Pure Politics: Adam Schiff Hid His Interactions With So-Called Whistleblower, Blocking Republicans From Questioning Key Figure

Remember, Nancy Pelosi has made Adam Schiff the point person for this impeachment inquisition. How will this work when people see that this is beyond partisan?

Adam Schiff Hid CIA Whistleblower Concerns from Republicans on Intelligence Committee

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) did not notify Republicans on the committee of an intelligence official who came to one of his aides with concerns about President Trump before filing an official whistleblower complaint, according to the top Republican on the committee.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said in a statement:

We learn from the press today that Chm Schiff had prior knowledge and involvement in the [whistleblower] complaint. He withheld this info from the American people and even from the Intel Cmte. In light of this news, it’s hard to view impeachment as anything aside from an orchestrated farce. (snip)

Fred Fleitz, former CIA analyst and chief of staff to the National Security Council, said Schiff broke committee rules in hiding that information from Republicans.

“Under @HouseIntelComm rules, any classified info brought to the committee from outside sources MUST BE SHARED WITH BOTH SIDES. Schiff broke committee rules by not telling committee GOP members about this,” tweeted Fleitz, who once worked as a staffer on the House Intelligence Committee.

Of course he broke the rules, and of course this is a farce. The call was utterly normal. You can bet Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, and so on have all had similar calls. You can bet Schiff and Pelosi have made similar calls. But, this is the derangement that goes back to before Trump was even elected.

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that the so-called whistleblower, a CIA official, went with concerns about Trump to one of Schiff’s aides before he went to the inspector general to file a whistleblower complaint.

Indeed, the Times report revealed that Schiff’s aide had informed Schiff about the official’s concerns, and advised the whistleblower to get legal help and file an official whistleblower complaint with the intelligence community inspector general.

Schiff had claimed previously that the committee did not speak to the whistleblower before the complaint was filed. His spokesperson later said he meant that he personally did not speak to the whistleblower.

It’s starting to sound like a conspiracy, the same one we’ve heard in various forms since Trump was elected and Dems yammered about impeaching him.

GOP demands ‘equal playing field’ ahead of former Ukraine envoy Volker’s scheduled testimony

House Republicans are demanding an “equal playing field” in the Democrat-led impeachment probe against President Trump after Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said ahead of Thursday’s scheduled testimony from former U.S. envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker that GOP members of the Foreign Affairs Committee will not be permitted to ask questions or have equal representation during the hearing.

Volker is scheduled to be the first key witness to testify as part of a probe into an anonymous whistleblower’s complaint about a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s family’s dealings in the country. The interview will be behind closed doors.

What are Democrats attempting to hide? They should remember that, much like setting a precedent of “impeachment inquiry” for tiny things because they don’t like the president, Republicans can now lock out Democrats during committee hearings.

In the letter addressed to Chairman Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., McCaul further argued that despite statements made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democrats, “there is not a “House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry” because the entire House has not voted on the matter.

Citing House Rules X and XI, McCaul said that until Congress members from both parties vote to create a special impeachment task force to carry out proceedings, “Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff lacks the jurisdiction to investigate the Department of State’s conduct of United States foreign policy toward Ukraine. That prerogative belongs to our Members.”

Dems want to have their little investigation, but they aren’t will to actually go full bore. This is as legitimate as John Conyers’ basement hearings during the Bush years on the Downing Street Memo. Which failed as bigly as this phone call thing will.

Read: Pure Politics: Adam Schiff Hid His Interactions With So-Called Whistleblower, Blocking Republicans From Questioning Key Figure »

Who’s Up For Some “Flight Shaming”?

They should really start with the top members of the Cult of Climastrology, especially those who fly private

‘Flight shame’ could halve growth in air traffic

Travellers are beginning to turn their backs on air travel over concern for the environment, according to a survey by Swiss bank UBS.

The Swedish concept of “flygskam” or “flight shame” appears to be spreading.

One in five of the people surveyed had cut the number of flights they took over the last year because of the impact on the climate.

UBS said the expected growth in passenger numbers could be halved if these trends were borne out.

Global air travel has grown by between 4% and 5% a year, UBS said, meaning the overall numbers are doubling every 15 years.

But the UBS survey suggests that high-profile campaigns – like the example set by Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg, which has helped push the climate crisis up the political agenda – could trigger a change in flying habits in wealthier parts of the world, particularly in the US and Europe.

