November Is The Last Chance To Save Democracy Or Something

Remember this?

And these people are writing for major media outlets, like George Packer for the New Yorker

All That’s Left Is the Vote
The midterm elections are the last obstacle to Trump’s consolidation of power—and the greatest obstacle to voting is the feeling that it doesn’t matter.

In the haze of summer, with books still to be read, weeds pulled, kids retrieved from camp, it’s a little hard to fathom that, three months from now, American democracy will be on the line. The midterm elections in November are the last remaining obstacle to President Trump’s consolidation of power. None of the other forces that might have checked the rise of a corrupt homegrown oligarchy can stop or even slow it. The institutional clout that ended the Presidency of Richard Nixon no longer exists. The honest press, for all its success in exposing daily scandals, won’t persuade the unpersuadable or shame the shameless, while the dishonest press is Trump’s personal amplifier. The federal courts, including the Supreme Court, are rapidly becoming instruments of partisan advocacy, as reliably conservative as elected legislatures. It’s impossible to imagine the Roberts Court voting unanimously against the President, as the Burger Court, including five Republican appointees, did in forcing Nixon to turn over his tapes. (Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to succeed Anthony Kennedy, has even suggested that the decision was wrong.) Congress has readily submitted to the President’s will, as if legislation and oversight were burdens to be relinquished. And, when the independent counsel finally releases his report, it will have only the potency that the guardians of the law and the Constitution give it.

Does anyone want to point out to George that Obama did everything pretty much with his pen, because he rarely engaged Congress with dialogue, even the Democrats, instead using his pen to manufacture more rules and regulations? Or that Trump’s administration has been mostly working to reduce those rules and regs, along with many, many others? Nah, let’s just revel in the unhinged scribblings of someone in desperate need of mental health therapy.

And George goes on to whine incessantly about the way Democrats vote in mid-terms, this that and the other, ending with

This year, something seems to be changing. The new faces among Democratic candidates, the new energy behind them, suggest a party of members, not squatters. But, come November, they will have to vote. It’s the only thing left.

Well, they say that every year, don’t they? And then they’re shocked when it doesn’t materialize. But, George is right on one thing: voting is all they have left, because their platform is a mess

Don’t forget abortions available at any time right to the point of delivery, government pays for abortions, government pays for gender reassignment procedures, the gender confused in bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms with little girls, and more and more government control of your life.

Read: November Is The Last Chance To Save Democracy Or Something »

You Too Can Plant A Tree Everytime Trump Lies About ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

Good news: we have a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and ‘climate change.’ Because Leftists apparently can’t know how to plant a tree without having it explained to them by activists

Here’s how to plant a tree every time Trump says something dumb about climate change

Imagine, for a second, that you had one of those stress balls that you could squish in your palm whenever Trump said something about the environment that really frustrated you.

Now imagine that a tree popped out whenever you used it.

Treespond, a campaign that allows users to sponsor the planting of a tree in response to Trump’s misleading commentary about climate change, launched earlier this week. Treepex, the nonprofit behind Treespond, hopes to harness your political frustration and turn it into carbon sequestering forests.

The idea for the campaign came when Bacho Khachidze, Treepex’s cofounder, noticed how frustrated people got about climate change deniers. “It’s normal to get angry when people with power spread false information about a problem that needs urgent attention, their words can do real damage,” he admitted, “But we wanted to provide people with something actionable they could do that wasn’t, like, screaming back.”

So, they aren’t actually doing something themselves, just paying someone else $9.99 to supposedly plant a tree, for which you get “a certificate with your tree’s ID number, a photograph of the tree, and its geographical location.” Kinda sounds like a scam to me. Does anyone ever audit these schemes?

Oh, then there’s this

Read: You Too Can Plant A Tree Everytime Trump Lies About ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

If All You See…

…is a sea boiling from climate change, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The People’s Cube, with a post on an Alaska candidate who’s never been to the state.

It’s Greek ladies week!

Read: If All You See… »

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Gil Elvgren Patriotic Pinup

Happy Sunday! A fantastic day in the America. The birds are signing, the flowers are blooming, and the Dodgers are establishing their hold on 1st place. This pinup is by Gil Elvgren, with a wee bit of help.

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

  1. PJ Media (Matt Margolis) discusses why Obama is the worst president every
  2. The Other McCain notes California being a no-go zone for Republicans
  3. Hogewash discusses biology and those that don’t know
  4. Powerline covers how dumb are Socialists
  5. The Political Hat notes that the left is obsessed about childhood sexuality
  6. Climate Change Dispatch covers the Miss Climate Change competition
  7. Jo Nova notes rising alternative targets and energy costs
  8. The Deplorable Climate Science Blog has data on this “extreme” summer
  9. 357 Magnum notes how old Animal House is
  10. American Power covers an interesting poll on Democrats being outside the mainstream
  11. Chicks On The Right notes when Obama said Trump would need a magic wand to fix the economy
  12. Datech Guy’s Blog discusses that you should stop trying to find yourself
  13. Geller Report notes Leftists trying to save ISIS jihadis in Britain
  14. Jihad Watch highlights a hilarious irony of an Antifa anti-racism soccer tournament being cancelled
  15. And last, but not least, the Blogosphere lost a great guy with the passing of Jonn Lilyea of This ain’t Hell… RIP

