ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

That Dirty Green Energy

Posted By on August 24th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/24/that-dirty-green-energy/

We argued last week that California’s blackouts offered a grim preview of the left’s energy agenda. But that’s only part of the carefully concealed truth about renewables. Those solar panels so precious to the you-must-conform greenshirts are a particularly nasty environmental menace.

“The state, once known for its plentiful, cheap and reliable energy supplies, is now dealing with rolling blackouts as its green energy infrastructure buckles under the strain of summer heat,” we said Thursday, because the wind sometimes refuses to blow and the sun isn’t always shining, not even in California.

Of course a few virtue-signaling commenters charged to the table in their electric vehicles to praise the virtues of renewable energy, which in California will be limited primarily to wind and solar. Hydro sources, responsible for more than 12% of the state’s electricity, won’t be included in the portfolio in 2045, the year power is to be by decree generated by renewables only. Other renewables, such as geothermal, maybe 5%, and biomass, not much more than 2%, provide such minute portions of California electricity they are hardly worth mentioning.

Left out of the often mistaken, never in doubt assertions of renewables’ unalloyed goodness is the fact that the hardware used is hardly renewable. It wears out and needs to be replaced. Then what?

“The problem of solar panel disposal ‘will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment’ because it ‘is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle,’” writes energy analyst Michael Shellenberger, quoting a Chinese recycling official.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

America’s leading white supremacist announces his surprise endorsement By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on August 24th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/americas_leading_white_supremacist_announces_his_surprise_endorsement.html

One of the most revolting things about Joe Biden’s candidacy is his dishonest insistence that Donald Trump called white supremacists “fine people.” Democrats have successfully used this hoax to brainwash large parts of the American public into believing that Trump and his supporters are racists and anti-Semites. One wonders, therefore, how much consternation there is in Biden campaign headquarters now that Richard Spencer, one of America’s best-known neo-Nazis, is all in for Biden.

To fully appreciate what should be one of the biggest stories in the presidential campaign, there are two things you need to know: (1) Who Richard Spencer is and (2) what the “fine people hoax” is.

Richard Spencer

Richard Spencer is an unapologetic neo-Nazi. He’s frequently seen giving Nazi salutes, quoting Nazi propaganda, and making openly anti-Semitic statements. He thinks Haitians should be re-enslaved and that racial minorities should be removed from America. Not surprisingly, his wife has accused him of verbal and physical abuse. He is a terrible human being.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

OUR SAY :PROFESSOR EDWARD ALEXANDER REMEMBERED

Posted By on August 24th, 2020

Eddie Alexander was an admired and respected and treasured friend. I was always dazzled by his erudition and brilliance and grateful for his unparalleled literary litigation in support of Israel’s historic rights, and against the nation’s hypocritical and venal opponents.  rsk

From Rael Jean Isaac:

“With the passing of Edward Alexander, my husband and I have lost one of our oldest and dearest friends, and the Jewish people have lost an irreplaceable champion.  Forty years ago, Alexander, then a professor of English at the University of Washington specializing in  Victorian literature, shifted his focus to the  Jews.  From then on he used his  erudition and extraordinary literary and polemical talents in service of  the Jewish people and the Jewish state.  He skewered the villains, both without and within the Jewish fold, from political and academic icons like Bishop Tutu and Edward Said to “Jewish” enemies like Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler and Seymour Hersh.  Some of his most devastating critiques were of those Jews who claimed to be “friends of Israel” while undermining her.  Indeed one of his books is entitled “With Friends Like These.” Alexander saw himself on a battlefield as the titles of his books reveal: The Jewish Wars; The Holocaust and the War of Ideas; The Jewish Divide Over Israel, Accusers and Defenders; The Jewish Idea and its Enemies. Nor was he hesitant to take on the enemies of Israel within the Jewish state itself, an intelligentsia  riddled with moral arrogance and self-hatred.  As Alvin Rosenfeld has said, Edward Alexander turned polemical writing into an “effective art form.”

Three years ago, Edward was devastated by the loss of Leah, his wife of  sixty years, and spent much time pouring over her letters and other writing, much of which he had never seen and which brought her closer. Rael Isaac

From  Stephen Rittenberg, M.D.

I met Eddie in the first semester at Columbia College in 1953. I brought with me arrogant biases from my private school, Fieldston and assumed no one from public school could possibly have had the education I possessed. It was a form of liberal arrogance imbibed as part of ethical culture’s training. And then I met Eddie. We hit it off immediately by talking about baseball, the Yankees (my team) and the Dodgers (his). Eddie  was knowledgeable about writers I had barely heard of, and he knew opera and aspects of culture I knew nothing about. He was clearly brilliant. I learned that he had been sports editor of the Tilden high school newspaper and had uncovered a scandal involving Brooklyn high schools stealing players from other districts that made it to the local papers. In recent years we reminisced about the great Brooklyn boys of summer. Eddie and I hit it off and sat together in various classes with Lionel Trilling, Fred Dupee and Mark Van Doren.  We developed a late adolescent friendship that lasted all our lives. When we went off to graduate school we wrote letters almost every day and I learned of Eddie’s beautiful romance with Leah.  More than friendship, and despite the continent that separated us we loved each other. I think ultimately Eddie not only lived up to the Trilling ego ideal, but surpassed it because, unlike Trilling, he drew strength from his Jewish identity. How we will miss his magnificent voice.

