Biden Looks To Shield MBS From US Lawsuits, Accused Of Killing Journalist

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

Now, just imagine that it was the Trump administration doing this. The media would be in a frenzy, declaring he was a killer for defending a killer, they’d say he’s in the Saudi pockets. When Biden does? Just small news pieces

U.S. moves to shield Saudi crown prince in Khashoggi killing

Isn’t that great? The US is doing it, not the Biden admin

The Biden administration declared Thursday that the high office held by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden’s passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.

The administration said the prince’s official standing should give him immunity in the lawsuit filed by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine

The State Department on Thursday called the administration’s decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi’s killing “purely a legal determination.”

And despite backing up the crown prince in his bid to block the lawsuit against him, the State Department “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” the administration’s court filing late Thursday said.

It may, or may not, be the correct legal determination, based on U.S. and international law.

Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.

“I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”

Remember when Biden fist-bumped MBS in July? There was some outrage from activists, but, the media, which had been very, very mad over Khashoggi’s murder, took a quiet position, much like they are now. The NY Times has a small, way down the front webpage article. The Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi worked for, has a slightly bigger piece, but, it is treated more as straight news, rather than opinion masquerading as straight news. There is an opinion piece by David Ignatius, though.

Read: Biden Looks To Shield MBS From US Lawsuits, Accused Of Killing Journalist »

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Who’s Up For Paying Extra Airline Fees To Save The World From A Fever?

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

If not, you want all life on Earth to die. But, are the fees worth it?

You could opt to pay extra on your next flight to help the planet. But is it a waste of money?

climate cowFor people trying to lower their carbon footprint in the world, flying is a conundrum.

It’s wonderful to visit family and see new places, but air travel is also a contributor to the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.

Commercial airplanes and large business jets make up about 10% of US transportation emissions, accounting for 3% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas production, according to the latest numbers from the Environmental Protection Agency.

So climate-conscious travelers may be tempted to buy an add-on to their ticket that claims to reduce the environmental impact of their flights. Several major U.S. airlines offer to let passengers buy these offsets through their websites. And multiple other companies and non-profits also sell carbon offsets.

This piece from the USA Today then goes on to describe how utterly evil it is for you to fly. Not for the Elites, of course. That’s a question that few media outlets will ever ask, namely, why are all these high toned and fancy todo believers in ‘climate change’ taking lots and lots of fossil fueled flights, mostly on private jets? Then we get to

Do carbon offsets really work?
It depends on the offset. And who you ask.

They’re a scam

Still, offsets are not a “get out of jail free” card. Carbon is being emitted by the plane, notes Daniele Rao, an expert on the decarbonization of aviation at the non-profit Carbon Market Watch. He’s generally skeptical of offsets but is willing to say they’re “probably” better than nothing.

“It’s OK to purchase offsets. But you have to know that you’re not reducing your emission, you’re still having an impact,” he said.

Basically, it’s like paying speeding tickets because you like speeding while lecturing Other People to stop speeding. Anyhow, no one really, truly knows if these carbon offsets make any difference, because transparency is rather low. One think after all this time things would be a little bit more definitive, right? Here are a few ideas so you can be better

Take a train, bus or car for trips that are 600 miles or less — especially if multiple people are going.

Trains and buses take quite some time. It would take longer to take either from Raleigh to NJ to visit the parents than driving. Interestingly, the article fails to note the vast number of fossil fueled flights Biden takes to Delaware, which are way, way, way less than 600 miles.

Don’t fly business or first class. The amount of energy required to fly a plane is divided among the people flying. Coach is the most energy efficient.

Huh? That plane is going there anyway. You’re just paying more for the seat. The plane has the same “carbon footprint” regardless of seat.

Use a program like Google flights to see the actual carbon footprint of a given flight, so you can compare. Newer aircraft and more dense seating arrangements mean fewer pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger.

Yeah, no. I just want to get there.

Read: Who’s Up For Paying Extra Airline Fees To Save The World From A Fever? »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Will Trump Get All His Supporters Back For 2024?

