Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Kennedy
- CIRI Mine
- Mueller
- McCain
- Hansen
- Campaign
- Kennedy. Not unexpectedly, SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement last week. This gave President Trump his second SCOTUS vacancy to fill in his first two years in office. He may end up with a couple more should he be reelected in 2020 (assuming he runs). The left, already in high dudgeon over separating families of illegals had yet another target for their free-floating anger. Kennedy was the last remaining Reagan appointee, the third choice after Teddy Kennedy and Joe Biden destroyed Robert Bork in 1987. Kennedy has long been problematic, siding with the liberals on most of the social issues, particularly gay rights. OTOH, he has been strong with the First Amendment, on the right side of multiple 5 – 4 opinions in recent years, especially this last month. Senate Republican liberals Susan Collings and Lisa Murkowski immediately started making mewling noises about a woman’s right to choose, indicating that their love for dismemberment of children in the womb trumps everything else they believe is in the Constitution. We will see how much of this is real and how much are pro-forma grandstanding for the media. Note that both voted for Trump’s initial nominee Neil Gorsuch without any difficulty. Senate Minority leader Chuckie Schumer went to Twitter with a series of tweets opposing every single possible Trump nominee from Trump’s list of 25 potential nominees given the public during the presidential campaign in 2016. There is no small enjoyment in senate democrat opposition to Trump judicial nominees including this fun thought: Had the new democrat majority in the senate (democrats took over the senate majority in the 1986 congressional elections), Robert Bork would have been confirmed in 1987. All things being equal, he would have served until his passing in December 2012, at which time the newly reelected Barack O’Bama would have nominated his replacement. And if Chuckie Schumer had not chosen to filibuster Gorsuch in 2017, senate rules would have allowed a filibuster on the upcoming nomination. Final fun thought is Harry Reid’s change of senate rules for appellate court nominations in 2013 have allowed the senate to confirm many, many Trump judicial nominations. That rule change allowed O’Bama to pack the DC Circuit with lefties for his last three years on office. Note to Chuckie and the democrats: Be careful choosing to make war. The enemy always gets a vote. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/democrats-trump-cabinet-senate/513782/
- CIRI Mine. In yet another example that mining here in Alaska has a racial component comes a story about yet another Native regional corporation, CIRI, proposing mineral exploration in Lake Clark National Park. Constantine Metal Resources signed an agreement with CIRI to study a long-dormant gold prospect on Native land in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Not only will they be mining a watershed that feeds into the salmon-rich Cook Inlet, but they will be doing it inside a national park. Local greens promised to be watching the project closely but haven’t yet gone into nuclear winter mode. The gold deposit was discovered in 1982 and drilled nearly 90 exploration holes. There has been no exploration for over 20 years. So far, so good. I wish them luck. Contrast this proposed mine with the ongoing brouhaha over Pebble, a mine proposed on state land in a mining region. Contrast it also with Donlin Creek, the next watershed to the west of Pebble, quietly sailing through the permitting process. What is the difference between the three mines? One difference is size, with Pebble’s original size being an order of magnitude larger than Donlin Creek. Another, and perhaps more important difference is that Donlin Creek and the CIRI prospects are both Native corporation owned and operated, the second on Native land in a national park. So, do mining opponents consciously or unconsciously oppose mining unless there is Native corporation ownership and operation? While I haven’t seen this state explicitly in print, it is most certainly an interesting coincidence, a newly minted racial test for mining. I thought racial tests were Bad Things. Either way, I wish all three mines great success, great economic success, and celebrate their ability to create high paying, rewarding jobs for decades. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2018/06/22/in-deal-with-ciri-company-plans-to-pursue-mineral-exploration-in-lake-clark-national-park/
- Mueller. When you are dirty cop, have a group of dirty prosecutors working for you, and have carefully selected compliant O’Bama and Clinton judges, you expect to steam roll anyone you have in your sights. The game is usually all about burying the target in crushing legal fees, forcing a plea bargain before going to court (General Michael Flynn is one such example). Point of all this is that people like Mueller rarely go to court. Rather they use the process as the punishment. But a funny thing is happening on their way to crushing their latest Russian targets. One is fighting back, and they are doing it surprisingly well, demonstrating that Team Dirty Cop put together may be a bunch of incompetent bullies and thugs. Concord Management and Consulting was one of several individuals and businesses with Russian ties indicted by Mueller’s team last year as part of the Russia collusion investigation. The indictments were announced with the typical media splash Mueller is known for. More importantly, Mueller’s team never expected any of the indicted to show up in court to defend themselves. Concord did. And they brought a smart, aggressive lawyer with them. Concord started the festivities demanding a swift trial and discovery. Mueller, hooked like a fresh salmon, started flopping around mightily, delaying discovery, arguing for a delay of the trial, and muddying the water by dumping terabytes of untranslated conversations