If All You See…

By William Teach April 6, 2016 – 1:00 pm

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

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on “regret equals rape”.

Cubs have a 66% chance, per the Vegas lines, of making the playoffs.

Read: If All You See… »

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$15 Minimum Wage Is A Bad Idea, Says Washington Post Editorial Board

By William Teach April 6, 2016 – 7:18 am

A little bit of common sense from the Washington Post Editorial Board, though, one gets the idea that they might be a wee bit upset that this might affect their own operations soon

$15 is the wrong goal for minimum-wage advocates

GOVERNORS OF the nation’s most and fourth-most populous states, California and New York, respectively, have signed a$15-per-hour minimum wage into law. In the District, a judge has just ruled that proponents can try to get a $15 minimum on the ballot in November; Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) supports accomplishing the $15 goal legislatively. What the success of the $15 minimum wage movement shows, in part, is that politics abhors a vacuum. In the absence of action by the Republican-controlled Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, states and cities encompassing about 65 percent of the U.S. population have decided to enact higher minimums, though usually less than $15. Maybe the GOP should have taken President Obama up on his request for a $9 minimum when he offered it back in his 2013 State of the Union address.

Perhaps Obama should have offered an actual plan, rather than a sticky note/box checking bit of a fluff. Furthermore, let’s remember that it was the GOP who raised the minimum wage the last time, as they slipped it into a defense spending bill that virtually every Democrat voted against.

Another lesson, however, is that, when it comes to public policy, popular and wise are not necessarily the same. Stuck on $7.25 per hour since 2009, the federal minimum is due for an increase, especially in light of stagnant wages and income inequality. The magnitude of that increase, however, is a matter for caution, given the widely varying labor-market conditions across the country and the likelihood that sharp mandatory wage hikes would reduce the supply of jobs. Also, the minimum wage is not an especially well-targeted way to help the working poor, because — unlike the earned-income tax credit wage subsidy — it benefit.

It’s simple economics: if you artificially raise the cost of labor, in many cases it will be a 50% to over 100% increase, businesses will have to cut back on the workers or raise costs. Which do you think business owners will choose, especially when it regards low-skilled or un-skilled labor? Sure, the worker might have skills, but they aren’t necessary for the jobs. Of course, proponents of the increase will say that the company should just have lower profits. But, the proponents did not put their lives on the line in opening the business. They aren’t the ones working long hours, and responsible for paying the loans, nor responsible for the operations. The owners could lose it all in a heartbeat.

Even phased in over a few years, $15 would represent a major departure, about which existing economic research offers little solid guidance. This might be why Alan B. Krueger, the minimum-wage expert who formerly headed Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has written: “A minimum wage set as high as $12 an hour will do more good than harm for low-wage workers, but a $15-an-hour national minimum wage would put us in uncharted waters, and risk undesirable and unintended consequences.” The obvious risks — borne disproportionately by the very-low-income workers whom minimums are meant to help — are apparent even to advocates of the $15 minimum, as the many loopholes and caveats built into the California and New York increases implicitly demonstrate.

Businesses that can move will move. Low wage workers will be let go. Those who were out blowing off work to protest against their own businesses will surely be the first let go, and said businesses will surely look for cause in order to avoid unemployment payments. Many will be replaced with automation. Others will outsource. Part time positions will disappear. We already see this in Seattle, where the unemployment rate has spiked, yet, in the surrounding areas without the minimum wage raise have seen jobs increase.

There’s an old saying about being careful what you wish for, because you might get it. It’s not a positive saying. There will be quite a few people taking one for the team to make this wage happen.

