Bowsite.com

Here's one:

Consensus? 500+ Scientific Papers Published In 2018 Support A Skeptical Position On Climate Alarm

But according to the putzeidan proREgressive left, AGW is settled science.

I'm sure that more of these non-news-news can be easily posted on this thread.

BPR – Breaking the tradition of the secretive Nobel Commission, former secretary Geir Lundestad admitted that Barack Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 in the hope that it would strengthen his presidency.

Not only did Lundestad acknowledge that the decision was purely political during an interview with the AP news agency, but he suggested that in hindsight it wasn’t such a grand idea.

Meanwhile, the prestige of a Nobel Peace Prize is all but finished, as Fox News host Laura Ingraham noted online.

“Seven years later the Nobel Secretary catches on to the obvious. Obama’s receiving the Peace Prize diminished the award forever,” she tweeted.More

I’m not saying there are 1,000,000 scientific papers that say that. It was just an extreme scenario example. Based on my knowledge, for every scientist that says anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening there are 8-9 that say it is. It’s not 100% consensus but it rarely is with science. But a majority is worth listening too.

There are millions of people that think the world is flat and they say they have evidence. Is it news worthy? IDK. Is it possible that it is flat?

Don’t take my word for it. Research the subject and try to prove it both ways. Or just research what scientists really believe and if there is a consensus. If you do you will see if the article posted is bias or not. IMO it is way off base.

Good post...made me think about it.

The earth has always gone through warming and cooling periods.

So in other words all you have is Gorbal blather.

What was the Climate supposed to be if we didn't exist?

Is it easier and more rational to adjust, as we always do, or to attempt to fix the unknown with a grand effort in hopes of some unknown outcome?

If the alleged changes were "all natural" would you be concerned?

If we drastically reduce the output of CO2 and China does not will we have to learn Chinese?

Why isn't the temperature rising at the rate it is supposed to according to the increase of CO2 output?

Just a few questions to the alarmists... Us faithful folks trust that it's under control.

Matt

Umm...the first sentence in that fake news article says "Newly recently released..."

Not only is that poor and redundant grammar, it contradicts your claim that the info is "well known". How can it be well known, if it's suppose to be based on recent info?

I didn't even read the rest of that tripe, because it's just more of the same old unsubstantiated Soros boogieman nonsense.

Matt

The science stuff I find interesting, because it's more my daily wheelhouse.

I'm not debating AGW here, but the discussion of it above got me curious. Why are people on either side of issues like this so certain "their" research (as in, the science or "papers" they choose to believe and present) is "more" true than the other side.

Please do not attempt answering with stuff like financial bias. I both acknowledge that can play a roll, and that professional adults can limit it's influence. I've seen that first hand, but I've also seen how work funded via industry has also been lead by that industry in an attempt to create some sort of positive finding out of next to nothing (again, first hand). So I get those points play a roll. I'm thinking broader.

Explain to me, simply, because I'm simple, how all research from one angle is correct, ideal, statistically significant, methodologically sound, irrefutable... While all research from another angle is incorrect, poor, statistically insignificant, methodologically poor, easily dismissed.

Apply that to media as well - same thing. For as left one could suggest CNBC is... Fox is to the right. Is one less prone to bogus or false or incorrect reporting simply because of what? As with research funding source, each may have an agenda, why is one more correct than the other?

And no, I'm not implying that there is no correct. That's bogus. There are realities, and the left would do well to recognize that realities don't oppress or form hierarchy's out to ruin man kind. But the right ought to recognize those realities dont shatter their world view and require punishment as well.

Also, I am not trying to imply I know all of those truths. I'm open to the reality they exist. I just find angular or ethnocentric political approaches to this stuff growing more and more frustrating. Everyone just keeps tunneling deeper into their spots, and no one recognizes the positives in the variety of ideas and view points which exist, which dramatically limits all of us.

With the 1,000,000 scientific articles on global warming caused by humans aren't there more than a few that explain how man controls all the events described above??? Wait, what? You mean there aren't any?? Damn makes humans sound pretty puny compared to Krakatoa and the eruptions that caused several years without a summer, and it was recorded several times by (ulp) humans...

Sadly, that's how the game is played here.

Matt

Some of you geniuses with a high school education are claiming you know more than MIT grads and NASA scientists?

Astounding.

Hitler was brilliant but that just made him a clever devil. If the majority of scientist were predicting a coming Ice Age 35 yrs ago, and now global warming...should we really take stock in what they say. Evolution is taught by the majority, but then evolution is easily debunked. Most of the main stream universities have a political agenda but you don't have to have a degree to figure that out.

By the way, if you don’t like my original answer then don’t ask the question.

Why do you come here Spike?

Has scientific consensus been be wrong in the past...yes. That does not mean we just abandon science or the scientific method. Could climate scientists be wrong...yep. But based on my research and the scientific CONSENSUS that does exist I think it is likely happening.

Evolution easily debunked...lol. Ok. There is another one with a scientific consensus but I’m not going to engage any further. If u believe that then we are too far apart to have a fruitful discussion. IMO evolution is very real and very much humans have evolved over time.

Just so that I am clear, are you claiming that climate scientists say these events are wholly manmade?

That's frustrating GG. Continual affirmation is not developmental, at all.

Like the guys who shout down people with opposing political views,,, And post completely stupid memes like they’re 8 years old.

Oh they have THEORIES. All failed in their predictions from their models. So they come up with another. And another. They aren't trying to find the uncountable causes and effects toward climate changes. They fail because they START from trying to prove any change is mans fault. That is their mission. They are charged with proving THAT. And that alone. Their agenda. Anything that interferes or questions ordiscounts that is immediately discarded. Anything that might be a natural effect, discounted. It interferes with their mission..... man is the only acceptable explanation. They literally ignore any and all other causes/reasons but for man. They have assumed it before they even begin their studies.

To believe any climate changes are directly mans fault is to believe man can CONTROL the earths climate. The elitist arrogance of those beliefs is astounding.

There is a big difference between the earths climate changing and man being the cause of that change. In virtually every model they have used to "prove" that..... it has failed. All their predictions.... have failed. And several like Mann et al have been caught literally falsifying data to try and support their models and theories. Yet the Church of Gorbal Warming forgives them for being wrong, even intentionally dishonest.... time and time again..... because "their hearts are in the right place..." when they should be run out of town on a rail for biased dishonest science. Why they are retained despite their failure...... the reason is not scientific. It is 100% pure political. Control of mankind's activities and energy.... power and money. You have to find some way to justify your takeover, taking freedom and rights from the "unenlightened" masses. Once taken.....they will never be returned.... count on it. They never are.