BOOKS Comments turned off

America’s Hundred Year War: Red October 1917-Red November 2020 by Roger Canfield

Posted By on August 24th, 2020

No informed American ought to be surprised by the cultural revolution of 2020.

America’s Hundred Year War: Red October 1917-Red November 2020 reveals the rise, “fall,” and the resurgence of communism in America. It is the story of a century of communist political operations among America’s cultural elites from Lenin’s Bolsheviks to Xi Jinping’s penetration of Hollywood, corporations, universities and media.

The outcomes are Antifa and BLM riots burning Democrat cities over issues of capitalism and race, the socialist platform of the Democrat Party, and Red November elections for President, House and Senate.

America’s Hundred Year War captures the long march of Communism through American cultural institutions from the Red October of 1917 to the Red November 2020.

The book highlights the major personalities and events in the struggle between American culture and Communism. Prominent American intellectuals, actors/writers, and journalists are inspired by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Xi Jinping. They see a brighter future outside of American values and institutions. Anti-communism and reverence for America faded away.

The story begins in the year 1948, focusing on a spirited dialogue between Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and Alger Hiss before the House committee on Un-American Activities in August 1948. The story then flashes back to the Red October of 1917 and forward into the Red November of 2020. There are major stopovers in The Russian Revolution, WWI, WWII, Vietnam culminating in consequences of 2020. 

Chambers, Nixon, Hiss and their friends and allies speak for their own versions of history. 

The book has a detailed INDEX of major events and words and deeds of the named protagonists and antagonists.

Roger Canfield, Ph.D.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats Offer a Rancid Smorgasbord Joan Swirsky

Posted By on August 24th, 2020

https://canadafreepress.com/article/democrats-offer-a-rancid-smorgasbord

At the virtual Democrat National Convention last week––where the Democratic National Committee removed the word God from the Pledge of Allegiance––the public was treated to tasteless and remarkably unfunny jokes from Hollywood’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and a video featuring Donna Hylton who spent 27 years in prison for the grisly murder and torture of Thomas Vigliarolo, a NY businessman found stuffed inside a steamer trunk and left to rot in Harlem.  
NO BELLE MICHELLE

Then there was Michelle Obama telling Americans to ‘go high’ after her husband tried to destroy candidate and then President Trump by weaponizing all of our intelligence agencies against him. Ironically, this is the same woman who proved that you can’t go any lower than the sentiment she expressed at the age of 44 that she was never proud to be an American until her husband was nominated to the U.S. presidency. Imagine, this Princeton and Harvard Law graduate lived almost five decades having to tolerate the bitter taste of American citizenship. And to prove plus ça change, her speech demonstrated that the bitterness bitterly lingers on.

REPRESENTING THE RELIGION OF PEACE

Then there was speaker Noman Hussain, an Imam affiliated with the Texas-based Qalam Institute, which advocates for “the use of female sex slaves, the killing of adulterers, and the incitement of hatred against Jews.” 

THE PARTY’S MORAL COMPASS

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

If Biden Is Ready To Lock Down Again, We Should Just Elect Fauci Instead By David Marcus

Posted By on August 23rd, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/23/if-biden-is-ready-to-lock-down-again-we-should-just-elect-fauci-instead/

Joe Biden climbed out of his basement last week. Twice! Once to deliver a brief but well-received address at the Democratic National Convention, and once to give a socially distanced interview to ABC News with his wing-woman Kamala Harris. The big news out of the interview is that Biden said he would shut America down again if scientists told him to.

If this is true, then I have a question. Why are we even bothering to consider Biden? Why not just elect Dr. Anthony Fauci, or Dr. Deborah Birx if we want to smash glass ceilings in the process?

This is really not a facetious question. Shutting down America again would not only cripple America, but it would also make any other policies that Biden might have in mind utterly pointless. A jobs program when nobody can go to work? An education program when nobody can go to school? An infrastructure program with no construction workers? I mean, how does this work?

The big giveaway in Biden’s answer is that he openly would give away the power of free citizens in a democratic-republic to make their own decisions and not be dictated to by “experts.” I recently interviewed Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury, who put this very well. He said experts should be on tap, not on top. On tap for us, but not on top of our lives. You can see the clip here.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Kim Klacik: What gives, Baltimore Sun editorial board?

