I Guess It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

I have watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at Christmastime for years. I thought it was a wonderful story about how someone who was different finally found his usefulness and gained friends and a place in society. Evidently I just didn’t understand the movie.

Fox News is reporting today on the HuffPost’s reaction to the movie.

These are some of the HuffPost’s comments on the movie:

“Yearly reminder that #Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a parable on racism & homophobia w/Santa as a bigoted exploitative prick,” read one comment shared by HuffPost. “Santa’s operation is an HR nightmare and in serious need of diversity and inclusion training. #Rudolph,” read another.

The video also suggests it was problematic that Rudolph’s father verbally abused him by forcing him to wear a fake nose to be accepted by others.

Some eagle-eyed social media critics also said the cartoon is sexist because Rudolph’s mom was snubbed after she wanted to help reindeer husband Donner to search for their son after he goes missing. “No, this is man’s work,” Donner says.

But HuffPost’s effort to highlight the perceived bigotry of the beloved movie attracted tens of thousands of negative comments, most of them mocking the video.

“Oh look! Something people like and enjoy; let’s go ruin it!” tweeted Rebeccah Heinrichs.“If you try hard enough you can find offence in almost anything,” Chloe Westley seconded.

Others pointed out that HuffPost misunderstood the cartoon as the troubling characters learn their lesson in the end. “But… but… the bigoted characters learn they were wrong. It teaches a lesson. It doesn’t endorse the problematic stuff,” tweeted Robby Soave.

Even President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. weighed in on the topic, tweeting “Liberalism is a disease.”

Does anyone really believe that children don’t sometimes treat other children badly? Does this movie not show the error of that? Do parents sometimes make mistakes? Isn’t it nice to see a parent’s mistake corrected? Do liberals have a problem with happy endings? Has anyone ever educated liberals to the fact that a good story needs a conflict at some point to make it interesting? Have we reached the point where we are afraid to let our children see a conflict–even when it is beautifully resolved?

The Dangers Of Not Closely Monitoring Immigration

On Tuesday The Daily Wire posted an article about some recent information from the Department of Homeland Security.

The article reports:

The Department of Homeland Security revealed Tuesday that the threat of “fake families” declaring asylum together at the United States’ southern border is no joke; more than 150 illegal immigrant “families” have used non-familial children or adults to attempt to convince border patrol agents to allow them to remain in the country.

The Daily Caller reports that “there has been a 110 percent increase in male adults showing up at the border with children. Further, DHS separated 507 illegal immigrants between April 19 and September 30 because they fraudulently claimed they were part of a family unit.”

The thing to remember here is that there are people in various countries in South American coaching people on how to break into America. If that is a harsh word, I’m sorry–it is what is happening. I will admit that our immigration system needs serious reform, but that is no excuse for people thinking they can simply come here illegally and stay. Right now America is severely in debt. We have neglected our veterans and are not doing a good job of taking care of anyone. We cannot afford to be overrun with non-citizens who want to be taken care of.

When evaluating what is happening at our border, it might be wise to consider the Cloward-Piven strategy from the 1960’s. Cloward-Piven was a strategy to convert America to a socialist state (taken from Discover the Networks):

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands. 

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. 

This may well be what the caravans are actually about. If this theory is too wild for you, step back and look at the movement toward socialism in the recent election.

When The Deep State Overrides The Constitution

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent FBI raid. The raid was conducted on the home of a legally protected whistleblower who had blown the whistle on some of the illegalities in the Uranium One deal and some of the financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a government watchdog, according to the whistleblower’s attorney.

The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

“The bureau raided my client to seize what he legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told TheDCNF, noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.

The article continues:

A special agent from the FBI’s Baltimore division, who led the raid, charged that Cain possessed stolen federal property and demanded entry to his private residence, Socarras told TheDCNF.

“On Nov. 19, the FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity in the Union Bridge, Maryland area,” bureau spokesman Dave Fitz told TheDCNF. “At this time, we have no further comment.”

Cain informed the agent while he was still at the door that he was a recognized protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status, according to Socarras.

The article explains the whistleblower act:

The whistleblower act is intended to protect whistleblowers within the intelligence community, which includes the FBI.

“The [intelligence community] is committed to providing its personnel the means to report violations of law,” according to a 2016 intelligence community directive.

“The [whistleblower act] authorizes employees of contractors to take government property and give it to the two intelligence committees confidentially,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

The FBI has yet to talk to Cain’s attorney despite the raid, according to Socarras.

“After the raid, and having received my name and phone number from Mr. Cain as his lawyer, an FBI agent actually called my client directly to discuss his seized electronics,” Socarras told TheDCNF. “Knowingly bypassing the lawyer of a represented client is serious misconduct.”

The Justice Department and the IG both declined to comment.

