With Energy And Inflation Running Rampant, Dems To Focus Taxes And Climate Crisis (scam)

By William Teach July 11, 2022 – 3:00 pm

What are people worried about? The price of food and goods going up, high gas and energy prices, rising interest rates, lack of goods, basically, economic issues. The stuff they talk about at the kitchen table. And Democrats?

Dems’ climate and tax agenda to consume Congress in July

Democrats are taking tangible steps towards a deal on their party’s signature spending bill, expecting the proposal to dominate the rest of July and hoping it could reshape their political fortunes after six months of stasis.

Talks between Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are beginning to yield concrete results on a potential climate, tax and prescription drugs package. Schumer told Senate Democrats recently that if he can reach a deal with Manchin, the bill could be on the floor as soon as this month, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

Negotiators are still ironing out key details, but Democrats are signaling that as soon as next week they will begin arguing their case to the Senate rules chief on why the package should pass with a simple majority in the chamber. No one is getting their hopes too high in a party still reeling from Manchin’s rejection of Build Back Better, Democrats’ previous version of the legislation.

Will Manchin vote for legislation that will increase the cost of life for his constituents?

Democrats solved the easiest piece of their puzzle this week: finalizing a prescription drug pricing reform deal from last year, which both lowers prices and is expected to raise at least $250 billion in revenues. Democrats submitted that piece to the Senate parliamentarian for review, trying to ensure it doesn’t run afoul of the strict chamber rules that govern whether legislation can pass with a simple majority, known as budget reconciliation.

If it’s good legislation, why not just pass it on its own?

Shaving down the $555 billion energy package from the abandoned Build Back Better bill is proving tougher; Manchin is looking at energy spending of around $300 billion and ultimately new subsidies for electric vehicles could be cut, according to a second person familiar with the negotiations. Democrats are also trying to prevent health care premiums from skyrocketing this fall, and they need to detail tax increases and enforcement that would both pay for the bill and reduce the deficit, priorities of Manchin’s.

Passing this would simply increase the cost of living for the Average America. Way to focus on what’s real, Dems.

Read: With Energy And Inflation Running Rampant, Dems To Focus Taxes And Climate Crisis (scam) »

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 11, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a place turned into a desert from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Weasel Zippers, with a post on Biden being heckled yet again in Delaware.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

In Wake Of End Of Roe, FDA Considers OTC Birth Control Pills

By William Teach July 11, 2022 – 10:30 am

Hey, look, Democrats rediscovered contraceptives!

F.D.A. to Weigh Over-the-Counter Sale of Contraceptive Pills

More than 60 years after the approval of oral contraceptives revolutionized women’s sexual health, the Food and Drug Administration has received its first application to supply a birth control pill over the counter — just as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has put access to contraception more squarely at the heart of the clash over reproductive rights.

What clash regarding contraceptives? Republicans have been saying for most of this century that abortion and abortion pills are not contraceptives, that men and women should practice responsible, protected sex.

A Paris-based company, HRA Pharma, said it will announce on Monday that it has asked the F.D.A. to authorize its pill, which is available by prescription, for over-the-counter-sales in the United States. Cadence Health, another pill manufacturer that has been in close dialogue with the F.D.A. about switching its pill to over-the-counter status, said it hopes to move closer to submitting an application in the coming year.

The timing of HRA Pharma’s F.D.A. submission, just weeks after the Supreme Court decision, is “a really sad coincidence,” said Fre?de?rique Welgryn, the company’s chief strategic and innovations officer. “Birth control is not a solution for abortion access,” she said.

Well, actually, it is, because if you practice protected sex you don’t get pregnant. It’s 2022, these things are pretty advanced, and we have some very good scientific knowledge.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down Roe and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, included a concurring decision by Justice Clarence Thomas suggesting that the 1965 decision that established a right to contraception should also be overturned. On Friday, President Biden denounced the Dobbs ruling as “an exercise in raw political power,” and vowed to expand access to reproductive health care.

