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“The Climate Is Changing, And Human Activities Are The Cause”: How, Exactly, Do We Know That? Francis Menton

Posted By on October 30th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-10-28-the-climate-is-warming-and-human-activities-are-the-cause-how-exactly-do-we-know-that

“The climate is changing, and we are the cause.” That is a statement that is so often-repeated and affirmed that it goes way beyond mere conventional wisdom. Probably, you encounter some version or another of that statement multiple times per week; maybe dozens of times. Everybody knows that it is true! And to express disagreement with that statement, probably more so than with any other element of current progressive orthodoxy, is a sure way to get yourself labeled a “science denier,” fired from an academic job, or even banished from the internet.

The UN IPCC’s recent Sixth Assessment Report on the climate is chock full of one version after another of the iconic statement, in each instance of course emphasizing that the human-caused climate changes are deleterious and even catastrophic. Examples:

Human influence has likely increased the chance of compound extreme events since the 1950s. This includes increases in the frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts on the global scale (high confidence); fire weather in some regions of all inhabited continents (medium confidence); and compound flooding in some locations (medium confidence). (Page A.3.5)

Event attribution studies and physical understanding indicate that human-induced climate change increases heavy precipitation associated with tropical cyclones (high confidence) but data limitations inhibit clear detection of past trends on the global scale. (Page A.3.4, Box TS.10)

Some recent hot extreme events would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system. (Page A.3.4, Box TX.10)

So, over and over, it’s that we have “high confidence” that human influence is the cause, or that events would have been “extremely unlikely” without human influence. But how, really, do we know that? What is the proof?

This seems to me to be rather an important question. After all, various world leaders are proposing to spend some tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars to undo what are viewed as the most important human influences on the climate (use of fossil fuels). Billions of people are to be kept in, or cast into, energy poverty to appease the climate change gods. Political leaders from every country in the world are about to convene in Scotland to agree to a set of mandates that will transform most everyone’s life. You would think that nobody would even start down this road without definitive proof that we know the cause of the problem and that the proposed solutions are sure to work.

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Turns Out Alexander Vindman Is The Dopey Hack We All Thought He Was John Daniel Davidson

Posted By on October 30th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/29/turns-out-alexander-vindman-is-the-dopey-hack-we-all-thought-he-was/

Alexander Vindman, the retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who helped plot the botched impeachment of former President Donald Trump in what amounted to a failed coup attempt, thinks Tucker Carlson should be “censured” for saying things Vindman doesn’t like about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In a tweet Thursday responding to a trailer Carlson posted for his new documentary, “Patriot Purge,” Vindman asked, idiotically, “How is this different than yelling fire in a crowded theater? Carlson is attempting to incite a riotous mob. He should be censured. I’d like to hear the arguments for/against this being protected speech.”

Well since you asked, the argument for Carlson’s documentary being protected speech is right there in the Bill of Rights, on the first page, where it says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. That includes reporting and commentary that some people, even disgraced former Army officers who try to remove duly elected presidents, disagree with.

It’s embarrassing for Vindman that this needs to be spelled out for him, but “protected speech” under the First Amendment includes pretty much everything except a handful of specific situations, none of which remotely have to do with Carlson’s documentary.

For example, you can’t call for imminent lawless action (or incitement). You also can’t issue what’s called a “true threat,” which the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 defined as “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” Fighting words is another, quite limited category of unprotected speech that’s restricted to face-to-face interactions meant to provoke a violent reaction from the person being addressed. Not covered in any of these categories is, say, political reporting and commentary that Vindman doesn’t like.

Vindman, the man who broke the chain of command and illegally leaked the contents of a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to a “whistleblower” in order to jump-start the Ukraine impeachment circus, is also confused about what “yelling fire in a crowded theater” means. People like Vindman always invoke the fire-in-a-crowded-theater line every time they want to justify censorship, and every time they reveal their bone-crushing ignorance.