After surveying more than 6,000 people in the US, Germany, France and the UK, UBS found that 21% had reduced the number of flights they took over the last year.

Let’s not forget that only 36% of Greta’s fellow Swedes believe that climate change is mostly/solely caused by Mankind. Also, notice that these Concerned Warmists are not giving up flying, just cutting back a bit

“I will take a train from Aarhus to Cologne in Germany, and spend the night there. I will then take two TGV high-speed trains through France and Spain,” he says.

“It will be a long journey but that is part of the fun – about 24 hours of travel but I should get to see some beautiful countryside.”

He estimates that moving from aircraft to trains as his main mode of travel will be about 20% more expensive, but says his trip to Catalonia will only cost €40 (£36) more.

So, take a lot longer and cost more. Sure thing.

Only 16% of British respondents said they were cutting back on flying, but 24% of US travellers were worried enough to change their flying habits.

Just stop flying, Warmists. It’s the only way to avoid Doom in less than 12 years, ya know.

Read: Who’s Up For Some “Flight Shaming”? »

If All You See…

…are plants and trees soon to die from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Tradition, with a post wondering if Matt Drudge has gone wacky progressive.

Read: If All You See… »

Climate Change Despair Is Real Or Something

And here’s what you can do about it

Climate Change Despair Is Real. This Is How You Fight It

In 2015, Bay Area lawyer and activist Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg found herself in Paris representing island nations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. She was thrilled to be there.

As the event progressed, however, “it was really clear that we were not going to achieve what we’d hoped,” she said.

I’m glad she took a long fossil fueled flight there.

What she and her colleagues had hoped for was a deal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century and a binding mechanism to enforce that. What they got was the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” — and which countries have signed on to through voluntary pledges.

Instead of celebrating in the streets, she found herself curled up in her hostel bed, crying.

The depression that struck Jornsay-Silverberg, 34, in 2015 still comes and goes today. She worries about ecosystems, native people and their habitats, the Amazon. She is also grieving a vision of her future that may no longer become a reality.

“People like myself are deciding whether [we] even want to have children,” she said. When she was younger, she always assumed that she would.

Is this the very definition of 1st World Problems? And probably mostly 1st World White Leftist problems?

Environmental activists like Jornsay-Silverberg are not the only ones feeling overwhelmed with despair as the climate changes. While “eco-anxiety” is most commonly used to describe these feelings, therapists and others have bandied about different labels, too: climate anxiety, climate despair, eco-despair and eco-grief.

The American Psychological Association even published a guide for therapists to help them assist their patients. In it, they wrote, “the psychological responses to climate change, such as conflict avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness and resignation are growing. These responses are keeping us, and our nation, from properly addressing the core causes of and solutions for our changing climate, and from building and supporting psychological resiliency.”

In reality, this is real. But, it’s not from a minor 1.5F increase in global temperatures since 1850, but because other people are teaching people to be unhinged. Have you ever worked yourself up into a lather over something minor or non-existent? We’ve all done that, right? These people have created this for themselves on a daily basis.

Experts seem to agree on a three-part strategy:

  1. Come together in community. “Find allies who understand what [you’re] feeling… and get together with them,” said Craig Chalquist, a psychologist and professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He said it can even be something informal. Often, people struggle with these feelings in isolation, since bringing up climate change is taboo in many social situations.
  2. Process your feelings. This can happen through talking, grief groups and spending time in nature. Really? Just talk about such a huge issue? Chalquist said yes, adding that people with eco-anxiety then “quickly move from that phase into, ‘What can I do?'”
  3. Identify what specific problems speak to you, and get to work. Interested in oceans? Food systems? Reforestation? Chalquist said because all these aspects of the environment are connected, “to work on one is actually to bring some healing to the whole thing.”

I would think that joining with other people who have the same crazy climate beliefs and anxiety would be the worst thing, since they aren’t coming together to support each other, like with AA, but to reinforce their climate cultist beliefs.

Read: Climate Change Despair Is Real Or Something »

Hot Take: Exercising Can Make You A Right-Winger

No wonder so many Leftists are soft and weak

Zoe WIlliams looks exactly like a typical leftist scold, eh? From the screed

It’s not really talking, though, is it? It’s boasting. Fitness boasters try to cover this up by featuring their dog in a selfie (“beautiful morning run with my buddy!”), or amplifying their own unworthiness in the face of an arduous task (#challenge), but the showing off couldn’t be plainer: “Here I am, improving myself, with willpower and grit, and because I was so great to start with, I’m shortly to become even better.” In normal life, we learn not to do this at roughly the age we learn not to bite people when we’re cross: when did you last blow your own trumpet about your prodigious intellect, or your sex life, or your eyelashes? It is the height of rudeness to burden another person with a remark to which there is no zesty reply (“This is my fourth Zumba class this week”), but courtesy vanished with modesty when you set your alarm that bit earlier.