First, he’s just one judge, none of the others are saying the same thing. Second, there’s zero suits in the courts that could work their way to the Supreme Court. Third, he wrote ““In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” What he meant was that the Supreme Court shouldn’t invent a Right where none exists in the Constitution. That it should be the Legislative Branch which can pass a law on this. The rest of the court is not interested in doing this, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh adding in his concurrence, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Supporters of reproductive rights are also calling on Mr. Biden to have the F.D.A. move quickly on its review of over-the-counter contraceptives in light of the Dobbs decision. Dana Singiser, a founder of the Contraceptive Access Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the experience with Covid-19 shows that the F.D.A. “can work with urgency during a public health emergency, which is what women are facing right now with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

Of course, Biden is not interested in being involved. Like with most things.

Roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Reproductive-rights activists view an over-the-counter birth control pill as an easy and effective tool for women in rural, poor and historically marginalized communities to avoid unwanted pregnancies, which in turn reduces the abortion rate.

Word salad included. If you’re having unprotected, irresponsible sex, why are you surprised when you get pregnant? If you drive like a fool, wearing no seat belt, why are you surprised when you get seriously hurt?

Long, long article, but, the question here is “will Democrats push to stop this?”

(USA Today) Most American women favor making the birth control pill accessible over the counter. According to a 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, three-quarters of women of reproductive age support over-the-counter access to birth control pills.

So why hasn’t it happened? It must be that awful, religious-right-dominated GOP that’s standing in the way, right?

Actually, not so much.

Republicans, in fact, have repeatedly tried to make birth control pills available without a prescription, only to face opposition from . . . Democrats and Planned Parenthood.

Easily obtained contraceptives would interfere with all the money PP makes off abortions and insurance money rake off, and, if there are fewer abortion Democrats cannot yammer on about the “right to an abortion.”

Planned Parenthood is also a big donor to Democrats, who have worked to block over-the-counter birth control pills. And Democrats have fought hard, partly because they — and drug companies — want birth control pills to be subject to health insurance reimbursement, though only the more privileged among Americans get that.

Will Dems block the approval at the FDA?

Read: In Wake Of End Of Roe, FDA Considers OTC Birth Control Pills »

Posted in Current Affairs | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

What Say To Bubbles Around The Earth To Solve ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach July 11, 2022 – 7:00 am

What could possibly go wrong?

MIT scientists think they’ve discovered how to fully reverse climate change

Scientists at MIT think they may have finally found a way to reverse climate change. Or, at the least, help ease it some.

The idea revolves heavily around the creation and deployment of several thin film-like silicon bubbles. The “space bubbles” as they refer to them, would be joined together like a raft. Once expanded in space it would be around the same size as Brazil. The bubbles would then provide an extra buffer against the harmful solar radiation that comes from the Sun.

The goal with these new “space bubbles” would be to ease up or even reverse climate change. The Earth has seen rising temperatures over the past several centuries. In fact, NASA previously released a gif detailing how the global temperature has changed over the years. Now, we’re seeing massive “mouths to hell” opening in the permafrost.

Wait, go back a second: if the solar radiation (which is necessary for life on Earth, to a degree) is coming from the Sun, doesn’t that mean the main driver is nature, not Mankind? Certainly, there couldn’t have been enough “carbon pollution” back in the 1880’s, nor industrialization to make much of a change.

Researchers at MIT have taken that same basic concept and improved it, though, by changing out inflatable silicon bubbles for the spacecraft that Angel originally proposed. Being able to reverse climate change would be a huge step in the right direction. Shielding the Earth from the Sun’s radiation would only be one part of it, though. We’d still need to cut down on other things, too.

I can see this going horribly wrong. It’s really just a pie in the sky plan that has zero chance of being implemented, at least not for centuries, at which point the Earth will be back to a Holocene cooling period anyhow. The bigger point is, again, the big nuclear furnace the Earth revolves around, which has always been a primary driver of the climate.