Nobody is pro dirty water or dirty air. Yes, as technology advances we are getting cleaner and cleaner. That's a good thing for the air we breath and the water we drink. Again..... a FAR cry from man causing global warming.... oh, sorry.... climate change. Or having control of earths climate... at all. Compared to daily natural events, the depth and masses of oceans, right down to effects of our sun..... Case in point......just this year, have you done much flying in the western US? Nearly the entire west was blanketed by thick smoke from forest fires. Not from cars, power production, any of that. All that smoke, co2, a toxic mix of gases and chemicals..... that blankets thousands of square miles.... is the planet. Volcanos, earth sinking, earth rising, solar events, etc. etc...Mother nature...... good grief, man is arrogant...... he pizzes in a bucket thinking it matters so much to the planet as the whole river rushes by....

That it changes...... it has changed from the very beginning of time. And always will. That is really ALL we KNOW. All we can prove. Change proves.... nothing.... temps go up, mans fault. Temps go down, mans fault "Yeah, but man is making it change FASTER!" Huh? Because you think man is inherently bad is not proof of anything but personal bias.

Prove it. Hasn't it changed quickly before? Were there no rises and falls to rise again (or fall again) over short times before? Do people actually think climate over time is a smooth straight or curving line never rising or falling in sometimes sharp spikes? Our present accurate time line, in earth terms, is barely measurable. Prove there would be any difference if we "took action" (i.e. elitists take control and our money) or did little to nothing..... would there be a difference.... at all?

“Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree*: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.”

This is literally a popcorn fart, when looking at 65 Million Years of Temperature Changes.

We are not in crisis.

Let’s just say you all are right and there is no consensus. For the sake of argument let’s say it’s equally divided among climate scientists (50/50). As conservatives, wouldn’t you want to prepare for the worst case scenario? Use a conservative approach.

For the record, scientists challenging each other on the data is a good thing. I’m glad folks much smarter than me are debating the results of models and experiments. In the mean time, I think moving away from fossil fuels is smart for many reasons. Trying to predict changes and cause of changes is a good thing. Eventually we will run out fossil fuels anyway.

I guess the moral of the story is I would rather be chicken little and prepare for the worst then to bury my head in the sand. Yeah, I’m going to put my chips on the scientific consensus. Hell, I’m in KS so I don’t really need to worry about my beach front house...lol.

What? this can't be true, it doesn't fit the Gorbal Baloneyist's narrative, neither does the Grand Solar maximum/minimums along with Milankovitch cycles.

Back to the OP. Much of the unreported news you post is fake. That’s way it’s not reported by reputable but bias news outlets including Fox News. They are usually from extreme right questionable sources.

(BTW: Climategate emails (remember them?) showed that Mann's fabled hockey stick graph was based on highly selected data that ignored data that did not fit the graph (time for Kyle to post "Hide the Decline") Those emails showed that AGW was more of a political agenda rather than science based science. Search of the CF will have much on that for those interested.

Not reported (or a 5 line page seven story):

House Dems Put In A Solid 4 Hours of Work In Their First Week

The democrat majority in the House showed up long enough to swear themselves in and elect Nancy Pelosi before adjourning for the weekend. I guess the shut down doesn’t concern them enough to stay in session and try to hash out a workable deal with the president.

"If you have a business, you didn't build it, someone else (the GOVERNMENT) did it for you." One of many America hating quotes from the affirmative action, DEMOCRAT, President.

But... It appears to me that the Right appeals to Patriotic themes and I seldom see "anti-American" behavior in that audience. Maybe misguided enthusiasm but it appears "Patriotic".

The Left must want something that they believe strongly in, as an "American Value " which is sometimes hard to define. Those issues of equality for example ( but it is not Socialism, that's for sure) That's not "American" it is a desire to change America. Fundamentally!

The part I have an issue with is the playing to the angry side of peoples emotion. That seems to gather more on my left then on my right. When the leaders will walk out of a legitimate report or persecute a Judge Candidate for the most ridiculous of accusation or wink to their crowd that is Rioting, burning their own cities... and say Hey, that could be me because I'm almost the same color... When they make stupid rules to include everyone at the expense of most others like gender identity bathrooms ... It gets to be too much. Division seems to be a desire or tool of the left with the slogan We Must Unite tacked on. But that is not the end results... So is that Loving America? In a twisted way, I guess ... It's just not my way. I doubt that most of the audience wants it that way. But it is coming from the top down and it's popular to be aggressive and rude. That's not Love. In my opinion.

“There is no good Democrat”......JTV

True that our President had some off-color things to say while still fighting to win but he has shown restraint ( at least for his measure) while in office. The opponents are many and just far worse, like a pack of vicious dogs. The most of our public media eats it up and pounces on ... they are awful.

It comes from both sides but it is lopsided in amount. My observation.

So,, 34% of Republicans hate America and children..... And you side with 25% of Democrats on the issue.

You are still welcome to a hunt at my farm next year. I would be proud to host you sir.

Schumer and Pelosi have been talking to the shadows.

Via Fox News:

President Trump is far from alone in his determination to secure our borders — according to a recent Gallup poll, Americans view immigration as the second-biggest problem facing the country today.

That’s bad news for the Democrat Party, which is hellbent on opposing the president’s efforts to fix our broken immigration system, especially the border wall he needs in order to get illegal immigration under control.

The Democrats have a very simple, two-part strategy on immigration: first and foremost, they want to keep President Trump from fulfilling his promises to the American people; second, they want to make it even easier for foreigners to enter this country illegally.

With Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives, it’s no surprise that Americans are deeply troubled by the immigration crisis.

Over the past several decades, millions of illegal immigrants have successfully evaded our efforts to enforce immigration laws, putting local economies and welfare programs under tremendous pressure to cope with the massive influx of undocumented workers and their families, most of whom receive at least one form of government welfare.

In fact, illegal immigration costs taxpayers a staggering $134.9 billion a year while contributing only $19 billion in state, federal, and local taxes. At the federal level, medical costs make up the lion’s share of government expenditures on illegal immigrants, while education is the largest single expense that illegal immigration imposes on state and local governments.

Sadly, an overloaded welfare state is not the only negative side-effect of our broken immigration system. Communities across America are also being devastated by the violent crime and drug trafficking that result from our failure to control the border — an issue Donald Trump has addressed repeatedly and emphatically ever since he first announced his candidacy for president.

Rather than letting obstructionist Democrats in Congress prevent him from addressing the immigration problem, the president has exercised his executive power to make progress on the issue wherever possible.

Thanks to the president’s diplomatic approach, for instance, the U.S. and Mexico have virtually achieved synergy on immigration, developing a joint strategy to tackle the root causes of mass migration. In response to urging from the Trump administration, Mexico is also offering incentives to deter migrants from illegally crossing the U.S. border, as well as agreeing to house asylum-seekers on its territory while their claims are processed by U.S. authorities.

