Category: Crap For Brains

Let me restate my position on ‘Climate Change’.
When the elitists, who say climate change is a real problem, begin living their lives like it is a real problem, I’ll begin to consider that it may be a real problem. As to the rest of this academic BS? You already know my position.

No, The Climate Chupacabra Doesn’t Cause “Gun” Violence

Bloomberg’s anti-Bill of Rights publication The Trace recently ran an article speculating about a causal link between climate change and “gun” violence. The article, which is an interview of Rutgers University–Camden professor Daniel Semenza, checks every fashionable academic fad: climate change, “gun” violence, inequality, you name it.

Cited in the article and professor Semenza’s Twitter thread (Archive link) are a couple of academic papers that posit a link between climate change and violent crime based on speculative models. One cited paper establishes an incontrovertible connection between weather and crime in Chicago based on real data. However, the article as a whole takes a giant leap from crime data in a specific locale tied to weather to massive speculative claims on a causal link between climate change and “gun” violence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, something that’s missing in the article.

Gun violence tends to cluster in more disadvantaged areas where people are interacting, engaging, and getting into conflicts over smaller things, shows of disrespect, and interpersonal issues that happened with family and friends. When it’s hot outside, we’re more frustrated, and it’s easier to get angry. You throw a bunch of guns into the mix and you can see how violence can ensue.

Shootings spike in summer months, and that’s often because in the communities where gun violence is high, a lot of people don’t have air conditioning or they live in smaller homes where they’re not comfortable, so they go outside more.

Although this seems plausible, I cannot help but point out that the country I grew up in – India – is a mostly sweltering hot country with a population of 1.3 billion. I don’t recall people being nasty because of the weather. I grew up without air conditioning in summers that could get up to 120ºF; we couldn’t even run cheap ceiling fans to keep us cool because the power supply was so unreliable and spotty. (It was truly a democratic socialist wonderland.)

My story isn’t unique by any measure; hundreds of millions of people coped with the summer heat without killing one another over small insults. Indian food requires a lot of prep and women managed to cook for their families in front of a hot stove in a hot kitchen without turning knives into assault weapons. Granted India wasn’t violence-free despite its image in the West as the birthplace of Gandhian non-violent political struggle, the country was and is by and large good, and the people are decent despite the hot weather and endemic poverty.

So, what was different there? Maybe a culture that respects life? Or a family structure that’s largely intact despite horrible poverty? A respect for your elders? Religiosity? That’s for sociologists to study and figure out.

There are lots of tall claims about what climate change can cause, scary enough that it almost has the mythical stature of the Chupacabra. (Check out: “A complete list of things caused by global warming,” and “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.”). One common claim is that impacts on food production will lead to violence, something that has failed the real world test. Another common claim is that climate change drives wars; that also lacks concrete proof. Climate alarmism goes back decades; read this article published June 29 1989, titled, “U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked,” and see how many of those claims have come to fruition. (While you’re at it, look at the current version of the article on The Associated Press website and notice how the headline and date of publication have been memory holed.)

Despite the provocative headline above, I don’t think climate change is something humanity should take lightly; I won’t get into that, but what I do take serious issue with is the exploitation of climate change alarmism to push every far-Left agenda item that many of us oppose: top-down economic planning and control, micromanaging the lives of the hoi polloi, controlling their food choices, transportation choices and lifestyle choices, while the elites shamelessly fly in on private jets to congregate on an island in the middle of a pandemic for an ex-President’s glitzy birthday party.

For a long time, we have seen the CDC camel trying to stick its nose under the Second Amendment tent using the ruse that “gun” violence is a public health issue. What’s next? The United States Geological Survey (USGS) mucking around with the Second Amendment using climate change as a pretext?

Every time permitless carry becomes the law of a state, the same ‘blood will flow in the streets’ whining is heard from the same morons.