Read: What Say To Bubbles Around The Earth To Solve ‘Climate Change’ »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Hot Take: The Tax Code Is Raaaaacist

By William Teach July 11, 2022 – 6:45 am

It’s very amusing, but, not in a good way, when uber-white Progressives like The Hill’s Emily Brooks white-knights for black people, and, really, say that blacks just cannot succeed without the help of The Government. And progressive white people, of course

America will never achieve racial justice without reforming our broken tax code

As inflation continues to impact working-class Americans across the country, reports show that Black Americans are being hit the hardest. On top of the massive economic inequalities caused by the pandemic, rising costs for housing, food, and gas are making it virtually impossible for Black communities to improve their financial conditions in material ways.

My grandfather — as a young person — met people who had been wealthy slave owners before the Civil War. It has only been a few generations since more of America’s wealth was derived from enslaved people rather than farmland or factories. We have come a long way since then.

What, exactly, does her grandfather knowing people who owned slaves have to do with anything? In Progressive Grievance World, though, it seems they’re all living like it’s 1850

Unfortunately, there is still a very long way to go. Black Americans continue to face systemic discrimination in virtually every corner and every institution in America. One of the most salient yet overlooked places where Black Americans encounter bias, however, is our nation’s tax code. Its preferential treatment of existing wealth over income leaves the Black community at a permanent disadvantage when compared to their significantly wealthier white counterparts.

As a result of decades of racist federal policies like redlining, Black Americans hold nowhere near the level of wealth that white Americans do. The ratio of white-to-Black wealth in America today is 6 to 1; for every dollar the average white American holds, the average black American holds only 17 cents. If Black Americans held a share of national wealth that was equal in proportion to their share of the population, they would hold $12.68 trillion in total wealth instead of $2.54 trillion, which puts the total racial wealth gap at $10.14 trillion. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a situation where Black Americans are overrepresented among the poor and underrepresented among the rich, making up 26% of the poorest fifth of the country and just 3% of the richest fifth.

Um, OK? But, the tax code applies to all colors equally. If you make between $40,526 to $86,375 your rate is 22%. The tax code doesn’t know your skin color. In Progressive World, everything is raaaaacist. Emily makes quite a few leaps of Liberal Logic in attempting to link rich people being rich to the tax code being bad for blacks.

Despite the complexities of the matter, there’s one simple solution that would help address this problem. Wealthy, predominantly white investors should be asked to pay taxes just like people who work for a living while workers should be given some more financial breathing room. We should be making it easier, not harder, for Black workers (and workers of all races) to save and spend their hard-earned cash and build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities, while asking more from the ultra-wealthy who can easily afford to pay more.

They do. They pay a hell of a lot more monetarily in taxes. Sure, the percent may seem lower, but, they feed more money back into the economy, create businesses and jobs, give to charities. Emily is also upset that they do not pay full taxes on capital gains. I’m really not sure how this would create any sort of equality/equity, it’s just penalizing people who had nothing to do with slavery.

I myself am a wealthy, white investor living in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Nowhere in this piece does Emily mention that she is paying full boat on her taxes, forgoing deductions, paying full boat on capital gains. Because, let’s be honest, this is all about Virtue Signaling without doing a damned thing in their own lives.

Read: Hot Take: The Tax Code Is Raaaaacist »

Posted in Liberal World | 14 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 10, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful green space which would be better if it were replaced with solar panels, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The O.K. Corral, with a post on coffee, tea, or plea.

