The New Definition Of Low Income

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the Biden administration’s continuing push to convince Americans that electric vehicles are a good idea. The mental and verbal gymnastics in this effort are becoming comical.

The headline of the article reads:

Biden Admin Classifies Martha’s Vineyard, Elite Locales As ‘Low-Income’ To Push EV Charger Subsidies

The article reports:

The Biden administration is classifying some of the country’s most elite and exclusive locales as “low-income” areas, making them eligible for electric vehicle (EV) charger subsidy programs.

The administration’s EV charger tax credit program — made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill — is specifically designed to route subsidies to “low-income” or “non-urban” areas of the country. The “low-income” emphasis for eligibility aligns in spirit with the Biden administration’s wider pursuit of so-called “environmental justice,” which is effectively the combination of social justice ideology and green policy.

Numerous elite hangouts and locales — including Montauk and Fishers Island in New York, and parts of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts — are among the areas that the administration has classified as “low-income” and eligible for receipt of EV charger subsidies, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) interactive eligibility map.

Building out a nationwide charging network is a key supporting plank of the Biden administration’s EV agenda, but the charging infrastructure that currently exists is concentrated in wealthier, more densely-populated coastal regions of the country. The Biden administration’s tax credit program is designed to blunt the costs of charger construction specifically in non-urban, less wealthy parts of the country that would be less likely to install them.

“This tax credit provides up to 30% off the cost of the charger to individuals and businesses in low-income communities and non-urban areas, making it more affordable to install EV charging infrastructure and increasing access to EV charging in underserved communities,” the White House stated on Jan. 19.

To meet the “low-income” definition, a given Census tract must have a poverty rate of 20% or more. Alternatively, an area can qualify if the median family income is below 80% of the median family income in the wider metropolitan area or in its state if a given Census tract is not part of any particular metropolitan area, according to section 45D(e) of the Internal Revenue Code.

In practice, however, the latter definition for a “low-income” area enables places that may not be colloquially considered “low-income” to qualify for the credit by virtue of being located in a wealthy state or metropolitan area.

Some of these ‘low-income’ areas include homes worth over a million dollars. Unfortunately, this is simply another example of the Biden administration paying off its wealthy donors.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. Many of us would love to live in some of the low-income areas that are getting the tax credits.

Why Are Environmentalists Killing Whales?

On Friday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

  • A large offshore wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard has begun nearly two years after federal regulators approved “take” permits for the project’s developer allowing for thousands of incidental killings of marine mammals, including dozens of whales protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and up to 20 endangered North Atlantic right whales.
  • Federal regulation allows for the approval of take permits for marine life so long as the permitted number of incidental deaths has a minimal effect on the longer-term viability of the species.
  • The construction process for the turbines necessitates underwater blasts of noise which “are louder than a jet engine at 25 yards” of distance, New England Fishermen Stewardship Association (NEFSA) President Jerry Leeman told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

If wind energy is about saving the planet and preserving life on earth, why is it acceptable to kill whales that are protected under the Endangered Species Act? If you haven’t figured it out by now, green energy is not about green energy. Green energy is about nations losing their national sovereignty and granted authority to global bodies to determine how they generate energy, how they feed their populations, and how much energy they are allowed to use. It is also about transferring wealth.

The following is a quote from an article I posted on March 30, 2016:

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday about climate change scientists and the alarmism that seems to follow people who talk about climate change.

That article states:

If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.

Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

Are you paying attention yet?

 

Follow The Money

How did the illegal immigrants promptly moved off of Martha’s Vineyard know who to call to sue Governor DeSantis? How did they even come to the conclusion that they could sue? Well, Breitbart News did some investigating and seems to have discovered the answers to those questions.

Breitbart reports:

A left-wing non-governmental organization (NGO) partially funded by billionaire George Soros is behind a lawsuit targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for flying illegal aliens to the elite coastal island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Late last week, DeSantis sent two flights packed with 50 illegal aliens from Venezuela to Martha’s Vineyard, where former President Obama has a sprawling 29-acre summer estate.

A handful of illegal aliens flown to Martha’s Vineyard have since filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis, alleging their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated. The illegal aliens are being represented by lawyers at Alianza Americas — an NGO that has received nearly $1.4 million from Soros’s Open Society Foundation from 2016 to 2020.

Most of the Soros funding to Alianza Americas has gone to promote an open border agenda between the United States, Mexico, and Central America, including lobbying for pro-mass immigration policies in the U.S.

The article includes the following:

The article concludes:

Despite the backlash from elected Democrats and the open borders lobby, DeSantis has vowed to fly more illegal aliens to sanctuary jurisdictions and the doorsteps of the Democrat Party’s wealthiest and most well-connected donors.

