If All You See…

By William Teach August 28, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil road for fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Elephants, with a post on climate hysteria and why the media pushes it.

Read: If All You See… »

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San Jose Mayor Is Asking Residents To Buy Gun Insurance Voluntarily

By William Teach August 28, 2019 – 10:30 am

This is as Sam Liccardo is attempting to make it law

Commentary: I’m asking San Jose residents to insure their guns

…

Mayors who experience such suffering in their communities after senseless gun violence do not have the luxury of waiting for Congress to act, as lawmakers offer their “thoughts and prayers.” Cities demand problem-solving over posturing. So this month, I proposed an oft-considered but as-yet-never-implemented idea: require every gun owner in the 10th-largest city in the United States to buy liability insurance.

Every U.S. state mandates that automobile drivers buy liability insurance; we should require no less of gun owners. Cars and guns have exacted a similarly grim human toll, each causing about 40,000 deaths in 2017. If San Jose’s gun owners can’t get liability insurance, they can comply with the mandate by paying a fee to compensate taxpayers for the “gun violence subsidy” borne by the public.

That is, for decades, taxpayers have subsidized gun ownership and the harms that accompany it. Direct costs of gun violence to California taxpayers—for ambulances, cops and emergency rooms—exceeded $1.4 billion last year, according to a study from gun-control advocacy group Giffords. While the Second Amendment protects a right to bear arms, it does not require taxpayers to subsidize the exercise of that right. Courts routinely uphold the imposition of reasonable, nonobstructive fees or taxes on constitutionally protected activities, such as forming a tax-exempt nonprofit, selling a newspaper and purchasing a gun.

Insurance can provide a useful mechanism for harm reduction. Risk-adjusted premiums provide financial incentives that reward good driving and installing air bags, and discourage parents from handing the keys to their risk-taking teenagers. Similarly, insurers could use premium discounts to prod law-abiding gun owners to take gun-safety courses, purchase gun safes and install child-safety locks—a welcome improvement for a nation where more than 4.6 million children live in a household where a gun is kept loaded and unlocked. Insurers would also hike the premium on a 19-year-old looking to buy his first semiautomatic weapon, someone such as the Gilroy shooter.

Except, they all know that the cost of insurance would be so high as to make it unaffordable, which would mean a citizen could not exercise their 2nd Amendment Right, and you could bet that the “fee” would also be too high. Heck, some even say the insurance would be racist, and make a good argument for this.

Essentially, this is, at the top, requiring citizens to pay to use their Constitutional Right. Do you need insurance to speak and practice your religion? To petition for redress of grievance? What it really is is an attempt at a stealth ban, because too many would not be able to afford to have a firearm.

Read: San Jose Mayor Is Asking Residents To Buy Gun Insurance Voluntarily »

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Hotcoldwetdry Today: “If A Kids Says “Help”, You Help”

By William Teach August 28, 2019 – 7:59 am

If a kid asks you to help find Bigfoot, do you help? What if they ask you to go through someone else’s garbage? Steal from a store? Blow up a school? Do you help? Nope. But, this is the Cult of Climastrology, which always has some sort of Hotcold take

‘If A Kid Says Help, You Help’: Adults Urged to Join Upcoming Global Climate Strike

As climate activist Greta Thunberg neared the United States on a boat which set sail from Britain on August 14, the global climate action movement called on adults to join in the climate strike begun in part by the 16-year-old Swedish student.

350.org co-founder Bill McKibben wrote Monday in a letter to supporters that the choice to join in the global climate strike taking place in dozens of cities on September 20 should be a simple one.

“If a kid says help, you help,” said McKibben.

The climate strike will take place a year after Thunberg, who is expected to arrive in the U.S. on Wednesday, began a global mass mobilization with a one-person protest outside Swedish Parliament.

Thunberg’s action kicked off climate strikes all over the world, with an estimated 1.4 million students walking out of their classrooms to demand governments end their support and complicity in the extraction of oil, gas, and coal.

As McKibben wrote, Thunberg’s “argument was that if the world’s adults weren’t willing to prepare the planet for her generation, they had no right to demand that her generation spend their youth preparing for the future. Kids across the planet saw the logic.”

