Warmists Really Excited About Chinese Plan To Possibly Execute Polluters

By William Teach June 22, 2013 – 7:37 am

Really excited. Here’s Grist’s John Upton

There are carrot and stick approaches to tackling pollution. China is reaching for the stick. The country announced Wednesday that it is willing to impose the harshest possible penalty on polluters. From Reuters:

Chinese authorities have given courts the powers to hand down the death penalty in serious pollution cases, state media said, as the government tries to assuage growing public anger at environmental desecration. …

A new judicial interpretation which took effect on Wednesday would impose “harsher punishments” and tighten “lax and superficial” enforcement of the country’s environmental protection laws, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

“In the most serious cases the death penalty could be handed down,” it said.

What the Chinese are talking about are real environmental issues, not the fake “climate change” cannard. What’s in the minds of Warmists like Upton?

Executing polluters is certainly a more dramatic approach to reining in pollution than is carbon trading, which also began in China this week.

Boom, linked to “climate change in a heartbeat. This isn’t the first time Warmists have had fantasies about criminal penalties and death for people who aren’t helping to reduce “carbon pollution,” and won’t be the last. This continues in the comments

  • About time! Looks like China is out front on this issue. Too bad we don’t have this in the U.S., there probably wouldn’t be a corporate scumbag left. (yeah, there would be no one to produce the computer your used to write your comment)
  • While I would strongly prefer a more enlightened society where people lived a lot more lightly on the Earth in much smaller numbers and treated each other a lot better, that’s a distant goal, not current reality. As you said, execution would be a great incentive to get these assholes to stop polluting our planet, as nothing else has worked to any substantial extent.
  • What would be even more effective is if the customers of these polluters were put to death. Make it a capital offense to buy gasoline. Use a plastic utensil and die. Turn the lights on and it’s the gallows for you. After all, these polluters wouldn’t pollute if they didn’t have willing customers.
  • If we did this in North America there would hardly be a CEO left – sounds about right to me.
  • See, I never understood how people could accept totalitarianism until climate change. I am at the point where I would accept horrible things if they actually did do something about climate change.

Progressives are so tolerant. Interesting how when it comes to murderers, cop killers, gang bangers, pedophiles, and Islamist terrorists, they are against the death penalty.

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Posted in Global Warming, Unhinged Tools | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Weekly Address: We Need To Give Amnesty Because (Mumble Garble)

By William Teach June 22, 2013 – 6:56 am

Has anyone ever given a real reason to legalize the illegals that isn’t a strawman or based on feelings? Don’t expect Obama to be the first

(White House) Hi everybody.  Right now, the United States Senate is debating a bipartisan, commonsense bill that would be an important step toward fixing our broken immigration system.

The only thing that’s broken is the way our government fails to properly enforce the existing law.

It’s a bill that would continue to strengthen security at our borders, and hold employers more accountable if they knowingly hire undocumented workers, so they won’t have an unfair advantage over businesses that follow the law.

We already have Everify. And what does that matter if we’re giving them all legalized status immediately? As far as the borders go, we all know they will be mostly ignored no matter what the bill says. We aren’t stupid. We’ve been talking about this since the last amnesty in 1986.

It’s a bill that would modernize the legal immigration system so that, as we train American workers for the jobs of tomorrow, we’re also attracting the highly skilled entrepreneurs and engineers who grow our economy for everyone.

We already attract foreign workers. This isn’t new. However, we’ll be added tens of millions of workers while Americans suffer through the terrible Obameconomy, with a record number of people dropping out of the workforce in despair, with people sitting on unemployment for record time, and seeing it run out. With it being an employers market, which reduces worker bargaining power, and therefore wages.

O goes on to describe a bunch of studies that supposedly say things will be great. None of us most of us aren’t stupid.

Because with this bill, millions of additional people will start paying more in taxes for things like Social Security and education.  That’ll make the economy fairer for middle-class families.

