Index Of U.S. Military Strength Rates Military As Weak

By William Teach October 19, 2022 – 10:30 am

This is the result of eight years of Obama and a year and a half of Biden. And, even Trump was only able to do so much with all the Woke lunatics involved at high levels of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The only one that’s not a poop-show, yet, is the Marines

US military rated as ‘weak,’ may not be able to win one war, as tensions grow with China, Russia

The US military may not be able to win one war — let alone two — as the Pentagon struggles to keep its forces equipped against potential threats from China and Russia, according a new report on American military strength.

Years of underfunding and “poorly defined priorities” has led the military to become “weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on the global stage,” the conservative Heritage Foundation said in its annual “Index of U.S. Military Strength.”

“[T]he current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict,” the report said. “The force would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous [major conflicts.]”

At the same time, the possibility of two-front fighting has increased as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine and China grows increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, according to the report.

“In the aggregate, the United States’ military posture can only be rated as ‘weak,’” the report said.

Caring more about things like teaching CRT, allowing the gender confused in the military, reducing standards, worrying about ‘climate change’, and driving away the manly men who used to make up the backbone of the fighting force has not gone well

Across the services, the report rated only the Marine Corps as “strong” in the think tank’s assessment of force capacity, capability and readiness. While the Army achieved a “marginal” rating, the Space Force and Navy were labeled “weak” and the Air Force bottomed out at “very weak.”

Wonderful. But, hey, our nuclear forces are still rated as strong, so, that’s a good thing, right? The Army, Navy, and Air Force are having a lot of trouble with recruitment. The Marines, not as much. I wonder why?

(Deseret News) While none of the military spokespeople mentioned politics as a reason for recruitment troubles, influential conservatives have said they are frustrated with the military over a perceived turn toward “wokeness.”

In an email to Deseret News, conservative writer Rod Dreher said military policies on racial and LGBTQ issues reflect “radical leftism,” and that military leaders are no different than other “American elites.”

“One senior officer who has left the military told me that within the ranks, there is a sense that politicians are using the forces to carry out political and cultural agendas. There is a sense, I’m told, that the armed forces are the playthings of politicians, and that policies can change with each passing administration. There is no stability there,” he said.

Dreher said he has spoken to many friends who have left the military because of politics.

“I spoke only last week to an old friend who was a high-ranking officer, and who took early retirement. Why? Because, he said, the officer corps has become highly politicized, and to the left. He said he feels he can no longer be effective as a leader,” Dreher said. “And, he said, the politicization is harming readiness.”

Not mentioned that often is retention, which is also taking a big hit among those who’ve served for years, who’ve had a lot invested in their training, so, essentially a “brain drain”.

(13 News Now) Among the cited reasons are the pandemic, the economy, and the strenuous requirements for recruits to get into the Army in the first place.

“Currently, only 23 percent of 17 to 24-year-old Americans are fully qualified to serve,” said Lieutenant General Douglas Stitt, Army Deputy Chief of Staff.

He added: “The top disqualifiers for service are obesity, addition, conduct, test scores, medical and behavioral health conditions.”

And that’s what you get when too many leftists are trying to join: they don’t qualify.

Army’s Misplaced Priorities : Recruitment Shortfall vs. Climate Change

…

The Army’s plan, among other things, contains the requirement to modify unit designs to account for soldiers and civilians that hold “approved climate credentials.”

There is direction to incorporate climate change into “strategic and operational-level wargame and exercise designs.” And the most damning of all is a requirement to “ … produce a digital handbook of potential unit-level collective training modifications that would reduce direct Army [greenhouse gas] emissions.”

Reading between the lines, the Army is considering modifying its unit training programs to reduce greenhouse gases.

It’s a very long article, but, the end result is that the Army (the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are also having problems) is short of it’s manpower goal, is having trouble recruiting, and having trouble retaining, as the focus on things that do not help the mission, and drive away the people who make up the backbone of the fighting force.

Read: Index Of U.S. Military Strength Rates Military As Weak »

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Bummer: 2020 PRC Wildfires Ruined Their Climate Apocalypse Actions

By William Teach October 19, 2022 – 7:00 am

Well, this is a bummer. Because the People’s Republik Of California and it’s citizens have been utterly irresponsible in managing their forests and not setting fires, things are doomy

2020 wildfire season in California wiped away 16 years of climate gains

The wildfires that have scorched the West in recent years are not just a consequence of climate change, they also are an increasingly sizable driver of the problem, according to a new study.

