Climate Policy Is a Money-Making Opportunity for the Elite By Rupert Darwall

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/03/04/climate_policy_is_a_money-making_opportunity_for_the_elite_766755.html

“The climate transition presents a historic investment opportunity,” says BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. “What the financiers, the big banks, the asset managers, private investors, venture capital are all discovering is: There’s a lot of money to be made in the creation of these new [green] jobs,” chimes in presidential climate envoy John Kerry. Fink concedes that the economy remains “highly dependent” on fossil fuels. He also asserts that BlackRock is “carbon neutral today in our own operations.” It’s a claim open to challenge. “If a company or individual says to me they are net-zero, I know it is complete crap,” tweeted Glen Peters, research director of the Oslo-based Center for International Climate Research.

Peters was taking to task former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who had claimed that investments in renewable energy offset emissions from fossil-fuel investments. Carney quickly backed down, but the spat reveals the fissure in the climate movement that first became visible with Michael Moore’s 2020 movie Planet of the Humans, which pitted true believers on one side against those positioning themselves to reap profits from the climate money pouring into decarbonization.

Carney is a leading light of the climate-finance oligarchy, positioned at the nexus of politics and finance. He is a climate adviser to British prime minister Boris Johnson and serves as UN secretary-general António Guterres’s special envoy on finance and climate action. He is also vice-chair of Canadian alternative asset manager Brookfield, heading its ESG and impact-investing business. One privilege of being a climate savior: any concerns over conflicts of interest don’t apply when the interests of the planet are at stake.

Why is Joe Biden dodging the public and the press? By Joe Concha,

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/541580-why-is-joe-biden-dodging-the-public-and-the-press

President Biden is not unlike Candidate Biden in terms of being largely hidden from the public and press. Already, the decision by his team to limit his interactions with the media, while barely traveling outside the White House to address the concerns of the American people, is wearing thin, if new polls are any indication. 

It’s now been more than six weeks since Biden took office. He has yet to hold a press conference during a pandemic that has claimed more than 107,000 lives since his inauguration and more than 500,000 overall. His COVID-19 relief bill, with a price tag of nearly $2 trillion in what will be the largest spending bill in U.S. history, should be sold to the public by the president, just as his old boss, Barack Obama, sold the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in various speeches across the country in 2009. Biden and his equally invisible vice president are vaccinated, so the COVID-19 excuse for not venturing out much, which was used throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, is no longer applicable. 

This relief bill also is increasingly being paired down in Congress, infuriating Democrats on the left in the process. Gone is the federal minimum wage hike to $15 an hour that would have killed thousands of jobs, thanks to the Senate parliamentarian, who ruled that it couldn’t be included in the bill under Senate rules. So are proposals for a bridge between New York and Ontario, as well as a San Francisco transit extension, all of which have nothing to do with battling COVID-19. Republicans also argue, correctly, that money earmarked for reopening schools will not even begin until 2022, when the pandemic will probably be over or greatly reduced after the country is fully vaccinated by the beginning of the summer, according to Biden’s own timeline.

Will the real president of the United States please stand up? There’s no evidence that Joe Biden is actually serving as president Charles Hurt

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/4/will-the-real-president-of-the-united-states-pleas/

Can anyone just tell us who the hell is running our federal government right now?

You literally get censored out of existence for suggesting that anyone other than Joe Biden won the election last November. Yet there is no evidence today — four months later — that Mr. Biden is actually serving as president.

A weird Tron video this week appeared to show Mr. Biden — looking every bit the part of Max Headroom — interfacing with House Democrats in Congress. Digitally, of course.

He droned on for a few minutes using scripted psycho-pablum, sitting alone at a table. The table was empty except for his instruction manual. As he spoke haltingly, he looked up at a giant screen from which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stared awkwardly, fake smiling.

One could imagine the Dem droids watching from somewhere in the cybersphere nodding along obediently.

The digital president then opened the floor for questions.

The New McCarthyism Comes to Harvard Law School by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17146/harvard-law-school-mccarthyism

This self-serving defense of censorship is intended to convey a crass economic threat: if you want to get a good job after law school, make sure that Harvard bans teachers and speakers who are trying to “rehabilitate their reputations and obscure the stain of their complicity in the Trump administration….”

One would also think that signatories would be aware that if these vague criteria — anti-democratic, racists, xenophobic and immoral — were applied across the board, they would result in bans on anyone who was associated with the current regimes in China, Cuba, Turkey, Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, the Palestinian Authority and other repressive governments.

It would also apply to supporters of American anti-democratic and anti-free speech groups, such as Antifa, and the very organization — People’s Parity Project — that is promoting this anti-free speech petition. Indeed, historically, repression and censorship have been directed primarily against the left.

