Thursday, February 9, 2017
Establishment Republicans peddle growth-killing carbon tax at White House
On the campaign trail President Trump came out against enacting a carbon tax. “I will not support or endorse a carbon tax!” he tweeted May 13, 2016. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus previously said that Trump’s “default position” on climate change is that “most of it is a bunch of bunk.”
Priebus, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, were supposed to meet with former Treasury Secretary James Baker and others. The pro-carbon tax group reportedly includes former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Walmart chairman Rob Walton, and New America Foundation founder Ted Halstead, but it was unclear at time of writing if they were expected to attend the meeting.
According to Moran,
The insiders would impose a $40 per ton tax on carbon, and potentially increase it in the future. Conservatives on Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue oppose a carbon tax. […] At $40 per ton of carbon, the plan would raise $300 billion in revenue, and add 36 cents per gallon to gas prices. James Baker has said that they would reallocate the funds in the form of rebates, a family of four would receive $2,000 a year.
James Baker is trying to sell the carbon tax as “something that does not increase, build government, that is conservative, that is free market.”
Some right-of-center groups in Washington like the R Street Institute support carbon taxes, as Michael Bastasch and Steven J. Allen reported in the August 2013 issue of Green Watch. A handful of scholars at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) appear to favor such taxes.
“Conservatives should seize the opportunity to once again emphasize the superiority of free markets over central planning,” R Street’s Andrew Moylan wrote in 2013. “A revenue-neutral carbon tax with regulatory reform could do exactly that.”
Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute thinks a carbon tax would be disastrous.
The political choice facing the American people is in no small part that between a Republican Party that is anti-tax and pro-energy and a Democratic Party that is anti-energy and pro-tax. This clear product differentiation is an asset for the GOP. Republicans are truly the Dumb Party if they...
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
The Harvest Of The Regressive Left
He said kill it before it grow -
He said kill them before they grow.
-Bob Marley
Massive ESPN Financial, Subscriber Losses Drag Down Disney’s First-Quarter Sales
Well, that did not happen, and ESPN appears to be a sinking ship, dragging parent company Disney down with it.
Bloomberg reports that ESPN badly hurt Disney’s first quarter sales, falling well short of projections.
According to The Wrap, “Cable networks, particularly ESPN, have been an albatross on Disney’s stock price even as the company’s two other major prongs, movies and theme parks, continue to perform well. As cheaper TV alternatives began to proliferate, ESPN hemorrhaged subscribers during the course of 2016 and is now at less than 88 million, compared with a peak of 100.1 million in 2011. At an estimated $7 per subscriber, that dip has been a substantial hit to Disney, especially considering media networks made up 49 percent of Disney’s profits during fiscal 2016.”
In other words, everyone else at Disney met or exceeded their projected goals, except for ESPN who lost more than twelve million subscribers in just under six years.
But, the problem for ESPN goes deeper than just losing subscribers and money. The Wrap explains, “At the same time, rights fees for the live sports ESPN specializes in broadcasting continue to go up, as there’s plenty of competition for one of the few pieces of programmed television that still delivers monster ratings. ESPN will pay $7.3 billion for content this year – the biggest price tag among all media companies. Operating income at Disney’s cable networks division — primarily ESPN — plunged 11 percent compared with the same time the previous year. Disney attributed that drop entirely to lower ESPN revenue.”
Less cash on hand means less cash to purchase rights to sporting events, which can prove particularly harmful to an entity that considers itself a sports network. Now, Disney and ESPN have laid much of the blame for their subscriber loss at the feet of ...
A MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SECURITY BREACH IN CONGRESS
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Last year, eight members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a demand that their staffers be granted access to top secret classified information.
The signatories to the letter were Andre Carson, Luis Guiterez, Jim Himes, Terri Sewell, Jackie Speier, Mike Quigley, Eric Swalwell and Patrick Murphy. All the signatories were Democrats. Some had a history of attempting to undermine national security.
Two of them have been linked to an emerging security breach.
The office of Andre Carson, the second Muslim in Congress, had employed Imran Awan. As did the offices of Jackie Speier and Debbie Wasserman Schultz; to whom the letter had been addressed.
Imran Awan and his two brothers, Jamal and Abid, are at the center of an investigation that deals with, among other things, allegations of illegal access. They have been barred from the House of Representatives network.
All three of the Pakistani brothers had been employed by Democrats. The offices that employed them included HPSCI minority members Speier, Carson and Joaquín Castro. Congressman Castro, who also sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, utilized the services of Jamal Moiz Awan. Speier and Carson’s offices utilized Imran Awan.
Abid A. Awan was employed by Lois Frankel and Ted Lieu: members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Also on the committee is Castro. As is Robin Kelly whose office employed Jamal Awan. Lieu also sits on the subcommittees on National Security and Information Technology of the Committee on Oversight and...
Former Classmate: Keith Ellison Would Rant About Jewish Slavers, Called Jews ‘Oppressors’
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| Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) has dominated the endorsements game in the race to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. |
That anecdote is buried in an otherwise complimentary profile of the congressman from Mother Jones. Ellison recently came under renewed scrutiny for his past defense of anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in the student paper, and for inviting Stokely Carmichael to give a campus speech in which he accused “Zionists” of collaborating with the Nazis.