The research paper, published Monday in the journal Environmental Pollution, finds that California’s wildfires in 2020 caused twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that the state successfully cut between 2003 and 2019. In other words, 2020’s wildfire season, which set a record for the number of acres burned in the state, essentially wiped out 16 years of progress California had made on climate change through efforts such as replacing fossil fuels with clean energy.

Well, except for the Elites of the PRC, including folks like Gavin Newsom and his fossil fueled vacation, who drive in their big limos/SUVs, take lots of private fossil fueled flights, and live in giant mansions.

Since wood is full of stored carbon dioxide — the most prevalent greenhouse gas — it is emitted when the wood burns. As average temperatures have grown warmer, California and other Western states have experienced more heat waves and droughts, which are risk factors for wildfires. Currently, a 22-year megadrought is parching the West, forcing water authorities in parts of California to institute water usage limits for residents. The state is also experiencing intensified heat waves.

Consequently, wildfires have become more prevalent. Eighteen of the 20 largest wildfires in California’s history have occurred since 2000. The eight largest have all been since 2017, five of them in 2020 alone. The biggest fire in state history, the August Complex Fire in 2020, burned more than 1 million acres of land.

The West tends to be dry, and historical data shows that there have been points during previous Holocene warm periods of prolonged drought and wildfires. Nowadays, the eco-loons make sure that brush and dead wood cannot be cleared, sue over fire-breaks, and sue over modernization of things like transmission lines. Pretty much every wildfire can be traced back to incompetence, often with electric infrastructure, mistakes with camping fires, and straight up arson.

Now, we also know how much emissions were created by all that burning wood, and they accounted for 30% of California’s total emissions, making wildfires the second-largest source of emissions in the state, after transportation.

Well, looks like the big wigs in the PRC need to start restricting the peons from taking fossil fueled travel, require turning the heat down and the AC up, limiting their use of appliances. Just to be sure.

Read: Bummer: 2020 PRC Wildfires Ruined Their Climate Apocalypse Actions »

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CDC Potentially Looking To Require Kids To Have COVID Vaccine To Attend School

By William Teach October 19, 2022 – 6:45 am

I wish this was just some conspiracy theory

From the link

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting on October 19-20, 2022, will vote on adding COVID-19 shots to the schedule of childhood vaccines required of students in order to attend school.  This meeting will also discuss the COVID-19 “vaccine” safety and effectiveness in pregnant women and infants 6 months old and older.  This meeting is open to the public and will be livestreamed here.  We need YOU to stop this approval!

COVID vaccines have been administered to millions of people worldwide on the premise that they were safe and effective.  There was no clinical data to support these claims.  Overwhelming evidence shows that these vaccines are neither safe nor effective in almost every age group and particularly in children and persons under 60 years.  Please read the facts below for details and to easily help you take action.

Regardless of what you think of the vaccines, at best they’ll keep you from getting a bad case of Wuhan Flu. They really act like a flu shot: you can still get the flu, will usually just be mild. If it actually gets bad this Fall/Winter, I may get one, just to avoid getting really sick. I’ll mostly do my usual (wash my hands, avoid handshakes, and keep my distance). There is a hell of  difference between the COVID vaccines and the ones already required for school kids: those ones stop things like polio, measles, mumps, tetanus, and others. You have a 1% chance or less of getting polio with 3 shots. A 4th shot makes it almost impossible to get (you might want to get a booster later in life). COVID shots do not do this, not even close.

And, it is not a conspiracy. Here’s the official CDC webpage

In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), located within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announces the following meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). This meeting is open to the public. Time will be available for public comment.

The meeting will be held on October 19, 2022, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., EDT and October 20, 2022, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:20 p.m., EDT (dates and times subject to change, see the ACIP website for updates http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html ). The meeting will be webcast live via the World Wide Web. Written comments must be received on or before October 20, 2022. (snip)

Matters To Be Considered: The agenda will include discussions on influenza vaccines, pneumococcal vaccine, meningococcal vaccines, respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, dengue vaccines, adult immunization schedule, child/adolescent immunization schedule, COVID-19 vaccines and Chikungunya vaccine. Recommendation votes on pneumococcal, adult immunization schedule, child/adolescent immunization schedule and COVID-19 vaccines are scheduled. A Vaccines for Children (VFC) vote on COVID-19 vaccine is scheduled. Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate. For more information on the meeting agenda visit https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/meetings-info.html .