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

It’s a good question

Can Trump hold onto his supporters and allies in 2024?

He promised to put an American flag on Mars and to execute drug dealers. He joked about climate change and reminisced about his warm relationship with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

For former President Donald Trump — given to lengthy asides about yacht parties or toilet hydraulics — his 2024 presidential announcement was something of a relatively sober policy address, even if it included his typical litany of falsehoods, exaggerations and non sequiturs.

Most notably, Trump refrained from promoting lies about the 2020 election having been “rigged” against him. He had made backing of those claims an all but necessary condition for anyone seeking his support, and persisted in this even as most Republicans concluded long ago that the former president’s obsessive relitigation of his defeat to Joe Biden was only harming their party.

On Tuesday night, speaking mostly from prepared remarks, Trump showed a measure of discipline not seen since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when his regular briefings from the White House press room had about them a disconcertingly normal air, leaving some to wonder if the crisis had transformed him.

Obviously, this was written by a Typical Left Wing member of the Credentialed Media

Tuesday’s speech can thus be seen as an attempt to consolidate and win back support at a time when his support is fleeing — and also to energize his core supporters with the promise of a carnivalesque campaign that captures the renegade feel of his first maverick try at the White House. “I think it’s going to be very similar to 2016,” the longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone told Yahoo News ahead of Tuesday’s speech. “Trump has never had trouble remaining interesting.” (snip)

“If President Trump continues this tone and delivers this message on a consistent basis, he will be hard to beat,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on Twitter. Most reviews of the speech were markedly more negative, but praise from a senior Republican was a signal, however faint, that Trump was on the right track.

“Trump got his mojo back,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, once a GOP candidate for the presidency, declared.

But

There were far more detractors, however. The current governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, also a Republican, tweeted: “Trump is correct on Biden’s failures, but his self-indulging message promoting anger has not changed. It didn’t work in 2022 and won’t work in 2024. There are better choices.”

Let’s go to a big time detractor, a “Republican” with extreme TDS

“It’s very probable that that pattern will happen again here. They’ll all come back to him if the voters stay with him,” says Joe Walsh, R-Ill., the former congressman who hosts the “White Flag” podcast. In a telephone interview, Walsh estimated that about 38% of the Republican electorate is made up of “hard-core” Trump supporters who will follow him to the exclusion of any other candidate. Another 20%, he argued, are willing to entertain other options but will grudgingly back Trump if he emerges as the frontrunner.

Excitable Joe Walsh (he’s not the fun one) does have a point. The problem here is that it will be hard for Trump to pull that other 42% if he wins the primaries. And, beyond that, he won’t be able to pull the Independents, no matter how bad a job Biden does over the next two years. His mental health issues could grow a lot more, and people will still vote for Joe.

Let’s say you describe most of Trump’s policies to people without saying Trump’s name. Maybe attach them to a squishy Republican or Democrat. They’ll support most of them. Now, say they are Trump’s policies, and the voters want nothing to do with them, Because Trump. Sorry, he’s toxic. I love or like most of his policies, I love that he battles with the media and Democrats. But, this is politics, and you do have to talk electability. He surprised people in 2016. He won’t in 2024. Even without Democrat cheating, he probably cannot win. And, he may do his schtick where he talks shit about the other Republicans running, making them have a difficult time getting elected if Trump doesn’t win the primaries.

Read: Will Trump Get All His Supporters Back For 2024? »

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Credentialed Media Concerned GOP House Will Investigate Lots Of Things

By William Teach November 17, 2022 – 3:07 pm

Of course, the USA Today isn’t asking one important question: how will the GOPe screw this up?

What will a Republican House look like? A lot of investigations and maybe impeachment.

Biden Brain SuckerNow that Republicans have taken the House, President Joe Biden’s agenda is likely going to stall over the next two years of his term – at least the more ambitious parts of it.

