Oh Noes: Trump Cuts All Sorts Of Dance Troop Grants

It’s so terrible, and the LA Times has time for this instead of investigating where the $100 million raised for victims of the California fire.

Trump-era cuts to public art create a ‘state of emergency’ for L.A. dance community

Linda Yudin was sipping coffee with family and friends on May 3, the morning of her birthday, when they warned her not to check her emails.

Later that afternoon, she learned why: Her dance company, Viver Brasil, had lost a $20,000 grant. It was among 30 Los Angeles arts organizations that received a grant termination letter from the National Endowment for the Arts the night before.

“Was I mad? Yes, I was mad. I was really angry. We were all really angry because it slows our process down,” Yudin, Viver Brasil’s founding artistic director, told The Times.

Why is the federal government funding any of this stuff? Citizens have been saying that for 50 years. If they want to tour and put on productions they can raise the money themselves, not rely on federal taxpayer money. This is not a job of the feds.

The money was intended to support staff salaries and artist fees for a national tour of “Rezas e Folhas (Prayers and Leaves),” choreographed by co-artistic director Vera Passos. The piece blends Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous dance with experimental choreography to examine the climate crisis and social change — subjects playing out in real time in L.A.

Now, Viver Brasil has to pause and reevaluate what that tour will look like. Possible adjustments include performing in smaller venues and cutting down the size of the cast.

“We have to rethink perhaps, but I’m proud to be part of such a creative dance ecosystem,” Yudin said. “We dance hard, we fight hard, and that’s what we do.”

So, hit up a bank. Do a fundraiser. Petition the city or state. Use your own money. This is not a job of the federal government. It doesn’t exist in the Constitution. Sure, it’s not a lot of money, but, a dollar here, a dollar there, soon you have some good money.

Dance is one of the most underfunded arts disciplines, according to Raélle Dorfan, executive director of L.A.’s Dance Resource Center. She points to inherent economic challenges that inhibit the industry’s infrastructure and growth potential — such as limited funding sources — which consequently can make it challenging for companies and venues to fill seats.

So…..people aren’t willing to pay to see this? At least not many? The ballet doesn’t have a problem. Broadway productions do not have problems. And, if they do, they get cancelled.

Arts organizations across the country have been reeling from NEA grant terminations amid priority changes under President Trump’s administration. Twelve L.A. organizations are currently at risk of needing to eliminate jobs and programming due to federal funding cuts, according to Herrera.

If your business cannot survive without lots of government cash than it’s not operating well.

Is that worth $20K?

Read: Oh Noes: Trump Cuts All Sorts Of Dance Troop Grants »

If All You See…

…is a palm tree that will soon grow in Siberia, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bunkerville, with a post on some good news that Bunk is finally on the way home after two months.

Read: If All You See… »

European Countries To Borrow Money From EU To Arm Ukraine Or Something

No, really

European countries to borrow billions from EU to rearm Ukraine

Ukraine’s top allies in Europe are set to ask for tens of billions of euros in European Union loans to jointly buy weapons for the war-battered country, as well as to boost their own defenses.

I love that “as well”. Considering European nations pissed away their arms and money to arm Ukraine and the conflict is still going on. I still wonder if it is a conspiracy theory that the whole think is a ploy to bleed European nation.

Ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to apply for the new €150 billion Security Assistance Facility for Europe loans-for-weapons scheme, several EU countries told POLITICO they are considering using that money to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The loan scheme was proposed by the Commission in March as part of its broader ReArm Europe program and aims to boost Europe’s defense industry and reduce the bloc’s decades-old military dependence on the United States.

Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Hungary, and Lithuania have formally expressed an interest in requesting the loans, the EU’s defense spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Tuesday.

Others including Czech Republic, Latvia, Bulgaria and Greece indicated they will do so before the deadline on Tuesday at midnight.

By jointly buying weapons through the scheme, countries can secure a lower price than they would obtain by going it alone and then deliver the armaments to Ukraine.

So, where is the European Union getting this money? Are they not the central government of European nations? Does their operating money not come from European countries to start with? Is the EU borrowing the money from banks in Europe? It sounds more like a scam to enrich some people

Countries are also exploring directly buying weapons from Ukrainian companies, which is encouraged under SAFE. This would allow Kyiv to “increase the scale of defense production and technological integration with the EU,” a Ukrainian diplomat told POLITICO.

Wait. Why are these Ukrainian companies not doing their duty and sending all their arms to Ukraine?