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THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION HOAX: ROGER KIMBALL

Posted By on October 30th, 2021

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/january-6-insurrection-hoax/

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on September 20, 2021, during a Center for Constructive Alternatives conference on “Critical American Elections.”

Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all.

An “insurrection,” as the dictionary will tell you, is a violent uprising against a government or other established authority. Unlike the violent riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020—riots that caused some $2 billion in property damage and claimed more than 20 lives—the January 6 protest at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. lasted a few hours, caused minimal damage, and the only person directly killed was an unarmed female Trump supporter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. It was, as Tucker Carlson said shortly after the event, a political protest that “got out of hand.”

At the rally preceding the events in question, Donald Trump had suggested that people march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”—these were his exact words—in order to make their voices heard. He did not incite a riot; he stirred up a crowd. Was that, given the circumstances, imprudent? Probably. Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly.

I know this is not the narrative that we have all been instructed to parrot. Indeed, to listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation: the worst assault on “our democracy” since 9/11, since Pearl Harbor, and even—according to Joe Biden last April—since the Civil War! 

Note that phrase “our democracy”: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and various talking heads have repeated it ad nauseam. But you do not need an advanced degree in hermeneutics to understand that what they mean by “our democracy” is their oligarchy. Similarly, when Pelosi talks about “the people’s house,” she doesn’t mean a house that welcomes riff-raff like you and me.

I just alluded to Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed supporter of Donald Trump who was shot and killed on January 6. Her fate brings me to the second critical thing to understand about the January 6 insurrection hoax. Namely, that it was not a stand-alone event. 

On the contrary, what happened that afternoon, and what happened afterwards, is only intelligible when seen as a chapter in the long-running effort to discredit and, ultimately, to dispose of Donald Trump—as well as what Hillary Clinton might call the “deplorable” populist sentiment that brought Trump to power. 

In other words, to understand the January 6 insurrection hoax, you also have to understand that other long-running hoax, the Russia collusion hoax. The story of that hoax begins back in 2015, when the resources of the federal government were first mobilized to spy on the Trump campaign, to frame various people close to Trump, and eventually to launch a full-throated criminal investigation of the Trump administration. 

From before Trump took office, the Russia collusion hoax was used as a pretext to create a parallel administration shadowing the elected administration. Remember the Steele dossier, the fantastical document confected by the “well-regarded” former British spy Christopher Steele? We know now that it was the only relevant predicate for ordering FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page and other American citizens. 

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Joe Biden Take His Failures on Tour Roger Kimball

Posted By on October 30th, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/joe-biden-failure-g20-cop26-rome-glasgow/

How’s the ice cream in Rome? Joe Biden is about to find out. Word is he is excited about the gelato, which is A-OK, since it may distract him from the fact that he has nothing to report when he gets there.

The president — I mean, Joe Biden — was supposed to reestablish “normality” to an office so badly bruised by the mad tweeter — no, make that “ex-tweeter” — who came before.

“Normality” was one big selling point. The other was Biden’s vaunted foreign policy experience. Reality check one: was Joe Biden’s performance at that town hall with Anderson Cooper last week an exhibition of “normality”? Or was it yet another disagreeable instance of elder abuse, parading a man suffering from senile dementia before the cameras? Is there anything normal about that angry and intemperate old man.

And here’s reality check number two: the world historical disaster that was our collapse in Afghanistan, the likes of which we haven’t seen since at least the fall of Saigon and maybe not since William Elphinstone fled Kabul in 1842 with a crew of 16,000, precisely one of whom made it out alive. Joe Biden called the evacuation and collapse of Afghanistan an “extraordinary success.”  I’m told that the Chinese are having “Extraordinary Success” printed on t-shirts, to go along with ones bearing the legend “Let’s Go Brandon.”