Now, even if they approve adding Chinese coronavirus vaccines to the recommended list, it doesn’t mean states will require them. The CDC has no authority to require any of them. You can be Blue states will require them, and, despite a year and a half of having them, they are still experimental. Just say no to requiring them for kids.

Read: CDC Potentially Looking To Require Kids To Have COVID Vaccine To Attend School »

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NJ Sues Fossil Fuels Companies Over ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach October 18, 2022 – 3:00 pm

Alternate headline: State Which Was Built On Fossil Fuels And Can’t Survive Without Them Looks To Shakedown Oil Companies

N.J. sues Exxon, Chevron over damages related to climate change

st greta carDecades-long deception by ExxonMobil, Chevron and other fossil fuel companies has exacerbated climate change and forced the state of New Jersey to pay billions of dollars to clean up after deadly disasters such as Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ida, according to a new lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The complaint filed in state court makes New Jersey the latest state or municipality to target major oil companies in an attempt to force them to help pay for the damages incurred by the severe weather made worse by climate change.

Dozens of similar suits have been filed across the country in recent years claiming the companies knew for decades about the dangers of burning oil and gas, but instead engaged in deceptive campaigns to sustain the market for fossil fuels.

New Jersey alleges that a deceptive campaign has had particularly severe impacts for the Garden State. It paid billions to clean up after Superstorm Sandy and to fortify its shores from future storms. Thirty residents died when climate-exacerbated Hurricane Ida swept through in 2021 and poorer communities with large populations such as Newark and Atlantic City are at direct risk of flooding, the suit said.

Sandy was not caused by fossil fuels, nor was Ida. Do we want to blame the huge winter storms last year on your use of fossil fuels? Fossil fuels sure were helpful in cleaning up after the storms. Really, NJ won’t survive without fossil fuels. All the airports, the commuting, the travel to places like the Jersey Shore, Atlantic City, all the fishing ships, watercraft for fun. And all the ships bringing goods into the state and shipping them out. NJ is a central travel point for so much requiring fossil fueled vehicles and big rigs. Not too mention all the refineries in the Newark area.

Will NJ’s AG Matthew J. Platkin be giving up his own fossil fueled travel? How about the governor? And all the people in the AG’s office? Of course not. This is a shakedown, and, so far, most of the fossil fueled companies have refused to play ball. Platkin will have to prove it in court, which will be rather difficult. And, let’s just say the state wins: what happens next? Well, the companies will pull their operations from the state. And you know who suffers? The working and middle class folks. And what’s left will be very expensive.

Read: NJ Sues Fossil Fuels Companies Over ‘Climate Change’ »

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 18, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is the need to live in the mountains to escape fossil fuels driven sea rise, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Greatness, with a post on a Christian teacher fired for refusing to read hyper-sexual LGBT books to young children.

Read: If All You See… »

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Bidenconomy: Halloween Candy And Ice Cream Prices Spike 13%

By William Teach October 18, 2022 – 10:30 am

Well, you know, candy is bad for the planet because obesity is bad for ‘climate change’, and being overweight puts a strain on the health system, but, of course, that’s body shaming

Inflation Causes Halloween Candy Prices to Soar 13.1 Percent

Handing out Halloween treats is going to be trickier this year.

The cost of candy and chewing gum soared 13.1 percent compared with a year earlier in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the highest increase ever recorded.

The surge in candy prices is being driven by rising costs of ingredients, such as sugar and flour. Sugar is 17 percent higher than last year, and flour increased even more, to 24 percent higher. Cakes, cupcakes, and cookies are also up by 16 percent.

According to Bloomberg, a drought in the northern states affecting beet-sugar crops has contributed to the increase in production costs for sugar this year.

Supply chain woes from the pandemic and Ukraine were also noted to be contributing to a shortage of essential ingredients for chocolate, such as cocoa, which recently prompted the CEO of Hershey to announce that company is anticipating a candy shortage this year.

In fairness, it’s not all Biden’s fault. It goes back to China screwing around with coronaviruses, but, Biden has done little to help alleviate the price spikes. Nor have Democrats. Most of them just don’t care.

I’ve mentioned it sometime in the past that a carton of Blue Bell ice cream used to be $5.99 at my Walmart, and now it’s $7.99. Breyers has gone up, as has Turkey Hill.

