Via NC5:

A naked gunman opened fire at a Waffle House in Antioch, killing four people and injuring four others.

Police identified the gunman as 29-year-old Travis Reinking from Illinois. It’s believed he moved here in the fall of 2017.

Here’s what we know about him so far:

1. He is from Morton, Illinois, but is currently living at an apartment complex called The Discovery at Mountain View near the Antioch Waffle House.

Driver’s license issued in Morton, Illinois
The truck he was driving is registered to him out of Morton, Illinois

2. Metro Nashville Police officials reported that he has had interactions with Morton Illinois Police Department and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Reinking was arrested by the Secret Service after he was found in a restricted area near the White House in July 2017. He was released.

3. Authorities previously took his guns.

He was later interviewed by Tazewell County, Illinois authorities and the FBI, and his Illinois firearms authorization was revoked. Four weapons were seized by authorities, including the AR-15 used in the Waffle House shooting.

Police received information that the guns were returned to Reinking’s father.

Reinking’s father has acknowledged giving them back to his son.

Two of the four guns remain unaccounted for. (One was found at the scene, and a second was found during a search of his apartment.

Keep reading…

Crazed with hunger. Update to this story.

Via National Post:

A Toronto chef facing another bout of vegan protests outside his west-end restaurant this week has been offered a way out: display an animal rights slogan in the restaurant’s street-front window and the protests will stop.

The slogan reads “Animals’ lives are their right. In their desire to live and capacity to suffer, a dog, is a pig, is a chicken, is a human. Reject speciesism.”

“We’re not going to — there’s no way,” Michael Hunter, the chef and owner of Antler Kitchen and Bar, told Joe Rogan during a taping of the popular U.S. podcast The Joe Rogan Experience in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “It’s like eco-terrorism, extortion, whatever you want to call it.

The protests outside Antler — which started in December after vegans were dismayed by a sidewalk sign proclaiming “Venison is the new kale” — became the subject of international fascination last month when the chef butchered and ate a leg of deer in full view of the protesters. “I just said, ‘Screw it. I’m going to get these people to get out of here,’” Hunter told Rogan. “I thought that that would make them go away.[…]

The protesters, led by organizer Marni Ugar, announced Friday that they would return to Antler Friday evening with a projector to shine the slogan onto a wall near the restaurant. “The sign, if you look at what it says, it’s just a fact,” said Ugar, a local dog walker and head of the activist group Grassroots Anti-Speciesism Shift, or GRASS.

The protesters said they wouldn’t project the sign directly on the restaurant but likely on one of the nearby closed business fronts, she said.

But on Friday night, police told organizers they couldn’t project their slogans onto the front of Antler or any of the adjacent buildings. Instead, protesters held screens playing videos of animals being slaughtered and skinned, on a loop. By 7:30 p.m., protesters were planning on shining their slogan on the sidewalk.

“Best meal I’ve ever had,” one Antler patron hollered at protesters as he left the restaurant. “You guys don’t know what you’re missing.”

Another patron in a light blue suit slipped out of the restaurant, casually took a photo of himself standing beside one of the protesters, then went back inside.

The organizers have decided to also protest outside Pavao Meats & Deli across the street from Antler. The move is in response to Hunter’s remark to Rogan, about why his business was selected instead of any other of the hundreds of businesses serving meat. “There’s an actual butcher shop across the street,” he said. “We’re an easy target. Our name is Antler.”

“You attacked their sacred kale,” Rogan said.

Keep reading…

HT: BCF

Stick to the fantasy world of acting.

Via Daily Caller:

In case you were worried there were not enough anti-gun organizations working to eradicate the rights of law-abiding gun owners, a new one has formed, and it’s called NoRA. Get it? The name implies that the organization’s goal is to get rid of the oldest and largest civil rights organization in America, the NRA.

According to an article at Time.com, this latest anti-freedom effort is the brainchild of actress Alyssa Milano, who has recruited a number of her left-wing Hollywood pals to join her cabal. Because, when average Americans start to wonder who would be best suited to dictate to them “solutions” to the problem of violent crime, their first thought tends to be millionaire celebrities that live in gated communities and travel with armed security guards.

Or maybe not.

