Leave It To The NY TImes To Go Barking Moonbat On Trump’s SOTU

I did not see the State of the Union address, as I got home very late from working with a client. I do see that he called for bipartisanship

President Trump appealed for unity in his first State of the Union speech, declaring a “new American moment” even as many glum Democrats in the audience sat on their hands and refused to acknowledge economic gains or calls to honor veterans.

While Trump held firm on his demands for border security and used the grand setting to tout his first-year accomplishments, his call for bipartisanship on the thorny immigration debate met with stonefaced stares from top Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Democrats mostly sat on their hands, refusing to stand for the man who escaped from North Korea, a boy who planted flags on veteran’s graves, for the National Anthem, economic successes for Blacks and Latinos, or anything else. There were even some boos. Remember when Democrats and their pet media castigated Joe Wilson for yelling “you lie”? (and he was correct). Anyhow, here’s the unhinged NY Times Editorial Board take, for which they softened the web version of the sub head from “the reaction against his authoritarian impulses, assault on truth and cruelties great and petty has revealed abiding American strengths” to “The reaction against his presidency has revealed abiding American strengths.”

What the President Doesn’t Get About the State of the Union

There’s a level at which — when you consider that the president of the United States has cozied up to a foreign power that tampered with an American election, has repeatedly assaulted the country’s courts and its law enforcement and intelligence agencies, has defended neo-Nazis, has cried “fake news” while provably lying, and has been revealed so credibly to have paid off a porn star that it made news when his own wife chose to attend his biggest speech of the year — it’s hard to believe that the state of the union is strong.

Remember when Obama was caught on hot mike telling Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev to tell Putin that he’d have more flexibility after the election? Remember when Obama blasted the Supreme Court during a SOTU when they were sitting in front of him? When he said the police “acted stupidly?” Perhaps the Times’ board members missed that Stormy Daniels denied the affair. Let’s continue the fun

Yet Mr. Trump was correct to take note of the continued strength of the American economic recovery. He was right to note that the unemployment rate has continued to drop, and that some big employers have been raising wages. That’s all good. It means that Mr. Trump has done nothing so far to derail the slow, steady recovery that began under Barack Obama nine years ago. If growth continues or accelerates under this president, he will eventually, like Mr. Obama and the Federal Reserve, deserve a lot of credit.

You have to know that if the economy was down, they’d be blaming Trump, not Obama. Since Trump took office, the economy has started roaring, where it was just meandering on during Obama’s years, the worst post-recession recovery since the Great Depression. The Times is so #resist that they can’t even give Trump a bit of credit.

Mr. Trump deserved to take a bow for the degradation of the Islamic State — again, a result of wise continuity with the policy of the previous administration — and for tightening sanctions on North Korea. That’s progress, much as we might wish he’d refrain from bragging about the size of his nuclear button.

That’s about as much of throwing a bone as they can offer, a backhanded compliment.

Mr. Trump can’t be blamed for all the country’s woes. Yet after a year in office, he can now fairly be held accountable, together with the feckless and cynical congressional leadership, for making many of them worse.

Interesting. During Obama’s first term, all bad things were the fault of George Bush. They then go on a five paragraph rant about everything they hate about Trump, too much too excerpt. It’s the kind of unhinged one would witness more at Salon or MSNBC, particularly Excitable Joe Scarborough or Mika, than one would expect from the editorial board of one of the world’s leading newspapers.

How, then, can we say with Donald Trump as president that the state of the union is strong? Here, Mr. Trump deserves much of the credit: So far, the reaction against his authoritarian impulses, assault on truth and cruelties great and petty has revealed abiding American strengths. Despite the strong economy, Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of this presidency. Most Americans say immigrants strengthen the country, according to the Pew Research Center. A profound national reckoning is underway over the status and treatment of women. Voters have streamed to the polls in off-year elections, defying suppression efforts even in Alabama to register their revulsion at Trumpian politics.

What, exactly, does that national reckoning have to do with Trump? The majority of those caught up in sexual harassment and worse have been Democratic Party voters in industries that tend to lean Democrat.

If not exactly “woke,” this country might certainly be described as awakening, with a shot at shedding the civic apathy that has afflicted it for far too long. It is with backhanded gratitude that we might all thank President Trump for that.