Except the majority aren’t middle class workers, but unskilled low wage workers who will be in the tax bracket which has a net zero federal liability and will surely get lots of money back from their federal tax returns. And, regardless of how the bill turns out, will be given federal benefits.

So that’s what comprehensive immigration reform looks like.  Stronger enforcement.  A smarter legal immigration system.  A pathway to earned citizenship.  A more vibrant, growing economy that’s fairer on the middle class.  And a more stable fiscal future for our kids.

Still waiting for a reason as to why we should legalize them, followed by citizenship.

We can do this, because we are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants; a place enriched by the contributions of people from all over the world, and stronger for it.  That’s been the story of America from the start.  Let’s keep it going.  Thanks, and have a great weekend.

If we were a nation of laws, we wouldn’t be talking about giving amnesty. We’d be doing all we could to stop them from coming illegally, from overstaying their visas, kicking them out and getting them to leave. I almost want to say “yeah, let’s just pass this legislation” just so that Conservatives can say “we told you so! We told you that the security measures will be mostly blown off, that they won’t really have to pay fines, that they will get federal benefits quickly, and that Democrats will immediately agitate to naturalize them without fees so they can be new Democrat voters who’ll immediately bring in up to 17 million more low wage and unskilled workers, so of whom will immediately be on Welfare, Social Security, and/or Medicaid.”

I’d like to see someone give me the reason we should do this based on something other than feelings and BS arguments.

BTW, what is the GOP weekly address? It’s Rep John Kline, talking about….student loans? Really? Seriously? That’s it?

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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What Say To Immigration Bill Giving Lawful Status To “Climate Refugees”?

By William Teach June 21, 2013 – 4:01 pm

No, really, and the progressives at George Soros (a big open-borders guy) funded Think Progress are super thrilled (via Breitbart)

Senator Brian Schatz’s (D-HI) filed an amendment for the immigration bill Wednesday that would allow stateless people in the U.S. to seek conditional lawful status if their nations have been made uninhabitable by climate change.

Yeah, I’m betting Schatz isn’t too concerned about them ending up in Hawaii. And lest one think this is really about immigration, Think Progress provides handy dandy highlights from Schatz

The amendment I am proposing is quite simple. If enacted, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may designate individuals or a group of individuals displaced permanently by climate change as stateless persons.

Again, let me be clear about what this amendment does. It simply recognizes that climate change, like war, is one of the most significant contributors to homelessness in the world. And like with states torn apart and made uninhabitable by war, we have an obligation not to deport people back to a country made uninhabitable by sea level rise and other extreme environmental changes that render these states desolate. It does not grant any individual or group of individuals outside the United States with any new status or avenue for seeking asylum in the United States.

In other words, another way to push Hotcoldwetdry primarily, while also giving the head of DHS and State lots and lots of latitude to make a determination as to which illegals will be given legal status on a whim (anyone else thinking “all of them”?)

The amendment would also require a federal study as to the impacts of hotcoldwetdry on internal movement within the United States…kinda like the government tracking citizens movements, eh? As Ace points out

Drought in Mexico?  Gee, we never have droughts in Mexico.  But now that we have had one, say hello to your 25 million new, specially-amnestied US citizens.

I’m not even going to get into the Think Progress silliness (and anti-science) regarding sea rise in Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.

Read: What Say To Immigration Bill Giving Lawful Status To “Climate Refugees”? »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach June 21, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful form of transportation which will be needed when the seas rise up 200 feet, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Sultan Knish, with a post on Angry Liberals In America.

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Good Grief: Chelsea Clinton Bummed That Her Great-Grandmother Didn’t Have Access To Planned Parenthood

By William Teach June 21, 2013 – 10:35 am

As The Lonely Conservative points out, Chelsea is apparently not the brightest tool in the shed

(Life News) From the stage at the recent Women Deliver conference, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea revealed that her much-admired maternal grandmother was the child of unwed teenage parents who “did not have access to services that are so crucial that Planned Parenthood helps provide.”

