Bummer: Maine Becomes Latest State To Reject A Carbon Tax

By William Teach March 14, 2019 – 8:24 am

With the election of new governor, Warmist Janet Mills, Maine seemed poised to make all sorts of ‘climate change’ laws. One got shot down hard

Maine Becomes The Most Recent Blue State To Reject A Carbon Tax

The beginning of March brings bad news for carbon tax supporters, who have been successful in getting legislation to impose the regressive tax introduced at the federal and state levels, but not in getting it enacted, not even in left-leaning, Democratic-run states that should be most inclined to welcome this policy. 

A February 28 Maine House Committee on Energy Utilities and Technology hearing on legislation that would impose the nation’s first statewide carbon tax ended with Representative Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery), the legislator sponsoring the bill, announcing that he will pull his proposal and will instead push for a “Carbon Pricing Study Group” that will explore the topic and issue recommendations at a later date. The committee subsequently voted on March 7 against reporting Rykerson’s carbon tax bill out of committee.

In the hours-long hearing on Representative Rykerson’s bill, 60 Maine residents testified in opposition to the proposed carbon tax, explaining the harm that the regressive tax would do to Maine families and employers. Only one person testified in favor of the bill. This strong display of public opposition to a carbon tax was instrumental in killing the bill in committee. 

What a bummer.

Though green activists are taking their proposals for new taxes and regulations to the state level, they have been unable to get a carbon tax enacted, even in state legislatures where progressives hold the most sway. Maine becomes the most recent blue state to reject a carbon tax. Legislation to impose a carbon tax has also been introduced in Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Oregon, and other states, but all have declined to implement one. Americans for Tax Reform has put together a timeline of all the carbon tax proposals that have been rejected both in the U.S. and abroad.  

And don’t forget carbon tax initiatives getting shot down not once, but twice in Washington state under Gov Jay Inslee, who’s running for president under the banner of Doing Something about ‘climate change’. Citizens really do not want them.

Read: Bummer: Maine Becomes Latest State To Reject A Carbon Tax »

Posted in Carbon Credits, Democrats, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Trot Out Bill Requiring Federal Backgrounds Check For Ammunition Purchases

By William Teach March 14, 2019 – 8:08 am

Yet again, they are simply going to make things much more difficult for law abiding citizens

Bill named after Parkland victim Jaime Guttenberg puts background checks on bullets

Last month, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed a plan to expand background checks on gun purchases.

Now, Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz are offering a new plan to require universal background checks on ammunition purchases. The bill is named after Guttenberg’s daughter Jaime, one of 17 students and staff killed on Valentine’s Day last year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“We have a gun violence death rate in this country right now of approximately 40,000 per year. It is not normal,” Guttenberg said. “In the time that we do this press conference, somebody will learn they are a victim of gun violence, somebody will be buried who is a victim of gun violence and somebody will be planning the funeral for a victim of gun violence. I am not OK with that.”

The background checks for ammunition would work the same way as background checks for firearms. Every time someone of legal age attempts to purchase ammunition, the buyer would be subject to a background check, which Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said would take 30 seconds to one minute to complete.

Will it? Or will it take days? Remember, that same firearms background checks bill expands the time for approval from 3 days up to 14, because the way previous law was written was that if a response wasn’t received in 3 days, the background check was approved. And people usually get charged for a background check. Will they get charged for ammo purchases?

“Even though ammunition is every bit as necessary for the operation of a firearm as the firearm itself, federal law does not require a background check to prevent prohibited purchasers from purchasing ammunition,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Jaime’s Law will close this ammo loophole.”

Good grief, “loophole.”

It’s not clear if a group of Republicans who voted to expand background checks on guns last month, including Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, will support Wasserman Schultz’s proposal. Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott have previously said they don’t support bills to expand background checks.

“I don’t know what the implications are, I have to look at it,” Diaz-Balart said when asked if he supports the bill. “Debbie and I have a million disagreements but I respect her as a legislator, so obviously I’ll look at it.”

If you read the legislation (linked in the first excerpt), it is tough to understand, because it’s adding language in and striking language in other federal statures. One part makes it seem like people will get a pass if they have some sort of purchase permit, another makes it seem as if ammo can be sold if for hunting or recreational shooting without a check, yet another makes it seem OK if ammo is sold by a dealer who knows the person isn’t going to use it for criminal acts without a check. What does it all mean? Who knows. It does specifically state that “nothing in this act or amendments shall be construed to authorize the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a national firearms or ammunition registry.”

But, there is a section that seems to give the Attorney General wide lattitude to create whatever rules the AG wants to make based on the legislation.

Oh, it also seems to make it possible to purchase ammunition without a backgrounds check when it will be elusively used for ….. fishing (page 6 line 9). Who uses a gun to go fishing? Hey, if this passes (it won’t even make it to the floor of the Senate) we can all claim we’re going fishing when we need ammo!

