Virgin Islands Attorney General Persecutes 90 Private Groups Over ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach May 4, 2016 – 7:18 am

Remember back a few weeks ago when I mentioned that the Virgin Islands Attorney General, part of a group of other Democrat/leftist AGs assaulting Exxon Mobile and attempting to criminalize Wrongthink on ‘climate change’, was going after the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It’s actually much, much worse, but, first, remember this

If you recall former Vice President and global warming guru Al Gore and 16 Attorneys General, calling themselves the “AGs United for Clean Power”, announced at a press conference last week that they will criminalize climate change denial by corporations. This is meant to squelch dissent and free speech.

Over to the Washington Free Beacon

The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is targeting dozens of conservative and libertarian organizations in a racketeering lawsuit against climate change skeptics that has been widely described as an effort to silence political opponents.

In a subpoena issued in March, the office of USVI attorney general Claude Walker demanded from Exxon Mobil copies of communications between the oil company and 90 different political and policy organizations “and any other organizations engaged in research or advocacy concerning Climate Change or policies.”

The subpoena was part of a national, coordinated legal campaign by state attorneys general and left-wing advocacy groups to use the legal system against companies and organizations that disagree with and advocate against Democratic policies to address global climate change.

The existence of the subpoena was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in April. A newly released copy obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveals the names of the organizations targeted in the effort, which had previously been redacted.

All this is an attempt to chill free speech, to persecute freedom of thought and association. It is the logical extension of the ‘climate change’ movement, though, which has long advocated prosecuting climate skeptics. That thought has become more mainstream amongst members of the Cult of Climastrology. I, along with a few other Skeptics, have been telling people for a long, long time that this whole thing was about Leftist politics, not science. It’s about Fascism/authoritarianism. It’s great to rebut the Warmists with fact filled science, but, never forgot, discount, marginalize, or minimize that this is all about political power, increased government, and controlling people and the private sector.

 

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After Indiana Win, Trump Is The GOP Presidential Nominee

By William Teach May 4, 2016 – 6:46 am

Donal Trump won the Indiana primary easily, and Ted Cruz ended his campaign, seeing no path forward, and not wanting to play the contested convention route, saying it would be bad for the party. So, what now? Here’s Josh Barro

Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president, and this alarms ideological conservatives for several reasons:

1. They think he will lose badly to Hillary Clinton, perhaps so badly that Republicans lose control of both houses of Congress.

2. They are afraid that he will damage the brand of the Republican Party, making it harder to win future elections.

3. They believe that he lacks the temperament and character to serve as president.

These are all good reasons to be alarmed, but there is also a fourth reason for alarm that is perhaps the most alarming of all for conservatives: His nomination could signal the death of orthodox conservatism as one of the two main forces in American public policy, since he is running away with the nomination despite being exposed as a nonconservative.

It’s not just that he is a non-conservative: he is moderate Republican at best, one who holds many Democratic Party positions, and many of those are the ones held by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren.

Trump has somehow found a way to throw away the ideologically extreme ideas that orthodox conservatives cared about while actually making the party less popular. His nomination is a recipe for conservatives to sell out and lose anyway.

I’ve asked a simple question numerous times: when does Trump talk about the Constitution? What is his position on the Constitution? You really do not find him discussing it much. One of his biggest comments on it had him saying that it was “set in stone“, then explaining how to work deals around it.

Trump has his good points, and he has his bad points. Who will Donald J. Trump be going forward? Will he be the guy who made a name for himself and took charge of the primary season by refusing to back down, and attacking back twice as hard? Or, will he moderate and go soft? The general election starts for Trump today. John Kasich is a non-factor. Which Trump will we see?

Will he attempt to reach out to the Cruz supporters, and supporters of the other primary season candidates? Will he attempt to heal the wounds of a nasty primary season? Will he attempt to offer an olive branch to the #NeverTrump folks? Or will he continue to attack Republicans, the people he pro-ports to represent? Will he have his supporters work to heal the wounds?

