ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Canceling Keystone Does More Environmental Harm than Good Charlie Kirk

Posted By on February 12th, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/canceling-keystone-does-more-environmental-harm-good-opinion-1568680

In President Joe Biden’s first week in office, with little more than the stroke of his pen, he took steps to revoke the permit of the Keystone XL pipeline. Of course, this policy doesn’t significantly protect the environment—the oil will still be transported—it was a virtue signal to climate change activists.

President Biden has been on the record stating that he wants to end fracking, as well as drilling and exploration for oil and natural gas. What Biden knows, but probably doesn’t care about, is that we actually need oil for most things in our daily lives. Things that may actually surprise you.

We need oil to make affordable clothes, cleaning products, soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, perfumes, nail polish, furniture, footballs, computers, cell phones, fertilizers, insecticides, car seats, heart valves, aspirin—even the plexiglass dividers that Biden wants restaurants to put up to maintain social distancing.

Crude oil, or oil in its unrefined state, is toxic to humans and animals, and destructive to the environment when spilled on land or in bodies of water. After crude oil is obtained, it must be transported safely and carefully to refineries to be chemically processed so that it can be used. It can be easily transported in one of three ways: by truck, by train or by pipeline.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Decline of Intelligence in the West By David Solway ****

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/02/10/the-decline-of-intelligence-in-the-west-n1424731

Recent studies have reported a worrisome decline in IQ scores in Western nations over the last decades, a reversal of the once-hopeful Flynn Effect (named after the late philosopher and psychologist James R. Flynn) which posited a growth in cognitive abilities for much of the 20th Century. Now the Flynn Effect seems to have reversed, leading to predictions of a general dumbing down of selective populations. Other studies report that IQ erosion is not confined to this century but that IQ has dropped by an average of 14.1 percent over the last century. As Evan Horowitz writes for NBC News, “A range of studies using a variety of well-established IQ tests and metrics have found declining scores across Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia.”

Horowitz argues that the plummet in cognitive abilities “could not only mean 15 more seasons of the Kardashians, but also… fewer scientific breakthroughs, stagnant economies and a general dimming of our collective future.” Flynn himself, who did the original research on the eponymous effect, has stated that “The IQ gains of the 20th century have faltered.” Flynn’s more optimistic Are We Getting Smarter: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century was published in 2012; his subsequent findings led in an opposite direction.*

The brainchild of French psychologist Alfred Binet, the IQ construct is a controversial issue with many different interpretations and applications. Charles Spearman proposed the variable notion of a g factor, or general intelligence measure, responsible for overall performance on various mental ability tests such as memory retention, spatial processing, and quantitative reasoning. The g factor has been compared to general athletic ability which allows a person to excel in different fields and activities. There has been vigorous debate over the strict equivalency between IQ scores and intelligence, but there is broad agreement on a general waning of intelligence or, from a clinical perspective, an ebbing of IQ scores. Of course, smart people can sometimes do poorly on IQ tests and obtuse people can sometimes rank high on aspectual tiers of these tests. But the consensus appears to be that the correlation approximately holds while allowing for scalene anomalies. In effect, the g factor is eroding.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary Clinton Claims If Trump Is Acquitted It’s ‘Because The Jury Includes His Co-Conspirators’ By Brittany Bernstein

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hillary-clinton-claims-if-trump-is-acquitted-its-because-the-jury-includes-his-co-conspirators/

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday claimed that if former President Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial ends in his acquittal it will be because “the jury includes his co-conspirators.”

“If Senate Republicans fail to convict Donald Trump, it won’t be because the facts were with him or his lawyers mounted a competent defense,” Clinton said in a tweet Wednesday morning. “It will be because the jury includes his co-conspirators.”

Clinton, who served as secretary of state during the Obama administration, waded into the conversation before the second day of the trial began. House Democrats, joined by ten Republicans, voted last month to pass a single article of impeachment — “incitement of an insurrection” — against Trump after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

HUMOR AND SATIRE Comments turned off

In Mail-In Impeachment Vote, Senate Convicts Trump 8275 To 3

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-praises-mail-in-ballots-for-impeachment-4642-ou

In a historic move, the U.S. Senate decided to switch to voting by mail for Trump’s second impeachment trial. After all the votes were counted by an intern in a back room with no cameras, the Senate ruled to convict President Trump of incitement to violence by a vote of 8275 to 3.

“Our holy democracy has spoken,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. “Do not ask any questions or you are a blasphemer against the sacred sacredness of our vote. Everyone can go home now!”