Read: Democrats Trot Out Bill Requiring Federal Backgrounds Check For Ammunition Purchases »

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Bummer: ‘Climate Change’ Will Make Walks In The Woods Much Rarer Or Something

By William Teach March 13, 2019 – 3:25 pm

Can most urban dwelling members of the Cult of Climastrology even find the great outdoors? Other than to take a quick selfie for social media than escape back to a Starbucks, of course

Climate change will make a walk in the woods a much rarer pleasure

If you like to take a walk in the woods in the United States or you prefer to decorate a Douglas fir at Christmas, you should know that climate change is making both of those activities a lot harder.

Looking at two ecologically and economically important species — the Douglas fir and the Ponderosa pine — scientists found that fires and drought exacerbated by climate change make new growth difficult, especially in low-elevation forests, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Some forests in four regions in California, Colorado, the Northern Rockies and the southwestern part of the United States have crossed “a critical climate threshold for postfire tree generation,” the study says.

Climate conditions over the past 20 years have accelerated changes that would have otherwise taken decades or even centuries to play out across broad regions of the country. This is leading to the abrupt decline of trees and making these lands increasingly unsuitable for tree regeneration.

Climate change is endangering our forests now, not just in some distant future.

First, this is simply doomsaying. Second, this doesn’t provide proof that it is mostly solely caused by Mankind. Third, for most of the last twenty years the global temperature was in a pause. Yes, it was elevated, but, that’s what happens during a Holocene warm period.

Adult trees have better survival mechanisms to deal with poor climate conditions, but intense wildfires are wiping out these Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. The trees have thick bark that make them typically good at surviving surface level fires, but they can’t survive the more intense fires that move through the canopy, like this region has seen. Had there not been such intense fires, these trees may have lived for centuries.

So, wildfires never happened prior to fossil fuels? And, let’s not forget, that many of these fires were actually caused by humans, but not from ‘climate change’.

Anyhow, no more long walks in the woods for you. Instead, please get into a prostrate position and hand your wallet to the Government.

Read: Bummer: ‘Climate Change’ Will Make Walks In The Woods Much Rarer Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 27 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 13, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is heat snow due to Other People eating burgers, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on Rashida Tlaib and CAIR.

Read: If All You See… »

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

Democrats Introduce “Clean” Amnesty Bill For DACA And Others

By William Teach March 13, 2019 – 10:30 am

Democrats have been calling for a “clean” immigration bill for several years, meaning one that provides legal status and even a pathway to citizenship with zero border or other security included, with nothing that looks to stop illegal immigration nor deters it. And here we go

House Dem propose offering 2M immigrants chance to apply for U.S. citizenship

House Democrats presented a broad immigration proposal Tuesday that would allow more than 2 million immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship, including “dreamers” and those with temporary work permits who could soon face deportation under Trump administration policies.

The Dream and Promise Act of 2019 comes two months after Democrats took control of the House and a day after the White House announced a budget proposal that would put billions of dollars toward a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and would increase immigration enforcement and border security.

The bill would offer green cards and a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children or teenagers – those known as “Dreamers” – and to people now in the country on temporary permits that prevent them from being deported. (snip)

It is unclear how many immigrants would benefit from the legislation, but congressional aides said the number of dreamers probably would be similar to the 2.1 million people who would have been covered under a bipartisan Senate measure that was proposed in 2017, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

That estimate is more than three times the 674,900 immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, program as of February. Trump criticized the Obama administration’s program as a way to skirt Congress and ended it in 2017.

The bill also would cover people with temporary protected status, which has allowed people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Somalia and other countries to avoid being deported to nations engulfed in war or affected by natural disasters. A smaller group of Liberians that has been granted Deferred Enforced Departure also would be protected. Trump also has sought to end these protections, spurring lawsuits that halted at least one of the efforts.

Temporary protected status means just that: temporary. Not a means to remain in the U.S. permanently. Further, what about those who committed the “sin” of bringing the kids illegally? We’re not supposed to punish the kids, but, should we not punish the parents? Not in this bill.

Dreamers would be able to apply for 10-year conditional green cards if they came to the United States when they were 17 or younger and if they have lived in the country for at least four years, among other requirements. They would be able to obtain full green cards after completing at least two years of postsecondary education or military service or after working for three years.

Immigrants would not be allowed to apply if they have been convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year in prison or if they have been convicted of three or more offenses that carry sentences of more than 90 days in jail.

The measure also calls for dreamers to be allowed to apply for federal financial aid to pay for college and to apply to return to the United States if they were previously deported but meet all the other requirements.

Immigrants with temporary protected status or deferred deportations could immediately apply for green cards if they have been in the country for at least three years, had their status as of September 2016 and pass background checks.

