1. EPA. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed last week that her CO2 rules and regulations are not only completely useless doing what she claims they are supposed to do, but totally faith-based exercises. They are very expensive exercises, but faith based nonetheless. She said the new regs will have no measurable impact, but are “enormously beneficial” due to their symbolic impact. She went further noting that if we don’t start now, we never will. Her Clean Power Plan will do absolutely nothing other than make energy more expensive by regulating coal and eventually natural gas out of the marketplace. climate depot
2. Spur. MatSu Mayor Vern Halter wrote a reasoned response to (Don’t call me) Charlie Wohlforth’s piece attacking a new rail spur as a railroad to nowhere last month. The rail spur has two purposes. The first is in resource development, as it delivers product to the Point Mackenzie port so it can be loaded and shipped to buyers. It has a second purpose as a secondary user for the proposed Knik Arm Bridge. Resource development is important, especially these days when jobs in the oil patch are shrinking in number. A resource rich state needs to mine, drill, log, catch, grow and otherwise move nature’s bounty from where it is to whomever has purchased it. (Don’t call me) Charlie doesn’t understand it or perhaps doesn’t care (probably both). Good piece. Well worth your read. ADN
3. Dive. Loretta Lynch’s (In)Justice Department is attempting to take a dive on defense of an opinion by the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The EAC issued a ruling that allowed three states to tighten measures to make sure non-citizens cannot vote in the upcoming elections. A number of leftwing groups sued in federal court demanding an injunction on the EAC. One of the groups is the League of Women Voters. (In)Justice is by law supposed to defend the EAC. Instead they acted as co-council for the groups. The presiding judge was not amused with (In)Justice agreeing to a preliminary injunction. He allowed other lawyers supporting the states additional time to defend the EAC. This technique in not unknown on the left, as it was used by former California Attorney General Jerry Brown to kill a proposition opposing gay marriage. It has been used by the EPA / USF&WS for decades in their lawsuits and co-written consent agreements with friendly green litigants. If the left is successful here, illegals will decide the November elections which they have done the last two presidential elections. Democrats and the left, its fraud and corruption all the way down. powerline blog
4. Perry. A Texas appeals court dismissed the final felony count against former Texas Governor Rick Perry. This indictment ended up shutting down his fundraising for his presidential run this year, forcing an early departure from the race. Perry was indicted in 2014 by a Travis County grand jury for abuse of his official capacity and coercion of a public servant after making veto threats and vetoing budget for the Travis County prosecutor’s public integrity office. The veto threat was in response to the lead prosecutor one Rosemary Lehmberg arrested DUI and blowing a .23, nearly three times the legal limit. Lehmberg was nasty to the cops and did the “do you know who I am?” routine threatening them after being arrested. The video is available. Perry demanded her resignation. She refused. He then threatened and cut funds to the portion of her office she was in charge of. Her office responded with the lawfare indictments on two felony counts of abuse of office. They play the game hard in Texas. The first indictment was tossed last year. The second took a while longer. While it was hanging around, it shut off his fundraising for his second presidential run last year, which is why he dropped out early. the federalist
5. Iditarod. The anti-mining locals up here in Alaska will stop at nothing shut down all mining possible. And they will use any means possible to do the deed. Latest target is the Donlin Creek gold mine in SW AK. It is about 10% the size of the proposed Pebble Mine, owned by local native corporations. It is currently going through permitting preparatory to starting to dig holes. A week ago, a former Iditarod musher (Iditarod is very popular up here and we are about a week away from its start), wrote an opinion piece bashing the mine for not respecting the Iditarod and trashing its trail with a proposed natural gas pipeline. The piece was wrapped in all the usual anti-development falderal, finally calling for readers to contact the Corps of Engineers to get the projected pipeline killed. He even ended with the claim that he is a great supporter of mining, but concerned that there are better ways to do what they want to do. I’m sure there are. Not six days later, the Iditarod Trail Committee responded that there was no problem with the pipeline or the mine and they had been working closely with the mine all along. Donlin was smart enough to get the Trail Committee involved so they have some ownership of the final product. The pipeline will run along the trail for about four miles out of 315 miles of length. The mine also dedicated a work crew and resources to rebuild the trail though an area burned by a forest fire a few years ago. So nice try, anti-miners, sadly the mine got there first. ADN