Wackos Dial Up the Fear, Disinformation As Constitutional Carry Becomes Law in Texas Wednesday

“When it comes down to it, it’s just a sense of disappointment that the bill ultimately was passed,” Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, told the Texas Tribune.

There was some pretense on the eve of the 2021 legislative session among Republican state leaders to promise tightened gun laws and improved background checks, with the people’s memories still fresh of mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick both offered rhetorical assurances.

Instead, the state’s ruling party supported multiple bills that make it even easier to legally brandish a gun in public. Anyone 21 years or older who doesn’t have a felony or domestic violence record will be free to carry a gun. A training course on gun safety is not required. Just get your gun and start packing.

How many Texans will pack a gun, come Sept. 1, in their vehicles, their carry bags and purses, or on their bodies? Why do we need guns to live our daily lives? What purpose will drive people to carry a handgun as if it were, like a smartphone or wallet, part of being dressed and ready to go?

— Robert Rivard in New gun laws in Texas will surely lead to more gun violence

Joe Biden Actually Checked His Watch During Transfer of Bodies at Dover and He Wasn’t Even Subtle About It

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were at the Dover Air Force Base Sunday morning for the dignified transfer of 11 of the 13 service members who lost their lives on Thursday. While there, the president actually checked his watch. And he wasn’t subtle about it, not even close to it.

Again, the president wasn’t even subtle about it. The fact that it looks as if this is one of his more cognizant moments–though that’s not saying much–doesn’t help his case.

The Nancy Lanza Test for Gun Control Proposals

This Tuesday, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) published an op-ed at The Philadelphia Inquirer touting universal background checks as a means to saving lives. Tom Knighton has already taken on her misleading op-ed and I recommend that you read his article.

The 800 lb. gorilla in the room that’s missing in Giffords’ article is that the man who shot her passed a background check when he bought the pistol he used in his crime.

That alone undermines Giffords’ claim in a big way. And it’s not just him; most perpetrators in highly publicized mass attacks that I can think of – Sutherland Springs, Orlando, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Charleston – you name it, all of them passed background checks and in some cases, with glaring governmental incompetence. (Others got their guns through theft and straw purchases.)

Universal background checks simply take the existing background check system and mandate, in an unenforceable way, that all firearms transfers be subject to background checks. This will make no difference in crime because those citizens who will subject themselves to an unenforceable law are by nature law-abiding and the least likely to pose a threat to others. A name that comes to mind as an example of such a citizen is Nancy Lanza.

Nancy Lanza is the benchmark that those who propose new gun control laws must justify their proposals against. Not only would she have passed any background check – universal or otherwise – she would also have met the incrementally higher bars that the Gun Grab Lobby wants to subject ordinary citizens to.

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So, we abandoned Bagram air base because SloJoe wanted the Kabul embassy secured with no additional troops brought into the country.
Not because of Trump.
And apparently General Milley didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to ‘advise’ SloJoe about the risks from this that we’ve all seen since Bagram was abandoned.

Disgrace: Weak Biden Struggles Through Remarks After 12 Americans Killed

The day 12 American service members and an unknown number of Afghans were killed by suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, President Joe Biden was 25 minutes late to address the nation in a roaming speech marked with labored breathing and a few choked-up moments. Biden said he’s “outraged as well as heartbroken” after “ISIS-K took the lives of service members standing guard at the airport” in Kabul Thursday. “These American service members who gave their lives” in Kabul “were heroes,” Biden said. “Heroes who’ve been engaged in the dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.” The dangerous mission is, of course, the result of the Biden administration’s misreading of intelligence that led the world to watch Afghanistan fall to the Taliban in a matter of days.

Biden delivered a message to those who carried out Thursday’s suicide attacks as well as others who may wish America harm: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said, refusing to give specifics about when, where, or how those responsible would be made to pay other than that the United States would strike ISIS-K leadership, assets, and facilities. It’s a departure from the President’s promise last week that “any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with a swift and forceful response.”