Read: Leave It To The NY TImes To Go Barking Moonbat On Trump’s SOTU »

Portland Warmists Look To Push A Sort-Of Carbon Tax On Other People

Isn’t interesting how members of the Cult of Climastrology always want to create a tax for Other People? That they always seem to exclude themselves…well, directly, of course, because these same taxes will end up hitting everyone negatively

(KOIN6)  A coalition led by environmental groups filed an initiative petition with the city of Portland on Jan. 18 to enact a sales tax on large retailers to fund projects that will decrease carbon emissions.

They call their measure the Portland Climate Action Community Benefits Initiative 2018 and are shooting for the November city ballot. The chief petitioner is Adriana Voss-Andreae, chairwoman of 350PDX, an affiliate of an international group working to avert dramatic climate change.

The measure aims to enact a new sales tax of 1 percent on retailers with more than $1 billion in gross revenues and more than $500,000 in Portland revenues. Retailers selling basic groceries, medicines and health care services are exempted.

Right there, it would see a lawsuit because it unfairly taxes certain businesses over others, but, regardless, it would drive those businesses out of Portland proper. For those who can’t, they’ll simply pass that 1% on to customers.

Of course, they’re going to play the redistribution game with Other People’s money

Money collected would be deposited into a Portland Climate Action Community Benefit Fund, which would be disbursed for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, with a particular focus on projects that benefit low-income people and communities of color.

Portland is totally diverse, you know. Just 6.6% of the population is Black. 6.8 is Hispanic/Latino. Do these Leftist Warmists think that all Blacks and Latinos are poor? Pretty racist attitude, wouldn’t you say?

Read: Portland Warmists Look To Push A Sort-Of Carbon Tax On Other People »

If All You See…

…is a world turning to desert from Other People using ice makers, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Newsbusters, with a post on the perverted show “The Alienist.”

Read: If All You See… »

Doom: ‘Climate Change’ Could Maybe Possibly Bring More Venomous Sea Snakes To California

Everybody Panic!!1!!!!

Could Climate Change Bring More Venomous Sea Snakes to California?

When an extreme El Niño weather pattern raised Pacific Ocean temperatures off the coast of Southern California three years ago, extremely venomous yellow-bellied sea snakes — a creature that had only been seen once before, in 1972 — washed up on three Southern California beaches.

The yellow-bellied sea snake (Hydrophis platurus), a descendant from Asian cobras and Australian tiger snakes, is the most widespread snake species in the world. These snakes spend their entire lives in the water – but normally in warm, tropical habitats.

There have been no additional sea snake sightings on California beaches until this year, and there’s no El Niño weather pattern this time around. On Jan. 11, someone walking along the sands of Newport Beach nearly tripped over a 2-foot-long female sea snake.

Due to climate change and rising ocean temperatures, “the species that respond to that change will be those that are the most mobile,” Greg Pauly, associate curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLA), told the Los Angeles Times. “So the big question now is this: Are sea snakes swimming off the coast of Southern California the new normal?”

Since this all about Science, well

It could very well be. On its website, the NHMLA says “the phrase ‘sea snake on a California beach’ may be the new ‘canary in a coal mine’ for climate change.”

This is how science works in Warmist World: something happens, and they immediately trot out Doomsaying without facts.

Read: Doom: ‘Climate Change’ Could Maybe Possibly Bring More Venomous Sea Snakes To California »

Illegal Alien Tells Congress It Must Reject Trump’s Immigration Plan

Newsweek gives Cristina Jiménez a platform to rail against Trump’s immigration plan. Who is she? Well, she’s an illegal alien, one who was brought by her parents from Ecuador when she was 13. She’s the co-founder of United We Dream, an advocacy group for other illegal aliens. She was given DACA status by Obama, an executive order that even Obama said was un-Constitutional. Now, she thinks she can demand that the U.S. government do things her way

CONGRESS MUST REJECT TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION PLAN —IT IS A CRUEL SOPHIE’S CHOICE

Every minute that has passed since Trump’s decision to kill Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, back in September, more immigrants living in this country have become vulnerable to deportation.

More than 16,000 young people have already lost their DACA status.

The Trump administration created the current crisis that Congress must now address.

Really? I’d say it’s the parents of the kids that created the crisis. According to Cristina’s bio, she knew she was illegal back when her parents brought her.

From day one, Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda has ripped families apart and his latest proposal, crafted by political advisor Stephen Miller, pits immigrant youth against our parents and our family members who want to reunite with us and build lives here.

In other words, they know they’re illegal, but they are demanding not only legalization, but the ability to bring all their family members to the U.S., as well as legalization for the parents who brought them illegally. People breaking the law usually only have demands in the movies, not real life.

