ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Energy Transition Ain’t Happening: “Green” Economy In Retreat Francis Menton

Posted By on August 4th, 2024

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=f26d0984d8

As mentioned in my recent post from July 20, there are many data points gradually accumulating as to the lack of progress toward the so-called “green” economy. It has long been clear to people who think about it that the energy transition to “net zero” is a fantasy that will not occur. But the question remains of exactly how the mania will come to an end. Will the net zero fantasies of the climate cultists proceed at full speed until they crash into a wall of physical reality (e.g., blackouts)? Or instead will these fantasies gradually retreat as governments respond to voter pressure over costs and convenience, and as investors pull back as it becomes clear that projects cannot succeed financially?

A July 30 piece from John Miltimore of the American Institute for Economic Research supports the second alternative. The title is “Why the ‘Green Economy’ Is Suddenly in Retreat—in EU, US, and on Wall Street.” Meanwhile New York, at least for the moment, remains hell-bent on moving toward a full-on crash.

Miltimore’s piece collects data from multiple sources — notably the recent EU elections, EU regulatory changes, and actions of major U.S. investors. The most significant item in the piece relates to the withdrawal of several of the largest U.S. fund managers from something called Climate Action 100+. Climate Action 100+ describes itself as “an investor-led initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take appropriate action on climate change in order to mitigate financial risk and to maximize the long-term value of assets.” But it seems that in recent months some of the biggest investors have decided to change strategy. J.P. Morgan Chase and State Street have “pulled all funds” from Climate Action 100+ commitments, while their even larger colleague Black Rock “reduced its holdings and scaled back its ties to the group.” Miltimore cites a New York Times article from February quantifying the various withdrawals: “All told, the moves amount to a nearly $14 trillion exit from an organization meant to marshal Wall Street’s clout to expand the climate agenda.” $14 trillion is a big number in anybody’s book.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Kamalaflage: Dems race to expunge the evidence of Harris’ leftist history By James Bovard

Posted By on August 4th, 2024

https://nypost.com/2024/07/30/opinion/kamalaflage-dems-race-to-rewrite-harris-leftist-history/

Vice President Kamala Harris last year heartily condemned any effort “to erase and even rewrite the ugly parts of our history.”  

But she didn’t mention that the “ugly parts” of her own record would be exempt from such a rewrite ban.

Now a tidal wave of Kamalaflage has engulfed the presidential contest, as Harris’ entire career is being miraculously expunged — or at least purified — in a craven evidence-rigging stampede by media outlets and supposedly nonpartisan scorekeepers.

Democrats and the media are looking to to erase and rewrite Vice President Kamala Harris’ past hard-left policy positions.

Harris plainly ascended to the nomination thanks to a de facto coup of Democratic Party kingpins and donors.

Yet The Washington Post on Sunday hailed those machinations as “the most spectacular transformation in recent American political history, a flashbang midsummer swap at the top of the presidential ticket.”

Perhaps the paper should change its motto to “Democracy dies as a spectator sport,” given its effusive praise for the Democrats’ willingness to sideline their own primary voters.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats vs. the Man Who Could Get to the Bottom of the Trump Shooting Julie Kelly

Posted By on August 4th, 2024

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/07/30/democrats_vs_the_man_who_could_get_to_the_bottom_of_the_trump_shooting_1047928.html

After the evasive House testimony of now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s shortlived suggestion that Donald Trump may not have been hit by a bullet, one man alone may help allay Republican fears that the Biden administration will not conduct a forthright investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump last month: Joseph Cuffari.

The Trump-appointed inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has already opened two investigations into the U.S. Secret Service, which is under the purview of the DHS, related to the agency’s handling of the July 13 shooting.

But some Republicans are concerned because, they say, Cuffari has been stonewalled by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on other internal examinations – including one that might have revealed Secret Service lapses that might have prevented the attempt on Trump’s life. 

Specifically, congressional sources tell RCI that Cuffari’s report, “USSS Preparation for and Response to the Events of January 6, 2021,” has been on Mayorkas’ desk since at least April.

The report, according to Politico, will “cast light on a series of embarrassing security lapses for the agency.” And given some comparisons between Jan. 6 and July 13, the report might shed light on systemic issues that impacted both events.

For example, unanswered questions remain as to why the Secret Service allowed Trump to take the stage at The Ellipse outside the White House around noon on Jan. 6 amid reports of individuals with weapons in the vicinity – a question many Americans have about the July 13 assassination attempt. Law enforcement and spectators noted the presence of a suspicious individual, later identified as the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, at least a half hour before Trump took the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In addition, no one has explained how the Secret Service failed to notice an alleged pipe bomb found outside the Democrat National Committee DC office on Jan. 6 – while then Vice President-elect Harris was inside the building. Previous reporting by RCI shows multiple law enforcement officers, including one with a bomb-sniffing dog, walking past the bench where the device was found. 