Countries with high debts and deficits, like Austria and Italy, are more reluctant to take the loans over worries of adding to their existing debt, as that might delay their exit from the EU’s punitive procedure for over-spenders, officials told POLITICO.

France, a long-time supporter of more EU defense spending, is likely to take up the loans despite its domestic budget constraints. Belgium, which is also saddled with a high debt, will demand from €7 billion to €11 billion under the scheme, according to an official with knowledge of the matter.

Taking out loans sounds like a bad idea. How about the EU simply fund the procurement of the weapons in the name of all European nations?

Meanwhile

Read: European Countries To Borrow Money From EU To Arm Ukraine Or Something »

Oregon Gov Pledges To Continue Making Citizens Fight ‘Climate Change’

The governor, who takes lots of fossil fueled travel herself, isn’t a fan of the Trump admin’s EPA moving to get rid of the Obama era endangerment finding. She had never made the scam a top priority, but, you know, Orange Man Bad is in office, so

Kotek pledges to continue Oregon’s climate change fight after EPA revokes key scientific finding

Electric vehicleGov. Tina Kotek said Tuesday that Oregon will continue its efforts to reduce carbon emissions, despite the Trump administration’s announcement it’s rolling back environmental regulation of the fossil fuel industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency is revoking a scientific finding that has been used to set stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards and fight climate change under the Clean Air Act. The Endangerment Finding focused on six greenhouse gas emissions found in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide and methane — powerful carbon emissions, that threaten public health and welfare.

“Oregonians value public health decisions based on science, not politics,” Kotek said in a statement. “We need our federal government to stand with us by reducing air pollution that reaches across state boundaries. Oregon has climate pollution reduction goals and programs grounded in science, and we will continue on our path forward despite this backward step by the Trump Administration.”

She said the Endangerment Finding, which came out 16 years ago, paved the way for federal action to reduce carbon pollution, especially from tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks.

The endangerment finding didn’t make the air cleaner, it just made vehicles and energy more expensive, all to reduce a negligible trace gas. Yet, I do not see Tina replacing all the state vehicles with EVs. Weird, eh? Regardless, this is the way it is supposed to work: the Constitution gave Congress no authority to do what the EF did, hence, it should be up to the states.

According to the EPA, if Tuesday’s action is finalized the agency would “repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice and giving Americans the ability to purchase a safe and affordable car for their family while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver.”

Meredith Connolly, director of policy and strategy at Northwest-based nonprofit Climate Solutions, said the Trump proposal is another devastating blow in the fight against climate change.

“What this does is unilaterally disarm the EPA from being able to regulate and reduce emissions from power plants, from vehicles, from oil and gas drilling,” she said. “They’re doing so by claiming that climate change and climate pollution does not hurt people’s health or welfare and therefore, there’s nothing they have to do about it to protect people. It’s completely upside down.”

Hey, you don’t have to convince me, Meredith, I’m already onboard with killing the EF.

Read: Oregon Gov Pledges To Continue Making Citizens Fight ‘Climate Change’ »

NC GA Overrides Governor Vetoes, Including Requiring Law Enforcement To Work With ICE

This is going to causes some caterwauling in 9 NC counties

Immigration veto overruled by NC Republicans with a Charlotte Democrat’s help

Republicans — thanks to the help of a single House Democrat — voted to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of an immigration bill on Tuesday.

The new law requires North Carolina sheriffs to work closer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the federal government’s mass deportation effort.

Rep. Carla Cunningham, D-Mecklenburg, was the legislator who crossed party lines, resulting in a 72-48 vote in the House.

“All cultures are not equal. Some immigrants come and believe they can function in isolation,” Cunningham said on the floor Tuesday. “I suggest they must assimilate. Adapt to the country they want to live in.”

Cunningham’s vote allowed Republicans to achieve the necessary three-fifths majority. She said she has been called a racist and gotten other pushback since voting for House Bill 318 when it originally passed in June.

“They want me to be silent in my country. They want me to line up behind their priorities while my people and communities continue to struggle in our country,” said Cunningham, who is African American.

Good for her, putting Americans over illegals and fake asylum seekers. She realizes that all these illegals do, in fact, cause a big problem within the black community, especially those who are low income (though, let’s be honest, Democrats like to keep blacks like that, giving them all sorts of free government stuff to keep them voting Democrat).

Anyhow, you can see that the counties are primarily where the big liberal cities are. Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, etc. Now they have to cooperate.

The also overrode a slew of others, including one which requires all new Executive regulations be approved by the General Assembly. Which is the way it should be. The Exec should enforce laws, the GA should pass them, not have the Exec just create what they want.

