Do Vaccines Stop People From Getting And Transmitting COVID?

By William Teach November 18, 2021 – 10:30 am

USA Today gives it a shot

Fact check: Vaccines protect against contracting, spreading COVID-19

The claim: The COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus, so it can’t protect others

More than 70% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Children started receiving their vaccines in early November, and booster shots may be on the way for most Americans.

COVID-19 cases dropped after the vaccines were introduced in the spring. But on Facebook, some still doubt whether the shots work.

“Since the (vaccine) doesn’t stop you from getting it or spreading it… How …are you actually protecting others,” reads text in a Nov. 13 post from a page called The Lion’s Roar.

OK, so, one rando posts something and the USA Today fact checks? OK, fine, this is the type of thing you see all around, and people do actually wonder, because we keep seeing articles in the news about this very thing. Rando’s wouldn’t be posting if they weren’t seeing this somewhere

In clinical trials, all three vaccines authorized in the U.S. were found to be safe and effective at preventing severe COVID-19 cases. Since then, public health officials have acknowledged the shots aren’t 100% effective at preventing infection – and research suggests immunity wanes over time.

Hence the reason I took the booster. I got the vaccine originally because they said I had a 94% chance with Pfizer stopping me from getting the Chinese coronavirus in the first place.

But that doesn’t mean the COVID-19 vaccines are worthless. Experts and public health officials say they do protect people from getting infected and spreading the virus.

“This is false information,” Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology and molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale University, said in an email. “Vaccines provide significant protection from ‘getting it’ – infection – and ‘spreading it’ – transmission – even against the delta variant.”

OK, so, that’s saying that you can, in fact, get it and spread it when vaccinated. This is why you see rando’s on the Internet saying it doesn’t provide protection like the Experts and Fact Checkers say. Remember, the headline says that it protects from contracting and spreading COVID. It would probably be more proper to say “It’s like wearing sunscreen: you have a much lower chance of getting sunburn than when not wearing.” Of course, you can’t spread sunburn.

The problem is, the fact check spends more time on saying “you have less of a chance on getting COVID if vaccinate” along with “you’re symptoms will be less severe”, than proving the headline.

Fully vaccinated people made up about 9% of reported COVID-19 deaths in 13 U.S. jurisdictions between April and July, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC studies have also shown unvaccinated people are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19.

The agency says on its website that, while breakthrough infections are possible, “most people who get COVID-19 are unvaccinated.” Experts told USA TODAY the shots provide considerable protection against infection and transmission.

“Yes, it is true that vaccinated individuals can also be infected by and spread SARS-CoV-2 to others,” Shweta Bansal, an associate professor of biology at Georgetown University, said in an email. “However, the evidence is crystal clear that risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is significantly lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

Um

You may complain about the messenger, but, the message is factual.

Research indicates vaccinated individuals who get infected with COVID-19 can transmit the virus at a similar level as unvaccinated people. But data also show they get better faster than the unvaccinated, meaning they may be less likely to spread the virus to others. Several studies awaiting peer review back that up.

Wait, what? I thought the headline said it protected against transmission? And then the fact checker wonders why rando’s on the Internet wonder why in the heck they should take the vaccine. Articles like this just sow confusion. They would be best at just saying “look, you have less of a chance of getting it, and, if you do, the symptoms will mostly be much less severe and gone quicker. That’s why you want the vaccine.”

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus, so it can’t protect others. While vaccinated individuals can get COVID-19, experts and public health officials say they are less likely to contract the virus than unvaccinated people. That means they’re also less likely to spread the virus to others. When vaccinated people do get sick, the chances of severe illness, hospitalization or death are low. Research indicates they also get better faster than their unvaccinated counterparts.

Um, they just spent all this time saying that you can, in fact, get COVID and spread it while vaccinated. How is rando’s statement false?