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Cruz Wins Big In Wisconsin, Trump Takes It As You’d Expect

By William Teach April 6, 2016 – 6:33 am

In Wisconsin, Cruz took 48.3% of the vote to Trump’s 35.1%, with 99% reporting. This made The Donald very upset, and had him reacting in exactly the way that has turned many off, even pushing them into the #NeverTrump camp (I’m not one of them, I’ll still put on a gas mask and vote for him, at least at this time, in the general, because he’s still better than anything the Democrats can put up) with this statement

Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again. Lyin’ Ted Cruz had the Governor of Wisconsin, many conservative talk radio show hosts, and the entire party apparatus behind him. Not only was he propelled by the anti-Trump Super PAC’s spending countless millions of dollars on false advertising against Mr. Trump, but he was coordinating `with his own Super PAC’s (which is illegal) who totally control him. Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet— he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump. We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee, in order to Make America Great Again.

That’s a statement from not a sore loser, but  Sore Loser, and the statement isn’t just attacking Ted Cruz, he’s attacking those Republican/Conservative voters who prefer the message of Ted Cruz over Donald Trump. Trump accuses Cruz and others of illegal activity without a shred of proof. Team Cruz responded

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/717552272377520128

Thing is, Trump didn’t spend all that much time in Wisconsin. He didn’t get out there and shake hands, woo people, work the voters all across the state. Cruz did. No precinct was too small for Ted to hit. Because that’s what people do during elections. Trump shows up and expects people to comply.

Erik Erickson, who post the Trump comment, notes

Trump is classy you guys. Except when he’s not. Which is all the time. But if you think he’s a sore loser, go check out the special group of rabid, frothy-mouthed lunatic fringe fans he has on Twitter. Not the normals. The special ones. It’s a spectacle.

No, not all are like that, and I’d suspect that the majority aren’t like that. What we tend to see is those who are more vocal. Breitbart gets a bit snippy

10:00: Cruz also says that instead of negotiating with terrorists, he will rip to shreds the Iranian deal.

[Cruz is basically giving his stump speech and hardly adding anything new for such an important “turning point” speech.]

And the Trumpites had little meltdowns in the comments

  • I smell rats…. Watching the count at 2%, already a winning projection was made to Cruz? And it kept 20% to 21% apart. Could someone explain to me how it’s possible, without blocking the other candidate’s votes?
  • There were reports at polling stations, that when a vote was cast for Trump, the machine would spit the ballot out of the machine
  • I use to work for a company in Wisconsin and the people up there are kinda weird. No wonder Bernie and Cruz won.
  • Land of liberals.. well known for it..
  • The illegal Canadian migrant has sold his useless soul to the devil, the GOPe.

Just a sampling, and, of course, there are a bunch going with the utterly fake Ted Cruz sex story, plus Cruz birtherism. I’m not even going to go into the insanity of some Trumpites within my Twitter feed.

Trump is doing a great job in dividing the GOP. He doesn’t seem to understand that one shouldn’t go all in in attacking the people people that you need to come out and vote for you in the general election if you win the primaries.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 5, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil bat made from cutting down a carbon pollution sucking tree which causes desertification, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Blazing Cat Fur, with a post on the Obama admin telling landlords they have to rent to hardcore criminals.

My Dodgers started off the season with a 15-0 thrashing of the Padres, the “worst opening day shutout in MLB history“.

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A Carbon Tax Is A Conservative Answer To ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach April 5, 2016 – 12:04 pm

Here we go again, with a Warmist espousing that carbon taxes are totes Conservative, this time, Bob Inglas, who was a Republican congressman from South Carolina from 1993-99 and 2005-11

Column: A carbon tax is a conservative answer to climate change

When 21 Florida mayors from Miami to Tampa and St. Petersburg beseeched debate moderators to make the presidential candidates talk about climate change, I was cheering for my favorite question: “Can free enterprise solve it?”

And, by free enterprise, he means “government dictates” and taxes.

Too often the question is, “Do you believe in climate change?” What’s there to believe? Climate change is just data. The question is what to do about the data. The question is whether we can rise to full citizenship, full humanity. The question is whether we can own up to full accountability.

I believe in that kind of accountability. I believe that we are the stewards of creation and that accountability brings blessings. I believe that accountability drives the free enterprise system to deliver innovation.