As the Biden administration has said, they had intelligence of impending ISIS-K attacks on HKIA for days — so why weren’t the group’s leaders, assets, or facilities attacked before? Instead of striking ISIS-K previously, Biden’s plan has been partially reliant on the Taliban checkpoints around the airport to deter or detect ISIS-K suicide bombers.

In his remarks, the President also touted his administration’s talking points on how many individuals have been airlifted so far while offering a vague commitment to “complete our mission” in Afghanistan — set to end by the Taliban’s August 31 deadline — that is not on track to get every American out of the country before the U.S. military withdraws from Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Again without specifics, Biden promised that the United States will “find any American who wishes to get out of Afghanistan” and “get them out” after the military has withdrawn without any explanation for how such missions will be carried out after a U.S. departure. And despite his administration’s claims that every American who wants to get out of Afghanistan would be evacuated, Biden stated that a war has not ended with a “guarantee that everyone who wanted to be extracted…would get out.”

Following his remarks, Biden again pulled out a preapproved list of reporters he “was instructed to call on” before attempting to again blame former President Trump for his deadly handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal after eventually calling on Fox News’ Peter Doocy.

The President, though, had extended the deadline negotiated by Trump. And his failure to successfully or safely bring the United States out of Afghanistan is squarely the fault of President Biden.

Sorry Grannies, I think you too are going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

Grandmothers Against Gun Violence Target Missouri Governor’s Pro-Second Amendment Stance

Grandmothers Against Gun Violence founder Judy Sherry is targeting Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s pro-Second Amendment stance and subsequent pro-gun policies.

Sherry founded her Missouri-based group after the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Connecticut. Since that time, Sherry admits that Missouri has only increased protections of gun rights, rather than passing “meaningful” gun control, Yahoo News reported.

Sherry is especially bothered by the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA), which Gov. Parson signed into law on June 12.

SAPA “prohibits the enforcement of federal gun laws by local law enforcement agencies,” WLBT noted. Continue reading “”

Man faces [a new] felony gun charge less than 48 hours after having gun case dropped in “restorative justice” court

Friday was a big day for 21-year-old Armando Rodriguez. Prosecutors wiped his slate clean by dropping four felony gun charges he was facing in Avondale “restorative justice” court.

Less than 36 hours later, police allegedly found an intoxicated Rodriguez sitting in a car with a gun on his lap at a Near North Side gas station. Prosecutors on Sunday charged him with a fresh felony gun charge.

When Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans announced the Avondale Restorative Justice Community Court last summer, he said the court would resolve conflicts through “restorative conferences and peace circles” instead of typical criminal court procedures.

“We have recognized for a long time that young people need a second chance,” Evans said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Rodriguez, who would become one of the court’s first participants, may have blown that second chance in record time.

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NAACP: Racist North Carolina Gun Control Law Isn’t Racist Any More.

“This bill would remove one of the few protections that we currently have in place to stop dangerous people from buying handguns,” said Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Mecklenburg County Democrat.

[Governor Roy] Cooper’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the bill. Attorney General Josh Stein, also a Democrat, asked legislators earlier this week to consider ”the serious threat to public safety this legislation carries and reject it.”

The bill, if it were to become law, wouldn’t end the requirement that sheriffs issue concealed weapons permits. …

The local pistol permit requirement began in 1919 during the Jim Crow era, and some bill supporters argue it’s still preventing law-abiding black residents from obtaining weapons. But a local NAACP leader spoke against the bill earlier Wednesday, and Marcus said such opposition is evidence to her that the current permitting system isn’t racist.

— Gary D. Robertson in Bill repealing NC pistol purchase permit heading to governor

Comment O’ The Day:
Chris asking some hard questions, hoping no one remembers the large part he played in shilling and covering for this clown show

Blinken Is Asked, ‘Does the President Not Know What’s Going On?’ His Answer Is Troubling.