(WRAL) The first new law to pass Tuesday, and the one with the most bipartisan support, was Senate Bill 266, a large re-write of state energy policy. It will exempt Duke Energy from needing to meet the climate change goals it agreed to just four years ago, but which it now says it can’t accomplish.

Obviously, the cultists are not happy, and claim that this will raise consumer rates by lots, but, we’ve already seen it go up by lots as state law forced energy companies to comply with climate cult crap.

Read: NC GA Overrides Governor Vetoes, Including Requiring Law Enforcement To Work With ICE »

Bummer: U.S. May Sit Out COP30 In Brazil

What the Trump admin should do is announce that they did not want to send a whole bunch of government employees on long, fossil fueled trips to Brazil, for which they would also have to drive fossil fueled vehicles from the airport to the host city using a road built by clearcutting the Amazon

The US is sitting out the most consequential climate summit in a decade. It may offer a victory to China

The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America’s withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China.

The elimination of the State Department’s Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world’s largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November.

Without State’s climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said.

COP30 is intended to be a landmark summit, setting the global climate agenda for the next 10 years — an absolutely crucial decade as the world hurtles toward ever more catastrophic levels of warming.

In other words, it’s an attempt by a bunch of climate authoritarians to dictate how Other People are forced to act by their governments, while the people forcing this on the peasants rarely practice what they preach. Will the CNN “reporters” and staff by going to Brazil on a low carbon sailing ship?

There’s no point for the Trump admin to send anyone. They wouldn’t be allowed to advocate for the cult Fascism, and all the cult Fascists present at COP30 would not listen to Trump admin members saying “stop. Listen to yourselves. You’re advocating authoritarianism.”

China is building out clean energy at a blistering pace, as the US takes a chainsaw to its wind and solar sectors and makes a hard turn back toward fossil fuels.

“It is likely that China’s voice will be heard more loudly (at COP30), as they have identified growth in green technologies as a key pillar of their economic strategy,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

They’re also building tons of coal fired power plants in China and across Africa. They also like to dump underpriced solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs, all with their control and spy codes built in.

In a statement to CNN, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called climate change a “common challenge faced by mankind.”

“No country can stay out of it, and no country can be immune to it,” the Chinese statement said.

China loves ‘climate change’ because it gives them another measure to control their citizens. One cannot actually expect CNN to take the side of freedom over authoritarianism, which China represents, when Trump is in office, can they?

Read: Bummer: U.S. May Sit Out COP30 In Brazil »

If All You See…

…is an island that will soon be swamped from global boiling sea rise, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jo Nova, with a post on ‘climate change’ causing fruit to only be once a year.

Read: If All You See… »

UN Makes Push For Two State Solution

I wonder how many of the attending nations would be willing to give up 141 square miles of their own territory?

Dozens of countries attend UN confab on two-states boycotted by US and Israel

Dozens of ministers gathered at a United Nations conference on Monday to urge the international community to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, with Israel and the United States boycotting the event.

The 193-member UN General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held in 2025. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed in June due to the Israel-Iran war.

“We must ensure that it does not become another exercise in well-meaning rhetoric,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks.

Days before the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron announced he would formally recognize Palestinian statehood in September, provoking strong opposition from Israel and the United States.

Will France give up territory? How about Saudi Arabia? Luxembourg? Britain? Oh, right, England has already given up large parts of their nation to Islamists.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said it would be an “illusion to think that you can get to a lasting ceasefire without having an outline of what’s going to happen in Gaza after the end of the war and having a political horizon.”

Why not give up part of France along the Mediterranean to the Palestinians, Jean-Noel?

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Monday: “This conference does not promote a solution, but rather deepens the illusion. Instead of demanding the release of the hostages and working to dismantle Hamas’s reign of terror, the conference organizers are engaging in discussions and plenaries that are disconnected from reality.”

There’s a reason the other nations surrounding Israel won’t allow Palestinians into their nations in large groups. Violence. That Egypt has a massive wall with razor wire on its border with Gaza. How about Egypt setting aside a large piece of the Sinai Peninsula for the Palestinians? Seriously, does anyone think Israel wants to deal with Palestinians, wants to somewhat govern them? Give them Gaza and a strip of Egypt just below Gaza, wash their hands of them. Kick them out of the West Bank for the new territory. Tell them any attacks against Israel will result in what occurred over the last few years.