Read: Do Vaccines Stop People From Getting And Transmitting COVID? »

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Climate Skeptics Are Now Attacking The Solutions Or Something

By William Teach November 18, 2021 – 8:58 am

Let me say, I’ve almost always attacked the solutions. It’s one of the main reasons I turned from mild believer in anthropogenic climate change, meaning I thought that mankind was responsible for at least 51% of the Modern Warm Period warming: I saw all the hard left, Modern Socialist, authoritarian, Big Government solutions being pushed. All of which dovetailed nicely into all the other Modern Socialist, Big Government, central government, authoritarian solutions for everything else. Global warming/climate change just seemed to be a platform with Ultimate Moral Authority to push this stuff. Many Skeptics do the same: they may show that the science is shoddy, but, focus on what the Cult of Climastrology’s solutions would do

Climate change deniers are over attacking the science. Now they attack the solutions.

Believe it or not, it’s nearly 2022 and some people still think we shouldn’t do anything about the climate crisis. Even though most Americans understand that carbon emissions are overheating the planet and want to take action to stop it, attacks on clean energy and policies to limit carbon emissions are on the rise.

Most of these same Warmists are 100% against nuclear power. There could be agreement on that, but, no, not for them. They love them some solar, wind, and hydro, and then the extreme elements will block the construction of those, including transmission lines. And many want existing hydro-electric dams torn down. Further, how many of them actually practice what they preach in their own lives?

In a study out this week in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, researchers found that outright denying the science is going out of fashion. Today, only about 10 percent of arguments from conservative think tanks in North America challenge the scientific consensus around global warming or question models and data. (For the record, 99.9 percent of scientists agree that human activity is heating up the planet.) Instead, the most common arguments are that scientists and climate advocates simply can’t be trusted, and that proposed solutions won’t work.

If you’re saying 99.9% of scientists agree on this, it’s a political cult, not science. Here’s their new chart which “charts the evolution of right-wing arguments”

A lot no longer spend a lot of time on climate science being unreliable, because it isn’t. We aren’t currently in a Pause, and, I’ve never said that we haven’t seen warming, because we have. It’s just mostly caused by nature. Most others take the same position. Solutions won’t work is the focus, because more and more are coming to the same position I have, namely, that this is all a reason to implement the Fascist government solutions. You can see a nice breakdown of this at the study under results.

Interestingly, 2 of the 4 authors are political scientists. One of the others is the disgraced doom-monger John Cooke, who was part of the utterly debunked study that said that 97% of scientists agree. Now we’re at 99.9? Please.

That came as a surprise to the researchers. Scientists get called “alarmists,” despite a history of underestimating the effects of an overheating planet. Politicians and the media are portrayed as biased, while environmentalists are painted as part of a “hysterical” climate “cult.”

Well, now, I’m upset that my little blog didn’t make the cut of those surveyed (page 23 of the supplemental), since I was probably one of the first, along with Tom Nelson, to start referring to them as a cult.

Researchers found that attacks on “climate solutions” are also on the rise. People who want to delay action often argue that renewable energy can’t replace fossil fuels. They also say that climate policies will hurt working families, ruin the economy, and raise prices. Typically such arguments overlook how pollution from burning fossil fuels shortens lifespans and how climate-charged disasters like wildfires, flooding, and heat waves are already ruining people’s lives and costing billions. They tend to ignore estimates that the changing climate could cost the U.S. 10.5 percent of GDP by the end of the century.

It will hurt families, and we aren’t overlooking the scaremongering on fossil fuels (sure didn’t seem to bother the 25K who showed up at Glasgow, eh?) nor climate disasters, since those disasters are things that have always happened, and are not caused by anthropogenic global warming. And, look, let’s say they are caused by Mankind: why are all the solutions about government authority, about controlling people’s lives, limiting their freedom and choice of everything, and taking more of their hard earned money?

Cook believes Cranky Uncle-style games could also help counter arguments against climate solutions or attacks on the movement, too. “Pre-bunking is kind of a universal template,” he said.

Good luck. I’ll ask a simple question to anyone who tries this (I do this already): what are you doing in your own life? If you haven’t given up your fossil fueled travel, moved into a tiny home, limited your use of the Internet, wear 2nd hand clothes, and given up meat, among others, you’re just a poser.

