Tuesday, January 31, 2023

George Santos Embraces 'Storytelling'

George Santos Embraces 'Storytelling'

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Lots of politicians have been caught burnishing their resumes, but recently, one of our elected representatives has come under fire for telling some real whoppers. And no, I'm not talking about George Santos.

In a space of three days last fall, President Joe Biden claimed to be Puerto Rican, practice Judaism and to have lost his house in a natural disaster.

Celebrating the Jewish New Year at the White House on Sept. 30, he told Jewish leaders, "I probably went to shul more than many of you did. You all think I'm kidding." No, he said, "I'd go to services on Saturday and on Sunday," adding, "You all think I'm kidding. I'm not."

Visiting hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico the following week, he said, "I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home."

Days later, speaking to Floridians who'd lost everything to Hurricane Ian, Biden talked about a catastrophic fire that nearly destroyed his house after lightning struck. "We didn't lose our whole home," he said, "but an awful lot of it." He'd mentioned this blaze before, claiming that he "had a house burn down with my wife in it."

Fact-checkers determined he was referring a small kitchen fire, "under control in 20 minutes," according to contemporaneous news reports.

In a video speech to the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh three years after the October 2018 massacre there, Biden said, "I remember spending time at the ... Tree of Life Synagogue."

The synagogue said he had never visited.

Just before the 2020 South Carolina primary, Biden claimed -- as he has many, many, many times -- "I had the great honor of being arrested ... on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see [Nelson] Mandela." So significant was this incident, Biden said, that when Mandela came to Washington, he "threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you. ... You got arrested trying to see me.'"

Biden was never arrested in South Africa for trying to see Mandela. There's no evidence the hug ever happened, either.

Sadly, as soon as Biden clinched the presidential nomination in 2020, Democrats locked him in the basement until Election Day. Who knows how many of Biden's lies were lost to history that year!

But he couldn't avoid speaking in 2019.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, he told a gripping story about flying to Afghanistan as vice president to pin a Silver Star on a Navy captain who'd rappelled down a ravine to retrieve his fallen compatriot, but who didn't want a medal because the guy had died. "This is the God's truth," he said. "My word as a Biden."

Biden did manage to fight the irresistible urge to claim he was that soldier.

However, it was President Barack Obama who'd honored an Army specialist for retrieving a soldier from a ravine -- and he presented him with a Presidential Medal of Honor, not a Silver Star, in a White House ceremony, not in Afghanistan. As The Washington Post put it, "In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony."

In a primary debate, he said: "I come out of a Black community" and had "more people supporting me in the Black community" than his rivals.

Kamala Harris: "No, that's not true."

Cory Booker: "That's not true."

In a nationally televised climate town hall on CNN, Biden said, "I just want to be very clear to everyone here: I am committed to not raising money from fossil fuel executives, and I am not doing that."

The next day, Biden attended a high-dollar fundraiser held by the co-founder of a natural gas company.

At a CNN/YouTube Democratic debate in June 2007, Biden said, "Let's start telling the truth," then revealed that he'd been "shot at" in Iraq's Green Zone.

Turns out, a mortar round landed a few hundred yards -- i.e., a few football fields -- from a building Biden was in.

At a 2012 campaign stop, Biden told African Americans that Republicans are "gonna put you all back in chains." (At least his lies are harmless exaggerations without any potential to sow discord in our society.)

Before getting to George Santos' apparently unprecedented and unforgivable mendacity, let's review a few more of Biden's Greatest Hits.

Throughout his life, Biden has alleged that he "participated in sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie houses," saying, "and my stomach turned upon hearing the voices of Faubus and Barnett, and my soul raged on seeing the dogs of Bull Connor."

None of this ever happened, according to his own aides, as well as the Democratic Party's Praetorian Guard at The New York Times.

Most famously, he bragged about being an award-winning student, leaving college with three degrees, going to law school on a "full academic scholarship," and graduating in the top half of his class.

Back on Earth: He graduated college with one degree and was nearly expelled from law school for plagiarizing five straight pages of a published article, coming in 76th out of a class of 85.