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 »

3D Printing Of Firearms Means Carnage Is A Click Away Or Something

The Washington Post Editorial Board Is Very Concerned about this state of affairs

3-D-printed guns put carnage a click away

PEOPLE WHO are barred from purchasing firearms or want to own a gun that is illegal in the jurisdiction where they live may soon have an easy way to get around the law. All they would need to do is download a computer file and use a 3-D printer to stamp out a gun. No background check would weed out felons, those with mental illness, domestic abusers or possible terrorists. No serial number would allow police to trace a weapon used in a crime. And there would be no problem getting past metal detectors with a gun molded from high-quality plastic.

Plans by a Texas organization to publish, starting Aug. 1, downloadable blueprints for 3-D-printed plastic firearms — so-called ghost guns — have rightly alarmed leading gun safety groups and law enforcement officials. Credit for this dangerous scenario — in which getting an AR-15-style rifleis just a matter of a few computer clicks — goes to the Trump administration for its inexplicable decision to settle a lawsuit it was on the verge of winning.

In fact, the notion of a 3D printed firearm is a minor, tiny, negligible threat. Few people have a 3D printer, and if you just make a plastic replica, it would be more of a danger to the user than the people being shot at. And if you make a plastic-metal hybrid? The associated cost would make it smarter to just buy a real firearm. For criminals, it’s easier to steal them. It’s not like your average gangbanger has access to the necessary hardware, and they’re probably more worried about using their (stolen) computer to mix their latest rap project as an “aspiring rap artist” then searching for the plans that are already on the web.

What this is really about is Blaming Trump, though, not about 3D printing of firearms

The case involves Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, who sued the government in 2015 after the State Department under the Obama administration made him take down do-it-yourself gunmaking blueprints he had posted online, saying they violated export regulations governing military hardware and technology. Mr. Wilson, an avowed anarchist who hopes for a world in which governments can’t stopindividuals from getting guns, claimed his First Amendment right to free speech was being violated. But he lost at every stage of litigation, including a refusal by the Supreme Court to review a decision that the code could not be published during the course of the lawsuit.

So it was stunning — but not surprising, given this administration’s worship at the altar of gun rights — that the State Department elected last month to quietly settle the case. In addition to signing off on the public release of the 3-D printing tutorials, the State Department also agreed to pay nearly $40,000 of Mr. Wilson’s legal fees. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how this senseless decision was reached, and whether groups such as the National Rifle Association were involved. It, along with Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, tried unsuccessfully Friday to get a federal court in Texas to block what it called a “troubling” and “dangerous” settlement.

It’s a bit more complicated in regards to the settlement, but, regardless, this whole screed was about blamestorming Trump. One has to wonder where all the concern about firearms was when team Obama was running guns in Operation Fast and Furious, loosing almost 2,500, which ended up in the hands of criminals who wounded and/or killed hundreds and hundreds of Mexicans, including children, killed at least to U.S. federal agents, and even showed up in Paris during an Islamic terrorist attack.

That’s not enough. Ghost guns are already a problem; they are used not just by lone shooters but as part of criminal enterprises. Releasing instructions for their manufacture, which now only circulate on the dark Web, will lead directly to the loss of more innocent lives. The administration should stop the State Department from going ahead with this foolhardy move, and Congress should act to plug the loopholes that these guns are designed to take advantage of.

You can’t stop ideas (but there are plenty of laws that already cover things like ghost guns, undetectable guns, and such).

Read: 3D Printing Of Firearms Means Carnage Is A Click Away Or Something »

Climate Expert On Why It’s So Hot: “It’s The New Normal”

This is shocking stuff, guys

Why Is It So Hot? Climate Expert Says ‘This Is The New Normal’

“We’re seeing this hot weather in different regions for different reasons,” Dr Michael Byrne, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, told Newsweek.

The unusually hot weather over northern Europe can be attributed to a large high pressure system sitting over the area which is providing hot, clear and calm conditions. (snip)

But there is also a deeper explanation. “The hot weather that’s being experienced around the world, we are very confident as a climate science community that this is strongly linked to climate change,” said Dr Byrne. (snip)

“We are rapidly approaching the time,” Dr. Byrne said, “when these heat waves are going to become the new normal. The question is how we mitigate and adapt to those changes.”

We can fix this with a tax. Or, understand that

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/1023184039946211328

Funny, when we were having below average springs, summers, winters, a few years back, they were complaining that cold was caused by ‘climate change.’ Cult.

Read: Climate Expert On Why It’s So Hot: “It’s The New Normal” »

If All You See…

…is a sun made super bright by carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Victory Girls Blog, with a post on gun control being dead and the 1st Amendment killing it.

