Potential Border Fencing Deal Would Offer Way Less Than The $5 Billion Requested

By William Teach February 9, 2019 – 7:02 am

This highlights just how un-serious Democrats are on border protection

New border-security deal in Congress would likely offer Trump just a fraction of requested $5.7B for wall

Details of a likely bipartisan border-security deal in Congress are being worked out after the White House indicated it will accept an agreement giving President Trump just a fraction of the money he’s demanded for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Congressional negotiators said the money allocated to the border wall will be far below Trump’s requested figure of $5.7 billion, a demand that led to a showdown with congressional Democrats and the longest-ever federal government shutdown. The figure is likely to be somewhere around $1.6 billion.

The deal would not only partially fund the wall, it would also prevent another government shutdown next weekend. Trump threatened to go with the shutdown again, though congressional Republicans are unlikely to have the stamina for another shutdown for which they have been held responsible.

One White House aide indicated that Trump will accept whatever agreement comes out of the negotiations as he understands there isn’t enough willpower among Republicans to fight for the full border-wall funding.

On one hand, it’s a pittance of what was requested. On the other, Trump and Republicans forced Democrats to allocate some money for a border barrier, when they had been saying that the number would be zero, despite their talking points of “open the government and we’ll negotiate.” Trump is getting something. And then he can force more later. Plus, he has other options, such as invoking 10 United States Code § 284, which authorizes the U.S. military to build barriers at the southern border.

But even with a breakthrough in negotiations, Democrats are insisting that the money given to the border security shouldn’t be just for the physical barrier.

“Throughout the talks, Democrats have insisted that a border security compromise not be overly reliant on physical barriers,” Evan Hollander, a spokesman for Democrats who control the House Appropriations Committee, told the Associated Press. “We will not agree to $2 billion in funding for barriers.”

Democrats are demanding that measures that mostly do not stop illegals be implemented, like using more drones, so we can watch them cross illegally.

Read: Potential Border Fencing Deal Would Offer Way Less Than The $5 Billion Requested »

Posted in Current Affairs, Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 15 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Held ‘Climate Change’ Hearings, It Forgot To Include Science

By William Teach February 8, 2019 – 3:49 pm

Would it surprise you what they were yammering about?

House Democrats Held The First Climate Change Hearings In Six Years. It Was A Mess

Top House Democrats finally got their wish to hold the first hearings on global warming in six years Wednesday, but both committee hearings meandered into discussions of civil rights, race and apocalyptic warnings without much talk about science.

The House Committee on Natural Resources hearing started off with testimony from Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican — both of whom support liberal climate policies.

During that time, Utah Rep. Rob Bishop questioned whether or not the climate hearing broke committee rules. Bishop, the committee’s ranking Republican, also wondered why the committee held a hearing on an issue outside its jurisdiction.

“Are these hearings simply for those of us around the horseshoe who are going to make legislation, or are these hearings designed for that group sitting at a table in the corner so they can write cute stories?” Bishop asked, pointing to where reporters sat in the hearing room.

The committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, responded that global warming “significance and consequences over all our jurisdictions.”

In other words, this whole thing is about pushing far left politics.

“Climate change is a civil rights issue,” Reverend Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, told lawmakers on the committee on Wednesday morning. Lennox also referred to tackling global warming as the “lunch counter moment for the 21st century.”

If it’s a lunch counter moment, why do so few Warmists, especially the ones showing up at hearings, not making substantive changes in their own lives?

Make sure to read the rest for continued Warmist wackadoodle. Almost makes Scientologists seem rational.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

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

…are homes built over flooded areas from people raising cows, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Right Way, with your morning brief.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Ocasio-Cortez Backs Defunding ICE

By William Teach February 8, 2019 – 10:29 am

She’s the gift that keeps giving in terms of wackadoodle, as she attended a MoveOn.org sponsored rally to protect lawbreakers

Ocasio-Cortez: ICE ‘Does Not Deserve a Dime’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) joined freshmen colleagues outside the Capitol on Thursday to call for an end to funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, accusing it of “repeatedly and systematically” violating human rights and pursuing a “radical agenda.”