High on the agenda in Rome is a “global minimum tax,” a truly grotesque idea that only someone who had given up on the nation state, as many of the participants in Rome will have already done, could entertain seriously. Joe had to leave the Swamp before Congress voted on his profligate infrastructure spending bill, mostly because it is not sufficiently profligate to suit the really crazed lefties who never learned how to count. A “global minimum tax” is just a gigantic wealth redistribution scheme, but why should rich countries subsidize poor ones? They shouldn’t, and besides declaring a supranational tax is one thing; enforcing it is something else.

Biden’s lack of a vote is also going to be a problem after he leaves Rome and travels to Glasgow to talk about “climate change.” He was supposed to have lots of money for that, too. Glasgow is a good place to hold a conference on climate change, because the weather there is always changing, though of course partisans of the green agenda don’t mean “weather” when they utter the word “climate.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Greek-U.S.-French Pact Is a Deterrent to Turkish Aggression by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17903/greece-us-france-pact

The strategic part of the deal states that France will rush to Greece’s aid militarily in the event of a third country attacking Greece. The clause adds that “even if the attacker is part of the NATO alliance.”

The accord rang alarm bells in Ankara. Turkey condemned the deal, along with “Greece’s maximalist claims” and said the accord is a threat to regional peace and stability. Ankara did not say, however, why Turkey is never a threat to regional peace and stability when it buys frigates, submarines and other naval platforms.

One should ask the Turks why they are upset about a military deal between two NATO allies. What is the difference between Greece buying frigates from France, and Turkey, for decades, buying frigates and submarines from Germany?

The emerging military pact within NATO that brings together the allies Greece, United States and France is bad news for Turkey — that is, if its President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan intends to fuel tensions in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas as part of his campaign strategy before presidential elections in 2023.

In recent months, Greek diplomacy has made a number of smart moves on the difficult chess board called the Aegean. These moves, coupled with Turkey’s increasingly pressing problems at home and on foreign fronts, will restrict Erdoğan’s aggression to “aggressive rhetoric” only, and rule out “aggressive action.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Peronist Pontiff Gasbags with Addled American by Christopher Akehurst

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/10/peronist-pontiff-gasbags-with-addled-american/

Flogging a dead horse is nothing unusual. Some people – Australian republicans, campaigners for “balance” on the ABC, British EU “rejoiners” – do it all the time. But two dead horses flogging each other is a rare spectacle. That’s why it will be such a privilege to watch President Biden and Pope Francis in Rome on Friday demonstrating with their unique skills just how this act of deceased equine futility is done: two not very pleasant elderly exemplars of unprincipled ambition reinforcing one another in the illusion that each has something useful to say to the world, something to contribute to the betterment of mankind.

The pair of them will meet in the Vatican to earbash each other on the “climate emergency”. One assumes there will be plenty of black coffee on hand; it wouldn’t do for any of the assembled cardinals and diplomats to yield to the torpor and nod off while these two geriatric bores drone on about the world’s most tedious topic.

Insomniacs on the other hand might find it quite a treat as a senile opportunist and a crafty Peronist schemer try to outdo each other in lecturing us on what we should be going without for the sake of the weather. One hopes that some Vatican functionary is arranging for the wind generated by their combined utterances to be sustainably “harvested”. It could power the floodlighting of St Peter’s.

Biden is on his way, or being steered there, by his keepers, to extrude his verbal contribution to that Olympiad for climate catastrophics, COP26 in Glasgow. Francis had been going too, but changed his mind. Too many other blowhards, he probably decided. As his dictatorial papal style has long demonstrated, he doesn’t like competition. He always has to be the centre of attention.

One might wonder why a Pope is shoving his oar in on secular matters, but perhaps the kingdom not of this world is too small a stage for his talents. Anyway, a quick tête-à-tête in Rome will have to suffice for his agenda with Biden. Can we hazard a guess about what they’ll come up with?