Most bizarrely, Biden stole British Labor leader Neil Kinnock's speech -- and his autobiography. Plagiarizing Kinnock nearly word for word, Biden claimed to have been "the first in his family ever to go to a university," then bemoaned a system that had excluded his "ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania."

Biden's ancestors did not work in coal mines. They went to college.

The whole point of Kinnock's speech was to denounce the British class structure -- something we don't have. (Heard of the American Revolution? Probably not: It has nothing to do with Emmett Till.)

According to Biden's actual life story -- that is, the story based on what we know to be facts -- his grandfather was an executive with the American Oil Co., and his father was to the manor born. Why on Earth was Biden clenching his fist, decrying a society where he didn't have "a platform upon which to stand"? The executive suite at American Oil isn't a platform?

All in all, Biden gives George Santos a pretty good run for his money.

The main difference between Biden and Santos is that one is the president of the United States, whereas the other is part of a legislative body with 435 members, including some who are certifiably insane.

But while the top story on MSNBC every night is: When is Santos resigning?, Biden's lies are lovingly indulged by the media as the "search for a connection" by "a glad-handing pol" (The Washington Post), who has "embraced storytelling" with "the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences" (The New York Times).

Speaking of the media's double standards, where's the "thank you" for the GOP's diversity outreach? Santos is a gay Latino -- and that he can prove! I swear, what do we have to do to please these people?

https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2023/01/25/george-santos-embraces-storytelling-n2618763?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=15803c7fc8c68b6fd1f0a5e7f4b59fc49df45d48335d4339ad60f7b0a0c7404d&recip=28668535

Are Conservatives Destined to Lose the Grooming Debate?

Are Conservatives Destined to Lose the Grooming Debate?

Are Conservatives Destined to Lose the Grooming Debate?
(AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Is the war against groomers destined to fail? That’s what Grayson Quay, a news editor at The Daily Caller, believes. According to Quay, the strategy of denouncing queer messaging aimed at children as “grooming” or “indoctrination” will fail.

I disagree and feel I must prove him wrong.

Quay points to the uproar last year over a lesbian kiss in Disney’s Lightyear and compares that to “Bo Peep’s dalliance with Woody in the Toy Story films,” which Quay argues is “far more sexually suggestive,” yet didn’t generate outrage.

“Openly gay people exist in our society,” he points out. “In any debate over whether they should appear in kids’ entertainment, the burden of proof naturally falls on the party arguing for exclusion.”

Quay’s entire argument hinges on the idea that gay people exist and we can’t stop them from being represented in entertainment. While that may be a fair point, the grooming debate isn’t limited to LGBT representation in children’s programming, is it? However, those other issues are curiously absent from Quay’s analysis. Instead, he argues that 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage.

In other words, Quay believes that grooming isn’t grooming at all. It’s merely pop culture reflecting society. He is wrong.

Does supporting same-sex marriage mean you have to support pornographic content being made available in school libraries, or really young children participating in Drag Queen Story Hour, or being exposed to scantily clad adults and other sexually suggestive displays at Pride Parades? Does supporting same-sex marriage mean you have to support school districts helping students socially “transition” at school and, as a matter of policy, hiding this information from parents? Does supporting same-sex marriage mean you must believe that minors are mature enough to decide that they were born “the wrong gender” and undergo so-called “gender-affirming care”?

The biggest problem with “grooming” isn’t the depiction of LGBT characters in entertainment. It’s the targeting of troubled kids in public schools who are being convinced that their problems are rooted in being born in the wrong body. It’s the deliberate exposing of children to sexually graphic content at extremely young ages. Quay either doesn’t realize this is happening or is choosing to ignore it by limiting the issue of grooming to one particular aspect and presenting one relatively innocuous example as a basis for comparison and somehow linking it all to same-sex marriage.

Grooming is happening, and it’s a genuine problem. Statistics show that younger generations are increasingly identifying as LGBT—particularly those who identify as transgender. A recent Gallup poll showed that fewer than 1% of Americans born before 1946 identify as LGBT, along with 2.6% of Boomers, 4.2% of Generation X, 10.5% of millennials, and 20.8% of Gen Z. This is not organic; it’s social contagion. Even left-wing comedian Bill Maher realizes this.