Speaking two days after President Trump in his State of the Union vowed to “never abolish our heroes from ICE,” Ocasio-Cortez hit back, saying the president was asking for $5 billion “to continue to militarize and weaponize a force that has zero accountability.”

She went on to recall that, at a congressional hearing in December, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had been unable to give the exact number of immigrant children who have died while in government custody – or as Ocasio-Cortez put it, “how many children are dying in her own care, under her own watch.”

“And they have the audacity to ask for more money to fund that? I don’t think so,” she continued.

Yes, she is still repeating this lie, as are many of her fellow Demadoodles elected this year. ICE didn’t have custody, Customs and Border Patrol did. Not too mention that the kids were dragged 2,000 miles, and doctors tried hard to help them.

“Not only will we not agree to fund that, but we’re to say that an agency like ICE, which repeatedly and systematically violates human rights, does not deserve a dime. They do not deserve a dime.”

“Until they can prove that they are honoring human rights, until they can make a good-faith effort to expand and embrace immigrants – the immigrants in this nation that have always been a part, and have always been a core element of American democracy. Until they can prove good faith to an American ideal they do not deserve any resources for their radical agenda.”

There’s a human right to come to the U.S. illegally? I suggest we house them all near AOC’s casa. Here’s where it gets hilarious, a quote that most articles have left out

Ocasio-Cortez, who wept as she lamented the impact of restrictionist immigration policy, stressed the importance of adherence to law to justify her opposition to migrant-detention facilities.

“We are a nation and land of laws. Not just some people are subject to laws and others are not,” she said. “When we are a land of laws, what that means, is that every person that steps foot on this soil deserves the consideration of due process. They deserve the protections. They deserve to have access to our Bill of Rights. That’s what makes this nation special.”

Do I need to explain what our laws actually say about people who are in the country illegally? But, hey, if she wants all subject to our laws, then we give a quick hearing and deport all illegals. Issue solved.

Seriously, how soon till the more mainstream Democrats, you know, the Category 1 and 2 nuts, rather than Cat 5, try to isolate her and some of the other Cat 5’s, quiet them, destroy them? Because they are hurting the Dems. I sometimes wonder if she’s really a Republican, and is just going Cat 5 Dem to discredit them, she’s so over-the-top.

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Washington Post Asking For Rational Leadership On Hotcoldwetdry A Bad Idea After Release Of Green New Deal

By William Teach February 8, 2019 – 7:01 am

The Green New Deal is so bonkers that it’s almost not even worth talking about anymore

but, it’ll come up. The Washington Post Editorial Board picked a bad day to yammer about leadership, especially after the GND had to pulled offline because it was so bad, there were so many issues, words missing, and other things

The world needs rational American leadership on climate change

“WHAT THE hell is going on with Global Waming?” President Trump tweeted last week in the midst of a cold snap. “Please come back fast, we need you!”

If Mr. Trump had consulted scientists in the government he works for, they could have helped with his basic understanding, as well as his spelling: The warming of the Earth is unmistakable, as seen in a global temperature record that offers no reason for laughter. Experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, according to two separate estimates, one from each agency.

A single year’s temperature readings do not constitute a trend. But there is a trend. The five warmest years have come in the past five years. Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record have come since the beginning of this century. That 2018 did not quite match the record-setting 2016 for warmth is in part because a warming El Niño effect in 2016 raised temperatures even higher than human influence alone would have. By contrast, 2018 saw a cooling La Niña and was still fourth-warmest. The overall direction is relentless: This decade will be warmer than the last, which was warmer than the one before it, and so on.

First, none of that is proof of anthropogenic causation. Just warming. Something that happens normally during the Holocene (and other periods). Plus, we’re talking about hundreds of a degree in change. Also, remember that when there was a long pause, which featured, at best, statistically insignificant warm, outlets like the WP were downplaying it and running pieces that it didn’t exist, but, if it existed, insert one of the 70+ excuses here.

Second, there’s no scientific proof that mankind is mostly/solely responsible for this warm period.

