If All You See…

…is an evil fossil fueled vehicle causing summer heat snow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Hogewash, with a post on Rebekah Jones and the false criminal complaint.

Read: If All You See… »

Pentagon To Monitor Social Media Of Military Members

No, there’s absolutely no Constitutional issues here, right? It certainly won’t drive people out and keeping more from joining the military to avoid the Wrongthink assaults, right?

PENTAGON PLANS TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA OF MILITARY PERSONNEL FOR EXTREMIST CONTENT

AS PART OF the Biden administration’s crackdown on domestic extremism, the Pentagon plans to launch a pilot program for screening social media content for extremist material, according to internal Defense Department documents reviewed by The Intercept, as well as a source with direct knowledge of the program.

An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will “continuously” monitor military personnel for “concerning behaviors,” according to a Pentagon briefing in late March. Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official. Though the firm has not yet been selected, the current front runner is Babel Street, a company that sells powerful surveillance tools including social media monitoring software.

If they are intentionally trying to use a private firm to circumvent 1st Amendment Restrictions (and several others, such as surveillance without a warrant), they know they are violating people’s Constitutional Rights. It should make for an interesting lawsuit, since the Pentagon, as part of the Federal Government, is paying for this program and authorized it, making the private company a federal contractor, and that they are doing this against federal employees, which means the Pentagon is intentionally violating said Rights, starting with the 1st. There is no Constitutional way to circumvent this.

The pilot program will use keywords to identify potential extremists, though coming up with a list of terms without running afoul of speech protections has proven to be challenging, the senior Pentagon official said. To this end, the military plans to consult with experts from across the political spectrum to help develop the pilot program. As The Intercept previously reported, the military’s Countering Extremism Working Group drafted a list of potential consultants that included anti-Muslim and Christian conservative groups.

In other words, this will simply be going after non-Democrats for daring to engage in Wrongthink.

“Using key words to monitor social media isn’t just an unnecessary privacy invasion, it is a flawed strategy that will ensure it is short-lived,” said Mike German, a retired FBI agent who did undercover work in neo-Nazi groups and is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It will undoubtedly produce a flood of false positives that will waste security resources and undermine morale, without identifying the real problem, which is the tolerance for those that openly engage in racist behavior and discrimination.”

And will undoubtedly violate people’s Constitutional Rights. But, then, when did Democrats ever worry about those things for Other People? These people really are hell bent on destroying the effectiveness of our military.

Read: Pentagon To Monitor Social Media Of Military Members »

Climate Cult Now Considers Suburbs Unsustainable

Even though there have been plenty of reports that cities are actually the worst offenders for the climate crisis (scam), Warmists have never been happy about the suburbs, because they mostly do not control them. Suburbs tend to be run by Republicans and stocked with Republicans, along with Democrats who do not really care about crazy left wing things like ‘climate change’. Plus, this really isn’t about ‘climate change’, it’s about controlling suburbs and turning them Leftist

Report: ‘Unsustainable’ Suburban America Contributes to Climate Change

The iconic American suburban neighborhoods that attract families looking for safe and prosperous areas have been targeted in recent years – first from those who believe zoning is a racist tactic to keep certain people out of the neighborhoods.

And now a report from the left-leaning Brooking Institute is claiming that the “unsustainable” nature of the suburbs means they must be transformed in the name of preventing climate change.

The Brooking Institute report touts President Joe Biden’s “ambitious and necessary” goal to reduce greenhouse gas emission to 50 percent of the amount emitted in 2005 by 2030, with even bigger reductions by 2050.

Brookings, citing a New York Times report, said reaching Biden’s climate change goals with require “systems-level changes across every sector of the economy.”

Strange how in order to get to those climate scam goals everything has to change, eh? It’s almost like this is all about politics, not science. Brookings writes

But there’s a problem. The administration’s high-level strategy skimmed over a central driver of our climate crisis: unsustainable land use practices. Simply put, the United States cannot reach its GHG reduction targets if our urban areas continue to grow as they have in the past. After decades of sprawl, the U.S. has the dubious honor of being a world leader in both building-related energy consumption and vehicle miles traveled per capita. Making matters worse, lower-density development also pollutes our water and requires higher relative emissions during the initial construction.

That leaves the country with no choice: We must prioritize development in the kinds of neighborhoods that permanently reduce total driving and consume less energy. Such human-centered neighborhoods have the added benefit of helping us adapt to climate impacts, improve public health, and promote access to activities. Encouraging their development should be a central part of any national climate resilience strategy.