Victor Davis Hanson makes an interesting observation regarding the Trump supporters (via Maggie’s Farm)

Trump supporters are tired of hearing that black lives matter, while no one mentions that all lives matter. They are sick of seeing protestors wave the flag of the country they do not wish illegal aliens to be sent back to and trash the country they under no circumstances want them to leave. They don’t like getting a letter from an IRS that employs Lois Lerner — a letter that would be ignored with impunity by those who are here illegally, or who run the Clinton Foundation. They are tired of wealthy minorities claiming they are perpetual victims of ill-treatment at the hands of people who are less well off than they. They don’t like hearing from elites that huge trade deficits have little to do with loss of jobs or that cheating by our trade partners is just a passing glitch in free trade. They cannot stand lectures from those who make more money in an hour than they do in a year about their own bad habits or slothfulness.

They don’t know what the on-screen savants mean by a leg-tingle or a perfectly pressed pant leg or a first-class temperament or a president as god — and they don’t care to find out. They do not hate political correctness so much as one-sided political correctness, which gives a pass to some to say things that would get others fired or ruined. They don’t want to be lectured that their own plight is part of a larger, healthy creative destruction or a leaner, meaner competitiveness or an overdue restructuring — by those who are never destroyed, rendered noncompetitive, or restructured. And they don’t like to be talked down to by the experts who ran up $10 trillion in debt, ruined the health-care system, dismantled the military, and screwed up the Secret Service, the IRS, NASA, and the VA. Trump is their megaphone, not their solution. The Trump supporters have seen plenty of politicians with important agendas, but few with the zeal to push them through; at this late date, they would apparently prefer zeal without agendas to agendas without zeal.

Can a megaphone win? Can he lead? If Trump wins, and does the Leftist things we Conservatives said he would, who will take responsibility for this?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Good News! Solar Plane Takes Just 16 Hours To Fly From San Francisco To Phoenix!

By William Teach May 3, 2016 – 5:56 pm

It’s a triumph of Cult of Climastrology science!

(Reuters)  A solar-powered airplane midway through a historic bid to circle the globe completed the 10th leg of its journey on Monday, landing in Arizona after a 16-hour flight from California, the project team said.

The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015.

The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived in Phoenix shortly before 9 p.m., following a flight from San Francisco that took it over the Mojave Desert.

The flight would have taken a conventional airplane just two hours, but the solar craft’s cruising speed, akin to that of a car, required pilots to take up meditation and hypnosis in training to stay alert for long periods.

It was totally historic! Hooray! Wait, what’s that you say? A very, very slow car?

Yeah, you could drive it in less time. Even with a few food and potty breaks, it would still take you less time. But, hey, I guess it beats walking (252 hours) or biking (67 hours). Google Maps doesn’t say how long covered wagon takes.

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

If All You See…

By William Teach May 3, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…are a bunch of climate evil canines causing desertification, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Gay Patriot, with a post on how SJWs think free speech works.

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Trump Flogs Conspiracy Theory About Ted Cruz’s Father And Lee Harvey Oswald

By William Teach May 3, 2016 – 10:19 am

For those of you who are Trump supporters, is this the kind of thing you approve of, especially when used against a fellow Republican, not too mention someone who stands for Constitutional principles?

(Politico) Donald Trump on Tuesday alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.

A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was “another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage.”

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during a phone interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

It’s this kind of nuttbaggery that helps turn people into #NeverTrump. It’s this kind of bat guano insane that will further drive people to saying “well, I was going to put a gasmask on and fill in his name as a vote against Hillary, but, I just can’t do it.”

Even leftist Talking Points Memo thought this was insane, as did sorta left leaning Mediate, which notes

“Crazy!” said Brian Kilmeade cluelessly before moving on, while Trump was unchallenged by any of the show’s hosts on the bonkers claim.

It’s this kind of Trump support that is causing many Conservatives to turn the channel from Fox News. I tend to watch Morning Joe now, or News 14, rather than dealing with 24/7 Trump and all the fluff.

Anyhow, it’s interesting, in a despicable way, how Trump has more venom for Republicans, Conservatives, Constitutionalists, and Libertarians than he does for Hillary, Democrats, Liberals, Socialists, and Progressives.

