Houston Voters Say No To Houston LGBT Ordinance

By William Teach November 4, 2015 – 7:26 am

A win for common sense and rationality

(NY Times) A yearlong battle over gay and transgender rights that turned into a costly, ugly war of words between this city’s lesbian mayor and social conservatives ended Tuesday as voters repealed an anti-discrimination ordinance that had attracted attention from the White House, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities.

The City Council passed the measure in May, but it was in limbo after opponents succeeded, following a lengthy court fight, in putting the matter to a referendum.

The Times seems a bit upset that citizens would be allowed to vote on this.

Supporters said the ordinance was similar to those approved in 200 other cities and prohibited bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents said the measure would allow men claiming to be women to enter women’s bathrooms and inflict harm, and that simple message — “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms” — was plastered on signs and emphasized in television and radio ads, turning the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators.

In reality, this ordinance was all about pandering to the tiny LGBT community and the liberals who support them, and creating yet another class of people who are protected over others. There was nothing in this about equal protection. Strangely, the Times, like so many other news outlets, forgets to include the voting results. Let’s check the AP

With nearly 95 percent of precincts reporting, Houston residents had rejected the ordinance by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.

That’s a pretty big margin against the ordinance.

The ordinance would have applied to businesses that serve the public, such as restaurants and hotels, private employers, housing, city employment and city contracting. It would have allowed residents to file a complaint if they felt they had been discriminated against based on the various protected categories. Religious institutions would have been exempt. Violators would have faced fines up to $5,000.

In other words, it would have given a small number of people the ability to make wild, unsubstantiated claims against businesses that could result in government penalties, instead of the person simply doing what used to be done: never patronize the business again, and tell all your friends to avoid the business.

You can bet that Progressives will not allow this vote by the citizens of Houston to stand: surely, lawsuits will be filed by the end of the week.

(Houston Chronicle) Kristen Capps, a Houston attorney who supported the ordinance, remained optimistic after Tuesday’s defeat.

“It’s just like every civil rights movement. We’re just going to keep on doing it until it’s done,” she said.

Except, long established law provides for equal protection under the law. This law was about providing un-equal protection. And liberals don’t like it when they lose, and will not allow the will of the people to stand. This isn’t about civil rights, it’s about politics.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Houston Voters Say No To Houston LGBT Ordinance »

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What’s The Biggest Sticking Point For Paris Climate Talks?

By William Teach November 3, 2015 – 3:32 pm

What could it be? Asking Warmists to reduce their own carbon footprints? Spreading more awareness?

The biggest sticking point in Paris climate talks: money

……

Another critical policy issue that is at the center of the Paris agenda is an age-old one: money. Going into the negotiations, there is a goal to scale up existing efforts toward providing US$100 billion a year to support climate change action primarily in developing countries by 2020. Ideally, these efforts should also contribute to long-term sustainable development.

Many Paris financing debates will focus on how to most appropriately use the recently created Green Climate Fund (GCF) – the new main multilateral vehicle for helping developing countries to lower their GHG emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.

It’s almost like this has nothing to do with science.

Read: What’s The Biggest Sticking Point For Paris Climate Talks? »

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If All You See…

By William Teach November 3, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil fossil fueled boat causing the seas to turn to acid, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post recommending reading Ted Cruz’s tax plan.

Read: If All You See… »

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EPA Pushes For Allegiance To Cult Of Climastrology

By William Teach November 3, 2015 – 10:32 am

When do Warmists start goose-stepping around the square? In locally produced PETA approved boots, of course

(Climate Depot) Speaking to classrooms across America in a live virtual event, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy presses for school children to take EPA’s Energy Star climate pledge to “become part of the climate solution.” McCarthy: “Get those pledges in. Work with your schools. Work with your community. Bug your family at home to recycle and do all the great things.”

Annoy your family and friends so much that they no longer invite you over, which is great for reducing your own carbon footprint!

Yes, there is video at the link, which includes this

HOST KYLE SCHUTT: “What’s your favorite part about the pledge and what young people are doing?”

