Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach March 28, 2021 – 9:52 am

Patriotic Pinup Stefano Riboli

Happy Sunday! Another gorgeous day in the Once And Future Nation Of America. The sun is trying to peak through after some nice t-storms rolled through (woke me up repeatedly in the wee hours), opening day for baseball is almost here, and I get my second vaccine shot on Thursday. This pinup is by Stefano Riboli, with a wee bit of help.

What’s happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Climate Change Dispatch notes that the scam is not threatening military operations
  2. Climate Scepticism wonders how you measure hot air
  3. Green Jihad discusses the game behind Biden’s border crisis
  4. No Tricks Zone covers the UK cooling since before St. Greta was born
  5. America’s Watchtower notes Pete Buttigieg floating a road miles tax (wouldn’t that violate Joe’s $400k pledge?)
  6. American Greatness covers Arkansas banning the gender confused from competing in women’s sports
  7. Blazing Cat Fur notes a Sponge Bob episode pulled
  8. The Last Refuge discusses DHS looking to scour public data and social media to create watchlists – what could possibly go wrong?
  9. Chicks On The Right notes a dance production cancelled because cast is too white
  10. Cold Fury covers desposts gonna despot with the permanent pandemic
  11. Datechguy’s Blog built a pirate ship in the backyard – and discusses inflation
  12. Free North Carolina notes the state of New York requiring COVID passports
  13. Gen Z Conservative discusses what actually happened in Fulton County on election night
  14. IOTW Report covers Mexico’s president blaming Biden for the border crisis
  15. And last, but not least, Jihad Watch notes the links between Wokeness and anti-Semitism

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me.

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

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Unlike “Stimulus”, Biden Will Have A Tougher Time Selling Tax Hikes Or Something

By William Teach March 28, 2021 – 8:40 am

CNN’s John Harwood is rather squeeing over China Joe being able to get his COVID “stimulus” through Congress. It was so easy that Democrats had to pass it using reconciliation, because Joe couldn’t get any Republican votes, because House and Senate Democrats, along with Dementia Joe, didn’t bother trying to craft a bipartisan bill, didn’t attempt to gain consensus with Republicans, despite all Joe’s Unity talk. Should giant legislation like that be easy?

Biden made stimulus look easy. Selling tax hikes for infrastructure will be harder

President Joe Biden’s second big legislative push will be harder than his first for multiple reasons, most conspicuously this one: It will include tax increases.

To be sure, Biden seeks increases of the most popular kind. He intends to target corporations and rich people without, aides maintain, touching Americans earning under $400,000 a year.

But tax hikes that start out popular don’t often end up that way, as Republican strategists are eager to prove again once debate over Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan begins in earnest.

“Nobody believes taxes are only going to be raised on the wealthy,” explained Glen Bolger, a leading Republican pollster. “The negative tends to outweigh the positive. If we do our job, it becomes the dominant thing.”

Build Back Better, which envisions roughly $3 trillion in new spending and hundreds of billions more in tax credits, shares some of those qualities. Its marquee feature — upgrading America’s stock of roads, bridges, airports, schools, broadband and energy infrastructure — enjoys broad support from voters, politicians in both parties, and business leaders.

Two points: Build Back Better is part of The Great Reset, which is no conspiracy theory. Think of when Obama, China Joe’s boss, was yammering about “fundamentally transforming America.” 2nd

Yeah, the China Joe admin has already started to spin Joe’s $400k promise, saying that was for families. Single earners would be $200k. When does that change?

As Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell summarized it: “A so-called infrastructure proposal that may actually be a Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing left-wing policies.” Similar attacks on “job-killing” tax hikes by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama exacted a political toll even though economic events did not vindicate them.

The relentless march of income equality since has enhanced the appeal of Biden’s ideas, which include a higher corporate rate, a higher rate on personal income for top earners, and higher rates on capital gains and inherited assets. His call to reward “work, not wealth” reflects polls showing middle-class voters believe the rich and Big Business avoid taxation at their expense.

That belief undercut public support for former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted high earners. But Americans’ widespread distrust of government creates treacherous cross-currents for Biden and his party just the same.

“They think once (lawmakers) start raising taxes, ‘I’m going to get stuck with the bill,'” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “Historically, they’ve just heard ‘tax increase.’ They don’t hear the qualifier: who’s paying it.”

