Bummer: Performing YMCA Is Racist

By William Teach May 15, 2014 – 2:45 pm

I’ll admit, I detest the song. First off, it’s disco. Yuck. Second, it’s seemingly about adult males attempting to get young men to go to the YMCA for gay sex. Though the Village People dispute that. Still, it’s better than most of the utter crap coming out today. The narcissistic, focus group corporate written, patronizing, never going to sing it live, auto-tuned, computer created, etc and so on crappola. But, still disco. And, apparently, racist

(UPI) A North Dakota elementary school will not be allowing the young men and women in a first-grade class to perform YMCA at a talent show because a parent dubbed the planned performance “racist.”

Students at Bennett Elementary School in Fargo were supposed to sing the famous Village People song during a May talent show.

They were going to dress up like the Village People. Obviously, racist

Parent Elaine Bolman found it offensive that her daughter or her classmates would be asked to dress up like a stereotypical Native American caricature.

“I’m not in a position to do anything for these educators, and hopefully those people that are can make the right choices so all students of any culture and race won’t feel singled out or like their race is being stereotyped against,” Bolman told Inforum.

Seriously, people need to lighten up. Stop Being Offended by everything. BTW, is Bolman an Indian?

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 15, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is natural gas which is almost as bad as coal, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Nice Deb, with a post on Obamacare being an albatross around Democrat necks.

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Good Grief: Godzilla Director Links Movie To “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 15, 2014 – 10:29 am

Will this kind of blatant idiocy affect ticket sales? Perhaps. Obviously, the original was partly about the threat of nuclear weapons. That theme was briefly introduced during the 1998 reboot. The question is, will the climate change ant-fossil fuels theme (say, how much fossil fuel was used to make the movie?) be prevalent throughout the film? The others highlighted nuclear weapons early, then dropped the subject. Nuclear weapons are also mentioned in the new film

‘Godzilla’ Director Gareth Edwards Says Godzilla Is a ‘God’ Protecting Mankind Against Climate Change

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife. Godzilla is back.

Um, isn’t writing like that racist? The writer, Marlow Stern, looks to be as white as MSNBC’s board of directors.

The Daily Beast spoke to Edwards about re-creating the Godzilla monster—it’s based on one of your favorite Muppets, apparently—the film’s Man vs. Nature message, and much more.

Your version of Godzilla seems to be more rooted in current events, and centers on mankind’s tenuous relationship with nature, and the environment.

Yeah. Man vs. Nature is the predominant theme of the film, and I always tried to go back to that imagery. At the beginning when they find the fossils, it was important to me that they didn’t just find them—it was caused by our abuse of the planet. We deserved it, in a way. So there’s this rainforest with a big scar in the landscape with this quarry, slave labor, and a Western company. You have to ask yourself, “What does Godzilla represent?” The thing we kept coming up with is that he’s a force of nature, and if nature had a mascot, it would be Godzilla. So what do the other creatures represent? They represent man’s abuse of nature, and the idea is that Godzilla is coming to restore balance to something mankind has disrupted.

Le sigh. Anyhow, we’ll have to see how good the movie actually is, and whether the hardcore Warmist themes are throughout the movie. Gareth Edwards directed Monsters, which I thought was a fantastic monster movie, very subtle, with lots of little twists.

BTW, I really liked the 1998 reboot. Sorry.

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Warmists Go On Witch Hunt, Force Professor Bengtsson To Resign

By William Teach May 15, 2014 – 7:21 am

Don’t forget, Warmists, who are part of the Progressive movement, as self-professed as the Most Tolerant People On The Planet. No dissent is allowed

(Cato) An interesting juxtaposition of items appeared in our Inbox today.

First was an announcement that Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, had resigned from the Academic Advisory Council of the U.K.’s Global Warming Policy Foundation. What was surprising about this announcement was that it was just announced a week or so ago that Dr. Bengtsson—a prominent and leading climate modeler and research scientist—was joining the GWPF Council. At that time, there was some wondering aloud as to why Dr. Bengtsson would join an organization that was somewhat “skeptical” when it comes to the projections and impacts of climate change and the effectiveness and direction of climate change policy.

