MaxRedline

Mind The Potholes, Holder

“[Mitch McConnell] has done a whole bunch of unpatriotic things, has really been a force of polarization in this nation. History will not be kind to him,” Holder declared Monday on MSNBC.

Mitch didn't run "Operation Fast and Furious", Eric.

During the Obama-era Fast and Furious scandal, he became the only sitting Cabinet official in American history to ever be held in contempt of Congress. Why? Because of the efforts he made to obstruct justice by purposefully hiding information from congressional investigators.

In a fair and just world, Eric would be doing his interviews from behind bars.

 

Woodburn, Oregon - Long A Hotbed For Illegal Aliens

Miguel Merecias-Lopez, 24, of Woodburn, Oregon, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to produce false identification documents and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

According to court documents, from a time unknown until September 21, 2017, Merecias-Lopez and other co-conspirators were part of a Oaxaca, Mexico-based criminal conspiracy to produce and sell fraudulent U.S. government documents.

A review of electronic devices found in Merecias-Lopez’s apartment produced evidence that the conspiracy had operated in Woodburn for more than a decade and produced and sold more than 10,000 different fraudulent documents including driver’s licenses for more than 25 states, U.S. social security cards, immigration-related documents including non-immigrant visas and legal permanent resident cards, marriage licenses, vehicle bills of sale and titles, and birth certificates.

No Borders!

Just here doing the work that Americans won't do....

 

 

Backlash

There’s no disputing SEIU 503 has been squarely in the Freedom Foundation’s crosshairs since the organization expanded into Oregon in 2015. The two combatants offered starkly different accounts, however, about how much damage had been inflicted.

The question was answered definitively this week when a “for sale” sign went up out front of the headquarters building in Salem the union has called home for more than 20 years.

After spending millions during the 2018 election cycle while simultaneously losing millions in membership dues, SEIU 503 have been forced to vacate the almost $3 million building.

It appears that a lot of folks are availing themselves of recent court decisions that free them to opt out of union membership.

 

Skimming

Card skimming, in which an illegal reader is attached to a payment terminal, is a pervasive financial scam, particularly at the gas pump. According to the National Association for Convenience Stores, a single compromised pump at a gas station can compromise 30 to 100 cards every day in the U.S.

Precautions:

One way, as Krebs on Security notes, is to go inside to the cashier to pay with a debit or credit card, but particularly a debit card. In fact, it’s best not to use a debit card at all, if you can help it. That’s one reason, generally, why security and fraud experts recommend paying with a credit card over a debit card: If you use a credit card, you’re not actually spending your money, and you’re protected by your issuer’s zero-liability policy.

Or, you could go all old-school, and just use cash - which I favor.

 

Dirty Bob - A Democratic, Of Course

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson tried to cover up his office's collusion with labor unions after a think tank asked for public records about their communications, according to a lawsuit.

Ferguson is one of several Democrats seeking to resist the Trump administration's directive that would prohibit states from siphoning Medicaid payments away from at-home caregivers and putting them in the pockets of labor unions, such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Ferguson's office has been one of the most ambitious in filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, leading the high-profile lawsuit against the executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim nations. "The whole situation is exhibit A of the collusion taking place between Left Coast state governments and the unions they rely on for political support. The losers in this relationship are taxpayers and, in this case, home caregivers."

Pour money into public employee unions, and they'll give you some back, come election time. The campaigns are all that count. You sure don't.

It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

 

California Dreamin'

Recently, California became the first state in the nation to make solar mandatory for new houses. Beginning in 2020, newly constructed homes must have solar panels, which could be costly for homeowners: According to California's Energy Commission (CEC), that mandate will add between $8,000 and $10,000 to the cost of a new home.

Ain't freedom wonderful?

And of course, roof repairs/maintenance will be totally unaffected by this new mandate, right?

 

Kentucky Sheriff To Residents: Lock And Load

Martin County Sheriff John Kirk had a concerning message for residents after funding didn’t come through: you’re on your own.

Given the level of cuts that had to be made, the sheriff warned residents to prepare to defend themselves, since the police department could no longer offer their services.