President Trump has done everything in his power to strengthen immigration enforcement on our side of the border as well, even sending the military to reinforce our brave border patrol agents when a caravan of thousands of migrants threatened to overwhelm their resources.

By taking a firm stand on border security, the president is doing exactly what the people elected him to do, as Gallup’s polling confirms.

more at link

Just another story about white on black crime...until the truth comes out and the media drops the story as it no longer fits the meme...

"" Mother of Jazmine Barnes Lied to Police – Knew the Killers were Black Men, Killer Was Online Friend ""

“There is no Democrat or Republican way to be a Sheriff. The enemy is not the opposing party. The enemy is the criminal.” Sheriff David Clarke (D).

That is the standard that I have held myself to for the last 25 years in my career and in life.

I'd suggest a challenge in the C v L world view debate is that it's self limiting and self determining (and not in the individual growth or societal growth way that self determination suggests).

More personal freedom, More opportunity for individual development and financial success, greater access to knowledge and opportunities, safety.

That is what "liberals" want, broadly. The irony to me is that it looks a heck of a lot like what Conservatives want. Neither hates the constitution and both think they are taking an ideal approach to fostering and helping this great nation evolve. But they look at it via the lens their life history has fostered. Not a bad thing, necessarily.

That's a key point though, it's evolving. It's not possible for it not to. Unless you stop technological growth, scientific growth, professional growth etc etc. You can't have the same as yesterday. It's not "really" possible long term.

Liberals, and by my use of that word or Conservative, here, I'm really talking about the far edges of both, have absolutely over compensated. It's not an intentional subterfuge based strategy designed in the dark of night by masked people. It's a subtle cultural thing focused on the idea that "fairness" should be given... which makes sense, but falls short given they miss - entirely - the fact that they are creating un-fair actions to fix perceived historical inequities.

They can't see it. It's where they are. They dont have the ability to even recognize they are creating what they simultaneously are striving against.

That said, it's good intent - equality, fighting oppression, scientific exploration etc etc. Those are good intent's - I dont think anyone would disagree.

The challenge is that the approach seems to have been unable to sustain the key grounding points - if you really want equality, then you embrace those with different views for who they are. If you really want to stop oppressive approaches and actions, you dont use them. etc.

Dont think I'm just Lib bashing. Those same sorts of questions or ideas could be applied to Conservatives. Perhaps the specific question is different, but to assume the far edge of liberalism was not a reaction to other practices pretends to ignore the water pushing the wave.

That's the challenge here that I keep coming to lately. There really isn't a fault. The current, often described (by me too) as "toxic" atmosphere of our nations discourse is not an L or C issue. It's OUR issue.

If "we" can't see beneath the surface of our fellow citizens, and work to see not just who they appear they are but WHY they are that way, then I dont know if we ever get things better.

Bet that play's a role in "fake" news as well.

One of the best posts ever!

Thanks.

Truth is, both parties have trampled on our rights thru the years. Lost freedom is freedom lost...either way.

If what you and Slade push daily on this site is conservative, you are correct, I am not a CF conservative, and proud of that!

All are rights we have NOW. They want to remove. The ideological division of the left and right starts from a basic foundational belief. Their stance is only the GOVERNMENT can GRANT what you can and can't do. Rights come from the government, an all powerful government, that runs the country as they want. But that is not how the Constitution was written. It was written expressly stating what the government CANNOT do. The rights, all rights, are the citizens. Hands off. The government shall not infringe. Go away and leave me alone.

There is not one true American freedom/right they do not want to restrict, control, or remove completely in many cases as with the 2nd amendment. Freedom, real freedom and not some feel good clueless slogan.... is the very last thing liberals want.

Freedom to liberals is you get to choose anything you want.... just as long as it's off of their list.....

I agree with much of what you said.

But, I just am not convinced Trump is a conservative. I have NEVER donated to a Democrat, but have several Republicans. I have never supported Choice and have written checks to Pro-Life entities. A true conservative does not change political parties, for any reason, IMHO.

I appreciated your decency on the thread where you admitted Trump has always been a narcissist. People that suffer from NPD, It is generally believe face an affliction brought on by environment and genetics that there is no known cure for. Intense counseling may help.

I don't think the pattern of behavior he has displayed over a lifetime ended just because of his election. If anything, it reinforced his behavior, granted my personal perception.

I think his ego motivates him more than any idealogy or love of country. I support harnessing that to accomplish an agenda that pushes us back towards the direction our FF intended, but folks thinking he is some Great Hope are fools, again IMO.

"If liberals don't hate the Constitution, then why are they on a quest to destroy parts of it.....specifically the 2A?"

That is the best, well reasoned argument you have made IMO. Thank you. Since it was without insults and name calling, I read it twice. I think you are right.

IMHO, I know you are right about aethism and conservatism not being mutually exclusive, but it is difficult, probably impossible to vote pro-choice, for me.

I guess I am a wee bit idealistic. Give me his conservatism with Reagan's inspiring likability. FREEDOM baby! Let it rip across the globe again.

Seriously, just an awesome post that has given me pause. I know it has been said before, but the way you packaged it this time for some reason it resonates.

For example: The goal liberals could be labeled as having is more freedom, freedom from oppression and "isms". But the approach has been to view their ideals as worth taking those things (attempting to) from those with other ideas. As I said, the approach applied by L's does what they believe others have done and supposedly are fighting. That's a negative because it's not looking at the full situation, and is creating that which they fear most. That's a whoops big time.

Is workplace equality regardless of race, creed, gender etc a form of freedom? In essence providing people with the chance to stand up for and support themselves, their families and be productive members of society? Heck yeah. That's one example. But if your method to fix it over reaches (affirmative action for example), you are robbing others of that which you claim to be fixing - lame. Above I noted seeing the wave and ignoring the waters below, roughly. Why did affirmative action start? It wasn't just randomly chucked out there as a fun way to mess with people. It was because, while "legally" people of other (IE, not white men like me) origins could be hired, go to schools etc... private citizens or companies managed to avoid it. Thus, the push for affirmative action - Newtonian push (to oversimplify the hell out of it) to "even" the playing field that private citizens or business wouldnt do on their own. Now you have hyper qualified white men missing out on jobs because a affirmative action quota has to be reached and that's supposed to be positive? No. That's doing to others what you (L's) claim to want fixed - as mom said, 2 wrongs don't really help.

WW - same answer, largely, that I wrote above.