“If we can’t admit that, in certain enclaves, there is some level of trendiness to the idea of being anything other than straight, then this is not a serious, science-based discussion. It’s a blow being struck in the culture wars using children as cannon fodder,” he said last year.

“If something about the human race is changing at a previously unprecedented rate, we have to at least discuss it. Broken down over time, the LGBT population of America seems to be roughly doubling every generation.”

“If we follow this trajectory, we will all be gay in 2054,” Maher continued. “I’m just saying that when things change this much, this fast, people are allowed to ask what’s up with that.”

Only a few decades ago, gender dysphoria was extremely rare and generally limited to adult men. Now, it’s become fashionable among teens and has been rising in recent years, mostly with teenage girls, who are coming out as transgender despite having always identified as their birth sex. Instead of asking questions about social factors influencing these decisions, pre-pubescent girls are given chest binders, puberty blockers, and eventually double mastectomies, and we’re just supposed to look the other way and pretend this is normal and natural? There is ample evidence that the increased occurrence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria is due to social contagion, not natural factors.

Make no mistake about it: grooming is happening, and it’s affecting young people. And, contrary to the notion that if you support same-sex marriage you have to approve of grooming, polls show that Americans don’t like schools indoctrinating kids with LGBT propaganda in the elementary grades. So, contrary to Quay’s claim that conservatives are destined to lose the grooming debate, I believe it’s very much a winnable fight.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/matt-margolis/2023/01/27/are-conservatives-destined-to-lose-the-grooming-debate-n1665490

Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   1/31/2023

Biden, Dems: April Fools, America


Also, “bait and switch” or “fool me once…twice.” While happily borrowing “April Fools Day, America” from Donald Trump’s addresses in New Hampshire and South Carolina, I find it captures his ability to inject wry humor into the deadly serious state of America in 2023. After all, mockery and ridicule are the most devastating takedowns of an opponent’s beliefs and policies, especially with the advantage of being true.


While premature aspirational hopes can cloud reality, we’ll analytically put the odds, after watching Trump’s smaller venue campaign launches, of Donald J. Trump being the Republican nominee at 90 percent, and being the next president at about 60 percent. “If the election were held today” polling limitations notwithstanding, he bests Biden by several points, and Kamilla Harris by even more; his lead over other potential Republican candidates is sizeable.


While Democrats quietly prepare alternatives, the Biden-symbiotic press becomes less sympathetic towards a sure loser, whose family and “top-secret-classified” corruption oozes worse every day. You pick the Democrat; the media/political/entertainment cabal will deliver a progressive “Moses” to lead their masses.


Gov. Ron DeSantis is a proven, worthy leader. He possesses the mettle to not flinch in the face of vile personal anathema, and disingenuous, vicious attacks on his prescriptive policies to fight the left’s onslaught on Florida’s children, progressive higher education, anti-law enforcement socialists and medical despots. Polled Republicans, however, prefer Donald Trump by double digits, for the simple reason that, under his administration and due to his bold policies, our borders were secure, our economy strong, and our military and nation respected.


I had concerns that Trump could “evolve” beyond the 2016 candidate and 2020 reelection persona, with his penchant for raising every slight to “DefCon 5,” and “punching down” when dismissive, sarcastic—yes, Reaganesque—ridicule could simultaneously humiliate and refute his antagonists. His “blind spots”—over the bill-of-goods sold as “the only response to COVID,” and failed, even disastrous personnel choices—could’ve clouded his ability to shift from past injustices to future visions and fixes.


So, it’s refreshing and inspirational to see and hear the “evolved” Donald Trump shift, without one disingenuous note, to weaving a narrative—based on what we see with our own eyes—of massive failures on every front impacting regular Americans, by the Biden/Democrat policies for our nation.


Go to “rumble.com/c/DonaldTrump” and peruse the mostly 2–3-minute videos that preceded, and incorporated into, his Saturday events focusing on: Trump’s free speech policy initiative; Biden’s border crisis; Trump’s planned war on the drug cartels; the Intelligence Community’s role in online censorship;


China’s bold encroachments and stealth ownership of America’s assets; The two-tiered justice system applied to Republicans vs. Democrats; Social Security and Medicare protection;


Trump’s plan to clean out the rot and corruption in Washington D.C.; dismantling the Deep State; putting a stop to riots and denigration of law enforcement; further deployment of our missile defense shield; and more.