“I’m proud to announce the era of one-party Democrat rule in Washington is over,” California GOP Leader McCarthy declared after winning the nomination from his caucus to be the next speaker, replacing Democrat Nancy Pelosi. (snip)

When Democrats took control of the House as part of the 2018 blue wave, they started a flurry of investigations into then-President Donald Trump’s administration and his business dealings, including probes of his tax returns and later, the role he played in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Republicans have been itching to return the favor. When they win control of the House next year, expect a lot of investigations into Biden’s programs and his son Hunter Biden’s financial dealings. (snip)

A GOP majority could also open investigations into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Department of Justice.

McCarthy has vowed to immediately open an inquiry into the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

“When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts and leave no stone unturned,” McCarthy said.

See, it’s A-OK for Democrats to investigate everything when Trump was in office, and to continue investigating when Trump was gone. But, not OK for Republicans to investigate.

Some House Republicans have been clamoring to impeach Biden if the GOP takes control of the House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., one of the Republican Conference’s most fiercely outspoken members, has introduced articles of impeachment against Biden multiple times.

However, McCarthy has tried to temper conversations surrounding impeachment, telling reporters, “We will not play politics with it.”

Don’t go down this road. As much as Biden deserves it, it’ll never happen since Democrats control the Senate. And it will generate sympathy for Dementia Joe via a concerted media campaign. Focus on exposing Democrats.

Should the GOP take the House, continued U.S. aid to Ukraine as it fends off a Russian invasion is up in the air. McCarthy told Punchbowl News that a Republican House won’t write a “blank check” to Ukraine, suggesting that Republicans would limit or halt funding to Ukraine.

It’s time to wind down this gravy train

Expect a GOP-run House to push through legislation with traditional conservative points: tax cuts, expanded energy production, and a reduction in government spending.

A House Republican agenda revealed in September titled a “Commitment to America” outlined various legislative goals for a GOP majority that also include increased fossil-fuel production.

But the Democratic-led Senate would go along with little of that. And if it did, the GOP still would have to contend with Biden’s veto pen.

If Biden and the Dems want to vote against increased energy independence and reducing the energy costs for Americans, that won’t look good.

Read: Credentialed Media Concerned GOP House Will Investigate Lots Of Things »

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If All You See…

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

…is an area flooded due to carbon pollution Bad Weather rain, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Gateway Pundit, with a post on civil war looming in Brazil.

Read: If All You See… »

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G20 Includes Commitment To Limiting World To 1.5C

By William Teach November 17, 2022 – 10:30 am

It’s wonderful that all the world leaders can take long, fossil fueled flight (and you can bet they all took fancy, large private jets) to the exotic vacation spot of Bali to tell you peasants that you’ll just have to suffer. They couldn’t do it at the climate cult conference in Egypt, nope, they needed their own special, lovely spot away from the masses

World’s richest nations stick to 1.5-degree climate pledge despite energy crunch

The Group of 20 (G-20) largest economies included a commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the official statement that caps its meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

The inclusion of the pledge is an apparent win for international leaders fighting for a tougher climate-change stance at a separate set of meetings, known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP27, currently underway in Egypt.

Speculation had mounted that some of the globe’s wealthiest nations, many of whom are facing an energy crunch tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine, would fight to remove the temperature pledge, a number set in 2015 during pivotal climate talks in Paris.

The G-20 is made up of the U.S., China, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

The peasants in the EU, UK, and many northern areas of the U.S. are looking at serious issues of energy poverty during this winter season, and most are because of restrictive, climate cult decisions by elected leaders and bureaucrats, rather than Biden baiting Putin to invade Ukraine. And none of these cult elites seem to do anything to reduce their own use of energy. The taxpayers generally pick up the tab, so, sure, why not fly a luxurious private jet to a gorgeous vacation spot?

Jason Momoa slammed in full-page USA Today ad for climate hypocrisy: ‘More science-fiction than real’

“Aquaman” actor Jason Momoa was the subject of a scathing full-page ad by the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE) in USA Today on Thursday for his alleged hypocrisy on the environment.