Read: Bidenconomy: Halloween Candy And Ice Cream Prices Spike 13% »

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Brandon Admin Warns About Higher Energy Prices This Winter

By William Teach October 18, 2022 – 7:15 am

The administration failed to mention that much of that cost is due to their own policies

US government says all Americans will pay much more for natural gas this winter

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released data on projected energy costs, indicating that Americans can expect to pay higher fees for natural gas for the upcoming winter.

The EIA said it forecasted that U.S. households that primarily use natural gas for heating will spend an average of $931 on heating this winter – a whopping 28%, or $206, more than last year.

Nearly half of all U.S. homes rely on natural gas as the primary heating fuel, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey.

The expected increase in natural gas bills, according to the EIA, is due to higher retail natural gas prices. The agency said it expected retail natural gas prices to rise 22%, from $13.02 per thousand cubic feet (McF) last winter, to $15.95/McF this winter.

It’s not like the Brandon admin hasn’t worked hard to cause the price of natural gas to spike or anything, right? But, see, the climate cultists want the high prices to happen

(Energy News Network) With natural gas prices climbing, clean energy advocates say regulators need to reconsider a Nixon-era practice that lets utilities pass along fuel costs to customers with little regulatory oversight.

Since the early 1970s, ratepayers have typically been the ones to pay — or benefit from — fluctuations in power plant fuel prices, which often show up on customers’ bills on a separate line called a fuel adjustment clause. It has been a good arrangement for customers for much of this century as the fracking revolution drove down natural gas prices and replaced more expensive coal.

Clean energy advocates say the passthrough nature of fuel costs means utilities have little motivation to change their generation mix in response to rising prices. As a result, critics say there’s less incentive for utilities to seek lower-cost alternatives to natural gas and coal such as wind and solar.

Except, they aren’t lower cost, they aren’t reliable, and aren’t dependable. But, if natural gas continues to spike in price, the climate cult can make solar and wind look better. Of course, it won’t work in the parts of the country that get really cold. Those people can just suffer for the beliefs of the climate cult, who tend not to live in those really cold areas.

(Real Clear Energy) But voters see and feel the downsides of Biden’s war on fossil fuels: the high costs of gasoline, electricity, and other utilities, which in turn increase the costs of food, rent, and consumer goods. Those effects, moreover, coincide with high general inflation, a cratering stock market, and negative GDP growth in two consecutive quarters. Biden tries to blame Vladimir Putin and Big Oil for America’s energy woes. That is nonsense, and the public isn’t buying it.

The Elites do not care.

Read: Brandon Admin Warns About Higher Energy Prices This Winter »

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U.S. Getting Warnings Of Coming COVID Or Something

By William Teach October 18, 2022 – 7:00 am

They’re really trying to make this happen

US warned to get ready as Europe deals with new COVID-19 rise

Rising COVID-19 cases in Europe are setting off warnings that the U.S. could experience a new surge this winter.

Previous jumps in the U.S. have followed a pattern in which cases first rise in Europe, making officials nervous they could see a spike in U.S. cases as the weather turns.

The most recent data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control shows that cases began going up around the beginning of September in Europe

The seven-day average is roughly 230,000 cases per day, reflecting rates that were seen in late July when Europe was still dealing with the omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariant wave.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated last week that a rise in cases in Europe was expected due to cooling temperatures, but stressed that hospitalizations and deaths did not have to rise as well due to the viral therapeutics that are now available.

I’m sure the powers that be will start crushing us with ads and such about getting vaxed and boosted, but, really, do most people really trust that anymore? It really has become basically a flu shot, where it mostly will just keep you from getting the Wuhan flu badly?

Ali Mokdad, epidemiologist and professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, told The Hill the contrast in the regions can be attributed to multiple factors, including warmer temperatures in the U.S. and differing levels of community immunity.

“In the U.S., we have a higher infection rate than many European countries, where more people have been infected here. So we have a little bit more immunity than they do, but still we have waning immunity,” Mokdad said.

Well, Europe opened up much earlier, they made sure that more people were exposed to COVID, giving them natural immunity, rather than keeping people locked down for too long

COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. will likely begin going up in three to four weeks, Mokdad said, though they won’t reach the same levels seen during the omicron wave last winter. He emphasized that this projection is contingent on a situation in which new coronavirus variants that are better at escaping immunity don’t rise in dominance.

Do you think they’ll try and implement masking again? And then when masking doesn’t work, vaccine mandates?

Experts who spoke with The Hill strongly encouraged people to get the updated bivalent booster ahead of the holiday season.