One of the campus critics of Ellison (who then went by ‘Keith Hakim’) was an editor of the Minnesota Daily Michael Olenick. Olenick told Mother Jones that Ellison argued in their conversations that blacks and other oppressed groups “could not be racist toward Jews” because “Jews were themselves oppressors.”
“‘European white Jews are trying to oppress minorities all over the world,'” Olenick said Ellison would tell him. “Keith would go on all the time about ‘Jewish...
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Knocked Him Right Out....
More Amazing Animated Gifs: ANimated Gif Collection #7
Video: The assassination of Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma
Somali Migrant Admits Stabbing American Woman to Death in UK
A court today heard how Bulhan “smiled and skipped” towards his first victim before continuing the rampage with a “crazed smile” on his face.
Londoner Bernard Hepplewhite was stabbed in the abdomen but said his attacker showed no sign of anger and simply skipped straight on towards his next victim.
At a hearing today unemployed Zakaria Bulhan, 19, admitted killing 64-year-old retired teacher Darlene Horton and injuring several other victims on the evening of August 3 last year.
Bulhan, who is in custody, appeared at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Spencer this morning where he pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
He pleaded...
Why President Trump’s Executive Order Is Vital to Protecting America
First of all, there is no “Muslim ban,” contrary to what the fake news media would have you believe.
There is a ban against travel to the U.S. from seven of the highest risk countries for terrorist activity. It isn’t President Trump’s fault all seven of those countries happen to be almost entirely Islamic. If the Vatican presented the same risk for terrorism as Somalia, they too would have been listed in the executive order. Fortunately, we seem to have the Catholic suicide bomber threat under control.
For too long, Americans have been held captive by the chains of political correctness. While the election of President Trump signaled the beginning of our nation’s awakening, many would prefer we go back to sleep.
After September 11th, 2001, Americans couldn’t understand the psychology of someone who would fly a plane into a building, in exchange for what they believed would be 72 virgins in paradise. They couldn’t understand because they were assigning their own civilized ideals to Islamic radicals, whose beliefs were from a different realm.
More than a decade later, we are still battling this same enemy, which has metastasized tremendously. Not only are we struggling to eliminate Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, we are...
What Rand Meant by Altruism
Rand sold more than 30 million books. Atlas Shrugged has been ranked behind only the Bible as an influence on readers’ lives. She has also been stridently attacked for issues such as her militant atheism. But perhaps least understood has been her full-bore rejection of altruism. On her birthday, it is worth reconsideration.
Altruism has commonly been held up as the standard for moral behavior. But Rand rejected it, asserting it was “incompatible with freedom, with capitalism, and with individual rights,” and therefore “the basic evil behind today’s ugliest phenomena.”
In Comte’s view, any act performed for any reason beyond solely that of advancing someone else’s well-being is not morally justified. That implies taking a tax deduction for a charitable act strips it of its morality. The same is true when done because “what goes around comes around.” Something as seemingly innocuous as feeling good about doing good also fails Comte’s joyless standards. Even “love your neighbor as yourself” fails his unlimited duty of altruism. As George H. Smith summarized it, “One should love one’s neighbor more than oneself.”
Ayn Rand’s attacks on altruism are aimed at Comte’s definition. However, modern usage has eroded his meaning of altruism to little more than a synonym for generosity, so Rand’s rejection of the original meaning is now often taken as a rejection of generosity, which it is not. In Roderick Long’s words,
… her sometimes misleading rhetoric about the “virtue of selfishness”… was not to advocate the pursuit of one’s own interest at the expense of others … she rejected not only the subordination of one’s interest to those of others, (and it is this, rather than mere benevolence, that she labeled “altruism”), but also the subordination of others’ interest to one’s own.Rand’s categorical rejection of altruism was a rejection of Comte’s requirement of total selflessness, because that was inconsistent with any individuals mattering for their own sake. Rand vehemently opposed such an invalidation of individuals’ significance.
The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value.Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” was a response to Comte’s demand for complete selflessness. Not only is a requirement for everyone to completely disregard themselves an unattainable ideal, it is self-contradictory. You cannot possibly sacrifice yourself fully for me, while I am also sacrificing myself fully for you. And if no one has any intrinsic value, why would the results, even if possible, be meritorious? With Comte as a starting point, more attention to people’s own well-being – more selfishness, in Rand’s terminology – is the only way to move toward recognizing value in each individual and significance in each life.
Comte’s conception of altruism is also inconsistent with liberty, which was Ayn Rand’s focus. The duty to put others first at all times and in all circumstances denies self-ownership and the power to...
Monday, February 6, 2017
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:
The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: The Humiliation Of Roger Goodell
American Power has: Rule 5 Superbowl Sunday
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
NOAA Scientists Manipulated Temperature Data To Make Global Warming Seem Worse
A whistleblower says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rushed a landmark study claiming the planet was warming much faster than expected in order to influence international climate negotiations.
