Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Separation
- Pot
- FIB
- Coal
- Soros
- Hate
- Diversity
- Separation. This week’s Two Minute Hate has been brought to you by democrats, open borders activists, their enablers in the media, Mexican drug cartels, MS13, and invaders from Central America. The triggering cause celeb was separation of children from adults they traveled through Mexico from Central America. The media was shocked, simply shocked that “children” could be separated from “parents” as the adults are processed for illegal entry. This sort of separation dates to a 1997 consent decree between Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and a Ninth Circus judge that limits the separation to 20 days, after which the children are to either be released to relatives or sponsors in country or returned to their country of origin. So., this has been going on for over 20 years and four presidents. The law, such as it is, is supposed to act as a negative incentive for illegals sneaking across the border. Losing you children is certainly such an incentive. But not so much when the kids you are hiding behind are not yours. The O’Bama regime separated something over 4,100 the last year or so they were monitoring the border. Of course, they released the kids into the country. The Trump administration is not. Rather, they are holding the kids while the adults are being processed. The media-fueled frenzy took advantage of photos of crying kids, kids in cages, kids bedding down in cages with Mylar thermal blankets (look like tinfoil), and most infamously, a photo-shopped Time Magazine cover with a crying 3-year old looking up at Trump towering over her. Most of the photos were taken during the O’Bama years, with the caged kid being protest eye candy. Great persuasion by whomever came up with the Time image. Trump waited a day or two and signed an Executive Order halting the consent decree, and along with it, separation of kids from adults at the border. He demanded that congress fix the problem while blaming democrats for stonewalling legislative action which they and the Republican Chamber of Commerce types have been doing. Over the course of the week, the first of a pair of immigration bills failed a House floor vote by 15. This was the Goodlatte version, the most conservative. It was neither supported by House leadership or democrats, and it ended up failing. Many thought this failure would pave the way for consideration of a much more liberal amnesty bill. The second bill was pulled by leadership as it was reportedly 100 votes short. Here’s what is happening in congress: There are a LOT of Republican retirements. Many of those retirements are long-term congress critters who are term limited out of Committee chairmanships. They are on their way out the door and many of the candidates working their way through the primary system in their home states are Trump supporters, much more in opposition to amnesty than the old guard is. As such, this is their last chance to shove something through the system agreeable to the open borders, Chamber of Commerce crowd. I would be very surprised if the House passed anything before the elections. I would not be surprised if they tried a version of an amnesty bill in the lame duck session following the election. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/affording-congress-opportunity-address-family-separation/
- Pot. President Trump continues to work to expand his base going into the 2018 and 2020 elections. First, he is trying to break the democrat stranglehold on the black vote. That effort seems to be making some headway, much to the consternation of those in the race baiting business. Second, he is going after the Latino vote by cracking down on imported gangs, MS13 and enforcing immigration laws. Latest example comes with going after the Millennial vote, this time by being supportive of legislation to repeal the federal ban on marijuana. I also support this legislation, though not because I think marijuana is a Good Thing. Rather, I have come to believe that the War on Drugs has done far more damage to the body politic and rights in this nation than it has solved. The best (or worst) example of this is the growth and use of asset forfeiture, which is a direct assault on property rights, all in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Repealing the federal ban and tossing the entire mess back to the many states to figure out is both a great lesson in federalism, but something strongly supported by millennial voters. Trump’s political instincts continue to impress. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-marijuana-20180608-story.html
- FIB. What do you do with a federal agency that has lost the top five members of its senior leadership in less than two years? Do you give it more to do? Do you replace those people with your own appointees and use the known corrupt agency against your political enemies? Such is the problem with the FIB (formerly the FBI), who’s leadership got themselves into the political wars in support of Hillary Clinton and in abject, vociferous opposition to candidate and President Donald Trump. That leadership actively covered up criminal activity by democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. It helped in the manufacture of criminal charges against Trump. It participated in a conspiracy with the intelligence community whose goal was to drive Trump from office. If an agency is this corrupt, perhaps it is time to kill it and put it out of our misery. The classic fix for this inside DC is the reorganization that allows a thorough housecleaning. We saw a bit of this with reorg legislation during the Bush 43 years that went after CIA weasels anti-war, anti-Bush grandstanding. Unfortunately, the new structure did not remove enough weasels to keep it from participating in the political wars in 2016 through today. https://reason.com/archives/2018/06/19/after-the-ig-report-lets-kill-the-fbi-wh/
