UN Claims Human Rights Violations From ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 10:34 am

The United Nations, comprised of numerous hardcore dictators, is Concerned

UN sounds alarm over climate change’s impact on human rights

Climate change is not only having a devastating impact on the environments we live in, but also on respect for human rights globally, the UN warned Monday, urging collective action.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet cited the civil wars sparked by a warming planet and the plight of indigenous people in an Amazon ravaged by wildfires and rampant deforestation.

She also denounced attacks on environmental activists, particularly in Latin America, and the abuse aimed at high-profile figures such as teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg.

“The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope,” she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Wow, I had no idea that civic wars didn’t happen and people weren’t mean before CO2 went above 350ppm. We can solve this with a tax, you know.

“The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted” by climate change, she warned.

Low-lying small island states like the Bahamas, which are heavily impacted by climate change, are quickly seeing rights to water, sanitation, health, food, work and adequate housing, she warned. She called for international action to mitigate the impact there.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced the “drastic acceleration of deforestation of the Amazon.

Also the United Nations

Unbelievable! Venezuela’s dictatorship is about to win a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council | Opinion

This is no joke: Venezuela — the most repressive regime in the Americas since the days of Argentina and Chile’s military dictatorships in the 1970s — is expected to win a seat at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council.

Never mind that, according to the United Nations’ own High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s death squads are responsible for more than 6,800 extrajudicial killings just between January 2018 and May 2019.

In addition, the U.N. report cites widespread use of torture against political prisoners, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags and sexual violence. There were at least 2,000 political arrests in the first five months of this year. There were 720 political prisoners in May, Bachelet’s report said.

I’m sure what Maduro is doing is the fault of carbon pollution, right?

Read: UN Claims Human Rights Violations From ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming, UN | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Bloomberg News Advises Democrats That Americans Won’t Pay Their Carbon Taxes

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 7:08 am

This is an amusing piece by Ramesh Ponnuru, since it is in a news source owned by hyper-Warmist Michael Bloomberg, himself a believer in carbon taxes.

Democrats: Americans Won’t Pay Your Carbon Taxes

Much has been made of the willingness of Democratic presidential candidates to risk taking positions that aren’t popular with voters at large in order to boost themselves in the primaries. Democratic politicians and strategists are aware that most people don’t want to see private health insurance banned, for example, but such leading contenders as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have come out for it anyway.

There has been less focus on the political risks of the candidates’ approach to climate change. In part that’s because so many Republicans have taken their own unpopular stance on the issue: denying that there’s a problem. Gallup finds that nearly two-thirds of voters believe that human activity is causing the globe to get warmer, and that percentage has been rising over the years. Young voters are especially concerned about the issue. It’s part of the reason that some Republicans, such as Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, have broken with many of their colleagues on the matter. “I think history will judge very harshly those who are climate deniers,” he said.

But the Democrats may be getting overconfident. At last week’s “climate town hall” on CNN, Senator Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg all endorsed a carbon tax. Senator Kamala Harris did, too, although she called her tax a “fee.” All of these candidates are breaking with past Democrats. Neither President Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton endorsed a carbon tax. A memo for the Clinton campaign estimated that a carbon tax of $42 per ton on greenhouse-gas emissions would raise annual energy costs by $478 for the average household, and by $268 for the poorest fifth of households.

Don’t forget, those increased energy costs would lead to an increase in the cost of everything else, as those costs are passed on from companies to consumers.

When considering that number, keep in mind another poll finding. In November 2018, the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ran a survey about climate change that found, in line with other polls, that most Americans believe it is happening and that human activity is causing it. Nearly half of respondents said that recent extreme weather events had influenced their thinking on the issue. But 68 percent opposed paying even $10 extra in their monthly utility bills to address the issue.

Belief is great, right up to the point you actually have to pay for it, eh?

Even a tax increase on the top fifth of households is a heavier political lift than Democrats have been prepared for. A household with an annual income of $130,000 is in that fifth. The tax increases of the last two Democratic presidents kicked in at a much higher threshold. And the gross cost may matter politically, not just the net cost. Even if the Democrats promise a rebate, Republicans can sow doubt that voters will actually see one.

So, Democrats are continuing to lower the threshold of what they consider “rich.”

Washington State’s relatively liberal electorate has rejected carbon taxes twice in recent years. In 2016, a carbon tax was paired with a sales-tax cut and drew the opposition of 59% of voters. In 2018, on a generally good day for liberal causes, 56% opposed a carbon tax with no rebate.

I’ve mentioned that a few times. And, remember, the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, bombed “bigly” while his campaign focused almost solely on ‘climate change’.

