If All You See…

By William Teach August 16, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil beer which people drink to cool down but makes the climate hotter from CO2, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Gay Patriot, with a thought on “Caribou Barbie”

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 65 Comments | Trackback URL

Rodeoclowngate: The Left Wing Freakout That Won’t Die

By William Teach August 16, 2013 – 9:53 am

Seriously, a rodeo clown mocking POTUS Obama is what liberals get upset over. Not Benghazi, IRS abuses, NSA spying, Fast and Furious, etc. No, a rodeo clown. Look, I will say that it was a dumb stunt. Inappropriate. Leave the politics out of non-political things. I don’t want to see politics while watching sports or other events. But, libs can’t let this minor tiff go, hence CNN solicited Judy Quest, a board member and past president of Clowns Of America International to make the raaaaacism cause

It was a sad day in the clown world when a “clown” at the Missouri State Fair put on a mask in the likeness of President Barack Obama and wore a broomstick attached to his behind to perform in a rodeo in America’s Heartland.

Some would ask: How this is different from late-night pundits making mocking comments about every political person alive? It is different in that it goes against everything a clown stands for and makes fun of our president in a way that is truly offensive on so many levels.

Anyone get the feeling that if the clown wore a Bush 43 mask things would be copacetic? She goes on to note that the clown code of ethics is against offending people or something, and

This mean no sexual or racial humor. The joke always needs to be on us and never on an audience member. If someone is offended or made the “victim” of a joke, it is totally against what the clown community would consider funny.

So, raaaaacism.

What of the children who were in the audience and being taught to respect our president and government? What of every person in the audience who hates racism? What of the officials of the state of Missouri who are now the focus of national attention in this negative light?

Right. Respect for government and a president that doesn’t respect Americans. What of the clowns right to his free speech and to not be fired and blackballed for it? Oh, and raaaaacism.

The Free Speech clause is all about protecting political free speech that we don’t like, something Matt Bernius at the squishy Outside The Beltline doesn’t get. First he yammers on about the rodeo being state sponsored and funded, then

Others have attempted to say that this is a violation of free speech rights. This is a problematic understanding of the First Amendment. The clown was allowed to complete the skit. The “speech” happened. He’s not being thrown in jail or forced to pay a direct fine. What the First Amendment does not protect one from is the ramifications of one’s words — in particular firings or rather not hiring in the future. And why? Because his performance (a) embarrassed his employer and (b) ultimately caused damage to their reputation.

Except, this is exactly what the Free Speech clause is about, the ability to speak out against Government and not have the government retaliate. And the government is retaliating.

Remember when dissent was patriotic and we were allowed to disagree and mock the POTUS?

Read: Rodeoclowngate: The Left Wing Freakout That Won’t Die »

Posted in 1st Amendment, Barking Moonbats, Barry Obama, Good Move Slick | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Are You Ready For The Million Islamist March?

By William Teach August 16, 2013 – 7:52 am

It’ll be just as crazy as you’re thinking

(The Blaze) A radical Muslim political advocacy group has sparked controversy with its plans to hold a “Million Muslim March” on Washington, D.C., on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11. The gathering is intended to condemn the discrimination of Muslims following 9/11 and urge the U.S. government to reveal the “truth” about the attack.

The move has been blasted as “tasteless” given the significance of the date commemorating the worst domestic terror attack in American history.

The group behind the event, the American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), is led by M.D. Rabbi Alam, a self-proclaimed 9/11 truther who believes that Jews are somehow behind the plot. AMPAC is radical enough that the Huffington Post even labeled it a “fringe group.”

Alam, who has reportedly associated with a radical Islamic cleric, is also a Missouri-based Democratic activist who chairs the National Democratic Party Asian American Caucus, the Washington Free Beacon reports. He ran — unsuccessfully — for Missouri’s secretary of state in 2012.

