California Considering Legislation To Become First Ever Sanctuary State

We’ve written frequently in recent weeks/months about the brewing battle between the Trump administration and so-called “sanctuary cities” where local police officers are specifically instructed to ignore federal immigration laws.  Now, the leftist state of California is considering a new senate bill that would have the entire state become America’s first “sanctuary state.”

According to CBS Los Angeles, Senate Bill 54, written by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles, will come to the floor for it’s first public hearing today.  While Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Sacramento are already considered sanctuary cities, SB54
would enforce the same protections for illegal immigrants on more
conservative California cities in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere.

As if that weren’t enough, CBS points out that the bill will also consider providing taxpayer dollars to fund lawyers for illegal immigrants facing deportation. 

California may prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, creating a border-to-border sanctuary in the nation’s largest state as legislative Democrats ramp up their efforts to battle President Donald Trump’s migration policies.

 

The legislation is scheduled for its first public hearing Tuesday as the Senate rushes to enact measures that Democratic lawmakers say would protect immigrants from the crackdown that the Republican president has promised.

 

While many of California’s largest cities — including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento — have so-called sanctuary policies that prohibit police from cooperating with immigration authorities, much of the state does not.

 

The Democratic legislation, written by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles, comes up for debate less than a week after Trump signed an order threatening to withdraw some federal grants from jurisdictions that bar officials from communicating with federal authorities about someone’s immigration status.

 

The Senate Public Safety Committee considers SB54 Tuesday morning. The Judiciary Committee will also consider fast-tracked legislation that would spend state money, in an amount that has not been disclosed, to provide lawyers for people facing deportation.

Of course, this new California bill comes just as Trump signed an executive order to make good on his campaign pledge to block federal funding
to states and cities where local law enforcement refuse to report
undocumented immigrants they encounter to federal authorities.  Here are recent comments from White
House press secretary Sean Spicer:

“The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidize this disregard for our laws,” Spicer said.

Spicer said an executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to look at federal funding to cities to figure out “how we can defund those streams.”

The move by the Trump administration threatens $2.3 billion in annual funding to the nation’s 10 largest cities.

 

 

As we noted a few days ago, California has already threatened counter measures to withhold tax payments to the U.S. Treasury to the extent Trump makes good on his promise to block federal grants to the rogue state.

KPIX5 reports that officials are looking for money that flows through Sacramento to the federal government that could be used to offset the potential loss of billions of dollars’ worth of federal funds if President Trump makes good on his threat to punish cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal agents’ requests to turn over undocumented immigrants, a senior government source in Sacramento said.

 

It almost feels like this showdown between Trump and California Governor Jerry Brown should be a Pay-Per-View event.

And here is the full text of California Senate Bill 54, for your reading pleasure:

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Sizing Up The Bubble – A Major Inflection Point Is Coming

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Fund manager John Hussman is always good for dramatic charts. Here’s a recent one:

This ratio is even scarier than it looks, says Hussman:

Historically-reliable valuation measures now approach those observed at the 2000 bubble peak. Yet even this comparison overlooks the fact that in 2000, the overvaluation featured a subset of very large-capitalization stocks that were breathtakingly overvalued, while most stocks were more reasonably valued (see Sizing Up the Bubble for details). In many ways, the current speculative episode is worse, because it has extended to virtually all risk-assets.

 

To offer some idea of the precipice the market has reached, this chart shows the median price/revenue ratio of individual S&P 500 component stocks. This median now stands just over 2.45, easily the highest level in history. The longer-term norm for the S&P 500 price/revenue ratio is less than 1.0. Even a retreat to 1.3, which we’ve observed at many points even in recent cycles, would take the stock market to nearly half of present levels.

One of the reasons share prices have risen so dramatically relative to revenues is that corporations are earning a lot more on each dollar of sales these days. How are they doing that? By squeezing their workers.

The following chart, from the Economic Policy Institute shows labor’s share of corporate income plunging recently.

The next chart illustrates the same point from a different angle. Workers, it seems, have been producing more per hour but their pay hasn’t kept up as their bosses held onto more of the resulting profit.

A big part of this has been due to offshoring. If you close a factory where the workers make $30 an hour and set up in a place where your new workers make $5, then the $25 difference flows to the bottom line. Other contributors are automation, which is both inexorable and hugely favorable for the guys who own the robots, and the fact that the minimum wage in many states has kept up with neither the true inflation rate nor the increase in free-trade driven corporate earnings.