Chelsea’s grandmother was born of an unintended pregnancy. And new research shows that her family is not alone in treasuring a person who – if Planned Parenthood had been successful – would not have been born.

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National Research Council Pushes Carbon Tax

By William Teach June 21, 2013 – 9:29 am

This is the same NRC that has pushed to create one sided “climate change” education standards, despite there being a 15+ year pause in warming, which the models haven’t predicted, and even fail when the models are applied in hind-sight. Oh, and the NRC relies on public grant money. They have a vested interest in keeping the money train rolling

(Politico) A federal report is endorsing a carbon tax as a far better method to combat climate change than the current web of energy tax provisions.

Despite spending billions of dollars on energy subsidies, the federal government’s Tax Code has done little overall to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to a National Research Council report out Thursday, which concludes that a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would be much more effective.

“In order to meet ambitious climate-change objectives, a different approach that targets GHG emissions directly through taxes or tradable allowances will be both necessary and more efficient,” the report concludes.

First, the tax code is not meant to be a means to modify behavior. Second, it’s completely unsurprising that The Government has wasted what is really tens of billions of dollars dealing with Hotcoldwetdry, because most of the projects seem to be linked to scratching the backs of big campaign donors. Third, carbon tax programs around the world have failed. And if California is any indication, we would simply see the money that was supposed to be used for Bad Weather prevention programs used for everything else but the Bad Weather prevention programs.

Fourth, has anyone else noticed that most, if not all, of the policy prescriptions from Warmists tend to model themselves around far left Progressive doctrine, such as increasing taxation and reducing liberty?

That conclusion is far from surprising; the prospect of a carbon tax swirled heavily in Washington recently, even drawing interest from conservative groups such as the American Enterprise Institute. And many economists have said a carbon tax would be the most efficient way to address emissions.

Poltico writer Alex Guillen makes it seem as if the AEI supports a “carbon tax”, but the only interest was in debating the merits, which is what adults do, rather than fools who proclaim “the science is settled!!!!!” Their conclusion was that it would be a Bad Idea for quite a few reasons, one of which is that any carbon tax would be regressive, and seriously burden the middle and lower classes. So, it seems that a carbon tax is good for the 1%ers, but no one else. They would be up for one if income taxes were reduced across the board, or even eliminated. Same with government regulations.

“Although it may seem obvious that subsidizing biofuels should reduce CO2 emissions because they rely on renewable resources rather than fossil fuels, many studies we reviewed found the opposite,” the report says. “As structured, the biofuels tax credits encouraged the consumption of motor fuels because they lower prices, and this effect appears to offset any reduction in the GHG intensity of motor fuels that occurs because of the incentives to blend biofuels with gasoline.”

Actually, it shouldn’t be obvious, because most of the biofuels actually put out more CO2, while needing more water and land to produce them, while costing more and being less powerful. But what the NRC wants is super-duper high gas prices. I bet those who work for the NRC haven’t given up their own fossil fueled travel.

Contributors to the report include David Hawkins, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s director of climate programs; Yale University economics professor William Nordhaus; and Drew Shindell of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Ah. So the main contributors are all far far left Warmists. Color me surprised.

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Could There Be 70 Votes For Gang Of 8 Amnesty Bill?

By William Teach June 21, 2013 – 8:43 am

This whole thing is designed to push squishy Republicans over into the “OK, we’ll give them legal status immediately but you promise to Do Something later about the border so we’ll vote yes” category

(Politico) The Senate Gang of Eight edged closer to supermajority support on its immigration bill with Thursday’s breakthrough agreement on border security and other measures meant to attract wavering Republican senators.

Negotiators said as many as 15 GOP senators who were on the fence will now be inclined to vote for the landmark bill that revamps the U.S. immigration system and gives a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents due to the agreement drafted by Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota.