Right, right, we’re supposed to listen to this child, backed by big ‘climate groups’, as she makes Pronouncements about coming doom and pushing hardcore Modern Socialist policies, never once considering that this will destroy her adult life. No thanks.

On September 20 and during the Week of Action which will follow, hundreds of thousands are expected to holding sit-ins at pipeline projects, planting trees, or attending rallies and marching in cities around the world to make a number of demands—passage of a Green New Deal, a shift to renewable energy and a just transition, and greater commitments from UN countries to cut their carbon emissions.

Strange that they aren’t committing to reducing their own carbon footprints. How many will take fossil fueled trips to these sit ins and such?

“We strike now, because now is our last chance; because change must occur today; because the future is written in the present,” said Fridays for Future NYC in New York, where Thunberg will speak at one of the strike’s biggest events. “‘Business as usual’ is no longer excusable. ‘Middle ground’ solutions are no longer justifiable. September 20th is not the end goal, but a catalyst for breaking down the status quo, and creating a just, sustainable world in its place.”

Sounds like more of the same, hardcore Socialism.

350.org promoted the strike on social media, calling on adults to join the mobilization after the world’s children have spent a year making the case for concrete climate action. The youth movement has had some success, including a number of official climate emergency declarations by local and national governments and a commitment from the European Commission to spend $250 billion over seven years to fight the climate crisis.

It’s all astroturf by people who aren’t willing to spend their own money and practice what they preach.

Read: Hotcoldwetdry Today: “If A Kids Says “Help”, You Help” »

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Washington Post: Possible U.S.-Iran Talks Obscured By Something Ominous

By William Teach August 28, 2019 – 7:44 am

Can you guess what is ominous? Once you see the headline, you’re probably going to think that this Editorial is going to be Trump Derangement Syndrome. Nope

The hype of possible U.S.-Iran talks obscured something much more ominous

A FRENCH attempt to jump-start talks between the United States and Iran got plenty of attention over the weekend at the Group of Seven summit, but it might have been less serious than it seemed. Though President Trump agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron that a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani could happen within weeks, Iran’s foreign minister dismissed the prospect on Tuesday as “unimaginable.”Meanwhile, the hype over a possible diplomatic breakthrough obscured a much more ominous development: another escalation in Iran-related tensions across the Middle East, this time driven by Israel.

Since July, Israel has quietly expanded its air campaign against Iranian assets and allied militias from Syria to Iraq, with potentially far-reaching consequences for U.S. forces in the region. U.S. officials have said a July 19 airstrike on a weapons depot north of Baghdad was carried out by Israel, which has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years but had not targeted Iraq since 1981. Three other recent attacks on arms storehouses controlled by Iranian-linked militias are also believed to have been Israeli operations.

On Sunday, a drone attack on a Shiite militia convoy in western Iraq reportedly killed a senior commander and up to eight others. The previous night, an Israeli air raid in Syria killed two operatives of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which also blamed Israel for a drone that crashed near its media center south of Beirut. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed credit only for the Syria operation, saying it had preempted an Iranian-directed drone attack on multiple military and civilian targets inside Israel.

So, Israel fighting back against all the Iranian backed forces designed to harm Israel and her citizens. That’s a good thing, right?

Israel clearly has a right to defend itself from Iranian attacks, and there should be no objection to its action in Syria, a lawless country where Tehran and its allies operate with impunity…

See, the right to defend itself. But

…But the expansion of what has been a mostly measured and covert Israeli campaign to Iraq comes with considerable risks — including for the United States. Some 5,000 U.S. troops are still based in the country — and could be targets for Iranian reprisals; at the same time, the Iraqi government, which remains allied with Washington, is highly vulnerable to pressure from the Shiite militia groups, which among other things control a large bloc in parliament. That faction reacted to the attack on the militia convoy Sunday by blaming both Israel and the United States and calling for U.S. forces to leave the country. (snip)

Mr. Netanyahu faces a tough election next month, and he has been a staunch opponent of any U.S.-Iranian rapprochement. He might consider this a good moment to escalate with Iran; he may also believe that Mr. Trump will not object, even if the result is damage to U.S. interests in Iraq and a greater risk of a full-scale war. Unfortunately, on the latter point, he’s probably right.

