine of the stops were white passengers, seven were listed as Hispanic, five were categorized as “other” and one was unknown, according to the data, which was obtained by the San Francisco Examiner.

Only 10% of Bart’s total riders are black, meaning they are six times more likely than others to be stopped for eating and drinking. Ridership data, collected last year, showed that 35% of overall riders are white, 32% are Asian/Pacific Islander and 17% are Latino.

The Bart spokeswoman Alicia Trost said in an email that the data shows citations are “very rare” and are “handed out at stations across the system”. “When an officer witnesses someone eating, they remind the rider that eating is not allowed and if the rider puts the food away no citation is necessary. It is a rare occurrence to need to issue a citation after reminding the rider not to eat,” she said.

So, see, San Francisco is raaaaacist. You know, the completely controlled by the Democratic Party San Francisco.

The answer, though, is very simple: don’t eat on a Bart train. If you give it a shot, put it away when you’re called on it. That’s why people are getting citations: they’re getting caught and either refusing to put the food away, or, most likely, getting caught a second time after putting it away and thinking the officer is walking away. Without even looking up the regulation on stopping eating on the trains, you know it is about trying to keep the trains clean. Food will get everywhere, people will wipe their hands on everything, and could be getting it on other people.

You are not allowed to smoke, vape, or dip. No alcohol, of course. You aren’t allowed to actually drink anything. So, no morning coffee or, being SF, weirdo smoothies. No listening to anything without headphones. No littering.

Further, starting in 2018 BART put a lot more police officers in the stations and on the trains. Why? First because of the exploding homeless problem. Second, because crime was skyrocketing on the trains, especially aimed at taking people’s phones. So, yeah, cops will see people attempting to eat, drink, vape, etc, more often. Don’t want to get cited? Do not do it. Or, at least comply if you get caught and don’t try and do it again.

Seriously, though, a total of 55 over five years is not much. It means most who got caught complied. There’s no racial profiling, it’s just who got caught and then failed to comply.

Read: According To Reports, San Francisco Is Super Racist For Citing Blacks For Eating On Trains »

Washington Post Editorial Board Is Super Concerned Over Trump’s Unconstitutionality Enablers

This is always so amusing. Democrats and the right leaning #NeverTrumpers are always yammering on about all the ways Trump is a dictator and trashing the Constitution, but, this is the best they can do

Trump’s second act is rife with enablers of constitutional degradation

THE TRUMP presidency has entered a dangerous new phase. Administration officials who had some scruples have given way to men (yes, only men) whose first priority seems to be retaining their jobs. Because the chief requirement for that is personal loyalty to the president, who has shown himself to be without scruple, decency or respect for the Constitution, the result is the progressive erosion of core institutions. (snip)

The wisdom of that view is being borne out by the administration’s second act. It may be that Attorney General William P. Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney also are protecting the country from Mr. Trump’s whims and grudges in ways that we cannot see.

But what we do see suggests they are playing the role of enablers of constitutional degradation: From the Justice Department, the dishonest rollout of Mr. Mueller’s report, or the politically driven threat of an antitrust lawsuit against car makers who anger the president by negotiating clear-air standards with California. At State, an abject failure to stand up for honorable Foreign Service officers slandered for doing their jobs honorably. At the White House, a willingness to encourage, and then lie about, the abuse of foreign-policy powers in service of personal political interests. At the Pentagon, a refusal to stand up to Mr. Trump’s malign interference in the military justice process. And this is not an exhaustive list.

I enjoy the part about the Mueller report, a cute little attempt to de-legitimize it. Of course, nothing in there is unconstitutional, just Politics 101. And, yet, the same WPEB had zero problem with all the actual violations of the Constitution from the Obama administration (even the left-leaning Atlantic has problems with Obama), nor have they mentioned Joe Biden using his position to enrich his son, nor current Democrat presidential contenders blatantly saying they will violate Constitutional Rights.

Read: Washington Post Editorial Board Is Super Concerned Over Trump’s Unconstitutionality Enablers »

If All You See…

…is a city flooded by carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Powerline, with a post saying to be cautious with the “Ilhan Omar gave intelligence to Qatar” story floating around.

Read: If All You See… »

UN Releases Bleak Report On Climate Ahead Of December Meeting Or Something

And the UN wants more action, despite the majority of signatories of the “historic” Paris Climate Agreement failing to uphold their pledges already

In bleak report, U.N. says drastic action is only way to avoid worst effects of climate change

The world has squandered so much time mustering the action necessary to combat climate change that rapid, unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas emissions offer the only hope of averting an ever-intensifying cascade of consequences, according to new findings from the United Nations.