During one recent interview Dr. Bengtsson explained:

I think the climate community shall be more critical and spend more time to understand what they are doing instead of presenting endless and often superficial results and to do this with a critical mind. I do not believe that the IPCC machinery is what is best for science in the long term. We are still in a situation where our knowledge is insufficient and climate models are not good enough. What we need is more basic research freely organized and driven by leading scientists without time pressure to deliver and only deliver when they believe the result is good and solid enough. It is not for scientists to determine what society should do. In order for society to make sensible decisions in complex issues it is essential to have input from different areas and from different individuals. The whole concept behind IPCC is basically wrong.

A good summary of the buzz that surrounded Dr. Bengtsson and his association with GWPF is contained over at Judith Curry’s website, Climate Etc.

Dr. Bengtsson was forced to resign, due to the constant threats and nasty treatment. Here’s his resignation letter

Dear Professor Henderson,

I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expect[ed] such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.

I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expect[ed] anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.

[glad you noticed!—eds]

Under these [sic] situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time.

With my best regards

Lennart Bengtsson

The Global Warming Policy Foundation notes

He said the pressure had mainly come from climate scientists in the US, including one employed by the US government who threatened to withdraw as co-author of a forthcoming paper because of his link with the foundation.

Professor Henderson replies

Your resignation is not only a sad event for us in the Foundation:  it is also a matter of profound and much wider concern. The reactions that you speak of, and which have forced you to reconsider the decision to join us, reveal a degree of intolerance, and a rejection of the principle of open scientific inquiry, which are truly shocking. They are evidence of a situation which the Global Warming Policy Foundation was created to remedy.

In your recent published interview with Marcel Crok, you said that ‘if I cannot stand my own opinions, life will become completely unbearable’. All of us on the Council will feel deep sympathy with you in an ordeal which you should never have had to endure.

The entire reply is available at Tucano’s Perch.

Australian Climate Madness writes about the climate jihadists striking again. Roger Pielke, Jr., notes the climate McCarthyism. Dr. Judith Curry says this has the potential to do more damage than Climategate. Many others have chimed in, as well. Of course, no Warmists are saying “hey, um, this isn’t the way science works. It should be open and free”.

On not sure if McCarthyism is correct, because McCarthy was actually right about communists infiltrating the government. This is more akin to the way scientists like Galileo and Copernicus were persecuted by the 16th and 17th century church in a religious world. Because the climate change movement certainly acts more like a repressive religion, the way the Catholic church was during a time.

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Surprise: Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Showing IRS HQ Knew Of Tea Party Targeting

By William Teach May 15, 2014 – 6:57 am

At the end of the day, history will show that the Obama administration was inept, unqualified, vindictive, overly political, and secretive, among others. Whether those directly within Team Obama ordered or “suggested” targeting of Tea Party groups is not currently known. However, the attitudes of Team Obama, including Mr. Obama himself, created a perfect storm where Leftists in the federal bureaucracy abused their Power. Supposedly, there was no coordination with D.C. That talking point has been shredded

(Judicial Watch) Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.  The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations.

The documents came in response to an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)).

One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC. On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.”  Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati and Sharon Camarillo was a Senior Manager in their Los Angeles office. Grodnitzky, a top lawyer in the Exempt Organization Technical unit (EOT) in Washington, DC, responds:

EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob.

The reference to Rob is believed to be Rob Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in IRS’s Washington, DC, headquarters.

I do believe that the House committee will have several more pointed questions for Ms. Lerner, Mr. Choi, and a few others. There are more emails, some of which are about how to search for Tea Party applications. There was actually a BOLO (be on the lookout) order to look for them.

A series of letters between Senator Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials throughout 2012 discuss how to target conservative groups the senator claimed were “engaged in political activities.” In response to a Levin March 30 letter citing the “urgency of the issue,” then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller assured the senator that IRS regulations were flexible enough to allow IRS agents to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for select 501(c)(4) organizations.

So the IRS, a supposedly neutral federal agency, was coordinating and concersing with a sitting US Senator who happened to be a Democrat and wanted to target the Tea Party groups (which surely violates his oath to uphold the Constitution, particularly the 1st Amendment.) Hot Air goes through the details on this.