As we have noted before, a recent Zogby poll indicates that when celebrities start promoting gun control, Americans tend to start opposing it. As Zogby noted, “Hollywood interjecting itself into the (gun control) debate makes even the Democratic base want to bear arms.”

So, how is NoRA different from other anti-gun organizations? For that matter, how is it different from other anti-gun celebrity coalitions, like the Everytown Creative Council? For one thing, NoRA was kind enough to send NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre a letter announcing itself, although it’s unclear why. Perhaps they were worried nobody would notice yet another group of Hollywood elites desperately trying to convince Americans they have the expertise to set public policy when it comes to crime control and social issues. They seem to be everywhere these days.

The letter, of course, was rife with anti-gun, anti-NRA rhetoric, but also seemed to blame NRA and its more than five million members for virtually every violent act committed by every deranged murderer over the last 19 years. It also seemed a little threatening, with ominous lines like, “We’re coming for (NRA’s) money.” That money, of course, comes from membership dues and voluntary contributions, so they’re really after YOUR money.

And while the letter claims this new group is a “diverse, non-partisan coalition,” the list of celebrities that are associated with NoRA reads more like a roll-call for your typical anti-Republican, anti-Trump, anti-conservative meeting. Alec Baldwin, Jimmy Kimmel, Ashley Judd, Patton Oswalt, and Julianne Moore are just a few of the “non-partisan” celebrities involved. They even have Michael Ian Black on board. Black may not be as well-known as the others, but he got a little public attention earlier this month when he announced he would “politicize” the shooting at YouTube headquarters almost as soon as the news began to break, then claimed, “NRA is a terrorist organization.”

Keep reading…

Global warming blamed.

Via Breitbart:

London’s crime wave will develop into “carnage” come summer, a leading trauma surgeon has predicted, warning ultra-violence in the capital is “the new normal”.

Dr Martin Griffiths, a consultant surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust, said soaring knife and gun crime has resulted in London “looking more like South Africa, or inner-city U.S.” with regards to the rate of attacks.

“If it was hot weather right now, it would be carnage. When it gets a few degrees warmer, it’s going to be taxing. It’s going to be difficult,” he told The Times.

The doctor, who earlier this month revealed some of his military colleagues have likened the situation seen in London trauma wards to hospitals in Middle East warzones, said that treating young teenagers with life-threatening injuries had become “the bread and butter” of his work at the Royal London Hospital.

“Every day an ambulance rolls up with a kid who has been stabbed. That can’t be right. We’re not at war,” said Griffiths, who has treated victims of gun and knife crime as young as nine.

“You’re sitting there in a [resuscitation] bay at 7.30 p.m. on a Thursday evening. It’s not even dark but you’ve got four children in your bays and you’re thinking to yourself — this is not what I trained for,” he said.

“I’m a trauma surgeon, not a paediatric surgeon. We’re having to use the skillset that we use to look after adult trauma injuries for kids. That was never part of the deal. But we look after children now — that’s what we do. Welcome to the new normal.”

Keep reading…

The usual vitriol from the left.

Via Daily Mail:

Kanye West sparked an angry backlash by tweeting his admiration for a black far-right media personality and the way she ‘thinks’ on Saturday.

The rapper endorsed YouTube personality Candace Owen, a woman who is known for her controversial views on racism.

‘I love the way Candace Owens thinks,’ he said on Saturday morning.

He would follow up with ‘only free thinkers’ a few moments after the first tweet.

The original tweet quickly gained traction as over 32,000 people liked the post and another 10,200 retweeted it.

I’m freaking out. @kanyewest ….please take a meeting with me. I tell every single person that everything that I have been inspired to do, was written in your music,’ Owens said on Twitter sharing West’s post. […]

But a vast majority of those familiar with both Owens and Wests work were disgusted by the tweets and the increase of trolls that seemed to appear on the rapper’s following tweets.

‘Candace Owens has proven to be anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ and fact-hating. (Honestly, there are so many more descriptors.) For Kanye to align himself with her is messy and dangerous,’ said writer Raquel Willis.

‘Would literally any other Candace Owens please stand up,’ said Micah Peters.

Another user added: ‘”I love the way Candace Owens thinks.”At the time, few people understood how prescient Obama was when he referred to Kanye West as a “jackass”. Kanye West is the black Donald Trump.’