First, Bob, you have to prove that it is caused mostly/solely by the actions of Humanity. Second, government dictates are not part of free enterprise

The mayors’ open letter got right to the heart of the leadership required. They asked what investments candidates will make to protect coastal assets and coastal economies from the growing impacts of sea level rise and climate change; what specific policies they would put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and what policies they would advance to ensure that America delivers on its international commitments.

That’s not free enterprise, that’s a dictatorial government making demands.

Our atmosphere is the dump for emissions. If we allow people to dump there without paying for the harm their dumping causes, they’ll dump freely. If we make them accountable for the harm their dumping causes, they’ll clean up their smokestacks or lose out to a clean energy competitor who has a smaller smokestack or no smokestack at all.

A carbon tax is a tipping fee for the atmosphere. At republicEn.org we don’t want just any kind of carbon tax, though. We want a carbon tax that’s paired with a dollar-for-dollar cut in existing taxes on income, so there is no growth of government. And we want the carbon tax applied to imports so that our trading partners have every incentive to join us in stopping the free dumping into the atmosphere.

Please explain how government instituting a tax is in any way related to the free market instituting a free market solution.

Of course, since he now directs republicEn, “a group of free enterprise believers committed to action on climate change”, he seems to be super thrilled with any government action that will increase the cash value of the company. Government action is not free enterprise.

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Seven Lingering Questions On Hillary’s Email Problem

By William Teach April 5, 2016 – 8:26 am

The Hill’s Julien Hattem gives it the old college try in identifying 7 key questions that need to be resolved in the Hillary email scandal, and almost gets it right on what is not known publicly yet. Julien starts out noting that we do not know when the investigation will end. Hillary and her aides are up for interview by the FBI, which is typically been one of the last parts of an investigation. We then move to

What law(s) might have been broken?

Top officials at the FBI and Justice Department have refused to discuss what charges — if any — might result from the investigation.

Speculation about the charges has centered on federal statutes prohibiting against removing federal documents, especially 18 U.S.C. § 2071. A portion of that law bars officials from “willfully and unlawfully” concealing, removing or destroying federal records.

Other laws identified by the watchdog group Cause of Action include prohibitions against removing defense-related information “from its proper place of custody” and against removing classified information to keep “at an unauthorized location.”

Critics also say Clinton or her top aides may have violated internal State Department procedures about handling classified information.

It’s not critics, it’s law that says it. We also have to note that charges of obstruction of justice are also in play for the removal of roughly half the emails from the server which she owns, along with not turning it over to the FBI in a timely manner. Furthermore, just using an unsecured, unapproved email account to disseminate the material is in violation of national security laws.

Next up is who is in the crosshairs. That would be Clinton and her staff. But, the article breaks down a bit here

Perhaps the biggest question for the bureau is whether there was the intent to “willfully” remove government documents, or whether Clinton’s situation was merely an oversight, as she has claimed.

None of the thousands of emails that Clinton handed over to the State Department were marked as classified, the government has said, but classified information can appear in unmarked emails as well.

Upon entering office, Clinton signed a nondisclosure agreement vowing to protect classified information, whether it is “marked or unmarked.”

It matters zero whether they were marked classified. Nor does the question of “willfully” or oversight matter. The matter was disseminated via an unapproved, unsecure server in contradiction to the law. The 3rd paragraph contradicts the first. The intent is immaterial. Especially when there are thousands of emails containing classified material, many of which would cause trouble for Hillary and her staff if they had been using the State Dept email server, because they should never have been put in any email transmission to start.

The final three are

  • How much will the FBI say? This is in regards to what the FBI might release on the case regardless of whether it goes forward or the DOJ spikes it.
  • Was the server secure? Hillary and company won’t say. The Intelligence community is pretty sure it was hacked, at least in transmission.
  • Will Clinton’s other 30,000 emails ever see the light of day? In other words, how many of the deleted emails were recoverable by the FBI, which could potentially cause Hillary a lot of problems if they weren’t “personal in nature”.