Oh, so the government, especially the federal government, getting heavily involved in the affairs of the suburbs and rural areas. Surprise?

The report proposes two solutions to force changes in American neighborhoods:

  • Use market principles to send climate-sensitive price signals. Real estate developers, lenders, and households will make more resilient investment decisions if they understand the climate-related costs of their decisions and bear some brunt of the financial impact. For example, charging higher mortgage interest rates or increasing insurance premiums could steer development away from sensitive areas. It also works in reverse, as federal or state incentives could encourage more resilient development patterns, such as conserving land and incorporating greener designs.
  • Use statutory authorities to scale policy adoption. The federal government doesn’t directly control land use, but it has several policy levers to influence it, including flooding and disaster insurance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s lending rules, the location and quality of transportation investments, and environmental permitting laws. Federal rules—whether done through a carrot or stick approach—can push states, fragmented metropolitan areas, real estate developers, and households to act in predictable, sustainable ways.

See? More control. I’d like an apology from all those who said I was crazy back in the early 2000’s that this was all about politics and not science.

“We need to undo decades of bad habits, returning to traditional people-centered neighborhood designs and incorporating forward-looking building technologies that promote more sustainable and equitable living. It’s a generational lift—and time is running out, the report concludes. “Statements of intent are important signals, and don’t cost politicians much. It’s imperative that our national leaders start naming land use challenges when they discuss our climate future. But we can’t afford to stop there. America needs federal leadership to test ideas and scale solutions. Land use may be local, but our climate future is shared.”

Bad habits? Mind your own f’ing business. Why don’t you start with getting rid of fossil fueled vehicles in your own cities? Seriously, these people are trying to change the suburbs and flip them and control them by any means necessary. Using ‘climate change’ is one way, another is by attempting to eliminate single family housing, as they’re trying to do in Piedmont, California, claiming that single family housing zoning is raaaaacist. These people are really evil in their attempts to control everything.

Read: Climate Cult Now Considers Suburbs Unsustainable »

House Passes, China Joe Signs Free Speech Denying Anti-Asian Hate Bill

See, attacks on Asians are rising in Democratic Party run cities, so Democrats had to pass a law that this was bad, because there aren’t any sorts of laws against things like assault and tons of hate crimes laws. But, this is a little different

Biden Signs The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Bill As Anti-Asian American Attacks Rise

Following overwhelming support from both chambers of Congress, President Biden signed legislation Thursday that addresses hate crimes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis on the increase in violence against Asian Americans.

At an event in the East Room of the White House, Biden thanked lawmakers for coming together to pass the legislation. He said standing against hatred and racism, which he called “the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation,” is what brings Americans together.

“My message to all of those who are hurting is: We see you and the Congress has said, we see you. And we are committed to stop the hatred and the bias,” he said.

The legislation, introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, aims to make the reporting of hate crimes more accessible at the local and state levels by boosting public outreach and ensuring reporting resources are available online in multiple languages.

It also directs the Department of Justice to designate a point person to expedite the review of hate crimes related to COVID-19 and authorizes grants to state and local governments to conduct crime-reduction programs to prevent and respond to hate crimes.

Weirdly, these people who are required to wear a mask on the House floor did not have to do so while Joe signed the bill nor as they mingled. Nor any social distancing. And, last time I checked Biden hadn’t ended his EO on wearing a mask on federal property. Anyhow, those last two paragraphs mention what the bill does, and it also denies funding for law enforcement which fails to follow this law and collect and report the information. Like police in Democratic cities don’t have enough to do with dealing with all the spiking crime? The full legislation is at the link, only 8 pages long, worth a read.

Asian Americans have faced a dramatic spike in violence throughout the pandemic. The organization Stop AAPI Hate documented 6,603 hate incidents from March 2020 to March 2021, and leaders said the true number is much higher as many hate crimes go unreported. Democrats have pointed to former President Donald Trump’s frequent use of racist phrases such as “kung flu” to describe the coronavirus as a link to the increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the country.

And the vast majority of those occurred in cities that are run exclusively, or almost, by Democrats. These are cities that voted overwhelmingly for China Joe.

Republicans explain their vote against Asian American hate crimes legislation

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in easily passing a bill aimed at addressing the recent rise in attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. But unlike in the Senate, where Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri cast the only “no” vote, 62 Republicans in the House voted against the legislation, which President Biden signed into law on Thursday. (snip)

For Hawley and his colleagues over in the House, the bill was anything but necessary.

“It’s too broad,” he said in a statement explaining his vote. “As a former prosecutor, my view is it’s dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents.”