That last line shows that the Elites think we’re stupid. Because those tax increases never stop at “the rich”. Raise them on corporations and they pass them along to everyone else. Raise them on individuals and they look to shelter their money rather than investing it. And we aren’t dumb enough to think that there won’t be all sorts of tax increases and games played, especially when we know the “infrastructure” bill will contain all sorts of hardcore leftist priorities that have little to nothing to do with infrastructure and will solicit almost no Republican input. You can bet people will be given almost no chance to read it before it is voted on.

Consider the fate of two ballot measures in last November’s elections. In Illinois, voters considered shifting from a flat tax to a progressive income levy that Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said would only hit the top 3% of households; in California, they considered higher taxes on large commercial property owners to finance schools and local government.

Both are blue states Biden carried easily. In both, voters rejected the tax hikes.

Leftists say they want to raise taxes on “the rich”, but, when they actually have to vote, they vote against the measures because they know it would raise their own taxes. Nothing is more fair than a flat tax.

Biden’s plan attempts a logical connection between new spending and revenue to pay for it. Raising the corporate rate to 28% from 21% would finance physical infrastructure investments. Higher levies on wealthy individuals would finance “human capital” benefits including tuition-free community college and universal pre-kindergarten.

What does community college and pre-school have to do with infrastructure? Raise the corporate rate and they will shelter it, not spend it, have less hiring, fewer pay raises, etc and so on. In the real world, we understand this, unlike the people in Congress who mostly haven’t worked real jobs in decades and/or never actually ran a business in any fashion.

That’s why White House officials and congressional Democratic leaders alike expect negotiations with Republicans on a bipartisan compromise to fail. If that happens, Build Back Better would end up taking the same path as Covid relief: A single giant bill advanced under special budget rules that would require rock-solid Democratic unity but no Republican votes.

What you’ll hear, just like in the early Obama years, is that Joe and the Dems aren’t bothering to talk with Republicans because they know the GOP is against the bill, so, why bother? So, there will be no engagement from Joe. Not that Joe seems to really understand what’s going on. He just does what he’s told.

Read: Unlike “Stimulus”, Biden Will Have A Tougher Time Selling Tax Hikes Or Something »

Posted in Democrats, Joe Biden, Taxation | 21 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: St. Andrews Golf Course Could Maybe Possibly Be Underwater By 2050

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

All because you drive your fossil fueled vehicle to the golf course and have an evil hotdog and syrupy soda at the turn

St. Andrews could be underwater by 2050, according to a new climate-change study

The Home of Golf could be underwater as soon as 2050, according to a new climate-change study.

The study, released by Climate Central—an organization comprised of leading scientists and journalists who study climate change’s impact on society—and analyzed by The Herald predicts large swaths of Scotland’s coastline could be submerged due to increased annual flooding and sea level rise. This includes St. Andrews Links, located in the town of St. Andrews on Scotland’s eastern coastline.

Climate Central published an interactive map to show which areas could be affected. It predicts a widening of the River Clyde, which would impact areas to the west of Glasgow, as well as damage to Dundee, Fife, Stirling and a number of other Scottish metropolitan areas.

St. Andrews’ Old Course is one of five Scottish courses in the Open Championship’s 10-course rota. The map also suggests two other Scottish rota courses—Carnoustie and Royal Troon, both located on the coast—could be severely impacted.

“As these maps incorporate big datasets, which always include some error” an explainer on Climate Central’s website reads, “these maps should be regarded as screening tools to identify places that may require deeper investigation of risk.”

Oh, wait, what was that? A disclaimer for their fearmongering? Anyhow, the height above sea level of St. Andrews proper is 82 feet. The golf course is located in an area which is much closer to sea level, but, the seas would have to rise around 5 feet to start inundating the course. Just north of St. Andrews is Aberdeen, which shows a virtually flat sea rise, at .25 feet per 100 years, data going back to 1862. Just south is North Shields, which shows .62 feet per 100 years, going back to 1895. Neither shows any sort of acceleration. Both are well below what is expected during a Holocene warm period. So, just more fearmongering.

Read: Bummer: St. Andrews Golf Course Could Maybe Possibly Be Underwater By 2050 »

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

If All You See…

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

…are world killing bottles of water, you just might be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on Joy Reid being the race baiting bigot of the day.

As always, please recycle, folks.

Read: If All You See… »

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Bummer: There’s A Huge Budget Difference Between Men’s And Women’s NCAA Tournaments

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

CNN’s Homer De la Fuente performs what Rush always called a “random act of journalism.” In the midst of attempting to slam this “sexist” inequity between the way the men’s NCAA tournament got a lot more money than the women’s, Homer exposes some blatant truths

NCAA budget report shows it spent $13.5 million more for men’s 2018-19 basketball tournament than for women’s

The NCAA allocated $28 million for the Division I men’s basketball championship for the 2018-19 season, nearly twice the amount budgeted for the women’s basketball championship that season, its budget report shows.