It’s tan lines week

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach July 10, 2022 – 9:34 am

Patriotic Pinup

Happy Sunday! Another fine day in the Once And Future Nation of America. Getting a bit of rain, the bunnies are all over the yard, and the Dodgers are on a win streak. This pinup is by Romain Hugault, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. No Tricks Zone notes EVs are like COVID vaccines: sold on wildly unrealistic exaggerations
  2. Ace Of Spade explains why we have culture wars
  3. American Greatness wonders why babies and toddlers need COVID vaccines
  4. Blazing Cat Fur notes Justin Trudeau looking to decimate Canadian farmers
  5. Chicks On The Right covers the lunatics confused by their own identities
  6. Climate Depot discusses Build Back Better being rebranded to Rules Based World Order
  7. DC Clothesline covers 60K soldiers cut off from pay for not getting the jab
  8. Geller Report notes a Christian school getting thousands of applicants, fleeing public schools
  9. IOTW Report says why no one watches the WNBA
  10. Jihad Watch shows what happens when one converts to Islam
  11. Legal Insurrection features the left raging at Ron DeSantis
  12. Moonbattery covers liberals attacking food supply in Holland
  13. neo-neocon features the war on self defense
  14. Never Yet Melted discusses radical feminism looking to redefine conceptions of time and space
  15. And last, but, not least, Pacific Pundit highlights a California law about to make the supply chain worse

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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It Starts: Pennsylvania GOP Looks To Pass Amendment Banning Abortion

By William Teach July 10, 2022 – 7:00 am

This is exactly what is supposed to happen: the citizens and legislatures should determine the fate of abortion in their states

Pennsylvania’s GOP-led Senate advances constitutional amendment on abortion

The Pennsylvania state Senate advanced a proposal Thursday that would amend the state constitution to include clear language that states there is no constitutional right to abortion.

The proposal, advanced by the Republican-led upper chamber, states that there is no constitutional right to a taxpayer funded abortion or any right whatsoever to abortion in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The amendment was added on to a bill that included many constitutional amendments, including on that would require Pennsylvania residents to show legal identification in order to vote in state elections.

The Pennsylvania state constitution does not give the governor the power to veto constitutional amendments, nor do constitutional amendments require the governor’s support to be enacted.

Amendments to the constitution in Pennsylvania are passed after they’re proposed in the state’s House or Senate and then approved by the majority in each chamber during two elective sessions.

The amendment also must be published for Pennsylvanians to see at least three months prior to the next election, and then be approved by the majority in the state’s House and Senate once more following the election.

Afterwards, to finalize the outcome of the amendment, it would then go to the Pennsylvanians’ ballot for a vote.

So, it won’t be fast. Unless the GOP loses either the House or Senate, it will pass in two consecutive sessions. Then, it must go to a ballot. Would they have to wait till 2024, or, could they call a special election? They’ll need to get it passed ASAP, before August 7th, as election day is November 8th.

Obviously, the Democrats do not like this

Pennsylvania Sen. John Costa (D) stated that the Republican bill was “designed to prevent abortions in this commonwealth.” He wrote on Twitter that “the governor is elected statewide to have a final say on the issues that impact citizens statewide,” and claimed that the proposal was a political work-around.

Pretty sure that the power of making law is invested in the General Assembly and The People, not the governor. And Democrats do not like that this could be a Pa. constitutional amendment, because they do not like when people have the opportunity to vote against what Democrats want. You know they’ll sue. I wonder which other states will push amendments.

More: looks like Kansas will have a vote very soon

(Wichita Eagle) Kansas voters will decide Aug. 2 whether the state constitution should include the right to an abortion. A vote no would continue that right. A vote yes would remove it, and Kansas lawmakers would be free to further restrict abortion, including banning the procedure. (snip)

Kansas will be the first state in the country to vote on the issue since the high court’s ruling. Dollars have been flowing in from out of state to support both sides. Some say what happens in Kansas could shape what happens in other states.

I have a big problem with all the out of state money, regardless of what it supports. Out of state people/entities need to mind their own business. We’ll see what happens in August. Anyone else think that we’ll be watching the vote count, and, if it starts supporting a Yes vote, all of a sudden things will start getting weird, with voting stopped in some places, ballots suddenly appearing, etc?

Read: It Starts: Pennsylvania GOP Looks To Pass Amendment Banning Abortion »

Posted in Constitution, Current Affairs | 30 Comments | Trackback URL

Salon Calls Brandon Most Stage Managed President Ever

By William Teach July 9, 2022 – 3:00 pm

When you’ve lost Salon….