First they’ll diagnose what to do about the climate. This will no doubt be along the lines of less coal for everyone except China, immediate canonisation of St Greta the Ecobrat, wind turbines on all church towers, bath night on Saturdays only – practical steps like that. Next one imagines them turning their attention to solving the COVID crisis. Jail anyone who calls it the China virus might well be Francis’s contribution, since he and President Xi are now all hotsy-totsy together since their agreement to accede to Beijing’s demand and throw China’s loyal Catholics under the bus, or in this case the Tiananmen tank, in return for the Vatican not saying unkind things about Xi’s persecution of the Uighurs. Yes, it’s that kind of one-way deal, a real bargain for the Church.

Biden’s take on COVID will be whatever floats through Dr Fauci’s mind that morning transcribed to the presidential autocue.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

What if Clinton had come clean? Wow, is America screwed up about sex. It is one of many things that helps destroy American politics Douglas Murray

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/bill-clinton-come-clean-affair-impeachment/

What if Bill Clinton had told the truth? Would America’s sexual and political history be different? The thought occurs because of the new TV drama Impeachment about the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Somewhat unfairly to both main parties, it is part of the American Crime Story series. Previous subjects have included O.J. Simpson and Andrew Cunanan, who killed Gianni Versace. It’s a bit rich putting Bill Clinton in the same bracket as these murder cases. Nonetheless, the result is intriguing, not just because of the magnificent acting and production — and not only because in the quarter of a century since the world’s most famous blowjob a certain axis of society seems to have turned.

Back then Monica Lewinsky was the butt of every joke. In the ancient-modern parlance she was “shamed.” Late-night comedians, like everyone else on the planet, did jokes you can still rattle off: “Girl in her class voted most likely to suck-seed” — that sort of thing. A friend was at a post-Oscars party in 2001, the year Bjork came dressed as a swan. Shortly afterwards Monica Lewinsky entered the room. “Should have come as a swallow,” my friend quipped.

Of course, in the light of #MeToo, all that has changed. Now Bill Clinton (played by Clive Owen) is a brooding menace. He literally comes out of the shadows every time they meet. He is the abuser, she the abused. Because that is how all male-female power relations have been reformulated in recent times. It doesn’t hurt that Lewinsky is a producer on the show, allowing herself to come across almost wholly as an innocent little victim. Personally this grates with me — because as well as being an obsessive and a nut, the woman playing Lewinsky looks like that actress from Hairspray who made me grind my teeth and turn off in under five minutes.

But none of this is what is interesting. What is interesting is the question that has only come up once in the show so far: what, as I say, if Bill Clinton had told the truth?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Can U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Sing? by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17895/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen

Can U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sing? And if she can carry a tune, does she know the words to “Brother can you spare a dime?”

At the height of the Great Depression that song, written by Yip Harburg, became a grim national anthem as unemployment soared, the economy cratered and the American dream was crushed for middle class citizens and those aspiring to be so. The lyrics reflected the desperation of panhandlers living in Central Park who had lost everything, including hope. It may well turn out to be the song sung during the next three years as we fall into the dangerous financial abyss of a self-described “progressive” agenda that would place a staggering multi-trillion dollar debt on the nation.

Yellen’s pursuit of new revenue to fund Biden’s mega deficit literally knows no boundaries. Before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Development Committee, Yellen was forced to defend the Administration’s unconscionable proposal that would require banks to disclose every financial transaction over $600 to the Internal Revenue Service.

An outraged U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis asked, “Do you distrust the American people so much that you need to know when they bought a couch? Or a cow?”

Yellen’s various proposals are a chilling overreach that reveals the corrosive intrusion of a sneering anti-capitalist agenda. Yellen’s next steps could easily be the creation of a Profit Posse that would track down any transaction by anyone that could conceivably be taxed, confiscated or penalized. The ghosts of commissars interred in the former Soviet Union would smile in approval.

The Treasury Secretary’s words reveal much about the Administration’s growth-killing ideology — which has abandoned much of Europe to economic stagnation — and its pursuit of a multi-trillion social welfare budget, when she says, “We’ve grown used to America as the world’s pre-eminent economic power…. We aren’t destined to stay that way, but with these investments, I believe we will.”