The two biggest questions not directly asked are whether the FBI will look at the statutes and refer this to the DOJ, and citizens have been prosecuted for much less, and whether the DOJ will spike the asked for indictment. We will surely soon see. The very fact is that if this was a lower level government employee, they’d already be under indictment, and would most likely have already been prosecuted and serving time.

Read: Seven Lingering Questions On Hillary’s Email Problem »

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NY Times Is Very Upset That Border Patrol Endorsed Trump

By William Teach April 5, 2016 – 7:56 am

Donald Trump can be slammed for many things, including switching of past policy positions. One thing he can’t be slammed for is his opposition to illegal immigration, with some policy statements going back to 1999 and 2000, such as

America is experiencing serious social and economic difficulty with illegal immigrants who are flooding across our borders. We simply can’t absorb them. It is a scandal when America cannot control its own borders. A liberal policy of immigration may seem to reflect confidence and generosity. But our current laxness toward illegal immigration shows a recklessness and disregard for those who live here legally.

The majority of legal immigrants can often make significant contributions to our society because they have special skills and because they add to our nation’s cultural diversity. They come with the best of intentions. But legal immigrants do not and should not enter easily. It’s a long, costly, draining, and often frustrating experience-by design. I say to legal immigrants: Welcome and good luck.

It comes down to this: we must take care of our own people first. Our policy to people born elsewhere should be clear: Enter by the law, or leave.

That’s from Trump’s book The America We Deserve. One of his major schticks for his whole campaign, and what vaulted him to frontrunner status, was his stance on illegal immigration and controlling the border. He’s been extremely vocal on the issue, so, is it any wonder that the Border Patrol endorsed him? This has made the NY Times Editorial Board very upset

The Border Patrol’s Bizarre Choice

Turn away, for a moment, from the generalized idiocy of the presidential campaign to consider a specific instance of monumental dimness. It happened Wednesday.

The National Border Patrol Council, which says it represents 16,500 border agents, endorsed Donald Trump. It says it has never endorsed a presidential candidate in a primary before, but these are dire times.

“There is no greater physical or economic threat to Americans today than our open border,” says the endorsement, signed by the council’s president, Brandon Judd. The union “asks the American people to support Mr. Trump in his mission to finally secure the border of the United States of America, before it is too late.”

Well, that seems a pretty good rationale for endorsing Trump, does it not? It’s an organization tasked with, get this, protecting the borders of the United States against invaders. You can feel the sneers at the next line from the NYTEB

Too late for what? The collapse of America, apparently, from the “gangs, cartels and violent criminals preying on the innocent.”

They find that this is absurd. Because, apparently, every one of the illegals are just good people. None of them ever doing anything like rape, murder, steal, take people’s identities and ruin their lives and credit. They would never do something like kill a citizen while street racing, right?

The vast proportion of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants who are already living here are not criminals, don’t think or behave like criminals, and deserve a chance to stay, as immigrants have always done.

No, they don’t, they came here illegally, and quite a few of them make no attempt assimilate, speak our language, or show their love and respect of this country.

Mr. Trump’s immigration views are driven by defiant ignorance. That they should be embraced by a union whose taxpayer-paid members are the face of the immigration policies of the United States is appalling.

Suddenly, the NYTEB is upset that a public sector union is allowed to have an opinion. They seemed cool when the teacher’s unions were storming the Wisconsin statehouse, trashing the place, leaving human wasted, damaging it, and interfering with government business, while bring the kids who should be in school getting an education along on unapproved field trips.

If union leaders had their members’ interests in mind, they would not be aligning with vigilantes and nativists, birthers and borderline lunatics. They would know better than to view all unauthorized migrants as a class of hardened criminals, and they would treat as a delusion Mr. Trump’s plan to deport 11 million people in two years and to let “the good ones” back in.