Read: Climate Skeptics Are Now Attacking The Solutions Or Something »

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OSHA Complies With Court Order, Suspends Biden Vaccine Mandate Implementation

By William Teach November 18, 2021 – 8:26 am

Being that Surrender Joe is a Democrat, and Democrats rarely care what courts say when the court rules against them, especially since Joe was Obama’s VP, and Obama did that quite a bit, will Joe decide to blow off the court and attempt to force some sort of implementation?

OSHA suspends implementation of Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate until further court order
The mandate could be tied up in court beyond the Jan. 4 deadline OSHA set for employers

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has put on hold the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. employers with 100 employees or more, after being told by a court last week that it must do so.

The Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA, told Fox News Wednesday the agency has suspended the implementation and enforcement of the mandate while it remains tied up in court.

In an update on its website on Wednesday, OSHA noted that last week “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a motion to stay OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard” and “ordered that OSHA ‘take no steps to implement or enforce’ the ETS ‘until further court order.’”

The statement adds, “While OSHA remains confident in its authority to protect workers in emergencies, OSHA has suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of the ETS pending future developments in the litigation.”

The big part is the subhead, that the litigation could go long past that January 4th deadline, which could be as important as winning in court. If the suits lose, what if the final decision by the Supreme Court comes next March? Or June? And the Chinese coronavirus is not raging through the country? There would be no need for the rule, and it would show the rule was never needed.

A big question is, is OSHA getting their plans in place and getting their ducks in a row, or, have they given up all work on the mandate for the time? Some articles I’ve read on this make that case, others just go with the OSHA statement

Last week, the White House urged businesses impacted by the mandate to continue following with the administration’s paused diktat in spite of the Fifth Circuit’s ruling.

White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing following the decision that “People should not wait,” adding, “They should continue to move forward and make sure they’re getting their workplace vaccinated.”

Will the Brandon admin attempt some backdoor shenanigans? I guess we’ll see.

I still recommend people get vaccinated.

Read: OSHA Complies With Court Order, Suspends Biden Vaccine Mandate Implementation »

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Oops: US Auctions Gas And Oil Drilling Permits Post COP26

By William Teach November 17, 2021 – 4:29 pm

This has made the members of the climate cult very upset

US auctions off oil and gas drilling leases in Gulf of Mexico after climate talks

Just four days after landmark climate talks in Scotland in which Joe Biden vowed the US will “lead by example” in tackling dangerous global heating, the president’s own administration is providing a jarring contradiction – the largest ever sale of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

The US federal government is on Wednesday launching an auction of more than 80m acres of the gulf for fossil fuel extraction, a record sell-off that will lock in years, and potentially decades, of planet-heating emissions.

The enormous size of the lease sale – covering an area that is twice as large as Florida – is a blunt repudiation of Biden’s previous promise to shut down new drilling on public lands and waters. It has stunned environmentalists who argue the auction punctures the US’s shaky credibility on the climate crisis and will make it harder to avert catastrophic impacts from soaring global heating.

“Coming in the aftermath of the climate summit, this is just mind boggling. It’s hard to imagine a more hypocritical and dangerous thing for the administration to do,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s incredibly reckless and we think unlawful too. It’s just immensely disappointing.”

Unlawful? How so? It’s always been lawful in the past, why would that change, just because the Brandon admin hammered out an agreement that won’t ever be put in front of the US Senate?

Even Biden’s Democratic allies have raised concerns.

“This administration went to Scotland and told the world that America’s climate leadership is back, and now it’s about to hand over 80m acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico to fossil fuel companies,” said Raul Grijalva, chair of the House natural resources committee. “[The] lease sale is a step in the wrong direction, and the administration needs to do better.”

Has Raul given up his own use of fossil fuels?

The sale represents a “huge climate bomb”, according to Earthjustice, one of the green groups that has lodged a lawsuit claiming it lacks a proper environmental assessment. Biden has set a target for the US to cut its emissions in half this decade before getting to net zero emissions by 2050.