Whoever authorized this raid and whoever was involved in it need to be fired from the FBI so that they can be replaced by people who respect the law and the U.S. Constitution.

Sometimes The Lies Are Just Funny

The Daily Caller posted an article today about President Obama’s claim that he started the oil boom in America. Somehow that’s not the way I remember it.

The article reports:

Former president of Shell Oil Company John Hofmeister said former President Barack Obama had nothing to do with America’s increased oil production and actually frustrated many areas of the energy sector.

Obama claimed he was responsible for America’s recent oil boom during an event hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute on Tuesday night and Hofmeister challenged his assessment.

…“The facts are the facts. And, yes, the production did increase throughout his term,” Hofmeister said on “Fox & Friends” Thursday. “But, frankly, he had nothing to do with it.”

“This was production in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado — North Dakota in particular. And these were all state decisions made with industry applications for permits. The federal government had no role.”

The article notes the roadblocks President Obama put in the way of accessing American oil:

Hofmeister said Obama opposed the energy industry at every turn with his actions against offshore drilling and his handling of the Keystone Pipeline.

“If anything, he was trying to frustrate the efforts by taking federal lands off of the availability list — putting them just, no more drilling [sic]. He shut down the Gulf of Mexico for a period of six months,” he said. “[He] changed the regulations from an average of 60 to 80 pages per permit to 600 to 800 pages per permit. He also never approved the Keystone XL pipeline after dangling all the potential customers for eight years. And it was in the eighth year when he said no Keystone Pipeline.”

“I would say that he was not a leader when it comes to energy,” Hofmeister said.

As far as President Obama’s opposition to the Keystone Pipeline goes, as long as that pipeline was not built, the oil was shipped via the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, owned by Warren Buffett, a close friend of President Obama. On February 21, 2013, I reported the following (article here):

If the Obama administration holds firm on blocking Keystone, the big loser will be TransCanada Corporation. But who will the big winners be? American railroads:

And of them, the biggest winner might just be the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Obama supporter and Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett. In December, the CEO of BNSF, Matthew Rose, said that his railroad was shipping about 500,000 barrels of oil per day out of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and that it was seeking a permit to send “crude by rail to the Pacific Northwest.” He also said the railroad expects to “eventually” be shipping 1 million barrels of oil per day.

President Obama did not facilitate the energy independence of America. He did, however, do a pretty good job of lining the pockets of some good friends.

We Really Did Handle Immigration Better At Ellis Island

LifeZette posted an article today about the migrant caravan attempting to get into America from Mexico.

The article reports:

Migrants who came with the caravan are suffering from respiratory infections, tuberculosis, chickenpox and other serious health issues, Tijuana’s Health Department warned on Thursday morning.

The spokesman told Fox News that out of 6,000 migrants currently residing in the city, over a third of them (2,267) are being treated for health-related issues.

There are three confirmed cases of tuberculosis, four cases of HIV/AIDS and four separate cases of chickenpox, the spokesman said.

At least 101 migrants have lice and multiple instances of skin infections, the department’s data shows.

There’s also a threat of Hepatitis outbreak due to unsanitary conditions, the spokesman said.

At Ellis Island, immigrants who were not healthy or had no marketable skills were returned to their home countries.

The biggest change to America’s immigration policies occurred in 1965 and was promoted by Senator Ted Kennedy.

So what did The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (H.R. 2580) do? Here are the basics:

The Hart–Celler Act abolished the quota system based on national origins that had been American immigration policy since the 1920s. The 1965 Act marked a change from past U.S. policy which had discriminated against non-northern Europeans. In removing racial and national barriers the Act would significantly alter the demographic mix in the U.S.

The new law maintained the per-country limits, but also created preference visa categories that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota. However, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and “special immigrants” had no restrictions.

On September 2, 2009, Numbers USA posted the following about that change:

Ted Kennedy’s immigration policies have destroyed the ability of the United States to be an environmentally sustainable nation in any decade soon because of the gigantic U.S. population growth that he has forced.

And Ted Kennedy’s immigration policies have knocked hundreds of thousands of Americans out of the middle class as their occupations have collapsed and wages declined because of inundation with Kennedy’s favored foreign workers, or because they have directly lost their jobs to foreign competitors.

We need to consider the consequences of the Hart-Celler Act as we decide how to deal with the migrant caravans that are attempting to breach our southern border.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

During the mid-term election campaign, a number of Democrats stated that it was time for new leadership in the Democrat party and that they would not support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Well, guess what–yesterday The Western Journal posted an article with the following headline, “Democrats Nominate Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker.”

The article reports:

Nancy Pelosi has been nominated by House Democrats to lead them in the new Congress, but she still faces a showdown vote for House speaker when lawmakers convene in January.