MCCARTHY: “I think the greatest part about the pledge for young people, and when old people take it cause we’ve had 4.3 million people take this pledge already, and we want you to take it too.”

4.3 million brainwashed future climate thugs.

MCCARTHY: “Well, that’s because we need everybody… It’s not just about light bulbs. It’s about appliances. It’s about riding your bike instead of riding in a car. It’s about what kind of car you drive. Can you buy one that’s more efficient? Can you use renewable resources in that car, like ethanol? There’s lots of choices that you can make that actually lower that footprint, and you’ll never miss it.”

In other words, it’s about empowering government to tell you what you can drive, what appliances you can use, etc. It’s all very creepy, in a typical leftism fascistic manner.

If you’re thinking “Teach, aren’t you being a bit overboard, kinda going all InfoWars?” If only. When you connect all the dots, not just with Warmism, but throughout the Progressive movement, this is really where it ends up.

Read: EPA Pushes For Allegiance To Cult Of Climastrology »

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Leaked Memo Shows Ways Obama Admin Looking To Circumvent DAPA Injunction

By William Teach November 3, 2015 – 7:18 am

If you’re a law abiding US citizen using your Constitutional rights in forming a Conservative group, you’ll be attacked by the IRS. If you’re an illegal alien, you’ll be rewarded by the Obama administration. When a judge says “stop”, you’ll look for ways around the injunction to help out those illegals

(The Hill) A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November’s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS “Regulations Retreat” last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit. The Administration has already been criticized from the bench for handing out work permits to hundreds of thousands of deferred action beneficiaries, in direct violation of a district court’s order. With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding any day now whether to deny the Administration’s request to reverse that injunction, this public leak has come at a critical juncture for U.S. enforcement policy.

Last June, four months after Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen’s order to freeze President’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs—disclosure: the Immigration Reform Law Institute has filed briefs in these cases—DHS’s immigration policy makers apparently held a “Regulations Retreat” to discuss “different options” for “open market Employment Authorization Document (EAD) regulatory changes.” EAD is the statutory term for work permits. From a memo recording these discussions, we now know that the Obama DHS has, rather than pausing to allow the courts to assess the constitutionality of its enforcement nullification initiatives, been gearing up to roll out one or more of four plans drawn up at the meeting, each one designed to provide EADs to millions of nonimmigrants, including those lawfully present and visa overstayers, crippling the actual employment-based visa system on the federal statute-book.

The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADsonly to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system.

I’m putting my money down on the judge being very upset over this memo. He’s already smacked the Obama administration around for circumventing his legal rulings.

Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016. According to the authors, one negative factor for granting EADs to illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, etc., is that they’ll still “face difficulties in pursuing permanent residence due to ineligibility or being subject to unlawful presence inadmissibility for which a waiver is required.” This is in reference to the reality that an EAD isn’t a green card and that eventually the EAD-beneficiaries are supposed to apply to ‘adjust their status,’ which cannot be done without showing evidence of lawful status. But this might change, they write. The DHS “macro-level policy goal”, we’re told, is to assist individuals to stay “until they are ready and able to become immigrants.” This would seem to say that DHS, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation, is banking on awarding those who’ve broken our laws and violated our national sovereignty.

According to BLS, there are 7.9 million Americans who are unemployed. This metric doesn’t cover those who have given up in despair at finding a job. All these illegals interfere with them getting a job. These are people who should not be in the United States. They either jumped the border or overstayed their VISAs. America is a generous nation, and we could certainly make an exception for some of the illegals, ones who have learned English, haven’t broken any major laws, want to be a part of America, and are willing to pay a fine, then pay the fees to become citizens the right way. Yes, we do give people 2nd chances. It’s part of our makeup (unless you are a conservative and/or climate change Skeptic, then liberals want to put you in jail for your beliefs). Most, though, need to go home.

This is a big reason why Republicans need to win the White House with a candidate that will rescind this type of Obama executive order.

