Oops: BBB Includes Provision Blocking Federal Funds From Sanctuary Jurisdictions

By William Teach July 26, 2025 – 6:45 am

Usually the GOP goes all squishy, but, they slipped an interesting tidbit into the BBB and Democrats never noticed

Federal Funds for Local Obedience: Immigration Clause Puts Dems in Bind

A little-noticed provision in the “Big Beautiful Bill” forces blue states and cities to make a tough choice: Comply with federal immigration law or lose federal money for criminal justice aid.

President Trump’s signature piece of legislation allocated $3.3 billion to the DOJ, some of which will go toward the Byrne-JAG Grant Program, a federal initiative created in 2005 which provides support for local law enforcement and criminal justice efforts. To access the new funds, which supplement the $499 million already appropriated for the Byrne-JAG program in 2025, localities must comply with a section of federal immigration law that forbids them from restricting communication between their law enforcement entities and the Department of Homeland Security regarding an individual’s immigration status. This provides an incentive for localities to share their information with federal immigration authorities, helping the Trump administration implement its immigration enforcement agenda, but it also runs the risk of misallocating federal support.

This condition poses a dilemma for Democrats: Do they accept the demands of the Trump administration in return for money they need to run their cities and localities? Or do they maintain their longstanding opposition to deportation and turn it down?

Suddenly Democrats start realizing that depending on Los Federales for tons of their funding was a Bad Idea. That perhaps federal taxes should be low enough to fund the specific things outlined in the Constitution and nothing else, and States should fund what they want to fund.

But sticking with this position means their constituents won’t benefit from the additional funding that other localities will be able to use to lower their local fiscal burden and make their communities safer.

In effect, millions of dollars in federal justice system aid could flow to low-crime, less liberal suburbs and rural areas, while high-crime cities are left behind for defying federal immigration demands. Specifically, cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Memphis, which lead the nation in homicide rates, could be prevented from receiving funding.

Well, it’s not like the liberal cities are doing a good job with the federal money to start with, eh? I mean, will they really miss it, considering how messed up their cities are, and that they pass policies which make crime more prevalent?

In a statement to RealClearPolitics, Sen. Dick Durbin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, argued that “Putting unnecessary stipulations on this funding is harmful and unproductive.” “Blocking funds for this purpose,” Durbin continued, “totally misses the mark.”

In response, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson argued that “If Dick Durbin is truly focused on the safety and security of American communities, he should encourage cities and states to comply with federal immigration laws. Sanctuary cities only provide sanctuary to illegal criminals, and Americans – like the CBP agent who was just shot in the face by two criminal illegal aliens – are forced to pay the price.”

They have the choice. What will they do?

The first Trump administration also attempted to tie Byrne-JAG grants to compliance with federal immigration law in 2017. At the time, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that such restrictions were not within the power of the executive branch (City of Chicago v. Sessions). Now, the Department of Justice has explicit congressional authorization to make the grant conditional, creating a more favorable legal landscape for the Trump administration.

Well, now what? I’m sure the Dems will find some friendly federal judge to rule in their favor, but, it won’t stand, as Congress has the power of the purse, not the Judiciary.

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You Need To Eat Alternative Proteins To Save The World

By William Teach July 25, 2025 – 3:00 pm

Here we go again

Alternative Proteins May Be Our Best Bet to Curb Food Emissions

To avoid the grimmest possible predictions for climate change, the world must rapidly cut back on how much meat — especially beef — we eat. A new study published in Scientific Reports finds that replacing meat and dairy with climate-friendlier alternatives, such as plant-based proteins and cultivated meat, could significantly reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions. But the window to act is narrowing fast. Delays, researchers say, could require a much more drastic overhaul of diets by 2050.

In a paper published on July 2, researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz and the consulting firm Accenture suggested that to keep the food system from wrecking the planet, 60 percent of animal-based foods would need to be swapped for plant-based or cultivated alternatives by 2050 — but only if the transition towards a more plant-forward food system began before 2023.