That may be the only way to get the Democrats and some Republicans to close the border. Please understand–if enough members of either party actually wanted the border closed, it would be closed by now. The Democrats want future voters and the Republican corporate types want cheap labor. Meanwhile American citizens and American workers are thrown under the bus.

 

The Classic Definition Of Chutzpah

On Tuesday, The Hill reported the following:

The group of Venezuelan migrants flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) filed a class-action suit against the governor and the state’s transportation secretary on Tuesday.

The suit provides a detailed account of how the migrants came to board the two planes allegedly under false pretenses, arguing the relocations violated their Fourth and 14th Amendment rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

People who broke the law to get here and are here illegally have rights? Wow. Does America have the right to arrest them for breaking into our country?

The article continues:

The suit, filed in a federal trial court in Massachusetts, asks a judge to declare DeSantis’s relocations illegal under the Constitution as well as federal and state laws. It also asks the judge to prevent Florida from inducing immigrants to travel across state laws by fraud and misrepresentation.

Did Martha’s Vineyard have the right to move them to another part of Massachusetts?

The article reports:

Alianza Americas, a network of groups supporting immigrants, filed the class action suit with three unnamed migrants DeSantis relocated, claiming the scheme also constituted intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and fraud.

Boston-based group Lawyers for Civil Rights said its attorneys, who have been on the island since last week, are representing the plaintiffs.

Are any of those lawyers offering to house any of the illegal immigrants?

The article concludes:

The plaintiffs said the migrants boarded the flights with the belief they would land in Washington, D.C. or Boston, but they were told while in the air they would instead be arriving in Martha’s Vineyard.

They were also allegedly given a brochure that outlined support services in Massachusetts, but the programs referenced had “highly specific eligibility requirements” that the migrants did not meet, the suit said.

“Once the individual Plaintiffs and class members landed, it became clear that the promises made to induce them on the planes were in fact bold-faced lies,” it stated.

The migrants have since been relocated to a military base elsewhere in Massachusetts. 

DeSantis has said the flights were “just the beginning” of relocation efforts.          

I believe it is noteworthy that the migrants were removed from Martha’s Vineyard less than two days after they arrived. It is off season on the Vineyard, and it would have been very easy to put 50 people up in hotel rooms. However, that was not allowed to happen. I wonder if the year-round residents of the Vineyard will now take down their yard signs that say everyone is welcome here and hate has no place here. It’s very easy to welcome everyone when you are an island only accessible by plane or boat.

When It’s Too Close To Home

It’s very easy to be in favor of unlimited immigration and sanctuary cities until 50 people show up in your neighborhood with no visible means of support. That is essentially what happened to the residents of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. However, the residents of Martha’s Vineyard, unlike most of us, have amazing political connections that can change things very quickly. The 50 illegal immigrants that arrived on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday were shipped off to a Cape Cod military base on Friday.

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported:

On Friday morning three buses pulled up outside of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown to take the mostly Venezuelan migrants on the first leg of their journey to the ferry.

They will be travelling from the elite island of billionaires with holiday mansions – including multi-million homes owned by the Obama’s and Oprah – to the military base on the mainland, escorted by police. 

Lisa Belcastro, a homelessness director in the area said on Thursday that the island cannot support the migrants – where the median home price is nearly $1m- because it is facing a shortage of affordable housing.

The median house in Martha’s Vineyard is worth almost $800,000, according to the census, and the median household income is $77,370 – well above the national average of $67,521.

She told reporters that at ‘some point they have to move somewhere else’, because the island is suffering from a ‘housing crisis’.

The JBCC joint-use base home to five military commands training for missions at home and overseas, conducting airborne search and rescue missions, and intelligence command and control.

The article points out some of the hypocrisy:

Keith Chatinover, a Democrat county commissioner for the area, made comments previously that he would ‘love’ to make the area a ‘haven’ for immigrants.

His comments came in response to Sen Ted Cruz’s pushing a bill for Democrat-led areas to become post of entry for processing migrants.

But he now appears unhappy at having his wish granted, and has retweeted attacks against the Florida governor of being a fascist and human trafficker for sending migrants to the billionaires’ enclave.

He told the MVTimes in October 2021: ‘I would love Martha’s Vineyard to become a haven for new immigrants to this country, but Senator Cruz has no idea what he’s talking about regarding a ‘border crisis.’

But now he is being called out for the comments, after branding DeSantis a ‘fascist’ for escalating the immigration war with Democrat-run areas.

Cruz tweeted that he was ‘confused’ over Chatinover slamming DeSantis for flying the illegal immigrants into the area.

Chatinover tweeted that he does ‘support refugee resettlement’ but has an issue when they are not given ‘advance notice’ to ‘adequately help’ the migrants.