Legitimate questions over the traffic-stop-turned-pursuit-and-street-beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis: Why did he pointlessly run? Was he weakened by drugs, as was George Floyd, to the point of near-mortality? What restraining measures were prescribed for use by officers, and at what point did they cross the line into “street vengeance”? Police, sheriff departments and bipartisan leaders across America are unanimous in their condemnation.


It harkens back to the questionable but understandable period when allowing suspects to resist without inflicting a “rough arrest” was to invite any ne’er-do-well to flaunt his arrogance and aggression at police (like what “soft-on-crime” Democrats have encouraged in many cities). In that situation, any law-abiding citizen had better be rooting for the cops to win if they want to live in a society where “the law” is respected, and punishment feared. The Memphis cops abused their authority.


Can those abusive officers be dispassionately evaluated for issues of training; affirmative-action hiring that may have lowered the bar for those with insufficient self-control; or leadership that sent un-subtle messages to be more “forceful” with the “perps”? Excuse our doubt when some on nutjob cable panels insist there’s “racism” involved when, as here, the cops were Black.


 When an entire political party quietly endorses the BLM and Antifa use of violence and property destruction to agitate for letting granny-and-child-killing thugs and scum out of jail, masquerading as “criminal justice reform”; when Democrat politicians and Soros-funded leniency-advocating prosecutors don’t condemn the Antifa motto: A.C.A.B. or All Cops Are B------ds;


And when Democrats advocate for making it easier to punish law enforcers who, in good faith, try to take violent criminals off the street…You would be naïve, even stupid, to buy into the “Republicans are bad for America” refrain issuing from the kook fringe on progressive cable, unhinged Internet screamers and on this page.


The counter message is not that “Democrats are bad for America.” Polling shows that only a minority of Jefferson’s and Jackson’s party are 1) anti-law enforcement; 2) supporters of socialistic income redistribution; 3) for “grooming” children into the sexual fantasies of perverted educators, cultural hedonists, and “minor attracted people;” and 4) the biological-science-defying loons that insist on “57 varieties” of gender, rather than the simple, eternal “male and female, He created them.” If those are Democrat ideas, they are abominable for America.

The Real Differences Between the Biden and Trump Document Troves

The Real Differences Between the Biden and Trump Document Troves

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Former President Donald Trump for now certainly seems to have had more documents labeled "classified" at Mar-a-Lago in Florida than did President Joe Biden at his various homes in Delaware.

Yet otherwise, the comparisons between the two cases, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden.

First, a stranger would face a far greater challenge entering a post-presidential Mar-a-Lago than a pre-presidential Biden home, office, or garage - or who knows where?

Secret service agents and private security were stationed at Mar-a-Lago. Prior to the 2020 presidential election they were not at citizen Biden's various troves for most of 2017-2020, much less prior to 2009.

Second, we seem to forget that for much of the developing controversy, Biden's own team was investigating Biden.

On the other hand, the Biden Administration's Justice Department and the FBI were not just investigating Trump as an outside party, but as a former president - and possible 2024 presidential candidate and opponent of Biden himself.

Remember, the narrative of the first Democratic impeachment of Trump was the allegation that Trump had used his powers of the presidency to investigate Biden and his family, a likely 2020 challenger to Trump's reelection bid.

Third, no one in a position of government authority had passed judgment on Biden's alleged security violations.

That was not the case of the still alleged violations of Trump.

Biden, as president, had weighed in, during his own Justice Department's ongoing investigations of Trump. Indeed, he proclaimed the former president to be guilty: "How could anyone be that irresponsible?" In contrast, he also dismissed the ongoing investigation of himself with "There is no there, there."

Fourth, Trump is certainly right that as president he had a far more substantial claim of declassification rights than did Biden who took the papers out either as a senator or vice president.