on the court at the last minute. Mueller’s team is arguing they are not prepared to go to trial. But the way the system works is that an indictment filed in court means that the prosecutor has everything he needs and is ready to go to trial. Mueller’s flopping around indicates the 13 indictments were little more than a publicity stunt. Concord has a great defense, as they did not exist during the time in question detailed in the indictment. The presiding judge, a Trump appointee, has so far turned down two Mueller requests to delay the trial. The relevant statute is a 44-year old speedy trial law that requires trials to start 70 days after the indictment is dropped unless the defendant requests a delay. The defendant is ready, willing and able to go. Mueller’s team is not, which reeks of incompetent grandstanding and bullying, hardly positive family values. Watch this one. It could be a lot of fun. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/facing_humiliation_mueller_backs_away_from_prosecution_of_russian_entities.html
- McCain. Judicial Watch released documents revealing that the IRS targeting of TEA Party groups by the O’Bama regime was a bipartisan operation. McCain’s staff director Henry Kerner on his way out the door to be chief counsel of McCain’s Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee urged a group of senior IRS officials including Lois Lerner that if they thought an exempt organization were being political to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Ten days after the meeting, Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups. Lerner and other IRS officials met with top staffers from McCain’s and Levin’s Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to hear their concern that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to Citizens United, which both McCain and Levin strongly oppose. And the target of that meeting was TEA Party groups, as the usual suspects among unions, Big Green, and various community organizing groups were just fine with both senators. So, the instructions were to kill the new guys on the block. For the record, McCain vociferously denies targeting TEA Party non-profits. But his staff participated in demanding the IRS target them. https://lidblog.com/john-mccain-staffer-lois-lerner/
- Hansen. It has been 30 years since Robert Hansen spoke at Tim Wirth’s and algore’s carefully orchestrated hearings on manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions. It was carefully orchestrated in that they turned off the air conditioning in the senate committee room on a nice sunny day, making it hot and sweaty for attendees and most importantly for the cameras. Wirth also checked with the Weather Bureau on what the hottest days were in DC and scheduled the hearing for one of those days. Hansen, who was a planetary scientist at the time gave algore and Wirth everything they wanted and became a huge media sensation. With the senators flying top cover, he had free rein to go public any time he wanted over the following decades carrying the manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions message. This included protests and public pronouncements in violation of NASA official agency policy. When you have US Senate and the VP flying top cover for you, life gets easy. The stagecraft for the hearing took decades to leak out. So how did Hansen’s predictions of deadly global warming work out? Answer: not very well at all. Global surface temperatures have not increased significantly since 2000. There was a larger than usual El Nino of 2015 -16, but temperatures decreased to previous levels after that event. Hurricanes have not gotten stronger. No increasing amount of damage due to storms in the US. In later years, Hansen has started hiding behind children, using his granddaughter and other youngsters as props for fighting the climate wars via lawfare in the courts. Hansen’s scientific expertise was from studying the atmosphere of Venus, which is almost completely CO2. Venus is hellishly hot because the CO2 is all in the atmosphere rather than being locked up in the rocks. At the surface, it acts more like an ocean than an atmosphere, with the surface pressure 92 times that of Earth. Thicker atmospheres tend to be hotter on the bottom due to simple thermodynamics. It is not the CO2. Rather, it is the sheer amount of CO2. You could do the same thing with any stable gas as we see in the thick atmospheres of the giant planes of the outer solar system. http://www.climatedepot.com/2018/06/23/book-excerpt-on-nasas-ex-con-james-hansens-1988-climate-testimony-the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-climate-change/
- Campaign. Grifters like the Clintons never go away. Either do their friends, supporters and sycophants, especially if the money continues to roll in. A recent example comes out of a 2016 John Podesta e-mail included in a meeting packet from an outfit that calls itself The Climate Works Foundation. Podesta was Hilly’s campaign manager. Another Board member is another UN climate crusader. The foundation is going after the climate change agenda at the state and local level following Trump’s departure from the Paris agreement. The budget for the foundation is $66.6 million and they claim to influence state and local governments to enact climate laws, carbon trading, and related activities. They contracted McKinsey and Company for $42.4 million to help make this happen. McKinsey is one of the Big Dogs in the management consulting world. They plan on “helping” California change its electric grid to better integrate renewables across state lines. The Board also discusses goals and tactics of these proposals. Greens are like the Terminator. They never quit. They never sleep, and they will never stop until we are all onboard and in agreement, or dead. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/24/leaked-a-look-inside-the-climateworks-foundation-66-million-campaign-to-foist-climate-laws-on-local-governments/
More later –
– AG