L's (again, I'm referencing the far ends of the spectrum who get the most press and "lead the charge" of late - and reversing these points in various ways could show the C's in the same light) assume they can "correct" a "wrong" by managing the 2A, for example. The belief is that they could possibly reduce the loss of life due to gun violence if they limit access or try to ensure only those most qualified can own a firearm. Obviously the massive majority of gun owners are responsible, respectable, sensible and sane or 3/4 of the nation would be dead in a massive overnight killing spree (ball parking the numbers there). The intent (less dead people) is good. The approach - not so good.

What if rather than steam roll everyone (current approach) "they" acknowledged that legit uses of firearms are normal. That legit ownership is normal. That "they" dont have to enjoy them (guns) personally, but that they could truly, honestly, recognize that in other sub cultures or "groups" or regions or whatever, many people truly have legitimate and valuable uses for firearms?

Wouldnt the intent: to have fewer dead people, have a greater odd's of occurring? In other words, shouldn't any approach looking at reducing gun crime, then be open to the ideas, for example, of those who own them safely? That would make great sense.

Hopefully that makes sense. I'm saying "they" have attacked some things poorly, and literally used that which they claim to despise in an effort to fix what they despise. That does not really work very well - even if the intent (again, in a 2a situation, that's fewer dead people) is good.

I'm not talking about this from a political direction. My initial post was more the philosophy of it all or considering the bigger view.

I do believe L's push, is largely based or founded in seeking freedom's from ACTUAL oppression and isms, only those things happened in the past. For example: The right of people of color to vote or for women to vote. Those make total sense. NOT charging people money to vote. Those are things that were overcome and the intent is good - keeping voice, ideally, with the citizenry.

But "blaming" those folks of the past who upheld those previous laws and essentially over compensating as a result of that "wrong" makes the same mistakes as the "wrong" in the first place. It's assuming the evolved state of knowledge and understanding everyone reading this has gained was in place "then", whenever "then" was. Which is simply untrue.

I'd argue that many L ideals and intent's are good - that initial list from my post above to me, are excellent things to fight for: "More personal freedom, More opportunity for individual development and financial success, greater access to knowledge and opportunities, safety."

I dont know any L's - and I live in L mecca in the North East, only an hour from Boston in good traffic - that would argue with my list above. From the most to least liberal. Zero.

Of my conservative friends, even the one's who refuse to watch anything but FoxNews or read anything but Brietbart, I dont think any of them would disagree with that list either.

I think both would think I'm full of crap for suggest both want the same thing.

And that, to me, is the problem.

Off to the gym, I have to get a bike ride in today and I missed the daylight, so the indoor it is... Have a good evening fellas! Thanks for the interesting discussion here - Ive enjoyed it!

That's no answer to the question I posed. So I guess none of you liberal advocates will answer it direct, because you can't. Thanks for proving my point. "Pro-choice" to a liberal Democrat does NOT apply to firearms.

Science attempts to get at the truth. It examines facts, it evaluates them, develops a hypothesis, questions and tests it. Once a position is established, real disinterested science continues to test and question. (All the while a true person of science is conscious of and acknowledges his or her potential biases.)

With regard to AGW (or Climate Change or whatever one chooses as a starting point), the "science" seems to have been able to offer a few well-regarded opinions and "conclusions", so much so that many (lay people) consider the issue settled. Where I personally have a problem is with the fact that many (most?) of the predictions made based on this "settled science" seem to be (or have been) WAY off base.

A reasonable person might conclude that: 1) We really haven't come to a place where we understand all or enough of the factors involved. or 2) With regard to Climate, there are so many variables, that forward-looking predictions are worthless.

When I factor in the observation that some people involved have a financial or political stake in me believing and living as if they have it all figured out; And when I notice that the loudest people are trying to tell me that I'm too stupid to understand much less argue with their MIT Scientists ... I tend to stop listening to them.

If you can't predict something with any degree of accuracy, do you really understand it?

Why didn't this whole thing start from a Point of View of: We need to treat this planet we live on well, so that it will continue to provide a healthy environment for us?

Instead; Al Gore made some wild and questionable claims, followed up with some dire predictions, and he got filthy rich. Shortly thereafter, his claims were called into question, and his predictions were mostly wrong, and he didn't even follow his own advice about how we should all live.

Forgive me if I decided pretty quickly that he's a fraud.

I have read a lot of the research quoted and cited on all sides, my background isn't in climate science, but my degree in Chemistry and BioChemistry did involve a fair bit of reading other's research. When I can easily spot a bunch of problems in the research, or in the conclusions presented based on that research, I know someone is attempting to pull one over on another person. Knowing a little bit of science and making conclusions is dangerous. Knowing a little bit of science and trying to convince others that you're an expert and that you should set policy is called politics or fraud, and they very often overlap in this area.

And while Trump isn't perfect on this issue, he IS on record with this........

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/28/17171988/trump-second-amendment-repeal-justice-stevens

So go ahead apologists, keep ducking and dodging.

It is not a county based on what someone thinks is for the greater good. It is a country built on individuals and their individual rights. Not the group nor what the group thinks/feels.... or mob as the case may be....

Good to have more freedom? Yes. Restrict peoples freedom to make more freedom - um, that doesnt work.

That said, I'd argue that each whole (individual) forms a larger whole: Individual --> Family --> Town --> State --> Nation --> Continent --> World... Taken to the extreme, if we are terminally individualistic we are toast. On the other hand, if we are individuals - whole in themselves - contributing to a larger "wholes" (town, state, country, continent, world etc) then we become wildly strong. That's not saying we should lose individual rights, but rather acknowledging that healthy, whole, individuals can create the strongest nation, and one which is able to support each of us in the reverse.

You nailed it, "making others" do what you say you despise makes no sense. Blows any hope of helping lead.

Ace - great stuff man. You hit one thing, that feels like it ought to be the root of environmental activism: "We need to treat this planet we live on well, so that it will continue to provide a healthy environment for us?"

Fully agree. I think you were implying this, but I'd add after "us" with: "and the rest of the world". Take Al Gore's over the top approach politically & financially out. He was pushing his agenda with the mindset that "if you dont agree your a frigging moron". He wasn't seeing that some holes could be in his beliefs or that other people were viewing the same problem with different glasses on. And the result was ridiculous statements like "ever see a manatee in Memphis" or similar...

Admittedly, I do believe enough of the science that shows we have an impact on climate. I'm suspect of the exact amount or what, exactly, that means. There certainly are ever improving models, but, it's a massively complex system and without deep study - far beyond a guy in a different field for sure (speaking for me) - being certain is a bit over the edge. I know we impact the environment broadly and in big ways. That is factual and inarguable (I'm not talking about climate change), and my drive to protect the environment for those after me certainly is impacted by that end of things.

Thanks for the cool points to consider guys!