Read: Leaked Memo Shows Ways Obama Admin Looking To Circumvent DAPA Injunction »

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Dashcam Blows Away Claim Of Racial Profiling In Texas

By William Teach November 3, 2015 – 6:57 am

Pro-tip: when making a claim of racism against the police, make sure they don’t have any sort of recording device

(Fox News) A Texas journalism professor’s explosive charge that police hassled her for “walking while black,” a claim lodged in a guest column in the state’s biggest newspaper, doesn’t square with the videotape, according to the police chief.

The incident occurred when Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism school at the University of North Texas, was taking a power walk on the morning of Oct. 24 in her neighborhood in the northeast Texas town of Corinth. In a column in the Dallas Morning News four days later, the former newspaper editor described her encounter with two local cops in terms that put the police in a bad light.

“Flashing lights and sirens from a police vehicle interrupted a routine Saturday morning walk in my golf-course community in Corinth,” Bland writes in her column. “Like most African-Americans, I am familiar with the phrase ‘driving while black,’ but was I really being stopped for walking on the street in my own neighborhood?

Yes, yes she was being stopped for walking in her own neighborhood. But, not because she was Black. We’ll get to that answer in a moment. The Dallas Morning News piece shows her sliming the police as racists

Knowing that the police officers are typically armed with guns and are a lot bigger than my 5 feet, 4 inches, I had no interest in my life’s story playing out like Trayvon Martin’s death. I stopped and asked the two officers if there was a problem; I don’t remember getting a decent answer before one of the officers asked me where I lived and for identification.

Yes, she did get a decent answer

I remember saying something like, “Around the corner. This is my neighborhood, and I’m a taxpayer who pays a lot of taxes.” As for the I.D. question, how many Americans typically carry I.D. with them on their morning walk? Do you realize I bought the hoodie I was wearing after completing the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education in 2014? Do you realize I have hosted gatherings for family, friends, faculty, staff and students in my home? Not once was a police officer called. To those officers, my education or property-owner status didn’t matter. One officer captured my address and date of birth.

I guess I was simply a brown face in an affluent neighborhood. I told the police I didn’t like to walk in the rain, and one of them told me, “My dog doesn’t like to walk in the rain.” Ouch!

Puts the police in a very bad light, wouldn’t you say?

For anyone who doesn’t think racial profiling happens, I can assure you it does happen. For a sanity check, I stopped by the mayor’s house and asked him, “Do I look like a criminal?” Mayor Bill Heidemann said no and shook his head in disbelief. I appreciate the mayor being a good neighbor, but why should he need to verify that I am not a menace to society?

According to the definition of menace, she was being one, but not because of skin color

I refuse to let this incident ruin my life.

But, she did attempt to ruin the lives of the police. And that piece was updated with material from the Chief of Police, Debra Walthall, including a dashcam video

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to Ms. Bland’s comments. My officers, a field training officer and his recruit, observed Ms. Bland walking in the roadway wearing earbuds and unaware that there was a pickup truck directly behind her that had to almost come to a complete stop to avoid hitting her.

The driver of the truck looked at the officers as they passed and held his hands in the air, which implied “aren’t you going to do something about this?” The officers turned around and drove behind Ms. Bland.

They activated their in-car video camera, which shows her again walking in the roadway impeding traffic. They activated their emergency lights — no siren was ever sounded — they exited their patrol vehicle and contacted Ms. Bland.

The Chief goes on to note that Ms. Bland was actually in violation of the law, a class c misdemeanor for impeding traffic, and was putting her own life in danger. Hence the reason they asked for ID, as well. They simply told her about the truck, and asked her not to walk in the road. Perhaps she could use the sidewalks, which, according to the video, are on both sides of the narrow neighborhood road? When contacted by Fox News, Chief Walthall stated

“If we didn’t have the video, these officers would have serious allegations against them,” Walthall added. “It would be their word against hers. Every white officer that stops an African-American does not constitute racial profiling.”

