If All You See…

By William Teach March 22, 2019 – 1:00 pm

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

The blog of the day is Jihad Watch, with a post on New Zealanders being asked to wear the trappings of Islam today.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 52 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: ICE Sets New Record For Nailing “Non-Criminal” Illegals

By William Teach March 22, 2019 – 10:29 am

This state of affairs has made the Open Borders advocates very upset

ICE Sets New Record for Being Awful

New data released by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has revealed that arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal history are at an all time high, according to USA Today.

In December, only 63.5 percent of undocumented people arrested by ICE had a criminal record, the lowest number since the agency began keeping track of the data in 2012. This means that 36.5 percent of ICE arrests in December were of people who have committed no crime other than entering the country illegally.

These numbers runs counter to the narrative, frequently pushed by President Trump, that immigration agencies are going after dangerous criminals.

This is a good thing, actually, because detention of illegals involved in hard crimes are up, and ICE has stepped up catching those who are just in the country illegally, which is also a crime, but havent engaged in other serious crimes. That we know about.

“We’re wasting resources deporting a lot of people who are assets to their communities who have families and mortgages and careers and car notes, and we’re going after them with the same vigor that we’re going after kidnappers and murderers and bank robbers,” Douglas Rivlin, the communications director at immigrant advocate organization America’s Voice, told USA Today. “That’s not a smart approach to law enforcement.”

Actually, it is, as it tells all those here illegally, and those who to come illegally, that there is no free pass. Enforcement should ramp up.

Read: Bummer: ICE Sets New Record For Nailing “Non-Criminal” Illegals »

Posted in Donald Trump, Illegal Immigration | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

Excitable Michael Mann: Reviewing Climate Change Claims Is Totally Stalinist

By William Teach March 22, 2019 – 7:12 am

If you search “failed climate predictions” you will find many, many, many links that list many, many, many failures. Here’s a good article to start. And a good video. But, investigating climate change claims is horrible, according to Michael “Robust Debate” Mann (via Watts Up With That?)

Donald Trump is using Stalinist tactics to discredit climate science

Americans should not be fooled by the Stalinist tactics being used by the White House to try to discredit the findings of mainstream climate science.

The Trump administration has already purged information about climate change from government websites, gagged federal experts and attempted to end funding for climate change programmes.

Now a group of hardcore climate change deniers and contrarians linked to the administration is organising a petition in support of a new panel being set up by the National Security Council to promote an alternative official explanation for climate change.

The panel will consist of scientists who do not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are behind climate change and its impacts. (snip)

The creation of the new panel of climate change deniers, and the recruitment of supporters to provide it with a veneer of legitimacy, echoes the campaign by Joseph Stalin’s regime to discredit the work of geneticists who disagreed with the disastrous pseudo-scientific theories of Trofim Lysenko.

Lysenko wrongly believed that acquired traits could be passed on by parents to their offspring. Stalin embraced lysenkoism as the basis for Soviet agricultural policy, while also denouncing and persecuting Lysenko’s scientific critics.

Yikes! It looks like Michael and co-author Bob Ward, aren’t happy that their 30 years of failed prognostications based on shaky science, computer models, a few tree rings, and fear-mongering will be exposed. As Eric Worrall notes at Watts Up With That?

There are some differences between Lysenko and Will Happer. Lysenko didn’t just criticise his opponents, he had his opponents executed, or had them deported to socialist death camps.

As far as I know President Trump doesn’t plan to allow Will Happer to execute anyone, though some people might suffer acute public embarrassment when Will Happer finds mistakes in their work.

Further, “scientists” like Mann are outraged that anyone would doublecheck their work, because no one should have their work check in Science, right? And they should be able to keep their data secret, right?

Really, one would think Mann and his Warmist cohorts would be thrilled to be given a public, presidential forum to prove to everyone once and for all that they are correct and that CO2 from mankind is the temperature control knob, right? I know that when I’m in the right I want everyone to know it.

Read: Excitable Michael Mann: Reviewing Climate Change Claims Is Totally Stalinist »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 37 Comments | Trackback URL

When It Comes To Executive Power For Banning Firearms, NY Times Is Down With That

By William Teach March 22, 2019 – 6:53 am

Here was the NY Times on the opinion pages and in the “news analysis” (still opinion) pages

Just a few examples, and many, many more, which are often about the border wall, like

A Trump-Made Emergency

With his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, President Trump takes executive overreach to dizzying new heights. The damage to American democracy threatens to linger long after his administration is no more than a dank memory.