“My big problem with Sen. Hirono’s bill … is that it turns the federal government into the speech police — gives government sweeping authority to decide what counts as offensive speech and then monitor it. Raises big free speech questions,” Hawley wrote.

Again, read the bill. It very much interferes with Free Speech. Someone might be yelling nasty things at Asians (or blacks or whites or you), but, unless that includes threats, it is just bad words. The government does not get to decide what is offensive speech.

Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Calif., one of four Korean Americans serving in Congress, was among the 147 House Republicans who backed the legislation. The congresswoman said she has experienced racism firsthand and chose to be on the right side of the issue. “I have been called racist slurs and been treated differently because I am Asian American,” she said on the House floor.

Well, lots of us have been called lots of nasty things in our life. That is life, sadly. Steel is rather showing that this bill is about legislating what people can say. Which violates that 1st Amendment thingy, right?

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, echoed Hawley and suggested that the spike in violence against Asian Americans was tied to efforts backed by some Democrats and other progressives to decrease funding for the police.

“This violence, by and large, is happening in Democrat-controlled cities, many of which, interestingly enough, have defunded their police departments,” Jordan said on the House floor.

Every single incident recounted in the article occurred in a Democratic Party run city. Atlanta, NYC, Orange Park, Ca., NYC, San Francisco, Oakland, none of which are run by Republicans and are majority Democrat voters. Anyhow, will anyone file suit over this, as it clearly violates the 1st Amendment, no matter the good intentions?

Read: House Passes, China Joe Signs Free Speech Denying Anti-Asian Hate Bill »

Bummer: Appeals Court Throws Out Kid’ Climate Scam Suit

If anyone bothered keeping track, it’s gotta be something like one win for climate cultists for 20 losses in court

Appeals Court Throws Out Youths’ Climate Change Case Against Florida

An appeals court Tuesday rejected a lawsuit in which eight young Florida residents sought to force the state to take steps to address climate change.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a decision last June by Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll to dismiss the case.

The panel did not give a detailed explanation, but cited Caroll’s conclusion that the case involved “nonjusticiable political questions.”

Ya think? These are things that should be decided by duly elected lawmakers, not courts. Especially since it seems that most suing fail to practice what they preach. Better than passing laws, the Warmists should mind their own f’ing business and just worry about their own lives.

The lawsuit, filed in 2018, contended the state should be required to address climate change and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

In a brief filed at the Tallahassee-based appeals court, attorneys for the plaintiffs contended that the state’s handling of climate-change issues had violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

And they lost because said constitutional rights did not appear in the Florida Constitution. But, hey, there are lots of parts about minding your own damned business and government not infringing like an authoritarian state.

Read: Bummer: Appeals Court Throws Out Kid’ Climate Scam Suit »

If All You See…

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

The blog of the day is Gen Z Conservative, with a post on America cultivating weakness, with China and Russia doing the opposite.

Read: If All You See… »

It Begins: CEO Demands His Employees Be Vaccinated, Wants Others To Do Same

This has been discussed on and off over the past year, but, few have really required the jab as a condition of employment. Some people have religious reasons for not getting it, some won’t get it because it was speardheaded by Trump, some because China Joe is pushing it, and some, both Dems and Republicans, won’t get it because they don’t trust something developed so quick. But, They Must Comply

CEO: Why I’m requiring that my employees and customers be vaccinated against COVID-19

As the COVID-19 vaccines roll out quickly across the country, businesses like mine are wrestling with the question of how to handle employees returning to the office. In making these decisions, we must keep in mind that we have responsibilities to ensure our businesses succeed – and to society at large. Our choices will have a tremendous impact on how the nation’s next stage shapes up.

The overwhelming majority of U.S. businesses, like mine, have fewer than 500 workers, providing nearly half of overall employment. Over the past year, many have had to shut down altogether. A recent report from the Federal Reserve estimates that the number of “excess exits” – closures likely due to the pandemic – might have stayed below 200,000, which is lower than some economists feared. That’s due in part to various ways small businesses found to keep going with employees working from home. Still, it’s a devastating number. It’s crucial to get more businesses up and running again.

My business has been doing fine. We went back to the regular schedule the Friday before Memorial Day. And have only had a small number of people get COVID. Maybe 10 out of about 100. All of them returned to work fine. We did the masking thing, cleaned the doors and work stations, and practiced social distancing. We probably have around 60% in the sales area vaccinated. Why can’t other businesses do this?

