House GOP Passes New Rules Package, Especially Ending Proxy Voting

By William Teach January 10, 2023 – 7:00 am

This is going to upset many of the Democrats who are still voting by proxy while off doing other things other than the job they ran for

(Time) Some members have capitalized on their ability to vote by proxy to hit the campaign trail. Democrat Karen Bass voted by proxy this year while engaged in her successful bid for Los Angeles Mayor. Three Democrats who used proxy voting frequently in 2022—Reps. Charlie Crist of Florida, Tom Suozzi of New York, and Kai Kahele of Hawaii—did so while running for governor of their respective states. The Honolulu Civil Beat reported earlier this year that proxy voting allowed Kahele to avoid Washington for months as he not only campaigned, but worked as a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines.

In fairness, Democrats were also joined by some Republicans, but, Democrats took way too much advantage of this, and, apparently, ending it is a “far right” thing

House Republicans approve new rules package filled with concessions to hard-right members

House Republicans approved a sweeping rules package Monday that includes many of the provisions sought by right-wing lawmakers in exchange for their support of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

The new package for the 118th session of Congress was approved in a nearly party-line vote, with 220 Republicans backing its passage and 212 Democrats and one Republican voting against it. The package, which lays out how the lower chamber will conduct its business for the next two years, contains key provisions that McCarthy negotiated with far-right members of his party in order to win the speaker’s gavel — including making it easier for those same lawmakers to seek to remove him from power.

According to the new rules, it will now only take one lawmaker to propose removing the speaker from power, instead of five. The package also puts an end to pandemic era voting by proxy, which had allowed members to cast votes without being in Washington. It creates a special committee to investigate the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement, a common complaint from conservatives about the Department of Justice, which has prosecuted supporters of former President Donald Trump for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, and launched an investigation of Trump himself. The new rules also require that all pending legislation must be posted 72 hours before voting begins to allow the public (and lawmakers) time to review it.

Proxy would be fine if the people getting paid by the taxpayers were in their districts meeting with constituents. But, they don’t.

What’s wrong with the Legislative Branch providing oversight over the out of control Executive Branch agencies, as required by the Constitution? What’s wrong with giving lawmakers, and citizens, time to see the legislation? Is that “hard right?”

Read: House GOP Passes New Rules Package, Especially Ending Proxy Voting »

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Harry And Meghan -Peak Victimhood Culture

By William Teach January 9, 2023 – 3:00 pm

Back in 2015 Conor Friedersdorf wrote this piece for the Atlantic

The Rise of Victimhood Culture
A recent scholarly paper on “microaggressions” uses them to chart the ascendance of a new moral code in American life.

…

When conflicts occur, sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning observe in an insightful new scholarly paper, aggrieved parties can respond in any number of ways. In honor cultures like the Old West or the street gangs of West Side Story, they might engage in a duel or physical fight. In dignity cultures, like the ones that prevailed in Western countries during the 19th and 20th Centuries, “insults might provoke offense, but they no longer have the same importance as a way of establishing or destroying a reputation for bravery,” they write. “When intolerable conflicts do arise, dignity cultures prescribe direct but non-violent actions.”

We’ve all engaged in these actions.

The aggrieved might “exercise covert avoidance, quietly cutting off relations with the offender without any confrontation” or  “conceptualize the problem as a disruption to their relationship and seek only to restore harmony without passing judgment.” In the most serious cases, they might call police rather than initiating violence themselves. “For offenses like theft, assault, or breach of contract, people in a dignity culture will use law without shame,” the authors observe. “But in keeping with their ethic of restraint and toleration, it is not necessarily their first resort, and they might condemn many uses of the authorities as frivolous. People might even be expected to tolerate serious but accidental personal injuries.”

But, now, in the Victimhood Culture, people have to play the Victim for the slightest of slights. Everything is The Worst Ever, and requires that everyone know about it, heap “I’m so sorry this happened to you’s” on the Victim, and extoll how Brave they are for coming forward. People will literally make up things so they can be a Victim, which makes them a hero these days. It makes them empowered. Someone said something mildly mean on social media? Well, clap back, and it ends up in the news with the Victim being put on a pedestal and the meanie being shamed. The meanie needs to be destroyed, you know. I could keep going, but, you get the idea, and you know most of this.