More: Allahpundit makes an interesting observation

That’s not the worst thing he says, though. Watch his reaction to Rafael Cruz talking about how voting for Ted is voting according to the word of God. Trump: “I think it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to say it.” That he’s allowed to say it? The only thing worse than a crank is a crank with a censorship streak.

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Slate: You People Really Need To Stop Focusing On This Wonderful Weather! Because Doom!

By William Teach May 3, 2016 – 7:27 am

Slate continues its trek towards Bat Guano Crazy, and is really upset over that study, which I’ve mentioned, about people really enjoying the wonderful weather created during the current warm period. Warmists like to blame it mostly/solely on the activities of Mankind (thought most refuse to give up their own outsized carbon footprints), Skeptics say it is mostly/solely caused by nature. Just like the previous Holocene warm periods.

It Doesn’t Matter If You Think It’s Nice Out
Our understanding of global climate change needs to move beyond our personal experiences of weather.

It’s raining in Washington, D.C., as I write this, drops tapping out a steady beat that recalls the rhythms of my Oregon childhood. There’s something familiar about this weather, whatever its imperfections. Meanwhile, 1,100 miles to the southwest, a storm system threatens Dallas with tornadoes and massive hailstones. And in Maine, record April snowfalls blanketed the region just days ago. From my desk, though, these anomalies seem impossibly distant—problems that I might read about later but certainly won’t experience.

I am not alone in my easy ignorance. Research published recently in the journal Nature proposes that 40 years of seemingly pleasant weather may be blinding many Americans to the realities of global climate change. Explaining their work in the New York Times, the two researchers, Patrick J. Egan and Megan Mullin, write, “80 percent of Americans now find themselves living in counties where the weather is more pleasant than it was four decades ago.” For most of us, the winters are milder, while the summers remain temperate. Happy with the way things are, Egan and Mullin propose, we have little reason to consider that the clement weather we experience today may evolve into a harsher climate down the road.

So, don’t fall for this great weather! Because great weather is bad! And we’ll be doooooooomed soon! Our computer models, the ones that failed to actually predict the last 18+ years of the Pause, tell us so!

Cult of Climastrology member and article writer Josh Brogan wants you to forget all about how you feel, though

It may, however, be that weather—mild or extreme—has never been the right lens through which to consider climate change at all.

Trenberth is right, of course, that for many, the weather only truly registers when it is unavoidably bad, but even then it does not seem to persuade us to do something about it. There’s likely more at play here than the assumption of selfishness that underlies Egan and Mullin’s work: Weather is inherently confined by the local and immediate conditions of space and time, a question of what we perceive rather than what is. To talk about the weather is to talk about about where we are, what we’re feeling and experiencing, and not about the world that exists beyond our narrowly bounded horizons. In the same way that climate is long-term and weather is short-term, climate change is a global development, while weather names a more local and personal set of experiences. In that sense, focusing on it may actually blind us to the larger stakes.

Essentially, through the rest of the bloviating article, he wants us to think globally. OK. The rest of the world is tending to have great weather, too. No one is doomed from a minuscule 1.4 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperatures since 1850. The earth was not doomed when the temperatures were higher during previous Holocene warm periods. Warmists are welcome to go for it, though, and consider that their own use of fossil fuels and their large carbon footprints are killing Gaia, per their talking points. If they really believe this, they will act accordingly within their own lives. Why won’t they?

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Poll: Trump Beats Hillary 41 To 39

By William Teach May 3, 2016 – 6:55 am

Well, now, this is interesting

(Rasmussen)  Last week, Rasmussen Reports gave voters the option of staying home on Election Day if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the big party nominees, and six percent (6%) said that’s what they intend to do for now. Clinton and Trump were tied with 38% support each; 16% said they would vote for some other candidate, and two percent (2%) were undecided.

