California Orders Churches To Fund Abortions—Or Else

By William Teach October 25, 2014 – 11:20 am

Nothing can stand in the way of liberals holy sacrament of abortion,  not even pesky law and Constitutional provisions

(The Federalist) For the past four years, the Obama administration and its friends on the Left were careful to claim that they still strongly support religious libertywhile arguing that Hobby Lobby’s Green family, Conestoga Wood Specialties’ Hahn family, and others like them must lose. Principally, they contended, religious liberty protections could not be applied to Hobby Lobby because (1) It is a for-profit corporation, (2) It isn’t a church (and thus not a true “religious employer,” and (3) It is wrong on the science—Plan B, a copper intrauterine device, et cetera, they claimed, do not cause abortions. They implied, if not claimed outright, that they would surely support religious freedom in another case, but Hobby Lobby was unworthy to claim its protections.

The State of California is now calling their bluff. California’s Department of Managed Health Care has ordered all insurance plans in the state to immediately begin covering elective abortion. Not Plan B. Not contraceptives. Elective surgical dismemberment abortion.

At the insistence of the American Civil Liberties Union, the DMHC concluded that a 40-year-old state law requiring health plans to cover “basic health services” had been misinterpreted all these decades. Every plan in the state was immediately ordered, effective August 22, to cover elective abortion. California had not even applied this test to its own state employee health plans (which covered only “medically necessary” abortions). But this novel reading was nevertheless quietly imposed on every plan in the state by fiat.

Churches are being forced to cover surgical abortion procedures, but not chemical. Regardless,  this violates the 1st Amendment,  the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act  and

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS SEC. 4. Free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference are guaranteed. This liberty of conscience does not excuse acts that are licentious or inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State. The Legislature shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. A person is not incompetent to be a witness or juror because of his or her opinions on religious beliefs.

That’s pretty clear. Except to abortionistas.

Read: California Orders Churches To Fund Abortions—Or Else »

Posted in 1st Amendment, Liberal World, Progressive Goals | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Gulp: The Very Scary Climate Cost Of Halloween Candy!

By William Teach October 25, 2014 – 7:42 am

We’re dooooooomed because of Halloween. Here’s Warmist Diana Donion at the Huffington Post

Trick or Treat? The Frightening Climate Costs of Halloween Candy

Americans will spend more than two billion dollars on candy this Halloween, making it candy’s biggest holiday.

This is fun for kids, great for dentists, and downright fantastic for the Mars family. But before you head over to the store to buy this year’s bowl of treats, you need to be made aware of a really scary, but not widely recognized, fact:

Many Halloween candies contain palm oil, the large-scale, monoculture production of which is driving deforestation, extinction, human rights abuses, and climate change!

Highly versatile and inexpensive, this vegetable oil is a globally traded commodity found in 50 percent of processed products sold in the supermarket — everything from laundry detergent and shampoo, to pizza dough and name-brand candies and chocolates. Listed using many different names, its presence is often difficult to detect. In the last decade, global production of palm oil has doubled, and given the rise of consumer power in India and China, palm oil production is expected to double again.

Um, you know something? Ms. Donion is actually kind of correct in the notion that palm oil production is actually bad for the environment. I’ve discussed it many times, along the lines of deforestation and the intentional slaughter of animals, particularly orangutans. In Asia they are clear cutting forests to create palm oil plantations, and paying hunters to kill the wildlife in the area.

It is also being produced as an alternative fuel, because of climate change hysteria.

Palm oil production is not responsible for “climate change”. Adding CC into the mix is just typical Warmist idiocy, but, it does have a negative effect on the environment, animal and human rights, habitat destruction, and is even driving orangutans into extinction. Why this need to gloss over real issues by adding “climate change”?

There are two ingredients I look for when I go to the market: MSG and palm oil. The first because I’m heavily allergic, the second because of the above issues. It’s not that easy with either, because you have to recognize the names. Here’s a handy one for palm oil. The Girl Scouts, after being pressured by members, did away with the use of palm oil in their cookies. Sometimes it’s the little things. And they haven’t stopped. Next time you buy something, check for palm oil. Think about not buying it. “Climate change” is stupid, but the other reasons are truly valid.