A couple of troublemaking Senators attempted to overthrow the Constitution by bringing up the point that there are only 100 Senators, making it impossible to arrive at a tally of 8275 to 3, but they were quickly removed from the Senate Chambers and condemned for “attempting to suppress the votes of people of color.”

The Senate then moved on to other business, passing universal healthcare by a margin of 320,000 to 4. 

MEDIA Comments turned off

Nikole Hannah-Jones Runs the New York Times By Isaac Schorr

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/nikole-hannah-jones-runs-the-new-york-times/

It doesn’t matter how many times Hannah-Jones embarrasses the paper. She will not be reprimanded, much less removed from her position.

T here is no rule of law in the workplace. Across all industries, star talent is treated differently — and allowed to get away with more — than your average employee. It’s true in the boardroom, in professional sports, and in the newsroom.

Yet even awareness of this truth is not enough to prepare you for the curious case of Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times. Time after time, Hannah-Jones, creator and compiler of the Times’ 1619 Project, is allowed to publicly embarrass the paper in the public sphere with her juvenile behavior, and to sow discord within it by showing utter contempt for her colleagues. And time after time, she emerges from the turmoil untouched, leaving a trail of discarded journalists in her wake. Even more significant, her signature achievement and the worldview it represents have become the de facto governing documents and principles by which the Times makes personnel decisions.

Most recently, this power dynamic was exemplified by the Times’ firing of longtime science reporter Donald McNeil Jr. and its reaction to Hannah-Jones’s doxxing of Washington Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium. McNeil was let go after a story about his use of a racial slur — ironically in the context of discussing when it should merit cancellation, not while using it maliciously — resurfaced. The “incident” occurred in 2019, and upon investigating it, the Times deemed it unworthy of punishment. In the new, post-1619 Project newsroom, however, McNeil needed to be expelled after more than four decades at the paper. According to Executive Editor Dean Baquet, the Times would “not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” And yet, Hannah-Jones had used the epithet on Twitter in the past, and she has been not just tolerated, not only celebrated, but venerated. When Sibarium reached out to Hannah-Jones for comment on this double standard, she posted his polite email request — which included his phone number — on Twitter in an attempt to shame him.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Lawyer Left Impeachment Trial to Totally Trash the Democrats’ Entire Narrative Matt Vespa

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/02/11/trump-impeachment-you-only-act-like-this-when-you-know-you-have-the-votes-in-the-bag-n2584616

This trial is over. It’s done. And Donald J. Trump will not be convicted. We all knew this. The preview to this trial was showcased in the resolution Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) brought up which denounced this effort as unconstitutional. The Democrats who wish to convict Trump and bar him from running again are many, many miles shy of the 67-vote threshold. What’s odd in that vote is that Mitch McConnell, who has reportedly walked away from Trump and is supportive of Democrats’ efforts in this trial, voted in favor of dismissing the trial. If he wants to purge Trumpism from the GOP, which he reportedly said he wants to do—then this is the first step. Maybe he saw the polling that showed how the GOP is Trump’s party now. Period. 

The second vote on the constitutionality of this impeachment trial was another preview showing that Democrats are well shy of their 67-vote threshold to convict. Of course, it passed—but conviction is an entirely different animal. That’s why I couldn’t care less if Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s lawyers, had a garrulous argument against this whole circus. We’ve won. It’s over. It’s a total waste of time. Democrats won’t have the votes. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) even phoned Trump to tell him he’s going to be just fine. All this did was remind voters how Congress does nothing. It’s all show. It’s all talk, no action. And why populism is rising. This city is killing this country. 

When you know you have the votes to protect your client, you can simply walk out of the arguments to have an interview with Fox News and trash this whole exercise as an entertainment spectacle, which is exactly what Doug Schoen, another Trump attorney, did today (via Mediaite):

During arguments from the Democrats, Fox’s John Roberts and Sandra Smith cut away from the trial for an interview with Trump’s defense attorney, who was apparently in the Russell Rotunda instead of witnessing the case against his client. As CNN and MSNBC stuck with the ongoing trial against the former president for incitement of insurrection, Roberts kicked off the Schoen interview by asking if it was true the Trump defense team will conclude after one day of arguments instead of two.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

THEY GOT CAUGHT: Dominion Owned Machines Removed 6% of Votes from Each Windham, New Hampshire GOP Candidate – Same Machines Used in 85% of Towns By Jim Hoft

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/till-murder-do-us-part-the-ongoing-tragedy-of-domestic-violence-opinion-658687

(VIDEO REPORT FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE)

Here is a major update to our report on Wednesday on voter fraud in New Hampshire.