Do too much, and the self-love develops a carapace of self-sufficiency. This is especially a problem for cyclists, who come to think of themselves as an off-grid warrior class, having performed their commute drawing on no more resources than their own glutes, and maybe a sports drink. Unavoidably, over time, this makes you more rightwing, as you descend into an aerobics-powered moral universe where only the weak need each other, and all the strong need is a waterpouch in their backpack that pipes straight into their mouths.

That’s literally the only mention of turning into a right winger other than the headline. I guess all those bikers in Seattle and other lefty cities are soon going to vote GOP? Does this mean that Republicans should all back the use of ride-share bikes in liberal cities, turning them GOP? Does this all mean that liberals are not self-sufficient and Republicans are?

You should enjoy a fitness writer not know what fitness does, though

I have been writing a fitness column for a year and in this time I’ve digested very little about what exercise does for your body.

She does know it makes you right wing, though.

Read: Hot Take: Exercising Can Make You A Right-Winger »

Joe Biden Releases Gun Control Plan, Makes All New Guns Worthless

Sleepy Joe Biden has gone for the full confiscation route, but, his plan is almost as bad

Joe Biden releases gun plan that would reinstate assault weapons ban and establish a voluntary buyback program

Joe Biden’s campaign on Wednesday outlined a proposal to put new restrictions on gun sales and combat gun violence, packaging a series of ideas that he has spoken about on the campaign trail over the past several months.

Biden’s 11-page plan includes support for universal background checks and reinstating the assault weapons ban, which have widespread support from the Democratic presidential field.

His proposal calls for a voluntary buyback program of assault weapons, stopping short of candidates and advocates who are calling for a mandatory gun buyback.

His campaign would not specify how much he would propose the government offer for the military-style guns, or how many people they anticipate would voluntarily give up their firearms. Under Biden’s proposal, a gun owner would either have to sell the weapon to the government or register it.

If it’s registered it can be confiscated. Neither Australia nor New Zealand had registration, hence, they saw a tiny percent of firearms turned in.

Biden also proposes requiring new guns to include biometric technology that enables a gun to be used only by those authorized to do so, an idea he talks about frequently on the campaign trail.

“Why is it any violation of the First Amendment at all to say, from this moment on, every weapon we sold, every gun we sold in America, has to have your biometric marker on it?” Biden told reporters in August. “You can still buy a gun if you pass a background check. You go out there and you can own it, you can use it.”

But, there are almost no guns made with biometric technology, and those few made are almost worthless for protection, since they are .22 caliber handguns. Fun for plinking, not much for taking down a criminal. Will police officers be required to carry them? How about Joe’s Secret Service squad? How about for their rifles? No one is even considering making a biometric rifle. How about for shotguns and firearms made really for hunting?

Biden’s plan says that he would enact legislation giving states and local government grants to require individuals to obtain a license before purchasing a gun — although he has in the past been skeptical of the concept.

“Gun licensing will not change whether or not people buy what weapons — what kinds of weapons they can buy, where they can use them, how they can store them,” Biden said in June.

It makes it easier to deny, like what was happening in D.C. leading to the Heller decision.

Biden also favors rescinding a law that helps protect gun manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products.

Which is an attempt to sue manufacturers out of business.

Axios has the PDF of the full plan, which also includes

Prohibiting the use of federal funds to arm or train educators to use guns in schools.

Which is interesting, since the same Democrats want to use federal funds for abortions. Joe, of course, wants to ban high capacity magazines, and force gun owners under federal law to make their firearms worthless for home protection by requiring “safe storage.”

He would also “prioritize prosecution of straw purchasers.” Will this include Barack Obama and Eric Holder for Operation Fast and Furious?

Let’s go back to the beginning of his plan. Typically, the first thing is the most important, right? The first thing is the aforementioned removing liability protection for gun manufacturers. Again, this means suing them out of existence (who will make guns for the police, military, and government agencies?). So, that seems to be the way Sleepy Joe is going with this.