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: ALFRED NAKACHE AND THE 1936 OLYMPICS

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

FROM THE JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS

https://mailchi.mp/jewishreviewofbooks.com/a-great-jew-in-the-olympics-and-remembering-david-biale-1949-2024-yehi-zichro-baruch?e=655142cc61

Last week, just before the Olympic opening ceremonies in Paris, I sat down with UCLA historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein to talk about Alfred Nakache, the French North African Olympian, on the Jewish Review of Books Podcast. Nakache swam for France at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, fought for the Free French Forces in World War II, was betrayed by a fascist rival swimmer, and deported to Auschwitz . . . then swam for France again in 1948. We talked not only about his remarkable career but the ways in which his life exemplified the experience of North African Jews in the Holocaust, the vagaries of Vichy policy, mid-century butterfly technique, and much more. 

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Democrats Have An Antisemitism Problem And Its Time To Call It Out Eric Levine

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

No URL

For all their handwringing and sanctimonious garbage about fighting hate, Progressive Democrats  (the ascendant and dominate wing of the Democrat Party) are fighting tooth and nail to prevent their anointed presumptive presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, from selecting Pennsylvania Governor,  Josh Shapiro as her running mate.  His shortcoming: he is a proud Jew. 

Their beef with him is not about his economic plans. They are comfortable with his social policies.  He is a proven vote getter:  He ran 14 points ahead of Joe Biden in 2020.  They are willing to accept that he is a privileged white male.  They have reconciled themselves to the fact that Harris is likely to select a heterosexual.  Their objection is that he is critical of and has condemned the explosion of antisemitism at the University of Pennsylvania and on college campuses and in cities across America.

Unfortunately for Shapiro, those protestors are not white supremacist, Trump voters.  They are reliable anti-American, pro-Hamas, Jew hating, Harris voters.  How dare he speak out against them and support Israel in its war of national survival against Iran and its terrorist proxies.  It is one thing to be sad when Jews die.  But it is an article of faith that Jews are not permitted to fight back.  That is the unforgivable sin.  That is the bridge too far. 

For that he must be punished.  For Progressives, when it comes to hate, there is always an exception for the Jews. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Evan Gershkovich’s Freedom—and the Forever War Against Tyrants On one side of the swap: terrorists, killers, and spies. On the other: dissidents, journalists, and prisoners of conscience. Bari Weiss

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/bari-weiss-evan-gershkovichs-freedomand

On March 29, 2023, a 31-year-old American named Evan Gershkovich was meeting a source at a steakhouse in the city of Yekaterinburg, east of the Ural Mountains. The Wall Street Journal reporter had planned to return to his apartment in Moscow, but he never got there: he was picked up by the FSB and dragged out of the restaurant with his shirt pulled over his head. Then, a few months later, the American son of Soviet émigrés was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony on sham charges of espionage.

Today—491 days since his arrest—he is on a plane back to freedom.

His release was part of what the Journal called the “largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.” (You can read about the secret negotiations that led to the exchange in the WSJ.)

On one side of the swap: terrorists, killers, and spies, including, most infamously, Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian assassin who was serving a life sentence in Germany for murdering a Chechen fighter in a Berlin park in 2019. There are eight such villains worthy of a Homeland episode currently en route to Russia.

On the other side: journalists, dissidents, and democratic activists. There are sixteen of them.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Putin’s prisoner release echoes a hostage release in January 1981 By Milli Sands

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/putin_s_prisoner_release_echoes_a_hostage_release_in_january_1981.html

Our adversaries fear strong presidents and will either try to keep them from office or yield to the inevitable. That may explain the events of the last two weeks.

On July 19, 2024, at the RNC convention, Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican nomination for President. During his speech, he said:

To the entire world, I tell you this: We want our hostages back, and they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.”

There are more than 60 Americans being held hostage or wrongly detained around the world.

Thirteen days later, on August 01, 2024, this news broke:

The Biden administration has agreed to a prisoner exchange with Russia and is expected to soon secure the release of three American citizens imprisoned in Russia including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a senior administration official confirms. Others are believed to be part of the deal.

