President Trump’s appointment to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt may be many things, but a believer in man caused global warming is not one of them.

‘Asked his views on the role of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas produced by burning fossil fuels, in increasing global warming, Mr. Pruitt said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so, no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”’

The quote is from The New York Times, so the phrase “…heat-trapping gas produced by burning fossil fuels, in increasing global warming…” is a bit disingenuous, if unsurprising.

Also to the good, the EPA’s head of Environmental Justice just resigned. What, you didn’t know the EPA has a department, funded by tax dollars, that deals in environmental justice issues? Me neither. It was headed by a fellow named Mustafa Ali, who has resigned in response to upcoming EPA budget cuts, cuts on the order of 20% of the 15,000 current staff, and ¼ of it’s budget of $8 billion. I would say Mustafa saw the writing on the wall, and quit before they fired him.

Here’s a link to a remarkably unhelpful page about EJ 2020:

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/about-ej-2020#about

I’ll save you the pain. By 2020, the Environmental Justice Department of the EPA will:

• Improve on-the-ground results for overburdened communities through reduced impacts and enhanced benefits
• Institutionalize environmental justice integration in EPA decision-making
• Build robust partnerships with states, tribes and local governments
• Strengthen our ability to take action on environmental justice and cumulative impacts
• Better address complex national environmental justice issues.

Bill Shakespeare would call this Sound and Fury, but signifying nothing. And he’d be right. I call the budget  cuts a pretty good start.

Read more at:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/11/delingpole-pruitt-says-no-co2-social-justice-epa/

It seems our beloved Senior Chief can’t even get his morning started without Clowns in his coffee.

Dallas-Wittgenfeld-Audition-Video-For-One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoos-Nest-2

If you’ve ever participated in competitive sports, you know the losers lament.  It was the umps, the refs, the other team cheated, it was deflated balls… . Never is there a look in the mirror to determine how bad you or your team actually sucked on a particular day or for the whole season.  There is a loser’s mindset also.  Its view in the mirror says I am so much better than everyone else, so much smarter, so much more talented, everyone loves me, and wants me to win, so it is very unlikely that I will ever lose unless they cheat.

There is also the bench warmer’s prayer.  If the game is tight and the battle tough, the benchwarmer prays, “Lord, please don’t let them hit the ball to me.”  Sort of reminds me of the Republican side of Congress.  A note to them, winners want the damn ball and they aim to deliver when they get it.  Otherwise they become tomorrow’s losers.

Ronald Reagan skunked Jimmah Carter.  It was a landside of epic proportions.  If you scan the news and polls, Reagan was not supposed to win – had no chance.  The media and pundits did not give him a chance and establishment Republicans didn’t want him either – many of them blamed him for Ford’s loss to Carter.  The third party candidate was blamed for the loss although analysis showed that had Carter picked up every vote, highly unlikely, he would have still lost by 100 Electoral College votes.  It wasn’t the third party.  It was a bad economy, double digit inflation, the Arab oil embargo, turn your thermostat down and wear sweater speeches, and poor handling of the Iran hostage crisis not to mention Jimmah and his crew ushering in a “moderate religious leader.”  Jimmah lost because he failed at being President – a leader.

Most memorable in recent times, Al Gore lost to George Bush.  When the Supreme Court ended the never ending Florida recount, Bush became in the eyes of the press and Democrats “selected not elected.”  Although recounts completed afterwards demonstrated even if every vote was recounted again Bush still won.  Still the meme of an illegitimate presidency spread far and wide through the media and hourly attacks across the liberal media were common – and it continued right up to the end. Bush never pushed back against the media.

Next up, Vietnam War hero John Kerry and his trusty sidekick John Edwards lost to Bush.  Kerry wanted to concede and Edwards wanted to do a Gore 2.0.  Bush lost this one because of the Swift Boat Veterans attack on the war hero.  Because it was clear that Bush was not a brilliant and sophisticated as John and John, he could not have possibly won unless the Swift Boaters exposed in their view his less than stellar service record.  So for the next four years, the implied label of illegitimacy still hung around the neck of President Bush – and the media cried endlessly about swift boating among other attacks resulting in his approval rate being in the toilet.

McCain and Romney lost to Obama and for a myriad of reasons including Bush’s low approval rating.  The bottom line however, is that they were poor candidates.  Truthfully, both were hold your nose votes for me and millions like me stayed home.

And now, present day.  Proven is the adage that no matter how much things change, they remain the same.  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, oh my, what an election year it was.  This may sound familiar.  According to the media, the pundits, and the political consulting class Trump had no chance.  It was a foregone conclusion that Hillary would win.  Establishment Republicans also did not believe he could win nor did they want Trump.  Along came election night and Hillary along with all of those talking heads and establishment Republicans got a whuppin.  There was wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Panic across America.  Trump could not have possibly won the election.   It had nothing to do with the failed Clinton candidacy.  As we all now know, the Russians did it.

