Eric Holder Stokes Flames Of Racial Animosity In Ferguson

By William Teach August 21, 2014 – 8:29 am

Of course he does. He decided to go, as America’s Top Cop, and make things very personal

(USA Today) Attorney General Eric Holder flew to Ferguson, Mo., on Wednesday as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer leading an investigation into a police shooting.

He also arrived as an African-American who said he understands the racial tensions that have fueled days of protests that have been marred by violence and mass arrests since the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

“I am the Attorney General of the United States, but I am also a black man,” Holder told Ferguson residents at a community meeting. “I can remember being stopped on the New Jersey turnpike on two occasions and accused of speeding. Pulled over. … ‘Let me search your car’ … Go through the trunk of my car, look under the seats and all this kind of stuff. I remember how humiliating that was and how angry I was and the impact it had on me.”

Well, obviously, this screams of racism. Right? American Thinker discusses this in terms of the NY Times article, which includes the same mention, and wonders if this could have anything to do with Holder participating in a 5 day occupation of the “abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned.”

Or, it could just be coincidence, and have nothing to do with race or anything else. In fact, I had the same thing happen to me on I-195 by the Holmdel police, on the accusation that the officer couldn’t read the year sticker on my plate. He reached in an took a legal knife from the door pocket. Started searching the vehicle. For what? No clue. When he went to search the trunk without permission I told him to call a supervisor. Wasted two hours of time when I was trying to get back to college in NC. I know several other people who have had the same thing happen to them. The Holmdel PD was overstepping their bounds.

Or, it could be that Holder was *gasp* speeding and gave the officers reason to search the car.

“The eyes of the nation and the world are watching Ferguson right now,” Holder told a group of community leaders assembled at a local community college. “The world is watching because the issues raised by the shooting of Michael Brown predate this incident. This is something that has a history to it, and the history simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson.” (snip)

The Justice Department is conducting a parallel investigation into possible civil rights violations related to the shooting. In an extraordinary move, he also ordered a federal autopsy — the third forensic examination of the body, which was hit at least six times by gunfire.

How is it possible for Officer Wilson to obtain a fair shake in, at a minimum, the civil rights violations investigation when the US Attorney General is stoking the flames of racial animosity?

Meanwhile, Holder, again, the nation’s top cop, said nothing, at least that was reported, about citizens of Ferguson having their businesses looted and destroyed, about how Officer Wilson was apparently attacked and injured by Brown, about the people who were intimidated and assaulted by Brown when he robbed the convenience store. What the citizens of Ferguson heard was that everything is racist against them, and they have a right to loot and riot. Justice is not blind to Eric Holder during his time as AG.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Hysteric Air Officials Now Looking To Classify E-Cigs As Hazerdous Materials

By William Teach August 20, 2014 – 3:29 pm

Why?

(Yahoo Travel) There is new controversy over the use of electronic cigarettes on airplanes — but this time instead of it being about the health effects of the “vaping” on fellow passengers, it’s about fire safety. After an e-cigarette burned a hole in a passenger’s checked luggage at Logan International Airport in Boston, airport officials are calling for federal officials to classify the devices as hazardous materials, according to The New York Times.

On Saturday, August 9, passengers were evacuated from a JetBlue flight to Buffalo, New York, when baggage handlers smelled smoke. The smoldering bag was removed from the plane and put out with a fire extinguisher. But if the flight had actually taken off, things could have been very different, pointed out Ed Freni, director of aviation with the Massachusetts Port Authority.

The culprit seems to have been an e-cigarette. “The more you see these type of items sold out there, the more our industry has to take a closer look at them, as we’ve done with other hazardous materials,” Freni told The New York Times.

But, wait, there’s a rub

And though the Massachusetts Port Authority blames the e-cigarette for the incident, the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services said the cause had not yet been determined.

Huh. How about that.

Anyhow, let’s stipulate that it was an e-cig that caused this. This was one incident. This could also happen with any device that uses a rechargeable or regular battery. Laptops, phones, cameras, tablets. Flashlights. Electric razors. Adult toys. Everyone needs to relax, take a deep breath, and not over-react.