But Trump edges slightly ahead if the stay-at-home option is removed. Trump also now does twice as well among Democrats as Clinton does among Republicans.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Trump with 41% support to Clinton’s 39%. Fifteen percent (15%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Here’s where it gets really interesting

Trump now has the support of 73% of Republicans, while 77% of Democrats back Clinton. But Trump picks up 15% of Democrats, while just eight percent (8%) of GOP voters prefer Clinton, given this matchup. Republicans are twice as likely to prefer another candidate.

There are quite a few ways to read that, one of which is that Trump’s message appeals to Democrats, because quite a bit of Trump’s message is the same as the Democrat’s message. I suspect these are more of the squishy Democrats, though.

Trump beats Hillary with men, while Hillary wins in similar fashion with women. Hillary has a small lead among those under 40, usually a reliable Dem voting block. 25% would prefer someone else. Hillary kills it among Blacks, but Trump leads 48-33 among Whites. Remember, Blacks account for less than 14% of the population.

This all said, national polls are cool, but it will be the state polls that matter. If Trump wants to win, he will have to take enough states to win the Electoral College. He will most likely not be able to count on some of the Northern states he did really well in. What’s the chance he can win in places like Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, and his home state of New York? Nor can he count on the liberal left-coast states.

If Trump wins Indiana tonight, it is pretty much over for Ted Cruz. If that happens, here’s my message: you don’t have to like Trump, but politics often pits a bad choice against a worse choice. A President Trump would be much better than a President Hillary. The GOP still needs to retain the House (little chance of losing it) and the Senate (there’s a chance of losing it if Hillary wins). With a Republican (or, should that be “Republican”?) in the White House, the Party might be able to get some things done, such as repealing and replacing Obamacare. Wait any longer, and it will be impossible.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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‘Climate Change’ Could Cause Sick Building Syndrome Or Something

By William Teach May 2, 2016 – 6:17 pm

For anyone who works in an office building, you’re utterly doomed. Why? Because someone needs funding, and other people want to control your behavior and tax you to death

How Climate Change Could Make Office Work Even Unhealthier
“Sick building syndrome” and other indoor concerns could be exacerbated by climate change

As the world heats up around us, many people take solace in the idea that their indoor lives may not be affected much by climate change.

But a number of experts say that hotter outdoor temperatures and extreme weather events like drought or storms may cause unhealthier conditions and less productivity in offices, schools and other buildings. (snip)

As early as the 1980s, office workers were complaining to their doctors about recurring symptoms like headaches, rashes or dry eyes.

Doctors eventually wrapped all these issues into the umbrella term of sick-building syndrome. “It was a fairly large hodgepodge of symptoms,” Bernstein says. But the syndrome isn’t well understood, and could have a number of different causes like background noise or the build-up of CO2, cleaning chemicals and mold.

“It’s become increasingly important to understand in detail what these causes may be,” Bernstein says.

Rising property costs and energy efficiency are two possible causes, prompting tighter buildings and the design of sealed structures more resistant to the elements. The latter saves landlords money on heating or air-conditioning, but sealed environments are also a two-edged sword, because they recirculate harmful chemicals among workers.

Climate change may be exacerbating the moisture the older buildings absorb. Bernstein says that cities like Boston are seeing more intense storms. The moisture can add up in older buildings without adequate drainage systems, causing mold.

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Adorable Little Anchor Babies Scream Vulgar Words Towards Trump

By William Teach May 2, 2016 – 1:45 pm

There’s no better way to gain acceptance than this

(Daily Caller)  Trump supporters arriving at an Indiana rally Sunday were greeted by protestors cursing and screaming, many of whom were children.

“Fucking asshole! Go fuck yourself,” a young boy yelled in Spanish as a truck passed by. The passengers were holding a sign that read “Veterans for Trump.”

The boy was holding a Bernie Sanders for president sign and had a Bernie pin on his shirt.

Of course, they learn this from their parents, who are probably in the country illegally. I wonder if they realize that Trump’s illegal immigration plan includes touchback amnesty after a wall is built? Hey, why would they, a goodly chunk of Trump supporters do not realize Trump is also in favor of amnesty.

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 2, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a mountain that probably used to be covered by glaciers before fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on why Fox News has become unwatchable.

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