California Legislature To Strip Bridge Bill, Replace With COVID Mandates

By William Teach August 28, 2021 – 1:00 pm

No one can possibly be surprised by this, can they?

California legislative switcheroo could ‘gut-and-amend’ bridge bill into coronavirus vaccine mandate

California Democrats are looking to force through statewide coronavirus vaccine rules in a bill that was initially supposed to be about tolls on a bridge in the Bay Area, using a controversial “gut-and-amend” tactic that repurposes an existing bill.

The legislative screen allows state lawmakers to fast-track their agenda without going through committees and other early hurdles, according to state Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, a Republican and candidate to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in next month’s recall election. (snip)

The original bill, AB 455, was supposed to regulate traffic lanes on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. But a draft of an amended version published by the California Globe replaces the toll provisions with language that would allow private employers to fire employees if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Democrats own the legislature in full, so, there’s zero chance it doesn’t pass a full vote. There aren’t enough Republicans to stop it. Let’s switch to the California Globe article

Gut-and-amend bills can be particularly insidious. This secretive process often leaves lawmakers, as well as the public, little or no time to review entirely new legislation dropped into an old bill. And usually, the subject of the legislation has nothing to do with the bill’s previous legislative issue.

These are the same people who always yammer about Democracy dying. Yet, they don’t seem all that interested in giving the People an actual voice, or letting them know what’s going on

Amendment 5: 52.8. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, an establishment, as defined in subdivision (b), shall require each person who is eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, who seeks to enter the indoor facilities of that establishment, to show proof to an employee or authorized agent of the establishment that the person has been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Note: “To the extent allowable under state and federal law and any employment agreement entered into on or after the effective date of this act, an employee who refuses to comply with this section may be subject to termination.”

That sure seems to be saying that all employees must be vaccinated or they cannot work at the place of business.

This seems to be aimed at employees, to make sure that they cannot sue the employer for termination, but, it leaves open the notion of businesses denying access under the law to all who haven’t been vaccinated. Further, it seems to be saying that all who enter the business, whether employee or customer, must be asked if they were vaccinated, and denying if they aren’t.

(1) COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave shall be available to an employee if that employee is unable to work due to either of the following reasons: (A) The employee is attending an appointment to receive a vaccine for protection against contracting COVID-19. (B) The employee is experiencing symptoms related to a COVID-19 vaccine.

(2) An employee shall be entitled to the following number of hours of COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave:

(A) An employee is entitled to 24 hours of COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave. (B) COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave to which an employee is entitled pursuant to this section shall be in addition to any paid sick leave that may be available to the employee under any other law. (c) An employee may determine how many hours of COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave to use, up to the total number of hours to which the employee is entitled pursuant to subparagraph (A). The COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave is available for immediate use by the employee.

(3) Each hour of COVID-19 vaccine supplemental paid sick leave shall be compensated at the regular rate of pay to which the employee would be entitled if the employee had been scheduled to work those hours pursuant to existing law or an applicable collective bargaining agreement.

So, yeah, it also forces the employers to pay extra sick leave to employees if they get COVID, up to 24 hours at regular rate of pay.

Capitol sources note business groups like the cover of this bill being a government edict so they can wash their hands of some liability on COVID protection. And, labor is using this to extort more concessions like additional sick leave and bonus hazard pay.

A Capitol source said, “It’s never good when big business and labor may be on the same side of things.”

Remember, this is all about science.

Read: California Legislature To Strip Bridge Bill, Replace With COVID Mandates »

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 28, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is a ground drying out from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on Biden being weakness personified.

Read: If All You See… »

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Vox: It’s Time To Rethink Air Conditioning Or Something

By William Teach August 28, 2021 – 7:54 am

OK, Warmists, you think air conditioning is Bad for ‘climate change’. What are you going to do? Will you give up your own? Have all the people working for Vox done so? How about at their corporate headquarters? How about Excitable Rebecca Lear, who wrote this screed?

It’s time to rethink air conditioning

What if the most American symbol of unsustainable consumption isn’t the automobile, but the air conditioner? In cool indoor spaces, it’s easy to forget that billions of people around the world don’t have cooling — and that air conditioning is worsening the warming that it’s supposed to protect us from.