Pelosi ran unopposed as the nominee for speaker in a closed-door Democratic caucus election Wednesday despite unrest from those clamoring for new leadership.

The California Democrat faces tougher math in January, when she’ll need 218 votes, the majority of the full House, to be elected speaker. House Democrats are taking control with at least a 233-vote majority, but some Democrats have pledged that they won’t back Pelosi for speaker.

Anyone ready to take bets? Actually Nancy Pelosi as speaker would be a good thing for Republicans–she is growing old and sometimes here statements indicate that. It truly is time for new leadership in both parties.

Is An “Ism” Always Responsible For A Loss?

Am I the only one tired of hearing some ‘ism’ blamed for the loss of an election or the loss of a position? Well, it happened again today.

The Washington Free Beacon reported today that Representative Barbara Lee will be replaced as Democratic caucus head by Representative Hakeem Jeffries from New York.

The article reports:

Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.) on Wednesday attributed her loss in the Democratic caucus chair race to ageism and sexism, saying she “absolutely” believes she lost because of discrimination.

Earlier in the morning, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) defeated Lee, a fellow Congressional Black Caucus member, with a vote of 123-113. The Democratic Caucus chair is the fifth most powerful position in House Democratic leadership.

Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller asked Lee, 72, after the loss whether she believed “ageism or sexism played a part in this race.”

“Well, I think you heard and saw what took place. So I absolutely think that’s the case,” Lee said.

…Jeffries appeared on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press Daily” on Monday, where he told fill-in host Katy Tur that he has “nothing but respect for Barbara Lee” but he believed he was in a better position to “help the caucus maintain its message, discipline, the operational unity, get things done on behalf of the American people.”

Tur asked about some of the Democratic leaders, including Lee, being older and whether Jeffries believed there needed to be somebody younger in a leadership position.

“I made clear I’m not running against anyone,” Jeffries said. “I am running for the House leadership position.”

Jeffries has been in office since 2013 and Lee, since 1998.

It’s nice to see someone other than Republicans being accused of ‘isms.’

Ugly Rears Its Head In The House Of Representatives

Sometimes dumb ideas come from Republicans as well as Democrats. I am about to illustrate that fact. Yesterday Representative Ted Deutch of Florida introduced H.R. 7173 into the House of Representatives. The bills description is, “To create a Carbon Dividend Trust Fund for the American people in order to encourage market-driven innovation of clean energy technologies and market efficiencies which will reduce harmful pollution and leave a healthier, more stable, and more prosperous nation for future generations.” Never trust the government to create a trust fund–remember the Social Security Trust Fund–it was robbed during the 1960’s (by the government that created it).

Let’s talk about this trust fund for a moment.

The bill states:

“A carbon dividend payment is one pro-rata share for each adult and half a pro-rata share for each child under 19 years old, with a limit of 2 children per household, of amounts available for the month in the Carbon Dividend Trust Fund.”

Do you really want the government commenting or being involved in any way with how many children you have in your family?

The Hill posted an article yesterday about the bill. The article included the following:

…the bill would charge companies when they produce or import fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, based on their expected greenhouse gas emissions.

But instead of using the money to pay for health or community projects, the new bill would distribute it to the public. Its backers say those “dividends” would offset the increased costs from the carbon tax, like higher utility and gasoline bills, for about 70 percent of households.

Dividend funds would be handed out by the Treasury Department under the bill, based on the number of people in a household.

“It’s transparent and easily trackable. You know where the money is going. It protects the American family so that families are not adversely impacted. Dividends would protect most families from cost increases,” Ben Pendergrass, senior director of government affairs at Citizens’ Climate Lobby, told The Hill.

“The market signals should still be there to guide things like fuel efficient cars and dividends protect people who can’t make that transition immediately.”

The bill would also prohibit the federal government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from the sectors that are taxed, unless the taxes aren’t effective after 10 years. That is an effort to attract support from Republicans, who are nearly united in opposition to Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations.

Rooney focused on the economic benefits of the bill, saying in a statement Wednesday that the revenue carbon neutral fee is good policy and a way “to support emerging alternate sources of energy.”

This bill is a really bad idea. It paves the way for more government intrusion into our private lives and takes more money from Americans. America has cut its greenhouse gas emissions without crippling our economy. We are quite capable of doing so in the future without stifling economic growth and creating even bigger bureaucracies.

 

Do They Make Portable Wasp Spray?

Breitbart is reporting today that Oakland University is arming its students and professors with hockey pucks to use in case of a school shooting incident. Wouldn’t a can of wasp spray be more efficient? I think most students and professors could aim a can of wasp spray better than they could effectively aim a hockey puck.

The article reports:

According to the Detroit News, Oakland University (OU) police chief Mark Gordon indicated the idea of using pucks to ward off mass shooters “emerged during a training session he was giving earlier this year on surviving an active shooter situation.”