In the face of ever-rising evidence, the president did not even mention climate change in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. His administration still intends to remove the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the world’s best hope to get all major contributing countries moving in the same direction. While the Trump administration ripped up clean-air rules, U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions shot up 3.4 percent last year, putting the lie to the argument that market forces alone will adequately drive down the country’s carbon footprint.

They’re admitting that Government force will be required. The WPEB might be shocked to learn that their business relies upon fossil fuels to gather and distribute newspapers made from killed trees, so, they’d be on the list of those under government force.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, have announced a “ Green New Deal” whose goal seems to be radically reshaping U.S. society and vastly expanding government rather than simply addressing the climate problem, which is hard enough — and important enough. Though not nearly as harmful as Mr. Trump’s rank denialism, engaging in this sort of fantasy also hurts the cause of practically addressing the issue.

The world needs rational U.S. leadership. Unfortunately, global warming will not stop in the meantime.

Oops. I guess the WPEB is not a fan of GND. They did briefly explain what it is about, though: instituting super far left everything dressed up as a climate change and environmental bill.

Read: Washington Post Asking For Rational Leadership On Hotcoldwetdry A Bad Idea After Release Of Green New Deal »

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Democrats Still Trying To Get Trump’s Tax Returns, This Time In Legislation

By William Teach February 8, 2019 – 6:43 am

One has to wonder if Trump is refusing to release his tax records for the same reason it seemed Obama refused to release his long form birth certificate for a long time: he’s simply trolling his opposition, driving them nuts. A big difference is that Obama was driving right leaners who were mostly fringe wonkers. Trump is driving the leadership of the Democratic Party nuts

HOUSE DEMOCRATS’ BATTLE FOR TRUMP TAX RETURNS BEGINS

House Democrats pushed legislation during a hearing Thursday that would require presidents and presidential candidates to release tax returns in order to get President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

“We have been called, we have been chosen to lead at this time in our history …” Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis said in opening remarks at the hearing. “We will review whether a president, vice president or any candidate for these offices should be required by law to make their tax returns available to the public. In other words, we will ask the question: Does the public need to know that a person holding the highest office in our country obeys the tax laws?”

Lewis is the chair of the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, which held the hearing — its first on the subject of presidential tax returns.

The presidential tax return legislation House Democrats want is part of a 571-page election reform bill, the “For the People Act,” also known as House Resolution 1.

The Constitution of the United States has several specific requirements to be President: tax returns is not one of them. Not that Democrats care about the Constitution.

Republican Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup pointed out that the president and vice president are audited by the IRS every year.

And, as others point out, you can bet Mueller has the returns. Democrats simply want them because they’re unhinged and just can’t take that Trump beat Hillary. The bill itself has zero chance of becoming law. It will most likely make it out of the Dem controlled House, and it will die in the Senate, never making it out of committee. Unless Mitch McConnell wants to make an example of Dem priorities. Then it would die on the Senate floor.

Read: Democrats Still Trying To Get Trump’s Tax Returns, This Time In Legislation »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

NY State Bill Offers More Protections For Illegal Aliens In Workplace

By William Teach February 7, 2019 – 3:21 pm

Illegal aliens shouldn’t even be in country, much less the workplace. A new bill is being introduced to safeguard their pay

New York bill targets workplace immigration discrimination

For people in the U.S. illegally, speaking up about missing wages can come at a big cost: deportation. Authorities and advocates say that since President Donald Trump’s 2016 election they’ve seen an increase in reports of dodgy bosses threatening to call federal immigration agents on workers.

In New York, where the labor department says it has investigated at least 30 cases in the last three years involving threats to a worker’s immigration status, the attorney general on Wednesday urged legislators to make clear such practices are illegal.

Attorney General Letitia James is proposing legislation to sharpen the language of an existing law, which bars employers from firing, threatening, penalizing or otherwise discriminating against workers who report or blow the whistle on wage violations.

James’ legislation would expand the law’s definition of retaliatory conduct to include threats regarding a person’s immigration status. Potential punishments would remain the same: up to three months in jail and a $20,000 fine.