There are alternatives: We can build public cooling spaces and smarter cities, with fixes like white paint and more greenery. Some experts have hailed heat pump technology as a more efficient option. But as the planet warms and more of its inhabitants have spare income, AC sales are increasing. Ten air conditioners will be sold every second for the next 30 years, according to a United Nations estimate. Access to air conditioning can literally mean life or death for the young, elderly, and those with medical conditions such as compromised immune systems.

The rise of ACs has an enormous cost: Over time, chemicals known as refrigerants leak out of AC units and accelerate climate change.

Yet, weirdly, Warmists keep using them. You know all the Warmist governments are not turning theirs off, nor even turning the temperature up a few degrees.

Eric Dean Wilson, the Brooklyn-based author of the book After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort, is skeptical that phasing out these chemicals will be easy. He’s concerned that a form of protection from a warming world should involve swapping out one chemical for another.

He also made a more radical argument that, in the United States and even around the world, a big cultural shift could lead to a more communal idea of cooling, instead of a retreat to our separately cooled homes. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Communal? Let’s take a look at this interview

What I hoped to do with the book was by tracing this history people could consider a radically different way of living, one that doesn’t have to be suffering. It can actually be pleasurable. I think a lot of people are too afraid to even try that because they think they have to give something up. I hope that it can open the door just a little bit for people to really re-contextualize what it means to be comfortable. I think there’s something to be said about making us a bit more comfortable with the discomfort of outside air.

Yeah, have at it, climate cultists. Let’s see you move from the it being popular in theory role to actually practicing this.

Air conditioning has a racist history and present
You cite New York City’s statistics that even though Black residents make up 22 percent of the population, they account for half of all the heat fatalities in the city. What are the ways we see racism play out in the disparities in air conditioning and cooling today?

From the very beginning, even before air conditioning’s invention, people who were enslaved in the 18th century were denied any cooling.

Good grief. These people.

And then there’s the wealth disparity that we’re seeing, especially in developing countries: that air conditioning units have become a marker of class and sometimes ethnic divisions, of who can and cannot afford AC. That’s why an approach to cooling justice — ways to make sure that everyone has access — is super crucial because AC has really become a dividing tool.

And how, exactly, does that occur? Especially when Warmists are arguing that AC is bad? Of course they have to put this in terms Marx would have loved.

When you have open asphalt, which often falls in sections of the city with the working poor, you have hotter cities. Planting more trees and green space can lower the urban heat island effect by several degrees. You can also have better-designed buildings, but that’s tricky because you need new materials and lots of money. You can provide heat pumps, but you also need to redesign the building’s air systems. And we also need more access to publicly cooled spaces so that we’re not all, individually, cooling our homes.

Wait, cities are hotter because of localized effects? Perhaps that could account for the majority of reported warming that’s higher than what nature has done. So, of course we have to have some sort of communal place while our homes are sweltering like it’s 1899.

Read: Vox: It’s Time To Rethink Air Conditioning Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 18 Comments | Trackback URL

Pentagon Supposedly Strikes ISIS-K Planner In Afghanistan

By William Teach August 28, 2021 – 7:35 am

Good if this is real, but, consider me skeptical. Did we just bomb some randos, or get people who were actually important?

‘We killed the target’: Pentagon drone strike KILLS ISIS-K ‘planner’ two days after Kabul airport bombing that left 170 people dead

Joe Biden Ice Cream AfghanistanA Pentagon drone strike has killed the ‘planner’ behind the ISIS suicide bombing at Kabul airport that left more than 170 people dead.

The missile struck an ISIS fighter while he was in his car with another Islamic state associate in Nangahar province, eastern Afghanistan. US officials said the strike was approved by President Joe Biden.

The retaliation came less than 48 hours after a suicide bombing claimed by the group killed 13 U.S. soldiers, two Britons and the child of a UK national outside an entrance to the runway.

U.S. Navy spokesman William Urban confirmed the military ‘conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner.’

‘Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,’ he added.

There’s no footage released of the strike, which is interesting. Hey, maybe we got the guy. Which begs the question, how do we know this guy was the planner? Did we already have intelligence on ISIS-K? Did we get the intelligence from some other intelligence service? If we got the guy, great! With this crew in the White House, you have to be skeptical. And, let’s be honest, if Trump was in the White House all the media outlets would be skeptical and would be demanding proof.