Guns for self-defense are banned on the OU campus, but Gordon suggests a hockey puck can do considerable damage in lieu of firearms. He talked to students about being hit in the head with a puck, saying, “[It] caused a fair amount of damage to me.”

…ClickonDetroit reported that OU’s faculty union, American Association of University Professors, has gotten behind the idea. The union has distributed pucks to union members and is working to get pucks to students.

The union is also giving money to purchase “interior locks for university classrooms.”

I think the hockey puck did more damage than was initially noticed.

The Things They Never Told Us About Wind Power

An article at the Center of the American Experiment website tells us some of the things the media might not have mentioned about wind power:

An industrial wind facility in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin has been decommissioned after just 20 years of service because the turbines are no longer cost effective to maintain and operate. The decommissioning of the 14 turbines took many people by surprise, even local government officials and the farmer who had five of the turbines on his property.

What’s really surprising about these wind turbines being decommissioned after 20 years is the is the fact that people were surprised by it. You’d be astonished at how many people I talk to that have no idea that wind turbines only last for 20 years, maybe 25. In fact, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory says the useful life of a wind turbine is only 20 years.

The following chart appears in the article:

So what do we do with these things after they have lived their useful life span? Can we dispose of them in a way that is environmentally safe?

The article notes:

The short usable lifespan of a wind turbine is one of the most important, but least-talked about subjects in energy policy.

In contrast to wind, coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants can run for a very long time. Coal and natural gas plants can easily run for 50 years, and nuclear plants can be updated and retrofitted to run for 60 years. This has profound implications for the cost of electricity on a per megawatt hour basis that seemingly no one is talking about.

When the federal government puts out their cost projections for energy, the numbers they produce are called the Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE. These numbers are supposed to act as a measuring stick that allows policymakers to determine which energy sources will best serve their needs, but these numbers are wrong because they assume all power plants, whether they are wind, coal, natural gas, or nuclear will have a 30-year payback period.

This does two things, it artificially reduces the cost of wind power by allowing them to spread their costs over 30 years, when 20 would be much more appropriate, and it artificially inflates the cost of coal, natural gas, and nuclear by not calculating the cost over the entirety of their reasonable lifetimes.

The search for totally green energy is not unlike science’s search for a perpetual motion machine. Scientists and engineers may come close, but the perpetual motion machine cannot exist because it contradicts the laws of physics.

The Images You Can Create With Careful Camerawork Are Amazing

The information below was taken from an article at The Gateway Pundit posted yesterday.

Have you seen this picture on the news lately?

That picture appeared throughout our mainstream media in the past few days. However, the picture below (the more honest picture) did not:

There is an attempt by the mainstream media to manipulate Americans into believing things that are simply not true. What their motive is I do not know. However, I wonder if they understand that the socialist paradise they think they want to usher in will eventually lead to economic conditions similar to Venezuela or Cuba and that they will be forced to live under those conditions.

The article reports:

The media needed their dramatic photo with women and children and they got it.

Rodney Scott, the Chief Patrol Agent in San Diego said people were purposely pushing the women and children to the front before they started throwing projectiles at law enforcement, ultimately causing the situation to escalate.

Patrol Agent Scott: “What I find unconscionable was that people would purposely take children into this situation. What we saw over and over yesterday was that people would purposely push women and children to the front and then begin basically rocking our agents.”

The US responded with tear gas and like clockwork, the liars in the media accused the Trump administration of ‘gassing women and children.’

It is sad that our media has lost its way.

Western Culture Is A Good Thing For Women

Despite what the feminists rage, western culture and its dreaded patriarchy are actually protective of women. This was illustrated recently by a decision in a French court. The Voice of Europe posted an article about the case on November 22.

The article reports:

A refugee from Bangladesh was tried by a French court and was acquitted of the rape of a high school girl. The verdict was handed down yesterday.

The young man also sexually assaulted another young girl. He was charged with both cases but acquitted of the rape.

According to the defense the refugee has ‘different cultural norms’ or ‘cultural codes’ and could have misinterpreted the contact with the girl.

Experts who investigated the man, described him as narcissistic and self-centred and that in the male culture of Bangladesh, his country of origin, “women are relegated to the status of sexual object”.

…In custody, the refugee says that the girl was consenting and the police closed the case. After which the young girl attempts suicide in late 2015 was hospitalised for a week.

Four months later the refugee was arrested again and the final verdict was handed down yesterday.

The refugee is acquitted of the rape but sentenced to two years in prison as a suspended sentence for the sexual assault of the first victim.

He will be registered in the sex offender file, according to the court’s decision.

I guess we should be grateful that he will at least be registered as a sex offender.