Sorry Mouse..... didn't mean to derail the thread...... maybe just a scenic detour.... carry on =D

Nancy Pelosi's father Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. was as crooked as they come

Higher tariffs resulted in a smaller budget deficit in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, which confusingly lasts from October through December of last year, offsetting the decline in revenue from the corporate tax cuts.

The deficit rose, however, due to much higher levels of outlays compared with a year ago, monthly numbers from the Congressional Budget Office showed on Wednesday.

Continued at link

Rep. Rashida Tlaib appears to have allowed the media to think that the radical Muslim would be sworn in to office on a copy of "Thomas Jefferson's Koran".

The media had previously found Thomas Jefferson's Koran to be a very useful propaganda stunt for making it appear that Islam is as America as... Thomas Jefferson.

But then Rep. Rashida Tlaib announced that she hadn't actually used Jefferson's Koran, but an actual Koran. Despite her announcement, many media outlets didn't bother correcting their fake news. But that's typical of the media, which acts as the communications arm for the most radical Democrat elements, without ever caring about truth or the facts.

It's not surprising that Rashida Tlaib chose to opt out of Jefferson's Koran. While it's a great publicity stunt, Rashida Tlaib realized that she could gain the benefits of the propaganda, without actually having to soil her religion by using a book that no good Muslim would touch.

There are two problems with Jefferson's Koran.

1. It was owned by an infidel. That's a lesser problem.

2. Its translation is quite blasphemous.

Jefferson wasn't reading the Koran in the original Arabic. His Koran was translated by George Sale in the 18th century. It contains his commentary and notes, some flattering, some rather less so.

Sale's opening lines describe the Koran as a "manifest forgery". He describes Mohammedanism as a "human invention" that was mostly propagated by the sword.

One reason Sale gave for his translation was that, "it is absolutely necessary to undeceive those who, from the ignorant or unfair translations which have appeared, have entertained too favourable an opinion of the original, and also to enable us effectually to expose the imposture.”

His entire introduction is essentially a guide to how to convert Muslims to Christianity. That's not surprising as Sale was a lifetime member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Jefferson's Koran is really Sale's Koran. And Sale's Koran is a missionary text.

By the standards of the era, Sale viewed Islam somewhat favorably. He loathed Catholics and Jews, and believed that certain attributes of Islam might draw it closer to his own view of religion, but ultimately in order to convert Muslims to his form of Christianity.

It's easy to see why Tlaib chose not to use it.

Despite the "Jefferson's Koran" stunt, Thomas Jefferson disliked Islam and his Koran is filled with commentary attacking and undermining it.

But I guess they'd rather be "feeling that's right" than factually right.....

Minneapolis: Muslim refugee brutally rapes 10-year-old girl, media hides facts

They can’t even use the “Asian” moniker for this Muslim nightmare. via Muslim refugee charged with raping 10-year-old girl

A 34-year-old Muslim immigrant has been arrested and charged with brutally raping a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota and the local media in Minneapolis has refused to identify the man as a refugee from Somalia.

KSTP 5, an ABC affiliate in Minneapolis, referred to the suspect, Ahmed Hersi Abdi as “A Minneapolis man.” CBS affiliate WCCO 4 used the same description, giving no mention of the man’s background or how he arrived in the U.S.

The attack occurred Sunday evening in an apartment complex in the city’s Cedar Riverside neighborhood, also known as “Little Mogadishu” for its high concentration of Somali refugees imported from United Nations refugee camps in Africa.

Abdi allegedly followed the girl out of an elevator. He asked for her name and offered his hand to her. She shook his hand and Abdi refused to let go. Police said he proceeded to rape the girl in the hallway of the apartment building.

Authorities used video surveillance footage to help track down the suspect, who was arrested about 24 hours later on Monday in St. Paul.

The U.S. government has resettled more than 110,000 Somali refugees since the early 1990s and shipped in another 8,858 during the most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, according to U.S. State Department data.

Witnesses said they heard screaming in the hall and saw a young girl crying, so they flagged down an off-duty police officer.

The girl was sent to Hennepin County Medical Center for treatment.

The Minneapolis Police Department’s John Elder said the officers knew who the suspect was after seeing the video because they’d had frequent encounters with him.

Abdi has a long rap sheet. According to court records, he was convicted of trespassing in 2003, disorderly conduct in 2003 and public urination in 2012.

Several other previous charges against Abdi have been dismissed. In 2011, he was charged with two counts of fifth-degree assault and one count of disorderly conduct, which were all dismissed after he was found incompetent to stand trial, according to court records.

The court dismissed another fifth-degree assault charge in 2010 citing “mental deficiency.”

In 2002, a fifth-degree assault charge against Abdi was dismissed. And, last year, a lurking charge against him was also tossed out of court.

Refugee resettlement watchdog Ann Corcoran, who has followed the refugee program closely since 2007, said in a case like this it is “pretty easy to figure out” that Abdi is an immigrant and yet no one in Minnesota is asking how he has managed to evade deportation with such a lengthy criminal record.

“Ahmed Hersi Abdi has a long criminal record. So, why wasn’t he deported?” she asks in her latest blog.

Of Course: One of the Researchers Behind the "Sokal Squared" Grievance Study Hoax Ratted on by NPC and Now Being Investigated for, Get This, Shoddy and Misleading Scholarship —Ace of Spades

To prove that the academy was no longer interested in scholarship but groupthink political activism, he and his confederates wrote a series of absurd papers to see if Grievance Studies Journals would publish them.

Not only did they publish them, but one of the obviously-fake NPC papers was officially awarded for being one of the very best articles the journal had published in its 25 years of existence.

To expose the crank "scholarship" of these bullshit papers, the three hoaxers invented obviously fake data which any competent peer review panel should have immediately recognized as crank and spurious. But of course, they weren't competent, and accepted, in one case, the claim that to prove that Dog Parks were hotbeds of Dog Rape Culture (in as much as dogs humped each other and their masters tacitly approved of this by not sending the dog rapists to dog prison), they claimed they had inspected the genitals of 10,000 dog park dogs for signs of rape.

This is obviously nonsense. These people run "studies" involving 10 or 15 or 20 people, because they're lazy. The idea that anyone is running a "study" that closely examines ten thousand dogs' genitals is absurd on its face, and should have been flagged as a fabrication.

But it wasn't, and so the NPCs are embarrassed, so now they've reported only professor working at a university for faking data, trying to get him fired.

Portland State University is now plotting how to fire a professor (Peter Boghossian doesn't have tenure) for daring to do actual scholarship.