In perhaps the most revealing letter from the IRS to Levin, Miller on June 4, 2012, takes 16 pages to explain to the senator what IRS regulations and policies may and may not be used to evaluate political groups and assures him that the agency has considerable leeway in picking and choosing which groups would be subject to additional scrutiny:

There is no standard questionnaire used to obtain information about political activities. Although there is a template development letter that describes the general information on the case development process, the letter does not specify the information to be requested from any particular organization … Consequently, revenue agents prepare individualized questions and requests for documents relevant to the application. . .

A May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report revealed that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status. The TIGTA probe determined that “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status (e.g., lists of past and future donors).”  The illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and “delayed processing of targeted groups applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.

The IRS even used special symbols, via the Washington, D.C., office (via Katie Pavlich)

Liberals/Democrats/Progressives, just remember, if you’re poo-pooing this intentional, coordinated targeting of Tea Party groups, in violation of Law, much less the Constitution, don’t complain if it happens to your groups. Oh, you don’t think that would be right to have them intentionally targeted? Huh. Strange.

BTW, have you noticed that it so often seems that the only way to get the real info out of The Most Transparent Administration Evah!!!!!! requires lawsuits?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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NC General Assembly Considering Tax On E Cigarette Liquids

By William Teach May 14, 2014 – 2:48 pm

Most news sources are positioning this as a tax on e-cigarettes themselves, which is not quite correct. There will be no excise tax on the devices used, whether they be ones where you purchase replacement cartridges, such as Blue, or ones where you refill the cartridges yourself, such as my Kanger EVOD. Instead, they’re aiming at the e-liquids themselves. Even though many people purchase liquid with no nicotine

(Charlotte Business Journal) Draft legislation for the taxation of electronic cigarettes was approved Tuesday by the North Carolina General Assembly’s Joint Revenue Laws Study Committee, WRAL reports.

The state imposes a sales tax on the devices but does not collect an excise tax, as is imposed on cigarettes and other tobacco products. The proposal would tax the liquid in e-cigarettes – liquid that contains nicotine derived from tobacco – at a rate of 5 cents per milliliter.

This will supposedly bring in up to $5 million a year. And, I’m sure, some folks go “hey, it’s just 5 cents per milliliter. No biggie”. But, taxes always seem to start low, and work their way up. I purchase my favorite flavors in 30ml bottles. That’s an extra $1.50 each time, imposed artificially. And, for what reason? None of the articles I have read so far give a reason for imposing this excise tax. Other than, perhaps, because RJ Reynolds, a tobacco company, supports it, and their product would not be taxed.

(WRAL) Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, noted that the low rate could cause significant state revenue losses down the road.

“That will have an impact upon us when we do our budget projections for lost revenues … moving from 45 cents to 5 cents,” he said.

Wait, what? There is no excise tax currently on e-cig liquids. How can there be an revenue loss on something that doesn’t exist? This is simply Democrat World.

If Thom Tillis, who won the GOP nomination to go up against Kay Hagan for her Senate seat, wants to prove his Conservative bonofides he can kill this proposed legislation, as Speaker of the House. Tweet him here.

As Ronald Reagan pointed out, Government’s view of the economy is “If it moves, tax it”. Why mess with economic movement? When I purchase e-liquid, I pay the current NC sales tax. Why add more?

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 14, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a mountainside being turned into desert, which could mean that ballpark of the (horrible) San Francisco Giants* might be flooded from sea rise, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is This ain’t Hell…, with a post going old school on hashtag diplomacy.

*too bad such a cute women likes such an evil team. Yes, I am a Dodgers fan.

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Bummer: Only 500 Days To Avoid “Climate Chaos” Doom

By William Teach May 14, 2014 – 11:02 am

Say, I wonder how the French foreign minister traveled to the United States? Did he walk, bike, and swim?

(CNS News) The world has “500 days to avoid climate chaos,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said alongside Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department on Tuesday.

“We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos,” Fabius said. “And I know that President Obama and John Kerry himself are committed on this subject and I’m sure that with them, with a lot of other friends, we shall be able to reach success in this very important matter.”