Democrats will do anything they can to protect illegals, rather than putting American citizens first. This still wouldn’t stop ICE from rounding up illegals if they show up on the radar, but, there is an unexpected outcome sure to show up: more employers will refuse to hire illegals (something that should have gotten the employers a nice criminal and civil fine under federal law). If they can’t get them to work for well below normal wages, why take the chance? Just hire people who can lawfully work.

Which would mean fewer jobs, so, no way to earn money, so, less of a reason to come to America illegally/overstay visas. Less reason to stay in America. Interestingly, before Ann Coulter went bat-guano insane over building a wall, one of her recommendations was that government give illegals the ability to sue for not being paid the minimum wage, which would make employers not hire them to start with.

It is interesting that the illegals who are unlawfully present in the U.S. are suddenly concerned with Other People following the law, eh?

Rogers said fearful workers are asking labor investigators to hold off on allegations until they move to a new home because employers and coworkers could have their addresses and report them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They are scared of ICE and they don’t want to take any action that might anger an unscrupulous employer,” Rogers said. “So they ask us, ‘please wait I am going to move next week.’ That never used to happen.”

Ah. So they know they are in the wrong. Go figure.

Read: NY State Bill Offers More Protections For Illegal Aliens In Workplace »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach February 7, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful low carbon bike offsetting the horrid energy used by smartphones, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Refuge, with a post on Dem Congressman Bobby Scott learning about the Virginia Lt. Gov’s sexual assault over a year ago.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Ocasio-Cortez, Dems, Release Green New Deal Resolution

By William Teach February 7, 2019 – 10:46 am

The unhinged Warmist base is already upset that it doesn’t call for the government forcing Everyone Else to stop using fossil fuels in the near future. They aren’t going to like a couple other things

NPR reports

In very broad strokes, the Green New Deal legislation laid out by Ocasio-Cortez and Markey sets goals for some drastic measures to cut carbon emissions across the economy, from electricity generation to transportation to agriculture. In the process, it aims to create jobs and boost the economy.

In that vein, the proposal stresses that it aims to meet its ambitious goals while paying special attention to groups like the poor, disabled and minority communities that might be disproportionately affected by massive economic transitions like those the Green New Deal calls for.

In other words, it means that the resolution, not legislation, is going to absolutely crush the middle and lower classes, especially the very people the bill is supposed to help. As the Daily Caller notes on the release

Ocasio-Cortez’s non-binding resolution calls for a variety of social justice and welfare state goals, including “a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security” and “high-quality health care” benefits for Americans.

The resolution calls for “repairing historic oppression” among certain groups, including minorities, immigrants, women, low-income workers, indigenous people and youth collectively called “frontline and vulnerable communities.”

What it does do is find ways to give those crushed citizens more government handouts to offset being crushed, which makes them more reliant and dependent on government, much like a kid is reliant and dependent on getting an allowance from mom and dad. And you can see this is more about social justice warrioring, and pandering and patronizing, of certain groups in word salad

Back to NPR

Importantly, it’s a nonbinding resolution, meaning that even if it were to pass (more on the challenges to that below), it wouldn’t itself create any new programs. Instead, it would potentially affirm the sense of the House that these things should be done in the coming years.

See, it’s not legislation, just a resolution, so, after all this coverage of the Importance and historic and stuff, it’s like naming a post office. They aren’t even trying. But, it may be that Pelosi and the other slightly more rational and less unhinged Socialist convinced AOC and the co-sponsors to not push it as legislation, as the old school Dems plan to push other crazy, but not quite as crazy, ‘climate change’ legislation.

Back to Daily Caller

“A six page, non-binding resolution marketed as a ‘War Plan’ proves Congressman Cortez isn’t prepared and hasn’t done her homework,” Dan Kish, distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Running the world’s greatest economy on unicorn farts and rainbow stew all run by masterminds in Washington DC is a fool’s errand,” Kish said.

When will AOC give up her own big carbon ways and go carbon neutral?

OK, let’s see AOC and other Dems take the train home (or, heck, the bus), instead of flying home.