Which brings us to Meghan and Harry. We often talk about Peak this and Peak that. But, there’s always a new peak, though, right? I do believe we have strictly hit Peak Victimhood

Those are headlines from just one British news outlet. Plenty of others have tons more in a similar vein. The only one that seems to be sympathetic to Harry is the UK Guardian, and just barely. Why am I watching this stuff? It’s like the biggest of race crashes of all time. And the crashes just keep happening almost daily. Which is pretty amazing for two people who claim they just want their privacy, right?

Here you have a guy born into privilege, as part of the British monarchy. He never wanted for anything. Other than Princess Diana, of course. His life was one of luxury. He was well respected in the military. He married a low level but somewhat know actress in a fairytale wedding. Then blew it all up. And is living in a $15 million, 14,500 square foot house in the People’s Republik Of California with 9 beds, 16 baths, a pool, tea house, tennis courts, and a children’s cottage, on 7.4 acres. They’re being given millions and millions by Netflix and for books, all sorts of media appearances. Living in the lap of luxury, and still f’ing playing the Victim. Seriously, is there anyone more Peak Victimhood Culture right now than Meghan and Harry?

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 9, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful jungle sucking carbon pollution from the sky, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Flopping Aces, with a post on the media lying over Biden’s immigration “pivot”.

Read: If All You See… »

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Surprise: Eco-Weenies Try And Stop Lithium Mine Needed For Biden’s EV Push

By William Teach January 9, 2023 – 10:30 am

I told you this would happen, namely that the same people who were super excited about Biden trying to force everyone into EVs would also work hard to stop mining necessary to build the EVs (via Greenie Watch)

Biden Agenda Collides with Liberal Sacred Cows Over Nevada Lithium Mine

st greta carOpponents of the largest lithium mine planned in America urged a federal judge in Nevada on Thursday to vacate the federal government’s approval of the project until it completes additional environmental reviews and complies with all state and federal laws.

A district judge, Miranda Du, said after a three-hour hearing at Reno that she hoped to make a decision “in the next couple months” on how to proceed in the nearly two-year-old legal battle over the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the mine Lithium Nevada Corporation plans near the Nevada-Oregon line.

Lawyers for the company and the Bureau of Land Management insisted the project complies with American laws and regulations. But they said that if Judge Du determines it does not, she should stop short of vacating the agency’s approval and allow initial work at the site to begin as further reviews are initiated.

Lawyers for a Nevada rancher, conservation groups and Native American tribes suing to block the mine said that should not occur because any environmental damage would be irreversible. (snip)

Lithium Nevada and the Bureau of Land Management say the project atop an ancient volcano is critical to meeting the growing demand for lithium to make electric vehicle batteries — a key part of President Biden’s push to expedite a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

How do you get all the EV batteries without all the lithium? This is nothing unusual. You have the eco-wackos screaming that we need solar, wind, geothermal and water power, then suing to stop all the projects.

Opponents say it will destroy dwindling habitat for sage grouse, Lahontan cutthroat trout, pronghorn antelope and golden eagles, pollute the air and create a plume of toxic water beneath the open-pit mine deeper than the length of a football field.

“We need a smart energy future that transitions our economy from fossil fuels to renewables without sacrificing rare species in the process,” said the deputy director of the Western Watersheds Project, Greta Anderson. The group also petitioned in September for protection of a tiny nearby snail under the Endangered Species Act.

They always have a Reason

The Bureau of Land Management fast-tracked the project’s approval during the final days of the Trump administration. The Biden administration continues to embrace it as part of the president’s clean energy agenda.

Demand for lithium is expected to triple by 2030 from 2020. Lithium Nevada says its project is the only one on the drawing board that can help meet the demand.

And you know this will happen for all the other metals needed.