6. Vaping. The Next Big Thing for the do-gooders who will through taxation, regulation, endless hectoring and lecturing force us to live better is vaping, the delivery of nicotine via electronic cigarettes. This is a growth market and growing fast enough Tobacco Nazis have so far been unable to get a toe-hold on the new industry yet. It is also the solution rather than the problem. Not good enough for the do-gooders, who have started using anti-tobacco rhetoric against e-cigarettes are now starting to gin up an effort to tax and regulate the new way of enjoying oneself into oblivion. Perhaps lung cancer is the preferred solution for these vermin. Perhaps not. Americans have for centuries had a prohibitionist streak that manifests itself from time to time as it is aimed at a product, way of enjoying oneself, or anything else that is disapproved by the do-gooders. The initial e-cig and vaping manufacturers are for the most part small businessmen and entrepreneurs. They are being followed by the larger tobacco companies who are pushing their own products. Yes, the same tobacco companies that have been excoriated by democrats and their attack dogs among the trial lawyers for over two decades. What is going to happen if and when the do-gooders are successful in their new taxes and regulations is run the entrepreneurs quickly out of business while putting the large corporations who have the structure, cash flow and most importantly the legal teams in place that can deal with the new rules, regulations and taxes. The do-gooders will be empowering the very people they claim to hate. Given the crony capitalist infestation inside the Beltway these days among the Washington Party, it wouldn’t surprise me if this wasn’t more of the same. tobacco analysis
7. Salt. Ran across this discussion courtesy of InstaPundit a year or so ago. He reported that science and nutrition reporter Gary Taubes was pushing information that did the same thing to the anti-salt movement that he did to the low-fat and FDA food pyramid recommendations – blow them completely out of the water. Conventional wisdom ties salt to high blood pressure and pushes Americans to minimize salt usage. Taubes cites studies that claim there is no problems with salt and that it will be removed from the body quickly as long as there is sufficient liquids consumed. The kidneys and liquids remove excess salt efficiently and easily. The problem comes when we do not consume enough liquid, which is relatively common as most Americans are somewhat dehydrated. Last week, the Washington Post published an article reporting the crumbling scientific consensus around salt. Like we have seen in the scientific community surrounding manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions, the arguments on both sides are mostly polarized. Scientists on either side of the argument to not talk to one another, do not read or reference papers that disagree with their selected world view, generally operating in what are essentially parallel universes. Unlike climate science, there is not a preponderance of federal funding at risk if one side loses the argument. Things are so bad in nutrition science that the two sides can’t even agree with what counts as data. At the top of this heap sits Uncle Sugar, which for years has funded research that will agree with whatever its nutritional recommendations and conclusions are. Problem is that what we have out of the feds for nutritional recommendations for the last half century have been at best garbage and at worst pure crap. Yet another reason to reconsider Eisenhower’s warning about the rise of Big Science, government funded science that completely stifles non-government funded science under hundreds of billions of dollars spent chasing pre-ordained conclusions and results. Makes you wonder, though. For if they can’t figure out something relatively simple like salt impact on living beings, how can they possibly figure out something complex like climate and get it right? Answer: They can’t. Washington Post
8. Cash. Former Clinton Treasure Secretary Lawrence Summers has proposed killing off the $100 bill. The mandarins in the EU are likewise proposing to kill off their €500 note. Stated rationale for both identical – to make it more difficult for bad guys to ply their trade. If they had it their way, both the Fed and the EU mandarins would shove everyone into a cashless society, where the central banks and the tax collectors could at will look at all your transactions. When you use cash, they can’t take that sort of a detailed look. This is not about crime fighting. Rather it is about control, with more being better than less. yahoo finance
9. BLM. University of Missouri communications professoretter is no longer employed by the University, who decided last week that they had quite enough of her cop-baiting and reporter bullying. Now she will be free to get some dirty fighting training so that she will no longer have to call for muscle at the next BLM protest she leads. She will be able to do it herself. For its part BLM members accosted a US Marine in a DC McDonalds a couple weeks ago. The group of black thugs approached him as he ate by himself and berated him about being white. He didn’t want to play, got up and walked out. He woke up later with a knot on the back of his head, contusions in several parts of his body, torn clothes and no wallet, having lost several hundred dollars. One of the cowardly vermin has already been arrested. There is video of all of them being used in the investigation. Black lives certainly matter, especially when they cold cock, beat and rob you for no reason other than you are not black. After that, they only matter because they continue to breathe. These vermin have self-selected out of the gene pool. Who am I to stand in their way out the door?
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
Image: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy laughs with staff and the President