(Breitbart) Next, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey claim that the U.S. is experiencing “a 4-decade trend of economic stagnation, deindustrialization, and antilabor policies” — a statement that defies the actual data on economic growth and the revival of manufacturing in recent years, including rising wages for blue-collar workers.

The legislation then laments “erosion of the … bargaining power of workers in the United States” — as if picket lines had something to do with the environment. It also claims that climate change has “exacerbated systemic racial … ” injustices,” among other inequalities.

Getting the idea that ‘climate change’ has almost nothing to do with a changing climate yet? As the article notes “It reads like a Republican parody of the Democratic platform.”

Read: Ocasio-Cortez, Dems, Release Green New Deal Resolution »

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National Geographic: Sea Level Rise Isn’t As Bad As We Prognosticated, But Doom Is Still Coming Or Something

By William Teach February 7, 2019 – 8:08 am

The Cult of Climastrology doomsayers and computer models have continuously overestimated sea rise. By a lot. They constantly were nowhere near what the actual measurements showed. Such as the 20th Century sea rise being exactly average for what sea rise has been over the last 7,000-8,000 years, which is 6-8 inches per century. Which means that a warm period should be well above the average, since a cool period will be way below, potentially even negative. So….

You really do not have to get beyond the headline and subhead to see the Doom, but we will anyhow

Most dire projection of sea-level rise is a little less likely, reports say
New analysis of Antarctica’s melting glaciers refines our understanding of climate change, while risks of global impacts remain significant.

It’s not exactly news that Greenland and Antarctica are shedding ice at record rates.

But in 2016, an eyebrow-raising idea ricocheted through the scientific community: It was possible, the authors said, that a warmer planet could push the towering ice cliffs at the fringes of the Antarctic ice sheet to essentially self-destruct, collapsing like a set of dominoes.

But two new pieces of research, published Wednesday in Nature, suggest a more measured retreat is likely in the coming decades. Both studies revise the estimates of just how much sea levels will rise by 2100 downward, suggesting that Antarctica could contribute somewhere between about three to 16 inches to the world’s oceans under the “worst case” scenarios.

Adding that to the other components that make up sea level rise—how the ocean expands as it warms (which will likely add about 10 inches), the melt from mountain glaciers (about six inches), and changes to the amount of water stored in lakes and rivers on land (one and a half inches), and the total is still a daunting number somewhere between just under two- to over three- foot range.

So, probably about a foot and a half, which would be what is expected during a Holocene warm period. Even though there has been no acceleration of sea rise increase, just a continuation of what we saw during the 20th Century. Also missing is an proof that what Nat Geo is discussing is mostly/solely of anthropogenic causation.

That is in no way a get-out-of-jail-free card, say the authors of both studies. It’s still an enormous amount of extra water that could slosh up onto coasts, enough to debilitate cities from Boston to Shanghai. But the most drastic impacts of sea-level rise, they say, are likely to kick in only after the turn of the century, giving communities around the world more time to adapt.

So, since their predictions for this century haven’t been panning out, they’re pushing them out past 2100. Huh.

What’s more, changes to the ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica could also trigger planet-wide shifts in temperature, ocean circulation, and many other parts of the climate system, says says Nick Golledge, a climate scientist at the Antarctic Research Center of the University of Victoria, Wellington, and the lead author of one of the studies.

“The sea-level estimates maybe aren’t as bad as we thought, but the climate predictions are worse,” says Golledge.

Worse!!!!! But, still no proof that this anything but a normal warm period.

So scientists looked to the past, to periods like the Pliocene, about 3.4 million years ago, or the Last Interglacial, about 120 thousand years ago—periods when the planet was as warm or warmer than today. They tested whether their models matched up with what we knew about how the ice sheets melted and how high sea levels rose at those times in the past.

So, what caused the warming back then? And why is it different from now? Oh, right, we’re just supposed to Believe. Have faith.

Read: National Geographic: Sea Level Rise Isn’t As Bad As We Prognosticated, But Doom Is Still Coming Or Something »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 68 Comments | Trackback URL
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