NY Times: Hey, There’s Nothing Wrong With Open Borders

By William Teach January 17, 2019 – 10:30 am

Democrats keep telling us they are not for Open Borders, they just want (insert daily talking point, like they want comprehensive immigration reform, walls are immoral, etc, here). How dare we call them Open Borders! That’s just not right!

There’s Nothing Wrong With Open Borders

The internet expands the bounds of acceptable discourse, so ideas considered out of bounds not long ago now rocket toward widespread acceptability. See: cannabis legalization, government-run health care, white nationalism and, of course, the flat-earthers.

Yet there’s one political shore that remains stubbornly beyond the horizon. It’s an idea almost nobody in mainstream politics will address, other than to hurl the label as a bloody cudgel.

I’m talking about opening up America’s borders to everyone who wants to move here.

Imagine not just opposing President Trump’s wall but also opposing the nation’s cruel and expensive immigration and border-security apparatus in its entirety. Imagine radically shifting our stance toward outsiders from one of suspicion to one of warm embrace. Imagine that if you passed a minimal background check, you’d be free to live, work, pay taxes and die in the United States. Imagine moving from Nigeria to Nebraska as freely as one might move from Massachusetts to Maine.

There’s a witheringly obvious moral, economic, strategic and cultural case for open borders, and we have a political opportunity to push it. As Democrats jockey for the presidency, there’s room for a brave politician to oppose President Trump’s racist immigration rhetoric not just by fighting his wall and calling for the abolishment of I.C.E. but also by making a proactive and affirmative case for the vast expansion of immigration.

Would it surprise you that this was written by a legal immigrant, Farhad Manjoo?

As an immigrant, this idea (of border security) confounds me. My family came to the United States from our native South Africa in the late 1980s. After jumping through lots of expensive and confusing legal hoops, we became citizens in 2000. Obviously, it was a blessing: In rescuing me from a society in which people of my color were systematically oppressed, America has given me a chance at liberty.

It was such a blessing that he’s now demanding that America change itself completely.

A new migrant caravan is forming in Honduras, and the president is itching for the resulting political fight.

Here’s hoping Democrats respond with creativity and verve. Not just “No wall.” Not just “Abolish ICE.”

Instead: “Let them in.”

Farhad is really just saying what most Democrats are thinking.

Read: NY Times: Hey, There’s Nothing Wrong With Open Borders »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 24 Comments | Trackback URL

Connecticut Looks To Mandate Early Indoctrination Of ‘Climate Change’ At Schools

By William Teach January 17, 2019 – 8:17 am

See, now, if I was a Leftist, I would be screeching about this being the same thing they did in the Third Reich, that Hitler was literally forcing indoctrination on kids for his pet causes. I wouldn’t say that, though

CONNECTICUT LAW WOULD MANDATE CLIMATE CHANGE INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

A bill introduced recently in the Connecticut General Assembly is proposing that Connecticut public schools be required to teach students about climate change starting in their earliest years.

The short text of the proposed legislation, H.B. No. 5011, demands that existing statutes governing state education be amended “to require that the science curriculum of the prescribed courses of study for public schools include the teaching of climate change and that such teaching begin in elementary school.”

“A lot of schools make the study of climate change an elective, and I don’t believe it should be an elective,” Democratic state Rep. Christine Palm, who introduced the bill, told the Associated Press. “I think it should be mandatory, and I think it should be early so there’s no excuse for kids to grow up ignorant of what’s at stake.”

Palm maintained to the AP that while she would love to legally force the teaching of poetry, climate change is simply much more important. “I’d love to see poetry be mandated. That’s never going to happen,” Palm said. “That’s not life or death.”

Yeah, I won’t go down the Nazi road. More like the Communism road, where Lenin said “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Karl Marx wanted every child to be in a state school the minute they can get along without a mother’s care. Either way, Commie or Nazi, they’re rooted in authoritarianism, which very much wants to indoctrinate kids, rather than teach them. And Warmists are happy to indoctrinate kids.

They just aren’t happy practicing what they preach, like giving up their own use of fossil fuels and making their lives carbon neutral.

Read: Connecticut Looks To Mandate Early Indoctrination Of ‘Climate Change’ At Schools »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Open Borders Kirsten Gillibrand Now Wants Driver’s Licenses, Amnesty For Illegal Aliens, Loves Sanctuary Cities

By William Teach January 17, 2019 – 7:57 am

Kirsten Gillibrand has already jumped on the Abolish ICE bandwagon, wanting to get rid of it and “re-imagine it.” She was the first Senator to make the call. But, we aren’t supposed to think this is a call for open borders, of course. She’s against providing more money for a border barrier. Then this

In latest reversal, Gillibrand now supports letting illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses

After initially opposing the idea of her home state granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has had a change of heart.