That’s why to me, this is a no brainer. At Velo3D, where we provide advanced metal 3D printing technology to some of the most visionary companies in the world, I’m requiring all of my roughly 120 employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine unless a medical professional provides them with a written medical excuse.

Working from home is not an excuse. We have a rule that managers should be able to call in any employee to a meeting on site when necessary. So all employees must be vaccinated. For those who are having the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, by June 1 they must have their second shot.

The same goes for other people who wish to visit our facilities – contractors, investors and customers from businesses we serve. We’re using the honor system at this point, having people declare that they were vaccinated and when. No documentation is needed. We’re trusting people to do the right thing.

Is documentation required for employees? Will they have to show their papers? You can bet the same types of people like Benny Buller, CEO of Velo3D, were 100% against the Arizona illegal immigration law, and against requiring illegals to show their papers at all times.

These days, there’s a lot of pressure on businesses to talk about every social issue. As an executive, I recognize the challenges with this, since there are endless injustices we could talk about.

But actions speak louder. Here’s a case in which we can demonstrate with absolute clarity that we stand for doing the right thing whether it’s popular or not. This is also why we should not stop at only encouraging employees to get vaccinated. We should demand it.

Or, you can mind your own f’ing business, and stop telling others what to do.

In other COVID news, a restaurant is “receiving backlash” for demanding that patrons show their COVID vaccine cards or wear a mask

Read More »

Read: It Begins: CEO Demands His Employees Be Vaccinated, Wants Others To Do Same »

Your Fault: Hotcoldwetdry Added $8 Billion To Hurricane Sandy’s Damages

If only you hadn’t taken that fossil fueled trip to eat and Evil burger, this wouldn’t have happened. If you’d just agree to give your money and freedom to government we could solve this

Climate Change Added $8 Billion to Hurricane Sandy’s Damages

As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the New York City area in 2012, its storm surge swamped lower Manhattan, unmoored a roller coaster on the Jersey Shore, submerged runways at LaGuardia Airport and pushed the toxic waters of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal into nearby basements. All told, the storm’s floodwaters did more than $60 billion in property damage in New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut. Though scientists have long known global warming is exacerbating such events by raising sea levels, a new study has now calculated just how much of Sandy’s bill can be charged to climate change: about $8 billion.

The paper, published on Tuesday in Nature Communications, developed a modeling method that can be used to determine how much climate change adds to the cost of any coastal storm or other flooding event—past or present. “It’s putting the climate change price sticker on the event where it hasn’t been visible,” says lead author Benjamin Strauss, CEO and chief scientist of Climate Central, a nonprofit research and news organization.

Such research is part of a growing field called attribution science, which uses observations and models to compare our current world with a hypothetical one where climate change has not been happening. This comparison shows how rising temperatures have affected the likelihood and severity of a variety of extreme weather events, from heat waves to floods. Attribution science reveals how climate change is loading the dice, increasing the odds that events will overwhelm our capacity to cope and turn into severe disasters. The new study takes the science a step further, providing a more concrete sense of how much of the damage from such disasters is because of the changing climate—and the price associated with it.

This is being repeated ad nauseum across lots of Credentialed Media outlets, but, none of them mention that by the time Sandy made landfall and was really affecting the Northeast, it was no longer a hurricane. It was being called a Superstorm because it was being supercharged by a massive cold front coming from the northeast, down from the Arctic and through Canada. Nor do they mention that average global temperatures have only gone up 1.5F, nor that sea rise in the Northeastern US states show, at most, slightly more sea rise than you’d expect during a Holocene warm period, and most are around exactly what you’d expect. Nor do they mention that the land is still subsiding post glacial period.

Strauss and his co-authors calculated how much local sea-level rise is linked to an increase in temperature (that is, how much of that rise results from melting polar ice caps and the expansion of the ocean as it absorbs most of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases). In the New York City area, warming has caused about four inches of sea-level rise over the past century—about half of the local rise over that time period.

It has? The data for The Battery shows .94 feet per hundred years. Kings Point shows .75 feet. Montauk shows 1.24 feet. It appears as if they’re blaming you for that 4 inches. Which is nuts, because, if they are trying to claim a total of 8 inches over the last 100 years, that is exactly average during the last 8,000 years, which means much less during a warm period, since a cold period would have much lower sea rise.

The team then used computer models to relate various sea levels to flooding damage and (because Sandy’s damage was almost entirely from flooding) to estimates of how much of the tab came from climate change.

Using a sea-level-rise mapping tool developed by Climate Central…

Computer models based on more computer models based on preconceived notions. So, full mule fritters.