Lying When Convenient

Politicians are not known for telling the truth, but sometimes the lies are simply outrageous. It seems that lying to attack political opponents has become a way of life for some of our politicians.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about a recent whopper told by Senator Chuck Schumer. The lie by Senator Schumer was told during a hearing for Thomas Farr, a North Carolina lawyer who is President Trump’s pick to be a district court judge in New York.

The article reports:

Schumer said on the Senate floor that Farr “stands for the disenfranchisement of voters,” then raised the 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County v Holder. That case ended in a Roberts opinion that said a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is outdated and needs to be modernized.

Schumer said that opinion showed that Roberts believes voting discrimination no longer exists.

“Justice Roberts will go down in history as one of those who worked to take away voting rights when he authored the Shelby decision and stated that he didn’t believe that … more or less, he stated that he didn’t believe that discrimination existed any longer, so we wouldn’t need Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” Schumer said.

But Roberts never wrote that voting discrimination no longer exists and, in fact, said explicitly that it does still exist.

“At the same time, voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that,” Roberts wrote at the time.

Either Senator Schumer is misinformed or he decided that the best was to prevent the appointment of Thomas Farr was to play the race card. That card is getting very old, and the number of Americans falling for it is rapidly dwindling. The card is played frequently against President Trump despite the awards he won before running for President for promoting racial harmony and for his removal of race and religion restrictions when he opened Mar-a-Lago.

The Problems With The Climate-Change Report

The Daily Signal posted an article today about the new Climate Report presented to President Trump.

These are the four areas of the report that are questionable at best:

1. It wildly exaggerates economic costs.

2. It assumes the most extreme (and least likely)climate scenario.

3. It cherry-picks science on extreme weather and misrepresents timelines and causality.

4. Energy taxes are a costly non-solution.

The article notes that the study was partially funded in part by climate warrior Tom Steyer’s organization. How is this supposed to be an objective study?

The article further notes how the study came up with the economic costs:

The study…calculates these costs on the assumption that the world will be 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. That temperature projection is even higher than the worst-case scenario predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In other words, it is completely unrealistic.

The article notes that the climate trajectory used in the study is not realistic. The article states:

Despite what the National Climate Assessment says, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 is not a likely scenario. It estimates nearly impossible levels of coal consumption, fails to take into account the massive increase in natural gas production from the shale revolution, and ignores technological innovations that continue to occur in nuclear and renewable technologies.

When taking a more realistic view of the future of conventional fuel use and increased greenhouse gas emissions, the doomsday scenarios vanish. Climatologist Judith Curry recently wrote, “Many ‘catastrophic’ impacts of climate change don’t really kick at the lower CO2 concentrations, and [Representative Concentration Pathway] then becomes useful as a ‘scare’ tactic.”

The article explains how some of the data in the study is being manipulated:

Another sleight of hand in the National Climate Assessment is where certain graph timelines begin and end. For example, the framing of heat wave data from the 1960s to today makes it appear that there have been more heat waves in recent years. Framing wildfire data from 1985 until today makes it appear as though wildfires have been increasing in number.

But going back further tells a different story on both counts, as Pielke Jr. has explained in testimony.

Moreover, correlation is not causality. Western wildfires have been particularly bad over the past decade, but it’s hard to say to what extent these are directly owing to hotter and drier temperatures. It’s even more difficult to pin down how much man-made warming is to blame.

Yet the narrative of the National Climate Assessment is that climate change is directly responsible for the increase in economic and environmental destruction of western wildfires. Dismissing the complexity of factors that contribute to a changing climate and how they affect certain areas of the country is irresponsible.

The article explains why carbon taxes are not the answer:

Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposed a carbon tax of between $135 and $5,500 by the year 2030. An energy tax of that magnitude would bankrupt families and businesses, and undoubtedly catapult the world into economic despair.

These policies would simply divert resources away from more valuable use, such as investing in more robust infrastructure to protect against natural disasters or investing in new technologies that make Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 even more of an afterthought than it already should be.

Climate change has been with us as long as the earth has existed–they found plant fossils under the ice in Greenland. The question is, “How much impact does man have on climate, and do we have the ability to impact climate in a positive way?” Considering some of the mistakes we have made in the past when tampering with nature, I truly believe we need to attempt to keep our air and water as clean as possible and leave the rest to nature.

Things Haven’t Changed, But You Wouldn’t Know It If You Watch The Mainstream Media

This article is based on two articles, one from Breitbart posted today and one from The San Diego Union-Tribune, dated November 25, 2013. If you watch the mainstream media, recently you heard how inhumane it was to use tear gas on people trying to break through the southern border of America. No one mentioned that this was not the first time this approach was used, or that tear gas was probably the most harmless approach available to the border agents that were faced with people charging the border.

Breitbart reported today:

Five years almost to the day before President Donald Trump’s border officers blocked migrants with tear gas, authorities under President Barack Obama used identical tactics along the same stretch of border near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to 2013 press accounts.