Other researchers have pointed to a more moderate approach to stay within climate limits, such as reducing beef consumption to no more than one beef burger and a half per week in the Global North, for example. But the research suggesting the more moderate approach is now several years old, and researchers assumed some progress on dietary change that we have yet to see in most countries that eat lots of meat.

I mean, fuck off. Fuck right off. Remember, though, they put out these “studies” in order to sway lawmakers in an attempt to force Other People to comply.

Meanwhile, yesterday was “Earth overshoot day”

Read: You Need To Eat Alternative Proteins To Save The World »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 25, 2025 – 1:00 pm

…is river that is soon going to flood and be full of sharks (or, is that last a movie?), you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lid, with a sad post on the passing of founder Jeff Dunetz. I’ve been following The Lid since the beginning. Been on the blogroll since it started. RIP.

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EPA Head Announces Deal With Mexico To Fix Tijuana River Pollution Problem

By William Teach July 25, 2025 – 10:30 am

This is a pretty big deal. Sure, it’s mostly about the San Diego area, but, imagine if it was Biden who got this deal done: it would be all over the national news, instead of primarily local San Diego area outlets. Anyhow, interestingly, far left Common Dreams published an opinion piece with details on how bad the river is polluted, but, too quick for this

EPA director announces ‘permanent 100% solution’ on Tijuana River sewage crisis

Lee Zeldin, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced Thursday that the Trump administration has brokered a “100% permanent solution” to the Tijuana River sewage crisis.

A memorandum of understanding signed by representatives of the United States and Mexico calls for increases in funding, reduced construction timelines, and adjustments to the scope of existing projects “to account for future population growth in Tijuana.”

“What the residents of Southern California need and deserve, what they’ve been waiting for for too long, isn’t just a solution that is a Band-Aid for that moment, but a permanent 100% solution,” Zeldin said. “This isn’t just an agreement for 2025.”

Zeldin visited San Diego on April 20, touring South County and visiting the Navy SEAL base in the area and getting a bird’s-eye view of the situation from a helicopter.

“I also smelled for myself that foul smell that so many residents of Southern California have been complaining about for so long,” Zeldin said. “What we felt leaving there as a team at EPA, and with the U.S. government, was this burning desire at the Trump administration to dedicate a tremendous amount of energy of time to make sure that the residents of Southern California would be receiving this good news as quickly as possible.”

The people of the San Diego area have long been dealing with the pollution and raw sewage flowing down the river, causing beaches to be closed and dealing with the smell.

The Mexican government commits to diverting 10 million gallons per day of treated wastewater from the Tijuana River generated by the Arturo Herrera and La Morita wastewater treatment plants in Tijuana “to a site upstream of the Rodriguez Dam,” in Tijuana. The project, estimated to cost $13.3 million, does not appear to be fully funded, with the EPA’s statement saying that “Mexico will immediately seek internal funding to initiate the construction process for the diversion.”

Good.

The list of goals and timelines in the memorandum appears to have aisle-crossing appeal.

Who would possibly complain about this?

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Bummer: GOP Looks To Kill Funding For International Energy Agency

By William Teach July 25, 2025 – 7:00 am

Good. The IEA has spent way too much time and money on the climate scam, pushing this, that, and the other. They’ve gone full bore cult

House GOP looks to halt International Energy Agency funding

U.S. funding for the Paris-based International Energy Agency is on the chopping block this budget season.

Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee approved legislation Wednesday that calls for canceled funding for the IEA, according to the Republican report attached to the bill.

If approved by both chambers of Congress, the move would mark a stark departure from decades of U.S. funding for an organization that was established in the wake of the 1970s Arab oil embargo but has recently drawn the ire of Republicans.

“The Committee finds that the Agency has abandoned objectivity in the critical energy-supply information it produces and, instead, has pursued politicized information to support climate policy advocacy,” says the report, which is attached to a State Department appropriations bill for fiscal 2026 that also includes an international climate funding prohibition.

“This well-documented shift by the Agency undermines decision-making by policymakers and threatens energy security and the economic interests of the United States,” the report adds.