They are tasked with treating them all like illegal invaders, people who should not be in this country illegally. Does the NY Times not have security guards, tasked with making sure unauthorized people are not in the NY Times’ building? Would the NY Times allow unauthorized people to simply set up shop and live in their building?

That is the fantasy claptrap that feeds the thinking that dehumanizes migrants, that tolerates reckless violence by border agents, like the shooting of an unarmed child, in the back, through the fence, into Nogales, Mexico — one disturbing episode among many. It reveals an attitude that condones abuse and cruelty toward those in custody and justifies the profiling and harassment of drivers on the highway. And that perspective, not surprisingly, finds common cause with Mr. Trump.

Again, I bet the Times would be very upset if these “migrants” decided to live in the lobby of the NY Times building, and would have security remove them and most likely have them arrested for trespassing. Note that there is no mention of these “migrants” throwing rocks at the BP, nor shooting at them. No mention of BP agents being killed by illegals, nor of illegals killing American citizens. Nor that many of them are repeat offenders, having been deported many times, yet keep coming in because the border is not secure. Did the Times think they would actually endorse an open borders idiot like Hillary or Bernie?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Man With Largest Footprint In The World Tells Us What Climate Change Means For Families

By William Teach April 4, 2016 – 5:08 pm

If human caused climate change is so bad, why does Obama and his family contribute so much carbon pollution?

FACT SHEET: What Climate Change Means for Your Health and Family

Today, delivering on another commitment in the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Obama Administration released a new final report called The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment, which significantly advances what we know about the impacts of climate change on public health, and the confidence with which we know it.

Know what? I’m not going to bore you with the details, you’re welcome to hit the link. Suffice to say, it paints the typical picture of doom and gloom, extreme weather, women, children, the elderly are hosed, more airborne viruses, etc and so on, you’ve seen it all before, the same claptrap that never seems to materialize no matter how much Warmists wish it.

And yet, for all their surety of the future doom, people like Obama and all the “experts” (meaning like minded professional alarmists) not only refuse to reduce their carbon footprints and use of fossil fuels, they use even more than the typical American. Shows how much they really believe in said doom.

Read: Man With Largest Footprint In The World Tells Us What Climate Change Means For Families »

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 4, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a life preserver needed for when the seas suddenly rise up to swamp all the coastal cities, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bluebird Of Bitterness, with a post on reintroducing normal, well adjusted people back into society.

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TG People Are Totally Winning Against The Stereotype Of “Ick Factor” Or Something

By William Teach April 4, 2016 – 11:20 am

This is the kind if thing leftist wackjobs learn while getting themselves a $100,000 in debt while attending special snowflake colleges

Passing Privilege, the Gender Binary, and the Productive Power of Stereotypes

I’m not even going to attempt to delve into the passing privilege idiocy. Then we have gender binary, where nutjobs think that there being two sexes is completely unscientific, because man and woman is a social construct.

Those efforts for gay rights did pave the way for Americans, once they had gotten over their gay “ick” factor, to being to deal with the trans community. The trans “ick” factor still exists, primarily in the Old Confederacy but still nationwide as well, as manifested recently in South Dakota, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, and will take even more time to overcome. As I’ve said, these bills are a rear-guard action being taken against us because we are winning. But in our victory blindness, as Michaelangelo Signorile calls it, from marriage equality — which covered all members of the gay and trans community, as I described earlier — we have not been prepared for the ferocity of the onslaught. Adding genderqueer visibly into the mix, or, more specifically, failing to promote actual trans persons because so doing minimizes the lives of genderqueer persons, is not only short-sighted but potentially very damaging.

It’s like we’re speaking a different form of English from these Leftards. But, hey, they’re totally winning and stuff, despite all polls showing that normal people do not want gender confused people in their bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers, especially when it comes to their children.

The one with the penis. That one should definitely not be allowed in. Of course, the wackjobs think that gender is simply a social construct which can be fluid and redefined whenever someone wants.

Read: TG People Are Totally Winning Against The Stereotype Of “Ick Factor” Or Something »

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