- Coal. Fun article out of WUWT discussing BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy last week. Best news out of this is that after 20 years of assault by green-friendly (wind and solar) world governments, coal fired generation has the same energy share as it had 20 years ago. In 1997, coal fired generation had a 38% share of global power generation. In 2017, that number is unchanged. Think of all the money foolishly tossed at renewable energy over the last two decades. Think of all the electric bills that have increased as renewables were forced on a mostly disinterested energy consuming public. Think of the newly unstable electric grids in Europe, Oz and England. Think of the elderly, disabled, fixed income, and low-income people who have had to choose between eating and keeping warm. Think of all the sound and fury supporting renewables, all signifying absolutely nothing. While CO2 emissions caused by all forms of generation – liquids, natural gas, and coal – have increased over the last decade, there has been no noticeable change to global temperatures. OTOH, the plants are absolutely loving it, with worldwide green coverage increasing 11% over the period, mostly in arid parts of the world. In a related story, US CO2 emissions continue to fall due to the expansion of natural gas (CH4) as electrical generation fuels. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/17/total-failure-of-the-climate-crusade-coal-power-has-the-same-energy-share-it-had-20-years-ago/
- Soros. Lots of good news this last week. When you have George Soros opining that nothing he is doing is working, this is a good week, indeed. Soros-backed local DA’s lost elections in California last week. They were doing so bad that he pulled money from the campaigns at the last minute. He acknowledged that he ran into a brick wall in California. He still plans on spending at least $15 million in remaining 2018 elections. Soros’ Open Society Foundation spends over $940 / year mucking around in elections and campaigns worldwide. It gives $150 million / year to the ACLU (which no longer supports free speech) and baby parts chop shop Planned Parenthood. For a while Soros was the largest private donor in Russia. Putin banned the Soros-backed group from distributing funds in Russia two years ago. Last week Putin noted that Soros spending around the world looked an awful lot like the Russian political interference in elections claimed by the FIB, democrats and intelligence community. Soros is also under attack in Hungary, with the recently reelected Prime Minister charging that Soros was flooding Europe with Muslim invaders. He is backing legislation aimed at tossing out Soros-backed NGOs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/i-must-be-doing-something-right-billionaire-george-soros-faces-renewed-attacks-with-defiance/2018/06/09/3ba0e2b0-6825-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7d061b464c24
- Hate. One of the desired (in the eyes of the leftist mob) outcomes from this week’s Two Minute Hate on separating children from adults at the border is the return of the leftist mob. These guys called themselves variously Antifa, BLM, Occupy over the last decade. But they all do the same thing, mostly with all the same rent-a-mob people. Over the course of the last week, the mob descended on WH Spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA, surrounding them with 20 people, chasing the party from the restaurant. The protest was organized by the restaurant owner, who followed the remainder of the party across the street after Sanders went home and organized a second protest outside the restaurant. An organized mob also went after FL Attorney General at a movie, with large, loud, in your face bullies. These guys and gals are doing their level best to trigger a punch, screaming obscenities in the face of Trump officials and elected Republicans. This had better ratchet back a notch or ten before someone gets hurt. I think the left wants to trigger a fight, as they think it will provide political advantage, at least in their enablers in the media, during the run-up to November. Maxine (The Mouth) Waters, (D, CA), who never met a riot that she didn’t like, supported this political violence and intimidation over the weekend with a call to never allow any member of the Trump administration or any Trump supporter the ability to go out for a meal, shopping, or entertainment without being hounded from the public stage by the leftist mob. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/06/25/red-hen-restaurant-booted-sanders-has-mixed-inspection-record/731776002/
- Diversity. Sadly, the US Navy has been in the forefront of opening combat positions to women since the days of Patsy Schroeder (D, CO) getting even with the Navy for the drunken brawl that was the 1991 Tailhook Annual Symposium in Las Vegas. To be fair, they were warned at the time not to hold a drunken brawl that year. They chose to hold one anyway. This opened the door for the feminists using calls for diversity, affirmative action, and social engineering to go after the Navy and reshape it more to their liking. Clinton SECNAV John Dalton starting in 1993 really pushed the noodle. His actions led directly to unqualified women being put in the cockpit of F-14s (Kara Hultgreen) and other combat positions as penance. Once you change your standards for one group of people you want to politically benefit, in this case, women in combat, and that order is given from the highest levels of leadership, sooner or later you destroy that military service. Latest example of this comes from the after-action report of the deadly collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine container ship in June 2017, killing seven and almost sinking the ship. The collision took place around 0130 off the coast of Japan. It turns out that the Officer of the Deck (OOD) was female, the Tactical Action Officer, and the Damage Control officers were women. The top two were not speaking with one another for some reason, as such, they did not communicate about traffic in front of them. The Damage Control Officer never left the Bridge following the collision. She did everything remotely. It turns out that all key people except on officer in the CIC were female. The Navy has done its best over the course of the last year to keep the name of the OOD out of the press. The results of Courts Martials suggest that the Navy lowered standards for the sake of “gender integration”, a major policy push during the O’Bama administration. Lowering standards for the sake of quotas gets people killed in this business. We hope SECDEF Mattis refocuses the Navy along with the other services on things that matter rather than filling quotas at the cost of human life. And if the leadership of this ship is unable to keep from hitting something they should have seen miles away, God only knows how they will do in combat. http://theothermccain.com/2018/06/17/tip-pentagon-covering-up-fact-that-female-officers-nearly-sank-navy-ship/
More later –
– AG