Fifth, the FBI was not merely asymmetrical in melodramatically raiding the Trump home while allowing Biden lawyers to inspect various Biden stashes. The FBI also leaked the purported contents of the subjects of the Trump classified documents (falsely spreading the lie of "nuclear codes" and "nuclear secrets") in a way it has not with the Biden cache.

The FBI went so far as to scatter the documents on the floor for a fake news photo-op as if the papers were so messily arrayed when they arrived.

So far, the FBI has come lightly and belatedly to the Biden case without the SWAT team get-up, and only under pressure from the public and the Republican opposition.

Six, Biden did not "self-report." Biden's team did not call the relevant government authorities the minute they discovered the classified documents in Biden's office and home and garage.

In truth, Biden, or someone close to Biden, certainly knew that he or someone close to him had illegally removed classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017 - or years earlier as a senator.

For at least the last six years - at least - Biden has felt no compunction to confess to authorities he illegally was in possession of classified documents.

Indeed, the only reason the current troves are coming to light was apparent White House paranoia that the media, the Biden Justice Department, and the special counsel were so fixated on the Trump documents that they likely feared someone might raise the logical question of whether a hypocritical Biden himself might be guilty of exactly the crime for which they were pursuing Trump.

Worse, Biden and his staff knew classified documents were in his possession before the midterms, but deliberately suppressed that information until after the elections were over.

Seventh, Trump's documents were stored only at one place - Mar-a-Lago, and only for about 19 months. Biden's were stashed at various locations for nearly seven years, or perhaps over a decade. There were far more opportunities of time and space for those without security clearances to have access to the Biden documents than to the Trump files.

Eighth, the press has exhaustively speculated, usually wrongly, about how the documents reached Mar-a-Lago and what they contained. In contrast, no one knows or even asks why Biden took classified documents, what they concerned, or who if any in his family circle had access to them.

Ninth, Trump's documents did not expose other liabilities of the constantly investigated Trump. The Biden files so far have directed attention to the mysterious tens of millions of dollars in Communist Chinese money that poured into Biden's think tank at the University of Pennsylvania, the proximity of members of the quid pro quo Biden consortium to these classified papers, and the files' relevance, if any, to the Biden family's overseas businesses.

Did Hunter Biden ever consult or view classified documents while living in a home with them? Will there be fingerprint or DNA tests on the documents? If Hunter consulted any of these classified documents, then the Biden presidency is finished.

Tenth, Trump possessed contested documents as a private citizen. Biden's files under contention involve the current behavior of the president of the United States. Biden ran for office, was elected, and serves as president with the full knowledge that during all this time he unlawfully possessed classified documents.

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/01/26/the-real-differences-between-the-biden-and-trump-document-troves-n2618769?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=15803c7fc8c68b6fd1f0a5e7f4b59fc49df45d48335d4339ad60f7b0a0c7404d&recip=28668535

Call 2024 What It Is — Trump vs. Communism — Choose Wisely: It Might Be Our Last Election

Call 2024 What It Is — Trump vs. Communism — Choose Wisely: It Might Be Our Last Election

Call 2024 What It Is — Trump vs. Communism — Choose Wisely: It Might Be Our Last Election
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Author David Horowitz’s new book Final Battle: The Next Election Could Be the Last suggests that the Democrats communists could be on the threshold of ending democracy in the United States. He shouldn’t be ignored as a hyperbolic whackjob.

The DOJ and FBI have been weaponized against patriots. That Betsy Ross flag flying on your meemaw’s porch is now considered a sign of “military extremism.” Concerned parents who show up at school board meetings are considered “terrorists” by federal law enforcement. Confused, attention-hungry kids can legally go to California and have their genitals removed without their parents’ approval. How can you not see it?

Horowitz recently pointed out two phenomena taking place that could save our nation: Trump’s rallies, which have created a huge conservative movement, and parents revolting against the commies in our kids’ schools.

PINKO-RAMA! The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently met in Switzerland to decide just how many crickets we can eat for dinner and how we can only cook them on an electric stove. Also, Tony Blair, the former UK Prime Minister, wants a worldwide digital library to keep track of who is and isn’t vaccinated.