The journalists at Vox did one of those round-ups of who won and lost from the climate town halls. (Winner: CNN; loser: meat.) But they ignored someone who might turn out to be the biggest winner: President Donald Trump, who will surely hit the cost issue hard as we get closer to the election.

You think? Trump won’t hold back, and will paint any carbon tax scheme as one that will cost American citizens a lot of money. And if he can get people who had zero chance of voting for him to refuse to vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is in swing states and even “lean Democrat”, he has a much better chance to win the 2020 election. He doesn’t have to convert them. Just keep that vote from going Democrat.

Read: Bloomberg News Advises Democrats That Americans Won’t Pay Their Carbon Taxes »

Posted in Democrats, Global Warming, Taxation | 67 Comments | Trackback URL

California Passes Red Flag Law Expansion Bill, NRA Sues San Francisco

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 6:53 am

This won’t lead to a major increase of swatting, right?

California could expand use of gun violence restraining orders under bill sent to governor

California teachers, school administrators and employers could ask the courts to take guns away from people they see as a danger to themselves or the public under a major expansion of the state’s “red flag” law approved by the Legislature on Monday and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In response to a string of mass shootings, the governor has said he is interested in expanding the state’s gun restraining order law, which for the last four years has allowed family members and law enforcement officers to ask courts to seize firearms from people deemed a public risk. Legislators have offered a half-dozen proposals this year to broaden the law’s reach.

On Monday, the state Assembly gave final approval to a measure that would allow employers, co-workers and high school and college teachers and administrators to petition the courts to remove guns from employees and students.

Even previous governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown thought that this type of expansion was misguided, since the same people could work through the police if they were concerned.

Civil libertarians objected to the fact that the law allows guns to be removed for up to 21 days before a court hears the testimony from the person losing the firearms. A hearing with the gun owner could extend the order for up to a year.

The measure was also opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of California, which said it “poses a significant threat to civil liberties by expanding the authorization to seek ex parte orders, with all the ensuing consequences, without an opportunity for the person to be heard or contest the matter.”

So, someone could have your Constitutional Right taken away for a period of time without a fast hearing. Good thing that they aren’t seeking to extend the period a firearm is taken away to 5 years. Oh, right, they actually are. There really are no measures in this bill or the original bill that protect citizens from false/frivolous allegations against them, and this makes the pool of people who can play games larger.

Another bill sent to the governor Monday would lift the $100 cap on fees that counties can charge for concealed weapon permits so the agencies can recover all of their costs in processing the applications.

You can bet that they will immediately increase the cost to absurd levels, making it too expensive for the average citizen to apply.

Off to San Francisco

The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Monday over the city’s recent declaration that the gun-rights lobby is a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the city and county of San Francisco and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It accuses city officials of violating the gun lobby’s free speech rights for political reasons and claims the city is trying to blacklist anyone associated with the NRA from doing business there.

The gun rights lobby asked the court to step in “to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”

Democrats have never been concerned with restricting free speech and any other part of the 1st Amendment before.

Read: California Passes Red Flag Law Expansion Bill, NRA Sues San Francisco »

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As Trump Enforces Federal Law On Border, Asylum Mooches Find Other Nations To Head To

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 4:37 pm

All President Trump is doing is enforcing federal law as passed by the duly elected Legislative branch, signed into law by duly elected previous presidents. And, shockingly, the people streaming to the U.S. find that they can, in fact, go elsewhere. They just won’t be given everything free like here

As Trump tightens the U.S. border, asylum applicants seek refuge in Mexico, elsewhere

The idea was to reach the United States. But when the young Honduran mother arrived in Mexico this summer, with only a handful of pesos and a 4-year-old in tow, she realized how difficult that had become.

And so she came up with a new plan.

“The American Dream is costly, very costly,” lamented Iris, 32, sitting on a curb outside the Mexican refugee office in this southern city. She spoke on the condition that only her first name be used, for fear of harm from gang members in Honduras.

“That’s still the dream. But if they give me Mexican papers, I’ll stay here.”

Iris is one in the soaring number of migrants seeking refuge throughout the Americas. And while the United States remains the world’s top recipient of asylum petitions, countries such as Mexico, with much smaller asylum systems, are seeing far greater increases.

Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize are all seeing massive increases. Of course, this doesn’t mean they are being granted asylum.

The surge of asylum seekers in the hemisphere stems from a cascade of crises: the implosion of Venezuela, a crackdown on dissidents by the authoritarian government of Nicaragua, and agricultural disasters and gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. (snip)

“We already have more than enough” migrants, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo, said last month after meeting with Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security.

A lot to Panama are Venezuelans. Isn’t socialism great?