Read: Surprise: Eco-Weenies Try And Stop Lithium Mine Needed For Biden’s EV Push »

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Coastal Residents Who Aren’t Leaving Say The Ocean Is Coming For Them

By William Teach January 9, 2023 – 7:00 am

It’s a funny thing: so many of the same Leftist whining about sea rise doom from ‘climate change’ are buying homes at the shore/not moving away

Coastal residents on climate change: “The ocean’s coming for you”

Thirty years ago Jim Hartshorne looked out at the endless expanse of blue water and decided North Carolina’s Outer Banks felt like home. He said that back in 1993, sea level rise was not a concern. “I didn’t think it would happen quite as quickly as what it did,” he said. “I thought it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime; I’d let the kids worry about it. But I’ve had to worry about it here the last ten years.”

The ocean has become an increasingly greedy neighbor. Storms are more frequent, and more fierce. Parts of these Barrier Islands have retreated more than 200 feet in the last two decades. Some beaches are now losing about 13 feet a year, according to the National Park Service.

This past summer, video of the Atlantic claiming yet another beach house in Rodanthe, just up the road from Hartshorne, went viral on Twitter.

They’re called “barrier islands.” They move. They’re supposed to move. Not be stationary. Construction on the islands actually interferes with the natural ability.

Hartshorne said, “You gotta take the good with the bad. It’s wonderful to be out here. It’s pretty. But you have to know the ocean’s coming for you.”

He’s trying to delay that day by reinforcing the pilings that hold up his house, and rebuilding a staircase; the old one washed away during a recent storm. He said he’s spent between $20,000 and $22,000 this year alone repairing storm damage.

Hartshorne and his neighbors are getting help from North Carolina’s Dare County, which is spending $25 million to widen 12 miles of coastline along the Outer Banks.

So, not leaving?

“You’re not going to stop the ocean; you’re not going to completely engineer your way out of this challenge,” said Reide Corbett, who runs the Coastal Studies Institute on the Outer Banks. “We will have to think about how we move infrastructure, how we move people.

“Yes, sea level has changed in our past, but it’s changing at a rate that we haven’t seen before.”

Corbett took “Sunday Morning” out to the marsh where he and other scientists collect soil samples that are a peek into the past. He says their research shows the rate of sea level rise here has doubled in the past 100 years.

Really? Yet, zero evidence was provided to uphold this assertion. But, they never do.

“Yeah, and we’re just starting to see the ramp,” Corbett said. “We’re looking at a foot rise in the next 30 years. That’s going to impact most homeowners on the Outer Banks during their mortgage. And so, it’s not about putting it off to the next generation. It’s happening today. We’re seeing those impacts today.”

Pretty bold statement, when there hasn’t even been a foot of sea rise in the last 120 years. What happens if this does not happen? Who pays the price for scaremonger?

Read: Coastal Residents Who Aren’t Leaving Say The Ocean Is Coming For Them »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Biden Spends A Few Hours At The Border Area, Bolts Off For Next Thing

By William Teach January 9, 2023 – 6:45 am

This is after the city of El Paso worked hard to clean up all the homeless and illegal aliens on the streets for better TV optics

Biden departs El Paso after brief border visit without seeing most impacted areas, critics say

President Biden departed El Paso Sunday afternoon following a brief visit to the border – his first since taking office and first verified border visit of his long political career.

In the span of about four hours, the president walked a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry where border officers demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband.

Still, some critics chided the president for not visiting areas most impacted by illegal border crossings. During an appearance on Fox Report with Jon Scott, Brandon Judd, President for the National Border Patrol Council, said Biden failed to visit the most problem-ridden areas.

“You can look across the ports of entry on the entire southwest border, and that’s not where we’re seeing the illegal immigration. We’re seeing the illegal immigration between the ports of entry,” he said. “That’s the Border Patrol. That’s the component of CBP that handles all of this. He did not have any scheduled visits with them.”

Well, really, this was simply a photo-op while he was on the way to Mexico to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It was not a serious visit.

