Democrats Cancel Senate Covid Policy To Attempt To Pass “Inflation Reduction Act”

By William Teach August 6, 2022 – 10:30 am

These are the same people who tell us to get our 9th booster and wear a mask everywhere (and wear them mostly for show themselves, while Biden tested positive a 3rd time despite being isolated), who threatened GOP members with fines for refusing to cooperate with the Dems COVID policies

‘Don’t Test, Don’t Tell’: Senate Democrats Cancel COVID Policy to Ram Through Reconciliation Bill

Senate Democrats have reportedly canceled their coronavirus testing policy over the weekend to ram through a reconciliation bill, dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act.”

“Senate Democrats, some of whom have decried their G.O.P. colleagues’ lenient attitude toward masking, have adopted an unofficial ‘Don’t Test, Don’t Tell,’ protocol of late, particularly as they endeavor to pass the historic Inflation Reduction Act this weekend,” Puck reported.

The change in policy is a result of Democrats fearing their coronavirus policy may undermine their ability to pass the legislation.

What if someone has COVID? If Republicans were scumbags like Democrats, one of them would have caught it and brought it to the Senate floor earlier in the week

The Puck piece is behind a pretty good paywall, cannot see it with Pocket or 12 Foot Ladder, here’s the whole excerpt if you don’t want to click on Twitter

So, it could be a superspreader event. How ironic would it be if a bunch of Democrats came down with Wuhan Flu next week?

The bill, however, is not finalized. Under Senate reconciliation rules, the Senate parliamentarian still must resolve several issues with the partisan legislation, such as Medicare drug price negations, climate change, and health care provisions. Democrats are using reconciliation to circumvent the 60 vote filibuster proof filibuster.

The bill as it’s meant to be voted on is not online yet at Congress.gov. You know most Democrats have not read it, they don’t know the implications or impacts. And it might not be ready at anytime today. If Republicans were smart, they would not come to work today. Article I, section 5 of the Constitution requires that a quorum (51 senators) be present for the Senate to conduct business. If zero Republicans show, that means just 50 Senators, and, no, VP Harris would not be considered 51.

And then there’s this

What’s in the Senate Democrats’ landmark ‘Inflation Reduction Act’?

….

Tax analysts argue that the legislation would help American families who make less than $400,000. Democrats say it would reduce inflation at least in part by lowering the deficit, a key priority for Manchin.

The bill would reduce federal budget deficits by $102 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

That’s all ABC News is able to say on the potential inflation reduction. I’ve read the piece 3 times. I cannot find anything else. Which is the way most Credentialed News pieces go: calling it the Inflation Reduction Act and unable to provide anything to show it reduces inflation. “Democrats say” is not the flex they think it is, and $102 billion over 10 years is nothing.

Read: Democrats Cancel Senate Covid Policy To Attempt To Pass “Inflation Reduction Act” »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus, Democrats | 29 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: California Hates Fossil Fuels But Needs Them For Power

By William Teach August 6, 2022 – 7:15 am

Does California really hate fossil fuels? Obviously, the minority which votes Republican doesn’t. But, what of the typical Democrat voter? They profess they hate fossil fuels and want them gone, and support silly initiatives like suing fossil fuels companies, blocking construction of new gas stations, doing away with the sale of fossil fueled vehicles in the near future, forcing Other People onto public transportation, and others. And. certainly the elected Democrats and their appointees hate them. But, see, there are two problems. First, almost all these people are refusing to give up their own use of fossil fuels. Second

California scorns fossil fuel but can’t keep the lights on without it

California wants to quit fossil fuels. Just not yet.

Faced with a fragile electrical grid and the prospect of summertime blackouts, the state agreed to put aside hundreds of millions of dollars to buy power from fossil fuel plants that are scheduled to shut down as soon as next year.

That has prompted a backlash from environmental groups and lawmakers who say Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approach could end up extending the life of gas plants that have been on-track to close for more than a decade and could threaten the state’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2045.

“The emphasis that the governor has been making is ‘We’re going to be Climate Leaders; we’re going to do 100 percent clean energy; we’re going to lead the nation and the world,’” said V. John White, executive director of the Sacramento-based Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a non-profit group of environmental advocates and clean energy companies. “Yet, at least a part of this plan means going the opposite direction.”