A really rough clip from Fox News Sunday, in which the Secretary of State totally side-steps a bruising question about the president’s basic awareness of key facts as his Afghanistan policy is reduced to smoldering rubble. The most charitable explanation I can think of here is that Blinken was so amped up to deploy his talking points about our alliances that he didn’t pay attention to the actual question put to him, which was a polite version of ‘does Biden have any clue about what’s actually happening?’ What we get in reply is boilerplate DC-speak, asking us to effectively ignore the extraordinary rhetorical beating the president and administration have sustained from some our closest allies in recent days. The less charitable explanation is that Blinken’s bloodless deflection was a deliberate avoidance of commenting on the Commander-in-Chief’s mental acuity. Watch:

This has been done before in Europe, trust me.

Italian student, 22, who tattooed Covid certificate barcode on ARM becomes TikTok star after scanning into McDonald’s.

A STUDENT in Italy has become an unexpected TikTok sensation after tattooing the barcode of his Covid certificate on his arm.

Andrea Colonnetta, 22, said he hadn’t given much thought in advance before getting his latest tattoo, but decided on the topical — and practical — choice after talking with tattoo artist Gabriele Pellerone.

Italian student Andrea Colonnetta discussed his latest inking with tattoo artist Gabriele Pellerone before deciding on something practical and topical

Andrea Colonnetta can now scan information about Covid status

Joe Biden is living in an alternate reality. Afghanistan proves it
Really, everything is just fine and dandy

President Joe Biden is living in an alternate reality. In his mind, everything is fine with our Afghanistan evacuation…it’s all going according to plan….we’re getting all Americans and loyal Afghans who want to leave out by August 31st….we didn’t think Taliban would take the country this quickly so there was really nothing anyone could have done to prevent this.

In Biden’s mind nothing is his fault. Our allies all think he’s a strong leader. Our adversaries aren’t causing problems. Thanks to President Biden’s courageous efforts America is back. None of this chaos will have no effect on America’s standing in the world. All people have to do is go to Kabul Airport and they will be evacuated.

While we may have some 5,000 combat forces at the airport, we don’t have the resources to rescue anyone.

No, we will not send American combat forces outside the airport perimeter to escort Americans to the airport.

The British, the French, the Indians and other nations are all sending troops into Kabul to rescue their citizens, but there is no need for the U.S. to do that.

Americans aren’t having any trouble getting through the Taliban checkpoints. Really, everything is just fine and dandy. If Americans, or our Afghan allies, don’t show up at the airport, we assume they really don’t want to leave.

That’s what is going through Biden’s brain.

The reality is the most powerful nation in the world is now reduced to relying on the good will of the Taliban to save Americans.

Russia and China have warned the world that the U.S. is an inevitable and irreversible decline.

I’ve been wracking my brain for historical comparisons to President Biden’s actions: Nero fiddling while Rome burned. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announcing his negotiations with Adolph Hitler had ensured and that “peace is at hand” as Hitler prepared to invade Europe. But the example I keep coming back to is Baghdad Bob, Saddam Hussein’s Minister of information who, during the first Iraq War in 2003, insisted Americans would have to surrender to the Iraq military or be burned in their tanks, while American forces surrounded him.

I pray Joe Biden wakes up to reality and becomes the president America needs today. But I fear that he, like Baghdad Bob, is incapable of it.

The specifics of these Q&A as supplied by the White House

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  You just said that you would keep a laser-focus on counterterrorism efforts and that you don’t see as great of a threat of terrorism from Afghanistan as other parts of the world.  But if you and your administration so badly misassessed how quickly the Taliban would sweep through Afghanistan and we no longer have an embassy there from which to run intelligence operations, how can you at all be confident of your assessment of the risk of terrorism and the ability of the U.S. to conduct over-the-horizon missions to keep it in check?  Can you tell Americans that they’re safe and will remain safe from terror attacks in Afghanistan?

THE PRESIDENT:  [which for whatever reason didn’t make it on the tweet]
I think you’re comparing apples and oranges.  One question was whether or not the Afghan forces we trained up would stay and fight in their own civil war they had going on.