Read: Gulp: The Very Scary Climate Cost Of Halloween Candy! »

Posted in Environment, Food and Drink, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Could Non-Citizens Decide Mid-Terms?

By William Teach October 25, 2014 – 6:55 am

I told you the other day about North Carolina finding hundreds of non-citizens on the voter rolls, mostly those who are illegals with DACA status.  A full audit was done, and the results…

(WRAL) The NC Board of Elections completed an audit Friday of more than 10,000 voters whose citizenship status had been questioned by a so-called voter watchdog group.

According to a news release, the agency analyzed data provided by the NC Division of Motor Vehicles and the US Department of Homeland Security to flag 1,425 registers voters who are likely non-citizens.

“We are working to ensure that no ballot cast by a non-citizen will count in this or any future election,” said Executive Director Kim Westbrook Strach.

Guidelines are being implemented to challenge improper ballots by non-citizens. And, to be clear, the audit found that it was not hundreds of DACA illegals, but, 109. Let’s also not forget that Democrats shrieked about voter fraud after the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. They also trotted out the meme to a small degree when they lost the House in 2010. One uber-Conservative neo-con newspaper is overly-hysterical about the potential for voter fraud by non-citizens

Could non-citizens decide the November election?

Could control of the Senate in 2014 be decided by illegal votes cast by non-citizens? Some argue that incidents of voting by non-citizens are so rare as to be inconsequential, with efforts to block fraud a screen for an agenda to prevent poor and minority voters from exercising the franchise, while others define such incidents as a threat to democracy itself. Both sides depend more heavily on anecdotes than data.

In a forthcoming article in the journal Electoral Studies, we bring real data from big social science survey datasets to bear on the question of whether, to what extent, and for whom non-citizens vote in U.S. elections. Most non-citizens do not register, let alone vote. But enough do that their participation can change the outcome of close races.

Our data comes from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Its large number of observations (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) provide sufficient samples of the non-immigrant sub-population, with 339 non-citizen respondents in 2008 and 489 in 2010. For the 2008 CCES, we also attempted to match respondents to voter files so that we could verify whether they actually voted.

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.

Patterico notes that this should be on the front page of every newspaper. But, it won’t. Heck, there is no footer at the Washington Post article denoting that it is even in a print edition. Patterico goes on

The progressive think tank Center for American Progress puts the number of noncitizens in the U.S. at 22.1 million in 2012. Of these, “13.3 million were legal permanent residents, 11.3 million were unauthorized migrants, and 1.9 million were on temporary visas.” These numbers are roughly consistent with numbers offered by the Department of Homeland Security (.pdf) and Kaiser Health News. So let’s take 22 million as our number of noncitizens.

Richman and Earnest estimate that 6.4% of noncitizens voted in 2008. 6.4% of 22 million is 1,408,000.

That’s 1.4 million illegal votes likely cast in the presidential election of 2008.

Richman and Earnest also estimate that 2.2% of noncitizens voted in 2010. (In off-year elections, such as 2010 and the approaching election in 2014, turnout is obviously lower.) 2.2% of 22 million is 484,000. That’s nearly half a million illegal votes likely cast in the election of 2010 (and the same number could be cast in the upcoming election).

Getting past any notion of whether non-citizens voting, particularly illegal aliens, helps Democrats more than Republicans (it does), what this does is significantly harm our institution of voting. Democrats have called the Right To Vote “sacred”, lately due to having to *gasp* show an ID in order to say “hey, I’m me!” They complain about citizens being disenfranchised (again, lately due to voter ID requirements, without mentioning voter ID requirements in states that heavily vote D, such as Hawaii). Well, every single vote cast by a non-citizen means that a vote by a legal US citizen is cast aside.

I’ll bet right now that liberals will blow these concerns off, as they usually do.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible fossil fueled machine, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post wondering if we should ban hatchets.

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Happy Birthday! 9 Years With No Major US Landfalling Hurricanes!

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 12:15 pm

That’s right, folks, it has been 9 years since Hurricane Wilma came ashore in south Florida on October 24th, 2005. Wilma was the last major (category 3+) hurricane to strike the continental United States.