It’s all fun and games until the Cold Dead Mackerel Of Reality slaps them in the face. It’s really easy to believe in Doing Something about anthropogenic climate change in theory, not so much in practice. Want to put up off and on short wind turbines? That’s great, right up till extreme enviros and rich folks who like their views sue. Solar farms? Yeah, same enviroweenies will sue to stop them over something or other.

The legislation, which some Democrats labeled as “lousy” and “crappy,” reflects the reality of climate change. Heat waves are already straining power capacity, and the transition to cleaner energy isn’t coming fast enough to meet immediate needs in the nation’s most populous state.

Officials have warned that outages would be possible this summer, with as many as 3.75 million California homes losing power in a worst-case scenario of a West-wide heat wave and insufficient electrical supplies, particularly in the evenings.

It’s also an acknowledgment of the political reality that blackouts are hazardous to elected officials, even in a state dominated by one party.

Yeah, well, California has been pushing this for decades, and still doesn’t have the power generation necessary to replace coal, oil, and nuclear. If the leftist there really Believe, they should be willing to suffer for those beliefs, right?

Read: Bummer: California Hates Fossil Fuels But Needs Them For Power »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

Funny: Buses From Texas Carrying Illegals Arrive In NYC

By William Teach August 6, 2022 – 7:00 am

The mayor of NYC is going to be even more unhappy. He supports the heck out of illegal immigration, as long as it’s not his city

Texas governor sends migrants to New York City as immigration standoff accelerates

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan carrying around 50 migrants from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Venezuela. Volunteers were helping to steer people who had no relatives in town to city resources.

“Most of them don’t have anybody to help. They don’t know where to go, so we’re taking them to shelters,” said one volunteer at the bus station, Evelin Zapata, from a group called Grannies Respond.

One family of four from Colombia, who ended up at a homeless intake center in the Bronx, were unsure of where they would spend the night. Byron and Leidy, both 28, said they left the country’s capital Bogota because they were having trouble finding work. They did not provide their last name.

“It’s a little easier to enter the country now, before it was very hard to come here with children,” said Leidy, who traveled with her kids Mariana, 7, and Nicolas, 13. She said the family had hoped someone they knew in New York would take them in, but that plan did not work out. “We came here because they said they would help us find a place to sleep to not have to stay in the street,” Leidy said.

Easier? You don’t say.

Abbott said New York City Mayor Eric Adams could provide services and housing for the new arrivals.

“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said in a statement.

Let the progressives in NYC put their money where they’re mouths are.

Oh, and this one is hilarious

“With no plan for what came next.” I don’t think they really care, since Democrats were fine with unfettered illegal immigration in border towns

Read: Funny: Buses From Texas Carrying Illegals Arrive In NYC »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Your Fault: Kids Have Lower Fitness Due To Climate Crisis (scam)

By William Teach August 5, 2022 – 3:00 pm

There couldn’t be a lot of other reasons for lower fitness in kids, right? Not according to the Cult of Climastrology

Climate change causing poorer fitness in children: study

climate change joke

Warming global temperatures — fueled by climate change — are making children less physically fit and more obese than ever before, a new study has found.

And it’s a two-way street: physical fitness is also key to tolerating higher temperatures.

A less active lifestyle caused by higher temperatures is putting kids at greater risk of suffering from heat-related health problems, including dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, according to the study, published in the journal Temperature on Friday.

“As the world warms, children are the least fit they have ever been,” author Shawnda Morrison, an environmental exercise physiologist at Slovenia’s University of Ljubljana, said in a statement.

“It is imperative that children are encouraged to do daily physical activity to build up, and maintain, their fitness, so that they enjoy moving their bodies and it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ or ‘a chore’ to them,” she added.

If only we could Do Something!

Today’s climate change policies are failing to address child health needs, Morrison argued, stressing the critical nature of encouraging kids to make exercise an everyday part of their lives.

This is a joke, right? Do kids notice the difference between 80F and 81.5F? We’d go outside regardless of the temperatures. We’d be ice skating and sledding when it was super cold. We’d be riding bikes and playing in the woods and all sorts of things when it was hot. Today, it’s that physical fitness is not stressed. In fact, this whole “body positivity” thing is pushed so far to the extreme that it is not only OK to be overweight, and even obese, it’s lauded. Heck, even lots of young kids who aren’t fat look like they haven’t exercised, just no muscle at all, soft and flabby.