It wasn’t clear if the individual killed in Saturday’s drone strike was involved specifically in the Thursday suicide blast outside the gates of the Kabul airport, where crowds of Afghans were desperately trying to get in as part of the ongoing evacuation from the country after the Taliban’s rapid takeover.

A reaper drone, which took off from the Middle East, struck the militant who was in a car with an Islamic State associate. Both are believed to have been killed, an official said.

Well, gee wiz, if Joe hadn’t shut down Bagram (you know, the one we left in the middle of the night), we could have hit them from there.

And for those who want to Blame Trump for ISIS-K

The group first emerged in 2014 as a splinter from another terror group, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — often known simply as the Pakistani Taliban.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies say that many of ISIS-K’s top leadership came from the TTP — among them spokesman Sheikh Maqbool, and their first emir, Hafiz Saeed Khan.

Khan, a Pakistani citizen, established an early stronghold in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province — on the border with Pakistan.

In 2015 ISIS-K’s formation was officially announced by ISIS’s leadership in Iraq and Syria, and the terror network’s headquarters have funneled money into their Afghan outpost.

Who was president then? Who was VP? I’m not going to take the word of the Biden admin or any of its Woke military leaders without proof.

Read: Pentagon Supposedly Strikes ISIS-K Planner In Afghanistan »

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US And China Poised To Get Tougher On Climate Crisis (scam) Why John Kerry Takes Long Fossil Fueled Flight In September

By William Teach August 27, 2021 – 3:00 pm

China is very big on saying the right things. Doing them? Not so much, but, they’re happy to sell products to the idiot countries who Do Stuff and watch their economies implode

US and China tipped to get tougher on climate change when John Kerry visits in September

John Kerry climateChina and the United States – the world’s top two carbon polluters – are expected to seek solid progress in the fight against climate change during John Kerry’s expected visit next month, according to sources familiar with the matter.

It will be the US special climate envoy and former top diplomat’s second visit to China in five months, coming at a time when overall bilateral tensions are at their highest in decades.

The two countries will continue discussions on efforts to tackle climate change as listed on the joint announcement released in April during Kerry’s first visit, one of the sources said, requesting anonymity.

The two sides are expected to announce further specific actions to reduce carbon emissions, the source said. (snip)

Beijing and Washington have in recent months been at loggerheads over a range of issues including the origins of Covid-19, human rights, the hi-tech sector, Taiwan and the South China Sea, although they have not ruled out space for cooperation.

A climate observer said Kerry’s visit carries significance for bilateral relations that goes beyond the agenda of his trip.

“Under the current bilateral background, John Kerry will visit China for the second time. The two countries don’t have such communication on other issues,” said Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia.

“It shows that they have isolated the climate issue from other bilateral issues, though it is unavoidable [the climate issue] will be affected … [but] to some extent the two countries can collaborate.”

So, to hell with human rights issues, China making moves towards Taiwan, and so forth. Oh, and ignore China building all those coal energy plants. They’re like most Warmists: it’s popular in theory to Do Something, but, in practice? Not so much. Just like Kerry taking all those fossil fueled flights.

Read: US And China Poised To Get Tougher On Climate Crisis (scam) Why John Kerry Takes Long Fossil Fueled Flight In September »

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 27, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is the rising sea rushing up to the mountains, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Gen Z Conservative, with a post on Biden voters voting for this.

Read: If All You See… »

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New Yorker Wonders If Government Should Introduce A COVID Vaccine Mandate

By William Teach August 27, 2021 – 10:30 am

Say, I wonder if The New Yorker mandates all their employees get the vaccine?

Should the Government Impose a National Vaccination Mandate?

Earlier this month, a parent asked a question on the community-discussion listserv for the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school district where my teen-ager will start high school this fall. Since the state routinely requires students to have certain vaccinations for enrolling in public school, would it also require vaccination against covid-19, once the F.D.A. moved the authorization status from “emergency use” to full approval? Other parents replied that they supported a requirement, predictably invoking science, public health, and communal values. But the vehemence of their opponents, in highly vaccinated Cambridge, took me by surprise. There were recriminations about interference with personal choice and references to Nazi Germany. One participant accused another of bullying and threatened to consult an attorney.