Read: Oops: US Auctions Gas And Oil Drilling Permits Post COP26 »

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Biden Mandate Lawsuits Consolidated In 6th Court Of Appeals

By William Teach November 17, 2021 – 10:30 am

Good news for Biden or bad news?

Lawsuits challenging Biden workplace vaccine rule sent to 6th Circuit

A judicial panel on Tuesday consolidated 34 lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s workplace COVID-19 vaccine rule in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a venue favored by opponents of the rule.

President Joe Biden announced plans for the vaccine requirement in September, seeking to stem a surge in COVID-19 cases and get more people back to work.

The Cincinnati appeals court was chosen randomly and will take up the challenges to the rule, which compels employers with at least 100 workers to mandate COVID-19 vaccination or weekly testing combined with face masks at work.

The court, which has 10 Republican-appointed judges and five appointed by Democratic presidents, was the venue where Kentucky, a conservative media company and religious groups filed their challenges.

In court, the administration must show that a “grave danger” required an emergency standard, which allows the agency to bypass a years-long rulemaking process.

OSHA has issued 10 emergency standards in its 50-year history, and of six challenged in court, only one survived intact.

Proving that “grave danger” at this point in the Chinese coronavirus pandemic is going to be rather tough, especially when the rule picked January 4th as the start date. If it was such a grave emergency, why then? Why not make it sooner? And, yes, once Brandon loses, it’s expected to go to the Supreme Court. And visa versa. I doubt the plaintiffs will lose, though, because this is the kind of rule you implement in the spring of 2021, not January of 2022.

More:

An Illegal Vaccine Mandate

President Biden was warned that he lacked the power to mandate vaccines for private workers, but he ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to do it anyway. Late Friday came a sharp rebuke by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that marks an important check on the runaway administrative state.

“The Mandate’s true purpose is not to enhance workplace safety, but instead to ramp up vaccine uptake by any means necessary,” Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote for the unanimous panel in a withering opinion that extends the court’s earlier stay on the OSHA mandate, which had been challenged by GOP states, numerous employers and individuals.(snip)

The court’s opinion takes apart the OSHA mandate every which way—on constitutional, statutory and procedural grounds. The Constitution gives states, not the federal government, the police powers to regulate individual behavior to protect public health and safety. The Administration tried to circumvent this limitation on federal power by conscripting private employers via an OSHA “emergency temporary standard.”

Under federal law, OSHA may bypass for six months the notice-and-comment required by the Administrative Procedure Act to respond to emergencies if it determines that “employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards” and that such a standard is “necessary to protect employees from such danger.”

As the appeals court explains, OSHA failed to satisfy either condition. OSHA couldn’t show exposure or even the presence of Covid at all covered workplaces. Its “attempt to shoehorn an airborne virus” widely present in society and not life-threatening to most workers “into a neighboring phrase connoting toxicity and poisonousness” is a “transparent stretch.”

How does Biden’s rule possibly stand? Though, I do like the part where it says “The agency is not requiring the use of face coverings by workers who are fully vaccinated because vaccination is sufficient to reduce the grave danger to themselves or others.” Perhaps we can keep that, since there is severability in the rule

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Bummer: COP26 Agreement Already Faltering After 48 Hours

By William Teach November 17, 2021 – 8:29 am

Well, really, it doesn’t matter all that much, since most 1st World countries will fail on following through on their pledges

Cop26 deal falters after 48 hours as US and Australia hint at no new targets next year

The Cop26 deal faltered within 48 hours as the US and Australia, two of the world’s largest emitters, suggested they would not set new climate targets next year.

A key clause in the Glasgow Climate Pact asks countries to set out updated plans to cut emissions between now and 2030 by the end of 2022 in an effort to push more ambitious action over the next decade – seen as crucial to stem the most dangerous effects of global warming.

A joint statement released by Australia’s foreign and emissions reduction ministers on Sunday read: “Australia’s 2030 target is fixed and we are committed to meeting and beating it, as we did with our Kyoto-era targets.”