The rest is buried behind a paywall, but, you get the idea. They do not get a lot of direct money from the US, only about $5.8 million in normal appropriations, but, at least under Biden, but, they also get millions from other US agencies piecemeal. They shouldn’t get a dime.

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Liberals Incensed ICE To Put Ankle Monitors On 180K Fake Asylum Seekers

By William Teach July 25, 2025 – 6:45 am

Can we get that number up to 1.8 million and keep going?

ICE moves to shackle some 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors

Gotta love the Washington Post headline: “shackled”. Do they say the same when an American, say, a celeb who votes Democrat, gets an ankle monitor?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors, as the Trump administration widens surveillance of people it is targeting for deportation, according to an internal ICE document reviewed by The Washington Post.

In a June 9 memo, ICE ordered staff to place ankle monitors on all people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program “whenever possible.” About 183,000 adult migrants are enrolled in ATD and had previously consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while they waited for their immigration cases to be resolved. Currently, just 24,000 of these individuals wear ankle monitors.

One exception would be pregnant women, who would be required to wear wrist-worn tracking devices, Dawnisha M. Helland, an acting assistant director in the management of non-detained immigrants, wrote in the letter. “If the alien is not being arrested at the time of reporting, escalate their supervision level to GPS ankle monitors whenever possible and increase reporting requirements,” Helland wrote.

The new ankle monitor guidance, which has not been previously reported, marks a significant expansion of a 20-year-old surveillance practice steeped in controversy. While tracking devices are cheaper and arguably more humane than detention, immigrants and their advocates have long criticized the government’s use of the bulky black ankle bands, which they say are physically uncomfortable, impose a social stigma and invade the privacy of the people wearing them, many of whom have no criminal record or history of missed court appointments.

“Surveillance.” They’re really trotting out the scary Authoritarian words, eh? We didn’t ask them to come here. If the fake asylum seekers do not like it, they are more than welcome to leave. There are plenty of airplanes and buses leaving the U.S.

“This will be a tool used to extend the reach of the government from just the folks it can manage to put in physical detention to an additional hundreds of thousands more that it can surveil,” said Laura Rivera, a senior staff attorney at Just Futures, a nonprofit group that has done research on ICE tracking technologies. “It’s designed to turn their own communities and homes into digital cages.”

They do not have homes and communities: most are not eligible for asylum. Most are temporary visitors to this country. And the ones that get asylum never seem to assimilate. They don’t want to be American, they just want what America will give them. Anyhow, the bleeding heart garbage continues, till the end

When Paola, the Honduran mother of two, got home from the BI office in June, her 6-year-old son asked her about the black box he noticed strapped around her ankle. She told him it was nothing serious — knowing she couldn’t tell him the truth.

If she loses her asylum case, she knows, the ankle monitor “makes it easier for them to find me and deport me.”

Um, yeah. Because most do not leave even when their asylum claims are denied.

Read: Liberals Incensed ICE To Put Ankle Monitors On 180K Fake Asylum Seekers »

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Europe And Chinese Elites Agree On Climate Crisis (scam) Or Something

By William Teach July 24, 2025 – 3:14 pm

In the meantime, China just built a whole bunch of new coal power plants in China and Africa

Europe and China agree to take action on climate change and nothing else in tense Beijing summit

China and the European Union have issued a joint call to action on climate change during an otherwise tense bilateral summit in Beijing on Thursday riven with major disagreements over trade and the war in Ukraine.

The two economic juggernauts issued a joint statement on climate change, urging more emission cuts and greater use of green technology and affirming their support for the Paris Climate Agreement as well as calling for strong action at the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

“In the fluid and turbulent international situation today, it is crucial that all countries, notably the major economies, maintain policy continuity and stability and step up efforts to address climate change,” the joint statement said.

Coal power plant over there

Their climate agreement was a silver lining on a stormy day where European leaders demanded a more balanced relationship with China in talks with President Xi Jinping.

And China continues to dump below market rate solar panels and stuff on the EU market.