Boom! Before Trump assumes office, Russia decides to release its political prisoners.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Other Olympics, Where Israel Stands Out Winning more medals than students from all 57 Muslim countries put together. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-other-olympics-where-israel-stands-out/

Israeli athletes may not stand out in the Paris Olympics, which measures physical prowess, though it remains to be seen how many medals the tiny Jewish state’s athletes will be able to win, as compared to other competitors, such as those from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and a competitor called “Palestine.” But in the mental Olympics of Mathematics and Physics, the Israeli competitors were outstanding again this year, their results rivaling those of entrants from much larger countries, including the United States, Russia, and China. More on that competition, and the Israeli triumph, can be found here: “Israeli students win 11 Olympic medals in mathematics, physics,” All Israel News, July 25, 2024:

Israeli student national teams earned 11 Olympic medals in mathematics and physics in two separate events in July: The International Mathematical Olympiad in the United Kingdom and the European Physics Olympiad in the country of Georgia.

The Israeli math team won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals amid fierce competition from 609 participants representing 108 countries. The Israeli physics team secured one gold medal and four silver medals during the competition against 256 participants from 55 countries….

In April, an Israeli student team won gold, silver and bronze medals at the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) in Slovenia. The female students won all three top slots in a competition with 214 participants from 56 countries.

Israeli students have also proven their skills in robotics competitions. In May, an Israeli high school team won first place in an international robotics competition held in Houston, Texas.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe’s Recipe for Disaster: The Von der Leyen Program by Drieu Godefridi

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20822/eu-von-der-leyen-program

[T]his reduction [of greenhouse gas emissions] structures and determines the whole of the Commission’s program, because all human activity — industrial, commercial and private — emits greenhouse gases. In fact, in a program document published by the Commission in February 2024, already under the aegis of von der Leyen, are plans to invest 1.5 trillion euros per year in decarbonizing the European Union, and to this end take authoritarian measures in all areas of human activity. The amount is equivalent to 10% of Europe’s GDP — every year. Apparently this policy is the uncompromising model found in every party in Germany, but apart from a war effort, there is no objective of any kind that has ever required the diversion of 10% of a continent’s GDP by political decree.

European funds, which are distributed to EU member states in various ways, will henceforth be “conditional on respect for the rule of law”… In other words, any deviation from the EU’s ideological line, in any area, will be subject to financial sanctions – as is already happening with Hungary. This new direction for the EU will lead to the ideology of Western Europe being imposed on Eastern Europe: “open borders”, environmentalism, the fight against “hate” — but only “hate” from the right of the political spectrum.

In particular, the aim is apparently to penalize social media networks that refuse to censor their users or, more precisely, that refuse to penalize their users in the way the EU wants… either X submits to the EU’s ideology and censorship, or X will have a part of its global revenue confiscated.

Again and again, the suggestion is set forth to build a European army, essentially supported by states such as Germany and Belgium, which… would already be incapable of defending their own borders without American assistance.

[I]n accordance with the ECHR’s case law, any illegal immigrants intercepted in the Mediterranean, even within sight of the African coast, must be brought to the European Union to exercise their “rights.” A tenfold increase in the number of border guards would do nothing to change the law in force; as long as the law is not reformed, unlimited and unvetted migration in Europe will continue.

[A] whole series of new regulations with global ambitions are announced, confirming the EU’s claim to legislate not just for Europe, but for the world. For instance, a “European Oceans Pact” — note the “s” in Oceans – is declared: evidently the EU claims to regulate all the world’s oceans, whereas it only dips its toes in one.

Of these groups, the center-right is by far the largest…. [But] It is the demands of the smallest group — environmentalists — that dominate….

By refusing on principle ever to govern with real right-wing parties, the center-right guarantees that the left remains forever in power.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

US Jewish students transfer to friendlier schools post-Oct. 7 By David Isaac

Posted By on August 2nd, 2024

https://www.jns.org/us-jewish-students-transfer-to-friendlier-schools-post-oct-7/

In the wake of the anti-Israel protests that swept across U.S. college campuses following the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, anecdotal evidence suggests that Jewish students have started voting with their feet and decamping from the worst-offending schools. 

“We’ve seen an unprecedented number of students from top-tier institutions transfer to Yeshiva University, including from Columbia, Cornell and Barnard,” Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman told JNS.

On April 25, Yeshiva University announced that “in light of ongoing antisemitism and harassment on college campuses,” it would extend its deadline for transfer students until May 31.

Berman said this was the first time the school had received student transfers from Columbia in the middle of the year. There was “no question” in his mind that the students were searching for a safer environment.

Although he wouldn’t share the number of students, he said it was high enough that the school needed to expand its infrastructure to accommodate everyone. “We have more people in our system now than we’ve ever had before,” he said.

Eliana Samuels, 19, grew up in a religious home in New York, graduated high school in 2023 and took a gap year to study in Israel. She’d planned to attend Columbia in the fall. “I applied early decision, which is binding. I didn’t see a problem with that, because I couldn’t really picture myself anywhere else,” she told JNS, noting her mother went to Columbia.