“I think we have to make it possible for people to provide for their families,” the New York Democrat said Wednesday, as she was leaving to attend her 2020 presidential campaign kickoff event.

Gillibrand’s new stand on the issue is in contrast from the position she took during her days in the House, when she opposed then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s controversial 2007 plan to allow illegal immigrants living in New York to obtain driver licenses.

“I do not support giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants,” Gillibrand said back then, the Washington Free Beacon reported. At the time, Gillibrand said she supported legislation that required anyone seeking a drivers’ license to show proof of citizenship first.

At a Wednesday news conference in Troy – a city of about 50,000 residents just outside Gillibrand’s birthplace, the state capital Albany – the second-term senator said her heart has guided her policy reversals on issues such as gun control, granting amnesty to illegal immigrants and her opposition to sanctuary cities, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

She flipped on gun control (so she says), which is an attempt to reel in a few votes. She now supports amnesty for illegals, sanctuary cities, and the driver’s licenses for illegals. To the Free Beacon

“I think we have to make it possible for people to provide for their families,” Gillibrand told the New York Daily News on Wednesday outside a diner in Brunswick, New York. “We need comprehensive immigration reform. Without doing that, you’re not going to get the problem solved for the rest of the country.”

Giving more people the impetus to come illegally/overstay visas is not exactly a position of closed borders, nor are amnesty and sanctuary jurisdictions.

Those are just a few quick headlines. And there are many, many others, including ones about MS-13 gang members operating in NY.

Unless you are going to shut the border down and put in harsh, tough measures to stop most illegal immigration (which includes people coming illegally and overstaying visas) from occurring, to make sure that the people who just show up and demand asylum (which most do not get) at ports of entry are not released after which they disappear into the nation, and stop giving reasons for people to come illegally, amnesty cannot be implemented. Democrats won’t talk about any security and measures which give reasons to people to not be here illegally (such as massive civil and criminal penalties on entities that hire illegals, refusing to educate them and their kids, and more). We saw this with the DACA debate. They wanted a clean bill, amnesty for the so-called Dreamers, with no border security or any security included.

But we’re not supposed to call them open borders.

Read: Open Borders Kirsten Gillibrand Now Wants Driver’s Licenses, Amnesty For Illegal Aliens, Loves Sanctuary Cities »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Trump Serving Fast Food To Clemson Was Bad For ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach January 16, 2019 – 3:50 pm

There have been lots and lots (and lots) of hot takes on President Trump serving fast food, which he paid for out of his own pocket, to the Clemson Tigers football team, which won the national championship (something not mentioned in the article.) Of course, Warmists gotta do Warmist, as we get Robert Gebelhoff in the Washington Post

Donald Trump’s fast-food presidency

President Trump couldn’t welcome the Clemson University football team Monday with food typically served at the White House, given that caterers there were furloughed under the partial government shutdown. So he did what many other Americans do when their options are limited: He ordered out.

The president celebrated the fast-food display — complete with mounds of hamburgers, fries, pizzas and, to be fair, some boxed salads — and, of course, boasted about paying for it himself. The reception, no doubt, was an attempt to make the president more relatable, but if anything, his cornucopia of greasy indulgence should serve as a symbol of his presidency.

Robert goes on to yammer about food deserts and nutrition and stuff, because people can’t have a day with some less than healthy food (fun fact: the majority of these fast foods have no MSG, as explained by my allergist. I’m big time allergic, to the point of going to the doctor or worse. Subway and Firehouse subs are a big no no for me. Processed meats) before diving into

But food isn’t the only aspect of life where Americans overvalue instant gratification and ignore the massive challenges looming on the horizon. The Trump administration embodies that mind-set.

Take climate change. Trump’s opponents advocate taking on some of the long-term costs associated with remedying global warming now, either by implementing some type of carbon tax or using taxpayer money to subsidize cleaner energy. Trump’s strategy is not merely to ignore the problem but to deny that it’s even happening. The short-term economic benefits of carbon-based energy are just too tantalizing for the president’s conservative base to give up, so he parades around talking about a “war on coal” and promising that coal jobs will reappear — as if the president has power to control the market forces that have cut into the coal industry.

Oh, and Robert dives into immigration and other stuff. All because of some fast food.

Read: Trump Serving Fast Food To Clemson Was Bad For ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Donald Trump, Global Warming, Unhinged Tools | 15 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 16, 2019 – 1:00 pm

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

The blog of the day is MOTUS A.D., with a post on the Democrats fight club.