On October 2, 2018, the Wall Street Journal broke a story that detailed an unprecedented audit of certain sectors of academic research, specifically those we--its authors--called "grievance studies." In that effort, which has come to be known as the Grievance Studies Affair, Portland State University assistant professor of philosophy Peter Boghossian joined the two of us in writing and submitting a series of academic papers in fields like gender studies, race studies, sexuality studies, and so on. Our goal was to understand and expose a corruption of scholarship that puts politically motivated research ahead of honest inquiry in these disciplines. Given that seven of our papers were published--with a realistic potential for several more--the international headlines, and ensuing academic debate on the issue, we think we were reasonably successful.

Portland State appears less impressed. It took Peter's administration ten days from the breaking of the story to formally initiate a Committee of Inquiry to determine whether he had engaged in research misconduct.

...

"I have arrived at that decision and find enough concerns that I have decided to initiate a formal Committee of Inquiry," wrote Mark McLellan, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at PSU. Specifically, this Committee would be investigating the issue of whether the fabrication of data for some of the papers in the grievance studies audit constituted a breach of research ethics, a proceeding which they notified him may take up to sixty days. McLellan also referred his concerns about the Grievance Studies Affair to Portland State University's Institutional Review Board (IRB). This board's duty was to determine whether or not conducting the audit should have required ethical approval and the informed consent of the targeted journals' editors and peer reviewers. Obviously, we did not and could not seek any such approval or consent.

So they're being investigated for not alerting the journals to the fact that they were submitting hoax papers intended to prove that the journals were practicing shoddy, silly activism. Portland State University -- a garbage-tier fake school -- is actually claiming they should have gotten consent from the journals to test them.

This is absurd. Psychological tests are done every single week in which the subjects are not told what is being tested. Often they're being tested without being told they're being tested. For example, they might be positioned in a waiting room, told that they will be tested in a half hour, but then, unknown to them, the actual test is conducted on them while they're waiting.

This is an accepted form of testing -- some tests cannot be performed if the subject knows he is being tested and, even worse - if he knows specifically what he's being tested for. If you tell someone "I'm testing you for racism in witness identification in a crime," well, he's kind of going to be aware that when you stage a robbery in front of him in the waiting room that he should be very careful about identifying the race of the (mixed race) actor you hired to pose as the robber.

But Portland State is seriously contending that the researchers should have told the journals they were submitting to that they were submitting absurd, fake NPC papers to see if they were gullible enough and ideologically deranged enough to publish them.

Gee, that wouldn't have skewed the test results much, huh?

In the meantime, early in November, an anonymous "collective" of a dozen Portland State University faculty members penned an open letter to PSU students, ominously (and vaguely) urging them to consider what Peter’s participation in the grievance study audit might "mean for their education." The piece was too sloppy and amateurish even to consider viable as a cheap hit-piece, though it was certainly nasty and unfair enough to qualify. Its (ridiculous) conclusion? "Some faculty practice education in bad faith right in your own backyard. This is to the detriment of the university's reputation and the serious scholars trying to make PSU an excellent place to seek higher education."

Roughly six weeks after their October 12 letter, the Committee of Inquiry, headed by McLellan, followed up with Peter regarding their deliberations. In a letter dated November 27, 2018, the committee wrote, "The Committee unanimously agreed that the 'dog park' article represents an unambiguous example of research data fabrication."

Wrong. The Dog Park "data" wasn't the data. That was just a necessary bit of stage-dressing to get the real data, which is whether or not the journal would publish an article which claims obviously absurd data. Boghossian et al. weren't actually researching Doggie Rape -- they were researching sloppy and ideologically-driven corruption in phony-baloney "academic" publishing.

But you can't test to see if a subject detects a problem with an obviously-counterfeit five dollar bill -- Abraham Lincoln wearing a turtleneck sweater, say, as one old Superfriends cartoon had it -- without actually passing him the obviously-counterfeit five dollar bill.

You can't get informed consent from your test subject -- telling him that this is a test to see whether or not he takes careful notice of money he's handed -- because, well -- I mean, obviously, that gives the game away, doesn't it? It prejudices the test results so completely that there's no point doing the test.

And say -- given that these journals accept papers from the wide public, including some cranks, and supposedly have a peer review process to make sure crank papers don't get published -- do you need informed consent from a journal to let them know they should do their supposed job?

When people test TSA to see if they can smuggle (dummy) weapons through security, do they alert them in advance "I'm gonna be trying to smuggle this dummy knife past you, mmmkay?"

Basically, Portland State has decided that testing test subjects is now officially unethical.

But of course they can't mean that; this is just a special double-secret probation investigation intended to never be used as precedent in any other case (except for others exposing NPC corruption).

Three MS-13 gang members in the United States illegally have been arrested for allegedly stabbing a fellow high school student in Long Island.

All three gang members have been identified as being in the country illegally, two having entered as unaccompanied minors(DACA?), ABC7 News reported, citing police. One member who entered as an unaccompanied minor and another have previously been apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security but federal judges later released them.

A group of teens visited a Huntington Station Burger King Wednesday afternoon when, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney, a group of gang members began staring at the teens in a “menacing way.” Fox5 News reported that the gang members, now identified as MS-13, followed the teens out and attacked them with baseball bats and knives.

Ramon Arevalo Lopez, 19, allegedly stabbed a 16-year-old boy in the back during the attack. Fox5 reported that the victim was taken to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Witness accounts provided information on the three and the vehicle in which they fled the scene. Within an hour of the attack, police picked up the three alleged attackers. They were found with blood on their clothes and on the vehicle. Seventeen-year-old Oscar Canales Molina was found with two knives on him, one of which was covered in blood, according to authorities.

“What we know about MS-13 is that they use violence to – in their minds – ensure that they are given respect,” District Attorney Timothy D. Sini said, according to Fox5. “Certainly this type of incident fits within the modus operandi of MS-13, which is essentially random and seemingly senseless acts of violence.”

The third gang member was 20-year-old Nobeli Montes Zuniga. Zuniga and Molina entered the United States as unaccompanied minors, according to ABC7. Molina and Lopez were previously picked up by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and later released by federal judges.

All three suspects have been charged with second-degree assault. ABC7 reported that bail was set for each at $35,000 cash or $75,000 bond.

The San Diego-based outfit speculated on CNN’s rationale for the decision:

We believe CNN declined a report from KUSI because we informed them that most Border Patrol Agents we have spoken to told us the barrier does in fact work.

We have continuously been told by Border Patrol Agents that the barrier along the Southern border helps prevent illegal entries, drugs, and weapons from entering the United States, and the numbers prove it...

continued at link

Mexican authorities discovered five abandoned vehicles and at least 20 bodies at a rural location 56 miles west of McAllen, Texas, Wednesday, CNN reported.

News of the discovery came just hours after CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta reported on the area’s apparent safety and tranquility...