Posted By on August 23rd, 2020

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/readers-respond/bs-ed-rr-0822-klacik-response-20200821-hcgwdtny5bbl5egm7c6dke4tc4-story.html

The writer is a Republican candidate for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District.

I expect more from The Baltimore Sun than graceless screeds. You are not the right-wing media or a partisan liberal rag. You are the editorial board of Maryland’s paper of record. Like it or not, I am the Republican nominee for a contested congressional race where the Democratic nominee was pushed out of the NAACP, according to your reporting, amid allegations of sexual harassment, nepotism and mismanagement. That is the candidate you have endorsed. I am a woman of color running in a state that has no women in any elected federal or statewide offices. But you have now twice, without ever having met or interviewed me, attacked and mocked me on your opinion page (“Is Kim Klacik running for Congress, mayor or chief Trump enabler?” Aug. 19). What gives?

Not that it should matter, but I’m a moderate Republican. I believe in paid family leave and over-the-counter birth control, that climate change is man-made and presents an existential threat that demands our urgent attention, and that who you love is beyond the province of government. I believe we should invest more money in education, that teachers and social workers and mental health practitioners should be paid far more than they are, and that chokeholds and qualified immunity should be abolished.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Could Kamala Harris transform law enforcement as the vice president? By Jonathan Turley

Posted By on August 23rd, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/513214-could-kamala-harris-transform-law-enforcement-as-the-vice-president

National conventions have long served as what magicians call the turn. As explained in the movie “The Prestige,” every magic trick has three stages. First comes the pledge, when the magician “shows you something ordinary.” Then comes the turn, when he “makes it do something extraordinary” like vanish. Finally, he has “to bring it back in the hardest part” known as the prestige.

In American politics, candidates make the pledge to voters on the extremes of their parties during primaries. Then comes the turn, when the more extreme nominee disappears at the convention. The turn was not as tough for Joe Biden, who was fairly moderate as a senator, as it was for Kamala Harris, who was ranked by GovTrack as the most liberal senator to the left of even Bernie Sanders.

Nonetheless, in perhaps the neatest trick of all, the Washington Post’s David Byler recently described Harris as a “small ‘c’ conservative.” The concern for some of us is that the prestige, when earlier objects might reappear after the election, particularly regarding the Justice Department and the legal system. There is reason to worry about what might be revealed, post-election.

One of the Democratic convention speakers was former deputy attorney general Sally Yates, widely viewed as the leading candidate for attorney general in a Biden administration. She was presented as the personification of a new Justice Department’s commitment to the rule of law. Yates declared: “I was fired for refusing to defend President Trump’s shameful and unlawful Muslim travel ban.” The problem is, she wasn’t. She was fired for telling an entire department not to defend a travel ban that ultimately was upheld as lawful.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The EU and Israel as Genuine Strategic Partners By Florin Pasatoiu and Christian Nitoiu

Posted By on August 23rd, 2020

https://besacenter.org/mideast-security-and-policy-studies/eu-israel-strategic-partners/

Time and again the relationship between the EU and Israel has been marred by bad language, subsequent remorse to varying degrees, and tepid reassurance. Bewilderment, annoyance, and disappointment in both directions have characterized the relationship for many years, and have led to deep structural fault lines in the EU.

One must judge the success of the EU’s Common Foreign Security Policy (CFSP) by the impact it has had, the postures taken in its regard by the Union’s member states, and the traction it has gained among the populations of those states.

A substantial 45% of Israelis think the EU is a foe versus 27% who view it as a friend, and most believe the US should remain Israel’s main interlocutor. The EU continues to be perceived by Israelis as a partisan mediator in the Middle East peace process.

The EU-Israel Association Council, which was supposed to convene annually, has not met since 2012. That is despite solid cultural, scientific, and economic bilateral relations.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Brennan Was Put in a Perjury Trap Yesterday — A Completely Legitimate One

Posted By on August 23rd, 2020

www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/08/22/john-brennan-perjury-trap-yeserday-completely-legitimate-one/

EXCERPT from bottom half of article below:  Read it all at link above. It is profoundly substantive, instructive and it clarifies the real situation in which John Brennan finds himself (for many legitimate reasons – his career dishonesty for the most part). C.B.

If John Brennan isn’t at least a potential “target,” why was he not called to explain historical events to the grand jury?

Finally, John Brennan has many times expressed the belief that any investigation initiated by the Trump Administration into the actions of Obama Administration officials to examine their conduct as it pertains to the investigation of the 2016 campaign, and the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, is illegitimate.  John Brennan has all but declared Trump’s election to be illegitimate — heck, he might have said so outright.

So, it is not surprising at all that Shapiro — not Brennan — would claim:

Brennan questioned why the analytical tradecraft and findings of the ICA are being scrutinized by the Department of Justice, especially since they have been validated by the Mueller Report as well as the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence review.