New Report Finds U.S. Kids Are Horribly Out of Shape

The  National Physical Activity Plan Alliance recently released its 2016 Report Card on Physical Activity for Youth and Children. And the results are dismal.

American children are performing horribly in fitness criteria across the board.

A few of the lowlights include:

  • Kids don’t do enough intense activity. Only 43 percent of kids from ages 6 to 11 participate in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for 60 minutes on five days out of the week. And it gets worse as kids get older. The numbers drop to 8 percent for ages 12 to 15 and 5 percent for ages 16 to 19.
  • Kids get too much screen time. Fewer than half of kids spend two hours or less in front of a screen each days. It gets worse as kids get older, dropping to lower than a third.
  • Kids are out of shape. Only 50 percent of boys and 34 percent of girls are able to pass cardiorespiratory physical fitness standards.

Kids are not encouraged, or, let’s face it, forced to get outside and exercise anymore. They spend too much time gaming, playing on their phones, taking selfies, doing social media. Even when they’re going outside, it’s to find the perfect spot to take an Instagram photo.

As young children become teenagers, the results get even worse. You can expect that teenagers will drop out of sports as they get older and opportunities to play decrease, but they’re not replacing sports with other physical activity.

Look, I fell into this trap for years, with the rise of the Internet and easy gaming. When I was a kid, I was forced to put the games down and turn the TV off and get exercise. And, mostly, we wanted to go out and play. To surf, fish, bike, sail, all sorts of things. I make sure to get my 10K steps a day and get to the gym at least 4-5 times a week. I can mix reading my books, which I am super-happy to do, with using the treadmill or bike. I’ll even read it on my phone while going for a couple mile walk on the greenway. Kids these days seemingly rarely walk or bike to school. Or do much of anything.

It’s not anthropogenic climate change, or even natural climate change: it’s society and technology.

Read: Your Fault: Kids Have Lower Fitness Due To Climate Crisis (scam) »

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

If All You See…

By William Teach August 5, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a lovely low carbon bike, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on Karine Jean-Pierre failing basic civics.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Sinema Agrees To “Inflation Reduction Act” With Removal Of Carried Interest Provision

By William Teach August 5, 2022 – 10:30 am

I debated whether to add this to the previous post or make it a standalone. It’s important enough to stand alone

Democrats Drop Carried Interest as Sinema Paves Way for Tax Vote

The path was nearly cleared for one of the cornerstones of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda after Democrats agreed on a revised version of their tax and climate bill.

But it came at a price: To get the support of Senator Kyrsten Sinema — the pivotal Democratic vote in the 50-50 Senate — a levy on wealthy hedge fund managers had to be abandoned.

So the Democrats agreed to drop a provision that would have narrowed a tax break for carried interest, meaning wealthy private equity managers and venture capitalists will continue to be able to pay a lower capital gains rate on one of their main forms of compensation. Lawmakers will also alter a 15% minimum tax on corporations and add a new 1% excise tax on stock buybacks.

Democrats have been eager to finish work on the legislation, even though it’s been drastically scaled back from Biden’s original vision for an expansive tax and social spending package that would advance the party’s climate goals.

So, unless the Congressional Parlimentarian comes back and says “no, this is not a bill that can be done via reconciliation”, it will pass. If there are issues

That means things like the domestic content requirements for cars eligible for electric vehicle tax credits, caps on insulin out-of-pocket costs and penalties for drug companies raising prices higher than inflation could be struck. That would dilute the bill even further.

Perhaps one of the Democrats will resist over the IRS provision? Like the one which will increase the number of agents by 87,000, which means middle class individuals and businesses will receive more scrutiny and audits. And

(Forbes) The IRS has been working on digital asset compliance for years, but an infusion of funds could allow the agency to rather significantly step up its efforts, as well as its criminal investigations.

So, if you have some sort of crypto, the IRS will want to have a conversation with you. Does anyone, other than the White House, think that The Rich will be the ones receiving the scrutiny of the IRS? You know, the people who donate to politicians and have the ability to fight back?

Maybe Comrade Bernie will vote against the bill?

Bernie Sanders pummels Manchin’s inflation deal for 2nd day in a row, saying it does ‘virtually nothing’ to help families

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont continues lambasting the $740 billion climate, energy, and tax package that Democrats are hoping to pass in the coming days, arguing it doesn’t amount to major relief to American families.