Read: Joe Biden Releases Gun Control Plan, Makes All New Guns Worthless »

Leftist Theory: Trump Is Using Impeachment To Deflect From Gun Control

Well, let’s be honest: with all the other conspiracy theories flying around from the barking moonbats, this is actually not the craziest

Vice: President Trump Is Using Impeachment to Avoid Gun Control

Vice reports that Republicans indicated Trump is torpedoing gun control, but the only Republican to whom the media outlet directly attributes a quote is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). And Graham does not allege Trump is avoiding gun control. Rather, he says, “I think we’re really close on compromise on a grant program for protective orders, and we’re still working on background check. I’m still hopeful we can get there.”

The rest of the quotes in the Vice column come from Democrat Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), former Rep. Gabby Giffords’ (D-AZ) colleague Robin Lloyd, and other gun control proponents.

From Vice we learn

In the days that followed, Politico reported, the senators working on bipartisan gun reform began to get radio silence from the White House about their plans. Then, on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump.

Now, the president is openly using impeachment as an excuse to bat away expectations that the White House will support gun-control legislation.

“She’s not interested in guns,” he said Wednesday at the United Nations. “Nancy Pelosi is not interested in guns and gun protection [or] gun safety.”

The whole quote would be nice

The president also said “I’ll tell you what: Nancy Pelosi is not interested in guns and gun protection and gun safety. All she is thinking about is this. She’s been taken over by the radical left, the whole Democratic Party.”

Hours before Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into Trump on Tuesday, the president called her to discuss gun legislation. But, according to lawmakers familiar with the call, she soon changed the subject to his phone call with the Ukrainian president in which they discussed investigating former Vice President Joseph Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son Hunter, the impetus for the impeachment inquiry.

So, it was Trump trying to discuss the issue, and Pelosi was consumed with Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine.

Read: Leftist Theory: Trump Is Using Impeachment To Deflect From Gun Control »

If All You See…

…is a world killing canine, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on the Antifa trash.

Read: If All You See… »

Warmist Marshall Shepard: Snow In Rockies Doesn’t Disprove ‘Climate Change’, It Kinda Proves It

Wait, see, climate cultist Marshall Shepard isn’t really saying it does either, he’s just kinda wink winking that it’s all your fault

The Blizzard In The Rockies Doesn’t Disprove Climate Change But People Will Say It Anyhow

I predicted several days ago that some people would be tweeting that this early season snowstorm in parts of the Rocky Mountain region somehow refutes anthropogenic climate change. Rob Bailey, a computer engineer in Ohio, brought the Tweet at this link to my attention. I am sure there are many more just like it. It was as predictable as the sunrise or a pendulum changing sides. By now, we are used to seeing people tweet such things on a cold day or when it snows. The counter punch that I often hear is that “people do the same thing with a hot day or a heatwave.” The reality is that cherry-picking one day, one storm, or one week of weather to describe climate change is problematic and may reveal a lack of understanding of weather and climate. Here’s why the snowstorm in the Rockies and surrounding regions says nothing about climate change. (snip)

A couple of points are worth noting. People who make contrarian arguments about climate change often bring up cold events (Remember the snowball in Congress). In reality, there is nothing unusual about snowfall at this time of year in the Mountain West. In 2017, meteorologist Jon Erdman wrote at Weather.com:

See, this is all just weather, and normal. And he’s right. But, of course, remember that Warmists have told us numerous times that snow would be a thing of the past.

So why is the region experiencing such record cold and snow conditions in terms of magnitude of the event? To answer this question, we have to look to the jet stream. According to the NWS Glossary, the jet stream is a region of “relatively strong winds concentrated in a narrow stream in the atmosphere, normally referring to horizontal, high-altitude winds….The position and orientation of jet streams vary from day to day.” The wavy pattern of the jet stream is a very strong determinant of general weather patterns, particularly in terms of temperature and wetness. With this storm, the jet stream plunged southward bringing extremely cold air into the region. An upper-level low approaching from the Pacific region supplied the moisture.

To be clear, this is a weather event. I am not attributing it to climate change at all. However, I want to conclude with something that is very counterintuitive to many people. There is a growing body of evidence (and a few counter-narratives) in the peer review literature that suggests that because the Arctic region is warming, there is less of a difference in temperature between the polar and tropical regions. That difference, called a gradient, is what determines the strength of the jet stream. If the difference is smaller due to so-called Arctic Amplification (warming in the Arctic), the jet stream would be wavier. The “so what” is that a jet stream with greater wave amplitude means more extreme troughs or “dips” with cold air and more extreme ridges or “humps” with warm air. In other words, the extremes on both sides of the temperature range are amplified.