Read: Your Fault: Hotcoldwetdry Added $8 Billion To Hurricane Sandy’s Damages »

Surprise: “The Squad” Propose Legislation To Block Arms Sales To Israel

Of course they did, when you have Rashiada Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, two Muslim supremacists as part of the group, who have shown their hatred of Israel and Jew many times. Notice there is nothing on blocking support for Hamas and the other Islamist terrorist groups, not stopping the flow of arms into the Palestinian areas, nor is there any condemnation of Hamas doing things such as willfully launching rockets at Israeli civilian areas

Ocasio-Cortez leading effort to block arms sale to Israel

A group of progressive House Democrats led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced a resolution Wednesday aimed at blocking a $735 million arms sale to Israel.

The resolution is largely symbolic as Democratic leaders who support the sale are unlikely to give the legislation a vote and the window for lawmakers to force a vote to block the sale closes in a couple of days. But the effort underscores the growing divide among Democrats on Israel as a bloody crisis in Gaza continues.

“For decades, the U.S. has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Israel without ever requiring them to respect basic Palestinian rights. In so doing, we have directly contributed to the death, displacement and disenfranchisement of millions,” Ocasio-Cortez in a statement announcing the resolution of disapproval. “At a time when so many, including President Biden, support a ceasefire, we should not be sending ‘direct attack’ weaponry to Prime Minister Netanyahu to prolong this violence.”

In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, the effort is being led by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Other co-sponsors include Democratic Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.), Betty McCollum (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and André Carson (Ind.).

So, the chance of this being voted on is virtually none, and they are simply putting it out their to show their “solidarity” with the Palestinians, and very much showing their anti-Israel and anti-Jew beliefs. It’s basically Virtue Signaling using legislation. And the comments in the The Hill article are typical leftist Israel and Jew hatred. Just like in Los Angeles

Pro-Palestinian mob accused of attacking Jewish diners in LA, possible hate crime

An alleged violent attack on Jewish diners by a mob of pro-Palestinian supporters in Los Angeles on Tuesday night was being investigated as a possible hate crime, and triggered condemnation from Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Video footage of the attack posted to social media shows a group attacking at least two people outside the Sushi Fumi restaurant in the city’s Beverly Grove neighborhood, west of downtown Los Angeles.

In a pair of tweets addressing the violence, Garcetti, a Democrat, wrote there was “no place for anti-Semitism, discrimination, or prejudice of any kind in Los Angeles. And we will never tolerate bigotry and violence in our communities.”

Apparently there is. Jew hatred has been part of the Progressive community for decades. Of course you have Black Lives Matter, full of Jew haters, standing in solidarity with Palestine. And lots more far left groups

On Friday, 140 progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, MoveOn and the Working Families Party, released a joint statement condemning Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

“We are horrified by Israel’s use of disproportionate and deadly force against Palestinians in Gaza which have already resulted in the killings of dozens of Palestinians, including children,” they said in the statement.

Notice that none of them denounce Hamas using children as human shields not wantonly attacking civilians in Israel.

Read: Surprise: “The Squad” Propose Legislation To Block Arms Sales To Israel »

French Climate Cultists Upset Potential Law Doesn’t Go Far Enough

They aren’t willing to make the changes in their own lives, but, are unhappy that Government won’t force all those extra changes

Going Green, or Greenwashing? A Proposed Climate Law Divides France.

Less meat in French cafeterias. Bans on short-distance flights. Gas heaters on cafe terraces would be outlawed.

As President Emmanuel Macron moves to make France a global champion in the fight against climate change, a wide-ranging environmental bill passed by the French National Assembly this month promises to change the way the French live, work and consume.

It would require more vegetarian meals at state-funded canteens, block expansion of France’s airports and curb wasteful plastics packaging. Polluters could be found guilty of “ecocide,” a new offense carrying jail terms of up to 10 years for destroying the environment. If Mr. Macron gets his way, the fight against climate change would even be enshrined in the French constitution through a referendum.

I mentioned this the other week, and seems like a pretty big change, right? Seems like a lofty piece of legislation. Quite a bit of forced changes for the lives of French people, right?

But those lofty ambitions are running into a barrage of resistance.

Environmentalists and politicians from France’s Green party, rather than backing the legislation, have accused Mr. Macron’s government of watering down ambitious measures and putting corporate interests above tough proposals by a 150-person “citizens climate panel,” which Mr. Macron himself convened last year to address climate concerns.

Huh. Even with all that the bill does, it’s not enough for climate Fascists.

Read: French Climate Cultists Upset Potential Law Doesn’t Go Far Enough »

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