As EPI’s Josh Bivens puts it:

This 6.8 percentage-point decline in labor’s share of corporate income might not seem like a lot, but if labor’s share had not fallen, employees in the corporate sector would have $535 billion more in their paychecks today. If this amount was spread over the entire labor force (not just corporate sector employees) this would translate into a $3,770 raise for each worker.

For stock market investors, the scary thing about this imbalance between capital and labor is that it’s only temporary. As the details and magnitude of the scam have been exposed, the political tide has shifted. At the national level, fed-up US workers have installed an anti-free trade administration that is already tilting the playing field towards domestic workers. At the state and local level, calls for a higher minimum wage are being heard and acted upon. A major French party has even nominated a presidential candidate who wants to tax robots.

So it’s safe to assume that the above charts will develop serious inflection points going forward, as a rising share of profits flow to the nether regions of the org chart and investors respond by lowering the value they place on a given dollar of corporate revenues.

As Hussman notes, just a return to 1990s valuation levels would cut the average US stock in half.

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Meet America’s Newest Supreme Court Justice: Judge Neil Gorsuch

Confirming a choice that many had already pegged as a front-runner to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat, President Trump just officially announced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Per Politico, Gorsuch has the typical pedigree of a Supreme Court Justice with degrees from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford.  Moreover, Gorsuch’s professional background includes time at a Washington law firm, the Department of Justice and clerkships with Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy.

Gorsuch has the typical pedigree of a high court justice. He graduated from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, clerked for two Supreme Court justices and did a stint at the Department of Justice.  He attended Harvard Law with former President Barack Obama.

 

His work background includes time as a partner with the Washington law firm Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evans & Figel, a stint with the U.S. Department of Justice and clerkships with Supreme Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy.

 

Since 2006, he has served on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Colorado. His supporters note that he is an outdoorsman who fishes, hunts and skies. On the court, conservatives hope he could become the intellectual heir to Scalia, long the outspoken leader of the conservative bloc.

Gorsuch

 

For conservatives, Gorsuch meets conservative standards as an originalist and a textualist — someone who interprets the Constitution and statutes as they were originally written. His family has ties to the Republican party locally and in Washington, and at the age of 49, he could sit on the high court for decades — a big plus for conservative supporters.  Per The Denver Post:

Gorsuch is best known nationally for taking the side of religious organizations that opposed parts of the Affordable Care Act that compelled coverage of contraceptives. In one of those cases, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, he wrote of the need for U.S. courts to give broad latitude to religious beliefs.

 

“It is not for secular courts to rewrite the religious complaint of a faithful adherent, or to decide whether a religious teaching about complicity imposes ‘too much’ moral disapproval on those only ‘indirectly’ assisting wrongful conduct,” he noted in a concurring opinion.

 

The Supreme Court later ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, which now is not required to subsidize birth control that it finds objectionable.

 

Gorsuch also has written against euthanasia and assisted suicide, the latter of which Colorado legalized last November. “All human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong,” he wrote in his 2006 book “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.”

Of course, while his conservative record will no doubt be enticing to Republican Senators, Gorsuch’s past support of term limits may draw criticism from both sides of the aisle…we can’t have anyone disrupting the power structure of Washington D.C. now can we?

One position that might give pause to the lawmakers voting on his nomination is his past advocacy on behalf of term limits. In 1992 he co-wrote a paper for the Cato Institute that argued term limits are “constitutionally permissible.”

 

“Recognizing that men are not angels, the Framers of the Constitution put in place a number of institutional checks designed to prevent abuse of the enormous powers they had vested in the legislative branch,” he wrote. “A term limit, we suggest, is simply an analogous procedure designed to advance much the same substantive end.”

As a side note, per the The Denver Post, Gorsuch comes from a well known Republican family whose mother served in the Reagan Administration before being forced to resign in 1983, facing a criminal investigation and a House contempt of Congress citation over records related to alleged political favoritism in toxic-waste cleanups. 

Gorsuch comes from a well-known Colorado Republican family. His mother, the late Anne Gorsuch Burford, was Environmental Protection Agency director for the Reagan administration for 22 months. She slashed the agency’s budget and resigned under fire in 1983 during a scandal over mismanagement of a $1.6 billion program to clean up hazardous waste dumps.

With that, let the Senate confirmation theatrics commence!