Almost no nations met their Kyoto targets. Australia was one of 3 that did meet, at +8

During the Cop26 process, other countries also suggested they might not update their plans. Among them was New Zealand, whose climate minister, James Shaw, said during the talks that just because they had been asked to strengthen the plans, “it doesn’t mean you have to”, prompting criticism from environmental groups. (snip)

John Kerry, Washington’s climate envoy, said the existing US climate plans fulfilled the requirements in the Paris Agreement to limit temperature rises to below 2C and make efforts towards limiting them to 1.5C. (snip)

On Monday in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson also suggested Britain would not update its targets, saying: “The UK is already compliant with 1.5 as a result of pledges made by 2030 and 2035, so if we can deliver on those we believe we will be able to restrain our emissions.”

Oops. You know, though, that the 3rd World Nations do not care about those targets, they just want that sweet, sweet climate cash

During the conference, South Africa secured US, UK and EU funding to help it transition away from coal, and both Brazil and Australia have elections next year in which challengers may make more ambitious climate pledges as part of their pitch to voters, he said.

South Africa is pretty much a high end 3rd world nation at this point, perhaps a low end 2nd world. And they just want that money. And, when they get it, they’ll probably use it mostly on things other than transitioning away from coal.

Read: Bummer: COP26 Agreement Already Faltering After 48 Hours »

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By 48-46, Voters Say Biden Is Not Mentally Fit

By William Teach November 17, 2021 – 8:20 am

Polls about Donald Trump just generally said he was a jerk, but, that polling outfits are asking the question as to whether Biden is mentally fit is a pretty bad thing for Biden

Poll: Voters split on Biden’s mental fitness as job approval remains low

Voters have increasing doubts about the health and mental fitness of President Joe Biden, the oldest man ever sworn into the White House, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Only 40 percent of voters surveyed agreed with the statement that Biden “is in good health,” while 50 percent disagreed. That 10-percentage-point gap — outside the poll’s margin of error — represents a massive 29-point shift since October 2020, when Morning Consult last surveyed the question and found voters believed Biden was in good health by a 19-point margin.

Asked whether Biden is mentally fit, voters are almost evenly split, with 46 percent saying he is and 48 percent disagreeing. But that negative 2-point margin stands in stark contrast to Biden’s numbers last October, when voters believed he was mentally fit by a 21-point margin.

Consider that 44% approve of the job Let’s Go Brandon is doing, which seems a few percentage points compared to quite a few other polls of late. And the poll on mentally fit shakes down to 27% agree strongly, 19% somewhat agree, 10% somewhat disagree, 30% strongly disagree.

The most intense scrutiny of Biden’s age and his verbal miscues had previously been limited to conservative news outlets and social media, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has surveyed for Biden.

“They’re running a very aggressive campaign on this, and it’s bleeding over into the mainstream a little,” Lake said. “By and large, the people who believe this are Trump supporters anyway or they’ve been exposed to the right-wing disinformation machine.”

See, it’s not watching Biden stumble through speeches, refuse to answer questions from the press, make constant mistakes, put his head down on the podium, etc, it’s all this disinformation!

To Lake’s point, the Morning Consult poll generally shows that Trump voters and Republicans generally believe Biden is neither physically nor mentally fit, and Biden voters believe the opposite. However, independents — by a margin of 23 points — don’t agree that Biden is mentally fit now.

All those Independents watching right wing CNN, you know. It is rather patronizing, since people are able to get their information from a lot of different sources across the spectrum.

The new Morning Consult poll shows 44 percent give Biden a positive job approval rating and 53 percent disapprove. Biden’s approval rating is essentially unchanged over the past two weeks — it was 46 percent last week and 45 percent the week prior — since the passage of the infrastructure bill in Congress earlier this month.

So, that big win has turned to a decline in his approval rating. Looking at the toplines for the poll, just 20% approve of Brandon’s performance, while 41% strongly disapprove.

  • 64% say the country is on the wrong track.
  • 41% say that economic issues are their top issue, the very thing Joe and his Comrades are ignoring/doing the exact wrong thing.
  • Only 17% strongly approve of the job Joe is doing on the economy, with 23% saying somewhat approve, 11% somewhat disapprove, 42% strongly disapprove
  • He’s underwater on almost every single issue.
  • Overall, 43% say he’s trustworthy (21% strongly), 51% say no (40% strongly)

And, at the end of the day, this poll is 39% Democrat, 27% Independent, 34% Republican. So, with a 5 point Dem lead, Brandon gets these numbers.