In other words, tons of these illegals with convictions that do not carry jail sentences are just fine. I wonder if the bill includes a way to blow off illegals who stole the identities of legal residents? Anyhow, they can apply for citizenship 5 years after obtaining a green card.

Democrats have refused to allow those trade-offs (meaning security and everything that stops illegal immigration), arguing that it would protect young immigrants but increase their parents’ and relatives’ risks of being deported.

So, they’re going to find a way to give the “sinners” legal status, as well. And you know that the bill is going to be much, much worse, once the full text is available.

Read: Democrats Introduce “Clean” Amnesty Bill For DACA And Others »

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Gizmodo: Can You Be A Warmist And Still Enjoy A Burger?

By William Teach March 13, 2019 – 7:23 am

An interesting question

From the article itself

You Can Eat a Burger and Still Fight For the Planet

I eat meat. Not every day but most days. I also eat out at least twice a week. That means take-out containers and plastic. I ride the New York City subway just about every day, and I try to avoid cabs. However, I also plan to own a car one day, and I fly for work often enough.

I’m an environmentalist, but I’m not perfect. And I don’t intend to be.

To some, that may sound controversial. To others, it may even sound hypocritical. To all, I say: Screw you! While individuals are free to shape their lifestyles to align with their environmental values, eating salads and riding bikes aren’t going to save the world. Only forcing the fossil fuel industry to clean up its act will—and until that happens, I refuse to believe people should be shamed for living in the world we’ve built.

Of course, these are mostly not environmental values, but Cult of Climastrology values. And a typical deflection in which Yessenia Funes absolves herself of any wrongdoing., choosing instead to blame Big Oil for providing a product that people want.

The shame game has been real lately. Ever since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced her Green New Deal resolution, she’s been getting attacked from all fronts because, well, she’s no saint. PETA gave her shit for not going vegan. The New York Post recently called her out for riding in cars and not composting her sweet potato peels. Right-wingers barraged her after her chief of staff was spotted enjoying a burger for dinner.

But what good does any of that do? As Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter to the New York Post, she’s “living in the world as it is.” That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve a better future—we do! But to get there, we’re going to have to focus on the fossil fuel corporations whose products are responsible for most of our global greenhouse gas emissions, and the politicians failing to shift societies away from our dependency on them.

So, then stop using their product.

Earlier this year, a young high schooler asked me what she could do to help the environment. After a second of deep thought, I told her my truth: Always be mindful of what the most-hard hit communities need. And that’s communities of color and the low-income. Then, I reminded her that saving the world can’t happen only within our homes. It’ll happen by changing what goes on within corporate board meetings, Congress, and the White House. The simple act of voting on who gets to sit in these spaces is powerful.

And you wonder why I call this whole thing a political issue, rather than a scientific one?

So I’ll keep on eating my late-night burger while striving for a better world. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Except, the hardcore Warmists tell us that eating meat is Bad. They try and get government to force people to give up meat, such as Comrade Bill De Blasio declaring schools will be meatless on Mondays. Remember the hypocrisy, though. Always remember that they want their beliefs forced on Other People. On That Guy. On Someone Else.

Read: Gizmodo: Can You Be A Warmist And Still Enjoy A Burger? »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

DOJ Ordered FBI To Not Consider Charging Hillary Clinton Over Email Scandal

By William Teach March 13, 2019 – 7:09 am

It’s an interesting thing: you right now have over 50 people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, charged in a scheme to bribe their kids’ way into college. Felonies. Yet Hillary Clinton, who violated numerous federal statutes, wasn’t even charged. I wonder why? Here’s how the Democracy Dies In Darkness paper explains it

In newly released transcript, former FBI lawyer fires back on charges that bias affected Trump, Clinton probes

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page defended herself and the bureau last year against accusations that anti-Trump bias affected federal investigations of the Trump campaign’s suspected Russia ties and of Hillary Clinton’s emails, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

Page, who came to prominence over anti-Trump texts she exchanged with former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok while both were assigned to the Clinton and Trump investigations, stressed that senior bureau officials were also expressing anti-Clinton animus — but that neither affected how agents working those cases carried out their jobs. (more flowing defense of Page for paragraphs)

She pushed back against the suggestion that the FBI “blew over” potentially charging Clinton with gross negligence under the Espionage Act, saying officials did consider it — but decided that the move would be too “constitutionally vague,” unprecedented, and “that they did not feel that they could sustain a charge.” Page also said Richard Scott, the Justice Department official in charge of overseeing the Clinton probe, had advised against making the harsher charge.

So, no big deal, right?

Lisa Page admitted Obama DOJ ordered stand-down on Clinton email prosecution, GOP rep says

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that “the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information,” the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page’s closed-door testimony. (snip)

“So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory,” Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. “But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —”

Page interrupted: “That is correct,” as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, ” — bring a case based on that.” (snip)

Page also testified that the DOJ and FBI had “multiple conversations … about charging gross negligence,” and the DOJ decided that the term was “constitutionally vague” and “had either never been done or had only been done once like 99 years ago,” and so “they did not feel they could sustain a charge.”