He added that the chaos of the situation for the Republicans to ‘prove a point’ was a ‘blatant disregard’ for human rights.

Chatinover retweeted someone else who called DeSantis ‘fascist scum’ who said he should be ‘prosecuted for human trafficking.’

This event has truly exposed the double standard of many of those who say they support open borders.

When The Problem Comes Home

On Friday, Power Line Blog posted an article about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s shipping of illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard. Martha’s Vineyard is a beautiful place, and I am sure that the immigrants were glad to land there. Unfortunately, the people who live on Martha’s Vineyard were not particularly excited to see the illegal aliens.

The article reports:

The strategy of Greg Abbott and others to send illegal aliens to sanctuary cities around the country was a stroke of genius. Not that it was original: for at least the last five or six years, a friend has been emailing me to the effect that illegals should be sent to Marin County, Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco mansion, and, above all, Martha’s Vineyard. That, he said, would bring the open border problem to a screeching halt.

And it may. Ron DeSantis’s master stroke of sending two planeloads of aliens to Martha’s Vineyard has made liberal heads explode. The irony is evident to everyone. These places are “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens, but if they actually see a few of them they panic. Their yards boast “All Are Welcome Here” signs, but it turns out that some are more welcome than others.

Rasmussen finds that most people approve of Governor Abbott’s shipping illegals to sanctuary cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., by 52% to 36%. Those 36% are diehard Democrats who think it is fine for Texas to try to deal with one million aliens, but an outrage if a liberal city has to take on a few hundred.

Unlike most Americans, liberals don’t appreciate the irony. Their reaction has been priceless.

The meme below is posted at the bottom of the article:

The article concludes:

Members of the West Tisbury Select Board were told about the unexpected development during a Wednesday night meeting at which Town Administrator Jennifer Rand said she’d been receiving “furious texts” from residents, the MV Times reported.

I’ll bet they were furious! Not just anyone can live on Martha’s Vineyard. Maybe the Vineyard folks can ship the unwanted illegal aliens to a more downscale location, like the Hamptons. Or else the illegal immigrants, of whom there are only around 50, could all stay at Barack Obama’s $12 million estate. There is plenty of room there, and I understand his mansion has 10 bathrooms. That would be more than enough. But don’t hold your breath.

In all seriousness, if there is anything that could motivate Democrats to accept United States sovereignty, this is probably it.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that Governor Abbott also bused around 100 illegals to Kamala Harris’s Washington, D.C., residence, the Naval Observatory. This was in response to Harris’s absurd claim that the southern border is “secure.” No way, say the illegals themselves: the border is “open!” Let’s have more of this, until the Democrats say “Uncle.”

UPDATE: Will the Obamas come through for their illegal friends? Some are doubtful:

Energy For Me, But Not For Thee

The hypocrisy of those flying around in private jets telling the rest of us to deal with the unreliable aspect of green energy has reached new heights.

On Thursday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

Instead of installing windmills and solar panels for someone so concerned about global warming, former President Barack Obama has ordered the installation of three massive propane gas tanks, two sized at 1,000 gallons and another one at 500 gallons, at his Martha’s Vineyard estate which sits along the “rising” seashore.

According to a report from The Martha’s Vineyard Times, the office of the select board of Edgartown, Massachusetts approved an application for a 2,500-gallon commercial propane tank for 79 Turkeyland Cove Road in Katama, a property owned by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

These three propane tanks were to be installed above ground on the Obamas’ property, in contrast with the initial report that it will be buried.

The fact that the tanks will be above ground amazes me, but I can’t imagine a Massachusetts Board of Selectmen turning down any request from former President Obama.

The article notes:

Propane is a fossil fuel and is listed as an approved clean alternative fuel under the Clean Air Act of 1990.

“You might be surprised to know that propane, made when methane is purified for commercial use, takes its place on the carbon continuum close to the renewables, which is why the EPA has designated propane a clean energy alternative and why propane is designated a clean energy alternative under the Energy Policy Act of 1992,” FS company stated.

In 2016, Barack Obama tweeted that “renewable energy installations are beating fossil fuel installations for the first time.”

Energy for me, but not for thee.

Maybe The Rules Weren’t Only For The Little People

There was a bit of a ruckus recently about former President Obama’s birthday party. Americans were told it was scaled down from the original numbers, but the leaked photographs didn’t really look very scaled down. However, in a free society, anyone is entitled to have any birthday party he chooses as long as he is willing to accept the consequences of his decision. Well, the consequences arrived.

Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported that 74 people on Martha’s Vineyard have tested positive for Covid-19 since former President Barack Obama’s 60th birthday on Saturday. Actually, testing positive isn’t that big of a deal–a lot of our test results are not accurate. The article also notes that as of now there is no connection between the sudden spike in cases and former President Obama’s party. If there were a connection, would we know?