On Monday, the F.D.A. did grant full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for people sixteen and older, and a decision on the Moderna vaccine is likely to follow in weeks, raising the question of how far and wide the government will now push covid-vaccine mandates. In July, the Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to require some of its employees to get the vaccine or face possible termination. President Biden recently ordered all federal workers to attest that they are vaccinated or else wear masks and get tested weekly. Within hours of the F.D.A.’s full approval of the Pfizer vaccine, the Defense Department announced that it would mandate that all 1.4 million active-duty military members be vaccinated. On the same day, public university systems in New York, Minnesota, and Louisiana rolled out similar requirements for students. Such mandates may be met with intense resistance: the Pentagon’s pre-F.D.A.-approval vaccination efforts, for example, were highly divisive, and more than a third of service members are, at present, not fully vaccinated.

Jeannie Suk Gerse then dives into much of the same information from the article I posted from CNN yesterday. Surely there’s no coordination between news outlets in pushing this, right?

Strong resistance to government-mandated vaccination isn’t new. In 1853, Britain imposed the first mandatory vaccinations, requiring parents to inoculate infant children against smallpox or face heavy fines.

The U.S. is not Britain, and we have a Bill of Rights and state Bills of Rights. Oh, and the smallpox vaccine is virtually 100% effective.

The Court, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, disagreed, reciting the principle that individual liberty is not absolute in the face of “the common good,” and that “real liberty for all” depends on restraining individual exercises of liberty that harm others. …

But, not taking the vaccine only harms you. People with the vaccine can still get COVID, and even be non-symptomatic. If the non-vaxxed want to take the chance on getting much, much sicker than those who took the vaccine, that’s on them. The NY Times is currently reported on breakthrough COVID cases, which are “Uncommon and Often Mild, but Not Always”.

No city or state has yet issued a straight-up requirement that all private citizens be vaccinated against covid-19, along the lines of the Massachusetts smallpox-vaccination law upheld in Jacobson, but some have edged toward it. The closest so far is New York City’s requirement of proof of having received at least one dose for access to certain activities, including indoor dining, gyms, and performances. Various states have also ordered certain subsets of their populations, including health-care and nursing-home workers, school teachers, and state employees, to be vaccinated or face regular testing. The F.D.A.’s full approval of the vaccine this week makes it more likely that cities and states will impose general mandates on residents. If they do, they can feel confident that such requirements will be upheld by the courts, so long as they include medical and religious exemptions.

Yeah, well, we’ll see if suits are filed.

Alternatively, Congress could rely on the Spending Clause to pass new laws that condition the transfer of federal funds to a state upon its establishing a vaccination mandate. Congress could also use the Commerce Clause to institute a national requirement as a regulation of interstate commerce. But those sweepingly ambitious federal routes are guaranteed to become mired in tremendous political pushback that could ultimately increase public resistance to vaccination, not to mention constitutional challenges claiming federal overreach. Short of those methods, the federal government still has myriad ways that it may yet push states, institutions, and citizens to do more than they otherwise would, with an arsenal of inducements, pressures, conditions, and threats. Depending on how things progress with the coronavirus variants, a national vaccination mandate may remain possible as a last resort.

They really, really do want to find a way to force people to get the vaccines. That might work if the effective rate was at least 95%, but, we’re finding that they are well below that.

Read: New Yorker Wonders If Government Should Introduce A COVID Vaccine Mandate »

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AOC Decides To Jump In On The Science Of Ice Cream

By William Teach August 27, 2021 – 8:17 am

For some reason, ExxonMobile EU decided to post something fun about ice cream. How it’s made, what it’s made of, and more. The article cited has zero to do with their operations, so, of course AOC, who tweeted nothing about the Afghanistan terror attack (she did retweet about taking in Afghan refugees), decided to jump in

She was actually on a tear Thursday, with multiple tweets whining about fossil fuels. You know, the ones which allow her to fly quite a bit between NYC and DC, along with all her stops around the country pushing her Green New Deal. NYC couldn’t operate without them. It wouldn’t be such a big city without them.

Why aren’t Warmists like her giving them up? Fossil fueled vehicles clog the streets of New York. They’re moving people and goods. Fossil fueled ships bring goods and take them away. Fossil fueled airplanes bring goods and visitors, take New Yorkers going on vacation away. How do you replace those?