©2017 J. D. Pendry

Someone needs to remind the Iranians of Operation Praying Mantis. During that engagement, the U.S. Navy smacked the Iranian Navy around so hard, and did a lot of damage to them, that they were “feeling the pain” and embarrassment for a long time.

When I was in the Navy, and my ship deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2003 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Iranians didn’t want to come out to play with us. But again, the Persian Gulf was rapidly becoming a US/Allied pond and they would’ve ended up with the “wrong” kind of public coverage.

However, enter a non-combatant ship and the Iranians all of a sudden want to get brave. As with the period leading up to Operation Praying Mantis, the Iranians don’t appear to be able to make a solid connection between having a real leader in Washington DC, a military that normally doesn’t take those kind of games with the right leadership in Washington DC, and the butt kicking that’s given to the one that plays with fire the way the Iranians like to play with fire.

Or, they could utilize a “substitute” and simply rest their fast boats in front of a US ship, knowing full well that the maritime rules of the road would require the ship to turn to avoid collision. Once the ship turns, to abide by the maritime rules of the road, the Iranians could brag about “forcing” a U.S. ship to move. I guess the real world is different from a movie

Thanks to the originator of the ducks on water photo above, that symbolizes what the Iranian navy would be during Praying Mantis II.

From the Navy Times

A Navy official says a U.S. ship was forced to change course and move out of the way of Iranian fast boats while moving through the Strait of Hormuz during the weekend, in what has become a frequent occurrence there.

Not mine.  I stopped having those years ago.  No, it’s the President learning how to play the Washington, complicit media, political hack game, and rope a dope.  He’s also proving he is decent body punching brawler.  He not only exposed the danger to freedom presented by powerful and misused intelligence agencies, but more importantly he exposed the willingness of some members of the American political class to use those powerful capabilities against American citizens – and against their own government.  These communists are more than willing to use police state tactics while calling everyone else a Nazi or communist collaborator.  This threatens the freedom of every American even the nitwits cheering on the Soros funded Obama led attempts to subvert the new administration.

Subversive: tending or intending to subvert or overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established or existing system, especially a legally constituted government or a set of beliefs.

What’s happened really does require some thought.  We know that General Flynn’s telephone conversation with the Russian ambassador was monitored, transcribed, and released to the public.  Supposedly the monitoring was of the Russian which is perfectly fine.  But and it is a big but.  As I understand the law, conversations of American citizens in these cases are kept private and releasing the transcript in any manner is a felony.  Then we learn that Attorney General Sessions while performing his duties as a sitting Senator actually met with the Russian ambassador once at a function and once in his office.  In other words what Senators do every day.  We also know that because of his involvement with the Trump campaign, he recused himself from involvement in investigations of the campaign.

The picture then becomes clearer.  Those trying to undermine or subvert the Trump administration put forth the narrative of collusion with the Russians.   The FBI declared there is no evidence of this, yet the media and Obama surrogates continue to push the story.  A false narrative, drawing the conclusion of Trump campaign involvement with the Russians, is locked in.  The media and those wanting to undermine Trump set out to prove their pre-conceived conclusion, but they cannot produce even a scintilla of evidence supporting the claim.  So the political hacks and the media demand an “independent” investigation and a “special prosecutor.”   This is just perfect for them since Sessions is now recused from investigations involving the Trump campaign and the Senate has not confirmed the new Deputy Attorney General leaving an Obama appointee in charge of any such investigation.  In the catbird’s seat they were.

President Trump alleges that the Obama administration wire tapped Trump Tower prior to the election – searching for evidence to show Russian collusion – we know they were monitoring General Flynn.   Let’s add that if they found such evidence, impeachment proceedings would have already started.  Multiple newspaper accounts indicate the surveillance happened.  You just need to think on that for a bit.  A sitting President (and anyone who thinks he would have no knowledge of this is nuttier than squirrel turds) likely through his weaponized justice department requested FISA court orders to monitor communications of a presidential candidate from the opposing party.  In comparison, this makes Watergate look like the boy scouts. It should cause every American to pause.

Now, there is going to be another investigation into the wire tapping allegation.  Attorney General Sessions has not recused himself from any wire tapping investigations.

Obama and Hillary surrogates put forth a false narrative of Russian collusion, but had no evidence to support the allegation.  It appears that on a second attempt, the Obama Administration got a FISA court order to monitor communications of the Trump campaign treasure hunting for evidence to support the false narrative and apparently there is none.  Now a backfire has put the Obama gang and their media lapdogs on the defensive.

Round three should be exiting.

© 2017 J. D. Pendry