The Harvard Law School petition is directed only at Trump supporters, not supporters of left wing anti-democratic repression, either here or abroad. It is based on the assumption that there is a special “Trump exception” to freedom of speech and due process. But exceptions to free speech and academic freedom for some risk becoming the rule for all.

Much of this effort to exclude Trump supporters from campuses comes from individuals and organizations that also demand more “diversity.” But their definition of diversity is limited to race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity. It does not extend to the central mission of universities: to hear and learn from the widest array of views, perspectives, ideologies and political preferences.

A recent petition, signed by hundreds of Harvard Law School students and alumni, raises the specter of the new McCarthyism coming to the law school at which I taught for half a century. The petition states that “Harvard Law School faces a choice of whether to welcome the architects and backers of the Trump administration’s worse abuses back into polite society.” It demands that Harvard not “hire or affiliate with” any of these sinners, and threatens that “if it does so the school will be complicit if future attacks on our democracy are even more violent – and more successful.”

MY SAY: WHY JOHNNY CAN’T READ

“Why Johnny Can’t Read—And What You Can Do About It” is a 1955 book-length exposé on American reading education by Rudolf Flesch. It was an immediate bestseller for 37 weeks.

 I will respectfully add more reasons for why Johnny can’t read:

He is taught  that he could be Janie struggling to get out of his boy’s anatomy and told that he is genetically and inherently a racist and has to shed his “whiteness.” Both sound very painful.

He’s confused about the fact that non-racist sum of 2+2 may not be 4.

He’s alarmed that impending global warming may melt Yankee Stadium.

He is bewildered by the fact that he may only describe his best friend as “they.”

He is told that his parents who supported Donald Trump are white supremacists.

All the above is delivered in online classes.

The poor kid is anxious and terrified. No wonder he can’t read…rsk

A Family on Trial for January 6 The Justice Department, which acts more like a consigliere for the Democratic Party than an impartial enforcer of the rule of law, wants to ruin the Cua family and send a message to others. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/04/a-family-on-trial-for-january-6/

Bruno Joseph Cua lives on a three-acre farm in central Georgia with his parents and two younger siblings. The 18-year-old likes to fish and build tree houses; neighbors, family friends, and classmates describe him as hard-working, kind, respectful, and patriotic. He’s not into drugs or alcohol—his biggest high last year was organizing Trump truck rallies in his community.

Before he traveled to Washington, D.C. on January 5 with his mom and dad to hear President Trump’s speech the next day, Bruno was finishing online classes to earn his high school diploma. (His mother, a veterinarian, stopped working years ago to homeschool her children.) Like many teenagers interested in politics, Bruno is a bit of a rabble-rouser and social media loudmouth.

The Cuas, after hearing the president’s speech on January 6, walked to Capitol Hill. Bruno made his way into the building; the teen later posted on Parler that he “stormed the capital (sic) with hundreds of thousands of patriots. Yes we physically fought our way in.”

Now, Bruno Cua sits in jail in Washington, D.C. awaiting trial for his involvement in the January 6 Capitol breach, the youngest of the nearly 300 people so far arrested under the U.S. Justice Department’s “unprecedented” investigation into the events of that day. Unlike tens of thousands of protestors who occupied the nation’s capital for months—including young people who bragged about it in a Washington Post magazine—Cua will be given no mercy.

Neither will his parents, Joseph and Alise.

We finally hear from the ‘QAnon Shaman’ By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/we_finally_hear_from_the_qanon_shaman.html

If there is one person who became the living emblem of the incursion into the Capitol on January 6, it is the man dubbed the “QAnon Shaman.” Jacob Chansley showed up in several pictures with his face painted red, white, and blue; his body covered with shamanistic tattoos; and his head attired with a fur hat sporting large horns. This horror, the media told America, was the living emblem of the evil, racist Trump supporters who were committing a deadly, armed insurrection against the seat of the American government.

Interestingly, the best evidence that, as is often the case, Democrats’ narrative was a lie came from a video The New Yorker published. It shows that Chansley is an odd bird, but obviously was not acting violently. Instead, he engages very politely with a Capitol Hill police officer:

Because of Chansley’s costume (which he’s worn before – and more on that later), he was easy to identify and the government quickly arrested him. He’s been in solitary confinement ever since, with no bail. This is in stark contrast to the way in which BLM and Antifa protesters were treated last year. Despite their heinous acts of looting, property destruction, and attacks on police officers, they were usually released instantly, whether without bail or with monies from leftist celebrities who paid for their bail. And just yesterday, we learned that the Biden DOJ is dismissing Portland Antifa cases left and right — or just left and left, I guess.