It’s the definition of divisive. It’s a white supremacist ransom note, and we are ripping it up.

Let me be very clear on what I mean by that: Immigrant youth and our families will not be held hostage by Trump’s racist policies in this political moment.

Guess what, toots? It’s not your choice. You’re here, say it with me, illegally. In contradiction of federal law. You do not get to dictate the terms. And if you keep pushing, you might find that Trump and the GOP move on from dealing with DACA. Why should whiny, demanding people throwing around insults be rewarded? Would you reward a recalcitrant child? No.

How can we accept this Sophie’s choice? Trump is telling us that in order to be safe ourselves, we must watch our parents get deported and see our family members lose the opportunity to be reunited with us. It is cruel, it is wrong and all people of conscience must reject it.

This is where they want it both ways. First they say that they shouldn’t be punished for the sins of the parents, then they want their parents left off the hook. Cristina continues on with her inflammatory language for a while, finally getting to the heart of what she wants

Democrats and moderate Republicans of conscience have the power to pass the dream to get a Dream Act done as part of a federal spending package.

But it must be a clean Dream Act that protects immigrant youth and DACA beneficiaries without harming our families through increased immigration enforcement, deportations and exclusion of immigrants of color from the United States.

In other words, citizenship for Dreamers, and no risk of deportation for their parents who brought them illegally, nor for any aunts, uncles, cousins, that person they knew back in 3rd grade in El Salvador.

It really is this type of attitude that makes many immigration hard-liners like myself who are willing to make some accommodations to say “nope. Never mind. You illegals do not get to dictate the terms, and I don’t appreciate your demands at the same time you are insulting me. So, never mind. Let’s just deport you.”

Read: Illegal Alien Tells Congress It Must Reject Trump’s Immigration Plan »

House Intel Committee Votes To Release Surveillance Memo

This is either going to end with a thud, or it will create a huge issue. Republicans best be right about the memo being “explosive”

(Fox News) The House Intelligence Committee on Monday evening voted to release a classified memo circulating in Congress that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses.

The vote was announced to reporters by California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, who called it a “very sad day, I think, in the history of this committee.” The motion passed on a party-line basis, he said.

President Trump now has five days to decide whether he has any objections before the memo can be publicly released.

Last week, a top Justice Department official urged House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes not to release the memo, saying it would be “extraordinarily reckless” and could harm national security and ongoing investigations.

The four-page memo has being described by GOP lawmakers as “shocking,” “troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman likening the details to KGB activity in Russia.

Those who have seen the document suggest it reveals what role the unverified anti-Trump “dossier” played in the application for a surveillance warrant on at least one Trump associate.

Democrats, of course, are poo pooing the memo, but, then, they’ve been in Trump Derangement Syndrome since even before Trump won the election, and have just gotten worse since. What will the memo show? I guess we’ll wait and see. There are a lot of questions that need answering.

Read: House Intel Committee Votes To Release Surveillance Memo »

Democrats Super New Tax Idea: Charge Higher Taxes For Property Near Subway Stations

Do Democrats sit around all day thinking “what else can we tax?” Probably so

(NY Times) Ever since August Belmont Jr. arranged the financing for a four-track “underground railroad” more than a century ago, the subway has fueled New York City’s economy, delivering workers from homes in distant neighborhoods to jobs in Manhattan and enriching landlords and real estate developers near stations.

Today, with the subway in precipitous decline and the city enjoying an economic boom, some policymakers think the time has come for the subway to profit from the financial benefits it provides, including its considerable contribution to property values.

Proponents point to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where co-op and condominium prices in a 10-block stretch near the Second Avenue subway have risen 6 percent since it opened in January 2017, according to figures from the Corcoran Group, a large real estate firm. In Manhattan’s main business corridors, from 60th Street south, the benefit of being near a subway adds $3.85 per square foot to the value of commercial property, according to calculations by two New York University economists.

And because the Democratic run government has done a poor job of managing the money to keep the subway in good repair, they feel they need to tax tax tax

The notion that property owners should pay extra for their proximity to the subway is called “value capture” and has long been debated in urban planning circles. Now Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has made value capture a prominent part of his plan to salvage the subway system by proposing to give the Metropolitan Transportation Authority the power to designate “transit improvement subdistricts” and impose taxes.

Of course, the reality is that those taxes will get passed along, and will, in fact, hit the middle and lower class residents of NYC.

Here’s an idea: use the money already taken from citizens responsibly.