The WEF is an unelected group of the richest and most politically powerful fascists on the planet, and its goal is to enslave everyone in a world of global communism.

The video below is the CEO of Pfizer — one of the companies that makes clot shots — talking about reducing the population by 50%.

Check out the WEF’s “predictions” for what the world will be like in seven years. Spoiler alert: you’ll own nothing, eat less meat, and be neighbors with people from nations that hate you.

Seriously, you need to watch this:

The apparatchiks aren’t even hiding their goals; we’d be foolish to ignore them.

REVOLT-O-RAMA! According to the book I Alone Can Fix It, Gen. Mark Milley once likened Trump to Hitler. This is the same general who allegedly called China and assured them he would warn of any impending attack.

The communists have 45 goals to take over the U.S. without firing a shot. Goal # 15 is to capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. I’m going to suggest the Democrat Party.

I see mostly Democrats pushing the commie clown agenda on us with such buffoonery as:

  • Cow farts will end humanity.
  • Gas stoves will kill the planet.
  • Combustible engines are the work of the devil.

HISTORY-O-RAMA! Our planet has survived at least 2,624 nuclear explosions as well as dinosaur flatulence. Your gas stove, F-150, and cheeseburger aren’t hurting anything.

Our institutions are riddled with communism. Schools are teaching students that white people are bad and girls can have scrotums. New York City forbade its own citizens from buying a cup of coffee without a “vax pass.” Peaceful J6 protesters languish in prison, spending more time there than lefty anarchists who burned police cars. Then there is the FBI.

If Horowitz is correct, we have less than two years to alert people to what is at risk: liberty. And who is most likely to deliver us from evil? Donald J. Trump.

It’s pointless trying to convince your liberal sister-in-law and her turquoise-haired, quadro-sexual boi? friend of what’s happening. They are either too stupid to realize they are useful idiots or they are full-blown apparatchiks, cheering as they, too, lose constitutionally-granted freedoms.

We need to vote our way out of Pinkoville now or shoot our way out later.

CLARIFICATION-O-RAMA! I am NOT suggesting violence in any capacity.

Now is the time to persuade the persuadable that the United States as we know it has been sliding down the slippery slope of Marxism for years. And that means talking to your local white suburban women friends and convincing them that their votes may determine how many spiders you eat for the rest of your life.

Trump is the answer. He’s been there and done that. He takes the arrows and laughs. He loves the fight. He knows communism is at the front door and that it’s scattered its ugly tentacles throughout the house and, astonishingly, even into your gas stove.

Trump will do whatever needs to be done to keep our Constitution from being flushed down the toilet of communism.

Put your fragile feelings on the back burner, ladies. If you think mean tweets are bad, wait until you stand in line for three hours to buy toilet paper, or worse, your child dies because the World Health Organization (WHO) decided your kid was the wrong race to receive medicine.

FACT-O-RAMA! Anyone in a position of power telling you cow farts will end the world is either a complete stooge or a communist.

What do you want to eat for breakfast for the rest of your life, bacon and affordable eggs or grasshopper smoothies?

Trump can — and will — secure the nation for us and, more importantly, for our kids and grandkids. We owe them that.

You also may want to look at which presidents did — and did not — finish their presidential careers the way they should have with this article below.

Related: Ike Was Right: The Military-Industrial Complex Has Become a Serious Problem

The commie push is on, stronger than ever. Don’t be a part of it.

Ok, let’s start the weekend out with a laugh (if we can, considering all the bleak news). Check out the newest video from my friends at “Jokes and a Point.” Their latest video reassures us that conservatives are funnier than the pinkos trying to enslave us.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/kevindowneyjr/2023/01/27/call-2024-what-it-is-trump-vs-communism-choose-wisely-it-might-be-our-last-election-n1661573

CAMP OF THE AIN’TS

CAMP OF THE AIN’TS

BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATIONILLEGAL IMMIGRATIONJOE BIDEN

In her New York Post column Miranda Devine reports on “The migrant mess…ruining NYC’s midtown.” She identifies previously elite midtown hotels that are now housing illegal aliens at taxpayer expense:

The city is putting illegals up ­indefinitely in Midtown’s former luxury hotels, providing three free hot meals a day, baby formula, free clothing, free legal services, free health care and free education.