Dizzying new heights! Especially when it comes to protecting the board, which is actually in the Constitution. Also the Editorial Board

America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern

The murder of 50 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand, allegedly by a 28-year-old Australian white supremacist, will be long scrutinized for the way violent hatreds are spawned and staged on social media and the internet. But now the world should learn from the way Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, has responded to the horror.

Almost immediately after last Friday’s killings, Ms. Ardern listened to her constituents’ outrage and declared that within days her government would introduce new controls on the military-style weapons that the Christchurch shooter and many of the mass killers in the United States have used on their rampages. And she delivered.

On Thursday, Ms. Ardern announced a ban on all military-style semiautomatic and automatic weapons, parts that can be used to turn other rifles into such weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. “It’s about all of us,” she said, “it’s in the national interest and it’s about safety.”

See, when it comes to banning firearms by executive fiat, the NY Times is good with that. Of course, as has been noted by so many, New Zealand doesn’t have a 2nd Amendment or any other guarantees for citizens to have firearms. And both the Times (which has armed security at its New York City office) and Ms. Arden (who surely has armed security) will be denying citizens the same security, are good with the massive over-reach in making law abiding gun owners into criminals. One of the tweets I ran across from a New Zealand resident wondered if this would lead to massive crime in New Zealand because law abiding citizens are disarmed and criminals aren’t much like in places like Chicago.

Earlier in the week, she told Parliament that social media sites must address the ease with which the internet can be used to spew hate and images of violence. “We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published,” she said. “It cannot be a case of all profit, no responsibility.”

Ms. Ardern didn’t propose immediate measures to limit the reach of Facebook, Twitter and other internet publishers, and it’s not obvious what could be done without trampling freedom of speech. But she made clear that she believed that those social media platforms, like gun manufacturers and dealers, bore some responsibility for the carnage visited on Christchurch and so many communities in recent years.

The same NY Times is incensed by Donald Trump saying mean things like “fake news” about the NY Times and other news outlets. Trump has really never proposed doing anything about it, including even in a manner just meant to troll the leftist news media, but, if we go by the NYTEB’s newfound love of executive power, they’d be good with a crackdown by Trump on news outlets, right?

Hey, I know: Trump can declare all firearms in areas that vote Democrat banned. Including for law enforcement. California, the NY City area, NJ, Chicago, and others. Nothing bad could happen, right?

Oh, and

They are very tough laws.

Read: When It Comes To Executive Power For Banning Firearms, NY Times Is Down With That »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Current Affairs, Donald Trump, Wonky Media | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Who’s Up For Climate Moonbats And Massive Drugs?

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 7:44 pm

Just going to leave this here

https://twitter.com/jason_howerton/status/1108438658657464322

Seriously, the girl (did I just assume gender?) in blue is a faith healer for horses.

Something good for you under the fold

Read More »

Read: Who’s Up For Climate Moonbats And Massive Drugs? »

Posted in Global Warming, Unhinged Tools | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Are Super Excited That New Zealand Is Banning Scary Looking Guns

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 3:30 pm

And taking away private property, along with turning law abiding citizens into criminals, punishing people who had nothing to do with the attack

New Zealand Banning Weapons Like Those Used In Mosque Attacks In Christchurch

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday that the government will ban “military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles,” in an attempt to head-off “the kind of horror and attack that we saw on Friday.” She said the outlawed weapons will be listed on a website and are the type that were used in the attack on two mosques in Christchurch last week.

Ardern urged all New Zealanders who possess the guns that will be outlawed to begin immediately to fill out forms on the website and make arrangements to hand-in the weapons to police – and even if they are not able to access the online form, not to arrive unannounced at police stations with the guns.

She said the government will create a buy-back program to pay owners “fair and reasonable compensation,” which she estimated could cost the country between $100 million and $200 million. She said the guns will eventually be destroyed.

She said no one will be prosecuted over any weapons they turn in. “Amnesty applies,” she said. “We just want the guns back.”

So, the question is, how far does this go? The shooter used semi-automatic handguns: will they be banned? What will they consider to be an “assault rifle”? Further

Ardern said further restrictions will be established by law on large magazines and guns that are altered to increase weapons’ killing power.