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Trump Announces Supreme Court Nominee – Live Feed

Moments from now, President Trump will announce his much anticipated nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Rumors of the most likely picks have been making the rounds for weeks with Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado emerging as a front-runner in recent days.  That said, per the Washington Post, Trump has beckoned both Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman to Washington D.C. in advance of tonight’s announcement sparking rampant social media debate over whether their will be a last-minute Apprentice-style challenge to determine the ultimate winner.

CNN reported that Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado was already in Washington and that Judge Thomas Hardiman was on his way from Pittsburgh. There was no comment from the White House about why both men were needed in the capital, but social media exploded with satirical comparisons to Trump’s television show “The Apprentice,” as well as “The Bachelor.”

 

Gorsuch, 49, and Hardiman, 51, have emerged as Trump’s most likely choices. A third person on the shortlist — Judge William Pryor of Alabama — has seen his chances diminish as some Republican Senate leaders have said his confirmation would be a difficult.

 

Pryor’s outspokenness about overturning Roe v. Wade and other controversial remarks when he was Alabama’s attorney general made even his confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit a years-long ordeal.

Of course, with several Democrats in the Senate vowing to fight any nominee that Trump puts forward, tonight’s announcement is likely the easiest part of what will undoubtedly be a very contentious and drawn out path to confirmation.  As we noted before (see “Schumer Vows To Fight Trump Supreme Court Nominee: ‘We’re Gonna Oppose Him Tooth And Nail’“), “Fake Tears Chuck Schumer” recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that he plans to fight Trump’s pick “tooth and nail.”

“We are not going to settle on a Supreme Court nominee.”

 

“If they don’t appoint someone who’s really good, we’re gonna oppose him tooth and nail.”

 

“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump chooses that would get Republican support that we could support.”

All of which brings us to the inevitable final question of whether Republicans in the Senate have the intestinal fortitude to implement the “nuclear option”, something we suspect Democrats would do, and have done, with minimal hesitation.

The odds are heavily skewed towards Gorsuch…

 

With that, here is President Trump with his decision:

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Trump Nominates Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court

President Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gorsuch is 49 years old and currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He is a highly respected legal conservative whose credentials include a law degree from Harvard and a Supreme Court clerkship under Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy.

Gorsuch is perhaps best known for his sharp critique of the legal doctrine known as Chevron deference. Named after the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Chevron deference says that when the federal courts are confronted with an “ambiguous” statute, the default position is for federal judges to defer to the statutory interpretation favored by the executive branch agency charged with enforcing that statute. “Federal judges—who have no constituency—have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do,” said Justice John Paul Stevens in his Chevron majority opinion. “While agencies are not directly accountable to the people, the Chief Executive is, and it is entirely appropriate for this political branch of the Government to make such policy choices.” In other words, Chevron instructs the courts to tip the scales in favor of the executive branch in such cases.

But what about the judiciary’s independent duty to act as “an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive,” as James Madison once described the role of the courts? Doesn’t Chevron deference amount to a judicial surrender in this core area of responsibility? Judge Gorsuch certainly thinks so. In his 2016 concurrence in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, Gorsuch blasted Chevron deference as a “judge-made doctrine for the abdication of the judicial duty.” According to Gorsuch, “under any conception of our separation of powers, I would have thought powerful and centralized authorities like today’s administrative agencies would have warranted less deference from other branches, not more.”

Gorsuch has also rejected pro-government deference in the Fourth Amendment context. For instance, in his 2016 dissent in United States v. Carloss, Gorsuch strongly objected to the majority’s view that police officers had the “implied consent” to enter private property for a warrantless “knock and talk” on a homeowner’s front porch even though the homeowner had placed multiple “No Trespassing” signs around the property and even on the front door. Under the government’s flawed theory of the Fourth Amendment, Gorsuch complained, “a homeowner may post as many No Trespassing signs as she wishes. She might add a wall or a medieval-style moat, too. Maybe razor wire and battlements and mantraps besides. Even that isn’t enough to revoke the state’s right to enter.” As Gorsuch dryly observed, “this line of reasoning seems to me difficult to reconcile with the Constitution of the founders’ design.”

Gorsuch demonstrated admirable and reassuring judgment in these cases. Not only did he cast a principled vote against overreaching law enforcement, he cast a principled vote against the overreaching executive branch. It’s not difficult to imagine Gorsuch imposing the same severe judicial scrutiny against the misdeeds of the Trump administration.