From The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2013:

A group of about 100 people trying to illegally cross the border Sunday near the San Ysidro port of entry threw rocks and bottles at U.S. Border Patrol agents, who responded by using pepper spray and other means to force the crowd back into Mexico, federal officials said.

The incident has raised concerns among advocates on both sides of the immigration debate, as well as Border Patrol representatives.

…As the crowd kept advancing and throwing rocks and bottles, she said, more agents came to the scene and used other “intermediate use-of-force devices” to push back the group. The agents also contacted Mexican law enforcement.

Tijuana’s top police officer, Public Safety Secretary J. Alberto Capella, said “There is no information that we can provide.” He referred questions to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The spokesman for Tijuana police, Rafael Morales, said the agency’s officers did not intervene and had no knowledge of the incident.

Caston said several agents were struck in the arms and legs with rocks, and that one agent was hit in the head with a filled water bottle.

“While attacks on Border Patrol agents are not uncommon, the agents showed great restraint when faced with the dangers of this unusually large group, and fortunately no one was serious injured,” said Paul Beeson, San Diego sector chief for the Border Patrol.

The agency did not specify the time of Sunday’s incident.

This type of rush on the border has not been seen since the late 1980s and early ’90s, when groups of border-crossers would run into the U.S. while agents tried to apprehend as many people as possible. The practice mostly disappeared after Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994 and brought with it tall fences, walls and more agents.

How did the press treat President Obama during this incident versus how the press is treating President Trump during the recent incident? Double standard anyone?

Finding Our Way To Energy Independence

On November 21, Bloomberg posted an article about U. S. oil production and the opening of new pipelines in Texas.

The article reports:

An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel.

OPEC’s bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day.

…The U.S. energy surge presents OPEC with one of the biggest challenges of its 60-year history. If Saudi Arabia and its allies cut production when they gather Dec. 6 in Vienna, higher prices would allow shale to steal market share. But because the Saudis need higher crude prices to make money than U.S. producers, OPEC can’t afford to let prices fall.

The article includes the following chart:

American energy independence creates a major geopolitical shift. We are still dependent on the Saudis to make sure that oil is traded in American dollars, but we are no longer dependent on them to keep our cars moving and our homes heated. Those of us old enough to remember the oil crisis of the 1970’s remember gas lines and rapidly increasing prices. I realize that we will never get back to 30 cents for a gallon of gasoline, but it is nice to see gasoline prices hovering in the mid two-dollar range rather than the four-dollar range.

How Cutting Taxes Creates Revenue

On November 16th, Hot Air posted an article about the impact of the Trump tax cuts on government revenue. As I am sure you remember, the Democrats called the tax cuts on individuals ‘crumbs’ and swore that the tax cuts would bankrupt the country. Well, that’s not exactly what happened.

The article reports:

Unemployment is at an historic low. Employment is at an all-time high. Wagers are growing after years of stagnation.

And now from all that increased economic activity, the federal government has just reported historic record tax revenues in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, of $252,692,000,000.

That’s more than $11.4 billion above revenue for October of last year, which was the previous record tax revenue for an October.

And it did this by collecting more than $3 billion less in personal income taxes, thanks to the tax cuts.

The new revenues were the result of increased business taxes because of increased business. Here’s how much different it was:

Corporation income tax receipts to the U.S. Treasury this year in October were a whopping $8,000,000,000. This compares to the previous October’s $3.8 billion.

Despite the record tax revenues in October, the federal government ran a deficit of $100.5 billion that month because, spending. That’s a problem that newly-elected members of Congress such as Indiana’s senator-elect Mike Braun, a businessman, said would be a major target in 2019.

The thing to remember here is that as unemployment decreases, government spending should also decrease. Unfortunately Congress did not get the message. Our problem is not the revenue–the problem is the spending. If either party were serious about curbing government spending, it would have been done by now. Obviously they are not. There are a few members of the Republican party who have been trying to put the brakes on runaway spending for years, but they are either not trying very hard or they are ineffective. At any rate, we need to elect Congressmen (regardless of party) who will pledge to bring the spending under control. It does no good to increase the revenue if the spending increases right along with it.

This Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the Clinton Foundation. The editorial deals with the drop in donations to the Foundation after Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the Presidency.

The editorial reports:

Controversy over the foundation erupted after Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book — “Clinton Cash” — suggested that the foundation served as a way for donors to curry favor with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

And, indeed, the multitude of connections that slowly turned out became hard to dismiss as coincidental. There was the fact that 85 of the 154 private interests who’d met with Clinton during her tenure at state were Clinton Foundation donors.

Emails turned up showing how the foundation intervened to arrange a meeting between Clinton and the Crown Prince of Bahrain, a country that had been a major foundation donor. A Chicago commodities trader who donated $100,000 to the foundation got a top job on a State Department arms control panel, despite having no experience in the area. On and on it went.

