ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

With More Green Energy, Plan For A Dark Future And Sheltering In Place Linnea Lueken

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/07/27/with-more-green-energy-plan-for-a-dark-future-and-sheltering-in-place/

It is no great revelation that nearly every Western leader is fully on board with the idea of the so-called “climate emergency.” Accordingly, they uniformly push the kind of major policy upheaval that is currently helping to raise energy costs as well as food prices.

Climate change, according to the “experts,” is caused primarily by automobiles with internal combustion engines, planes (except private jets), eating animal protein, and generating grid-scale energy from fossil fuels.

What, if this emergency really exists, is the plan to stop it?

First on the list is changing the main energy source for generating electricity. This means no more oil or coal, and eventually no more natural gas. Wind and solar power are the primary favorite alternatives; nuclear and hydroelectric tend to be disliked by environmentalists.

These weather-dependent sources of power are not dispatchable, meaning they cannot be turned up or down based on electricity demand like nuclear or fossil fuel systems. Currently, the United States generates about 12% of our energy from wind and solar.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fauci Torments A Nation

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/07/28/fauci-torments-a-nation/

It will take years if not decades for researchers to document the totality of the cruel harms of the pandemic lock-downs. Whatever the damage, it could have been much worse. With the hindsight of a blind man, and the depravity of a despot, Anthony Fauci said this week the restrictions should have been more draconian than they were. He’s a national headache that just won’t go away.

“If I knew in 2020 what I know now, we would do a lot differently,” Fauci said Monday in an interview on The Hill TV.

“The insidious nature of spread in the community would have been much more of an alarm, and there would have been much, much more stringent restrictions in the sense of very, very heavy encouragement of people to wear masks, physical distancing, what have you.”

Fauci didn’t reference lockdowns by name, but “what have you” is the same as “all of the above,” so don’t think he didn’t have tougher lockdown rules in mind. What else could “much more stringent restrictions” mean? Double-masking and triple-physical distancing? Fauci’s claim that he was nothing more than a bystander who “didn’t recommend locking anything down,” is a “blatant attempt to revise history,” said Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, whose focuses include infectious disease epidemiology.

“Dr. Lockdown owns the school closures and their attendant collateral harms.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

GREEN DREAMS-INFLATIONARY REALITIES Joel Kotkin and Hügo Krüger

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://quillette.com/2022/07/27/green-dreams-inflationary-realities/

We must find ways to combat climate change without incurring devastating inflation, greater class division, the immiseration of the middle class, and the destitution of the poor.

Global policy and politics, particularly in the high-income world, have been obsessed with dreams of a green economy. Imposing ever-more rigid methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the way to “save the planet” is almost unchallenged in the media, academia, and corporate boardrooms of the developed world. The results on the ground have been less convincing, as the price of everything—from energy and food to construction costs—rises to unsustainable levels and international trade slows as global recession looms. Billions now face immiseration, malnutrition, or starvation. Economist Isabel Schnabel calls this process “greenflation”—companies’ efforts to reduce emissions have driven up prices, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This has caused tremendous price pressure on rare earths, copper, and other materials critical to the production of batteries. The green lobby and its media supporters, meanwhile, like to claim that renewable energy is now economically competitive. But in places where strict green energy policies have been introduced, people end up with skyrocketing energy costs. In California, residents pay up to 80 percent above the US national average for electricity. Reliance on wind power has made even Texas’s grid vulnerable. Rather than learn from these experiences, other states, notably New York, have decided to adopt similar policies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Inflation destroys the small town soul of America It affects main street far more than big corporations. Teresa Mull

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/inflation-destroys-the-small-town-soul-of-america/

My friend Dave Sr. owns the diner up the road and runs it with his son, Dave Jr. The family business is coming up on its fortieth anniversary, and Dave Sr., who’s eighty now — though you’d never guess it — reflected to me recently on the mom ‘n pop shops that have disappeared over the last fifty years or so. He and another local old-timer counted dozens that used to dot the two-lane road between our town and the next town over.

“Now, I don’t think you can count more than five or six [small businesses]!” Dave Sr. said. “And they all made a living out of these places. Between government intervention and red tape and so forth, people are afraid to get into small business.”

Running a small business is the epitome of the American Dream. By working hard and being resourceful, Americans have — historically, at least — been able to support their towns and families, take pride in what they do, and achieve self-reliance. These are all things big government hates. So it’s no wonder inflation, which hurts small towns the most, is skyrocketing out of control, while the Biden administration dismisses it as a “high class problem.”