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Good News: Climate Promises Rest In The Hands Of A Handful Of Elites

By William Teach November 16, 2021 – 3:00 pm

Sounds great, a bunch of powerful people who refuse to practice what they preach, nor practice what they will force you to practice, all while being affected not the least from all the “climate action”

Climate Promises Made in Glasgow Now Rest With a Handful of Powerful Leaders

After two weeks of lofty speeches and bitter negotiations among nearly 200 nations, the question of whether the world will make significant progress to slow global warming still comes down to the actions of a handful of powerful nations that remain at odds over how best to address climate change.

The United Nations global conference on climate change closed Saturday with a hard-fought agreement that calls on countries to return next year with stronger emissions-reduction targets and promises to double the money available to help countries cope with the impacts of global warming. It also mentions by name — for the first time in a quarter-century of global climate negotiations — the main cause of climate change: fossil fuels.(snip)

A relative handful of political leaders around the world — in capital cities such as Washington, Beijing and New Delhi — hold much of the influence over whether those promises are kept and the arc of warming can be sufficiently bent away from disaster. But they face a complex combination of pressures: industry interests that stand in the way of regulations, demands from developing countries for money to help them transition away from fossil fuels, and an increasingly vocal movement among citizens to rein in emissions more quickly and deliver what they call climate justice.

Chief among the leaders facing such pressures is U.S. President Joe Biden, who is pursuing one of the biggest climate legislation efforts ever attempted in the country, but who faces heavy resistance not only from Republicans, but from key senators within his own party.

You know China and India will pay zero attention to actually doing anything. They might release plans and say the right things, but, much like the tens of thousands who took fossil fueled flights to Glasgow, they won’t actually do a darned thing.

As for the United States, last time I checked we weren’t a dictatorship, and the politicians are supposed to listen to We The People (yeah, I know, they mostly don’t). What happens when the GOP retakes the House and Senate, stymying Biden’s agenda on climate crisis scam? Will he go for the authoritarian route? If they were smart (LOL), the GOP would pass a few simple bills that deny the White House and Executive Branch political appointees from traveling in fossil fueled cars, helicopters, and planes. Force Brandon to veto them. And things like that.

What happens when a Republican wins the White House in 2024? You can kiss any pledges goodbye, and a goodly chunk of Brandon’s climate agenda goodbye. They should push for nuclear power. They should stand up and tell people what this agenda is really all about. Stop playing around. It’s like pushing back against the 9/11 Truthers: yes, those people are nuts, but, you have to spread the truth lest it fester and grow. Same with ‘climate change’. Even if the climate has warmed mostly/solely due to Mankind (it hasn’t), even if Mankind is responsible for 51%+ (we aren’t), it is simply being used, once again, to institute Modern Socialist government controls on people and private entities, taking more of their money, freedom, liberty, and choice.

Our government should not have this much power over our lives

Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and one of history’s largest emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases, has said it intends to reduce its emissions by 68% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

But Britain is also facing criticism for building new roads and airports — both potential sources of carbon dioxide emissions, which are among the main causes of global warming — and for continuing to extract oil and gas in the North Sea. Mikaela Loach, a young Briton who has sued the British government over an oil and gas project there, responded to the summit outcome on Twitter by dubbing it “#CopOut26.”

Nor should a 1st World nation like Britain

Courts have already begun to weigh in. Citizens in Germany, Pakistan and the Netherlands have sued to force their governments to take stronger action against climate change. In the United States, an environmental law nonprofit has sued the government on behalf of 21 young plaintiffs.

They are Fascists, wanting to require everyone to practice what most of these Warmists won’t.

Many of the youth activists who protested outside the talks said the promises didn’t go nearly far enough to address a problem that they are already living with. Mitzi Jonelle Tan, an activist from the Philippines who joined tens of thousands of activists on the streets of Glasgow to rally for “climate justice,” said the outcome felt like “a stab in the back from those who call themselves leaders.”