The editorial concludes:

But the most glaring indictment of the Clinton Foundation came from what happened last year, after Hillary Clinton lost the election — and effectively ended her political career.

First, the Clinton’s almost immediately shuttered the Clinton Global Initiative and laid off 22 employees.

Now, fresh financial documents show that contributions and grants to the Clinton Foundation plunged since Hillary lost her election bid. They dropped from $216 million in 2016 to just $26.5 million in 2017 — a stunning 88% fall. Throughout Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, the foundation pulled in an average of $254 million a year. (See chart below for a timeline.)

If the Clinton Foundation was as good as defenders claimed, why did all its big-time donors suddenly lose interest? The only reasonable explanation is that donors weren’t interested in what the foundation supposedly did for humanity. They were interested in the political favors they knew their money would buy.

In April 2015, The New York Post reported:

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

On its 2013 tax forms, the most recent available, the foundation claimed it spent $30 million on payroll and employee benefits; $8.7 million in rent and office expenses; $9.2 million on “conferences, conventions and meetings”; $8 million on fundraising; and nearly $8.5 million on travel. None of the Clintons is on the payroll, but they do enjoy first-class flights paid for by the foundation.

In all, the group reported $84.6 million in “functional expenses” on its 2013 tax return and had more than $64 million left over — money the organization has said represents pledges rather than actual cash on hand.

Some of the tens of millions in administrative costs finance more than 2,000 employees, including aid workers and health professionals around the world.

But that’s still far below the 75 percent rate of spending that nonprofit experts say a good charity should spend on its mission.

At one time there was an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. I have no idea whether or not it is ongoing. However, just looking at the amount of money spent on overhead and the rapid drop in donations when Hillary was not elected President, I think there are some obvious conclusions that anyone paying attention can draw about the Foundation.

Reading Too Much Into Something Can Spoil It For Everyone

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about a recent controversy about “A Charles Brown Thanksgiving.” Some people who do not know the history of the Peanuts cartoon were upset about a scene in the program where Franklin, a character who is black, is sitting on one side of the table by himself in a lawn chair while the other characters sit around the table on regular chairs. The television special was declared racist on Twitter because of that scene. That declaration of racism does not hold water when the entire history of the cartoon and television specials is viewed.

The article puts the scene in context:

Of course, all of them have no idea what on earth they are talking about. Fortunately, black journalist Jeremy Helligar cleared up some of the controversy on Friday when he noted that the character Franklin had prime seating in other episodes of the “Peanuts.”

“A relevant aside: During the farewell dinner about one hour and five minutes into 1972’s ‘Snoopy Come Home,’ Franklin was seated on the same side of the table as Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Frieda — in a regular chair,” Helligar said on Medium.

The historical significance of the character Franklin cannot be understated; his creation was reportedly demanded by Charles Schulz following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. when a teacher named Harriet Glickman sent him a letter.

“When asked by the head of the cartoon’s publisher, United Feature Syndicate, if he was sure he wanted to add a black character, Glickman says Schulz replied, ‘Either you run it the way I drew it, or I quit,'” reports The Hill.

The Schulz Museum also celebrated Franklin’s 50th anniversary in July. He has never been treated like a token black character added for cheap lip-service to diversity and has always been a valued member of the “Peanuts” gang.

Watching “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” has been a tradition for family viewing during the Thanksgiving season. Hopefully common sense will rule in this situation, and the tradition will continue.

Things Are Changing In The World Of Retail

For many years, Lord & Taylor sat at the corner of Fifth Ave and 38th Street in New York City. You would think that in the world of high-income earners in the City, the store would continue to prosper as it has for so many years. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Fox News is reporting today that Lord & Taylor is planning to close its Fifth Avenue location. The windows at Lord & Taylor were one of the highlights of a trip to New York City during the Christmas season. I attended school in New York City and always looked forward to seeing the windows at Christmastime.

The article reports:

Lord & Taylor plans to close its longtime flagship in January after one last blowout sale. Next year, the 11-story, Italian Renaissance-style building covering a whole city block will be taken over by WeWork, the workspace leasing company.

About 40 Lord & Taylor branches will continue on elsewhere. Holiday window gazers will have to turn to competitors like Saks, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman, which competed with Lord & Taylor every year for the most eye-popping display.

The article explains changes in retail sales:

The demise of the Fifth Avenue store fits into the bigger picture of a shifting economy in which brick-and-mortar retail has taken a hit from online sales.

In June, Hudson’s Bay Co., the Canadian behemoth that has owned Lord & Taylor since 2012, announced it was closing various stores due to the company’s “increasing focus on its digital opportunity and commitment to improving profitability.”