“As currently written, this is an extremely modest bill that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises facing the working families of our country,” Sanders said in a Wednesday floor speech. “It falls far short of what the American people want, what they need, and what they are begging us to do.”

It marks the second day in a row that the Vermont independent has advocated for a wide range of Democratic initiatives from the now-defunct Build Back Better Act — including the extension of the child tax credit, universal pre-K, medicare expansion, and tuition-free community college. With regards to climate change, Sanders read a letter Wednesday from the Center for Biological Diversity that called the proposed bill a “climate suicide pact.”

“In my view, we have got to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry that has been destroying our planet,” the Senator said.

At the end of the day, despite all his bluster in wanting more government, he’ll vote for it. So, unless one or more Democrats who are up for re-election this year in purple states say “no”, it will pass. And you, the U.S. middle class, will pay for it.

Read: Sinema Agrees To “Inflation Reduction Act” With Removal Of Carried Interest Provision »

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Tonga Eruption Put Huge Amount Of Water Vapor In Atmosphere, Which Is, Surprisingly, A Greenhouse Gas

By William Teach August 5, 2022 – 7:15 am

In fact, water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas

Tonga eruption blasted enough water to fill 58,000 Olympic pools into the Earth’s atmosphere, NASA says

One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions on the planet blasted such a massive amount of water vapor high into the atmosphere that it’s likely to temporarily warm the Earth’s surface, according to detections from a NASA satellite.

When the undersea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on January 15, 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Tonga’s capital, it created a tsunami as well as a sonic boom that rippled around the world — twice.

The eruption sent a tall plume of water vapor into the stratosphere, which is located between 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. It was enough water to fill 58,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to detections from a NASA satellite.

They estimate that the eruption delivered 146 teragrams of water to the stratosphere. One teragram is the equivalent of a trillion grams, and in this case, it was equal to 10% of the water already present in the stratosphere.

Hmm, that couldn’t have anything to do with causing a lot of sustained heat in the norther hemisphere and a lot of really wet weather in the southern at the moment, could it?

Typically, powerful volcanic eruptions like Mount Pinatubo or the 1883 Krakatoa event in Indonesia cool Earth’s surface temperature because the gas, dust and ash they spew reflects sunlight into space. This “volcanic winter” happened after the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, triggering “the year without a summer” in 1816.

The Tonga eruption was different because the water vapor it sent into the atmosphere can trap heat, which could cause warmer surface temperatures. The excess water vapor could stay in the stratosphere for several years, according to the researchers.

The hell you say! Of course, CNN, being the good little climate cult news organization they are looks to dispel the effect

Fortunately, the warming effect of the water vapor is expected to be small and temporary, and will dissipate as the extra vapor diminishes. The researchers don’t believe it will be enough to exacerbate existing conditions due to the climate crisis.

Read: Tonga Eruption Put Huge Amount Of Water Vapor In Atmosphere, Which Is, Surprisingly, A Greenhouse Gas »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 22 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Plan Saturday Vote On Build Back Better, Er, Inflation Reduction Act

By William Teach August 5, 2022 – 7:00 am

If the news media had a shred of integrity, they’d ask every single Senator who votes yes if they’d read it in full

Democrats Plan Saturday Vote On Inflation Reduction Act

Senate Democrats plan to hold a procedural vote Saturday on their major domestic policy bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Thursday.

If all 50 Senate Democrats vote to advance the measure, the soonest the bill could get a final vote is early next week. (snip)

But Democrats have yet to secure the support of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who is reportedly pushing to make changes, including eliminating a provision that would tighten a tax loophole associated with hedge fund managers and private equity executives.

Sinema declined to speak to reporters Thursday. She was spotted deep in conversation on the Senate floor with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who largely wrote the bill in secret negotiations with Schumer.

And it is still rather secret. This is what the Democrats are saying is the text of the bill that will replace the bill that replaced the bill, which is formally known as H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better bill. As of the time of writing this, the alternate text is not available at the official Congressional legislative website. So, hasn’t been scored, hasn’t been available for citizens to officially read, nor for Senators to read.

Remember this?

Well, Democrats are Very Upset over Lauren Boebert saying the same thing.