Yellen clearly echoes the counter-factual insistence that massive deficits are America’s future, while ignoring the historic destruction wrought on other nations whose sovereignty disintegrated under massive debt. She conveniently disregards the billions of dollars in “pork” and institutional corruption that Biden’s multi-trillion dollar “Build Back Better” program would hide as it installs one “temporary,” set-to-balloon government program after another. A more honest name would be “Bust, Bury and Bye.”

If Yellen had the political courage of Senators Joseph Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, she would publicly confront the Biden Administration and refuse to be a co-conspirator in destroying our nation’s future. Instead, Yellen would denounce the pork barrel spending in Biden’s proposal, and stand fast against raising the debt limit while seeking business incentives such as low-interest government loans to advance business expansion in America. She would also increase charitable donations to 501(c)3 not-for-profit organizations to enable donors to have a bonus 150% tax credit.

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The Freak-Out Over Tucker’s January 6 Documentary Begins The original narrative about January 6 is not to be disturbed, no matter how many facets of that original narrative have been shattered. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/28/the-freak-out-over-tuckers-january-6-documentary-begins/

Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night played a brief trailer for his three-part documentary looking at the events of January 6. “Patriot Purge” will premiere on Fox Nation, the network’s streaming service, on November 1.

Clips hint that the film compares the prosecution of Capitol protesters and anyone associated with the events of January 6 to the initial war on terror, a wholly legitimate comparison that my reporting confirms. For example, as I explained in April, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines issued a report earlier this year warning “domestic violent extremists” pose a heightened threat to the nation. Not one for subtlety, Haines included a sketch of the U.S. Capitol in the document; House Republicans at the time blasted Haines for working outside her legal authority—the intelligence community is supposed to hunt foreign terrorists, not MAGA-supporting meemaws—to target American citizens.

Unfortunately, most Americans are unaware that the Biden regime, with a big assist from the news media, is indeed conducting a domestic war on terror aimed at the political Right. 

Democrats do not want the public to hear the details of Ashli Babbitt’s shooting death at the hands of Capitol Police, or the likely role of the FBI in what happened that day, or how armed federal agents have raided Trump supporters’ homes at dawn, in front of their terrified children and horrified neighbors, and dragged out in handcuffs to face various trespassing misdemeanors.

Democrats do not want the public to know about an inhumane jail in the nation’s capital used exclusively to punish Trump supporters, who have been denied any chance at bail by ruthless government prosecutors and hostile Beltway judges. Abusive conduct by Capitol and D.C. Metro Police officers, which included attacking the crowd with flashbangs, rubber bullets, and copious amounts of mace and other chemicals, must be kept under wraps. So, too, must at least 14,000 hours of surveillance footage captured by security cameras on January 6.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Wisconsin Sheriff’s Office Presents Evidence Showing Election Board Committed Felony Election Fraud in 2020 By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 29th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/28/wisconsin-sheriffs-office-presents-evidence-showing-election-board-committed-felony-election-fraud-in-2020/

During a press conference Thursday, the Racine County Sheriff’s Department alleged that the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) committed felony election fraud during the 2020 election.

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and Sgt. Michael Luell presented evidence showing eight cases of election fraud at a Mount Pleasant nursing home, which included false claims that residents were “indefinitely incapacitated” in order to vote by absentee ballot, and an unlawful rule that directed staffers to fill out ballots for residents, rather than “Special Voting Deputies.”

Schmaling said that nursing homes throughout the entire state received the same instructions from the WEC to engage in these illegal practices.

Sgt. Luell explained that the applications for absentee ballots include a certification that people people are indefinitely confined. “If that certification is made falsely, it has penalties,” he said. “They’re criminal.” Luell said penalties include jail time, and fines.

“What I saw, and was documented, is these applications were prefilled out for the residents, and the certification was either checked before, or sometimes after the resident put their signature on this document,” Luell said.