Biden will do none of those things, and the Credentialed Media will not bother mentioning this.

Read: Biden Spends A Few Hours At The Border Area, Bolts Off For Next Thing »

Posted in Illegal Immigration, Joe Biden | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 8, 2023 – 1:57 pm

…is the need to build high up to avoid sea rise, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Weasel Zippers, with a post on what Kevin McCarthy will be the GOP’s first bill.

It’s tight dresses week.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 19 Comments | Trackback URL

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach January 8, 2023 – 9:44 am

Happy Sunday! Another wonderful day in the Once And Future Nation Of America. The Sun is shining, squirrels are chirping, and it’s the last day of the NFL season, with my Giants finally making the playoffs. This pinup is by Arthur Sarnoff, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. The First Street Journal notes that you are going to get poorer this year, thanks to the Brandon economy
  2. Pacific Pundit covers Dan Crenshaw whining
  3. Moonbattery discusses the DC police arresting Ashli Babbitt’s mother
  4. Legal Insurrection notes liberals freaking over GOP plans to investigate the FBI and others
  5. GeeeZ... is really not impressed by Hakeem Jeffries
  6. Doug Ross @ Journal discusses the concessions that McCarthy made (why would he even be resistant to these?)
  7. Chicks On The Right covers hair oil now being raaaaacist
  8. Bookworm Room discusses the 50 year seal on J6 material
  9. Blazing Cat Fur notes insanity in the comics
  10. Real Climate Science covers global warming making California too wet
  11. Green Jihad discusses the fallout from killing Keystone XL
  12. The Gateway Pundit notes who the IRS targeted in 2022
  13. The Lid features a study noting who the IRS’ 87K new agents will go after
  14. The OK Corral highlights the stone watch
  15. And last, but, not least,  The Other McCain notes the White House pressured Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your Pinups for Vets calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me. I’ve also mostly alphabetized them, makes it easier scrolling the feedreader

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?

Two great sites for getting news links are Liberty Daily and Whatafinger.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

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Who’s Up For Kraken Wuhan Flu?

By William Teach January 8, 2023 – 7:00 am

Scary stuff to get you back into masks and under government control, or just another round of a week’s vacation being somewhat miserable? Eh, rum should fix it

‘Kraken’ COVID symptoms: What to know about the strain sweeping through the U.S. and now in at least 28 other countries

COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. have spiked 16.1% in the past week as a new “escaped” variant of the virus has continued to sweep across the country.

XBB.1.5— dubbed ‘Kraken’ by Canadian biology professor Dr. Ryan Gregory and his following in the Twitterverse—is the most transmissible COVID variant yet, according to the World Health Organization.

A risk assessment is currently being drawn up for the new mutant strain by WHO’s technical advisory group on virus evolution, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19 response at the authority, said on Wednesday.

XBB.1.5 began alarming scientists at the tail end of last year after the number of Kraken cases in the U.S. rose from 1% of all cases at the start of December to 41% just three weeks later.

That’s a lot. Here’s what really interested me in this article

Dr. Allison Arwady, the Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner, said in a press conference on Tuesday that Kraken “basically just a combination of two of the earlier subtypes, two variants” from the Omicron strain.

She added that although XBB.1.5 is a new mutation its symptoms have not hugely changed because it is a descendant of the variant that was discovered in mid-2020.

Arwady explained: “We’re seeing more people actually just have cold-like symptoms”—such as a runny nose, sore throat, cough and congestion—“but are less likely to have those flu-like, really feeling very sick [symptoms such as] the high fevers.”

This is especially the case in people who are fully up to date on vaccines or who have preexisting immunity built up from having a COVID infection in the past.

More widely, the CDC’s COVID symptoms to look out for are fever or chills, difficulty breathing, fatigue, body aches and headaches, loss in taste or smell, nausea, and diarrhea.