As we previously reported —
A recent hand recount in the Rockingham District 7 NH House Race in Windham, New Hampshire, found that the Dominion-owned voting machines shorted EVERY REPUBLICAN by roughly 300 votes.

Via Facebook

The Dominion machine counted results were wrong for all 4 Republicans in Windham by almost exactly 300 votes.

Granite Grok reported:

The Town of Windham used Dominion machines to count paper ballots and upon a believable hand recount, it was confirmed each Republican was machine-cheated out of roughly 300 votes.

You would think this would have been solved by the Dominion machine company, the Secretary of State, the Elections Unit of the AG’s Office, or the laughable Ballot Law Commission. (Kathy Sullivan, d (Term expires July 1, 2024)

Nope.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Stop Calling It an ‘Insurrection’ Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/02/11/stop-calling-it-an-insurrection-n2584502

So, I was out at dinner with my old battalion commander – literally outside, because dining inside apparently is super deadly if you live under blue tyranny – and we were laughing at this whole “Muh Insurrekshun” nonsense. What happened January 6 was no “insurrection” in any meaningful sense of the word, especially not to those who survived the riots of 2020, and not to us either. See, I was my old battalion commander’s assistant operations officer and I was riding with him in his HUMVEE driving through Los Angeles as it burned in April 1992.

That was a riot. What happened on Capitol Hill was a few dudes dressed like Conan the Fauxbarian acting like fools and occasionally fighting with the cops while a few hundred other dudes took selfies in the Rotunda.

We were in the 3rd Battalion, 160th Infantry, the first combat arms unit on the street during the LA Riot, a riot brought to you by Maxine Waters and other idiots, by the way. There was burning and looting and dozens we can say with absolute certainty were murdered by the LA rioters, unlike at the Capitol. It lasted for days. You wouldn’t know it from Rep. Stolen Cower, who seems to claim she suffered PTSD from being at the far end of the same ZIP code as the bruhaha, but what happened on January 6 was no “insurrection,” and Republicans need to stop playing along with the Establishment talking point that it was.

The idea of an “insurrection” is to delegitimize all resistance to the garbage Establishment’s reign of error, and to play along is to give credence to its lie and to empower its propaganda.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The World Goes On While America Sleeps While we are busy devouring each other, China is smiling that once-feared American running-dog capitalists have become laughable Keystone Cops. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/10/the-world-goes-on-while-america-sleeps/

The Democratically-controlled Senate spends thousands of collective hours conducting an impeachment trial against a president who is no longer president. 

The acquittal is predetermined, as in the first impeachment effort a year ago—and known to be so to the Democratic prosecutors. 

The constitutionally mandated presiding judge—the chief justice of the United States—refused to show up.  

Chief Justice John Roberts apparently believes an impeachment trial of a private citizen is either a waste of time or unconstitutional—or both. 

The Democratic House of Representatives is busy ferreting out purportedly extremist Republican members. For the first time in memory, one party now removes committee members of the other. 

Yet for each Republican outlier, there is a corresponding Democratic firebrand member who has either called for violence or voiced anti-Semitic slurs—and yet will not be removed from House committees. 

So the asymmetrical tit-for-tat continues. 

The subtext to this madness is that the Democratic Congress, the new administration, the administrative state, and the political Left are obsessed with dismembering the presidential corpse of now citizen Donald Trump.  

Apparently, they fear that one day he will rise from the infernal regions to wreak his revenge.  

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Speaking of incitement… By Harry White

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/speaking_of_incitement_.html

“Words that incite insurrection aren’t protected by the First Amendment.  Words that don’t are.  Listen to Trump’s words. Then listen to Maxine Waters.”

We are a nation of laws, including one prohibiting insurrection.  A citizen charged with and arrested for the crime of inciting insurrection (a felony) in Washington DC would be tried under Title 18 of the US code, with insurrection punishable by a fine, a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, or both.

A sitting president can’t be arrested for the crime of inciting insurrection; he can’t be incarcerated and tried for any crime whatsoever, under a long-standing legal precedent against indicting a sitting president.  Rather, he is charged (impeached) in the House, should our representatives want to remove him from office, and tried in the Senate, where he faces the punishment of removal from office only (no fine or jail sentence).

While some people were dying to see President Trump arrested and incarcerated, forget impeached and removed from office, that’s not how things work in America.  A president is protected from arrest and incarceration: the U.S. Department of Justice has long held that arrest and incarceration “would essentially incapacitate the executive branch, undermining its ability to ‘perform its constitutionally assigned functions.’”  Protecting a president makes perfect sense.