Pittsburgh Gun Grabbing Laws Struck Down

By William Teach October 30, 2019 – 3:47 pm

The gun grabbers gave it a shot after the Tree Of Life Synagogue shooting, the standard stuff which mostly just effects law abiding citizens, but, a judge was not having it

Pittsburgh Gun Laws Enacted After Synagogue Massacre Are Struck Down

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday struck down three gun control ordinances enacted by the City of Pittsburgh after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue last year, saying that state law prevented the city from regulating firearms.

The ordinances, announced in December, include an assault weapons ban, a ban on large-capacity magazines and a measure that empowered courts to stop people from possessing firearms if they posed an imminent threat to themselves or others.

But Judge Joseph M. James of Allegheny County said in his opinion in the Court of Common Pleas that state law “pre-empts any local regulation pertaining to the regulation of firearms,” despite the “large amount of energy” the city put into arguing that its ordinances were lawful.

The gun grabbers, primarily leftists, can’t argue that a city should be able to do what they want over state law, as they already made the bed about higher government having supremacy during the Arizona SB1070, ie “show me your papers” law, issue, where they argued that federal law had precedence over state, and state law couldn’t be tougher.

Joshua Prince, a lawyer for the gun rights groups and others who sued the city, said Judge James’s decision showed that Mayor Bill Peduto of Pittsburgh, who championed the measures, and the City Council are “neither above the law nor a special class of citizens that may violate the law with impunity.”

“The city’s gun control sought to eviscerate the inviolate right of the residents of the commonwealth to keep and bear arms and ensnare law-abiding citizens through a patchwork of laws,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

None of the laws passed would cause problems for criminals, just those who follow the law and aren’t wackjobs who want to violate other laws, like committing murder.

(Newsweek) Gun control laws passed in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after a mass shooting in October 2018 at the city’s Tree of Life Synagogue have been deemed “void and unenforceable” by an Allegheny County judge, according to KWWL. Pennsylvania state law does not allow municipalities to regulate guns.

In his ruling, Judge Joseph James cited the Uniform Firearms Act (UFA), saying “the UFA preempts any local regulation pertaining to the regulation of firearms.”

So, besides being against state law, they are unenforceable. The city plans to waste taxpayer money on an appeal. Not sure why, as there is this whole law thing.

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 30, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…are carbon pollution clouds, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on the latest thing requiring trigger warnings, fairy tales.

Read: If All You See… »

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Here’s What Lunatics Can Do About Their Eco-Anxiety

By William Teach October 30, 2019 – 10:30 am

Certain people are all hot and bothered by the imaginary monster under the bed, so, rather than telling them there is no monster, other Warmists will reinforce the fantasy

Climate change is causing ‘eco-anxiety’ ― here’s what we can do

As the reality of climate change becomes clearer than ever, some experts believe that as bad as the wildfires, droughts or record-breaking storms are, it’ll be the anxiety over climate change that will affect Americans even more.

Piles of reports document the gravity of this, and of what we potentially face. Climate activists, like 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who recently addressed the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit in New York, further emphasize the message. “The world is waking up,” she said. “And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

As a result, according to a recent survey by Yale and George Mason universities, we’re more anxious than ever when it comes to climate, with a record number of Americans now convinced that human-caused global warming is occurring.

“As the impacts grow in frequency and severity — and the long term trajectory is very clear they’re going to — this personal experience with climate change is going to drive more and more Americans to say this is happening, it is human caused, and it is a serious problem,” Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University, the survey’s lead researcher, said.

Yet, surprisingly, the number who are giving up their own use of fossil fuels and making their lives carbon neutral is statistically insignificant. Further, just because they see a normal occurrence during the Holocene, a warm period, occurring doesn’t mean it’s man-made.

So what can we do when it comes to climate change? Lots of things, as most of us know. We can eat less beef, because cows generate methane; fly less often, because flying generates carbon; and walk instead of drive, to name but a few. But these alone ― while helpful ― aren’t enough, maintains Massachusetts Institute of Technology research scientist Andrew McAfee, who has just published a book on how to solve our ecological (and other) problems. The book, “More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources ― and What Happens Next,” maintains that climate change is best addressed by looking at what’s already working and doing more of it.

Wait for it

One of the most important things we can do as individuals, McAfee said, is to advocate for smart policies and vote. “Our leverage as voters is fantastic. The frustration that I have is that we’re not following the playbook that we know really well for reducing air pollution. We need to be electing people, we need to be making our voices heard that we want that playbook followed.”

Oh, OK, so, the real solution is to vote for ‘climate change’ candidates, who will……tax and fee the bejesus out of the people who vote for them while taking away liberty and choice, making them beholden and subservient to government.