Aside from being an insane alt right race pimp Candace Owens thinks Donald Trump is literally the messiah not you @kanyewest so you might want to reconsider,’ said actor Tom Arnold.

‘As I’ve said many times before, if I had no dignity I would be a very rich man by now. Candace Owens is making money off of denigrating black folks for her mostly white audience. Same as that Noir guy, same as Stacey Dash, same as Allen West etc,’ asserted Herb Lawrence.

Charles Preston shared a link to Owen’s piece and added: ‘Here is a Candace Owens essay: “Black men getting shot by police isn’t about racism” She starts the essay with “I date a white guy.”‘

‘I have to study extreme conservatives and the alt-right for my job. You know me so you know I do a deep dive into the black female ones. The screenshots above are damn near consecutive for Candace Owens, I barely even scrolled. That’s not cherrypicking; that’s her,’ said Pia Glenn including some of Owens work including a recent post where she slammed Black Lives Matter.

Keep reading…

Earth Day is today and this is a great piece on the unintended consequences of going ‘green.’

Via Daily Caller:

It’s Earth Day again, so prepare to be bombarded with platitudes from environmental activists droning at rallies and on TV — all while stuffing their faces with organic kale.

But it’s 2018, so environmentalists may also complain how Earth Day is “too white” or a rehashing of apocalyptic predictions of ecological decay making the rounds for decades.

What you probably won’t hear about are some of the actual great environmental threats Americans face or the unintended consequences of policies meant to go “green.” In light of this, The Daily Caller News Foundation put together a short list of things Americans aren’t likely to hear from most of the media on Earth Day.

Keep reading…

The perp ventured outside of his safe space and was triggered.

Via Campus Reform:

A University of Washington student was arrested Wednesday for throwing paint on College Republicans members who were promoting a pro-gun panel the club was hosting that night.

Diodato Boucsieguez, the CR group’s director of outreach, told Campus Reform that several local Antifa supporters were filming his group for about 20 minutes earlier that day for doxing purposes.

He also recalled seeing an individual with bright orange hair watching him through the grass behind the table for several minutes before approaching and dousing the students with paint.

“[The] individual walked around from my left and splashed my pants, our club banner, and other club materials with black paint,” he said. “Additionally, the school’s table and canopy were splashed with the paint.”

The perpetrator proceeded to take a picture of the vandalism before fleeing the scene, Boucsieguez noted, adding that several minutes later he called the police, who found and arrested the suspect outside the school’s Husky Union Building after about 15 minutes of searching.

The following day, another activist attempted to prevent passing students from seeing the pro-gun panel promotion by laying down across the CR’s table and pretending to take a nap. […]

As previously reported by Campus Reform, several pro-Antifa students also vandalized CR posters last year in an effort to make Republicans “feel unwelcome” on campus.

In a statement to Campus Reform, the UW College Republicans stressed that they hope to see actionable legal consequences for the protesters involved in the latest round of campus vandalism.

“We believe that political violence against free speech has no place in our great American republic,” the club said. “UWCR has a long track record of defending Free Speech and we intend to continue that by pressing charges and seeing that justice is served.”

Keep reading…

Via NY Post:

It’s not just Hillary Clinton who can’t quit Russia. The whole Democratic Party keeps going back to 2016.

In a move that reeks of desperation, the DNC filed a civil suit Friday against President Trump’s campaign, Russia and WikiLeaks, alleging a vast (right wing!) conspiracy to tip the election to Trump.

The suit’s flamboyant charges made headlines, but that only served to obscure the real meaning. Namely, that top Dems are giving up their fantasies that special counsel Robert Mueller will deliver them from political purgatory by getting the goods on Trump.

The trashy suit is their way of trying to keep impeachment and Russia, Russia, Russia alive for the midterms in case Mueller’s probe comes up empty.

Truth be told, party leaders are right to be disheartened by setbacks in the War against Trump. For the second time, the president was told he is not a target of Mueller, this time by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy assistant attorney general who created Mueller.

While Trump could still become a target, the odds of that happening decline by the day.

The probe started in the summer of 2016 by the FBI, and was taken over by Mueller nearly a year ago. Despite a large, secret budget and a squad of seasoned gunners, many of them Clinton supporters, Mueller hasn’t produced any evidence of a crime by the president.

If he had, Trump would be a target.

Keep reading…

Mitt isn’t in Massachusetts.