Got that? Israel is supposed to just stand by and allow Iran to arm all these nations and groups, which don’t just threaten Israel, but actually use the munitions. They launch rockets, suicide attacks, firearms attacks, kites and balloons, murder soldiers and private citizens. Does the WPEB really want Israel to stand down? Of course they do. Like most Democrats, they hate Israel. Just like Iran. Iran would be very happy if Israel stood down.

Read: Washington Post: Possible U.S.-Iran Talks Obscured By Something Ominous »

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The Climate Crisis Is Causing PTSD Or Something

By William Teach August 27, 2019 – 5:12 pm

Yet another hysterical, in all ways, piece on eco-anxiety, taken up a notch

After the wildfire: treating the mental health crisis triggered by climate change

The nightmares kept coming and David Leal knew he was in trouble. A navy veteran with a can-do attitude and a solidly middle-class IT job at a hospital in Santa Rosa, California, he didn’t think of himself as mentally vulnerable. But when the Tubbs fire snatched his house off the face of the earth in the early morning hours of 9 October 2017, it hit him hard.

“Long story short, I went through a lot of PTSD,” Leal says, as we tour his nearly rebuilt home in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood. Wildfires are not uncommon in the mountains outside of this northern California town, but residents can’t remember one like this: the fire jumped six lanes of Highway 101, into the city, and licked up about 1,300 of the suburb’s 2,000 homes as if they had just evaporated. Leal thought, I live in the city; it’s not supposed to burn. (snip)

The climate crisis is manifesting as ever bigger wildfires, hurricanes, floods and heat waves, and cities are just starting to grapple with the mental impact of the emergency. A climate taskforce of the American Psychological Association, citing scores of studies over the last decades, reports that survivors of these human-enhanced disasters are experiencing dramatic increases in depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, suicide and suicidal thoughts, violent behavior and increased use of drugs and alcohol. A Rand study found that one-third of the adult survivors of California wildfires in 2003 suffered depression and one-quarter suffered PTSD.

See, they take a real issue, one that has happened many times because the area is prone to wildfires, and is made worse by construction by Mankind and a failure to allow for clearing the undergrowth due to restrictive laws, and Blame it on man-caused climate change. Wildfires happen. If you put more fuel where they happen, in the form of buildings and other things that burn, there will be problems. But, really, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, etc, are not bigger now. Nor is there definitive, scientifically supported evidence that this warm period is mostly/solely caused by Mankind.

Yet, the teachings of the Cult of Climastrology are making people nutso. Even giving them PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal thoughts. From “human-enhanced disasters.”

The mental health effects of climate change have been known for quite some time now: a 1991 meta-study found that as many as 40% of those directly affected by climate-enhanced superstorms and fires suffer acute negative mental health effects, some of which become chronic. Puerto Rico, for example, has seen an epidemic of suicide, PTSD and depression after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. After Hurricane Katrina, some people referred to the sense of generalized anxiety and depression common to survivors as “Katrina brain”.

But it’s not just storms that impact mental health. An extensive 2018 Australian study established that extremes of both hot and cold are linked to suicide and mental illness, and the ensuing drought has contributed to a surge in deaths of Australian farmers. Even those not directly impacted by flood or fire can experience a sense of ecological loss termed “eco-anxiety” or “climate grief”.

You know, you almost don’t want to make fun of these people, because natural events and disasters can cause mental health problems. If your home was destroyed by a tornado, you’re certainly going to get really anxious whenever a strong thunderstorm is around and when warnings/watches go up for tornadoes, right? The CoC is mixing these very real anxieties with their cultish beliefs, and making people’s mental health worse, rather than being resilient and helping them get to a good place.

The Cult pretty much tells people that things are hopeless and doom is coming. That these people are victims and should feel horrible. Unless everyone pays a tax, of course.

Read: The Climate Crisis Is Causing PTSD Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach August 27, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible, water intensive golf course, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is A View From The Beach, with a post on paper straws not saving the world.

Read: If All You See… »

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Say, How Often Are Background Checks, Red Flags, And Assault Rifles Involved In Mass Shootings?

By William Teach August 27, 2019 – 10:56 am

Good on John Woolfolk of the Mercury News to do actual research

Mass shootings: How often were background checks, assault weapons and red flags a factor?

In the wake of three deadly shootings in Gilroy, Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, Congress is being pressured to consider a trio of gun laws — already used in California and other states — designed to keep weapons out of the hands of potential killers.