This stands in stark contradiction to Warmist prognostication that the big season of 2005 would be the “new normal”. When they didn’t work out, they started saying that there would be less hurricanes, but they’d be more powerful. Now, of course, they’re claiming “climate change” is reducing hurricanes, both in number and intensity. Come November 22nd, the record for most days without a landfalling US hurricane will be broken at 3316 days, which has stood since the Civil War era. And there is almost no chance of a major hurricane occurring at this point.

Via Stephen Goddard, who notes that the running mean for Florida hurricanes (Wilma came ashore in Florida, of course) has been dropping. There were none this year. Not even a Tropical Storm. The US was only hit with one hurricane (Arthur) this year, a Category 1. Since 2008, there has been only one other true hurricane to make US landfall, Isaac. And land based recordings could create debate whether it was a hurricane at landfall (still dangerous as a TS, though). Sandy was not a hurricane at landfall.

If this is “climate change”, it’s good news. Of course, in reality, what we have going on is a normal Holocene warm period, and just part of the shorter term cycle of hurricane activity. But, we know Warmists like to blame everything on Hotcoldwetdry, because Shut Up You.

More: Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., discusses all this, and also has a piece in the USA Today on the subject.

Read: Happy Birthday! 9 Years With No Major US Landfalling Hurricanes! »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Hey, Kay Hagan, Is Obama A Strong Leader?

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 11:06 am

Um, you see, er, well, ah

(Breitbart) On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” MSNBC political correspondent Kasie Hunt interviewed incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), who is in a tight reelection bod for her seat against Republican senatorial hopeful Thom Tillis.

In that interview, Hunt asked Hagan if she considered Obama to be a strong leader, which was a question Hagan did not respond to directly.

“You know, President Obama has a lot on his plate,” Hagan replied. “And it see, like whether it’s the oil spill that took place earlier a number of years ago in the Gulf, to this Ebola crisis now, to ISIS gaining strength — I mean, you look at all the combination of things like that.”

Hunt continued to press on Hagan on the question and although Hagan said Obama’s responses to those problems left much to be desired, she did not offer a direct response.

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Bad News: Cow Killing Blizzard Not Linked To “Climate Change”

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 9:24 am

Well, this can set our minds at ease

(Inforum)  study conducted by a team of weather experts determined the October 2013 blizzard that devastated parts of western South Dakota and Wyoming isn’t anything to be alarmed about in the near future.

The blizzard accounted for the deaths of an estimated 45,000 head of livestock, reports said.

The team concluded the event couldn’t be tied to climate change, though, because of limited data on severe weather events in the fall. The team included researchers at South Dakota State University, who said the storm is not cause for alarm.

Makes one think about the sanity of people attempting to link rising temperatures from greenhouse gases…in other words, you driving a fossil fueled vehicle to work producing CO2…with significant blizzards. It’s almost like this is some sort of cult.

Read: Bad News: Cow Killing Blizzard Not Linked To “Climate Change” »

Posted in Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Awesome Grandpa Pulls Gun, Shoots Assailants Who Tried To Rob And Rape Family

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 8:39 am

Democrats would have preferred that they blow a whistle, pee on themselves, and just let The Authorities apprehend the perps later

(Daily Caller) A North Carolina man exchanged fire with three home invaders after they tried to rob his house and rape his granddaughter,reports the Fayetteville Observer.

At his Lumberton home on Monday, Kenneth Byrd, 67, was approached by an individual claiming to have car problems. When Byrd invited the man into his home, he was rushed by two additional assailants wearing black clothes and ski masks.

The home invaders — all three brandishing handguns — corralled Byrd, his wife Judy and their 19-year-old granddaughter and demanded money and other valuables from the family safe.

Byrd initially complied with their demands, but when the men began to beat Judy and attempted to rape his granddaughter, he grabbed a hidden firearm and let loose a flurry of shots at the assailants.

Super-grandpa managed to hit all three. Brandon Carver Stephens, 28, and Jamar Hawkins, 17 went to the hospital with gunshot wounds, and the hospital called the police. Jamie Faison, 20 was found dead of in a stolen Cadillac at his home residence. Yes, grandpa hit him, too.