Via KUER:

Mitt Romney will face a primary challenger this June in his quest for Utah’s open Senate seat.

Romney faced off against 11 other candidates, including an Abe Lincoln impersonator, at the Utah GOP’s nominating convention on Saturday in West Valley City.

After two rounds of voting, Republican delegates split their votes between Romney, who garnered 49.12 percent, and Utah House Rep. Mike Kennedy, who got 50.88 percent. Romney needed 60 percent to avoid a runoff.

“Everybody can talk a good game, we’re all for the same policies, but who can actually get the job done?” Romney told reporters after the results. “I hope to be able to get the job done for Utah.”

Mike Kennedy, a doctor from Alpine, compared the race to the Biblical story of David vs. Goliath as he told delegates he would be the more conservative choice for U.S. Senate.

“In this battle you are David, firm in your fight for liberty,” he said to the more 3,600 delegates in attendance. “Goliath is Washington, D.C., intimidating but beatable. And I, I am your stone ready to be flung at the foes of liberty who seek to oppress us.”

The result was not entirely unexpected. State delegates have a preference for more right-leaning candidates and some Republicans were critical of Romney’s policies and perceived status as the presumptive candidate.

“He’s big government, I’m small government,” said Drew Chamberlain, a Layton delegate. “I don’t think he’s representative of Utah.”

The former GOP presidential nominee had already secured his spot on the June primary ballot by gathering voter signatures. Utah allows candidates to get signatures or go to convention — or both — in order to qualify for the ballot.

Keep reading…

Attacking the flag, the anthem and smearing cops gets awards from left.

Via Fox News:

Free agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick accepted the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award on Saturday, as the human rights organization acknowledged his kneeling protests of racial injustice that launched a sports movement.

Amnesty grants its highest honor each year to a person or organization, “dedicated to fighting injustice and using their talents to inspire others.”

In his acceptance speech at the ceremony in Amsterdam, Kaepernick — who has been criticized by President Donald Trump, members of the U.S. military and many NFL fans for staging his protests during the playing of the national anthem before games — described police killings of African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S. as “lawful lynchings.”

“Racialized oppression and dehumanization is woven into the very fabric of our nation — the effects of which can be seen in the lawful lynching of black and brown people by the police, and the mass incarceration of black and brown lives in the prison industrial complex,” Kaepernick said.

Keep reading…

He played stupid games.

Via WHNS:

Greenville County deputies said a suspected burglar is dead after being shot by a resident who discovered the intruder Friday morning.

Deputies said they were called to an apartment complex on Easterlin Way just after 8 a.m. after a person living there came home and found the suspect in the home.

“The resident fired at least one round and retreated outside to call and await law enforcement response,” Investigator Sean Zukowsky said in an email.

Deputies arrived and Zukowsky said they found the suspect dead in the master bedroom closet.

The victim’s uncle said the suspect had been stalking his niece and had made threats against her in the past.

“He couldn’t accept that ‘no means no,” Douglas Sweeney said.

Sweeney said his niece works at a night club and had previous encounters with the suspect while working.

Sweeney said the woman had just returned home from taking her children to school and found the man in her closet. He said he’s grateful his niece is an armed CWP holder or he fears the morning may have had a different outcome.

“I’m glad she had it, because there is no telling what this joker would have done,” Sweeney said.

A section of the parking lot in the apartment complex was roped off while forensics and multiple deputies descended on the apartment complex to investigate.

The coroner identified the deceased suspect as 34-year-old Quentin Ramon Oliver. Oliver died on scene, the coroner said.

The case remains under investigation.

Gun-free Waffle House?

Via Fox News:

At least four people were killed and several others were injured early Sunday when a naked gunman opened fired at a Waffle House in Nashville, Tenn., police said.

The alleged gunman, Travis Reinking, 29, began shooting at patrons around 3:25 a.m. Sunday at the Waffle House, located about 16 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, before fleeing the scene, Metro Nashville police said. Authorities had initially said Reinking was a person of interest, but later said he has been identified as a suspect.

BREAKING: Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, IL, is person of interest in Waffle House shooting. Vehicle the gunman arrived in is registered to him. Gunman last seen walking south on Murfreesboro Pike. He shed is coat and is nude. See Reinking? Pls call 615-862-8600 immediately. pic.twitter.com/duoWCo5fC0
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) April 22, 2018

“If you see a nude guy walking around this morning call the police department,” Don Aaron of the Metro Police Department told WTVF.