Whether a thousand, much less a million, show up is questionable. Even CAIR knows that this is a Bad Idea. From the AMPAC website

We are demanding that laws be enacted protecting our 1st amendment . We are asking President Obama to fulfill his promise from his first campaign for Presidency of a transparent government. Lastly we are asking for the release of the 9/11 commission report to the American people.

Oh, good, pushing 9/11 Truth.

These lies told to the American population has made it impossible for us to do true Dawa. Why do we have to defend our religion while doing Dawa? Why can’t we just share the perfection of the Quran and the beauty of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SWS)?

As Maggie’s Notebook (which I linked the other day on this story) notes

The short story? This is about Islamic Law, Sharia’h Law in America in the future. For every American Muslim who despises Sharia’h Law or who wants to be exempt from it here, there are many more who believe Islam will and should dominate the world. Every step Muslim leaders take forward is a step toward Muslim dominance.

One has to wonder how much influence the Muslim Brotherhood, which Obama seems to be very cozy with, will have on this march. provided it happens, of course.

Read: Are You Ready For The Million Islamist March? »

Posted in Islamification, RoP | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Surprise! NSA Violated Privacy Rules 2,776 Times In One Year

By William Teach August 16, 2013 – 7:02 am

Unfortunately, Americans aren’t up in arms over the revelations from Edward Snowden, and will probably yawn at this Washington Post report

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.

Most of what is noted seems to be “errors”, which include operator errors, such as not following standard procedures and training issues, along with computer errors. Makes one feel safe, eh?

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

The NSA notes that “hey, we’re human, sh*t happens, and really, these were just a tiny percent of all the things we do, no need to worry, we promise we’re really good”. The report only covers the Ft. Meade and Washington area stations, not the others scattered around, otherwise the numbers would be much bigger.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

One has to wonder just how worse the situation actually is, and unsurprisingly Team Obama is against transparency and making sure that the Civil Rights of Americans aren’t violated. We also have to wonder how many times the NSA intentionally violated the privacy of Americans.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Surprise! NSA Violated Privacy Rules 2,776 Times In One Year »

Posted in Barry Obama, Current Affairs | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Warmists Upset That Hotcoldwetdry Threatens Apples

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 6:22 pm

Obviously, doooooom!

(Nature) Those who find satisfaction in the crunch of a hard apple have reason to be worried about climate change: a 40-year study of Japanese apple orchards has found that global warming is producing softer — but sweeter — apples.

The work, published today in Scientific Reports1, joins a growing body of research that describes how changes in climate are affecting iconic foods. The findings mean that Japan’s beloved Fuji apples join the ranks of other plants that are likely to have their harvests altered by warming temperatures, such as wine grapes and the sugar maple trees used to make maple syrup.

“Climate changes are impacting the everyday lives of real people,” says Christopher Field, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, who was not involved with the work. “It is not just an abstraction.”

These people really are flat-earthers, who think that everything should always stay exactly the same.

Read: Warmists Upset That Hotcoldwetdry Threatens Apples »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Obama Sounded Like He Was Talking About His Own Government In Remarks About Egypt

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 1:16 pm

The Egyptian government could throw some of O’s remarks right back

(WSJ) We know that many Egyptians, millions of Egyptians, perhaps even a majority of Egyptians were calling for a change in course. And while we do not believe that force is the way to resolve political differences, after the military’s intervention several weeks ago, there remained a chance for reconciliation and an opportunity to pursue a democratic path. Instead, we’ve seen a more dangerous path taken, through arbitrary arrests, a broad crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s associations and supporters and now, tragically, violence that’s taken the lives of hundreds of people and wounded thousands more.

The Obama admin does through the use of the IRS and other federal agencies, as well as left wing groups,  with intimidation, rather than violence.

We support universal rights essential to human dignity, including the right to peaceful protest.

Tell that to a certain rodeo clown.

We call on the Egyptian authorities to respect the universal rights of the people.

We call on Team Obama to do the same. NSA spying, Benghazi, IRS, Fast and Furious, picking and choosing which laws he wants to enforce, dictating law by executive order, demonizing political opponents.