Meanwhile, though, we can also ease our angst by connecting with like-minded others, which not only helps get things done, but also provides a sense of support.

Maybe it’s not the best thing to hang around people who reinforce idiocy.

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We Can’t Depend On Technology To Save Us From ‘Climate Change’ (scam) Or Something

By William Teach October 30, 2019 – 8:55 am

But there is something that can save us all

Technology will not save us from climate change, but imagining new forms of society will

Citizen action on climate change has reached a new intensity: school children by the thousands regularly skip school to protest and Extinction Rebellion’s civil disobedience recently caused widespread disruption in cities around the world. Challenge and disruption is important in prompting change. But it’s also key that we consider—and show—how a zero carbon future could work in practice. This is where the field of social innovation – the development of new ideas that meet social needs—is coming of age.

When climate change was last so prominent, at the time of Kyoto, 1997, and again in the mid-2000s, most of the emphasis was on targets and treaties on the one hand, and big R&D budgets for clean tech on the other. Now there is a much better understanding that if these aren’t combined with social innovation from the bottom up, they’re unlikely to stick.

One reason for this is that cutting carbon use depends on changing social norms and behavior as much as technology—whether local food sourcing or reducing fast fashion. Another reason is the urgent need to show the skeptics that they won’t necessarily be harmed by things like higher petrol prices or shrinking traditional industries like coal mining. A  can mean many more jobs, for example in refurbishment or recycling e-waste.

But this requires a very different approach to innovation, in which investment in new technology is matched by investment in new ways of organizing society. And investment in technology alone has dominated the last century.

See? It’s very easy! All we need to do is put government in charge of organizing our society and forcing us to behavior in a specific manner.

These tools are now becoming more mainstream, alongside the more traditional support for science and technology. They include, for example, experiments to find out what works best in persuading people to insulate their lofts, to go vegetarian or switch from a car commute to cycling. They include new kinds of social organization—from new neighborhoods designed for low carbon (like London’s BEDZed) to action by whole communities to cut their emissions.

President Obama and California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, both set up social innovation offices, and countries as varied as Malaysia and Canada have had national strategies for social innovation. Carlos Moedas, the EU’s commission of research, commented late in 2018 that the EU would put more money into social innovation “not because it’s trendy, but because we believe that the future of innovation is about social innovation.”

So, it’s pretty much Modern Socialists who are pushing for “social change”, which is forced compliance to rulings of people who rarely practice what they preach.

The key message of  is that the scale of change needed in the next few years simply can’t be achieved just by top-down government policy or by grassroots action. This will become ever more apparent as the world grapples with implementing the Paris agreements, and hopefully goes further than their modest targets. Social  has a central role to play in mobilizing society as a partner in this work.

For the , this is where energy now needs to be directed. Change must be accelerated, not just in the organization of our physical systems, but also in the way in which we live and relate to each other.

Anyone getting the idea that this isn’t about science, but about forcing people to live a certain lifestyle and be completely dependent, and under the thumb of, government?

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Poll: Most Americans Describe Themselves As “Believer In America First”

By William Teach October 30, 2019 – 8:42 am

For all the doom and gloom propagated by the Democrats and their media allies, Americans seem pretty enthused under in the era of Trump

Poll: 7-in-10 Voters Believe in ‘America First’ Agenda Ahead of 2020 Election

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the overwhelming majority of likely voters say they believe in the doctrine of “America First” when it comes to national public policy, a new poll reveals.

A poll by Selzer and Company/Grinnell College finds that the vast majority of American adults say they are America First voters, while less than 20 percent identify as socialists.

Overall, about seven-in-ten — or 70 percent — of likely voters say they are believers in America First — the nationalist-populist doctrine that guides President Trump’s agenda on immigration, trade, healthcare, and foreign policy, among others.

Meanwhile, only about 19 percent of likely voters said they would describe themselves as socialists, making the term the most unliked label for Americans. Instead, more Americans describe themselves as politically incorrect, feminists, gun enthusiasts, proud Americans, and progressives than they do socialists.

Like this

https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1189185818985787394

Of course, on the down side, you do have 54% describing themselves as Progressive, but, do people know what the term connotates as a political belief, or are they just saying “I’m cool and trendy”? I’d always been pretty darned progressive in terms of new stuff, technology wise, and Rush is my favorite band, which is progressive rock.

Further, the poll does say that people think the economy is even better than in the beginning of  2017 (Obama was still president, remember) by 55/33/6/7 (better, worse, same, I don’t know). And 47% expect to be better off in the next 12 months. They also feel better about their own future finances.