CNN obtained the budget document on Friday from the NCAA.

The New York Times was the first to report on the issue.

The 2018-19 budgets are the most recent numbers released by the NCAA after last year’s championships were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

That’s so horrible! The Times is taking the “it’s horrible sexism” route, too.

The most recent data shows the men’s championship tournament generated $864.6 million in net income, while the women’s lost $2.8 million, the highest loss out of any NCAA championship.

Oops. Perhaps there’s a reason the NCAA spends so much more on the men’s tournament.

On Thursday, the NCAA announced it hired a law firm to do an external equity review between all men’s and women’s championships across all three divisions.

In a statement to ESPN, NCAA chief financial officer Kathleen McNeely said, “The difference in the budgets is because of the scale of the two tournaments…and the nuances in the delivery, which tend to be committee decisions on how they’re going to deliver those championships.”

What are they looking at? It’s just the reality that men’s basketball is way, way, way more popular than women’s, and generates way, way more money. You can call it whatever you want, but, it’s the reality. If SJWs are so upset, they should tune into the women’s and not watch the men’s.

The NCAA cited in the report that “the gap in budgets stem from differences in tournament structure,” with the largest difference being the women’s first- and second-round games, which were played on school campuses and hosted by the higher-seeded teams — a decision put into effect in 2014 to grow fan interest and attendance, according to the document.

That’s because attendance is super low at the women’s, just like there’s a massive difference between the NBA and the WNBA. Hardly anyone goes to the WNBA games.

According to the NCAA budget document, “The men’s basketball tournament pays for nearly every other NCAA championship across all divisions except for four: baseball, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse and men’s wrestling, all in Division I.”

That’s how much money the men’s tournament raises (football is not included, as it isn’t held in tournament fashion, and paid for by companies and TV revenue). People tune into the men’s, not the women’s, so, massive amounts of TV revenue. Kinda hard to Virtue Signal when you also provide the reasons why there is a budget discrepancy, eh?

Read: Bummer: There’s A Huge Budget Difference Between Men’s And Women’s NCAA Tournaments »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Sports | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

High Flying John Kerry: “No government is going to solve” Climate Crisis (scam)

By William Teach March 27, 2021 – 7:30 am

I was hoping what climate poobah John “I was in Vietnam” Kerry meant was that all the Believers would be pushed to practice what they preach. Giving up fossil fuels and meat, taking short showers, handwashing and line drying clothes, etc and so on. Nope

Kerry: ‘No government is going to solve’ climate change

John Kerry climateU.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday said he believed the private sector was more likely to find solutions to climate change than government.

“I was convinced, and I remain convinced, no government is going to solve this problem,” Kerry said in remarks at the Institute of International Finance’s 2021 Washington Policy Summit.

“The solution is going to come from the private sector, and what government needs to do is create the framework within which the private sector can do what it does best, which is allocate capital and innovate and begin to take the framework that’s been created. … We need to go after this as if we’re really at war.”

Kerry said the private sector will reap financial benefits from the energy transition.

“It’s a transition, yes, some people are going to have do things differently and begin to shift expenditure, shift priority and infrastructure transition and so forth,” he said. “But in all of that, none of that happens without jobs … without people working, whether it’s pipefitters, electricians, construction workers across the board.”

All unionized jobs, of course. If the private sector was really, truly interested, they’d be doing it now, because they saw a profit, rather than mostly paying lip service. If they need Government to give them lots and lots of money to do this, along with a framework of What Is Acceptable, well, not really a private sector initiative, is it?

Kerry predicted a “race to the new technology, whether it’s direct-air capture or better and more affordable storage, more effective geothermal … there are technology opportunities that are going to create enormous wealthy for those that are venturesome and go out and chase those gold pots.”

This cult has been going on for 30+ years: there hasn’t been a race so far. Just a smattering of climate cult stuff.

Kerry emphasized the need to “reassert American leadership” on climate, noting that the U.S. comprises 15 percent of worldwide emissions, while “China is about 30 percent and when you add the [European Union] you’re well over 50 percent.”

Oh, good. Then there’s this

(White House) Today, President Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leaders Summit on Climate he will host on April 22 and 23. The virtual Leaders Summit will be live streamed for public viewing.