Meanwhile, American press scrambles to connect this development to the government shutdown.

While many climate scientists have been focused on “global warming,” other Earth scientists are reporting that another planetary phenomenon of true importance is occurring.

The Earth’s magnetic field is moving, and the important magnetic “North Pole” is changing position.

Earth’s magnetic fields are shifting – and scientists are unsure why.

Researchers say the magnetic North Pole is ‘skittering’ away from Canada, towards Siberia.

The problem has got so bad, researchers around the world are scrambling to update a global model of the fields.

Called the World Magnetic Model, it underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

The Earth’s magnetic poles have always been on the move. The concern for scientists at the present time is that the rate of increase has increased, which means all the technology that relies on the magnetic North Pole needs to be adjusted.

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information.

The problem lies partly with the moving pole and partly with other shifts deep within the planet. Liquid churning in Earth’s core generates most of the magnetic field, which varies over time as the deep flows change. In 2016, for instance, part of the magnetic field temporarily accelerated deep under northern South America and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Satellites such as the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission tracked the shift.

By early 2018, the World Magnetic Model was in trouble. Researchers from NOAA and the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh had been doing their annual check of how well the model was capturing all the variations in Earth’s magnetic field. They realized that it was so inaccurate that it was about to exceed the acceptable limit for navigational errors.

In fact, the magnetic North-South Poles have flipped during Earth’s history. Iron-bearing rocks can be dated based on the magnetic alignment detected. The field of paleommagnetism is based on this occurrence, and researchers have determined the last pole switch happened hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The Matuyama–Brunhes boundary now describes an event 780 thousand years ago when south became north, and north became south.

It was the last time this monumental reversal occured. Smaller deviations in the pole’s positions called geomagnetic excursions seem to occur far more frequently, including a weak flip-flop about 41,000 years ago when the field weakened to just 5 percent of its current strength for a few centuries.

The importance of the magnetic field to the Earth’s climate cannot be over-stated. That field deflects charged particles from the Sun, which would destroy the atmosphere if we didn’t have this protection. If you want to know what Earth would look like without our strong magnetic field, you need look no farther than Mars.

However, magnetic pole flips have occurred frequently through geologic history. Typically, the switch occurs every 200,000 – 300,000 years, so Earth is overdue for one. Their occurrence does not correspond to extinction level events and continental chaos despite dramatic claims to the contrary that I have read. The two chief problems associated with today’s activity are dealing with the global models and coverage by science-ignorant reporters.

Of course, the American media is keen to connect every single issue to the government shutdown. The magnetic field movement is no exception. As an example, here is the lede to the report in Fortune.

The north magnetic pole’s rapid and inexorable shift requires the early release of a new model of Earth’s magnetic field for military and civilian navigation around the Arctic. The partial federal government shutdown will delay the release of this model from January 15 until at least January 30, despite the U.S. military’s request for the update ahead of schedule.

And while our magnetic poles may change through time, our press remains completely the same.

Robert Mueller – From the Inside….

There’s a vastly different opinion amid some who review the action of Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller. CTH has noted a common corrupt theme amid the DOJ and FBI that crosses both the Obama and Trump administrations: A priority to preserve the institution; regardless of how corrupt the institution is; and regardless of how much collateral damage those system administrators will create in their effort toward that preservation goal.

Within the larger discussion, sometimes comments hit the proverbial nail. I think this one does exactly that:

RTLW – “Not ALL FBI Agents are moral pariahs. 60% are good American patriots who joined the Agency in good faith expecting to serve their Country and put bad people behind bars.

The other 40% are Peter Strozk and Lisa Page. ALL of FBI HQ is populated by the Strozk/Page types. Recruitment of this type of Agent started under Mueller and continued under Comey. Mueller drove out all of the old school “Brick Agents” shortly after he became Director.

Mueller implemented an “up or out” policy where all SSAs were required to move to DC and do Headquarters time or lose their GS 14 pay grade. This policy change by Mueller purposely targeted the most senior Agents in the FBI who had finally earned the right to move their family to a medium sized office in fly over country, had teenage kids and were living a comfortable life.

Mueller knew these Agents would not uproot their families and move to DC. Hundreds of these senior Agents immediately retired. Literally thousands of years of investigative experience left the FBI overnight.

This is exactly what Mueller wanted. These were the men and women who would have called Mueller out when he started transforming the FBI from a criminal investigative organization into a domestic intelligence organization (it is illegal to collect intelligence on American citizens).

Mueller immediately began filling the ranks with Strozk/Page types. The FBI does extensive psychological screening of applicants. Stroke and Page are self interested, well-educated cowards whose only motivation is their own promotion and paycheck. In other words they are people who will be blindly loyal to the Agency and will obey any order no matter how un-Constitutional or unlawful. This is the psychological profile that Mueller and Comey actively recruited and hired.

On the flip-side, combat veterans, patriots, have been denied employment by the FBI at all costs (they all mysteriously fail the polygraph and background check).

The morale of the good Agents is at rock bottom. Everyone is retiring as soon as they are eligible. Younger Agents are leaving as soon as they can find another line of work. They are ashamed of the badge.

It is time to abolish the FBI. Make the 56 FBI field offices the Investigative Branch of DHS. Fire everyone in the FBI and make them re-apply for their job under new standards. President Trump can remodel FBIHQ into a hotel. Or better yet, burn it to the ground and salt the earth. Hang everyone on the 7th floor for treason.” (link)

By Sebastian Gorka

If you’re not the first lady, being alone in the Oval Office with the president of the United States is a rare occurrence. Even visiting heads of state will be accompanied by an interpreter, or an official notetaker, when they meet privately with the most powerful man in the world.

So I will never forget the day, in June 2017, when I found myself in front of the Resolute Desk, with just President Donald Trump in the room with me.

I was there for something that pertained to my job as strategist to the president—if memory serves, it was to discuss our plan to undo the 44th president’s disastrous Iran Deal—when the topic of Russia came up.

Suddenly the president stopped, looked at me, and said: “They will find nothing because there is nothing.”

Since he shared that declaration with me, good men like General Mike Flynn have been charged with process crimes, shady characters like Paul Manafort have been convicted of wire fraud, and young men such as George Papadopoulos have served time in federal prison as a result of their foolish self-aggrandizing. Yet, none of the charges made or convictions brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller have linked the activities of the Trump campaign with the Kremlin, which of course, was Mueller’s mandate.

Two years later, at a reported cost of well over $25 million, not one charge or conviction has proven the original allegation of “Russian collusion.” At any other time, this would have led otherwise reasonable people to say: Enough! Time for Mueller and his team—a dozen of whom are registered Democrat donors—to close shop and for the former FBI director to end what President Trump justifiably has called a “witch hunt.”