On Thursday, 60 Minutes+ put online an interview with Chansley. Without his rather magnificent costume, he seems very shrunken but, to his credit, he’s not going to accept the reporter’s accusations against him. (And again, just try to imagine Laurie Segall taking that antagonistic tone with someone from BLM or Antifa. The media treated those “peaceful” protesters with something akin to reverence.)

The Democrats’ cancel culture is escalating fast By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/the_democrats_cancel_culture_is_escalating_fast.html

“Within just the past week, the Democrats have canceled Dr. Seuss, Trump’s CPAC speech, and a popular cartoon.”

When someone first does something he knows is wrong, he does it carefully, under the radar, because he fears getting caught. If there are no consequences, he repeats the act, without guilt – and if he’s actually feted for his wrongdoing, he will soon act with complete impunity. That’s what we’re seeing when it comes to Democrats erasing everything they dislike – and what they most dislike is America and any opposition to their beliefs. This week, Democrats brazenly canceled Dr. Seuss, Trump’s CPAC speech, and the Mallard Fillmore cartoon strip. In their own minds, they are unstoppable.

This week opened with the left’s war on Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Overnight, the children’s author who dedicated decades of his career to fighting racism is being denounced as an arch-racist. It’s true that, in the 1940s, Geisel reflected the prejudices of that era’s Democrats. However, by 1961, Geisel was writing The Sneetches, which pushed the classic liberal doctrine that racism is bad because we are all equal, regardless of superficial physical differences.

Tucker Carlson argues compellingly that today’s Democrats aren’t canceling Seuss because some of his early works traded in racist stereotypes. Instead, he says, they’re canceling him because he insisted that race does not determine who we are. Carlson’s probably right. That colorblind view of the world is anathema to today’s leftists. If you don’t believe that, just look at this little piece of racial propaganda from the Cartoon Network.

China Plays Up Ascendancy Over West as It Sets Economic Path Leader Xi Jinping to lay out plan to ensure nation’s rise and his authority at annual legislative session

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plays-up-ascendancy-over-west-as-it-sets-economic-path-11614854159?mod=world_major_2_pos4

HONG KONG—Fresh from declaring victories over the coronavirus and rural poverty, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is charting a new economic path aimed at sustaining China’s rise and entrenching his personal authority for years to come.

In recent weeks, state media has feted Mr. Xi as an astute and farsighted leader who has driven China’s success in eliminating poverty and anchored the nation’s stability while the U.S. and other Western powers reel from the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Xi and other officials have played up perceptions that “the East is rising and the West is declining,” underpinned by what they described as the Communist Party’s superiority in tackling crises and long-term challenges.

The image-building is set to continue over an annual legislative session that begins Friday, as Mr. Xi pivots from the poverty-alleviation drive to his next priority: building a modern, powerful nation by 2035.

In this “new expedition” to modernize China, the “risks and tests to be confronted will not be any less than in the past,” Mr. Xi told a group of midlevel party officials earlier this week. He renewed demands for fealty to his leadership, saying party members should show courage in enduring hardship and facing risks, and demonstrate their loyalty to the Communist Party through their actions.

Nearly 3,000 lawmakers are gathering in Beijing to review a new economic blueprint—known as the 14th five-year plan—and broad guidelines that would shape China’s growth model over the next decade and a half. Coming ahead of the party’s centenary celebrations in July, the weeklong conclave also offers Mr. Xi a platform for promoting the merits of his autocratic style over the foibles of Western democracy.

Europeans Ease Pressure on Iran in Bid to Revive Nuclear Talks With U.S. Britain, France and Germany, with U.S. support, scrapped a planned censure resolution over concerns about Tehran’s response

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-ease-pressure-on-iran-in-bid-to-revive-nuclear-talks-with-u-s-11614875541

The U.S. and European powers are giving Iran a last chance to start cooperating with a United Nations atomic agency probe of Tehran’s nuclear activities, backing away from a formal censure of Iran in a bid to revive nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Tehran.

Britain, France and Germany decided Thursday not to present a resolution censuring Iran that they had floated to other International Atomic Energy Agency member states earlier in the week. Iran had warned the move could lead it to further curtail international inspections of the country and dissuade it from engaging in direct talks with the U.S. on its nuclear program.

The decision was backed by Washington, senior diplomats said, reflecting U.S. concerns that renewed pressure on Iran could derail diplomacy.

At a press conference on Thursday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Iran had agreed to sit down for what he described as “a focused and systematic effort” to clarify a series of so-called safeguards issues the IAEA has been asking Iran about for the last two years.

The concerns center on several discoveries of sites in Iran where nuclear material—various kinds of uranium—has been found. Under its international nonproliferation obligations, Iran is obliged to declare nuclear material in the country. The agency wants to know where the uranium traces come from and has asked about the whereabouts and use of specific nuclear material including uranium metal discs it believes Iran has possessed since the early 2000s.