The Mexican city of Tapachula, around 10 miles from the Guatemalan border, offers a glimpse of the drastic change in migrant flows. By 7 o’clock one recent morning, scores of Central Americans, Haitians and West Africans had lined up outside a low-slung, unmarked building. It was the office of the Mexican refugee commission, known by its Spanish initials, COMAR. Around two-thirds of the country’s asylum applications are processed here.

So…..not all from Central America?

The Trump administration says many asylum applications are bogus, filed by poor, job-seeking migrants who invent stories of persecution to improve their chances of being accepted. Officials say legitimate asylum seekers should seek refu­ge in the first country they are safe — not travel thousands of miles farther to the United States.

“The asylum program is a scam,” Trump said in April.

Um, it is. A lot are just looking for free stuff, as promised by Democrats. And they want to jump the line of those who are doing it the right way.

Read: As Trump Enforces Federal Law On Border, Asylum Mooches Find Other Nations To Head To »

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If All You See…

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a rising sea that requires government control due to Other People’s carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post wondering if American higher education can be restored.

I’m hoping the photo shows, having problems with Photobucket this morning.

Read: If All You See… »

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Philosophy Of Eternalism Can Help With Climate Distress Or Something

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 10:39 am

The notion of “eco-anxiety” has been growing quite a bit lately, the notion that we are Doomed from a tiny increase in carbon dioxide. Since ‘climate change’ has almost nothing to do with the environment/ecology, perhaps “climate distress” works better. Climate insanity would be unfair to people with actual mental illness. How about climate nutbaggery?

When climate distress becomes too much, the philosophy of eternalism can provide perspective

The first time Heidi Edmonds felt this type of anxiety creep up, she became teary and had to go into the bathroom for a cry.

“I was looking at my nieces … and worrying about their future,” she says, “not feeling like everything was going to be OK.”

Dr Edmonds — who holds a PhD from Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute — is a co-founder of Australian Parents for Climate Action, a national volunteer campaign group.

She has two young daughters and like many young parents, manages sleep deprivation and parenting stress with all of her other responsibilities at work and with friends.

Over the last year she’s noticed another kind of pressure weighing on her — climate anxiety.

Our ancestors would have a good laugh at the expense of these nutters, noting that Mankind does much better during the Holocene warm periods, and worse during the cool ones, and that these modern buffoons are freaking out over nothing. Oh, and not making their own lives match their talking points

Dr Edmonds first came across a passage in a self-help book that incorporated eternalism over a decade ago — and says it has stuck with her since then.

“If we think about time as a tapestry, it allows us to focus on giving our children bright moments now … so that no matter what the future holds, they’ll have had these wonderful moments,” she says.

This reference to a tapestry of time resonates with eternalism — a theory that joins the past, present and future in a single block of time.

Kristie Miller, the joint director of the Centre for Time at Sydney University, uses the idea of a Persian rug to explain the concept.

When you look down at a rug, she says, “you can see the whole thing”.

“None of the rug is any more special than any other bit of the rug. The whole thing creates the entire picture, which is the universe.”

So a person’s life in 2019 doesn’t take precedence over another person’s life in 1519 — because there is no objective present moment.

So, seems to be going into a hippy-dippy kind if crazy. But, I guess this is better than the annoying protests where they glue themselves to things, or getting violent, like Progressive protests often seem to include.

Read: Philosophy Of Eternalism Can Help With Climate Distress Or Something »

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

Climate Alarmists Are Now Pushing For A “Blue New Deal”

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 8:07 am

You’ve heard of the Green New Disaster, er, Deal, right? That’s all about controlling everything on the land and air for the United States and the citizens. It kinda forgot about the oceans, and surely all water bodies in the U.S. And Warmists are getting super-excited over it, despite not bothering to even attempt to pass the GND resolution in the Democrat controlled House

Enthusiasm builds for ‘Blue New Deal’ after climate town hall

A fisherman asked a question at CNN’s climate town hall this past week that got Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) very excited.

With all the focus on protecting land from global warming, he said, what about the other 70 percent of earth? Do we need a “Blue New Deal” to protect the oceans?

“I like that!” Warren responded. “He’s got it exactly right, we need a Blue New Deal.”

The name is a play on the Green New Deal proposed this year by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), which calls for a massive revamp of the American economy, growth of social programs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Notice that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions” is placed last in what the GND does. Would a Blue New Deal be any better?

“The trouble is, the Green New Deal only mentions our oceans one time,” Bren Smith, the fisherman and oyster farmer said at the CNN town hall, asking Warren for her plan to ensure “that all of us can make a living on a living planet.”

The Green New Deal doesn’t say much about waterways, only that the government should be “ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected.”

Some environmental experts argue there needs to be a bigger emphasis on waterways.