And why do climate cultists have to ruin everything? It’s ice cream. These people are nuts. And, ice cream companies wouldn’t be able to get their ice cream to market without fossil fueled trucks.

Read: AOC Decides To Jump In On The Science Of Ice Cream »

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Surrender Joe Vows Retribution Or Something

By William Teach August 27, 2021 – 8:05 am

Did you watch the Biden press conference? It was like listening to a man who could barely speak, who wasn’t really interested in what he was saying, except when he was asked some inconvenient questions, then he briefly woke up. That, and showing up for a PC 25 minutes late to discuss an attack that killed, at current count, 13 members of the US military

Biden vows retribution on terrorists who killed 13 US service members in Kabul

Biden Brain SuckerPresident Joe Biden had a clear and directed message for the assailants responsible for the deadly terror attack outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday, and for anyone else who might be planning an attack.

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this, we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said. (snip)

“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission. We will continue the evacuation. I’ve also ordered my commanders to develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership and facilities,” he said.

Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Hopefully he does it, sics the armed forces of the U.S. on the perpetrators, but, I have little confidence, not with our Woke military leaders in charge and giving advice. These are the same ones who said we “won’t” go in to protect Americans. Not “can’t”, “won’t”. This is the same administration that basically told Americans in Afghanistan, and all those who helped the U.S and allies, that they were on their own.

“I’ve been engaged all day, in constant contact with the military commanders here in Washington and the Pentagon, as well in Afghanistan and Doha. And my commanders in Washington, in the field, have been on this with great detail, and you’ve had a chance to speak to some so far,” he said to reporters. “The situation on the ground is still evolving, and I’m constantly being updated.”

He said this like a somnambulist. It would have been better to just let everyone read the teleprompter. And, Biden doesn’t actually seem like he’s in charge

President Biden says he was ‘instructed’ to call on reporters from list at presser following Kabul attacks

…

While it has become normalized for the president to rely on a list of pre-selected reporters, he made a rather stunning admission in the process.

“Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here. The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O’Donnell from NBC,” Biden kicked off the press conference.

Imagine if Trump said that. Basically admitting that his people are telling him to call on very specific reporters, who are surely asking vetted questions.

The best part is Doocy responding to Joe questioning him with “Donald Trump is not the president anymore,” which is when Biden put his head down, and Doocy continued with “Do you think that people have an issue with pulling out of Afghanistan or just the way that things have happened?” And Joe decided it was time for some ice cream and left.

(Breitbart) On Aug. 20, Biden had promised: “[A]ny attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with a swift and forceful response. We’re also keeping a close watch on any potential terrorist threat at or around the airport, including from the ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan who were released from prison when the prisons were emptied.”

Turx, the White House correspondent for Ami magazine, asked Psaki in a White House briefing following Biden’s speech: “Was this an attack? Were our forces targeted? Was this at the airport? Were our operations disrupted? And if, indeed, it was, would this quality as a ‘swift and forceful’ response?”

Psaki replied: “I think the president just addressed exactly that, when he said, ‘We will not forgive, we will not forget, and we will hunt you down.’”

Turx pressed her for answers, whereupon Psaki snapped: “I don’t think he could have been more clear.”

It’s now over 24 hours since the attack: where’s the swift and forceful response?

Read: Surrender Joe Vows Retribution Or Something »

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Biden’s Afghanistan: Four US Military Members Killed In Suicide Bombing

By William Teach August 26, 2021 – 2:56 pm

Update: the Pentagon now says 12 service members have been killed.

Where’s Joe?

Way to go, #SurrenderJoe

At least four U.S. Marines killed in Kabul airport attack -sources

Four U.S. Marines were killed and three wounded in Thursday’s explosions at Kabul airport, U.S. sources told Reuters, in what the Pentagon said was a “complex attack” during its evacuation mission from Afghanistan.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed multiple U.S. fatalities but did not give details. The U.S. servicemembers were among those killed when at least two blasts tore through crowds thronging the airport gates.

And where are Joe and Kamala? As of this time, there are no statements from Biden or Kamala

Weird, it’s like nothing is happening. Or, more likely, they want to avoid answering pesky questions from reporters.

The Pentagon did release a statement

Read More »

Read: Biden’s Afghanistan: Four US Military Members Killed In Suicide Bombing »

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