That’s a wee bit more specific than what Democracy Dies In Darkness states, eh? Getting beyond the obvious bias of the Washington Post (most other news outlets barely cover the document dump, if at all), what this really highlights is that the fix was in. Exactly what Republicans were saying. That’s how you end up with James Comey laying out a case to prosecute Hillary then saying “na. Never mind.”

Read: DOJ Ordered FBI To Not Consider Charging Hillary Clinton Over Email Scandal »

Posted in Democrats, Hillary Clinton | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

Open Borders Activists Attempt To Get Banks To Divest From Prisons

By William Teach March 12, 2019 – 4:45 pm

Day after day, the open borders lobby is exposing that they really are for open borders, much like Democrats overall are exposing just how extremist they all are

IMMIGRATION ACTIVISTS SEE PRIVATE PRISON DIVESTMENT AS A WAY TO ABOLISH ICE

Immigration activists see their campaign to get banks to divest from private prison companies as a backdoor way to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by taking away its capacity to detain illegals caught crossing the southern border.

“It goes even beyond ICE,” Daniel Carrillo, executive director of Freedom to Thrive, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Immigration should be a right.”

Freedom to Thrive, formerly known as Enlace, has pushed major financial institutions and banks, including JPMorgan Chase, to divest from private prisons since 2010, Carrillo said. The group’s stated goal is to “end the punishment-based criminal and immigration systems.”

Activists have focused on two prison companies in particular, CoreCivic and GEO Group. JPMorgan and several other major banks raised $1.8 billion in debt financing with CoreCivic and GEO Group in 2018, according to reports. (snip)

Freedom to Thrive and its allies see the private prison angle as an “organizing tool” for their larger agenda to abolish ICE by crippling its private sector partners, Carrillo said. About two-thirds of ICE detainees were in a privately-operated center.

Detention of an illegal immigrants, including families and unaccompanied minors, started under the Obama administration, but only gained national attention in recent years as part of the larger “resistance” to President Donald Trump.

Who wants to bet the same people pushing this lock the doors to their homes and cars? Because I think it’s a right that I can just go in and take the food out of their fridges, borrow their TV, and use their car, right?

Read: Open Borders Activists Attempt To Get Banks To Divest From Prisons »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 12, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is carbon pollution created snow that shall soon disappear due to carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Flopping Aces, with a post on how socialism works.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Commissar De Blasio Declares NYC Schools Meatless On Mondays To Stop ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach March 12, 2019 – 11:05 am

Before heading to Comrade Bill (can’t wait till someone publishes a photo of him eating meat on Mondays), let’s see what the always loopy Paul Krugman has to say, as he rages about Conservatives raging on the Internet about certain things

The Power of Petty Personal Rage

…..By all accounts, the biggest applause line at the Conservative Political Action Conference — eliciting chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!” — was the claim that Democrats are coming for your hamburgers, just like Stalin. (They aren’t, and for the record, Stalin was a mass murderer, but objectively pro-burger.)

What do these things have in common? All of them involve cases where individual choices impose costs on other people. Plastic straws really are a source of ocean pollution. While nobody is planning to ban beef, flatulent cows really are an important source of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. And phosphates contribute to toxic algae blooms.

Narrator: yes they are. How did Paul miss this as he was writing his missive?

DE BLASIO ANNOUNCES ‘MEATLESS MONDAYS’ TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio announced Monday that all New York City public schools will have “Meatless Mondays” beginning in the 2019-2020 school year.

The program, first piloted in Spring 2018 for 15 Brooklyn schools, will offer students all-vegetarian breakfast and lunch menus every Monday.

“Cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said de Blasio in a press statement. “We’re expanding Meatless Mondays to all public schools to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come.”

Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza concurred, saying, “Meatless Mondays are good for our students, communities, and the environment.”

“Our 1.1 million students are taking the next step towards healthier, more sustainable lives,” he added. “Our students and educators are truly leaders in this movement, and I salute them!”

Um, no, they aren’t, because they aren’t doing it voluntarily, this is the force of government dictating life choices. I wonder if Commissar Bill will restrict students from bringing their own food which includes meat? Whatever happened to choice?

The move to a vegetarian-based diet once a week for New York City public school children comes on the heels of Democrats in Washington pushing veganism in their Green New Deal plan.

I wonder if Bill will do this for all those who work for the City of New York? Or, hey, perhaps he’ll stop taking all those fossil fueled trips to Italy for vacations.

Read: Commissar De Blasio Declares NYC Schools Meatless On Mondays To Stop ‘Climate Change’ »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL
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