Fabius was referring to the next big United Nations climate conference, scheduled to open in Paris, France in November 2015, or in 565 days’ time.

This is another important reason for Republicans to regain the Senate: blocking anything that comes out of the the 2015 climate vacation in Paris, where tons of government bureaucrats, NGO’s, left wing agitators, and a few scientists with agendas will take fossil fueled trips to tell Everyone Else they need to stop using fossil fuels. This will be preceded by this year’s IPCC Conference on the Parties, held in Lima, Peru. Interesting how so many are telling the Latinos in Peru that their COP doesn’t matter. Seems bigoted, eh?

Anyhow, notice that the assumption here is that if Government doesn’t force measures on citizens, doom will occur? Yet, these same people fail to follow the same prescriptions for themselves.

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Christian Victim Of Boko Haram Denied Visa Multiple Times

By William Teach May 14, 2014 – 8:45 am

So claims her human rights attorney

(CNS News) A 15-year-old girl who witnessed the murder of her father and teenage brother at the hands of Boko Haram terrorists says she decided to tell her story after the group kidnapped almost 300 schoolgirls last month in the same village in northern Nigeria where she grew up.

Deborah Peters, speaking Tuesday at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., recalled how in 2011 members of Boko Haram came to her home in Chibok, where she lived with her brother and father, who was a pastor of a local church.

“Three men knocked on our door, and then my brother opened the door for them,” Peters said. “And they asked him, ‘Where is your dad?’ And he told them, ‘My dad is in the bathroom taking a shower.’

They took her dad out and attempted to force him to “deny his faith”, threatening to kill him if he didn’t. He refused, so, they shot him three times, shot her brother three times, then tied her up and left her between the corpses.

Emmanuel Ogebe, the human rights attorney who helped Peters come to the United States, said that visa requests filed on Peters’ behalf were denied “multiple times,” with the State Department citing no family ties in the U.S. as the reason.

Part of the reason was because Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. refused to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization. I will say, the designation wasn’t as cut and dry as some claim, when international diplomacy comes into play. I truly hate to cite a Media Matters article, but, I recommend reading the latter half.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a bit of a meltdown in an article proclaiming that the Right Blames Hillary for the Boko Haram kidnapping, the same Hillary whose State Dept. supposedly denied Ms. Peters a visa (and, I think we can believe that the claim actually happened, based on what we’ve seen from the State Dept, especially under Clinton/Obama)

Conservatives have reached the firm conclusion that Hillary Clinton is to blame for those Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram, 14 months after she left office.

On Fox News last week, Elisabeth Hasselbeck attributed the attack to Clinton’s failure to put the group on a list of foreign terrorist organizations when she was secretary of state. That “perhaps could have saved these girls earlier,” Hasselbeck declared.

Interesting. That second article is the same one I cited from Media Matters. The first is from the always unhinged Slate, written by the always unhinged Amanda Marcotte. What Dana, along with the rest of his unhinged brethren miss, is not that Hillary is solely to blame, as the we blame the perpetrators, the hardcore Islamist members of Boko Haram. What is being noted is that Hillary was in charge of the State Dept. when it was refusing to designate BK as a terrorist organization. Milbank is also missing the point that this is politics. And, hey, I don’t remember Milbank complaining when Democrats were blaming George Bush for 9/11, rather than al Qaeda. Nor did he complain when Democrats Blamed Bush for “creating more terrorists” for daring to fight back against the terrorists. A talking point that disappeared when Obama kept the fight up and has been drone striking them.

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, suggested that Clinton didn’t designate the group as terrorist because its members are black.

Neither Politico nor Milbank understand the tongue in cheek statement was, in terms of Liberals always going the racist route when Conservatives do something.

The abduction of hundreds of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram, the latest atrocity by the militant group claiming to be acting on Islamic principles, has little to do with the United States.

Strange. Libya had little to do with the United States, yet, Obama launched an air war. Milbank goes on to give more “examples”, ending with

It was a textbook example of the anatomy of a smear.