“We have always provided police protection but without the funding, we can no longer do this,” Kirk said. “FOLKS, LOCK YOUR DOORS, LOAD YOUR GUNS AND GET YOU A BARKING, BITING DOG. If the Sheriff’s office can’t protect you, WHO WILL?”

Part of the budgeting problem stems from a decline in coal revenue, which the Lexington Herald-Leader reported dropped from $34 million in the Fiscal Year 2012 to just $6.7 million in the Fiscal Year 2018.

Looks like Barry and Pantsuit made good on their promise to put a lot of coal miners out of work.

Coal is bad; solar, wind, and biomass are good, according to Green Religion. But wind and solar produce energy purely on an intermittent basis, whereas biomass, coal, and natural gas produce base loads. And there's a dirty little secret when it comes to the "burning biomass is good, burning coal is bad" mantra: in today's technological environment, given clean-burn coal plants, biomass is presently worse for the environment than coal.

Biomass electricity generation, a heavily subsidized form of “green” energy that relies primarily on the burning of wood, is more polluting and worse for the climate than coal, according to a new analysis of 88 pollution permits for biomass power plants in 25 states. The report found that although wood-burning power plants are often promoted as being good for the climate and carbon neutral, the low efficiency of plants means that they emit almost 50 percent more CO2 than coal per unit of energy produced.

Trees, Trash, and Toxics: How Biomass Energy Has Become the New Coal, released this week and delivered to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), concludes that biomass power plants across the country are permitted to emit more pollution than comparable coal plants or commercial waste incinerators, even as they are subsidized by state and federal renewable energy dollars. It contains detailed emissions and fuel specifications for a number of facilities, including plants in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Biomass plants are dirty because they are markedly inefficient. The report found that per megawatt-hour, a biomass power plant employing “best available control technology” emits more nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and carbon monoxide than a modern coal plant of the same size. "The American Lung Association has opposed granting renewable energy subsidies for biomass combustion precisely because it is so polluting,” said Jeff Seyler, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Northeast. “Why we are using taxpayer dollars to subsidize power plants that are more polluting than coal?”

Why? Two words explain it: Green Religion.

Never let a few facts get in the way of dogma.

 

Wrong Target

Down in Jamaica, John Bigbooty made a series of scam calls to a guy who just happened to be the former head of the FBI and then the CIA. Bill Webster's the only person in US history to have served in both positions. As the Jamaican discovered, bad choices carry consequences:

William Webster, who is now 94 years old, and his wife, Lynda, were targeted four years ago by a man who peddled a lottery scam over phone calls and emails. Over multiple phone calls, Keniel Aeon Thomas of Jamaica told the Websters he’d set their house ablaze or have a sniper shoot them in the back of the head if they didn’t pay him thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors’ filings.

Ooopsie.

At his sentencing Friday, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the district court in Washington noted that Thomas had more than 30 victims and had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from them. Prosecutors noted in their court papers that lottery scams like these have increased over the last decade. They often turn into violent threats when a target won’t pay. 

Bigbooty's got a new address for the next six years. And it's nothing like Jamaica, Mon.

 

Coming To The Portland Area Soon

You Vill Pay!

Drivers who take a highway exit to avoid having to pay a toll on Virginia's Interstate 81 could end up paying far more after a ticket arrives in the mail. The state Senate Transportation Committee will consider a proposal later today that would authorize tolling on I-81. Introduced by state Senator Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), the measure would also allow private companies to operate a new type of automated photo enforcement camera that issues tickets based on a motorist's choice of route. Those attempting to save a bit of money by taking a side street could be subjected to a fine set by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

You just know they'll try that here.

I generally drive side-streets, so this approach is geared toward people like me.

 

 

The Tides, They Are A-Changin'

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction forbidding Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds Thursday, while stridently criticizing the abortion provider for its rhetoric and medical practices.

Center for Medical Progress (CMP), an anti-abortion group, had produced several undercover films at Plant Parenthood, which PP alleged had been doctored and selectively edited. Professional forensics investigators determined that no such alterations had occurred.

It's harder to beat science these days.

It may well ultimately turn out that abortion may not be a "right" after all.