The cost is reportedly close to $100,000 per room.

But as it’s human nature not to appreciate what you are given for free rather than what you have worked for, some recipients of taxpayer largesse are biting the hand that feeds them.

Take the Row Hotel.

The new residents have been turning up their noses at the free food, with the result that almost a ton of perfectly good meals reportedly have been thrown out daily.

A hotel worker earlier this month provided The Post with photos of trash bags full of untouched sandwiches and bagels that he said migrants refused to eat. Instead, they cook meals more to their liking on hot plates in their rooms, creating a serious fire hazard in the historic building.

Devine’s column includes photos and more aggravating facts. She concludes with an anecdote:

This week, we heard that four illegal migrants, at least two of whom had been staying gratis at the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, had been pulled over by cops in a BMW with fake plates and arrested for stealing $12,000 worth of merchandise from a Macy’s at a Long Island shopping mall on Jan. 9. All four were released the next day.

They must think we’re idiots.

In the controversial dystopian novel Camp of the Saints Jean Raspail imagined the French president suffering a failure of nerve to defend the country against a massive wave of illegal immigration. Raspail did not foresee a president who would deny, conceal, and abet the destruction of his country, but that’s the twist on dystopia we are compelled to contemplate in the Age of Biden.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/01/camp-of-the-aints.php

WHERE YOU GONNA PUT THOSE WIND TURBINES?

WHERE YOU GONNA PUT THOSE WIND TURBINES?

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ENERGY POLICY

There are several reasons why wind and solar energy are doomed to fail, but the most basic is that they are low-intensity energy sources. They produce ridiculously little electricity per acre. Thus, Robert Bryce, one of our top energy experts, calculated in a paper he wrote for American Experiment that if we wanted to get all of our electricity needs from wind turbines, we would have to dedicate an area twice the size of the State of California.




I will hazard a guess that, no matter how much money liberals waste, this isn’t going to happen.

Bryce has also documented one of the fundamental obstacles to vastly increased wind and solar installations: local opposition. Bryce has recorded hundreds of instances where wind and solar projects have been blocked by local governments on account of citizen opposition, and at the link, he explains why that opposition is justified.

Germany has encountered this problem, as its citizens stubbornly resist their government’s determination to erect “green” facilities everywhere. And the same is happening in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal points out that while “green” hoopla is everywhere, actual construction of wind and solar projects is sinking like a stone:

Even as developers plan an unprecedented number of grid-scale wind and solar installations, project construction is plummeting across the U.S.

Despite billions of dollars in federal tax credits up for grabs and investors eager to fund clean energy projects [Ed.: Solely due to government mandates and subsidies], the pace of development has ground to a crawl and many renewables plans face an uncertain path to completion. Supply-chain snags, long waits to connect to the grid and challenging regulatory and political environments across the country are contributing to the slowdown, analysts and companies say.

New wind installations plunged 77.5% in the third quarter of 2022 versus the same period the year before, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. New utility-scale solar installations likely fell 40% in 2022 compared with 2021, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and research firm Wood Mackenzie.

The Journal details several reasons why “green” projects are not being built. The supply chain issues are real, to be sure. But the ultimate constraint is political. Urban liberals may not care how their electricity is generated, but the people who have to live in the vicinity of hundreds of intrusive, ugly and perhaps dangerous wind turbines don’t like it. The Journal’s anodyne conclusion:

Just 23% of the power-generation projects seeking grid connection from 2000 to 2016 were ultimately built. Completion rates were even lower for wind, at 20%, and solar at 16%. Around 19 gigawatts of wind and more than 60 gigawatts of solar were withdrawn from interconnection processes in 2020 and 2021, according to the national lab.

The certainty of securing local permits also varies market by market, even within the same state, along with the willingness of a community to welcome large renewable energy projects, [Joe Rand, senior scientific engineering associate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory] said.

Don’t listen to the hype about wind and solar energy. Despite all the happy talk about a transition away from fossil fuels to “renewables,” it simply isn’t happening.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/01/where-you-gonna-put-those-wind-turbines.php