According to Liberal Theory, law abiding citizens should not be armed: only law enforcement should be armed. Let’s not forget how hard Liberals have pushed to disarm law abiding citizens, leaving them at the mercy of criminals who, by rule, do not care about the law.

Read: Awesome Grandpa Pulls Gun, Shoots Assailants Who Tried To Rob And Rape Family »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, NC News | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Priorities: DHS Raids Kansas City Lingerie Shop

By William Teach October 24, 2014 – 8:13 am

I’m not quite sure whether to be disturbed, amused, or reassured

(Fox News) When two burly men walked into a Missouri women’s underwear store Tuesday, the owners didn’t think much of it — until the pair flashed their Homeland Security badges and confiscated several dozen panties bearing the initials “KC” in honor of the Kansas City Royals.

Danielle Meister, co-owner of Birdies Panties shop, said the undercover agents seized the lingerie, claiming the store violated copyright laws by selling underwear with “Take the Crown” and “KC” printed across the rear. Meister and her business partner, Peregrine Honig, said they wanted to celebrate the success of their hometown team — which on Wednesday night beat the San Francisco Giants to tie the World Series at one game apiece — by designing the panties. (snip)

“It all came crashing down on Tuesday when Homeland Security showed up and said we were committing a crime of copyright infringement,” Meister said. “My initial response was fear. How often does Homeland Security show up to your panty shop?”

Exactly. How often does a federal agency show up armed at a small private business? It could be scary enough having the local, county, or state law enforcement show up, but to have Los Federales appear? Scary and intimidating. It does get worse

Major League Baseball spokesman Matt Bourne said counterfeit merchandise is a serious problem.

“We support [Homeland Security’s] efforts to protect fans from purchasing counterfeit tickets and merchandise while protecting legitimate businesses that are authorized to conduct those activities,” Bourne said.

While certainly MLB wants to protect its brand and the brand of the teams, is it necessary to send in armed federal agents to a small lingerie shop? They couldn’t have placed a call or registered letter, telling them to cease and desist?

The raid itself was carried out by Immigration and Customs enforcement, having apparently solved all the problems with illegal aliens, including ones that are gang members and Bad People.

Meister, in hindsight, described the incident as comical.

“These two tall, strong undercover officers had to stand there and count the panties,” she giggled. “They didn’t not seem to want to carry out their appointed task that day.”

Well, there is that.

On the flip side, they were working to stop the sale of all the counterfeit merchandise, and, more importantly, tickets. Most people buying merchandise will know when it is not real. Tickets, though, can see people out hundreds of dollars, and not allowed in the game.

Still, panties? Happy Friday.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Co-founder Of Weather Channel: Climate Change Nothing But A Lie

By William Teach October 23, 2014 – 3:35 pm

Of course, John Coleman is going to be personally attacked, as Leftists are wont to do

(Express UK)  John Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel, shocked academics by insisting the theory of man-made climate change was no longer scientifically credible.

Instead, what ‘little evidence’ there is for rising global temperatures points to a ‘natural phenomenon’ within a developing eco-system.

In an open letter attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he wrote: “The ocean is not rising significantly.

“The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number.

“Heat waves have actually diminished, not increased. There is not an uptick in the number or strength of storms (in fact storms are diminishing).

“I have studied this topic seriously for years. It has become a political and environment agenda item, but the science is not valid.” (snip)

“Efforts to prove the theory that carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas and pollutant causing significant warming or weather effects have failed.

Virtually everything that Warmists have prognosticated have failed, hence the reason they now, mostly, tend to yammer about things that are going to happen in 2050 and 2100.

Climate expert William Happer, from Princeton University, supported Mr Coleman’s claims.

He added: “No chemical compound in the atmosphere has a worse reputation than CO2, thanks to the single-minded demonisation of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control and energy production.

“The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.”

Of course, that belief isn’t strong enough to actually get Believers to act on those beliefs within their own lives.

Read: Co-founder Of Weather Channel: Climate Change Nothing But A Lie »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 10 Comments | Trackback URL
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