On the hot-button issue of abortion, Gorsuch’s judicial record is quiet. But in his 2006 book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, he did seemingly point in an anti-abortion direction, rejecting the case for legalizing assisted suicide on the grounds that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and the taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” Gorsuch also rejected the “libertarian case for assisted suicide” because, he argued, “faithful adherence to libertarian theory” would also justify the legalization of “mass suicide pacts…duels, and the sale of one’s life (not to mention the use of now illegal drugs, prostitution, or the sale of one’s organs).”

In that same book, Gorsuch also questioned whether the Supreme Court had any business protecting unenumerated constitutional rights—such as the right to privacy—under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which says that no state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Citing the work of conservative legal scholar Robert Bork, Gorsuch argued that the Due Process Clause is stretched “beyond recognition” when it is held to be “the repository of other substantive rights not expressly enumerated in the text of the Constitution or its amendments.”

Unfortunately, Gorsuch’s book did not address the meaning of another, closely related constitutional provision: the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. Regardless of what Gorsuch may think about substantive due process, the historical evidence clearly shows that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was originally understood to protect certain unenumerated rights. For example, according to Republican Congressman John Bingham of Ohio, the author of Section One of the 14th Amendment, among the “rights, privileges, and immunities” that the amendment secured against state infringement was “the right to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of yourself, to the support of your fellowmen, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.” In other words, interpreted according to its original meaning, the 14th Amendment does protect certain unenumerated rights, such as the right to economic liberty.

Given Judge Gorsuch’s stated aversion to the judicial safeguarding of unenumerated rights via the Due Process Clause, it is essential to learn what he thinks about the judicial safeguarding of unenumerated rights via the Privileges or Immunities Clause. As Justice Clarence Thomas has rightfully observed, “the mere fact that the [Privileges or Immunities] Clause does not expressly list the rights it protects does not render it incapable of principled judicial application.” The Senate Judiciary Committee should ask Gorsuch whether or not he agrees with Justice Thomas on this crucial matter of original meaning and constitutional law.

Now that President Trump has picked his nominee, the next move rests in the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will Senate Democrats seek to block Gorsuch’s nomination, just as Senate Republicans recently blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland? Will the Republicans employ the so-called nuclear option and effectively end the filibuster for all Supreme Court nominees, just as the Democrats did in 2013 when they ended the filibuster for lower-court picks? Will the Gorsuch hearings be transformed into a referendum on the Trump administration itself?

One thing is certain: The battle over the future of the Supreme Court has just begun.

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Congresswoman Who Says U.S. Funds ISIS Just Got Back from Syria: Here’s What She Found

Submitted by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,

Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the lawmaker who accused the U.S. government of funding and arming ISIS and introduced a bill to prevent it from happening in future, recently disclosed that she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during her recent trip to Syria. The move has reportedly angered many of her fellow congressmen and women.

Upon returning from the war-stricken nation, Gabbard released the following statement in the form of a press release:

“My visit to Syria has made it abundantly clear: Our counterproductive regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people.

 

“As I visited with people from across the country, and heard heartbreaking stories of how this war has devastated their lives, I was asked, ‘Why is the United States and its allies helping al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups try to take over Syria? Syria did not attack the United States. Al-Qaeda did.’ I had no answer.”

According to the press release, Gabbard met with refugees, Syrian opposition leaders who led protesters in 2011, widows and family members who fight alongside al-Qaeda groups, pro-Assad troops, humanitarian workers, and students, to name a few. Gabbard also met with high-ranking officials such as Lebanon’s newly-elected President Aon and Prime Minister Hariri, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard, Syrian President Assad, Grand Mufti Hassoun, and Archbishop Denys Antoine Chahda of the Syrian Catholic Church of Aleppo.

Initially, Gabbard allegedly had no intention of meeting Assad, as she stated in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” she told Tapper.

The meeting with Assad is incredibly controversial because of numerous allegations by the U.N. that Assad has committed crimes against humanity.

“Whatever you think about President Assad, the fact is that he is the president of Syria,” she added. “In order for any peace agreement, in order for any possibility of a viable peace agreement to occur there has to be a conversation with him.”

Not surprisingly, the media has hyped up this visit as outrageous but has omitted some very glaring hypocrisies that arise as a result of Gabbard’s trip to Syria.

First, the Obama administration and Bush administration both drew serious allegations of war crimes, but if Gabbard had met with either of those former presidents, it’s doubtful anyone would have batted an eyelid.

 

Second, former Secretary of State John Kerry met with Assad in 2009, even though, after nine years in office, Assad was clearly responsible for all of the things western media has been relentlessly accusing him of doing since 2011.

