Interesting Items 12/10

Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.  Enjoy –

In this issue:

1. Protests
2. Vaping
3. Harvesting
4. Dunleavy
5. Habitat
6. Bush 41
7. Welfare
8. Drinking
9. Custody

1. Protests. We have seen perhaps the first grass roots revolt in France in many years.  This is the yellow-vest protests against French President Macron’s carbon taxes which have significantly jacked up gasoline and other fuels costs nationwide.  As with all protests, the Usual Suspects on the left have tried to coopt them, so far unsuccessfully.  It has gotten to the point where Macron is calling out the military as French police unions are siding with the protesters.  Macron’s carbon taxes are all a result of his climate change agenda, required by his support of the Paris Accord.  The new tax on diesel will rise 23% over the next 12 months.  Macron used the Paris Accord in an attempt to embarrass Trump when Trump visited Paris earlier this year.  And like he usually does, Trump waited until the right moment to fire back, blistering Macron for being an idiot.  Macron is destroying his countries’ economy by virtue signaling and the citizens are not putting up with it.  Expect the same reaction when a democrat House attempts to Mau – Mau a reluctant Senate and the next president with a similar increase in the cost of living via carbon taxes.  http://victorygirlsblog.com/parisriots-macrons-fuel-tax-and-climate-change-policies-are-destroying-france/

 

2. Vaping. The Siren call of prohibition runs strongly among Americans and comes out to play from time to time.  Next up to bat will be an attack on vaping by the FDA and other arms of the federal bureaucracy.  A lot of us view vaping as the solution rather than the disease.  PowerLine has writers with similar beliefs.  They reported a study by David Levy, a cancer research Prof at Georgetown who demonstrates that vaping is associated with a significant decline in smoking among the young.  The rate of decline in smoking tripled among young people in 10^th – 12^th grades after e-cigs became more widespread in 2013.  Vaping increased among HS students from 1.5 – 4.5% between 2011- 2013.  At the same time, smoking rates dropped 25 – 40%, with smoking rates by young adults down almost 50%.  Levy is a cancer researcher and cancer is what we are talking about when it comes to vaping.  Why is the federal government doing everything it can to prevent teen vaping if vaping is demonstrably cutting exposure to carcinogenic compounds?  Is this an intelligent policy position?  I would submit:  Absolutely not.  https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/youth-smoking-plummeted-with-advent-of-vaping.php

 

3. Harvesting. Looks like vote harvesting is the Next Big Thing used by democrats to steal elections.  It was widely used in California and helped turn congressional seats from Republican to democrat particularly in Orange County.  Democrats were delirious with joy and spent weeks patting themselves on their backs.  But democrats are not the only ones doing vote harvesting.  It appears that an enterprising Republican in NC used the technique to flip a democrat congressional seat and from the shocked, simply shocked media coverage of the festivities, you would have thought Boss Tweed or the Chicago Machine had just flipped Republican.  Must Read Alaska ran a story last week about vote harvesting in the Fairbanks region during November’s election that may have pushed a house seat almost democrat.  The Republican won it by a single vote and the democrat is now in court trying to get a judge to help her steal the seat.  Appears the League of Women Voters ran the trap lines of hospitals and the Pioneer Home harvesting votes in coordination with the Walker-controlled (democrat friendly)  Division of Elections.  The League is no longer viewed as a non-partisan organization in this state.  I think we about to have a knock-down, drag out argument over vote harvesting.  And perhaps it is time.  http://mustreadalaska.com/was-fairbanks-race-tainted-by-league-of-vote-harvesters/

 

4. Dunleavy. Alaska swore in our new governor last week, Republican Mike Dunleavy.  The swearing in was supposed to be in the Arctic village of Noorvik, where he taught for a couple decades and met his wife.  The original plan was to fly into neighboring Kotzebue, snow machine the 65 miles between the two villages, and take the oath.  The snow machine trip was cancelled after the M7.0 earthquake with the alternative being to fly into Noorvik.  As happens from time to time in the winter up here, weather did not cooperate, and his flight was diverted to Kotzebue where he took the oath of office.  Nothing was cooperating, and it all worked out.  I think this is a good start.  https://www.juneauempire.com/news/alaskas-new-governor-to-be-sworn-in-in-kotzebue/

 

5. Habitat. One of the continuing scams perpetrated by the greens has been the notion of habitats to protect endangered species.  Essentially, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) had become a vehicle used by greens, feds and the courts to attack private property rights.  A couple weeks ago, the SCOTUS issued a unanimous opinion on the dusky gopher frog.  The lawsuit was brought by Weyerhauser against the feds who set aside logging lands as critical habitat for the frog, shutting down logging on land that Weyerhauser owns.  The problem with this is that no frogs could be found on the land designated as critical habitat.  Weyerhauser’s lawyers argued that “… a tract of land can only be properly defined as the habitat of a certain species if that species resides on the land.”  Unanimous opinion of the court.  Greens are not pleased.  The rest of us should be as this is a real positive step.  https://www.nationalreview.com/news/supreme-court-sides-with-landowners-in-dispute-over-frog-habitats/

 