Banning “large magazines” will essentially make lots of handguns worthless, and possibly illegal if they are designed to use a magazine with more than whatever arbitrary number the NZ government considers to be “safe.” Of course, there is no right to a firearm in New Zealand, so, they can deem lawfully purchased firearms illegal, and they are considering a database to keep track of all weapons. And

According to a fact sheet distributed to reporters in New Zealand and reprinted by the Guardian, the ban only covers military-style weapons and does not cover two general classes of firearms “commonly used for hunting, pest control, stock management on farms, and duck shooting:

“Semi-automatic .22 calibre rimfire firearms with a magazine which holds no more than ten rounds.

“Semi-automatic and pump action shotguns with a non-detachable tubular magazine which holds no more than five rounds.”

This seems to be saying that virtually every rifle above a .22 would be banned. That bottom rifle in the graphic above, a Pioneer Vespa, fires the .223/5.56 cartridge, and would seemingly be verboten. Notice in the fact sheet (page 2 of the link) that there is nothing in there about keeping handguns legal.

Here in the U.S., we are already seeing

And, of course, you have AOC and so many other Democrats (many of whom are protected by people carrying assault rifles, including those which are fully automatic, have large capacity magazines, etc) saying similar stuff.

Read: Democrats Are Super Excited That New Zealand Is Banning Scary Looking Guns »

Posted in Current Affairs | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful low carbon bike, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Geller Report, with a post on Gillibrand wanting Social Security for illegal aliens.

Read: If All You See… »

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After Murder Of Bambi Larson, San Jose Suddenly Realizes That Sanctuary City Status Might Not Be A Great Idea

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 10:30 am

Supporting illegal immigration and being a sanctuary jurisdiction is all fun and games right up to the point where it comes back and bites them with a real world atrocity

Immigration debate intensifies in San Jose

The debate on sanctuary city policies intensified at a City Council meeting this week after an update on activities of a government office — implemented to help and protect undocumented immigrants — sparked controversy.

The debate, spurred by the recent death of a San Jose woman who was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, highlights the concern some residents have over the safety and security of their neighborhoods as they grow more diverse with immigrants.

In a statement following the death of the slain woman Bambi Larson, Mayor Sam Liccardo said it’s “long overdue for the County to reconsider its current policy of ignoring ICE hold requests for predatory felons.”

That’s a rather sanitized way of saying that she was murdered by an illegal alien. “Death”?

Liccardo has maintained his position for the past four years that the county should reconsider its stance on sanctuary policies after the murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco stating that “elected officials should be able to distinguish between a violent, predatory felon and more than the 99 percent of members of our immigrant communities who would never commit such crimes.”

“They would simply need to pick up the phone and call the authorities when those individuals would be released into the community,” added Liccardo.

Implemented in 2015, the city’s Office of Immigrant Affairs provides immigrants with a wide set of resources to help create pathways to citizenship, protect against deportations, and integrate the immigrant community in civic engagement.

The office has been criticized for providing immigrants with safety networks through its Rapid Response Hotline — a community defense project intended to help those in the event that Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity takes place.

But, they ultimately will end up not changing their sanctuary policy. Many on the council are equating legal with illegal immigration, and even have an Office of Immigration Affairs, meant to protect illegal aliens.

Read: After Murder Of Bambi Larson, San Jose Suddenly Realizes That Sanctuary City Status Might Not Be A Great Idea »

Posted in Illegal Immigration | 29 Comments | Trackback URL

Cult of Climastrology Judge Blocks Oil Drilling In Montana Over ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 7:58 am

Someone in D.C. should find out what kind of fossil fueled vehicle the judge drives

U.S. judge blocks oil, gas drilling over climate change

A judge has blocked oil and gas drilling on almost 500 square miles in Wyoming and says the government must consider the cumulative climate change impact of leasing broad swaths of U.S. public lands for oil and gas exploration.

The order marks the latest in a string of court rulings over the past decade — including one last month in Montana — that have faulted the U.S. for inadequate consideration of greenhouse gas emissions when issuing leases and permits for oil, gas or coal production.

But U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., appeared to go a step further than judges have previously in his order issued late Tuesday.

Previous rulings focused on individual lease sales or permits. But Contreras said that when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctions public lands for oil and gas leasing, officials must consider emissions from past, present and foreseeable future oil and gas leases nationwide.