“The best holiday present that you can give — whatever you celebrate — that you give for yourself and your family members is protection and safety. And the best way to do it is to go and get your booster and your flu shot,” Mokdad said.

Read: U.S. Getting Warnings Of Coming COVID Or Something »

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Say, Can Focusing On Climate Crisis (scam) Win Elections Or Something

By William Teach October 17, 2022 – 3:00 pm

No. It can’t. It damned sure didn’t help Jay Inslee in 2020, who couldn’t even get the hardcore leftists in Washington state to approve his climate apocalypse agenda, and he flamed out of the Democrat primaries early. Nor did it help Mike Bloomberg or Jay Inslee. All three made climate doom their focus

Can Focusing On Climate Change Help Win Elections?

“Our generation grew up watching as the climate crisis got worse and worse and politicians did nothing.” That might sound like a quote from teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, but it’s actually the opening line for a new series of political ads appearing in multiple states in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms — ads that the advocacy groups Climate Power Action and the League of Conservation Voters are hoping will tip the scales towards climate-focused Democrats.

Historically, however, climate change has not been much of a political kingmaker. Even when candidates trusted that their constituents did care deeply about the environment, it hasn’t been something that reliably changed votes. In the 2020 presidential election, for example, two-thirds of voters told exit pollster Edison Research that climate change was a “serious problem” — but 29 percent of that same group voted for then-President Donald Trump, a candidate whose position on climate change was … inconsistent … at best.

So a $12 million ad campaign aimed specifically at promoting Democratic candidates’ climate change bona fides seems, at first glance, like a fool’s errand. But even though the content of these ads makes it clear they’re meant for a narrow audience — young voters, who see themselves as part of a generation bearing the consequences of inaction on climate change — the ads aren’t even for all of them. Instead, the groups funding these ads are trying to reach a specific sliver of a slice of a subset of young voters. And yet there’s reason to think that, on those slender margins, climate change could be becoming an issue that really sways elections.

The thing is, even for most of those young people, climate is important as a theory, not in practice, especially when they can’t afford food, housing, clothes, energy, cars, and, most importantly, traveling places to take selfies. And, all those who will buy into the ads were already hardcore Warmists and were going to vote Democrat anyhow. The ads won’t get Independents and barely Republicans to switch over, nor will it convince the moderate Democrats who will either vote GOP or just sit it out to go vote Democrat.

But the relationship between voters and climate policy has long fallen under the label of “it’s complicated.” There is an established gap between what voters say they want — action on climate change — and what they’re willing to do to achieve that. In 2019, for example, polling by Reuters and Ipsos found that while 69 percent of Americans wanted the government to take “aggressive” action on climate change, only 42 percent were likely to install solar panels on their own home; 38 percent were likely to begin carpooling to reduce emissions; and just 34 percent were likely to pay an extra $100 a year in taxes to support climate policies. And in 13 years of YouGov polls tracking which issues registered voters see as the most important, climate change has consistently taken a back seat to economic issues like jobs and inflation. As of Oct. 10, 12 percent of voters listed climate change and the environment as their No. 1 concern, while 22 percent cited inflation and high prices. It’s not that emphasizing climate change is a turn-off for voters — President Biden got a solid B+ on Greenpeace’s 2020 election Climate Scorecard. But neither is climate an issue that seems to attract voters on its own. Having the highest score on the Greenpeace scorecard during his candidacy was not enough to catapult Washington’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, to the White House.

How many of that 38% actually start carpooling? How about the 42% who say they are willing to install solar panels? Did they? In real terms, no one really cares enough to act on it in their own lives.

But the main goal of the LCV’s ad campaign appears to be persuading people to vote for a candidate because that person has gotten climate policy done — something that’s presented in the ads as a bit of a surprise, a “can you believe they actually did it?” moment. Years of research have shown that the persuasion effects created by advertising — whether political or otherwise — do not last very long, and they are very small, capable of maybe creating a percentage-point difference in swing, said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of politics and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “But don’t confuse small in size with not being pivotal,” she said.

They would have voted for that Democrat anyhow. It’s not convincing new votes. And, it could convince some to vote Republican, as they already see how the Inflation Reduction Act, which won’t, will create more big government involved in their lives, raising the cost of energy and food.

Read: Say, Can Focusing On Climate Crisis (scam) Win Elections Or Something »

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 17, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is an area that lost its grass due to carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is No Tricks Zone, with a post St. Greta making German Greens upset over her support of nuclear power.

Read: If All You See… »

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