Anyhow, the cool thing is how many believe in America.

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Will Medicare For All Require A 42% Sales Tax?

By William Teach October 29, 2019 – 4:17 pm

The Democrats running for President have been pretty sketchy on exactly how they will pay for their Medicare For All (ie, Single Payer) system. Of course, they want The Rich to pay their fair share, because that’s the default position, never considering that the money will disappear. We remember that it failed in Vermont, and California turned it down because it would cost twice the state’s annual budget

The Democratic plan for a 42% national sales tax

If you’re a Democrat who supports “Medicare for All,” pick your poison. You can ruin your political career and immolate your party by imposing a ruinous new sales tax, a gargantuan income tax hike or a surtax on corporate income that would wreck thousands of businesses.

This is the cost of bold plans.

Supporters of Medicare for All, the huge, single-payer government health plan backed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and several other Democratic presidential candidates, say it’s time to think big and move to a health plan that covers everyone. Getting there is a bit tricky, however. A variety of analyses estimate that Medicare for All would require at least $3 trillion in new spending. That’s about as much tax revenue as the government brings in now. So if paid for through new taxes, federal taxation would have to roughly double.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has done voters a favor by spelling out what kinds of new taxes it would take to come up with that much money. Warren justifies many of her programs by saying all it would take is “two cents” from the wealthy. That’s a reference to her 2% wealth tax on ultra-millionaires. But Medicare for All would be so expensive that if you taxed top earners at 100%—that’s right, if you took all the income of couples earning more than $408,000 per year—you’d still fall far short. And everybody getting taxed at 100% would obviously stop working.

Okay, that won’t do it. So what will? CRFB outlined a variety of options. A 42% national sales tax (known as a valued-added tax) would generate about $3 trillion in revenue. But it would destroy the consumer spending that’s the backbone of the U.S. economy. A tax of that magnitude would be like 42% inflation, wrecking consumer budgets and the many companies that depend on them, from Walmart and Amazon to your local car dealer.

And people wouldn’t spend.

Other options include a 32% payroll tax split between employers and workers or a 25% income surtax on everybody. Or, the government could cut 80% of spending on everything but health care, which would include highways, airports and the Pentagon. Or here’s a good one: Just borrow the money and quadruple Washington’s annual deficits.

Wait, I thought Democrats said this wouldn’t cost us anything?

The best idea might be charging every enrollee in the new program $7,500 per year, so they’d be paying directly for the coverage they’re getting. Some people pay more than that now for health care, by purchasing insurance outright or sacrificing pay raises in exchange for employer coverage. It would still be a nifty trick to propose that to voters.

Yup, good luck with that.

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 29, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is an area flooded from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Legal Insurrection, with a post on students wanting peers punished for wearing the wrong Halloween costume.

Read: If All You See… »

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Your Halloween Decorations Are Bad For ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach October 29, 2019 – 10:30 am

A holiday is approaching, so, it’s time for the climate nags to nag

Stop Decorating Your House For Halloween Unless You Want The REAL Scary Monster To Appear

The 20th of September this year was a good day for the spirit. Even old cynics like me felt a tiny ebb of hope as we watched hundreds of thousands of people taking to the street and marching to deliver a message to the government about how strongly we feel about climate change and a secure future for our children and our planet.

My soul was fed by the visions of young kids marching with posters painted by young hands, by parents marching on behalf of their children’s futures and by businesses committing themselves to actually making a difference.

But September quickly turned to October and as the threats against Greta Thunberg stopped making headline news, the spirit of consumerism started to take over from the health of the planet.

The shops started to flog Halloween paraphernalia and reinforced that the only way to celebrate this ancient Celtic festival it is to decorate. This in spite of the fact the Celts didn’t actually decorate their homes, they tended to light bonfires and dress up to scare away the ghosts. But, I realised when I protested against ghoulish plastic decorations on my Facebook page, people believe decorating their houses for Halloween is a right and a tradition they feel threatened about losing.

And we get this from the author

Then we get a lot of whining about consumerism, which is the main point, namely, that people buy stuff to decorate for Halloween (and this screeching screed even touches on Christmas)

Simmering in my plastic pumpkin induced rage I took time out to reflect on whether I was overreacting to Halloween decorations. Maybe it’s just because I don’t celebrate it. Maybe I was coming to this debate with my own filter of fear over the production and disposal of unnecessary junk, and yes I realise that’s a loaded word because some people believe deeply in their right to decorate on Halloween.

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U.S. Expected To Tell U.N. It Is Formally Withdrawing From Paris Climate Agreement On November 4th

By William Teach October 29, 2019 – 8:28 am

So, expect meltdowns from climate cultists come next Monday

Formal U.S. Withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement Looms

One week from today, President Trump gets his earliest opportunity to make good on his pledge to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.