Well, gee, Dana, what, exactly, did she do to work against Boko Haram? Perhaps you’d care to comment on Ms. Peters, and why her visa was denied many times?

Read: Christian Victim Of Boko Haram Denied Visa Multiple Times »

Posted in Hillary Clinton, Liberal World, RoP | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama Claims Illegal Alien Enforcement Isn’t Smart

By William Teach May 14, 2014 – 8:18 am

I wonder if Obama will jump in on the latest Alec Baldwin controversy, where the NYPD stopped him for going the wrong way on his bicycle and they were going to ticket him. That’s right. Ticket him. Supposedly, he got snappy and they arrested him. I’d be ticked if I was going to get a ticket for riding a bicycle, too. But, hey, in Obama’s world, law enforcement should ignore most illegals. You can call them undocumenteds, if you want. Either way, no matter what phrase you use, it all means “they shouldn’t be here”

(Daily Caller) Enforcing immigration law “isn’t smart,” President Barack Obama told law enforcement officials Tuesday, just one day after the public learned he had released 36,007 illegal-immigrant murderers, rapists, thieves and other criminals into the nation’s communities.

Cops should be going after major criminals, not the many illegal immigrants that are quietly living in their districts, said Obama, who has twice sworn to uphold the nation’s laws.

“You’ve got to spend time dealing with somebody who is not causing any other trouble other than the fact that they were trying to make a living for their families,” Obama said.

“That’s just not a good use of our resources. It’s not smart. It doesn’t make sense,” said Obama, who has already directed immigration police to minimize enforcement of illegal living far from the border.

How does law enforcement know they aren’t causing any trouble if those tasked with enforcing the laws of their city, county, state, and the U.S. fail to investigate? Is speeding really “causing trouble”? Why, yes, yes it is, because it is The Law. What if those speeding are just trying to get to work and make a living for their family? By Obama’s reckoning, law enforcement should leave them alone. How about those fishing without a license? Are they really causing trouble? Perhaps we should just do away with Fish and Wildlife, at the state and federal levels. It’s just not a good use of our resources. Perhaps OSHA should leave companies alone. Not show up at companies and look around, interfering with operations. It’s not smart. And, hey, the IRS? It doesn’t make sense that they would audit good people without proof of illegal activities.

The statement will likely spur concerns among Republicans and the public that Obama can’t be trusted to implement the enforcement features of any immigration compromise.

I wish that was so. There are still enough fools within the GOP, especially the elected and establishment Republicans who will push for some sort of “it’s not amnesty!!!!!!” amnesty with all sorts of “triggers” that Obama will fail to uphold.

Obama’s call to end the enforcement of immigration law came during a staged event at the White House. The purpose was to stimulate his supporters’ declining interest in the largely defunct and unpopular 18-month campaign to sharply increase the inflow of immigrants and guest-workers. Obama needs to keep the issue boiling to boost turnout by Latinos in November.

Again with the campaigning. I’d say he’s given up on Doing President, but, then, his entire time in office has simply been one long campaign event, rather than bellying up to the bar and doing the job.

The illegals “are folks who are woven into the fabrics of our communities,” he said. ”Their kids are going to school with our kids. Most of them are not making trouble; most of them are not causing crimes. And yet, we put them in this tenuous position, and it creates a situation in which your personnel, who have got to go after gang-bangers and need to be going after violent criminals and deal with the whole range of challenges, and who have to cooperate with [the federal government] around our counterterrorism activities.”

See? It’s our fault, those of us who are legal U.S. citizens. The fact is that most of these illegals, and their anchor baby children, mostly fail to integrate into American society. They so often refuse to learn English. They demand that Everyone Else accommodate them. They demand driver’s licenses. That everything is in Spanish. That the government provide services and money to them. That they receive in-state tuition. But, hey, they’re minor law breakers, like, say, people who blow off stop signs and stop lights, so, no big deal. Until someone is coming at the intersection and an accident occurs. Till an ER is closed. And a U.S. citizen’s life is ruined through stealing identity. Lost jobs. Depressed wages. Kids can’t learn because illegals/anchor babies can barely speak the language. Take up resources such as food stamps and welfare. And all the other problems illegals cause.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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