“Given the national, cumulative nature of climate change, considering each individual drilling project in a vacuum deprives the agency and the public of the context necessary to evaluate oil and gas drilling on federal land,” Contreras wrote.

I’ve scrolled through many, many, many articles on the subject (unfortunately, a goodly chunk are just the AP story above), and the rational seems to be included in the Reuters article

The lawsuit by WildEarth and Physicians for Social Responsibility alleged that the government, under former President Barack Obama, failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to account for emissions generated by oil and gas development when it leased parcels in the Western states of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

NEPA is a Nixon-era statute that requires officials to weigh the environmental effects of proposed projects and is widely regarded as a bedrock federal environmental policy.

But, NEPA never included greenhouse gases in terms of ‘climate change’, especially since people were worried about a coming ice age when Nixon signed it. This ruling seems to be resting upon a bedrock made of sand, it is really, really weak. The ruling seems a major stretch by the judge, and you can bet that it will be appealed. As we go back to the AP article

The case was brought by two advocacy groups, WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

WildEarth Guardians climate program director Jeremy Nichols predicted the ruling would have much bigger implications than a halt to drilling in some areas of Wyoming — assuming the government does what Contreras has asked.

“This is the Holy Grail ruling we’ve been after, especially with oil and gas,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians climate program director. “It calls into question the legality of oil and gas leasing that’s happening everywhere.”

They, like the rest of the Warmists, want to destroy oil production and cause energy costs to skyrocket, which means the cost of living will skyrocket. I guess they’d prefer we have to rely on Middle Eastern or Russian oil. Now, when will all Warmists give up their own use of fossil fuels?

Read: Cult of Climastrology Judge Blocks Oil Drilling In Montana Over ‘Climate Change’ »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Energy, Global Warming | 22 Comments | Trackback URL

Trump Shoots Down Major Argument Against Releasing Mueller Report

By William Teach March 21, 2019 – 7:42 am

Strange, one would think that if President Donald Trump had something to hide, he’d want the Mueller witch hunt report kept secret. Though I’m sure some of the Conspiracy Dems are saying that it is a psych-out, that he’s saying this so that the opposite happens

‘Let them see it’: Trump just nixed a major argument against releasing the Mueller report

President Trump said Wednesday for the first time that he would be okay with making the Mueller report public. And in doing so, he nixed a major argument against its release.

But that doesn’t quite mean it will be available for all to see.

Ever since now-Attorney General William P. Barr testified at his confirmation hearing earlier this year that he would be constrained in releasing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings in the Russia investigation, the conventional wisdom has shifted. While many expected to see a Starr Report-style public document detailing everything Mueller found, it quickly became clear that probably would not happen — at least initially. Mueller is operating under a different statute than Kenneth Starr was during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and Justice Department guidelines prohibit revealing information about people who are not being indicted and that is obtained via grand jury.

But the reason that information generally is not released is to protect the people involved. And the most high-ranking person involved — Trump — just gave it the green light.

“I don’t mind,” he said when asked whether the report should be public. “I mean, frankly, I told the House if you want, let them see it.”

However, interestingly, Aaron Blake, who wrote the Washington Post analysis article above, continues

As I wrote during Barr’s confirmation period, DOJ guidelines combined with Trump’s status as the sitting president created something of a Catch-22 for the Mueller report:

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6 says that, unless and until details are revealed by court order as part of an indictment or other proceeding, they must be kept secret. This is to guard against the government releasing derogatory things about people for political purposes.

Lots more to that, but it breaks down to the notion that it kinda must be kept secret, unless there is an indictment or other proceedings. And they sure do not seem to have anything on Trump, and, based on the non-leaks these past years, there is nothing, despite all the Russia Russia Russia conspiracy idiocy.

And don’t forget that Trump himself last week suggested that fellow Republicans at least profess to be all in favor of transparency with the Mueller report. “Makes us all look good and doesn’t matter,” he assured.

“Play along with the game!” he added.

Perhaps Trump has been advised he might as well do the same — and that statements of support for the report’s public release ultimately will not matter.

I hadn’t gotten beyond the first half of the article when I wrote about Trump’s statement being a psych-out for the conspiracy minded. I didn’t expect the Washington Post to go there so fast.

Read: Trump Shoots Down Major Argument Against Releasing Mueller Report »

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