We’re supposed to listen to the “activists” who want to empower authoritarian government when they can’t even stop themselves from flying halfway around the world? Piss off, wanker.

Read: Good News: Climate Promises Rest In The Hands Of A Handful Of Elites »

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If All You See…

By William Teach November 16, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Greenie Watch, with a post on the White House saying high gas prices prove we need more “green” energy.

Double shot below the post, since I totally forgot to create a post yesterday, so, check out Moonbattery, with a post on a device that sounds an alarm when a Thoughtcrime occurs.

Read More »

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Good News: Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Gives Cryptocurrency To US Treasury

By William Teach November 16, 2021 – 10:30 am

There’s going to be a lot of young Democratic party and Brandon voters who do a lot with crypto and will be very surprised

Biden’s infrastructure bill hands crypto industry to US Treasury

US President Joe Biden has signed a landmark $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law which includes tax reporting provisions that apply to cryptocurrency (snip)

The legislation will be significant for the crypto industry. As part of its revenue-raising provisions, the infrastructure included new definitions for ‘broker’ among cryptocurrency network participants.

The bill is mainly meant for the IRS to have ‘well defined’ definitions but, ultimately, it risks asking network actors to behave as node operators in order to report identifying information for crypto transactions that they have no way of gathering.

Justin Banon, co-founder of Boson Protocol – a decentralised commerce protocol – stressed the need for “sensible regulation for technology in order to protect consumers and users”.

Banon claims the bill needs to be smart and informed by people who understand the threats, opportunities, and economic implications presented by the technologies themselves.

Well, good luck with that! This is the IRS we’re talking about, and the ones writing the rules will have little understanding of crypto and a whole lot of understanding of how to take people’s money. You can bet they’ll start yammering about equity and racial stuff and social justice.

Dr Amber Ghaddar, co-founder of AllianceBlock, commented that crypto was a new industry with an infrastructure quite different from traditional finance and, therefore, applying the ‘letter of antiquated laws’ and provisions to a new industry showed a lack of understanding from the government.

Still, she stressed this was partly “our fault for not ironically ‘centralising’ our efforts to not only lobby but also explain to key stakeholders how our protocols work”.

On one hand, she’s right. On the other, why is it necessary to lobby the federal government to stop involving itself in everything?

The passage of the infrastructure bill itself could potentially be messy for small investors.

If a DeFi or self custody user transfers a certain amount from their wallet to the exchange, the exchange will consider the dollar amount sent as a sale but it doesn’t know how much the client initially paid for the tokens.

The user can then end up with an overstated 1099-B, forcing them to actually hire an accountant or manually reconcile.

In other words, it will cost them even more money. Breitbart has a long piece on the lack of infrastructure in the infrastructure bill, like

and spends some time on crypto, including

The bipartisan infrastructure bill contains two regulations of cryptocurrencies that many conservatives and industry officials have criticized as threatening American liberties and could result in the offshoring of American jobs.

One regulation, proposed by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and the Biden White House as a $30 billion “pay for,” would require that any broker that transfers any digital currencies would need to file a tax return under a “modified information reporting regime.” (snip)

Abraham Sutherland wrote a report for the Proof of Stake Alliance that noted the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill contains a provision to amend tax code 6050I that would make it a felony if one did not report receiving digital assets, whether it be cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or any other digital assets.

Sutherland noted, “Miners, stakers, lenders, decentralized application and marketplace users, traders, businesses and individuals are all at risk of being subject to this reporting requirement, even though in most situations the person or entity in receipt is not in the position to report the required information.”

“Congressional Democrats have a completely antiquated view of cryptocurrency and that has led them to add yet another burdensome hurdle to everyday crypto investors. The United States needs to be leading the world in the digital asset space instead of overregulating it and pushing it overseas,” Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) told Breitbart News during an exclusive interview in September.

This should turn out well, eh?

Read: Good News: Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Gives Cryptocurrency To US Treasury »

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