The article reports:

But some of the island’s residents scoffed at the measures to create a COVID-free zone, given that partygoers were circulating between various events and locations, in a town raging with a Delta strain that spreads quickly. 

Even vaccinated individuals aren’t immune. Of the 48 people who tested positive last week, more than half were vaccinated, according to health officials.

‘I wouldn’t have gone to the party even if I was invited,’ one resident of Edgartown, who had a friend working at the party, told DailyMail.com. 

‘I’m sure some attendees went home with some extra luggage they didn’t pack or see. Stay tuned.’

It seems that we may need to re-evaluate the vaccine. Given the fact that the majority of the attendees at former President Obama’s birthday party were under the age of 70, I suspect there will be few, if any, hospitalizations or deaths. When we examine the extreme measures that the government has taken in reacting to this disease, it might be a good idea to consider that the vast majority of the deaths from Covid-19 occur in people over the age of 70. The rest of us, if we are basically healthy, have a very limited risk of serious complications from the disease.

Eventually The Truth Comes Out

I lived in Massachusetts for a long time. Ted Kennedy was my Senator. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do about that. He was known to be a womanizer who did not always have the best interests of America in mind. At one point he wrote a letter to a Russian leader asking for help in making sure Ronald Reagan did not get elected. He also had addiction problems and was not noted for telling the truth. Nevertheless, he continued to get elected. I don’t know if the people of Massachusetts didn’t realize the kind of person he was or if they didn’t care. At any rate, the truth about Ted Kennedy is now coming out.

Yesterday The National Review posted an article about the movie “Chappaquiddick.” The movie deals with the events on Martha’s Vineyard the night Mary Jo Kopechne was killed. The movie is an honest portrayal (as honest as possible considering we really don’t know exactly what the chain of events was) of the events of July 18, 1969.

The article concludes:

Only the patriarch himself, Joe Kennedy (Bruce Dern), who is undone by a stroke and has only four months to live, reacts with the proper fury, slapping Ted on behalf of the nation. Imagine having sons like Joe Jr., John, and Robert and being left with only this one, the one expelled from Harvard for cheating, the one who was cited for reckless driving while a law student. Ted himself recognizes the futility of trying to match his legendary brothers: After what they did, he asks, what sobriquet does that leave for me? The fat one? The dumb one? An early scene of Kennedy racing his sailboat nails his personality: sloppy, vain, entitled, a man you wouldn’t trust to change your tire.

Yet in the end, aided by a confluence of forces both extraterrestrial (Apollo 11, which dominated the news that week) and tribal (Ted Sorensen, the family expert in blowing smoke), Senator Kennedy managed to save his career. All that Massachusetts voters required was a sincere apology, and he could fake that.

And so we had Ted Kennedy in the Senate from 1962 until 2009 doing untold damage to the country and to the U.S. Constitution.

 

Why Americans Get Angry Over Government Spending

There are a lot of reasons Americans are upset over government overspending. The deficit has been relatively stable in recent months, but has grown exponentially during the Obama Administration. Recently, there have been some real questions as to whether or not our tax dollars are being spent wisely.

On Saturday I posted an article (rightwinggranny.com) about a California surfer who is happily living off the largess of the American taxpayer. There is no work requirement for him to collect benefits, and he has no intention of going to work. Americans are generous people who care about the less fortunate, but I think most of us resent paying for the lifestyle of someone who simply would rather not work. There is also the matter of wasteful spending.

On Sunday the U.K. Telegraph reported that the White House dog, Bo, had been airlifted to Martha’s Vineyard via two MV-22 Ospreys. This was the first time the Ospreys have been taken on holiday by a US president.

The U.K. Daily Mail reports:

It is estimated the cost of the entire vacation, including the 75 rooms booked at a nearby hotel for staff and security, could reach $2 million.

I don’t think that two million includes the cost of the two Ospreys used to fly in the dog.

These two examples of spending that could easily by limited illustrate the problem with the budget debate in Washington. Most Washington politicians have no desire to cut federal spending–the more money they control, the more power they believe they have. Some of the Tea Party Congressmen are exceptions to the rule that politicians always want to spend more, but there are not enough Tea Party Congressmen to make a difference. If we want to see Washington change, we need to send different people to Washington. As long as we keep sending the same people to Washington, we will get the same result. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The American voter is currently the biggest obstacle to reforming spending in Washington. Don’t blame Congress–you elected them.

Just for the record, I don’t begrudge President Obama a vacation–I just think they should have taken the dog on Air Force One and avoided a separate flight by the Ospreys.

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