WeWork and several investors aim to close the $850 million deal to buy the Fifth Avenue building by the end of January.

Founded in 1826 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Lord & Taylor became one of the nation’s first big department stores, run by two English-born cousins, Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor. The store occupied several locations before opening at Fifth Ave and 38th Street in 1914 in a regal home that included a concert hall with a pipe organ, elaborate dining rooms, a gymnasium, and a doctor’s and dentist’s office.

Lord & Taylor established itself as a pioneer of holiday windows by adding motion to what had been static displays. During an unseasonably warm November in 1938, Lord & Taylor created a snow “blizzard” behind glass using cornflakes, with signs announcing “It’s coming! Sooner or later!”

Saks Fifth Avenue soon emulated Lord & Taylor with its own crowd-pleasing display. Other department stores followed. Over the years, the displays became a creative arms race, featuring the most lavish, fantastical holiday scene designers could imagine.

Theoretically this is progress, but Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue was a beautiful store, and it will be missed.

This Could Get Very Interesting

The U.K. Telegraph reported on Wednesday that MI6 chiefs are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. 

The article reports:

The UK is warning that the US president would undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers.

However Trump allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide.

It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI’s investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article on Wednesday that reminds us of some of the possible reasons for the problem:

In 2016 candidate Trump supported Brexit; the professional political class in the U.K. were vehemently against it. Additionally, candidate Trump was openly challenging the structure of NATO and demanding changes to the alliance. This was antithetical to the interests of the U.K. government and likely sent shockwaves through their collectivist system when candidate Trump won the GOP nomination. The Brits had a strong motive to see Trump destroyed and aligned with weaponized U.S. intelligence toward that end.

As President, Mr. Trump, has held true to his campaign promises and forced the British -and the EU writ large- to be more responsible for their own military security. President Trump has challenged the post-WW2 NATO structures and forced the EU to pay more for their defense. Many member nations are vocally unhappy with this shifted landscape because it means less money for liberal/socialist causes. [Note: Including Canada]

Lastly, the U.K. and E.U. (mostly German anxiety) are facing a much tougher trade objective as outlined by President Trump. The trade conflict is costing them billions in addition to their increased need to spend on their own defense via NATO to keep Trump off their back. He might be just one man, but President Trump has them surrounded.

President Trump is not allowing the same one-way benefits within the U.S. trade relationship with the EU; and as he highlighted with the use of tariffs, he is not hesitant to smash the EU economy (mostly Germany) with crippling auto-tariffs if needed.

Trump is leveraging access to the U.S. markets as pressure on the Europeans to comply with U.S. demands. The Europeans, including the British, are not used to this level of confrontation from the U.S. Their economic frames of reference surround acquiescence from prior American presidents. They are increasingly unnerved and the horrible President Trump simply doesn’t care.

And then there’s the newly emphasized Iran sanctions… the economic MOAB that threatens any/all European interests who might dare to get caught doing business with the Iranian regime. President Trump has shown he is not the least bit hesitant to pull the trigger on Treasury penalties against any nation or multinational interest who would defy the sanctions.

Simply put, the Brits did not like the idea of an American President who put America first. The question remains as to what they actually did about it.

It’s Hard To Get Anything Done When You Are A Lame-Duck Congress

I will admit that I am becoming very cynical about anyone being charged for misdeeds and abuses of power during the Obama administration. It seems as if the House of Representatives is making an effort, but I can’t help but think it is a lame effort that is simply too late.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about the upcoming hearings in the House of Representatives. The article notes that on November 22, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued subpoenas to both former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Former FBI Director Comey intends to fight the subpoena in court. Former Attorney General Lynch has not yet publicly responded to the subpoena. All they have to do is tie the case up in court until January when the Democrats take control of the House. The Democrats will drop the matter, and the FBI and Justice Department corruption will continue unabated. I hope I am wrong about this, but I doubt it.

The article reports:

“While the authority for congressional subpoenas is broad, it does not cover the right to misuse closed hearings as a political stunt to promote political as opposed to legislative agendas,” Kelley (one of Comey’s attorneys, David Kelley) said.

On November 22, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued subpoenas to both Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The former FBI Director responded on Thursday, tweeting that he will “resist” a “‘closed-door’ thing” — ironically claiming it was over his concerns about selective leaking.

Comey infamously leaked a memo of a private conversation between Trump and himself at the White House. This led to the Justice Department Inspector General conducting an investigation into classification issues related to his leaked memo.

While Comey may be attempting to claim that he is doing this for the sake of transparency, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has pointed out that during his last testimony he used the fact that it was public to dodge answering nearly 100 questions.

“So why in the world would he want to go back to a setting where he knows he can’t answer all the questions,” Gowdy asked on Fox News on Monday.

Stall, stall, stall, while the American people hope that someday justice will occur.