Read: If All You See… »

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New Warmist Solution: Ban Energy, Cows, And Fossil Fueled Vehicles

By William Teach January 16, 2019 – 10:30 am

Think this will go over well, including with most Warmists? This is the kind of Warmist screed that actually gets worse the more you read it

One simple — but really hard — solution to stop climate change

There may actually be a way to keep the worst of climate change at bay, but it’s going to take a herculean effort, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Climate change is well underway already, the time to act and limit its human causes is now, many studies have shown. This latest report maps out what it may take to get there.

It posits that if the world was to phase out its “carbon-intensive infrastructure” at the end of its design lifetime starting from the end of 2018, there’s a 64% chance that the planet’s peak temperature can remain below the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Above that, scientists predict the planet will see even more extreme weather events such as wildfires, droughts, floods, massive animal die offs and food shortages for millions. The planet is already two-thirds of the way there, with global temperatures having warmed about 1 degree Celsius.

To keep the global median temperature within this optimal 1.5 degree-Celsius limit, according to this study, change would have to happen across all sectors, not just in the energy sector. Power plants would need to be replaced, but so would gas and diesel-fueled cars, aircraft, ships and industrial plants. Even cows would have to go — essentially, anything that contributes to global warming.

Under this scenario, infrastructure such as power plants wouldn’t have to be scrapped and replaced with a non-carbon emitting technology — at least, not immediately. The researchers are talking about a “design lifetime.” In the case of power plants, the average lifetime based on historic data, is about 40 years. The average lifetime of a car on the road now is more than 11 years, according to Consumer Reports, but could last for about 200,000 miles, or 15 years, US estimates show. Once they wear out, stop working or die, they’d be replaced with technology or products that do not contribute to climate change.

So, once that lifetime is hit, no more. Period. Which means that the federal government would have to declare that no more fossil fueled vehicles would be allowed to be manufactured and sold. Which means that cows and pigs and dogs and cats and more wouldn’t be allowed to have babies. No more ships and aircraft. No more manufacturing plants. Heck, no more human babies.

These people really are bat-guano insane.

Read: New Warmist Solution: Ban Energy, Cows, And Fossil Fueled Vehicles »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Proposed Oregon Gun Laws Are Worse Than You Thought

By William Teach January 16, 2019 – 7:36 am

I noted the other day that a bill submitted by Oregon State Senator Rob Wagner (D) would limit people to magazines that hold no more than 5 rounds, and that people would be restricted from purchasing more than 20 rounds per month. It gets even worse, which means other Democrat run states will give this a whirl

Tough Gun Control Bill, To Oregon Senate

Scheduled to appear this year in front of the Oregon Senate is SB 501, a bill that would dramatically change firearms laws in Oregon. The bill was authored by Students for Change, a gun control advocacy group of Lake Oswego teenagers that assembled after the Parkland, Florida massacre.

If passed as the bill now stands, Oregon gun laws would be among the strictest in the country. The piece of legislation calls for anyone purchasing or receing a firearm to obtain a state-issued permit, punishable by 364 days imprisonment, a $6,250 fine, or both. The bill also requires gun owners to secure all firearms not carried by or within reach of the owner via trigger locks or locked containers, a violation would carry 30 days jail time, a $1,250 fine, or both. The law would also require background checks for purchasing or receiving ammunition, mandatory reporting to police within 24 hours of firearm theft, and 14 day background checks for gun purchases and transfers.

None of this would affect criminals. Just law abiding citizens. Most people do not keep their firearm on or near them while at home. But, they know where they are if they need them. However, they would have to be locked up, making them worthless when needed. Further, how would the Authorities know? Will they be making spot checks?

Perhaps the most sweeping changes that this bill proposes are magazine capacity regulations and ammunition sales limits. As the bill exists, it would prohibit most “large-capacity magazines,” which it defines as all magazines, fixed or detachable, capable of holding more than five rounds. Exempted from the ban would be fixed .22 caliber magazine tubes and fixed lever-action rifle magazines. The bill contained no language exempting shotguns from the ban, which sometimes hold seven shells in a fixed magazine tube. This legislation would presumably outlaw most revolvers, which usually hold six rounds. The penalty for violating this section of the law would be 364 days in prison, a $6,250, or both. Currently, the strictest state magazine capacity laws in the U.S. limit to ten rounds, and exist in a handful of states including California and New York.

The legislation would outlaw most shotguns and revolvers. And there is no grandfathering in the bill as proposed.

SB 501 would also limit ammunition sales to 20 rounds a month, per person. Rounds sold at shooting ranges would be the exception, but all rounds purchased must be fired on site. Ammunition is very commonly sold in packages of 25. Some states have ammunition laws that include permitting and prohibited round types, but a 20 round limit would be the first state law barring ammo purchase at a certain amount.