If that happens, the immigration reform bill crafted by the Gang of Eight would be much closer to reaching 70 senators in its favor, which some Gang members have wanted, and leaders say such a broad bipartisan majority could inject serious momentum into the immigration debate as it moves into the GOP-controlled House.

What does the Corker-Hoeven amendment supposedly do?

Corker and Hoeven’s plan includes a package of five conditions — or triggers — that will have to be met before current undocumented immigrants can ultimately obtain green cards.

The administration would have to get a comprehensive border security plan in place, hire an additional 20,000 border patrol agents, complete a 700-mile fence along the border, get an E-Verify system up and running and create an electronic entry-exit system at air and sea ports of entry.

They aren’t triggers, they’re supposed conditions, a plan to create a plan. Let’s not forget that the original legislation which required the 700 mile border fence was quickly watered down. The electronic entry-exit system is already mandated by law, and is much watered down from the biometric data system Republicans wanted.

Isn’t E-verify already up and running? Why yes, yes it is! As the E-verify website points out, it is federal law that employers make sure their potential hires are legally eligible to work in the US.

However, the Corker-Hoeven amendment exists simply through talking points, it has not actually been submitted on paper for people to read. It’s not available on Corker’s website, however, Corker notes

Ten years after enactment, the senators’ measure requires all five of the following conditions to be met before LPR, or a Green Card status, could be granted:

Consider: all the illegals will have had legal status for ten years. Does anyone actually think that Democrats, and some squishy Republicans, will deny them their green cards at that point if the measures aren’t met? Does anyone actually think that the Government will even remember what the conditions are 10 years after enactment? Provided they haven’t been watered down or done away with?

Here’s what FAIR has to say regarding the amendment

“The amendment offered by Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) offers promises of future border enforcement, while guaranteeing amnesty for illegal aliens immediately. Illegal aliens would gain irrevocable Registered Provisional Immigrant status whether or not the border enforcement promises in the amendment are ever kept.

“The amendment does nothing to address the significant problem of people who overstay visas and, in fact, weakens existing laws requiring the collection of biometric data on all people departing the United States via air, sea and land ports. Moreover, by Sen. Corker’s own admission, the amendment he is offering fails to address concerns about interior enforcement of immigration laws.

“The Corker-Hoeven amendment includes no metrics to measure if the taxpayers’ money is being spent effectively and that our borders actually are secure. Moreover, while Congress is making lofty promises about a fence and Border Patrol agents now, there is ample time for Congress to de-fund all of these promises, leaving Americans with only the amnesty.

“The Corker-Hoeven amendment is nothing more than a fig leaf designed to convince the American people that our immigration laws will be enforced in the future in exchange for granting amnesty to illegal aliens now. There is little in this amendment that should give the American people confidence that a new surge of illegal immigration will not occur over the next decade.

“The American people have been deceived too many times to believe the empty rhetoric of those who falsely claim that this legislation is tough on enforcement. It simply isn’t, and there is little reason to believe that even the watered-down enforcement promised by the Corker-Hoeven amendment will be delivered.

“The Corker-Hoeven amendment simply puts some very expensive lipstick on a pig. S.744 will deliver amnesty to the people who broke our laws, it will deliver huge increases in foreign labor for business interests, but it will do nothing to protect the interests and security of the American people.”

At this point, we can’t even apply Reagan’s “trust by verify” notion.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Did NSA Spying Actually Stop NYSE Plot?

By William Teach June 20, 2013 – 3:55 pm

Put this one down to a case of “just wondering”, but, hey, it’s not like The Government would ever lie about something, right?

(Wired)  Did the government really disrupt a bomb plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange?

The FBI deputy director said that today in a Spygate hearing where the government for the first time said the secret spy techniques publicly disclosed two weeks ago had halted some 50 terror attacks in 20 countries.