Read: If All You See… »

Doom: You Driving A Fossil Fueled Vehicle Means Sharks Are Moving Into The Northeast

This is horrible. I’d hate for there to be some sort of crazy attack all because Other People had big carbon footprints

Sharks Are Creeping Into the Northeast Because of Climate Change
Warmer waters are pushing the animals further north into previously shark-free waters. Should we be worried?

Shark Week, Discovery Channel’s annual homage to the ocean’s most infamous predator, comes to a close this weekend.

But residents of northeastern states like New York—long considered a relatively shark-free zone—might not have to wait until July 2019 to see more, as global warming has been linked with a significant northern shift in the habitats of most marine animals, including most sharks.

“There’s an astounding mass migration of animal life towards the poles,” Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, told The Daily Beast. In his work with spiny dogfish, a thin, small shark that lives along most of the East Coast, he’s seen their habitat shift “quite substantially.”

Pinsky isn’t the only scientist to make this observation. In April, researchers in North Carolina published a paper in Nature’s Scientific Resources that documented the northern migration of bull shark nurseries.

By analyzing data from North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF), the researchers found that between 2003 and 2011, when water temperatures in the sound were hovering closer to 22 degrees Celsius, only six juvenile sharks were caught in the area. But as temperatures began to rise, a group of bull sharks migrated from their previous home in Northern Florida and established a nursery in Pamlico, causing a drastic uptick in juvenile shark presence. Between 2011 and 2016 alone, NCDMF found 53.

They do realize that the scary attacks that occurred back in 2016 that inspired the book (followed by the movie) Jaws have been thought to be the work of a bull shark, right? And that bull shark range has been north of New Jersey for a long, long time, right? And that sharks have been off the coasts along the northeast for a long time, right? And that warming of oceans just proves warming, not anthropogenic causation, right?

This is simply scarmongering on the back of Shark Week. There have been sharks at the shore for always. I remember being at the beach in New Jersey and there being tiger sharks. Fortunately, rare. Tigers have a pretty far northward range. We’d be out surfing, and our boards would get tapped. It wasn’t a fish. Most likely a dogfish, sandbar shark, or blueshark investigating with a bump.

But, really, what else does the Cult of Climastrology have? Not actual science.

Read: Doom: You Driving A Fossil Fueled Vehicle Means Sharks Are Moving Into The Northeast »

Mobile Theme Temporarily Disabled (Update) Back On

I’ve temporarily turned off the jetpack mobile theme, because it’s restricting comments, even my own when logged in. Don’t have time at the moment to fix it.

Update: turned back on. I had to disable the ability “Let readers use WordPress.com, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ accounts to comment”. It was causing an error about outside comment forms. Not sure why, maybe I’ll worry about it later.

Read: Mobile Theme Temporarily Disabled (Update) Back On »

Derp: Think Progress Links Shadow Banning And Such With “Net Neutrality”

It’s a big stretch here, guys, but, then, critical thinking is not a feature of those who typically read the material at Think Progress. Simple blind obedience is

RNC Chair complains about internet bias on Fox News after Republicans killed net neutrality

The chair of the Republican National Committee complained on Friday morning that conservatives are being censored by Silicon Valley, citing the debunked conspiracy theory that Twitter and other net platforms are intentionally targeting voices on the right. But even if the problem were real, her party has done everything in its power to make that sort of Internet censorship possible.

Debunked, eh? Well, Twitter kind admitted it was doing it, especially when they go and fix it.

Back in the Obama years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a 2015 regulatory policy called “net neutrality,” aimed at protecting an open Internet.  Under those rules, service providers were prohibited from throttling or blocking Internet sites. “We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,” then-President Barack Obama explained as his administration implemented the protections.

Blocking and throttling. Now, let’s wait for the liberal logic jump

McDaniel’s party was outraged. In their 2016 Republican National Committee platform, they vowed to repeal the protections and to allow companies to censor content as they saw fit. In an Orwellian “Protecting Internet Freedom” section of the platform, they wrote “The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government. The President ordered the chair of the supposedly independent Federal Communications Commission to impose upon the internet rules devised in the 1930s for the telephone monopoly.”

Net Neutrality would not stop any sort of shadow banning, banning, nor removal of content. It’s not what it was about. Realistically, had the Leftists on the FCC not over-reached and deemed the Internet a public utility like a 1930’s telephone monopoly, it might still be in effect. Had they taken a light touch, instead of putting in a massive Big Government solution, it would have been left alone.

“It’s important to our political dialogue that the thought police of Silicon Valley are not determining what voices get through on their social media platform,” she argued. Internet companies, she demanded, “have to address that they’re allowing free speech on their platforms and they are not suppressing conservative voices and opinions just because they don’t agree with them.”

Perhaps McDaniel might want to have a word with Trump’s FCC.

Yet, this thing was happening during the brief time Obama’s 2015 Net Neutrality was in effect. So, that means NN has no bearing on what Think Progress is screeching about. But, the point here was to create nebulous links for unthinking liberals to yammer about on social media platforms (and then run away with a “bye. Blocked” when they lose the argument because they have nothing more than vapid talking points.)

Read: Derp: Think Progress Links Shadow Banning And Such With “Net Neutrality” »

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