The bill as proposed also raises the age of purchase to 21 for all firearms, and makes it very difficult and very complicated to purchase. Any criminal conviction would disqualify a person. Got caught with a beer at the park? Convicted of that minor offense? Barred.

Of course, there aren’t many guns one would be allowed to actually own that are usable. Matt Vespa writes “So, in other words, if this passes, the only legal firearms you could own in Oregon were the ones the Louis and Clark expedition probably carried when they rolled into the area in the 1800s.” That might be a bit much, because that bottom rifle in the picture comes with a 5 round magazine, like many hunting rifles. This would ban the majority of handguns, though, unless the manufacturers start making mags that will only hold 5 rounds.

Expect other Democrat cities and states to start looking to do the same. Because this was always about banning guns.

Also expect lots of lawsuits and court challenges.

Read: Proposed Oregon Gun Laws Are Worse Than You Thought »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Democrats | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

CBS News: It Would Totally Be Super Hard To Build The Wall Or Something

By William Teach January 16, 2019 – 7:12 am

For a country that has built tons of skyscrapers, giant aircraft carriers, and put men on the moon, I’d think building a bit of wall would be easy peasy. But, in Liberal World, things like this are just too hard. Of course, the point here is to find any reason to not build the walls from the Open Borders crowd

Why it would be hard to build a border wall

The border wall is more than just a proposed barrier between the U.S. and Mexico; it was central to President Trump’s presidential campaign, and the obstacle in the way of ending the longest government shutdown in American history.

But while “build the wall” is a simple catchphrase, the logistics of doing so are complex. Much of the border is composed of rugged terrain, with a combination of deserts, mountains and rivers demarcating the line between the two countries.

If Mr. Trump obtains the funds to build the wall, either through an appropriations bill passed by Congress or calling a national emergency, the wall isn’t the only thing that will need to be constructed: Some of the border is so remote that the government would have to build new roads to get there, according to a Defense official.

At the easternmost part of Texas, where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, there are no fences, and the nearest road is three miles away. The U.S. side is a wildlife area, relatively close to a beach resort.

Due to the rugged terrain elsewhere on the border, particularly the more mountainous areas in the west, the closest border roads are dirt paths carved by border patrol agents.

OK, I’m totally convinced! Why would America want to do something mildly difficult?

The inaccessibility of the border is only one challenge to its construction. According to the Defense official, the federal government controls only 400 miles of the border. The remainder is private property. It could take six to nine months for the government to declare eminent domain, which is the power of the federal government to take private property for public use. It is likely that proclaiming eminent domain would also face legal challenges.

Or, they could offer a good price for that land. But, Trump isn’t trying to build a wall/fence along the entire border. Just portions, to go with existing barriers.

Furthermore, even if a wall were to be built, drug dealers often find other ways to get drugs into the U.S., such as smuggling them through entry points or building extensive tunnels. When Mr. Trump visited McAllen, Texas, last week to visit border patrol agents and discuss border security, they expressed support for the wall. However, the border patrol agent in charge showed an image of a tunnel illegal immigrants had carved — under a wall.

Barriers are not perfect. But, they stop most. Hence the reason people put them around their homes, around businesses, around government buildings.

Read: CBS News: It Would Totally Be Super Hard To Build The Wall Or Something »

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Your Fossil Fueled Vehicle Use Is Causing Earth To Tilt More Or Something

By William Teach January 15, 2019 – 4:15 pm

This is how a cult reacts, taking an ordinary, normal occurrence of the natural processes of the Earth and dragging it into their dogma

Earth’s tilt may speed up global warming – study

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, was led by Richard Levy from GNS science and Victoria University of Wellington, and Stephen Meyers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

The team of scientists were studying how the Antarctic ice sheet is influenced by changes to how the Earth moves in space.

Richard Levy said that the study confirmed a connection between these astronomical changes and changes in the size and extent of the Antarctic ice sheet.

“If your tilt is high, basically it points the poles more directly at the sun so they get warmer, so at a high tilt you’ve got much more heat coming in to the polar regions.”

The ice sheet is buffered by these warmer waters by sea-ice but as emissions continue to rise, that sea-ice is slowly disappearing, making the ice sheet more vulnerable to melting, Mr Levy said.

“Where we sit right now, CO2 levels in the atmosphere are 400 parts per million – they haven’t been that high for millions of years – human activity, anthropogenic activity have pushed CO2 up to the point where we’ve actually jumped back into the miocene, back into this time when CO2 was high such that sea-ice disappeared.”

Read: Your Fossil Fueled Vehicle Use Is Causing Earth To Tilt More Or Something »

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

If All You See…

By William Teach January 15, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…are trees choking on too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on Joe’s Crab Shack learning a valuable lesson in economics.

Read: If All You See… »

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