Read: Democrats Plan Saturday Vote On Build Back Better, Er, Inflation Reduction Act »

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 4, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a waterfall created by Extreme Weather rain, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on the happenings in the Democratic Party run city of Killadelphia.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Gillibrand Wants Biden To Invoke Production Act For Monkeypox Vaccine

By William Teach August 4, 2022 – 10:30 am

There are probably easier things to do which require less vaccine

Gillibrand calls on Biden to invoke Production Act, increase monkeypox vaccines

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday called on the Biden administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to help increase supply and access to monkeypox vaccines, which lag far behind demand as the virus continues to spread nationwide.

“Right now there are enough vaccines in the United States to cover one-third of the community generally currently most at risk,” Gillibrand said during a press conference. The senator’s own state of New York is the hardest hit in the country and has declared a disaster emergency.

Which community is that, Senator? Neither you nor the article say

Gillibrand’s calls for DPA action come after The Washington Post recently reported that the U.S. won’t be receiving any more doses of the monkeypox vaccine Jynneos until October.

When pressed on specifics of what the DPA could do to increase supply quickly, Gillibrand pointed to prioritizing government orders of monkeypox vaccines ahead of other orders.

“We know exactly which manufacturers already manufacture those vaccines, and so we can enter a contract with them immediately,” she said.

Perhaps she could ask Biden why his HHS failed

U.S. Could Have Had Many More Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine This Year

The shortage of vaccines to combat a fast-growing monkeypox outbreak was caused in part because the Department of Health and Human Services failed early on to ask that bulk stocks of the vaccine it already owned be bottled for distribution, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the matter.

By the time the federal government placed its orders, the vaccine’s Denmark-based manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, had booked other clients and was unable to do the work for months, officials said — even though the federal government had invested well over $1 billion in the vaccine’s development.

So, Biden, who’s barely mentioned in the NY Times article, is upset

Two senior federal officials, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly, said Mr. Biden is upset by the vaccine shortage. His administration has often touted its success delivering hundreds of millions of coronavirus shots to Americans, and is stung by criticism that a lack of foresight and management has left gay men — the prime risk group for monkeypox — unprotected.

Now, if Trump was in office, the whole piece would be one long blamestorm, mentioning that the buck stops here. That paragraph is deep into the piece, and followed by

So far, according to the C.D.C., 6,326 cases of monkeypox have been reported. For now, the virus is spreading almost entirely among gay and bisexual men, and those with multiple or anonymous partners are considered especially at risk. Mr. Becerra noted that while more than a million Americans have died of Covid-19, no one in the United States has died of monkeypox.

Yeah, so, men involved in gay say, often with multiple or anonymous partners. Gillibrand, along with a lot of agencies and governors, should be telling them to stop doing that for a bit. Perhaps the governors of California and New York, who have declared emergencies, can lock down the bathhouses and other places this behavior is occurring. Restrict the skeezy public parties, like keep happening in the streets of San Francisco. Funny that the government is unwilling to lock down or restrict on this, right?

After repeating early COVID mistakes, US now has the world’s biggest monkeypox outbreak

The story of monkeypox feels to experts frustratingly like a replay of the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Testing took too long to get launched. Data hasn’t revealed the full extent of the outbreak. The spread wasn’t stopped quickly enough.

Monkeypox was supposed to be different, because it is much harder to transmit, treatments and vaccines were already available, much was known about a virus first described in 1958 and so many lessons were supposedly learned from COVID-19.

Yet the United States now has the world’s biggest outbreak of monkeypox with more than 6,600 Americans diagnosed since mid-May. Rarely seen outside of Africa before the spring, the virus, a less deadly cousin of smallpox, has now triggered a 26,000-person global emergency, reaching 83 countries, 76 of which had not historically seen the disease.

No, it’s not like COVID. We know how it’s being spread and the majority of whom is getting it. If anything, it’s like Democratic Party governors sticking old people in nursing homes where COVID could spread and kill them (yet, no one has been tried in a criminal court for this): we all knew this would be bad. Gay many having gay sex at parties is a great way to spread it. Not sure why any would continue for the moment.

“If we don’t react more aggressively within the next couple of months – it’ll never be the same as coronavirus, but it could mimic the (spread of the) AIDS epidemic pretty closely,” said Jared Auclair, an analytical chemist and associate dean at Northeastern University in Boston.

And the news and government were afraid to say “hey, gay men, this is mostly involving you. So, don’t engage in risky sex.”

Read: Gillibrand Wants Biden To Invoke Production Act For Monkeypox Vaccine »

Posted in Current Affairs | 14 Comments | Trackback URL
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