No one — I shouldn’t say “no one” — the consensus was that it was highly unlikely that in 11 days they’d collapse and fall, and the leader of Afghanistan would flee the country.

That’s a very different question than whether or not there is the ability to observe whether or not large groups of terrorists began to accumulate in a particular area in Afghanistan to plot against the United States of America.  That’s why we retained an over-the-horizon capability to go in and do something about that if that occurs — if that occurs.

But in the meantime, we know what’s happening around the world.  We know what’s happening in terms of what’s going on in other countries, where there is the significant rise of terrorist organizations in the Middle East, in East Africa, and other places.

And so, the bottom line is: We have to do — we’re dealing with those terrorist threats from other parts of the world in failed states without permanent military — without permanent military presence there.  We have to do the same in Afghanistan.

Q    And, sir, just on that initial assessment: We’ve learned, over the last 24 hours, that there was a dissent cable from the State Department —

THE PRESIDENT:  Sure.

Q    — saying that the Taliban would come faster through Afghanistan.  Can you say why, after that cable was issued, the U.S. didn’t do more to get Americans out?

THE PRESIDENT:  We’ve got all kind of cables, all kinds of advice.  If you notice, it ranged from this group saying that — they didn’t say it’d fall when it would fall — when it did fall — but saying that it would fall; to others saying it wouldn’t happen for a long time and they’d be able to sustain themselves through the end of the year.

I made the decision.  The buck stops with me.  I took the consensus opinion.  The consensus opinion was that, in fact, it would not occur, if it occurred, until later in the year.  So, it was my decision.

We Have No President

Diplomacy was back. Leadership was back. The adults were back in the White House. That’s what we were sold. That’s what we were told. Liberal reporters basked in the afterglow. The political class breathed a sigh of relief. And the honeymoon commenced. Everything Joe did had an aura of being “historic.” The man got ice cream and this media establishment would go bananas. And then, reality hit. They forgot about our longest war in Afghanistan which was unraveling. And Joe’s inability to get a handle on the crisis shows that the White House has truly become the Home of the Merciful Rest. We have no leader.

Joe Biden still has not owned this crisis. He has yet to say, ‘I screwed up.’ He keeps saying the buck stops with me. Sure, that is until the images of desperate Afghans trying to get inside the airport at Kabul are blasted on the television sets. Then, it rapidly becomes ‘it’s Trump’s fault’ which is a talking point that his people tried to peddle but didn’t stick. It’s simply too pathetic to even repeat. What’s more disturbing is how this administration thought it was fine to simply ignore the collapse of Afghanistan. Maybe the liberal media wouldn’t cover it. It explains why Joe thought he could remain on vacation at Camp David. It’s why Jen Psaki tried to take the week off. It was only after EVERYONE slammed them that they poured their pina coladas out and returned to work. Yes, some serious adulting here—true profiles in leadership here.

The chaos in Kabul was simply too great to ignore. This is our longest war. We have operational infrastructure here—and it all went to crap rapidly. The thing is we knew this was going to happen. Did anyone really think the Afghan government whose credibility arguably died in 2009 when Hamid Karzai stuffed ballot boxes and committed widespread voter fraud, would last? The Taliban were going to make massive gains. We knew this. Days after Biden’s July 8 remarks where he said the Afghan government would remain and that this wouldn’t be like Saigon 1975, the State Department sent a memo painting a much different picture. It was obviously ignored.

Joe was so obsessed with leaving on August 31 that he didn’t have a plan to get 15,000 American citizens out of the country before then. It’s obvious. We’re scrambling. And we’re not doing anything to expand our perimeter or venture out to get our citizens out of harm’s way. We’re trusting the Taliban to behave. We’re trusting terrorists to behave. The adults are back in the White House, they said.