The ad headline reads “DOES MOMOA CARE ABOUT THE PLANET OR PROFITS?” along with the text: “Jason Momoa’s new movie Slumberland must have him dreaming if he believes canned water will help the planet. He might make money off cans, but the planet will suffer.” The ad directs readers to the website MoronicMomoa.com.

In an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital, Richard Berman, the executive director of CORE, said Momoa has displayed hypocrisy by campaigning against plastic water bottles to promote his own aluminum canned water company despite aluminum production causing more environmental damage than plastic.

While CORE (which mostly leans right) has a point, why wast a full page ad in the USA Today, when you have so many bigger climahypocrites to choose from? Momoa is a small fish. You can pick so many others, like Biden, Harris, Kerry, Buttigieg, Pelosi, Obama, the entire G20 and COP27. Simply highlighting the amount of fossil fuels Biden uses to travel every weekend while demanding the rest of us buy EVs.

Read: G20 Includes Commitment To Limiting World To 1.5C »

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ClimaHypocrite Envoy John Kerry Says US Supports Unabated Fossil Fuels Drawdown

By William Teach November 17, 2022 – 7:15 am

Well, it’s nice that the Elites are fine with this, as they can afford to pay lots of extra money to do things that do not include fossil fuels…they just don’t themselves. For the peasants, well, suck it, you’re rulers know better

US Backs Tough Fossil Fuel Phase Down Pledge at Climate Summit

John Kerry climateThe US will back a proposal to phase down all fossil fuels at the UN climate conference as long as it focuses on projects with unchecked emissions, climate envoy John Kerry said Wednesday.

That gives another boost to a call by India for countries at the conference to commit to phasing down all fossil fuels — going beyond last year’s pledge that focused solely on coal. On Tuesday, the European Union also said it would join the UK and small island nations in backing India’s proposal, adding pressure to the Egyptian COP27 presidency to include the wording in a drafted agreement that could be unveiled late Wednesday.

“It has to be unabated oil and gas,” Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said in an interview at the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. “Phase down, unabated, over time. The time is a question, but ‘phase down’ is the language we supported.”

The US position would mean tacit support for abated oil, gas and coal projects — generally those that use carbon capture and other technology to control greenhouse gas emissions. That’s an important distinction for some fossil fuel advocates in the US, where President Joe Biden’s pre-election comment that coal plants across America will be shut down and replaced by wind and solar power, prompted a backlash.

So, projects that use measures that add a lot of cost or just do not exist.

Even with that caveat, there is tension over the proposal, as some of the world’s largest oil producers are reluctant to embrace any commitment to a phase down of crude and natural gas. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said in an interview last week that the kingdom would be very unlikely to support an agreement that included the phase down of oil.

Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Commission, stressed that the effort shouldn’t be used as a tactic to back off last year’s commitment to move away from coal.

Doesn’t look like this proposal is going well, but, it gives a good look into the minds of the climate cult elites, who, as the saying goes, want their cake and eat it too. Perhaps he should be asking the American public, see how they feel about this plan that will jack up their cost of energy and make it hard for them to travel. I’m sure Kerry can afford it for his private jet.

Read: ClimaHypocrite Envoy John Kerry Says US Supports Unabated Fossil Fuels Drawdown »

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Tells Brandon He’s Invoking The “Invasion Clause”

By William Teach November 17, 2022 – 7:00 am

You just know that the Brandon administration will not take this well, and will threaten Texas and sue to stop Texas from *checks notes* stopping people from illegally crossing the border

Texas Gov. Abbott tells Biden he is invoking ‘invasion’ clause of Constitution because of border ‘failures’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent a letter to the White House to explain the need for more aggressive efforts to curb illegal immigration into the state.

The letter, addressed to President Joe Biden, accuses the administration of willfully ignoring the ongoing mass influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S. southern states.