6. Bush 41. President GHW Bush passed away last week.  He was transported to Washington DC to lie in state at the Capitol for three days, followed by a service at the National Cathedral, transportation back to Houston for a second service.  He was transported by train to the grounds of the Bush Library at Texas A&M where he was buried next to his wife, Barbara.  Bush lived a full life and was a pretty good wartime president.  Sadly, he chose not to fight the incessant cheap shots thrown at him by democrats and their media proxies.  He became the media’s favorite Republican when he broke his no new taxes pledge in the 1990 budget deal which doomed his presidency.  That lasted perhaps nine months until the 1992 campaign started.  He allowed Clinton to get to the right of him on taxes for that campaign.  His kinder and gentler worldview was a reaction to a very tough campaign waged by the sadly departed Lee Atwater against Michael Dukakis in 1988.  He presided over the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.  He did spectacularly well in the First Gulf War but did not allow his military to finish off Saddam, setting the stage for the second war and perhaps even 9-11 a decade later.  Overall, I liked him and voted for him twice.  But he missed the opportunity to lock in Reaganism for decades, opening the door for the democrat corruption endemic in the Clintons and O’Bamas.  Not unexpectedly, the media and democrats used his passing to bash President Trump, who was nothing short of completely respectful and helpful during the week’s events.

 

7. Welfare. Paul Bedard reported on US Census Bureau findings that 63% of non-citizens including those with green cards and green card rights are currently on welfare.  It does not get much better as they naturalize, with a full 55% of all immigrant households, and 50% of naturalized citizen households currently on welfare.  In contrast, only 35% of native households are on welfare.  Over time, this only gets worse, with 70% of all non-citizens here 10 years or more on welfare.  Essentially, once they get on it, they stay on it, creating the new, permanent underclass for the feudalists infesting the democrat party.  This works out to nearly 4.7 million non-citizen households receiving welfare.  These numbers drop to 58% and 30% respectively if cash payments for Earned Income Tax Credit payments are not counted.  Unlike other welfare payments, EITC is means tested and requires one to work to receive the payments.  What better reason do we need to control the borders.  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/census-confirms-63-percent-of-non-citizens-on-welfare-4-6-million-households

 

8. Drinking. A PJ Media column by J Christian Adams suggested a way for Republicans to appeal to millennials in upcoming elections.  Better yet, the appeal will be in line with our conservative values of Federalism and shrinking the federal leviathan.  Solution?  Repeal the 1984 National Minimum Age Drinking Act passed by a democrat congress in 1984 and signed into law by Ronald Reagan.  While they can’t do it in the next two years, it most certainly ought to be part of the congressional campaigns in 2020, just like the repeal of the odious Double Nickle (55 MPH) national speed limit was part of the 1994 Republican congressional campaigns.  And the Newt Gingrich congress repealed it as one of the first things they did in 1995.  Repeal the national age limit and shove the entire mess back down to the many states.  I am not advocating repealing the 21-year-old legal drinking age at the state level.  We’ve already done it and it didn’t work out all that well, though I rather enjoyed it. But it is a decision that should be done at the state / local level rather than the federal level.  Put Republicans once again on the side of liberty and smaller government and make that case to the millennials.  https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/can-the-gop-attract-young-voters-try-beer/

 

9. Custody. What happens when Munchausen’s by Proxy meets the trans movement in an old fashioned Family Courts anti-male custody fight?  Answer:  Child abuse by the mother, the courts, child welfare, and the medical establishment.  There is a divorced mother in Dallas who is changing her son’s identity to a trans girl she calls Luna.  The kid is perfectly happy as a boy while in his father’s care.  That is also the sex of his birth.  The mother is using the family courts to charge the father with child abuse (a near universal charge against fathers by divorcing mothers) for not affirming or supporting the kid as trans (a rather new charge), sought restraining orders against the father (also near-universally used against men by women in divorces), and is seeking to terminate his parental rights (a final near-universal ploy by divorcing moms).  Not only that, but she wants the father the pay for a trans-affirming therapist and medical intervention which will likely include hormonal sterilization starting at age 8.  Nothing like getting raped and pillaged by the Family Courts and then getting to pay for the medical destruction of your son’s life.  Happy times.  Happy times (/sarc).  While the mother “sees” gender dysphoria, the father doesn’t.  In this case, the mother is the one pushing the kid toward trans while the father, under court order, provides both options including clothes, and the kid invariably chooses to be a boy.  The court prohibits the father from dressing the kid as a boy or sharing religious or science-based teachings on sexuality (anti-male discrimination by the Family Courts continues unabated), but the kid chooses to be a boy.  Munchausen’s by Proxy is a relatively rare form of child abuse that involves the exaggeration of illnesses or symptoms by a primary care giver.  In this case, it is the mother committing the child abuse, aided and abetted by the Family Courts, a willing and fully politicized medical system, and the lawyers who keep the whole bloody thing going.  And the kid is about to lose his childhood and half a century of his future life to the damage about to be inflicted on him by this outrage.  https://thefederalist.com/2018/11/26/mom-dresses-six-year-old-son-girl-threatens-dad-losing-son-disagreeing/

More later –

– AG