See, he’s not attributing it to ‘climate change’, he’s just saying that it’s climate change.

Read: Warmist Marshall Shepard: Snow In Rockies Doesn’t Disprove ‘Climate Change’, It Kinda Proves It »

Say, What Can You Do If Eco-Anxiety Is Ruining Your Life Or Something

Really, should it be RUINING YOUR LIFE AND WE’RE ALL DOOMED? In all caps? Because they’re always losing their mind

What to Do If Eco-Anxiety Is Ruining Your Mental Health

When you’re young, you look to the future with equal doses of dread and optimism: fearing the obligatory baggage that comes with getting older but craving responsibility all the same. 30 years ago, the baby boomer generation was threatened with the possibility of war causing a kind of nuclear apocalypse. Nowadays, that sense of your life’s ambitions being thrown into disarray is marred by something different.

The climate crisis has drastically shaped the fate of the planet. You know the deal at this point. Scientists have claimed we’ve got just 12 years to save ourselves from impending doom, but corporate greed and climate crisis deniers in positions of immense political power are stalling us from making crucial, global changes. How does one process that information?

Fred is 20 years old and from Sydney. “I read somewhere that climate change is a concept too large for someone to ever fully understand, and I guess my relationship with it is like that too,” he tells i-D. “It’s too huge and scary and vague for me to comprehend how to cope, or even how exactly it causes my anxiety. I know that it’s real, and catastrophic.” Fred is one of many young people whose visions of the future have been clouded by the possibility of the climate crisis taking it away from us. A dark thought, but one that can’t be ignored if we stand any chance in stopping it.

I’d recommend he not use fossil fuels, get rid of the energy hogging smartphone, grow his own veggies, give up meat, move into a tiny apartment (can’t use natural gas!), and live like it’s 1499. Anyhow, what can they do per the story

That aforementioned report by the APA points out four ways in which we can collectively keep check on our own mental health in a moment of crisis like this, stating that we should build belief in one’s own resilience, foster optimism, cultivate active coping and self-regulation skills, maintain practices that help to provide a sense of meaning, and promote a connectedness to family, place, culture and community.

So….nothing about making their lives carbon neutral, giving a large chunk of their money to the Government, along with most of their freedom and choice? Huh.

“I have a lot of anxiety about the future,” says 15-year-old Ontario-native Sagan. “Like, on Friday there’s a climate strike going on where I live, and I can’t go because I have a cross-country meet, and it’s just eating me up inside because, like, why can’t I just be inconvenient and go?” These decisions are hard for kids like Sagan to make because, as much as the pressure to rebel exists, the demands Gen-Z put upon themselves to be studious and work hard to get further in a more cutthroat job market do too. To escape it all, he runs, makes art and plays music: “I just try to get off the internet and do things in real life.”

ZOMG, someone has anxiety about the future? And turns to music and art to escape? Gets outside? Welcome to the Real World, where that’s been happening for thousands of years.

“We have to make a distinction between anxiety and eco-anxiety,” child psychologist Rafael Dupré says. “Most other forms of anxiety are based on an irrational fear of a danger that is very unlikely. Eco-anxiety, however, is based on a danger that is very real, it exists and is proven to be a threat to human life.”

So, here you have a child psychologist telling kids they’re doomed. That’s helpful

Hannah is a 21-year-old senior at NYU. She suffers from a form of solastagia, and has taken Julie Scheiner’s advice, spending last weekend at the climate protests in Manhattan. “I find it interesting that when I went to my school’s counselling centre, they didn’t have any information about dealing with climate anxiety even though all my friends say that is the main thing making them anxious,” she says. Instead, to quell her nervous episodes, she meditates. Hannah is also comforted by the fact that she has the right to vote; to make a difference of some kind, no matter if it feels insignificant at the time. Is there a mantra that she wants to get out there, to help others paint a vision of the climate crisis that doesn’t exacerbate fear, but offer a promise of change?

Wait till life truly kicks her, rather than this imaginary fear of a tiny increase in the global temperature which is completely within the norm for a Holocene warm period. Really, blame the adult Warmist for causing the kiddies to have irrational fears.

Read: Say, What Can You Do If Eco-Anxiety Is Ruining Your Life Or Something »

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