Like the U.S., the 27-nation EU bloc runs a massive trade deficit with China — around 300 billion euros ($350 billion) last year. It relies heavily on China for critical minerals and the magnets made from them for cars and appliances. When China curtailed the export of those products in response to Trump’s tariffs, European automakers cried foul.

And as the EU elites force the peasants into EVs (which the Elites do not drive), they are utterly reliant on China. Fools.

Read: Europe And Chinese Elites Agree On Climate Crisis (scam) Or Something »

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 24, 2025 – 1:00 pm

…is horrible carbon pollution infused beer, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Doug Ross @ Journal, with a post on Larwyn’s Linx.

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Far Left Appeals Court Rules Against Stopping Birthright Citizenship For Illegals

By William Teach July 24, 2025 – 10:30 am

It’s not much of a surprise

Federal appeals court rules against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order

President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) putting an end to birthright citizenship faced another legal setback after a federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled it to be unconstitutional.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a lower court’s decision blocking the nationwide enforcement of the EO, which would deny citizenship to babies born to people illegally or temporarily in the U.S.

A three-judge panel ruled against Trump’s plan in a 2-1 vote, keeping a decision first made by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle in place.

“The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.

Though the Supreme Court has since restricted lower courts from issuing nationwide injunctions, the majority in the 9th Circuit ruled against the EO after discovering the case fell under an exception left open by SCOTUS justices.

In reading the decision, which is at the above link, on page 19 it looks like the panel is trying to rewrite and redefine the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, making it so that everyone in the United States for any reason, be it lawful or not, is subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Which would seem to conclude that Congress has no authority to define it, which would mean that all diplomatic and government personnel from other countries would see their babies born in America be American citizens, the opposite of what federal law states.

Sadly, though, there’s zero chance that Congressional Republicans will be able to get a law through that fully defines who is and isn’t subject. Put it in writing. Democrats would block this in the Senate. I suspect we’re going to see this head to the Supreme Court, and, it will be interesting what they rule. They can’t punt it. There needs to be a definition.

Most countries do not automatically give birthright citizenship to children born of foreign parents. There may be stipulations, they may just say no.

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Bummer: Trump EPA Looking To Kill Of Climate Cult “Endangerment Finding”

By William Teach July 24, 2025 – 7:15 am

The NY Times is incensed by this

E.P.A. Is Said to Draft a Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change

The Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change, according to two people familiar with the plan.

The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment finding,” which scientifically established that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives.

That finding is the foundation of the federal government’s only tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet.

Sigh. CO2 is not a pollutant.

The E.P.A. proposal, which is expected to be made public within days, also calls for rescinding limits on tailpipe emissions that were designed to encourage automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. Those regulations, which were based on the endangerment finding, were a fundamental part of the Biden administration’s efforts to move the country away from gasoline-powered vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

The draft proposal could still undergo changes. But if it is approved by the White House and formally released, the public would have an opportunity to weigh in before it is made final, likely later this year.

Well, I hope they dot every i and cross every T, following the specific manner to pass a regulation/rule, so, it gets killed off properly. But, you know some wacko lefty batguano insane judge will still rule that the Trump admin cannot do this, despite Congress having passed no specific law that requires it. And it will end up at the Supreme Court yet again, where the Court will find that the federal district judge is wacko and should be ignored with prejudice. The Clean Air Act was not about CO2, it never specifically mentions it, and CO2 is not a pollutant. The EPA just declared it under Obama in 2009 because they felt like it.

(CLINTEL) Having declared carbon dioxide (CO?) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) to be harmful pollutants, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2009 endangerment finding has been the cornerstone of wrongheaded climate regulation, an impediment to economic growth and destroyer of livelihoods. All the result of rulemaking that puts ideology ahead of science.

Empowered to impose sweeping restrictions on GHG emissions from all manner of human activity, the EPA has been free to impose unreasonable demands on electric generation, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture – just to name more prominent targets. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, with CO2 emissions being the focus, fossil fuels in general and coal in particular were hammered by this regulatory cudgel.

It’s worth reading the rest.

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