All the better to give the government ultimate power. They tried this, mostly, with the Waters Of The U.S. rule, which was shot down by multiple courts, and the Trump admin cancelled

Like the framing of the Green New Deal, he sees the expense of these investments as a way to create jobs and boost coastal economies while reducing pollution and other negative impacts of climate change that so often affect poor neighborhoods and communities of color.

So, more about Social Justice Warrioring than anything else? Huh.

Washington Gov. Jay Inlsee (D), who dropped out of the presidential race last month, was one of the few candidates to call out pollution from ports and shipping in his climate plan. Addressing it could involve carbon pricing and increasing the efficiency of supply chains.

That Inslee got zero traction, despite being an actual governor with executive experience, because he focused his whole campaign on ‘climate change’ should tell you all you need to. Even Democrats were not interested in practice.

Anyhow, let’s see if this Blue New Deal stuff catches on.

Read: Climate Alarmists Are Now Pushing For A “Blue New Deal” »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Democrats, Global Warming | 30 Comments | Trackback URL

Kamala Harris Has A Plan To Make The Lives Of Criminals Much Easier

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 7:52 am

When she was a prosecutor in California, and all the way up to California’s Attorney General, Kamala was actually rather hardcore on criminals. Now that she is an elected Democrat, and running for the Democratic nomination for president, she is patronizing the hardcores in the Democrat base

Harris seeks end to executions, cash bail, private prisons

California Sen. Kamala Harris, whose record as a prosecutor has been under scrutiny since she entered the presidential race, has unveiled a criminal justice plan that calls for abolishing the death penalty, ending cash bail and collecting more data on officer-involved shootings.

Harris condemns the death penalty as “immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

The California Democrat also calls for eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing at the federal level and ending the use of private prisons as well as solitary confinement.

Harris says a national standard should be established to allow the use of deadly force only when “necessary” and when no reasonable alternatives are available. She also wants to create a National Police Systems Review Board, which would collect data and review police shootings and cases of alleged severe misconduct. The board would issue recommendations and implement safety standards based on evidence revealed in reviews.

Got that? Make things easier for criminals, go after police. Buzzfeed News notes

It checks many of the boxes of the progressive criminal justice reform movement: legalizing marijuana and expunging past convictions; ending cash bail, mandatory sentencing minimums, and the death penalty; and banning private prisons. And it also includes some new touches that are rooted in Harris’s prosecutorial career, like a focus on reducing recidivism and the creation of a Bureau of Children and Family Justice, which mimics a division Harris created as California attorney general to focus on education, welfare, and juvenile justice.

Yet, despite her words on the death penalty, she’s all in for abortion on demand with zero restrictions. Further, while she’s going soft on criminals, she’s all in on making it harder and harder for law abiding citizens to have a firearm to protect themselves from the criminals she’s gone soft on.

Does Kamala think this will play well during the general election, if she makes?

Read: Kamala Harris Has A Plan To Make The Lives Of Criminals Much Easier »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Climate Scientist Billie Eilish Wants Fans To Join Climastrology Protests Or Something

By William Teach September 8, 2019 – 7:35 pm

Remember when we weren’t supposed to listen to anyone who didn’t have a degree in climate science? Heck, even meteorologists didn’t count. Unless they are card carrying members of the Cult of Climastrology, of course, such as Greta Thunberg, who’s mentioned later in the article

Pop sensation Eilish urges fans to join climate protests

Pop star Billie Eilish has called on her millions of fans all over the world to participate in massive climate change protests planned for later this month.

The American singer urged her 37 million Instagram followers to “take it to the streets” on September 20 and 27 in demonstrations to be held around the same time as the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit.

“Right now, there are millions of people all over the world begging our leaders to pay attention. Our earth is warming up at an unprecedented rate, icecaps are melting, our oceans are rising, our wildlife is being poisoned, and our forests are burning,” she wrote.

On Wednesday, the 17-year-old also released her latest music video for the song “All Good Girls Go To Hell,” which was full of symbolic references to environmental catastrophe.

So, will Billie pledge to forgo the use of fossil fuels as she tours around the country? Georgia to California to Nevada to Texas to Oklahoma, back to Texas, then to Mexico. Can’t move all that equipment in Nissan Leafs. She was in New Zealand and Australia earlier in the year.

That would be a private jet for touring.

And, seriously, the pyrotechnics in her current music video released more carbon than my car does all year. I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people like Billie who tell me it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis in their own lives.

Read: Climate Scientist Billie Eilish Wants Fans To Join Climastrology Protests Or Something »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 8, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…are trees that will die from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Blazing Cat Fur, with a post on Comrade Bernie bringing out Jew hater Linda Sarsour as a surrogate.

It’s Brazil week!

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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