Ms. Bland has not returned calls from the Chief, and never made a complaint to the police department. Instead of making a fake racist claim against the police, perhaps she should thank them for their professional and caring attempt to safeguard her well being.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Dashcam Blows Away Claim Of Racial Profiling In Texas »

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San Francisco Liberals: Stop Calling Criminals “Criminals”, It’s Mean

By William Teach November 2, 2015 – 5:41 pm

Liberalism is often referred to as a mental disorder. Unfortunately, their mental disorder isn’t like type portrayed in old Monty Python shows. No, it’s more the type that puts other people in danger. This comes via Dana at The First Street Journal, who notes “The rhetorical question that is so often used, “What part of illegal don’t you understand?” might not be as rhetorical as you might think.”

(SF Gate) Is it wrong to call someone who steals a “criminal”?

In a recent thread on NextDoor, a group of neighbors living in the Noe Valley-Glen Park area were engaged in a discussion around the city’s crime and debated whether labeling a person who commits petty theft as a “criminal” is offensive.

In the site’s Crime and Safety area, where residents share strategies for fighting crime, Malkia Cyril of S.F. suggests that her neighbors stop using the label because it shows lack of empathy and understanding.Cyril pointed out that instead of calling the thief who took the bicycle from your garage a criminal, you could be more respectful and call him or her “the person who stole my bicycle.”

“I [suggest] that people who commit property crimes are human and deserved to be referred to in terms that acknowledge that,” Cyril, who’s the executive director of the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, writes in the thread.

“I think we should think twice before speaking in disparaging terms about ‘those criminals,’” she adds later in the thread.

This is the kind of Leftist insanity that wants to treat illegal immigrants, thugs, and pedophiles (especially looking at you, Salon), among others, with kid gloves. That wants to create understanding and respect for criminals, from low level to murderers. Let’s not forget the Left’s support of people like Tookie Williams and Mumia. It’s an attempt to change society for…..well, they never really say how this will benefit anyone, making this simply a case of 1st World Problemitis, where people have too much time on their hands and rather than being productive with it, they get stupid.

Cyril started the thread because she wanted to shift the NextDoor conversations about security cameras, alarms and the police to more thoughtful discussions about strategies for addressing the cause of crime. In her posts, she blames our societal problems — gentrification, economic inequality, lack of affordable housing, the defunding of public schools — for pushing people into lives of crime.

Interestingly, Cyril forgot to mention that a goodly chunk of the crime that occurs in cities like San Francisco, run lock, stock, and barrel by Democrats, is performed by Blacks and Hispanics. While she can complain about “gentrification”, which is another word for Blaming Whites (for daring to bring social capital, clean neighborhoods, increased property values, and reduced crime), her Party has turned minorities into chattel, so often leaving them in abject poverty and misery, with little way out. You can’t blame San Fran, Detroit, Baltimore, etc, on Republicans. Dems own them.

Dana at First Street Journal notes

People like Malkia Cyril are a huge problem in our society. Rather than insist on civility and order, they excuse and enable criminality; we can bet that if she knew who stole the gentleman’s gym bag, she wouldn’t turn him in. If San Francisco suffers from “over policing,” as she says, it is because too many ordinary citizens enable criminals, and allow them to be criminals, allow them to continue breaking the law and getting away with it.

Then liberals wonder why their cities are hotbeds of crime.

Read: San Francisco Liberals: Stop Calling Criminals “Criminals”, It’s Mean »

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If All You See…

By William Teach November 2, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…are massive clouds of carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on Monday morning links.

Read: If All You See… »

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The Cult Of Climastrology Gets Another Scalp

By William Teach November 2, 2015 – 10:24 am

Remember the case of French meteorologist Philippe Verdier, who was supposedly suspended for daring to write a book critical of the Cult of Climastrology? Well, now we learn

Philippe Verdier, a household name in France for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced in an online video that he had received a letter of dismissal.

“My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12.

“I received this letter this morning and decided to open it in front of you because it concerns everybody- in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of information.”

Dissent is not allowed in Progressive (nice fascist) World.