Instead, the Left, and the Left’s domesticated media, have escalated their attacks.

Monday, as the president was preparing to board Marine One on the North Lawn, Kristen Welker, a member of the White House Press Corps working for NBC, actually asked him whether he is working for Russia.

This following a New York Times story, in which we learned that the FBI’s leadership initiated an investigation into the president after he fired James Comey, positing that he was, in fact, an agent of the Kremlin.

President Trump was right to call Welker’s question disgraceful. But we must go further.

First, there is the issue of facts. After two years in which Donald Trump as president has raised the defense budget, sent anti-tank missiles to the government of Ukraine, scolded NATO nations for not taking the threat from Russia seriously and encouraging them to keep their commitments to the alliance, as well as authorizing the killing of more than 200 Russian paramilitary “contractors” in Syria. How can any sane person who values the truth—and her own professional integrity as a journalist—even ask such a ridiculous and surreal question?

But there is an even more serious question, one that raises the specter of sedition at the highest levels of our republic.

As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted on my show, “America First,” the FBI is part of the executive branch and its mandate to execute counterintelligence investigations serves one person and one person alone: the incumbent president.

McCarthy, remember, helped put the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack, Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheik), behind bars. As he has written time and again, counterintelligence operations are not exercises in evidence gathering designed to lead to a prosecution of a crime in a federal court. They are instead secret activities designed to provide the chief executive with information on what enemy nations or inimical non-state actors are doing to the country so that the president can direct responses to the threat, be it from Soviet agents during the Cold War, or ISIS terrorists here in America today.

This is not what happened in 2017.

Instead, a rogue FBI decided unilaterally to investigate the newly elected president in order to undermine him—rather than serve the elected official who bears ultimate responsibility for the safety of all Americans. Never before in our history has this happened.

The FBI has had problems since the days of J. Edgar Hoover. But never has the seventh floor of FBI Headquarters decided by itself to launch a clandestine operation to target a newly elected president under the cover of working for an alien power simply because they wanted political revenge for their candidate losing an election. Yet this is exactly what happened. Instead of being horrified, the establishment perpetuates the outré assertions day in and day out to further weaken the president.

So what is to be done?

Given the last two years of continued assaults against President Trump by Mueller and Obama-holdovers such as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the confirmation of a new attorney general might not be enough.

There may be one solution that preserves the patriotic agents who are protecting the nation while helping drain the Beltway swamp: dissolve the FBI, fire all the senior political operators still in the Hoover Building, and make the 56 FBI field offices across the nation—where the real agents work—the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security.

This way we may prevent the next palace coup.

Sheila Jackson Lee needs to watch some more Gillette "short films."

A former staffer for Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee claims in a new lawsuit that the lawmaker retaliated against her and fired her because she was planning to pursue legal action over an alleged rape by a former employee of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

The woman, identified in court papers by the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleges she was raped in October 2015, when she was a 19-year-old intern for the CBCF, by the foundation's intern coordinator at the time, Damien Jones. The woman said she reported the alleged rape to police and told several people, including Rep. Terri Sewell, her former boss and a distant relative of her mother's, but did not pursue legal action at the time.

Several years later, when Jane Doe was working for Jackson Lee, the woman decided she did want to pursue legal action, and told Jackson Lee's chief of staff Glenn Rushing in early March 2018. The woman alleges that she asked to speak with Jackson Lee about it, but a meeting never happened, and several weeks later she was fired. Jackson Lee is chair of the board for the CBCF.

The accused staffer, Damien Jones, worked for Robert Francis "Xavier 'Zavi' Juan-Maria Zapatera-Reyes" O'Rourke, but "Xavi" claims he didn't know about any of this.

Whatever.

(internal links at link)

Trust your political commissars masquerading as law enforcement and intelligence officials.

Virtually everyone at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department involved in the FBI's counterintelligence probe of candidate Donald Trump knew from the beginning that the investigation, dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane," was based on shaky opposition research compiled by a Trump-hating former British spy and funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Bruce Ohr, the demoted associate attorney general, testified to Congress last August that he repeatedly warned top officials at the FBI and DOJ about Steele's bias and Fusion GPS's conflicts of interest, yet this information was kept hidden from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

And to add insult to injury, instead of investigating the officials who actively participated in the dossier hoax, Special Counsel Robert Mueller hired several of them to be on his team to investigate President Trump.

...

Ohr testified that he stressed that the information he was sharing came from Trump's political opponents in the Clinton camp and warned that it was unverified and likely biased.

"When I provided [the Steele information] to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information," he testified. "I don't know how reliable it is. You're going to have to check it out and be aware. These guys were hired by somebody relating to--who's related to the Clinton campaign, and be aware."

He also told the team that Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected" and that his own wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that compiled the dossier.

According to a leaked transcript of Ohr's closed-door testimony to the joint House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees last Aug. 28, he waved all these red flags well before the FBI filed its October application for a surveillance warrant against Carter Page.

Strange that Ohr felt the need to warn the DOJ and FBI about Steele's bias and unreliability, but the DOJ and FBI felt the need to hide these exact same warnings from the FISA court.

And this is also a problem: The "Crossfire Hurricane" team claims to not have known nothin' about no dossier until September 2016, but Ohr says he told the team about it on July 30.

That's important, because the Crossfire team continues lying about whether these unverified dossier reports were used to secure the FISA authorization. Their claim is that they couldn't have relied on the dossier, because they didn't even know about it.

But they did know it, and lied to a FISA court to conceal what they knew about it.

The five top DOJ and FBI officials who signed off on the four successive warrant applications -- James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Justice Department officials Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein -- appear to have violated statutes...

Begs the question: "Say, isn't the Special Counsel prosecuting a lot of people for making false statements to investigators?

Will they be likewise investigating themselves?"

Judge Says Uninsulated Power Conductors, Not Climate Change Caused California Fires

Add in forest mismanagement.

A federal court in San Francisco tentatively found that equipment owned by Northern California utility Pacific Gas and Electric was “the single most recurring cause” in deadly wildfires that have plagued the state since 2017.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup made the finding Thursday in a case related to PG&E’s response to the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion.

“The Court tentatively finds that the single most recurring cause of the large 2017 and 2018 wildfires attributable to PG&E’s equipment has been the susceptibility of PG&E’s distribution lines to trees or limbs falling onto them during high-wind events,” his order in the case reads.

“The power conductors are almost always uninsulated,” Alsup wrote. “When the conductors are pushed together by falling trees or limbs, electrical sparks drop into the vegetation below. During the wildfire season when the vegetation is dry, these electrical sparks pose an extreme danger of igniting a wildfire.”

more at link