With New Marijuana Market, California Gets A Lesson In Taxes And Economic Movement

By William Teach February 4, 2019 – 10:41 am

The notion of whether government should allow the sale of a mind altering drug is a different argument, especially as government regulates the sale of alcohol. Then there’s the one of it being illegal under federal law. Regardless of that stuff, the government of California finds itself in a sticky situation, something the LA Times Editorial Board covers more as an article than an opinion piece

California’s pot shops have been only open a year. They’re already lobbying for a tax cut

More than two years after California voters passed Proposition 64 to legalize marijuana, the state’s attempt to create an orderly, regulated marijuana marketplace is still a work in progress.

There are far fewer licensed cannabis businesses than had been expected and tax revenue — which officials had estimated could reach $1 billion — is trickling in at a fraction of what was anticipated. The black market for marijuana is still thriving.

Now, several lawmakers and State Treasurer Fiona Ma have introduced Assembly Bill 286, which would temporarily slash cannabis taxes in an effort to entice illegal marijuana businesses to enter the legal market. Industry groups have been lobbying for this break, arguing that lowering taxes would also bring down the price of regulated marijuana, helping legitimate operators to compete with black market dealers.

“We are helping legal cannabis businesses with their transition into the marketplace, just like we would for any startup industry,” Ma said in a statement.

Who would have thought a black market would have been “created”? It was always there, it’s just a bit more mainstream now. Lowering taxes won’t bring the vast majority of them into the legal fold, not when their choice is to pay zero taxes. But, those same high taxes are currently keeping many out of the business. Surprise? (personally, I’d open a bakery near a marijuana store).

Further, if the taxes are high, the price of the product is high, because those taxes get passed on. Surprise?

Cannabis industry groups argue that businesses can’t wait. Legitimate operators, they say, invested enormous amounts of money to get licensed and to comply with the state’s complex regulations, but they’re being undercut by illegal pot shops and delivery businesses. That’s a real problem. The state needs much more aggressive enforcement to shut down illicit operators.

Um, the entire thing is illicit, per federal law. Regardless, again, when the government has such a heavy hand on taxes and regulations you’ll see things like “illicit operators” occur.

But high taxes aren’t the only reason the black market persists. Proposition 64 allowed localities to ban cannabis businesses and many have done so. Fewer than 20% of California cities allow retail shops to sell marijuana for recreational use. No matter if a pot business has been operating for years in the gray market that existed prior to regulations, the business can’t become a legitimate, taxpaying entity without local approval. Even in the cities that do allow marijuana businesses, many are still struggling to license in a timely fashion.

The LATEB seems upset that cities are blocking the industry. They stop short of demanding that these cities be forced to allow marijuana dispensaries, though they come close.

Read: With New Marijuana Market, California Gets A Lesson In Taxes And Economic Movement »

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Hot Take: Your Love Of Evil Carbon Pollution Burgers Will Eventually Change The Color Of The Ocean

By William Teach February 4, 2019 – 7:01 am

You won’t actually be able to see it, but it will totally happen by the end of the century. What they forget to do is prove that this is all caused my Mankind

Climate change will even change the color of the oceans, study says

The ocean will not look the same color in the future. It won’t turn pink or anything radically different; the change will be more apparent through optic sensors than though the human eye. But it serves as an early warning sign that global warming is significantly altering the planet’s ecosystems, according to a new study.

Essentially, climate change will make the blues of the ocean bluer and the greens greener. Scientists figured this out by creating a global model that simulates the growth of a tiny creature that lives in the oceans and affects the color we see. Their research was published Monday in the journal Nature Communications. (model. Snicker)

The ocean looks blue or green to us because of a combination of how sunlight interacts with water molecules and with whatever else lives in that water.

The molecules in water absorb all but the blue part of the spectrum of sunlight, and the water reflects that blue color back. That’s the color we see.

The water looks greener when it has more phytoplankton, tiny, microscopic organisms that, like plants, can use chlorophyll to capture mostly the blue portions of the spectrum of sunlight. They then use photosynthesis to create the chemical energy they need to live. When there are more of these creatures in the water absorbing sunlight, they make the water look greener. Conversely, if there are fewer phytoplankton, the water looks bluer.

The creatures’ growth is dependent on how much sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients are around. Climate change is altering the ocean currents, meaning there will be fewer nutrients for phytoplankton to feed on in some areas, so there will be a decline in their number in those regions.

Sigh. First, the changes to the ocean currents is very minimal. Second, this has always happened, there’s no reason to assign it to witchcraft, er, humanity and things like driving a fossil fueled vehicle and eating burgers.