As a sidebar, I would like to point out that Obama’s speech wasn’t bad, especially as he calls for piece and decries the violence. Unfortunately, he also glossed over the murder of Christians by Islamists and barely mentions the burning of churches. And

We’ve been blamed by supporters of Morsi; we’ve been blamed by the other side as if we are supporters of Morsi. That kind of approach will do nothing to help Egyptians achieve the future that they deserve. We want Egypt to succeed. We want a peaceful, democratic, prosperous Egypt. That’s our interest. But to achieve that, the Egyptians are going to have to do the work.

This might work if Obama hadn’t reduced the political might and standing of the US with all his equivocations, waffling, hand-wringing, and general wishy washyness. Whining about the US being blamed might have worked with a strong leader, but not one who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Arab Spring, then dumped Mubarak while his team called Assad a “reformer”, then backed the Muslim Brotherhood and their abuses. All with the backdrop of Obama’s abuses.

More: Ed Morrissey on Obama cancelling the joint military exercise

Given the scale of the deaths yesterday in Cairo, this hardly looks like a robust rebuke; it seems more like an expression of impotence.

Hey, remember, the US is just another country in the world.

Read: Obama Sounded Like He Was Talking About His Own Government In Remarks About Egypt »

Posted in Barry Obama | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is an electric grid that needs to be saved from Climate Change, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Blogmocracy, with a post noting that we cannot simply magic our problems away.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Climate Scientists Have A Moral Obligation To Take Action Or Something

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 10:52 am

I agree: any who believe in man-induced climate change and think we’re doomed should practice what they preach, rather than saying that Other People should be forced to live the life

Scientists have a moral obligation to take action on climate change

Calling on all scientists to refrain from public advocacy and leadership is wrong. We are in a global crisis, and the scientific fraternity has an ethical obligation to act

Al Gore’s influential film about climate science was not called A Scientifically-Modelled Truth, or The Statistically Fairly Likely Truth, even though these would have been accurate titles. It was An Inconvenient Truth, because the key factor in the climate debate is not the truthfulness of the science, but the futile political war waged against that scientific truth. That war is still being waged by sections of the media, as well as think tanks and campaigns funded by the polluters.

First, we note that writer Dan Cass exposes that Gore’s film was all about politics, not science. Second, we should note that there are 35 problems with Gore’s film.

Third, let’s note that when “climate change” is put in moral terms, we’ve gone from science to pseudo-religion. This is all about far left politics

However we are in a global crisis, and I believe that the scientific fraternity has an ethical obligation to take action. We need some scientists to show social leadership, not just scientific leadership. Edwards is being too strident, calling on all scientists to refrain from public advocacy and leadership. I think that is unreasonable to expect and never likely to happen.

OK, then they should all give up fossil fueled travel, no hairspray, turn the air conditioning off, stop using smartphones, and, heck, even computers are bad for “climate change”. Live a “carbon neutral” lifestyle.

However, I’m not sure which world Cass lives in, because the True Believer climate scientists have been pushing advocacy for decades. Hey, maybe it’s all the particulate matter put out by fossil fueled vehicles and planes from all the travel by Warmists that has caused this 17 year pause.

Read: Climate Scientists Have A Moral Obligation To Take Action Or Something »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

Feinstein And Durbin: Hey, Let’s Use International Law For The Gitmo Jihadis

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 8:33 am

Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin are super upset that the Gitmo detention facility is still open in the era of HopeNchange

(LA Times) The detention facility on our military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is holding 166 individuals. Most of them have been there a decade or more.

Operating Guantanamo costs about $450 million a year — or about $2.7 million a detainee, according to the Defense Department. Consider this: It costs $78,000 to hold a convicted terrorist in the most secure federal prison in the United States, Supermax in Colorado. With the sequester stretching budgets and Defense Department employees under furloughs, the U.S. is spending, per Guantanamo detainee, roughly 35 times the amount it spends at Supermax detaining a convicted terrorist.

This is a massive misuse of taxpayer money.