“We must all work to reunify the Gaza Strip with the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, without occupation, siege, settlements, forced displacement or annexation,” [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad] Mustafa said. “We must rebuild Gaza with and for our people, end the occupation, achieve Palestinian independence, and implement the two-state solution, where Palestine and Israel live side by side, in peace and security, towards achieving regional peace, security, and prosperity.”

Or, how about an island in the Mediterranean that is uninhabited? Surely there’s one that would work. Joining the West Bank and Gaza would require Israel to give up a large section of land because the two do not currently meet.

That’s the thing, the Palestinians do not want a two state solution. They want Israel gone. They had a nice place in Gaza, but, worked with terrorists. They voted Hamas in as their government.

Read: UN Makes Push For Two State Solution »

Bummer: Florida AG Investing Climate (scam) Groups

On the surface I thought “seriously, they may be cultists, but, is this necessary?”

However

Florida’s Uthmeier launches investigation into climate change groups

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Monday that his office has issued subpoenas against two climate change groups involved in environmental, social and governance advocacy.

Uthmeier’s office is going to determine whether the CDP (formerly the Climate Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets Initiative violated consumer protection or antitrust laws by coercing companies into disclosing proprietary data and paying for access under the guise of environmental transparency.

“Radical climate activists have hijacked corporate governance and weaponized it against the free market,” Uthmeier said in a release. “Florida will not sit back while international pressure groups shake down American companies to fund their ESG grift. We’re using every tool of the law to stop the Climate Cartel from exploiting businesses and misleading consumers.”

ESG is an acronym used in conjunction with environmental, social, and governance policies in investments.

This could be construed under Florida law as extortion, which, as you know, is a felony. And, with such a big group doing it, well, that could come under Florida’s RICO laws, as in, corrupt organizations. And just wait till Uthmeier finds out where all the money is going, how it is misspent and mostly ends up in the pockets of the people doing the shakedowns rather than for any stated purposes.

The state investigation will center on scrutinizing deceptive trade practices such as selling better scores and public endorsements; “pay for play” with companies incentivized to subsidize the organizations for favorable treatment; misrepresentation of environmental data used by investors and consumers.

Uthmeier’s office will also examine anti-trust issues such as whether there coordination between the groups and financial institutions which the office says could constitution unlawful market manipulation and whether pressure efforts by the CDP against companies that don’t participate had anti-competitive effects.

“The Florida attorney general’s investigation into CDP and SBTi marks a critical step in holding the climate cartel accountable,” said Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute. “These activist outfits have built a pay-to-play climate racket that pressures companies into advancing radical agendas, all while profiting from the data they manipulate and the scores they sell. This is not transparency, it’s extortion wrapped in green branding. By exposing and dismantling this scheme, states are standing up for consumers, competition, and the free market.”

Anti-trust, anti-corruption, this could get fun.

Read: Bummer: Florida AG Investing Climate (scam) Groups »

Wacko Judge Says Congress Must Fund Planned Parenthood And Abortion

Here she goes again

Obama-appointed judge orders Trump to continue funding Planned Parenthood

An Obama-appointed federal judge Monday blocked the Trump administration from cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, which was a key element of his One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a preliminary injunction to stop the feds from halting funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for even non-abortion services such as birth control, citing the First Amendment.

Federal funding for abortion is already prohibited under the Hyde Amendment.

“Restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs [sexually transmitted infections],” she wrote in a 58-page opinion.

“Legislative context corroborates Plaintiffs’ contention that Congress drafted these criteria with the intent to punish Planned Parenthood Federation and its Members,” the judge said.

This might be more nuts than her previous rulings

Seriously, the Appropriations Clause states “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of Appropriations made by Law” (Article I, Section 9, Clause 7). This means Congress must authorize all spending. The Legislative Branch, not the Judicial Branch. Congress may cut any and all funding except that required by Article I Section 8. If they wanted to defund Obamacare, they have that right. They can also defund most federal courts if they so choose. Since it says “To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;”, that means they only really need two courts below the Supreme Court, right?

The GOP megalaw enacts a one-year ban on Medicaid funding to health-care nonprofits that provide abortions and garnered over $800,000 in federal funding back in 2023.

In case I missed it, Planned Parenthood is not a federal government agency enacted by an act of Congress, and are not entitled to a cent of taxpayer money flowing from the federal government. Especially when they make around $1.5 billion on their own. She has way overstepped her boundaries, and once SCOTUS has smacked her down, she needs to be impeached for her inability to understand her job.

Read: Wacko Judge Says Congress Must Fund Planned Parenthood And Abortion »

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