Climate change will bring a color change to half of the world’s oceans by the end of the 21st century, the study says. That’s bad for climate change on several levels: For one, phytoplankton remove about as much carbon dioxide from the air as plants and help regulate our climate, research shows. They are also key to other animals’ survival.

Really, if they are so concerned, they should focus more on the issue of ocean pollution rather than a ginned up, mostly fake one designed to take more money from people and private entities and give it to government, along with government taking more freedom from citizens. But, this is the latest of scaremongering from the government funded Cult of Climastrology with a study no one will remember in 2100, based on computer models.

Read: Hot Take: Your Love Of Evil Carbon Pollution Burgers Will Eventually Change The Color Of The Ocean »

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

Democrats Offer “Child Trafficking Encouragement Act” In Exchange For No Border Wall Funding

By William Teach February 4, 2019 – 6:48 am

Yet, somehow, Democrats get upset when you call them Open Borders

Democrats Offer Plan to Release All Child Traffickers at Border into U.S.

The House Democrats’ first offer to President Trump in negotiations to fund his proposed United States-Mexico border wall includes a provision that would end all immigration enforcement for migrants trafficking children across the southern border.

The draft budget provides the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency with $7.4 billion, nearly $850 million less than requested by the Trump administration, and funds only 1,250 beds for adults and migrant children coming across the border this year, a decrease in detention space.

Attached to that funding, though, is an immigration enforcement ban first introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and supported by every Senate Democrat. The Democrats’ offer demands that all immigration enforcement end for any adult crossing the border with a child by the end of Fiscal Year 2019.

Rather than being held in detention for a period of time, those adults and the migrant children they trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border would be released immediately into the interior of the country.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) previously called the plan the “Child Trafficking Encouragement Act” as it ensures that adults bringing children to the southern border would gain immediate access into the U.S. without fear of being deported or turned away.

This is something they pushed in June of 2018, and they’re apparently going to push it again. Is it meant to be a poison pill or are they serious? Their offer includes no border barrier funding. Republicans would be excoriated if they signed on to this from the Republican voters, and probably primaried.

What this does is literally entice people to bring their children, or someone else’s children, with them when they try and force their way into the U.S. They would know they wouldn’t be detained, just released with a wink wink promise to return for a hearing. Then we’ll have their kids demanding citizenship 10 years on, and demanding their parents be allowed to stay. And, good, grief, how many of these kids are not being brought by their parents themselves now, but by traffickers? This would increase.

But don’t say Dems are open borders.

Read: Democrats Offer “Child Trafficking Encouragement Act” In Exchange For No Border Wall Funding »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Say, Why Can’t Rich People Who Take Lots Of Fossil Fueled Trips Save Winter Or Something

By William Teach February 3, 2019 – 3:32 pm

Maybe because the people who push this climastrology claptrap are climahypocrites and always want Someone Else to bear the cost? Here’s Porter Fox, author, most recently, of “Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border,” climastrologying

Why Can’t Rich People Save Winter?

From the snow-dusted ridgelines of the Catskills to the rugged summits of the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and Cascades, winter is slowly disappearing. And snow is receding with it.

We know humans are altering the climate. Temperatures in south-central Colorado have risen two degrees Fahrenheit on average since 1988. In California’s Lake Tahoe region, home to more than a dozen ski areas, warmer temperatures since 1970 have pushed the snow line uphill 1,200 to 1,500 feet. Winter season lengths are projected to decline at ski areas across the United States, in some locations by more than 50 percent by 2050 and by 80 percent by 2090 if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, according to a 2017 study. Only about half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast will be able to maintain an economically viable ski season by midcentury, another study found in 2012.

The question is, how much is Mankind responsible for? Anyhow, there really isn’t any reason to listen to Mr. Fox beyond this

I’ve been a skier for 45 years, and my passion for the sport has taken me to five continents. I’ve skied remote places, like the Cordillera Real in Bolivia, where a farmer at the base of a 16,000-foot peak I had just climbed and skied told me his village was relocating because the glacier no longer provided enough water. I’ve hiked and skied at New England resorts that have closed because of a lack of snow and money for snow-making. And I’ve visited dozens of resorts in the United States, Canada and Europe where the wealthy and not-so-wealthy gather — and where snowpacks are shrinking.

And Warmists are surprised that people doubt them, when they’re complete hypocrites? And, yes, he wants Other People who are rich (he considers those making $75k a year and more to be rich) to be forced to do something.

Read: Say, Why Can’t Rich People Who Take Lots Of Fossil Fueled Trips Save Winter Or Something »

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If All You See…

By William Teach February 3, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is 90Ninety Miles From Tyranny, with a post on 10 offbeat stories you may have missed.