Remember, though, we still aren’t allowed to profile the people who are the most danger to commercial aviation.

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 20, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is super wonderful coffee under threat from climate catastrophe, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Power, with a post on anti-Semitism at a Code Pink rally.

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NY Times: Climate Change Causes A “Climate Penalty”

By William Teach August 20, 2014 – 11:11 am

Strange that this happens in far left cities

Cities’ Air Problems Only Get Worse With Climate Change

The threats from climate change are many: extreme weather, shrinking snowpack, altered ecosystems and rising and more acidic seas, to name a few. Another lesser-known issue may hit especially close to home for city dwellers. In the world’s already smoggy metropolises, pollution is likely to grow worse, a phenomenon scientists have taken to calling the climate penalty.

Ozone is a key culprit. This lung-damaging compound, often formed from chemical reactions involving sunlight and automobile exhaust and other pollution, plagues major cities around the globe. As the climate heats up, it is projected that more ozone will form in polluted areas on sweltering days.

“You have a hot summer, you’re going to get a lot of ozone,” said Daniel Jacob, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and environmental engineering at Harvard.

Wait, it gets hot in the summer? When did that happen?

Anyhow, there is a simple solution for these polluted liberal bastions: give up your fossil fueled vehicles, replace your airports with solar and wind farms, stop using AC and refrigerators, turn parking lots into farms, and end manufacturing in your cities. And so much more.

But with the threat of a climate penalty looming, of course, added impetus is on the world’s nations to reduce their emissions of air pollutants from factories and motor vehicles.

See? I told you so.

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August 19 Is Now Earth Overshoot Day Or Something

By William Teach August 20, 2014 – 9:18 am

Have you heard about the new awareness day hardcore Warmists are pushing? It’s oh so cute. And nutty. Can’t forget nutty (via Climate Depot)

August 19 is Earth Overshoot Day 2014, marking the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We will be operating in overshoot.

Just as a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, Global Footprint Network measures humanity’s demand for and supply of natural resources and ecological services. And the data is sobering. Global Footprint Network estimates that approximately every eight months, we demand more renewable resources and C02 sequestration than what the planet can provide for an entire year.

Earth Overshoot Day is the annual marker of when we begin living beyond our means in a given year. While only a rough estimate of time and resource trends, Earth Overshoot Day is as close as science can be to measuring the gap between our demand for ecological resources and services, and how much the planet can provide.

They have press releases in multiple languages. The English one is here. It’s kinda hard to celebrate the day when they announce it on that day, wouldn’t you say?

Throughout most of history, humanity has used nature’s resources to build cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to absorb our carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth’s budget. But in the mid-1970s, we crossed a critical threshold: Human consumption began outstripping what the planet could reproduce.

According to Global Footprint Network’s calculations, our demand for renewable ecological resources and the services they provide is now equivalent to that of more than 1.5 Earths. The data shows us on track to require the resources of two planets well before mid-century.

Oh, lord, Malthusian idiocy rears its ugly head.

As Global Footprint Network methodology changes, projections will continue to shift. But every scientific model used to account for human demand and nature’s supply shows a consistent trend: We are well over budget, and that debt is compounding. It is an ecological debt, and the interest we are paying on that mounting debt—food shortages, soil erosion, and the build-up of CO₂ in our atmosphere—comes with devastating human and monetary costs.

Calculate your own personal Ecological Footprint and learn what you can do to reduce it with our Footprint Calculator.

Interestingly, the calculator requires registration in order to proceed. A bit of data mining, eh?

Anyway, there you go, Warmists, you’re killing the planet. Time for you to cut back and Do Your Part to Save Gaia. No more fossil fueled vehicles, no more washing machines, no more ice makers, turn your AC up to 80, grow your own food. No more meat. Come on, do it for our overheating planet.

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Eric Holder Has A Message For The People Of Ferguson

By William Teach August 20, 2014 – 8:43 am

While Attorney General Eric Holder’s message in the St. Louis Dispatch is relatively good, there is something missing

Since the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown, the nation and the world have witnessed the unrest that has gripped Ferguson, Mo. At the core of these demonstrations is a demand for answers about the circumstances of this young man’s death and a broader concern about the state of our criminal justice system.