A person at the restaurant had wrestled away the alleged shooter’s rifle.

Keep reading…

Via Air Force Times:

Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, the combat controller who was killed during the fierce Battle of Roberts Ridge in Afghanistan in 2002, will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, according to a report in Task and Purpose.

Chapman would be the first airman to receive a Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, for actions since the Vietnam War.

Chapman originally received an Air Force Cross, the second-highest valor award an airman can receive, for his heroism during the March 4, 2002, battle against al Qaida fighters.

But newly-enhanced video from a Predator drone showed more evidence that Chapman was not dead, but instead unconscious, when a team of Navy SEALs withdrew from the battle under withering fire.

The video analysis suggested Chapman regained consciousness and resumed fighting al Qaida members approaching on three sides. Chapman is believed to have crawled into a bunker, shot and killed an enemy fighter charging at him, and killed another enemy fighter in hand-to-hand combat.

This new evidence prompted former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James in 2016 to recommend his Air Force Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.[…]

According to the citation for his Air Force Cross, a helicopter inserting Chapman and other troops came under heavy machine gun fire, and was directly hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, causing a SEAL to fall from the helicopter.

The helicopter left the area and made an emergency landing seven kilometers away, the citation said. Chapman contacted an AC-130 gunship to secure the area and provide close-air support for the team, and then directed the gunship to look for the missing SEAL.

Chapman also “requested, coordinated and controlled the helicopter that extracted the stranded team and aircrew members,” the citation said, which limited how much hostile fire the aircrew and team were exposed to.

“Without regard for his own life, Sergeant Chapman volunteered to rescue his missing team member from an enemy stronghold,” the citation said.

Chapman killed two enemy fighters, and continued advancing to the enemy position. He then engaged a dug-in machine gun nest, at which point the rescue team came under fire from three directions, the citation said.

Chapman exchanged fire with the al Qaida members at close range, with little cover, “until he succumbed to multiple wounds,” the original Air Force Cross citation said.

“In his own words, his Navy [SEAL] team leader credits Sergeant Chapman unequivocally with saving the lives of the entire rescue team. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, aggressiveness in the face of the enemy, and the dedication to the service of his country, Sergeant Chapman reflects the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”

But it now appears he did not die at that point in the battle.

The New York Times reported in 2016 that the Air Force’s autopsy analysis found evidence that Chapman woke up and continued fighting. The bullets that killed Chapman struck him at an angle that would have been impossible if he had been lying dead in the position where the SEALs thought he fell.

Keep reading…

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Via Daily Wire:

Newly discovered statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that were never released to the public strengthens the argument for guns, and blows a hole in the gun control narrative. The statistics show that guns are used in a defensive manner against crimes far more than they are used by criminals to commit crimes.

A new report from Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck shows that recently unearthed surveys from the CDC, which were never made public, show that Americans use guns in millions of defense scenarios every year on average.

Reason reports:

…Kleck conducted the most thorough previously known survey data on the question in the 1990s. His study, which has been harshly disputed in pro-gun-control quarters, indicated that there were more than 2.2 million such defensive uses of guns (DGUs) in America a year.

Now Kleck has unearthed some lost CDC survey data on the question. The CDC essentially confirmed Kleck’s results. But Kleck didn’t know about that until now, because the CDC never reported what it found.

Kleck discovered that the CDC asked about defensive uses of guns in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 1996, 1997, and 1998.

The CDC survey, which Kleck described as “high-quality,” asked respondents: “During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?”

Keep reading…

.@TGowdySC: "Jim Comey said, 'I don't do sneaky things,' except memorialize private conversations. 'I don't leak,' except when I do leak. And 'I don't do weasel things' – I think this whole book tour is a pretty weasely thing, quite frankly." #SpecialReport pic.twitter.com/g65OZpBEvM

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 20, 2018

Congratulations, David Hogg, Parkland activists, their leftist backers and the Parkland Middle School. His death is on your hands. Schools are not supposed to be involved in supporting political protests. But if they do, they’re responsible for the safety of the children. Most of these kids don’t care about protests, they just want to be let out. And why is a sixth-grade class of 11-year-olds being let out to protest?