Already, the past year has brought devastating hurricanes, relentless wildfires and crippling heat waves, prompting millions of protesters to take to the streets to demand more attention to a problem that seems increasingly urgent.

Amid that growing pressure to act, Tuesday’s U.N. report offers a grim assessment of how off-track the world remains. Global temperatures are on pace to rise as much as 3.9 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, according to the United Nations’ annual “emissions gap” report, which assesses the difference between the world’s current path and the changes needed to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

As noted time and again, the world has seen a small 1.5F increase in global temperatures since 1850, and now they prognosticate a 7 degree increase in the next 80 years? It’s not a science, it’s a cult. But, they do this Utter Doom And Gloom thing every year before the yearly UN IPCC Conference on the Parties meeting, always held is some great vacation spot, where well over 10,000 Warmists take fossil fueled trips to attempt to tell Other People how to live their lives.

Tuesday’s report, which is viewed as the benchmark of the world’s progress in meeting its climate goals, underscores how the pledges that nations made years ago in Paris are woefully inadequate to achieving the goals of the accord. To hold warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, the authors found that countries would need to triple the ambition of their current promises. To hit the more ambitious target of no more than 1.5 degrees of warming, they found, nations would need to ramp up their pledges fivefold.

So, the countries that signed are failing? After pimping their support? Bummer.

Investment in renewable energy in the developing world also dropped significantly in 2018, according to an analysis released Monday by BloombergNEF, which tracks worldwide energy trends.

In other words, nations are realizing that renewables just aren’t cutting it to provide power, both in the 1st and 3rd Worlds.

Next month at the annual U.N. climate conference in Spain, representatives from countries around the world will face pressure to ramp up their ambition — not just their rhetoric — over the coming year. So far, only a handful of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters have policies in place to meet the promises they made in Paris four years ago, much less more aggressive strategies “for transformative climate commitments at the breadth and scale necessary,” Tuesday’s report says. The report also found that cutting greenhouse gas emissions could do more than just mitigate climate change. It also could reduce air pollution, improve public health and help conserve wildlife.

They’re failing on their existing policies, what makes them think they can succeed on even tougher ones? Meh, doesn’t matter, it’s all a scam.

Read: UN Releases Bleak Report On Climate Ahead Of December Meeting Or Something »

Climate Cult Groups Say U.S., E.U. Owe Half The Cost For Hotcoldwetdry

In the 1st World, ‘climate change’ is all about installing Modern Socialism, about taxation, fees, and governmental control of everything, about limiting freedom and choice. In the 3rd World, it’s all about getting money out of the 1st World nations, money that has zero strings attached, because the 1st World nations “owe” it to the 3rd World ones

US, EU ‘owe half the cost’ of repairing climate damage

The United States and Europe bear more than half the cost of repairing the damage already wrought by climate change, a coalition of environmental groups said Monday.

Based on their historic greenhouse gas emissions, the US and EU should be held jointly responsible for 54 percent of funding owed to developing nations already dealing with extreme flooding, droughts and megastorms rendered more frequent and intense by global warming, the groups said.

A week ahead of a UN climate summit in Madrid — in which the controversial issue of how funding for the so-called “loss and damage” inflicted by climate change will be provided — they said the amount needed would hit $300 billion annually within a decade.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which the 2015 Paris agreement was signed, is based on the principle that all countries must give at least their fair share in global efforts to mitigate and adapt to our changing climate.

Yeah, well, don’t expect any from the U.S. government anytime soon. Unless Warmists want to pony up their own money. Which they do not seem to like. They prefer using Other People’s money.

The groups analysed each nation’s ability to finance climate action, and compared that to its historic emissions, dating back to 1950.

It found that the US, the largest polluter in history, should contribute at least 30.4 percent of loss and damage funding.

The EU should pay 24 percent, they said, while China — the largest current emitter — was obliged to fund 10.4 percent.

Going further back to the start of the industrial age, the analysis found that the US’s fair damage funding share would be over 40 percent.

Tell you what: they can start by paying us for saving the world in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, along with having developed a goodly portion of the things that make the world go around, including the automobile, airplane, computer, Internet, and smartphones. A simple “thank you” will suffice. And leave us alone with your scam.

Read: Climate Cult Groups Say U.S., E.U. Owe Half The Cost For Hotcoldwetdry »

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