At a time when so much may seem uncertain, the people of Ferguson can have confidence that the Justice Department intends to learn — in a fair and thorough manner — exactly what happened.

Today, I will be in Ferguson to be briefed on the federal civil rights investigation that I have closely monitored since I launched it more than one week ago. I will meet personally with community leaders, FBI investigators and federal prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to receive detailed briefings on the status of this case.

What about meeting with the police? How about finding out their side of the story? Shouldn’t the police be included in all this?

The full resources of the Department of Justice have been committed to the investigation into Michael Brown’s death. This inquiry will take time to complete, but we have already taken significant steps. Approximately 40 FBI agents and some of the Civil Rights Division’s most experienced prosecutors have been deployed to lead this process, with the assistance of the United States Attorney in St. Louis. Hundreds of people have already been interviewed in connection with this matter. On Monday, at my direction, a team of federal medical examiners conducted an independent autopsy.

One has to wonder at the propriety, and seeming violation of state sovereignty, of the Department of Justice swooping in on what is, essentially, a local issue. Were they invited? Or did they simply decide to make it their business? Don’t misunderstand this as a only criticism of Holder, as this is not the first time the DOJ has jumped in over issues that should be handled at the State level or lower.

The Justice Department will defend the right of protesters to peacefully demonstrate and for the media to cover a story that must be told. But violence cannot be condoned. I urge the citizens of Ferguson who have been peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights to join with law enforcement in condemning the actions of looters, vandals and others seeking to inflame tensions and sow discord.

Interesting. Where is AG Holder in defending the rights of Tea Party groups which were illegally targeted by the Internal Revenue Service? Does he have any investigations into criminal conduct of IRS officials? How about those who are being stonewalled as the IRS has destroyed multiple hard drives?

Anyhow, Holder does do a good job in calling for peace, and for the community and police to work together. Kudos for that.

Meanwhile, Gov Jay Nixon (D) has gone off the reservation

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon made his boldest statement in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on Tuesday, saying a “vigorous prosecution must now be pursued.”

In the statement, Nixon said,”The democratically elected St. Louis County prosecutor and the Attorney General of the United States, each have a job to do. Their obligation to achieve justice in the shooting death of Michael Brown must be carried out thoroughly, promptly, and correctly; and I call upon them to meet those expectations.”

This could potentially taint any investigation, grand jury proceeding, and, if it comes to it, criminal court trial.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Progressives Continue To Unintentionally Point Out Their Policies Are Bad

By William Teach August 19, 2014 – 4:06 pm

They aren’t just wrong, but Bad, with a capital B. Let’s note a quote that Smitty supplies

A hundred years ago, the first group of progressives concluded that this country needed to change in a big way. They argued explicitly for a refounding of the United States on the grounds that the only absolute in political life is that absolutes are material and economic rather than moral in nature.

I used a different emphasis than Smitty did, leading to this op-ed by Eugene Robinson, who’s never shy about stoking the flames of racism

Millions of African Americans took advantage of the opportunities created by the civil rights movement to climb into the middle class — and in some cases far beyond, as exemplified by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Yet millions of other black Americans did not reach the middle class. This group, mired in poverty and dysfunction, finds the paths others took are blocked. They live in neighborhoods with failing schools that cannot prepare them for today’s economy. Secure, high-paying blue-collar jobs are a thing of the past. Racial bias in policing means African Americans are much more likely to be arrested and jailed for minor nonviolent offenses, such as drug possession, than whites who commit the same crimes.

Increasingly, these African Americans who were left behind are invisible. Their neighborhoods either get gentrified — which means they can no longer afford to stay there — or simply bypassed by development. What happens in poor black neighborhoods has less and less to do with the everyday lives of middle-class Americans, white or black.

Yet in Ferguson and other such pockets across the nation, millions of young black men and women grow up knowing that the deck is stacked against them.