Via El Paso Times:

A Parkland Middle School sixth-grader who left campus during the National Student Walkout was killed when he was struck by a vehicle Friday morning on Loop 375 in Northeast El Paso, school district officials said.

The boy, who was 11 years old, was hit by a Ford F-150, which was traveling north on the loop, at 10:27 a.m., police and school district officials said.

He was taken to an area hospital, where he died at about 11:30 a.m., officials said.

The child’s name was not released by police or school officials.

However, a news release from University Medical Center of El Paso identified him as Jonathan Benko and said a memorial fund has been set up by the UMC Foundation for his family.

The news release states, “Jonathan was struck by a car this morning outside of his school, was transported to University Medical Center of El Paso and did not survive. Jonathan’s mother, Ashley, works as a Registered Nurse in UMC’s Emergency Department. His uncle, Michael Benko, is also an employee at UMC, where he works as a Respiratory Therapist.”

Keep reading…

Getting Debbie and the Awan brothers back on the radar screen.

Via Townhall:

On Friday evening, President Donald J. Trump inadvertently referred to the disgraced Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz as “Wendy.” In hysteria, the media and blue-check marked liberals on Twitter erupted with laughter as the tweet sat there for twenty minutes. President Trump finally deleted that mistake and replaced it with a tweet featuring her proper name. So what was the tweet? Was it something sexist? Was it a new 2020 campaign slogan? Perhaps it was a new nickname? No, it was not any of that. It was President Trump pointing out that Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s malfeasant computer practice has put national security at risk. In fact, it is not only Rep. Wasserman Schultz, but dozens of House Democrats who have been negligent in their care for national security and important government information by hiring personnel who have not been properly vetted and may have potentially stolen very important information.

If it seems like Rep. Wasserman Schultz has had zero media attention in recent memory, it is probably she has laid pretty low since resigning from serving as Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Did she resign because she served her time honorably and led the party to unprecedented heights? No, she resigned because she was caught favoring Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democrat presidential primary. She made disparaging remarks against Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in e-mails.[…]

Imran Awan, along side four other Pakistani nationals, have been accused of stealing equipment and data from House members offices as Democrat IT workers. Awan has been working for Wasserman Schultz in some capacity since 2005. He and his family were also hired by other Democrats. But more troubling is the fact that more than 40 of these House Democrats did not even give these workers the required background check. As Roziak told Fox News, parents give their baby sitters more of a vetting process than Democrats gave their IT personnel.

The IT folks handle their computers, passwords, servers replete with government information ranging from public to classified, and much more. Bad people can do a lot of damage with this information. And it looks like that is what happened here. All of this has a lot of suspicious twists and turns, but the evidence is pretty damming against the Awan clan. Awan’s wife abruptly left the country in the middle of the investigation. Awan himself was arrested in the airport trying to flee the country. But, the case is truly bizarre all over.

Keep reading…

The scam before global warming.

Via Washington Examiner:

Whale oil provided the lighting to read the breakthrough novel of 1870, the story of Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. That was also the year of the foundation of Standard Oil. The result of that foundation is that we didn’t hunt the whales to extinction, but instead turned to kerosene to light the latter part of the 19th century, moving to electricity only in the 20th.

It really isn’t hyperbole to insist that John D. Rockefeller saved the whales by his making mineral oil products so much cheaper than the cetacean-derived equivalent. And that’s really all you need to know to understand Earth Day and what to do about it.

We need to be as viciously capitalist and free market as we can to save the planet.

This is not, as you will note, what is generally said about this day of celebration of all things environmental. Yet it’s still the truth.

One thing noted by Simon Kuznets was that poor people, truly poor, don’t give a damn about the environment. Forests are burnt down, rivers clogged with sewage, animals hunted to extinction, (the megafauna of every continent and island group underwent catastrophic extinctions just after man first arrived. This is not a coincidence) just because everyone’s too busy finding dinner for that day – or avoiding being something else’s dinner. Kuznets went on to note that richer people care and do more about the preservation of the natural world — partly because we all just like looking at it knowing that it’s there, partly because richer people can have a longer time horizon.