Sean Joyce, the bureau’s deputy director, identified Khalid Ouazzani as the culprit. “Ouazzani had been providing information and support to this plot,” Joyce testified to the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

According to interviews and court records, the 2008 plot failed, not because the authorities broke it up, but because the alleged attackers decided against it.

The Kansas City man’s attorney today said that Joyce’s comments were news to him. Among other things, his client pleaded guilty in 2010 to providing money — $23,000 in “material support” to Al-Qaida. He also pleaded to a count of money laundering and bank fraud, and is set for sentencing next month.

“Khalid Ouazzani was not involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange,” Robin Fowler, the defendant’s defense attorney, said in a telephone interview.

We’ll obviously take the word of Ouazzani and his lawyer with a grain of salt, but, interestingly, he wasn’t actually charged with being involved in a terrorist plot. Techdirt noticed this same article, and also notes

As NSA apologists in the government seek to defend the NSA surveillance program, they keep talking about how critical it was to stopping “more than 50” terrorist operations. However, every time they’ve described any, the details have shown that the surveillance programs often had little to do with uncovering the plot, and were clearly not a key component of stopping anything. We already discussed the NYC subway bombing plot, which was discovered through other means. The other story initially raised, concerning David Headly was similarly found to be on shaky ground as well.

Interestingly, it was the current Obama supporters who were freaking out over the Bush administration keeping an eye on potential Islamist groups, along with proclaiming that Bush and Cheney themselves were listening to our calls and reading our emails. Yet, the program itself started late in the Bush time, and was significantly expanded during the Obama years. I have no problem with them obtaining warrants to surveille specific individuals and groups, and even getting blanket warrants to surveille non-citizens. Hoovering up all the meta-data of law abiding citizens is wrong.

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Posted in War On Terrorism | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach June 20, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a flooded drought world because someone charged their Chevy Volt using dirty power from coal plants, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Sister Toldjah, with a post on a Connecticut firearms maker moving to South Carolina.

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NC School Superintendent Wants Teachers Excluded From Paying Income Tax

By William Teach June 20, 2013 – 1:00 pm

In other words, she wants teachers to not pay their “fair share”

(Raleigh N&O) Legislators rejected a suggestion from the elected state schools chief that the state exempt teachers from personal income taxes.

June Atkinson, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, told News & Observer editorial writers and reporters Monday that teachers should be exempt, but said she would not have made the suggestion if teachers were going to receive raises next year. The tax break for traditional K-12 and charter teachers would cost about $300 million, she said. The state Department of Public Instruction chief fiscal officer put the cost at $250 million.

The suggestion from Atkinson, who is a Demcocrat, as the N&O finally gets around to telling us, went over like a lead balloon.

Atkinson and other education leaders have been frustrated by low teacher salaries. State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey, a Republican, said last week that one of his top priorities is increasing teacher pay. The state’s starting salary for teachers is $30,800 a year. Teachers without advanced degrees or certification from the National Board of Professional Teacher Standards must have 15 years experience before they clear $40,000 on the state salary schedule.

Two points: first, blame Democrats, who have controlled the the Governors mansion and the General Assembly for the most part over the last 50 years, and the teacher’s unions for negotiating the contracts. 2nd, if teachers were able to get raises based on performance and merit, they might make more. Third, if the teachers do not like the salaries (working 9 months a year, awesome pensions, excellent health plans) they can do (or attempt to do) what so many other citizens do: look for a new job. No one forced them into teaching. Lots of others make the same money or less. They have no right to use the North Carolina citizens as their ATM.

4th, perhaps teachers could show that they are more interested in education rather than indoctrination. They could work to stop the crazies and Marxists and America haters and such, in the teaching ranks, in administration, and in the union leadership. Most teachers are surely good people (I know many, considering I went to ECU, which turns out lots of teachers), but are overshadowed by the wackos.

Still, they do not deserve to be excluded from paying income tax.

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Posted in Democrats, NC News, Taxation | 3 Comments | Trackback URL
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