“Your inaction has led to catastrophic consequences. Under your watch, America is suffering the highest volume of illegal immigration in the history of our country. This past year, more than 2 million immigrants tried to enter the country illegally, coming from more than 100 countries across the globe,” Abbott wrote in the Wednesday letter. “Worse yet, your failed border policies recently prompted a United Nations agency to declare that the border between the United States and Mexico is the deadliest land crossing in the world.”

Abbott announced Tuesday that he will be invoking an “invasion” clause of both the U.S. Constitution and Texas Constitution to combat ongoing, overwhelming illegal immigration in the state.

The governor noted in his Tuesday announcement a list of intended actions that he claims are covered by the clause, including the activation of National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) personnel to safeguard the border and turn back would-be migrants from illegally crossing the border.

Sending illegals to Democrat run cities hasn’t worked, because the Elites in those cities make sure the illegals are housed Over There away from the rich and elites. And often ship them off to the suburbs with zero notice. Abbott has stated that Texas DPS will arrest any illegal they find and return them to the border, along with using gunboats to guard the Rio Grande, as well as declaring Mexican cartels terrorist organizations.

Is this possibly an overreach of power by a state? Potentially, since the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the authority and duty to secure the border from invasion. But, the federal government has been derelict in it’s duty, really, they’ve enable the invasion, doing everything they can to keep the invasion going. Does a border state have authority to protect itself from invasion from across the international border?

The Texas Constitution’s Article 4, Section 7 also states that the governor, as commander in chief of military forces, “shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.”

Now we await Brandon’s response.

Read: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Tells Brandon He’s Invoking The “Invasion Clause” »

Posted in GOP, Illegal Immigration, Joe Biden | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

A Few Republicans Might Go For Manchin’s Permitting Deal

By William Teach November 16, 2022 – 3:00 pm

In other news, Joe Manchin’s side-deal which talked him into voting for the terrible Inflation Reduction Act, which doesn’t reduce inflation, hasn’t gone through after all these months. Chump

Some Republicans show appetite for a Manchin deal on permitting reform

A handful of Republican lawmakers appear open to working with Sen. Joe Manchin on his push for permitting reform despite tensions between the West Virginia Democrat and the GOP caucus. Manchin has been pushing for policies that speed up the approval process for energy projects in order to build out more energy infrastructure. His last attempt ran into opposition from both Republicans — who said it didn’t go far enough — and progressives, who said it could harm communities who live near the projects.

Republicans were also not inclined to help Manchin after many saw him as double-crossing them with his agreement on a deal that led to passage of the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act. The deal was announced after Republicans backed a separate infrastructure bill.

In recent weeks, Manchin has engaged in talks with Republicans in the hopes of finding a lame-duck agreement on permitting reform.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told The Hill that getting permitting reform done was “really, really, really important” and that he believed there is an appetite for it.

“Our country needs energy, all kinds of energy: oil, gas, renewables — we need critical minerals,” he said. “All of those things get boxed out by a broken, dysfunctional permitting system that pretty much everybody knows is broken.”

He said there was “slow but steady progress being made” and that he hoped to close what he described as “loopholes” on time limits in the energy project approval process that he said were a part of Manchin’s initial proposal.

They’re talking about putting this into some other legislative package. Why not just put up stand-alone legislation? Why is it necessary to always do these big bills with all sorts of stuff in them, often unrelated to the purpose of the bill? Is it to hide the pork? To hide the crazy? For Republicans, it would make sense to pass this as a stand-alone once they take the House. Would there be enough Democrats to vote for it if Dems control the Senate 51-49? It would put Democrats on notice if they vote against it, which is a vote against America having our own energy and trying to bring down prices for Americans. And it would be funny seeing Democrats try and filibuster it.

If Republicans did pass a stand-alone, what would Chuck Schumer do? He promised Joe this side deal: would he bring it up for a vote on the Senate florr?

Read: A Few Republicans Might Go For Manchin’s Permitting Deal »

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If All You See…

By William Teach November 16, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a Fringe bit of nice weather in a doomed world, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Real Climate Science, with a post on a green new deal in Ukraine.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 9 Comments | Trackback URL
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