But would universal background checks, red flag laws and a ban of assault weapons reduce the bloodshed? This news organization looked at three years worth of recent active shooter incidents from 2016 through 2018 compiled by the FBI to see how often they involved background check loopholes, disturbing “red flag” signals from the shooter beforehand, and military-style assault weapons.

In more than two-thirds of the 75 cases reviewed, the shooters telegraphed their troubled state on social media, in remarks or messages to friends or family or with signs of mental illness or distress.

That raises the potential for them to have been disarmed beforehand through red flag laws like those in California and 16 other states. A recent study found 21 cases in which California’s red flag law appears to have headed off threatened mass shootings since it was enacted in 2016. Last week, a Long Beach hotel worker was arrested after a co-worker told police he threatened to shoot up the place, and a teenage girl in Orlando was arrested after her threats to shoot people at her sister’s school were reported.

But, do the people who are giving the ability to file a red flag see this information? The Dayton shooter’s mom did, but she did not report his actual name. Red Flag laws, if done properly could work, especially if they included the ability to charge someone who falsely reports it.

In nearly a third of the cases, military-style assault weapons banned in California and six other states were used, though the shooters often had other types of guns too. Most used ordinary pistols, shotguns and rifles.

So, even though banned in California, they were still used. But what of the other 2/3rds? Will the gun grabbers demand that they be banned, too?

The review found that guns were obtained in a variety of ways. Most of the shooters either legally bought weapons and passed background checks or used a gun that was stolen or belonged to a relative or friend.

Hmm, so enhanced background checks wouldn’t work? How about that? All they’d do would be create a database of who owns what, the easier to confiscate.

It’s a long read that delves into all three, worth the read.

Here’s an idea: go hard on people who use a firearm in the commission of a crime. Go hard on those who unlawfully possess one.

Read: Say, How Often Are Background Checks, Red Flags, And Assault Rifles Involved In Mass Shootings? »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Current Affairs | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Comrade Bernie’s ‘Climate Change’ Plan Will Require Nationalization Of U.S. Energy Production

By William Teach August 27, 2019 – 8:19 am

It may seem like beating a dead horse on Comrade Bernie’s version of the Green New Deal, but, it’s important to keep exposing this kind of stuff, which is generally believed by a lot of Democrats, and which shows that this whole schtick is more about Big Big Big Government that wanting to solve the climate crisis (scam). This is the type of thing they do in Fascist governments

Bernie Sanders indicates climate plan will require nationalization of US energy production

The “Green New Deal” proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., seeks a complete transition to “energy efficiency” and “sustainable energy” — much of which would be owned and administered by the federal government.

During an appearance on MSNBC Thursday night, Sanders told host Chris Hayes that the U.S. needed an “aggressive” federal approach to producing electricity and nodded after Hayes claimed he proposed a “federal takeover of the whole thing.”

Sanders agreed with Hayes’ assessment that he wanted to create a “Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA] extension for the whole country.” “You can’t nibble around the edges anymore,” Sanders added.

https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1164714638703022081

Surprise? Why does it seem that no matter the issue, the answer from Democrats is to empower government with more and more power? Except with abortion, where they want zero government involvement, except to fund them with taxpayer money?

Sanders has claimed that his $16 trillion plan would “pay for itself,” something Heritage Foundation scholar Nick Loris suggested was ridiculous.

“Sanders’ plan would cause energy prices to skyrocket, bankrupting families and businesses and empowering the federal government to control America’s energy economy,” he said in a statement provided to Fox News. “And what would we get for it? A change in the earth’s temperature that’s barely measurable. The Green New Deal isn’t a ‘climate thing’ at all. Turns out it’s a green-glossed Trojan horse designed to increase government control over the economy.”

And, since these people would then be getting lots of “help” from the Central Government, they would then be more beholden, and would vote for the party that keeps the money train rolling. Funny how that works.

Read: Comrade Bernie’s ‘Climate Change’ Plan Will Require Nationalization Of U.S. Energy Production »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Democrats, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Poll: 22% Of Democrats Are Super Excited For Medicare For All!

By William Teach August 27, 2019 – 8:10 am

Of the things that Democrats are running on, Medicare For All, or some form of single payer, is huge in their talking points, especially for the 365 running for president. Many are yammering about getting rid of private insurance. How’s that working out?