Dave Sr., Dave Jr., and millions of other rural Americans know the true costs of inflation better than anyone. Dave Jr. told me he’s had to raise the prices of menu items three times already this summer. The price of eggs has risen by more than 60 percent. When the cost of inflation is passed onto the consumer, they cut back on excessive expenditures. That means an elderly widower’s twice-weekly trip to the diner — where he catches up with old friends, makes new ones, finds someone to help him mow his lawn, and enjoys social interactions that extend his life — comes to an end. The ten-year-old girl who bonds with her grandmother over pancakes every Saturday morning stays at home now, because there’s not enough money for gas and food. It’s not long before the diner disappears and there’s nowhere left for people to meet and mingle.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Connecticut Steps Up To Save The Planet Francis Menton

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=9e1b84ac95

Connecticut is a small state, so you may not be paying sufficient attention to its heroic efforts to save the planet. Count on the Manhattan Contrarian to bring you up to date on the latest developments.

On Friday (July 22) Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed the just-passed bipartisan Clean Air Act for the state. Lamont and other state officials gathered in New Haven in 90+ degree heat to celebrate the great accomplishment. A State Senator named Will Haskell, who is a member of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, took the occasion to make the main point:

We cannot wait for Washington to step up and save the planet!

But how exactly is Connecticut going to accomplish that? After all, it has a population of only about 3.6 million. Its greenhouse gas emissions are in the range of about 41 MMTCO2e per year, which is well less than 0.1% of total world annual emissions of about 49,000 MMTCO2e. You could zero out Connecticut’s emissions entirely, and it wouldn’t even amount to a rounding error in the world total. Indeed, the increase that occurs each year in China’s CO2 emissions is a multiple of Connecticut’s total emissions. (According to Our World in Data here, from 2019 to 2020, latest years given, China’s CO2 emissions went from 10.49 to 10.67 billion tons, a one-year increase of about 180 million tons, or well more than four times the total annual emissions of Connecticut.)

EDUCATION Comments turned off

IN PORTLAND, THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION STARTS IN KINDERGARTEN -Christopher Rufo

Posted By on July 28th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/in-portland-the-sexual-revolution-starts-in-kindergarten

The city’s public schools teach K-5 students to subvert the sexuality of “white colonizers” and begin exploring “the infinite gender spectrum.”

Portland Public Schools has launched a war against the “gender binary” and adopted a radical new curriculum teaching students to subvert the sexuality of “white colonizers” and begin exploring “the infinite gender spectrum.”

I have obtained a cache of documents from a source inside Portland Public Schools that exposes the nature of this curriculum. The lessons seek to turn the principles of academic queer theory into an identity-formation program for elementary school students. The premise is simple: privileged white heterosexuals have created an oppressive gender system in order to dominate racial and sexual minorities. As the curriculum explains, “gender is colonized,” and Western societies have used language to erase alternative sexualities.

“When white European people colonized different places, they brought their own ideas about gender and sexuality,” the curriculum reads. “When the United States was colonized by white settlers, their views around gender were forced upon the people already living here. Hundreds of years later, how we think and talk about gender are still impacted by this shift.” (When reached for comment, Portland Public Schools wrote: “We make certain that our curriculum is LGBTQ+ inclusive for students who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming, gender-queer, and queer to create a safe and inclusive environment for all of our students.”).

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

​​Democrats Aid Peter Meijer’s ‘Stop the Steal’ Opponent By Charles Hilu

Posted By on July 27th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-aid-peter-meijers-stop-the-steal-opponent/

Democrats are running ads for a Trump-endorsed candidate in Michigan’s third congressional district, continuing their effort to aid those who claim the 2020 election was stolen.

John Gibbs, who is running to unseat Peter Meijer, one of ten Republican Congress members who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, gained support Tuesday from an unlikely source, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“John Gibbs is too conservative for west Michigan,” the voiceover in the ad says. It warns that Gibbs will support policies similar to those of Trump, including being “hard-line against immigrants at the border” and “supporting ‘patriotic education.’”

Although the ad is critical of Gibbs, it could serve to help him gain favor with the Republican base that will choose between him and Meijer in the state’s August 2 primary. Conservative voters will be more likely to gravitate toward the candidate that leftists see as “too conservative.”

The ad is part of a larger campaign by Democrats to help “stop the steal” Republicans, whom they believe to be easier to beat in the general election. If their favored Trump-like candidate does not win in the primary, they can still force the mainstream candidate to spend more money, weakening him in the general.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jan. 6 Committee Hiding Evidence That Absolves Trump by Matt Margolis

Posted By on July 27th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/07/26/jan-6-committee-hiding-evidence-that-absolves-trump-n1615808

The key narrative of the Jan. 6 Committee is that Donald Trump wanted to incite the violence that took place that day.