It’s actually bike week.

Read: If All You See… »

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

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach February 3, 2019 – 8:51 am

Happy Sunday! Another fantastic day in America. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the majority of Americans are rooting against the Patriots. Go figure. This pinup is by Joyce Ballantyne with a wee bit of help.

What’s happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Chicks On The Right covers Northam’s wife having to stop him from moonwalking
  2. Ice Age Now discusses religious zealotry vs science truth
  3. Jo Nova notes the new talking point that climate change spreads AIDS
  4. Weasel Zippers covers Democrats now backing wars in order to thwart Trump
  5. Vox Popoli notes CBS rejecting a Just Stand ad
  6. This ain’t Hell… has Sunday feel good stories
  7. Theodore’s World discusses Trump pulling out of the INF
  8. The Right Scoop notes another state proposing an evil abortion law
  9. The Lid features California Dems livid that Trump nominated Conservative judges
  10. The Last Tradition highlights Ann Coulters losing her mind
  11. The Crawdad Hole notes that they were fine with killing babies, but blackface? Too far
  12. Powerline notes that Newseum is about to close its doors
  13. Patterico’s Pontifications covers Gavin Newsome trying to square promises with economic realities
  14. Moonbattery discusses how birth tourism screws Americans
  15. And last, but not least, Irons In The Fire covers the priorities of the British police
  16. And one to grow on: Congratulations to The Daley Gator on hitting 10,000,000 hits! (I’m not even sure what my true count is after Go Stats crashed on me. The internal WordPress.org one is way, way behind)

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

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Trump Says There’s A Good Chance He’ll Declare An Emergency To Build The Wall

By William Teach February 3, 2019 – 7:26 am

This was something very easy: give the pittance, in terms of the federal budget, to Trump to build some border barrier. Democrats could have demanded something like more security in the ports of entry. But, no, they staked a claim, and won’t budge. Even though they said they would negotiate once government was reopened. So, they’re pushing Trump to make a move

Trump says there’s a ‘good chance’ he’ll declare an emergency for border wall

President Donald Trump said there is a “good chance” he’ll declare a national emergency to build his proposed border wall and said he would use his State of the Union address next week to once again make a case for the barrier.

“I think there’s a good chance we’ll have to do that,” he said of the declaration, which he has threatened for weeks. “We have very strong legal standing.”

The emergency declaration could help the Trump administration free up billions of dollars in construction money for the wall, but it will also almost certainly face legal challenges that could redefine the president’s ability to use emergency powers.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working against a Feb. 15 deadline to produce a deal to fund the government and avoid another shutdown. Trump has demanded the final product include funding for his proposed border wall but has also said Republicans on the committee are “wasting their time” trying to negotiate with Democrats.

If Democrats refuse to negotiate, then it is a waste of time. Putting up some cameras and drones does nothing but allow the Border Patrol to watch them come in.

(Fox News) In fact, walls work. Love them or hate them, their effectiveness is indisputable.

“Part of our area is covered with some fencing on our east side. That accounts for about 6 percent of our traffic,” Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz told journalists during President Trump’s January 10 visit to Rio Grande Valley, Texas. “Where we have no fencing, over 90 percent of our traffic occurs in those areas.” A day earlier, Ortiz added, 450 people were apprehended in the unfenced sector, including 133 from such non-Latin nations as India, Pakistan, and Romania.

Some 560,000 illegals were caught astride San Diego and Tijuana in Fiscal Year 1992, when a border wall was installed there. By FY 2017, the Border Patrol says it snared 26,086 — down 95.3 percent.

Realistically, the solution is to implement laws that make the majority of illegals and visa overstayers not come illegally/overstay their visas, such as requiring all asylum seekers to apply at designated U.S. facilities in other countries. Immediately deporting any illegal caught in the U.S. Not giving them education and stuff. And slamming any entity that employs an illegal without doing their due diligence with massive civil and criminal penalties, meaning most won’t take the chance. Making those who sponsor visa holders responsible for the status of the visa holders. And much more. Remove the reasons so many come illegally/overstay visas.

Read: Trump Says There’s A Good Chance He’ll Declare An Emergency To Build The Wall »

Posted in Democrats, Donald Trump, Illegal Immigration | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Who’s Up For The New Language On ‘Climate Change’?

By William Teach February 2, 2019 – 3:07 pm

They might not have had to do this if it wasn’t a) a hyper-partisan political issue and b) an actual scientific discipline dependent on facts and figures and the scientific method (there are a very few who do treat it as a science in practice, but no one wants to listen to them beat down the Cult of Climastrology)

The New Language of Climate Change

Leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.