Poll: Only 22 Percent of Democrats Prefer Medicare for All

Only 22 percent of Democrat voters want to eliminate private health insurance in favor of a Medicare for All system, according to a poll released Monday.

A Monmouth University poll released Monday found that many Democrat voters remain uneasy about eliminating America’s private health insurance system in favor of the single-payer Medicare for All system.

Twenty-two percent of Democrats said that they would want to eliminate private insurance for Medicare for All when asked what healthcare policy they prefer.

Fifty-three percent of Democrats prefer a system to either allow Americans to opt into Medicare or keep their private coverage, seven percent want to keep private insurance for those under age 65 but “regulate the costs,” and 11 percent want to keep the private insurance system under Obamacare as is.

Monmouth then polled Democrats who selected the option for either allowing Americans to opt into Medicare whether they would want to move to a private health insurance system.

Of those Democrats that they would prefer a system where Americans could opt into Medicare, 18 percent said they would want to move to Medicare for All-style system eventually, 33 percent said there should always be a private health insurance option, two percent said that they did not know, and 21 percent said that there should be no minor changes after they allow for a Medicare opt-in option.

So, it’s not all bad, but, again, most of the big wigs in the Democrat primary standings have said at some point that they want to do away with private insurance.

A recent poll found that 64 percent of battleground state voters prefer lowering healthcare costs over universal healthcare access.

So, essentially, Medicare for All is not a position that will help them in the general election. Keep running on this, Democrats!

Read: Poll: 22% Of Democrats Are Super Excited For Medicare For All! »

Posted in Democrats, Healthcare | 24 Comments | Trackback URL

Liberals Seem Upset That Conservative Groups Using Same Media Matters Created Targeting Template

By William Teach August 26, 2019 – 4:34 pm

Liberals are never happy when people use the same methods back at liberals, eh?

Trump Allies Targeting Journalists Are Following Media Matters Template: NY Times

New York Times media reporter Jeremy Peters appeared on Morning Joe on Monday morning and discussed a stunning report he co-authored with Ken Vogel that detailed how a networks of Trump allies are digging up negative information on journalists critical of President Donald Trump.

The report claimed that a network of conservatives allied with the White House is pursuing an aggressive operation designed to discredit news organizations that are deemed hostile to the president by publicizing damaging information about journalists. Citing four sources familiar with the plan, the report found that the group has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at some of the country’s most prominent news organizations. The research is said to extend to members of journalists’ families who are active in politics as well as liberal activists and other political opponents of the president.

From the report:

The operation has compiled social media posts from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and stored images of the posts that can be publicized even if the user deletes them, said the people familiar with the effort. One claimed that the operation had unearthed potentially “fireable” information on “several hundred” people.

Media Matters and other leftist outlets, and the Credentialed Media, have been doing this for quite some time against Republicans

MSNBC host Joe Scarbrough asked how this effort is any different from controversial and partisan media watchdogs like the progressive Media Matters or the conservative Newsbusters. “How is this different from what say Media Matters has been doing for quite some time and what NewsBusters has been doing in defense of Donald Trump?”

Peters replied that the reported effort is “not really all that much different,” adding that “in fact the people we spoke to, we interviewed them for the story, kind of uncovering the depth of this here told us that their template was Media Matters and kind of this exhaustive — basically what’s called opposition research that people do all the time.”

But, see, again, these are Trump supporting groups doing this against Democrats, including in the Credentialed Media, so, they are saying that doing this is out of bounds. Even though Liberal groups, and the media, do it all the time.

Peters added that the difference is that “it’s being deployed against very low-level people in a lot of cases,” adding “if you look at what these guys have uncovered here and who it’s hurt its low-level journalists at places like CNN. A photo editor who had nothing to do with the coverage of Donald Trump. Media Matters would do after big targets at Fox News, the anchors like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. These guys that we have investigated here for our piece here will go after anybody no matter how low level or irrelevant to the coverage of American politics.”

Except, the media and these leftist groups do, in fact, go after small people. They are upset that they’re getting exposed using the same methods.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1165814378354155520

Read: Liberals Seem Upset That Conservative Groups Using Same Media Matters Created Targeting Template »

Posted in Democrats, Wonky Media | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
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