The Joe Biden reality show: Most stage-managed presidency in history keeps undermining itself

Biden Brain SuckerWhat a difference an administration makes.

Donald Trump had nothing to say and said it all the time.

President Joe Biden has more to say and rarely says it.

Or at least that’s what a lot of his fellow Democrats seem to think.

Following the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, on the Fourth of July, there is growing criticism from members of Biden’s party, who accuse the president of not saying enough about this important issue. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says Biden has approached the continuing gun violence issue with “passion” and “fury.” Some of his fellow Democrats, however, have reportedly begun to doubt both of those. Some of that criticism comes from Congress, where it is obvious they mistake “fury” for action. It would also explain why Congress often seems so furious and yet takes so little action.

Biden has done himself no favors because even the press (which, until recently, was still in a honeymoon with the White House) says he continuously hides from the public. He’s had just one full news conference at the White House — during the pandemic, with relatively few reporters present — and he routinely avoids putting himself in situations where the press can ask him questions.

It really doesn’t get much better for Joe

Donald Trump used the Oval Office as an interactive bully pulpit and battering ram — screaming and ranting and raving at the press while taking questions in a variety of venues that he believed gave him an advantage, whether in his infamous “chopper talk” sessions on the South Lawn, in pool sprays or elsewhere. Trump could make an ass of himself anywhere, always did and still does.

But today, the president of the United States is a role played by a septuagenarian in a reality show.

In other words, Trump spent a lot of time yammering and talking with the press. And yes, berating them. But, he did show up time and again, while Joe hides

For the first time since January, I was given permission, along with perhaps two dozen other reporters, to walk into the South Court Auditorium and serve as a temporary audience during a presidential reality show episode. Of course, that’s not how it was billed. But the auditorium has morphed into a Hollywood sound stage over the last 17 months. During previous administrations, the room was pressed into service as anything from an overflow work space to an auditorium hosting presidential press events. The first COVID briefings under Trump took place in that auditorium, before approximately 200 members of the press corps.

And now? Not many, and Joe doesn’t take questions. He looks like a talk show host

I swear, at one point I thought the president might turn, look at the audience and say, “We’ll have more with irate governors after this important commercial message . . . ”

If this had happened under Trump, he would have been late, combative and surly. He would have accused us at least once of being the “enemy of the people,” called us “fake news” at least twice and might have personally insulted a reporter just for good measure. But he’d mix it up with questions, not caring if they were pro or con. He was ready to fight with anybody. That was Trump’s game plan. After he got comfortable in any venue in the White House, he stayed and fouled the nest. At first, there was no chopper talk. Then, after trying it once and being invited back, he kept doing it. After he showed up in the Brady Briefing Room to discuss the pandemic, with a little more than a year left in his term of office, he was again invited back.

But, he did talk, right? Take questions? Interact?

I don’t remember Trump making all these gaffes. Remember how the press used to give George W. Bush crap for his mispronounced words? Bush at least showed up, took questions, answered

That’s an oldy but goody. Biden can’t even speak using a teleprompter in an utterly scripted event

If Biden is actually incapable of occasionally taking unscripted questions from a wide variety of journalists, then the Democrats should be looking hard for someone who can — though they should heed the warning of history and avoid creating a Kennedy vs. Carter moment, as in 1980, that divides the party and allows a demon seed like Ronald Reagan to fall through the cracks and take root. In short, if the Democrats are going to proceed without Biden, it has to be at his initiative, or at least appear to be so. (Wink, wink.) The Democrats definitely don’t need a competitive primary season where the incumbent president is fighting for survival. But given that this is the Democratic Party, they might just do that.

Oops. It’s an incredible piece, well worth reading the whole thing.

Read: Salon Calls Brandon Most Stage Managed President Ever »

Posted in Joe Biden | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 9, 2022 – 1:00 pm

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

The blog of the day is Green Jihad, with a post on the UN saying world hunger is a good thing.

Clearing the folder below the fold, so, check out Jo Nova, with a post on the European energy crisis.

Read More »

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 20 Comments | Trackback URL
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