Read: The Cult Of Climastrology Gets Another Scalp »

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Sheldon Whitehouse Continues To Push To Prosecute Climate Skeptics

By William Teach November 2, 2015 – 8:05 am

Back in the spring, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) brought out the idea to use the RICO statues to prosecute those who have climate wrongthink. Especially fossil fuels companies. Despite Whitehouse himself refusing to give up his own use of fossil fuels. Now he writes more on the subject in the Providence Journal

Sheldon Whitehouse: Fraudulent speech is not protected

The Founding Fathers built our judicial system to withstand the special interest pressures that beset the political branches of government. A case heard in court, before a neutral judge or jury, is subject to judicial tests like proof under oath and cross-examination (dubbed “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth” by the Supreme Court), not just to political power.

The concerted program of climate change denial, funded largely by fossil fuel interests, should now face those tests. We know that the court process can work, even in the face of massive industry pressure, because our government brought and won a civil case against the tobacco industry for a similar campaign of denial of tobacco’s health effects.

The federal judge’s decision in the tobacco case declared that the “[d]efendants knew there was a consensus in the scientific community that smoking caused lung cancer and other diseases. Despite that fact, they publicly insisted that there was a scientific controversy and disputed scientific findings linking smoking and disease knowing their assertions were false.”

Reread those sentences, replacing the word “smoking” with the words “carbon pollution.” Replace the references to “health” and “disease” with “climate change” or “harm to our atmosphere and oceans.” Investigative reporting shows this is an accurate description of what the fossil fuel industry has been up to. For instance, researchers at Exxon warned top executives of the risks of carbon pollution as far back as the 1970s. Instead of addressing those facts honestly, Exxon chose to sow public doubt of the emerging scientific consensus, to prevent a drop-off in sales of oil.

This is blatantly a way to deny people their 1st Amendment Rights to Free Speech, by deeming anything the Cult of Climastrology and Sheldon Whitehouse deem “fraudulent”. This is the way it works in Fascist nations.

The results are already coming home to roost in Rhode Island. The tide gauge at Naval Station Newport shows around 10 inches of sea level rise since the Hurricane of 1938 battered our coast. The mean winter water temperature in Narragansett Bay is 3-4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than just 50 years ago.

First, neither would prove mostly/solely anthropogenic causation. Second, according to the actual data, the sea level trend for Newport, R.I. is rising at a whopping rate of 2.74mm per year, equal to a 0.9 inches of sea rise per century, well within the statistical norm for a Holocene warm period. Oh, and some of that is considered to be part of land changes post glacial period. Whitehouse attempts to paint that rise as apocalyptic, yet, it is much less than would be expected during a Holocene warm period.

There are solutions to this looming threat. Virtually every Republican willing to propose a solution to climate change supports a revenue-neutral carbon fee, where all the money raised goes straight back to the American people. This includes conservative economists, former Treasury secretaries, former Environmental Protection Agency administrators, and former members of Congress.

Democrats are willing to meet them there, and I have proposed legislation that will do just that. But industry, empowered by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment in Citizens United to spend unlimited amounts expressing its views in our elections, holds Republicans in Congress back.

How dare anyone use their Constitutional Free Speech to block an out-of-control central government from instituting draconian taxes and private sector controls!!!!

In the meantime, I believe history will reveal and condemn a massive disinformation campaign, funded by the fossil fuel industry, and propagated through a network of front organizations to obscure the hand of the industry. Some say that seeking a day in court on this question is suppression of free speech. But if this campaign is fraudulent, it does not deserve and it does not get protection under the First Amendment.

Protected free speech has boundaries, and one boundary is fraud. The test of whether the denial campaign amounts to fraud is the test established by the Founding Fathers: a case, in a neutral court of law, where the truth can be tested with evidence, under oath and by cross-examination.

And that right there is his plan: drag Skeptical companies, groups, and individuals into court, using the Power of the Federal Government, to prove that they aren’t engaged in fraud. This breaks another prime American Right, that of being innocent till proven guilty. He’s deeming Skeptics as guilty. Period.

Interestingly, Whitehouse has another op-ed complaining about carbon pollution from fossil fuels. Yet, his Twitter feed is chock full of tweets where he has certainly taken fossil fueled travel (boat, car, and plane). Does that mean he himself is engaged in fraud?

Read: Sheldon Whitehouse Continues To Push To Prosecute Climate Skeptics »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Democrats, Global Warming | 12 Comments | Trackback URL
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