Then we have this from Ta-Neshi Coates at The Atlantic, another writer willing to fan the flames of racism, with the pithy title Reparations for Ferguson

Among the many relevant facts for any African-American negotiating their relationship with the police the following stands out: The police departments of America are endowed by the state with dominion over your body. This summer in Ferguson and Staten Island we have seen that dominion employed to the maximum ends—destruction of the body. This is neither new nor extraordinary. It does not matter if the destruction of your body was an overreaction. It does not matter if the destruction of your body resulted from a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction of your body springs from foolish policy. Sell cigarettes without proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Resent the people trying to entrap your body and it can be be destroyed. Protect the home of your mother and your body can be destroyed. Visit the home of your young daughter and your body will be destroyed. The destroyers of your body will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions.

It will not do to point out the rarity of the destruction of your body by the people whom you pay to protect it. As Gene Demby has noted, destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All of this is common to black people. All of this is old for black people. No one is held accountable. The body of Michael Brown was left in the middle of the street for four hours. It can not be expected that anyone will be held accountable.

Both of these opinion pieces have different central themes, and both of them inadvertently highlight the failure of Progressive doctrine. Both highlight the failure of Progressive government. Who controls the urbanized areas? Democrats. In Robinson’s case, we see that Black’s are left behind in terrible economic and social conditions created by Progressive policies, all while Progressives fan the flames of racism. In Coates’ case, we see that Big Government, stoked and pushed by Progressives, which increasingly has more and more control of “your body”, is damned dangerous.

Progressive policies have failed Blacks. When will Progressives finally note the how bad their policies are?

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 19, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is coffee that will have to totally move to a different location to be produced, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Blogmocracy, with a post on Generation Narcissus.

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Bummer: Climate Change Provides A Lesson Of Civilization Collapse

By William Teach August 19, 2014 – 11:36 am

Total doom, y’all!

Lessons From The Last Time Civilization Collapsed

Consider this, if you would: a network of far-flung, powerful, high tech civilizations closely tied by trade and diplomatic embassies; an accelerating threat of climate change and its pressure on food production; a rising wave of displaced populations ready to sweep across and overwhelm developed nations.

Sound familiar?

While that laundry list of impending doom could be aimed at our era, it’s actually a description of the world 3,000 years ago. It is humanity’s first “global” dark age as described by archeologist and George Washington University professor Eric H. Cline in his recent book 1177 B C: The Year Civilization Collapsed.

1177 B.C. is, for Cline, a milepost. A thousand years before Rome or Christ or Buddha, there existed a powerful array of civilizations in the Near and Middle East that had risen to the height of their glory. Then, fairly suddenly, the great web of interconnected civilizations imploded and disappeared.

What they are talking about is the Bronze Age, particularly the late Bronze Age. This period started around 3,000 B.C., so, around 5,000 years ago. Let’s continue

It was the transport of copper and tin for bronze that helped establish complex trade networks. Grain and manufactured goods also became part of that transportation web. Alliances between city-states followed. In this way, the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians became the economic powerhouses of the ancient world — what Cline calls the ” Together they built the first version of a “global” culture using long-distance economic and military partnerships that required advanced — for its day — technologies.

So what took all these cultures down at the same time? The story begins, but does not end, with climate change.

The evidence that a prolonged shift in climate was a factor in bringing down the Mediterranean Bronze Age comes from a number of studies, including one published in 2013, showing that cooling sea surface temperatures led to lower rainfall over inland farming areas. from sea sediments also indicates a fairly rapid transition to a dryer climate in during this period that includes the Late Bronze Age collapse.

That is the one and only mention of cooling within the article. I have not read the book, so I do not know if the author, Eric H. Cline, stokes the flames of runaway global warming today, or spends lots of time discussing what happened with the climate of the time, namely, cooling.

We can see that, 5, 000 years ago, the Earth was experiencing a warm period, followed by a small cool period, some warming, then a deep cool period, one which would coincide with the end of the Bronze Age. But, the narrative from NPR seems to be doom from “climate change” for today based on the civilization collapse from then, without mentioning the cause, nor that the civilizations seemed to thrive during that warm period, which was warmer than today.