Right, because it’s better waste tens of billions of taxpayer money on failed “green” projects designed to hook up Democrat donors and supporters, not too mention the $850 billion Stimulus itself. How about DiFi’s $4 billion pork for ritzy West La? And we remember when Durbin compared the Americans working at Gitmo to Nazi’s.

The fact that Gitmo is stop operating is apparently the fault of Congress (read: Republicans), because at no point did Democrats fully control both the House and Senate during Obama’s time as President. In fact, the first thing Obama did was sign a finding saying Gitmo would be closed. He didn’t bother doing the work to actually follow through, though. Shocking for Obama, eh?

Anyhow, neither Durbin nor Feinstein are willing to house the jihadis in their own home states, but they do want the remaining Islamists either transferred to other nations (where they will mostly be set free) or tried

The 2014 Senate defense authorization bill will come up for debate on the Senate floor this fall. Congress must pass the provisions that streamline procedures for transferring detainees abroad and allow transfers to the U.S. for trial or detention under international law until the end of hostilities.

How about under US law? No, no, wait, let’s use international law, namely the Geneva Convention, which allows summary execution of those found fighting without a uniform as spies or mercenaries. Not that that would really happen, though Obama does seem to prefer drone striking jihadis to death instead of taking them captive.

I suggest that we do prosecute them in military court, as the Geneva Convention suggest, and house them in Feinstein and Durbin’s home towns of San Francisco and Springfield, Ill.

Read: Feinstein And Durbin: Hey, Let’s Use International Law For The Gitmo Jihadis »

Posted in Democrats, War On Terrorism | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

How Extreme Is North Carolina’s New Voter Law?

By William Teach August 15, 2013 – 7:50 am

Since the new NC voter law, which includes requiring voter ID, shortens the number of early voting days, eliminates same day registration, and does away with straight party voting, liberals have been doing their typical freakout dance. They’re typical headline and/or article pushes the “voter suppression” and “disenfranchisement” memes. Here’s the Raleigh N&O Editorial Board a few days ago

And he of course didn’t linger on the other parts of the legislation clearly designed to give Republicans an advantage in future elections, blatantly political maneuvers: no more straight-ticket voting, which is favored by more Democrats than Republicans; no more same-day registration and voting, again something shown to be used more by Democrats; early voting periods will be shorter, and early voting also tends to draw more Democrats; no more pre-registration for students younger than 18, as the young tend to lean Democratic.

They’re very worried that Dems will have trouble following the law in order to vote. Do they have trouble with Liberals voting in Hawaii, Illinois, and Delaware? Because they have voter ID laws, too. Sure, the NC law allows gun registrations as ID but not student ID. Because NC doesn’t have a ton of out-of-state students. I mentioned in that link that over 30 states have voter ID laws. Now, via the John Locke Foundation we see just how super evil the updated voter laws are

  • 14 states allow straight party voting. North Carolina now joins the 36 other states that do not.
  • 15 states allow NO early voting or no-excuse absentee voting. (Those include NY and Mass)
  • 32 states allow early voting ranging from 4 days prior to election day to 45 days with an average 19 days. North Carolina allows 10 days but requires the same number of hours of early voting that was available in 2012 and 2010 when the early voting period was 17 days.
  • Only 1 state allows same day registration during early voting. NC was the only other state to allow this and has now joined 49 states in not allowing same day registration during early voting.
  • 11 states allow same day registration on Election Day. North Carolina does not.
  • 5 states allow 16 and 17 year olds to pre-register to vote. 45 states do not, including now, North Carolina.

The lawyers for North Carolina will have these facts readily available as they fight of the Democrat led suits. When Pennsylvania was sued for their voter ID law, the judge upheld the law because most of the claims of the liberal organizations were found to be mule fritters. It’d be nice if (supposed) news organizations like the News and Observer, NY Times, Washington Post, and others, especially in North Carolina, would give the actual details.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: How Extreme Is North Carolina’s New Voter Law? »

Posted in Election Fraud, Elections, NC News | 3 Comments | Trackback URL
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