Oh, good, so 40 world leaders will get to see how mentally problematic the U.S. president is.

Read: High Flying John Kerry: “No government is going to solve” Climate Crisis (scam) »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming, Kerry | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

New York City Votes To Remove Qualified Immunity From Police

By William Teach March 27, 2021 – 7:12 am

What is qualified immunity?

Qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from being held personally liable for constitutional violations—like the right to be free from excessive police force—for money damages under federal law so long as the officials did not violate “clearly established” law. Both 42 U.S.C. § 1983—a statute originally passed to assist the government in combating Ku Klux Klan violence in the South after the Civil War—and the Supreme Court’s decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971) allow individuals to sue government officials for money damages when they violate their constitutional rights. Section 1983 applies to state officials, while Bivens applies to federal officials. Because damages are often the only available remedy after a constitutional violation has occurred, suits for damages can be a crucial means of vindicating constitutional rights. When government officials are sued, qualified immunity functions as an affirmative defense they can raise, barring damages even if they committed unlawful acts. (Qualified immunity is not, however, a defense to claims for injunctive relief.)

Interestingly, note that it was created by the judicial branch, not legislative branch. Also, notice that it applies essentially to all government officials.

That story in the tweet is probably one of the silliest, since it conflates NYC with New York State multiple times in the article, not just the headline. Layers and layers of fact checkers, eh? So, we’ll go to the CBS one noted

unintended consequencesThe New York City Council voted Thursday to end qualified immunity for police officers.

The decades-old protection has prevented officers from being sued or liable for misconduct.

New York is now the first city in the country to end qualified. The measure was passed as part of a package of police reform bills.

Critics argued scrapping the protection will make officers less aggressive in fighting crime, if they have to worry about lawsuits.

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, however, said it “has been used to deny justice to victims of police abuse for decades.”

“Rooted in our nation’s history of systemic racism, qualified immunity denied Freedom Riders justice and has been used to deny justice to victims of police abuse for decades,” he tweeted after the vote. “It should never have been allowed, but I’m proud that we took action today to end it here in NYC.”

But of course they had to trot out the “systemic racism” talking point. How many officers will now retire from the NYPD by the end of the year? How many will leave the NYPD for other jobs? How hard will it be to replace those officers? How high will crime spike in a city where the crime is already spiking? Will it make New Yorkers pine for the “good years” of Mayor Dinkins? How soon will the rich and upper middle class white liberals abandon NYC to avoid the crime? And see businesses, which generate enormous tax revenue for the NYC, leave the city?

Certainly, there needs to be some reform to qualified immunity, because there are times when officers go to far and they know it. But, more often, the complaints are just people pissed off that they were arrested. Look at the case of Malaika Jones. We have her accusing two officers of all sorts of things, including racism and that they were chatting about where to tase her because she was pregnant. But, see, that’s her side of the story. She refused to sign the ticket, something very simple. She had been speeding. Sign it and be done. She refused to follow the lawful orders of the officers. And got tazed. And detained. And the courts showed a different story of what happened, rather than her fable. And the officers were shielded.

(The Skanner) Brooks’ arrest and the resulting uproar triggered two minor reforms: Individuals who refuse to sign citations are no longer subject to arrest; and “police department policy now restricts the use of Tasers on pregnant women to exceptional circumstances,” said Holmes.

See, while lots of outlets like to use this as an example, the law was clear: the officers were following the law, as passed by the city. In NYC, officers (those that haven’t left) will simply refuse to get involved, since they can now be sued directly and such, especially since we know that people just love to make up stories when they’ve broken the law, right? Notice, too, that the rest of the NYC government is still covered by qualified immunity. What, you thought that they would remove it for themselves for equity’s sake? Pfft.

Read: New York City Votes To Remove Qualified Immunity From Police »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats | 19 Comments | Trackback URL

Minnesota Is “Urging” Residents To Not Drive As Much To Stop Climate Apocalypse

By William Teach March 26, 2021 – 3:00 pm

For the moment they’re urging. In the future? Well, let the inner authoritarian out

Fight against climate change could include goal to reduce driving in Minnesota
Legislators could put vehicle travel limits into law to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Minnesotans may be urged to put down the car keys in a new effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and fight climate change.

The House Sustainable Transportation Act would build more stations for charging electric cars and swapping batteries, push local governments to electrify their fleets and prod the Metropolitan Council to electrify all its buses by 2040, among other things.