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Some doctors quietly secretly came up with a plan that if they ran out of ICU beds, then vaccinated patients would get priority. After this was reported, [likely because one, or more, of the doctors involved realized how morally and ethically corrupt this was, and spilled the beans to the newspaper] the doctors backed down. Good, but not good enough.

An idea like this should never have been even imagined in the first place.

So, someone goes to the hospital for whatever.  The staff there check and find out the patient is unvaccinated and then give them a low priority for treatment?

I can guarantee, with Metaphysical Certitude™, if that happens, an angry parent or spouse will seek treatment for their sick ones at gunpoint. And making medical staff into the arbiter of who lives and who dies, based on social status, is one of the worst things that a society can do.

We must be able to trust doctors because we put our lives in their hands.
If doctors decide that “those people” don’t deserve the same level of care then that trust is destroyed and bad things will happen. Those medicos made the right decision this time because of public pressure after it was aired to the public.

But if crap-for-brains shenanigans like this continue, the medical community is going to rue the day such an idea popped into their pinheads.

North Texas doctor’s group retreats on policy saying vaccination status to be part of care decisions
This would have been a big change in health care, and it was all outlined in a memo obtained by the Watchdog.

Updated at 8:15 p.m. Aug. 19, 2021: After this story was posted, Dr. Mark Casanova gave interviews to local media and revised his story. He described the memo to the task force as a “homework assignment.” In a reversal, he told NBC-5 that vaccinations should not be among the factors hospitals should consider when making critical care triage decisions.

Original story published Aug. 19, 2021: North Texas doctors have quietly developed a plan that seeks to prepare for the possibility that due to the COVID-19 surge the region will run out of intensive-care beds.

If that happens, for the first time, doctors officially will be allowed to take vaccination status of sick patients into account along with other triage factors to see who gets a bed.

A copy of an internal memo written by Dr. Robert Fine, co-chair of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force, was sent to members of the task force — and leaked to The Watchdog. It summarizes the latest work by the task force, a volunteer group that periodically updates medical guidelines for hospitals in our region. There are about 50 members from various hospitals in the group. Although their recommendations are not enforceable, the guidelines are generally followed.

The one-page summary memo is a “heads up” alert in the event things get worse, says Dr. Mark Casanova, director of clinical ethics for Baylor University Medical Center and a spokesperson for the task force. After Monday’s meeting, doctors had yet to make plans to inform the public.

“We’re trying to decide how to explain this addition to the public,” Casanova said.

But after studying the memo and interviewing doctors involved in the decision for two hours this week, The Watchdog can explain it to you.

Although doctors make triage decisions all the time, the proposed guideline addition is significant. Casanova predicted that if this change were copied by others medical care, for as long as the crisis persists, “is going to look and feel different for everybody who is alive right now in the United States of America.”

Yet a leading medical ethicist who studies how COVID-19 affects communities says he worries that adding vaccination status to the triage of patients will unfairly harm low-income people and people of color. These groups are historically disadvantaged when it comes to obtaining proper medical care.

‘Stomach-turning possibility’: Biden didn’t get Afghan allies out of the country earlier because he ‘was afraid of what Fox News might say’

Well, this is ridiculous. The overarching reason President Biden didn’t get tens of thousands of Afghan allies out of the country sooner is incompetence, both on his part and his administration’s. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Catherine Rampell is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, and she posits a number of theories why the Biden administration didn’t get more of our allies out of Afghanistan sooner. Maybe he didn’t want to project a lack of faith in the Afghan government. Maybe people just didn’t want to leave. Or there’s the “more stomach-turning possibility” that Biden didn’t act sooner because the president “was afraid of what Fox News might say.”

So it’s the fault of Fox News, really.

SloJoe believes POTUS possesses powers that he doesn’t have

Biden threatens action against governors who refuse to force masks on school children

During a speech given by President Joe Biden on Wednesday regarding COVID-19 response and vaccination programs, Biden slammed states that have banned the requirement of masks in school, announcing that government action will be taken against these states and their governors.