BTW, what caused that warm period? Sure wasn’t fossil fueled vehicles. What caused the Roman Warm Period? The Roman Empire’s collapse, interestingly, coincided with another cool period, known as The Dark Ages. In context with the data, we see that human civilization does much better in warm periods than cool ones.

This is why it’s virtually impossible to have a real conversation with Warmists: they are completely dishonest.

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Salon: Say, Those Obamacare Court Rulings Could Be Dangerous To Ocare

By William Teach August 19, 2014 – 8:45 am

Salon’s Jonathan Siegel is in a frenzy

Obamacare’s grave danger: Here’s how a future GOP president could kill it

Remember those conflicting court rulings about the ACA? Even the favorable one allows a president to interpret it

In passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”), Congress made a minor mistake — a drafting error that threatens the entire act. Two federal courts of appeals have issued conflicting rulings about how to interpret Congress’ poorly chosen words. And while the more favorable ruling seems likely to prevail, the act is still in grave danger. That’s because even the more favorable one leaves it up to the executive to decide which interpretation of the Act is correct. That means that while Obamacare might seem safe for now, a future president could interpret the act in a way that would destroy it.

This, of course, goes to the subsidies, and whether they are allowed to be applied to those who obtain Ocare insurance through a Federally run exchange, where the text of the law states that subsidies are only available to those who obtain insurance through exchanges established by States. Hey, we told you to read the bill, didn’t we? Nancy Pelosi famously said that “we have to pass the law to find out what’s in it.” We found out that they made a mistake. Or did we? In fact, it was not a mistake, but a means to push States to establish their own exchanges. That’s a story for another time.

This sunny forecast, however, overlooks one critical point.

Assuming the 4th Circuit’s decision ultimately prevails, that decision only allows, and does not compel, the IRS to interpret the Affordable Care Act to provide subsidies for people who buy health insurance on HealthCare.gov. The 4th Circuit did not hold that the act clearly provides for such subsidies; it held that the act was ambiguous. If that’s correct, then it’s up to the IRS to decide whether the act provides for such subsidies or not.

The IRS is an executive agency. It’s part of the Treasury, and the Affordable Care Act technically vests the secretary of the Treasury with the power to promulgate the regulations interpreting the act’s subsidy provision. Of course under President Obama’s Treasury secretary, the regulations allow Obamacare to work. But what about the next president? Whom would President Ted Cruz, or President Rand Paul, or even President Jeb Bush appoint as Treasury secretary, and what would that secretary do?

It’s entirely possible, under the 4th Circuit’s ruling, that the next administration could promulgate new rules denying subsidies to people who purchase insurance on HealthCare.gov. If the statute is ambiguous, a court would have to uphold such an interpretation of the statute unless it were unreasonable. And while there would be a good argument that such an interpretation would be unreasonable (since without the subsidies, the statutory scheme could collapse), it’s rare for a court to find that a statute is ambiguous, and yet to strike down an agency’s interpretation of the statute as unreasonable.

If a future GOP president takes the subsidies away from those who are in states with a federally run exchange (doubtful that it would happen, BTW), he/she would be well within their authority per the conflicting court rulings. Liberals would have no room to complain. Though they still would. That’s what they do.

This is similar to what I discussed prior to the 2012 election, that there is lots of ambiguity within Ocare. Lots of “the Director of HHS shalls and mays”. Same for other agencies. It leaves quite a bit of the actual operational directives up to the Executive Branch. Consider the “contraceptive mandate”: it appears nowhere within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was wholly a creation of Team Obama. A GOP President could shut down the contraceptive mandate with a few words. Same with huge parts of the way Ocare operates.

Furthermore, based on the way Obama has willfully changed the law in violation of the law, a GOP president could do things like continuously suspend the individual and business mandates. And the full time work hour requirement could be changed from 30 to whatever they want.

Siegel calls the court rulings a “grave danger” to Ocare, and well he should. He notes how important the 2016 election for President is vis a vis Ocare. I’d agree.

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