To do this, they’ve hidden and manipulated evidence. As we’ve previously reported, they presented a doctored video of Trump’s speech, interwoven with violent images and audio, while not including the portion of President Trump’s speech in which he told his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard. Not once did he call for any violence or for them to break into the building.

But the committee has done even more to undermine the truth. Prior to his rally, Trump informed various military leaders that the event would draw a “large number of protestors,” and instructed his then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to ensure it was “safe” by having troops available.

This evidence, not presented (nor denied) by the Jan. 6 Committee, is found in a Pentagon Inspector General report.

“Mr. Miller and GEN Milley met with the President at the White House at 5:30 p.m.,” the report reads. “The primary topic they discussed was unrelated to the scheduled rally. GEN Milley told us that at the end of the meeting, the President told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protestors on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or Soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event. Gen Milley told us that Mr. Miller responded, ‘We’ve got a plan and we’ve got it covered.’”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Torture Has Reached “Unprecedented Levels” by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on July 27th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18715/turkey-torture

“We saw his body while washing it. There was a scar on his neck as if he had been hanged with a clothesline. Both of his eyes had burst. Blood was coming from his eyes. His nose was completely broken and filled with cotton. There was such a large swelling and bruise on his chest it looked as if a tree had been stuck there. His upper lip was almost as big as a palm. His right foot was stitched.” — Hikmet Yılmaz, elder brother of Ferhan Yılmaz, evidently tortured to death in Silivri prison on April 10, 2022.

“There are thousands of cases like this. I spoke to his brother a while ago…. There is ill-treatment and torture in all prisons, systematically everywhere.” — Sezgin Tanrıkulu, deputy of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), bianet.com. July 14, 2022.

“[W]e learned that the transferred prisoners told their families, ‘We are at risk here too. Do not make any more statements to the press.'” — Monitoring Delegation of Prisons in the Marmara Region, press conference, tihv.org.tr, April 15, 2022.

“Both of his hands have cuts and stitches…. His whole body is bruised…. He can’t see any more. They tortured him so much he has lost his eyesight. They hit him so much in the head that his head shakes all the time. His eyes start moving as if he had a stroke…. He has seven stitches on one arm and six on the other…They put him in a cell where there was feces of other prisoners. They told him to eat the feces. They beat my son and hanged him twice. And then removed him from the rope. He also hanged himself once… He said they made him do it… They put a razor blade there and told him to cut himself. They waited there so he had to cut himself.” — Beyaz Çelik, mother of prisoner Halil Kasal, who was tortured at Silivri Prison.

“I emphasize that there is no torture or ill-treatment in Turkish prisons… Almost all of the allegations against prisons are exaggeration, distortion and fiction… Such allegations were made by terrorist organizations, circles that support terrorist organizations or those who support them politically.” — Turkey’s Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ, t24.com.tr, April 20, 2022.

“Prisoners are under torture. There are massive violations of rights. Prisoners die, they are killed, but [authorities] say that they committed suicide.” — Fatma Kurtulan, MP of the HDP party and member of the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission, Yeni Yasam Gazetesi, April 20, 2022.

“[S]ometimes the prison guards show counter-reflexes by complaining about the prisoners that they abuse, and the prisoners get arbitrarily and illegally punished for the abuses from which they have suffered…. These incidents are due to sentences arbitrarily and unlawfully implemented in Turkey, and the widespread impunity policy for state authorities who are perpetrators of crimes.” — Mehdi Ozdemir, attorney, board member of Diyarbakir Bar Association, to Gatestone, April 23, 2022.

What makes this situation even worse is that the international community, including the UN, has enabled the Turkish government to carry out its policy of destruction of human rights with no consequences, but many rewards.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI whistleblowers claim the agency lied about Hunter Biden’s laptop By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on July 27th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/fbi_whistleblowers_claim_the_agency_lied_about_hunter_bidens_laptop.html

“We will know that the rule of law exists in this country if these men (and women?) are brought to trial and, if found guilty, thrown into prison for a very long time. So far, the Durham investigation has been a sham, and the pattern is clear: Democrats who engage in illegal activity to advance Democrat party political goals get a pass. Always.”

In late summer 2020, the mother of all October surprises emerged: An abandoned Hunter Biden laptop filled to the brim with information about Hunter’s drug and sex addictions (scurrilous but arguably irrelevant to Joe) plus massive amounts of information about Hunter’s shady business deals with America’s geopolitical enemies, all of which he obtained thanks to the Biden family business (aka Joe Biden using his office to sell out America). The tech companies immediately censored the story but, even more tellingly, the FBI claimed that the manifestly real material was, in fact, “disinformation.” Now, though, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says that FBI whistleblowers have emerged to say that the FBI lied. Suh-prise, suh-prise, suh-prise, as Gomer Pyle would have said.