Read: Democrats Super New Tax Idea: Charge Higher Taxes For Property Near Subway Stations »

If All You See…

…is a world turning to desert from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Gay Patriot, with a post on ultra privileged multi-millionaires who live in gated communities….

Read: If All You See… »

Forget ‘Climate Change’, We Can Now Call It “Atmosphere Cancer”

Rather serendipitous, we had Excitable Juan Cole calling it carbon farting earlier, now we have this, via Watts Up With That? (graphic from same)

‘Call it atmosphere cancer’ – How the world’s best-known marketer would tackle global warming

Much of Seth Godin’s work – his famous blog; his books and TED talks – convey the following: No product or idea will spread just because of a brilliant technology or rock solid facts. In essence, people will respond to stories that stand out, which creates culture, changes behaviors, and leads to change.

This applies to the big societal changes too, Godin told Business Insider Nordic at the Nordic Business Forum in Oslo, when asked about the role of storytelling in solving societal problems, like climate change: “[Storytelling] is the only thing that’s going to solve it,” he said.

“Just look at what happened with gay marriage in the US in the last 10 years. It went from being safe and respectable to be against, to something that no one speaks up against anymore.”

“Did everybody change their mind? Of course not.”

“What changed was the culture, and the culture was changed because of the story,” Godin says. “People like us do things like this. That’s it, that’s all we got.”

Um, that’s because of the use of force: this was forced upon people by the courts, and many people dare not speak up lest they be charged with hate crimes, get fined and lose their business for not baking a cake, get fired from a job, etc.

The solution to global warming then, in Godin’s playbook, comes down to simple storytelling. Instead of “letting scientists poorly tell a story with lots of qualifiers in it”, Godin says, storytellers should craft a message that resonates on a personal level:

“For starters, global is a good thing and warming is a good thing. If [the scientists] had called it ‘Atmosphere Cancer’, they probably would have started on a better footing: because atmosphere is scientific and cancer is a bad thing. There are no cancer deniers. Everyone knows that cancer is a chronic and degenerative disease, and you need to stop it soon. ”

And Godin would like it to be unacceptable to dare to have the Wrongthink that climatic changes are mostly/solely caused by nature.

Read: Forget ‘Climate Change’, We Can Now Call It “Atmosphere Cancer” »

We Have To Stop Farting Carbon To Stop ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

This is brought to you by Excitable Juan Cole at the always nutty Truthout

In the Age of Big Climate Change, We Have to Stop Farting Carbon

This past year is what the era of Big Climate Change looks like. We are only at the beginning of the massive changes we are making to our environment by farting 41 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (a heat-trapping gas) into our atmosphere every year, but we can already see the shape of the future and it is alarming. (“Emissions” as a word is bland and means nothing to most people. Inform them that they are annually farting 18 tons of stuff into the atmosphere that you could light a match to, and maybe they will be a little embarrassed).

Despite the urgency of the crisis we have done almost nothing to reduce carbon farting on a global scale. In fact it increased 2% last year.

Got that? Carbon farting! It’s sure to catch on! Or not, because most guys will start snickering when you start talking about farts, and start telling stories about that one time when…..

Of course, Excitable Juan goes on to list all sorts of weather events that he just knows are now caused by Other People farting out carbon, till

US cable television news, which has big positions in fossil fuels stocks, reports on these calamities only episodically and desperately avoids linking them to carbon farting.

Really? MSNBC, CNN, the Weather Channel, etc, all take positions that this is the fault of Mankind.

The coming crisis can be challenging, severe or catastrophic. We have that choice. We can reduce it to only challenging by swinging into action. In a big way. Now. Coal needs to be outlawed ASAP, as French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to do by 2021, in only three years. (And no, the pledge isn’t meaningless and no the market doesn’t dictate everything; public policy is important). China’s industrial Hebei Province next to Beijing has cut coal use by 44 million tons since 2013 and is going to cut out another 5 million tons this year! The Chinese Communist Party is simply setting emissions standards for the factories, which they have to meet. Air quality in Beijing, which is very bad, is nevertheless a little better as a result. (I was there in 2015 and went out to see the Great Wall with my little Nikon camera and all I got were pictures of smog.)

So, um, how much carbon did Climahypocrite Juan Cole fart out on that trip? Because there’s zero possibility that he walked across the U.S. to a port where he then took a sailing ship across the Pacific.

A challenging amount of global heating will be difficult. You will like severe even less. The third level and possibility is catastrophic, which speaks for itself. It all depends on how much we fart.

Read: We Have To Stop Farting Carbon To Stop ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

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