It would also put into statute a new statewide goal to reduce vehicle miles driven by at least 20% by 2050. (snip)

Electric vehicles alone won’t get the state on track with legislated goals for cutting greenhouse gases, Hornstein told the committee. Transportation is the largest source of emissions, and electric vehicles are still less than 1% of new vehicle sales.

That’s because not that many people want, or can afford, EVs. Have the rich folks elected to the Minnesota House switched to EVs themselves? What about road miles for the state government?

“We have a long way to go, and driving less really is one of the key ways we can reduce greenhouse gases,” Hornstein said. “We are going to have to do things differently.”

By “we”, they mean you.

He also noted that it doesn’t make sense to ask people in rural areas to ditch their cars. Urban residents will need to curb their driving more than 20% “to make up for the geographic difference.” To make those urban reductions work, he said, everyone needs to be within a half-mile of reliable transit.

No, no, they certainly won’t attempt to force the peons into certain urban areas and restrict them from using their legally purchased property, right?

Regardless of the legislative outcome, the driving reduction goal is gaining traction at the state level. Last week, in its official response to the advisory council’s recommendations, MnDOT committed to adopting a preliminary goal of cutting vehicle miles traveled by 20% by 2050. The goal will be finalized after more work.

It’s a major shift for the state agency that has long tracked vehicle miles driven and indicated the need to drive less, but has never committed to something specific in writing. In an interview, MnDOT’s Sexton called a driving reduction policy goal an “important first step.”

“Implementation is something that we would need to work with partners to figure out,” he said.

As in, how do they make Citizens give up driving so much? Penalties? Fines? Requiring a tracking device on their vehicles?

Read: Minnesota Is “Urging” Residents To Not Drive As Much To Stop Climate Apocalypse »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 26, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is a palm tree that will soon be growing in Canada due to carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Raised On Hoecakes, with a post on the latest Masterpiece cake SJW attack.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Research Suggests America Has Too Many Guns Or Something

By William Teach March 26, 2021 – 10:30 am

America also has too many Karens willing to get in Other People’s business

America has too many guns to avoid outsize gun violence, research suggests

Gun violence is in the news again after back-to-back mass shootings in which two gunmen murdered 18 people in Boulder, Colorado, and around Atlanta. The two killing sprees broke a roughly one-year period with no high-profile mass shootings, but Americans were still dying of gunshots during the pandemic, and “at a record rate,” Reis Thebault and Danielle Rindler report at The Washington Post. “In 2020, gun violence killed nearly 20,000 Americans” and injured about 40,000 more, and “an additional 24,000 people died by suicide with a gun.”

Strange that most of the shootings occur in areas run by Democrats

The reason the U.S. has so much gun violence — and so much more than any comparable country — is pretty obvious, and maddeningly intractable: Americans own about 45 percent of the world’s civilian firearms. And they bought another 23 million in 2020, a 64 percent increase over 2019 sales.

How many of the lawfully purchased firearms were used in the commission of a crime, more particularly to shoot someone?

The U.S. “could reduce the death toll, perhaps substantially, if it chose to,” David Leonhardt writes at The New York Times. “It’s not just that every other high-income country in the world has many fewer guns and many fewer gun deaths. It’s also that U.S. states with fewer guns — like California, Illinois, Iowa, and much of the Northeast — have fewer gun deaths. And when state or local governments have restricted gun access, deaths have often declined,” according to research by Boston University’s Michael Siegel.

So, you know how Liberals say “we don’t want to take your guns, we just want some Common Sense gun control”? Well, that sure looks like they want to take our guns, does it not?

“There is overwhelming evidence that this country has a unique problem with gun violence, mostly because it has unique gun availability,” Leonhardt adds. “Many of the policies that experts say would reduce gun deaths — like requiring gun licenses and background checks — would likely affect both mass shootings and the larger problem,” he adds, but Republicans will safely filibuster any bill to enact such changes, suggesting that on a deeper level, “this country’s level of gun violence is as high as it is because many Americans have decided that they are okay with it.”

Many of the mass killers actually passed background checks. Dude in Colorado did, right? Notice that they now add in gun licensing, which would certainly mean making things so tough that few would be approved. But, consider, that’s all future things. If private legal ownership of firearms was such a problem, you’d know about it. Most guns used in crimes are illegally possessed. A DOJ report shows that 90% are illegally possessed. So, it really isn’t those who are law abiding that are the problem.

Read: Research Suggests America Has Too Many Guns Or Something »

Posted in 2nd Amendment | 9 Comments | Trackback URL
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