Saturday, December 31, I woke up with a stuffy nose, sore throat (mild and annoying), and stuffed up ear, all on the left side. Seemed more like a sinus infection. By about mid-day, I started to feel more and more wonky, really phlegmy, left work early. Stopped to get some food, got home, took my temperature. 99.6. That is very high for me, since I usually run in the high 96’s to mid-97’s. I did go back down to mid=98’s, and was pretty much around that for many days. I had a stuffy nose, but, never so bad that I couldn’t breathe out of one side of my nose. My throat was a little dry, but, did not hurt, nothing that liquids didn’t take care of. But, damn, I was low energy. The only coughing came from buildup from sniffling. No dry coughs like you’d get from COVID. No chest congestion. I couldn’t smell anything, but, that happens with colds, which also means taste is lessened. No body aches, did have head pressure, but, no headache. No nausea or gastrointestinal issues.

It was like having a mild cold with a fever and tired. No chills. Weird. Was it Kraken? All but one of the home tests came back positive. Test day after the positive was clear. A test at clinic on Monday, along with an RSV test (because symptoms were weird) also came back negative. I know two coworkers had the same things, and did not come back with positive tests. Is it evading tests? Or just a cold with a fever? Which didn’t really drop back to my normal till Friday. Still a bit fuzzy in the head, though. Wearing contacts does not help.

Dr. Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., previously told Fortune that the best form of protection from mutations is to get a booster vaccination.

Speaking following the Omicron spawn BA.2.75, dubbed Centaurus, Rajnarayanan confirmed that escaped mutations such as Centaurus and Kraken are “immune evasive” to some extent—but won’t be able to defy all of the human body’s resistance.

So, get a booster that Kraken will mostly ignore.

Read: Who’s Up For Kraken Wuhan Flu? »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus | 21 Comments | Trackback URL

Who’s Up For Geoengineering To Mimic Volcanoes?

By William Teach January 7, 2023 – 3:00 pm

What could possibly go wrong?

Inventor in Baja is testing a plan to cool the Earth by mimicking a volcanic eruption

When Luke Iseman was thinking of launching a solar geoengineering startup, he talked to experts in the field. The strongest advice they gave him was not to use the word “geoengineering.”

The term refers to manipulating the Earth’s climate for human benefit, but in recent years it’s been used as shorthand for “solar geoengineering,” a theoretical process of releasing chemicals into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the Earth and mitigate the effects of global warming. It’s controversial because it hasn’t been studied comprehensively, and we don’t know whether the unintended side effects will be better or worse than the impacts of climate change.

Iseman’s startup Make Sunsets, which has raised at least half a million dollars in venture capital, mostly skates around the hot-button word on its website.

“We make reflective, high-altitude, biodegradable clouds that cool the planet. Mimicking natural processes, our ‘shiny clouds’ are going to prevent catastrophic global warming,” reads the site’s About page. On the FAQ page, Make Sunsets calls what it is doing “albedo enhancement,” a scientific term for reflecting sunlight.

There are so many things that could go wrong, starting with a feedback that, causes way too much cooling, dropping the earth back into a Little Ice Age or even a glacial period. It could potentially inhibit enough sunlight making it too the ground level, causing problems with agriculture, reducing needed warmth for the ground.

On the downside, injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer, cause respiratory illness and create acid rain. It would also cost as little as $10 billion per year to run a program that cools the Earth by 1 degree Celsius, UCLA environmental law professor Edward Parson told CNBC in 2022. That’s remarkably cheap compared to other mitigation techniques.

Does the climate cult care? Do they think that the climate crisis (scam) is more dangerous and are willing to take the chance?

“This all sounds crazy. A for-profit company trying to make money by cooling the planet. Crazy, yes, but perhaps a sign of the times?” Pasztor told CNBC. “The climate crisis is getting worse by the day. The world is getting — and will continue to get — warmer. Governments are not taking their responsibilities seriously enough. And we live in a capitalist society where actors make money in many different ways, like it or not. So how surprising is this?”

Read: Who’s Up For Geoengineering To Mimic Volcanoes? »

Posted in Climate Cult, Global Warming | 14 Comments | Trackback URL
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