That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible. And focus instead on what is happening and how unusual it is—and what it is costing communities.

That was a main takeaway at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting this month, where top meteorologists and environmental scientists from around the country gathered to hear the latest research on record rainfall and drought, debate new weather prediction models and digest all manner of analysis on climatic mutations.

Too late. They decided that it was mostly/solely caused by Mankind, regardless of not having the scientific proof, and decided to run with it. Hence the change from global warming to climate change, and attempts at things like climate disruption and such. It’s so political now that even if it was truly real, as in the man-caused part, you’d never get the skeptics to believe it, and never get the Warmists to make the big changes in their own lives.

It’s dead. The very fact that they have to discuss this says all the world about it.

Educating the public and policymakers about climate change at a time when elected leaders are doubling down on denying that it is happening at all or that humans are responsible for it demands a new lexicon, conference attendees told me—one that can effectively narrate the overwhelming scientific evidence but not get sucked into the controversy fueled most prominently by President Donald Trump.

Which means it’s political.

Read: Who’s Up For The New Language On ‘Climate Change’? »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 25 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach February 2, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a CO2 dried out world flooding from CO2, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on CNN pushing exclusion of MAGA hat wearers.

Ideas for next week’s theme?

Read: If All You See… »

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

Open Borders Advocate Totally Knows How To Improve Our Immigration System

By William Teach February 2, 2019 – 10:30 am

Of course, the thing here that Open Borders Sara Ramey, an immigration attorney and the executive director at the very open borders Migrant Center for Human Rights in San Antonio, Texas, fails to note is that illegal aliens aren’t actually part of the immigration system, beyond federal law which states if they are caught they are punished. For a first offense, a small fine and deportation

5 ways the new Congress can improve our immigration system

Whether as part of the government shutdown negotiations or through other legislative efforts, Congress can make a real difference in the lives of immigrants a number of way. Here I’ve outlined five effective steps that can be taken:

  1. Ensure judicial independence (she wants it not subject to the whims of whomever is in office as POTUS. So, who provides oversight? Doesn’t say)
  2. End prosecutions of asylum seekers (and this is the kind of thing which makes all the illegals claim asylum, despite less than 7% qualifying)
  3. Protect domestic violence victims (funny that she doesn’t want to protect victims of illegal alien crime)
  4. Protect family unity and well-being (I’m going to come back to this one)
  5. Eliminate unjustified detention (in other words, release all illegals, because they’ll totally come back for their hearings, right?)

Now, back to #4, in which she writes

Additionally, Congress should stop the administration from charging parents with smuggling their children under 8 U.S. Code § 1324. Congress can pass a law clarifying that bringing a minor child with you does not constitute smuggling, thereby clarifying that we are not a country that penalizes parents and children for wanting to be together.

Remember the days when we were told that we shouldn’t punish the children for the sins of the parents? Sin means “breaking U.S. law,” correct? So, someone has to pay. That would be the parents. The Open Borders advocates are exposing what they really mean, which is “let the kids and parents stay, regardless.” Which incentivizes more to come illegally.

Look at Senator Jeff Merkely (D-Oregon): he’s bringing a mother and child who were separated for two months (under a policy that Obama himself used) after they came illegally. This tells people to come illegally.

Illegal immigrants jump the line, making legal immigrants wait

Despite political and religious oppression under the Soviet Union, my parents waited their turn and legally immigrated to the U.S. They became doctors and saved thousands of American lives.

My Ukrainian aunt, cousin, and other relatives are doctors and other needed professionals. They have struggled constantly to immigrate for decades. Even as other less qualified cross the southern border daily and then cut the line, my family is forced to wait, kept apart by a broken immigration system.

President Trump’s promise of border security offers them hope that one day, illegal immigration may slow down and their turn will come to arrive legally. (snip)

Then again, how can the line to immigrate not take 20 years if there are thousands entering illegally every year? How can our government not be concerned about issuing visas when so many are overstayed, and we don’t have nearly enough personnel to ensure enforcement? Securing our borders and investing in enforcement is not “anti-immigrant” but “pro-legal immigrant.” It would also help countless Americans.

Yeah, but Democrats need gardeners, farm workers, and other low wage, uneducated people who will end up depending on government and voting Democrats. Why would we want people who really want to be American and bring valuable skills and knowledge? Sheesh.

Read: Open Borders Advocate Totally Knows How To Improve Our Immigration System »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 14 Comments | Trackback URL
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