Dr. John Bates, the former principal scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., told the Daily Mail NOAA’s 2015 study was meant “to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.”
Bates said NOAA scientists made a “blatant attempt to intensify the impact” of global warming to eliminate the “pause” in temperature rise since 1998. The Daily Mail claims Bates showed it “irrefutable” evidence NOAA’s study relied on “unverified” data.
Bates’ objections to the paper were ignored by his superiors, who let scientists make “decisions and scientific choices that maximised warming and...
Why Is Obama's State Department Still Working With George Soros To Form A “red-green” Coalition Between Leftist And Islamic-Based Parties In Macedonia?
So why are some members of Congress having to ask our Macedonian ambassador, Jess Baily, to explain reports that he’s been acting as the bullying sovereign of the country, shoehorning political parties into forming a “red-green” coalition between leftist and Islamic-based parties?
And is it true, they also want to know, that the ambassador is siphoning off government money to groups founded by the left-wing billionaire activist George Soros?
Members of both the House and the Senate sent their letters to our ambassador in Skopje, that nation’s capital, on Jan. 17 and gave him two weeks to reply. President Barack Obama’s appointee hasn’t responded yet, though after I called the State Department and the embassy to inquire, the State Department did reach out to at least one congressman to tell him a response was being drafted.
But things have gotten so bad that congressional hearings and congressional delegations to the small Balkan country are being contemplated. Members of Congress have also reached out to the new Trump administration to inquire into the matter.
Tony Perkins, the president of the pro-traditional values Family Research Council, has also taken a keen interest in the matter. He wrote this week:
While the U.S. goals for Macedonia include benign statements on investing in democracy, the State Department began favoring partnerships with Soros’ long litany of organizations in 2012. These organizations are anything but democratic. Instead, they are pushing progressive, violent, and radical ideals throughout Europe.”
Under pressure, State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday issued a statement backing the ambassador.
“Ambassador Baily and his team have been working in partnership with...
Tony Perkins, the president of the pro-traditional values Family Research Council, has also taken a keen interest in the matter. He wrote this week:
While the U.S. goals for Macedonia include benign statements on investing in democracy, the State Department began favoring partnerships with Soros’ long litany of organizations in 2012. These organizations are anything but democratic. Instead, they are pushing progressive, violent, and radical ideals throughout Europe.”
Under pressure, State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday issued a statement backing the ambassador.
“Ambassador Baily and his team have been working in partnership with...
16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won
We are in the midst of an epidemic of fake news. There is no better word to describe it than “epidemic,” insofar as it fits the epidemiological model from the Centers for Disease Control: this phenomenon occurs when “an agent and susceptible hosts are present in adequate numbers, and the agent can be effectively conveyed from a source to the susceptible hosts.”
The “agent” in this case is hysteria over Trump’s presidency, and the “susceptible hosts” are a slipshod, reckless, and breathtakingly gullible media class that spread the hysteria around like—well, like a virus.
It is difficult to adequately sum up the breadth of this epidemic, chiefly because it keeps growing: day after day, even hour after hour, the media continue to broadcast, spread, promulgate, publicize, and promote fake news on an industrial scale. It has become a regular part of our news cycle, not distinct from or extraneous to it but a part of it, embedded within the news apparatus as a spoke is embedded in a bicycle wheel.
Whenever you turn on a news station, visit a news website, or check in on a journalist or media personality on Twitter or Facebook, there is an excellent chance you will be exposed to fake news. It is rapidly becoming an accepted part of the way the American media are run.
How we will get out of this is anyone’s guess. We might not get out of it, not so long as Trump is president of these United States. We may be up for four—maybe eight!—long years of authentic fake news media hysteria. It is worth cataloging at least a small sampling of the hysteria so far. Only when we fully assess the extent of the media’s collapse into ignominious ineptitude can we truly begin to reckon with it.
Since Trump’s election, here’s just a small sampling of fake news that our media and our journalist class have propagated.
Early November: Spike in Transgender Suicide Rates
After Trump’s electoral victory on November 8, rumors began circulating that multiple transgender teenagers had killed themselves in response to the election results. There was no basis to these rumors. Nobody was able to confirm them at the time, and nobody has been able to confirm in the three months since Trump was elected.
Nevertheless, the claim spread far and wide: Guardian writer and editor-at-large of Out Zach Stafford tweeted the rumor, which was retweeted more than 13,000 times before he deleted it. He later posted a tweet explaining why he deleted his original viral tweet; his explanatory tweet was shared a total of seven times. Meanwhile, PinkNews writer Dominic Preston wrote a report on the rumors, which garnered more than 12,000 shares on Facebook.
At Mic, Matthew Rodriguez wrote about the unsubstantiated allegations. His article was shared more than 55,000 times on Facebook. Urban legend debunker website Snopes wrote a report on the rumors and listed them as “unconfirmed” (rather than “false”). Snopes’s sources were two Facebook posts, since deleted, that offered no helpful information regarding the location, identity, or circumstances of any of the suicides. The Snopes report was...
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