This observation has been codified as the environmental Kuznets curve, and the switch to the environment getting better as incomes rise, well, there’s a bit of argument about that. Generally around the $8,000 to $10,000 per person per year range for GDP when people start to care about the environment. That’s about the average income in the world today. Back in the 1960s, the U.S. was at that level (when expressed in today’s money). That was around when we decided that after a century of the Cuyahoga River catching fire maybe we should stop doing that? We became rich enough to do so.

So, if we want the environment to get better, Mother Earth to heal her wounds, Gaia to recover, etc., we need to go pell for leather in making the world’s poorest as rich as possible as fast as possible. That’s the pre-condition for people to care enough to do all of those things which we know will benefit the environment.

The excellent news is we know how to do that.

Keep reading…

He didn’t resist arrest.

Via Blue Lives Matter:

The older brother of Stephon Clark was arrested on a felony threat charge on Thursday afternoon.

Stevante Clark, 25, was arrested at about 12:10 pm on April 19th and charged with suspicion of threatening to cause death or serious injury, and calling 911 to annoy or harass, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Police booked Stevante Clark into the Sacramento County jail.

The Sacramento Bee said he was held at the facility which noted a $1 million bail, but also noted that his charges made him ineligible for bail.

KCRA reported that the Sacramento Police Department had requested that Stevante Clark not receive bail in consideration of the seriousness of his crime and public protection.

Sacramento Police Department Spokeswoman Linda Matthew confirmed that Stevante Clark had been arrested, but would not release any details of the circumstances of the arrest.

Family member Sonia Lewis, who was also a member of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, told The Sacramento Bee that she was in the process of notifying the rest of the family of Stevante Clark’s arrest.

Lewis said she did not know why Stevante Clark had been arrested, but that he had been suffering mental health issues recently.

She said she was concerned he had been arrested and taken to jail rather than taken for a mental health evaluation.

Keep reading…

Moonbats icing down raw water and preparing tofu platters.

Via Downtrend:

The moonbat fever swamps are boiling over today after a whipsaw week of the James Comey media blitz, the long overdue release (and immediate leak to the media) of the Comey memos and today’s news that the DNC is suing Russia, WikiLeaks’ and the Trump administration over its fundraising woes.

And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was brought in as one of the president’s lawyers to deal with the Mueller investigation.

Giuliani’s presence has sparked a fury of speculation over why he is now counseling Trump and leave it to one of the nuttiest conspiracy sites out there to chime in as to what it is.

Trump is negotiating his exit strategy and could be resigning in the near future. Ok liberals, before you pee your pants in excitement, it was only the Palmer Report which is a far left blog that trafficks in wild gossip and Russian conspiracy theories and is right up their with nut queen Louise Mensch when it comes to selling shit to suckers, both of which are in abundant supply in Democrat circles.[…]

According to the Palmer Report “Is Rudy Giuliani negotiating Donald Trump’s resignation?”:

Since the bizarre news broke that Rudy Giuliani is joining Donald Trump’s criminal defense team, it’s been difficult to figure out what’s truly going on. We’ve established that Giuliani has recently figured out he’s in huge trouble, and that Trump doesn’t like that this news has gone public. Now that the dust is settling a bit, the part that stands out is Giuliani’s surreal claim that he’s going to be able to “negotiate an end” to the Robert Mueller investigation and that he’s going to be able to make it happen within “maybe a couple of weeks.”

Why on earth would Rudy Giuliani try to sell Donald Trump or the public on the idea that he can magically make all of Trump’s legal troubles go away within a week or two? One explanation is that Giuliani has completely lost what was left of his mind, and thinks he really can make this happen. Another explanation would be that Trump is so far gone, Giuliani was able to con him into believing such nonsense for unknown reasons. But there’s a third explanation, and it goes back to Giuliani’s use of the word “negotiate.”

The only way for Trump to try to quickly kill off the investigation would be to try to fire everyone involved, and hope those firings somehow stick. But this strategy would not be any sort of “negotiation” and it wouldn’t require Giuliani’s involvement. The only other possible way out for Trump would be if he’s talking about negotiating his way out of office, by offering to resign in exchange for some degree of criminal leniency.

As crazy as that might sound, it’s difficult to come up with a more plausible explanation for what’s going on here. Rudy Giuliani has convinced Donald Trump that he can quickly “negotiate an end” to Trump’s legal troubles. Trump’s only remaining bargaining chip in any negotiation is his resignation.

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HT: BCF