The president made it clear last week that his plans had not changed, telling an audience in Pittsburgh that staying in the climate pact would have the effect of “shutting down” American energy companies while allowing foreign firms to “pollute with impunity” (Climatewire, Oct. 24).

It’s a message the president has offered many times since June 1, 2017, when he announced the U.S. withdrawal. Since then, observers have been anticipating the arrival of Nov. 4, 2019. It’s the first day permitted under the agreement’s rules when the United States can formally request an exit. That process will take one year.

“If everything is going according to plan, which I have every reason to believe it is, Nov. 4 is the day that the United States can officially begin the process of withdrawal, per the requirements of the agreement itself,” said Mandy Gunasekara, a former senior EPA official who now heads the Energy 45 Fund, a pro-Trump advocacy group.

The earliest the United States could leave the deal is Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the presidential election. That’s contingent on the United Nations’ receiving formal notice of withdrawal 365 days earlier. Every day that the United States delays giving that notice is one day longer that the Trump administration will remain in the climate pact.

It’s a long process to pull out of the agreement, but, Trump could have simply voided the whole thing with the stroke of a pen, since that’s the way Obama joined it. It was never ratified by the U.S. Congress. It is also non-binding. And leaving is almost symbolic, since we keep hearing that all the nations who signed on are failing to uphold their pledges.

If the United States leaves the Paris accord in November 2020, it is virtually assured to rejoin in early 2021 if a Democrat wins the presidency. That could be done with a single letter and a 30-day waiting period.

The so-called nationally determined contribution (NDC) to Paris that the Obama administration offered in 2015 could be reinstated through 2025 — though it’s likely Trump-era policies have eroded the country’s ability to cut emissions 26% to 28% by 2025, as promised.

There would be challenges ahead for a Democratic president. A new president would have no ability to deliver an updated NDC next year in Glasgow. So the United States would rejoin the agreement as a delinquent member that hadn’t fulfilled its obligation to abide by its timeline.

Even staying in that reduction wouldn’t happen, just like it is not happen in the other “polluting” nations in the 1st World. Further, what they really want from the U.S. is out money. The transfer of our wealth to 3rd world shitholes developing nations in a manner which puts the U.S. on the hook, not the nation that is being given monetary aid, as had been the norm.

Just wait for Monday. If the official declaration comes, Warmists will be taking lots of fossil fueled trips to protest, using their smartphones shipped using fossil fuels which use lots of energy to document.

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Media Say Pentagon Can’t Confirm That Baghdadi Was Crying Before He Blew Himself Up

By William Teach October 29, 2019 – 8:04 am

This is the kind of investigation we get when a Republican is in office. This is actually a NY Times article, “The Paper Of Record”, and spread out through more local sources, and their’s is about being unable to confirm the whimpering

Pentagon can’t confirm al-Baghdadi was crying before he died

The country’s top military officer said on Monday that he does not know where President Donald Trump got his information that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, died “screaming, crying and whimpering.”

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference that he does not have similar information, but said Trump may have gotten his details from a conversation with military personnel on the ground who were involved in the raid.

“I know the president had planned to talk down to the unit and unit members,” Milley said. “But I don’t know what the source of that was. I assume it was talking directly to unit and unit members.”

His comments echoed those made the day before, by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, who also said he did not have the same “details” that Trump shared with the country about the Islamic State leader’s last moments.

White House officials have declined to say how the president got the information about al-Baghdadi’s “screaming” and “whimpering” during the raid. Some echoed the Pentagon assertion that Trump may have spoken with commanders or Delta Force team members on the ground.

First, this is meant to attempt to softly convey that Trump might maybe be making it up, especially since so many on the Left were Very Upset that Trump described Baghdadi in those terms, ie, “screaming, crying, and whimpering”, because the Left is deranged. I’m betting all the victims of Baghdadi and ISIS were happy to hear about him going out that way, even if Trump did make it up or embellish. Seriously, who cares if he did? Baghdadi was a horrible, horrible, evil person.

But, you know, Orange Man Bad, so, the media looks to undercut him and ask these questions. This is the same media asking for confirmation of the screaming, crying, and whimpering that refused to ask questions on Operation Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, the Benghazi attack, Hillary Clinton’s server, the payoff to Iran, and so many other issues. But, now they can ask if Baghdadi was crying, screaming, and whimpering? And they wonder why they’re accused of bias and being in the pocket of Democrats?

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Posted in Donald Trump, ISIS, Wonky Media | 35 Comments | Trackback URL
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