 

Third, Gabbard’s meeting symbolizes the ridiculousness of America’s foreign policy decision-making system. A few hundred old men and women who have never been to Syria — nor care to go — sit in a room and deliberate a piece of paper deciding whether or not to drop million dollar tomahawk missiles on a relatively poor country. Even when these decision-makers are well aware of the horror their edicts will unleash, they are never required to visit the country, talk to its people, or understand the situation and better educate themselves. In the case of Syria, Congress wasn’t even required to approve the air campaign that began in 2014, as Obama authorized airstrikes without their approval anyway.

Gabbard’s move should be applauded — not ridiculed. Singling Assad out as some sort of mass-murdering psychopath while foreign leaders routinely meet with alleged war criminals such as Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia’s leadership, and Henry Kissinger, to name a few, is the epitome of U.S.-NATO arrogance.

Gabbard may have met with a mass murderer, but she also met with numerous people on the ground — the people who matter most. After doing so, she concluded:

“I return to Washington, DC with even greater resolve to end our illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government. I call upon Congress and the new Administration to answer the pleas of the Syrian people immediately and support the Stop Arming Terrorists Act. We must stop directly and indirectly supporting terrorists—directly by providing weapons, training and logistical support to rebel groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS; and indirectly through Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey, who, in turn, support these terrorist groups. We must end our war to overthrow the Syrian government and focus our attention on defeating al-Qaeda and ISIS.”

No one can criticize her strategy because, for the last six years, no one has even attempted it.

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Mapping Where Coups Are Most Likely To Occur In 2017

As disaffected Hillary supporters around the U.S. continue to live in ‘complete terror’ that Trump’s Presidency may mark the beginning of the end of American democracy, here is a map highlighting where, according to a study from the Washington Post, coups may actually occur in 2017.

Coup 2017

 

Among other things, the study estimates the probability of a coup based on type of government in place, personal freedoms, economic prosperity and access to the internet and other forms of communication.

We use a small number of statistical models to create separate forecasts for the risk of a successful coup, like in Thailand in 2014, or failed coup attempt, like in Turkey in 2016. Then we combine them to get a single forecast for the risk of a coup attempt for each country. The complete forecasts are available in a CSV file, and we explain the technical details in a separate post.

 

The models look for patterns in past coup attempts using data from 1960 to 2017 that we assembled using the Powell and Thyne coup data, Polity Project, World Development Indicators, Armed Conflict Dataset, global food prices (FAO), oil prices (BP) and the Gleditsch and Ward list of states.

 

Here are some of the things that what we included: how long the current leader has been in power, whether he or she was chosen democratically and the type of government in place. We also consider GDP, economic growth, population and infant mortality; these variables are more difficult to construct in war-torn or highly authoritarian societies, but we use estimates wherever required. We tabulate information about the spread of communication technologies — specifically, Internet access and cellphone ownership.

Below is a list of the 30 places that a coup attempt is the most likely in 2017.  Burundi and Thailand came in at the very top of the list with a 12% and 11% chance of a 2017 coup, respectively, while Russia, the election hacking masters of the globe, came in at number 20.

High-risk cases all have markers for instability, however. For example, Burundi has been in crisis since May 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza sought and obtained a third term.

 

Thailand has been under martial law, with strong restrictions on civil liberties, since the 2014 coup. The country approved a new constitution in 2016 and scheduled elections for 2017 — but, as some researchers point out, elections often increase the risk of further coup attempts.

Coup 2017

 

Meanwhile, WaPo asserts that the United States is about one-third as likely to experience a coup in 2017 as Nigeria and Niger due to a “high infant mortality rate” compared to other developed countries.

Russia, maybe. We estimate that the risk in Russia is about 6 percent, which places it in the top 20 countries risk-wise. If one were to occur, the odds are 2 to 1 that if would fail.

 

The U.S. presidential transition has also led to Russian claims that a coup may occur in the United States. The same statistical models suggest that the U.S. risk is about 2 percent — and ranks the United States No. 103 out of 161 countries. The risk may seem high but reflects the variable for infant mortality, which is higher in the U.S. than in other developed countries.

Why do we suspect that a “high infant mortality rate” wouldn’t have been weighted quite so high on this study had Hillary been elected instead of Trump?

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Nancy Pelosi Caught Coaching Congressman On Hot Mic: “Tell ‘Em You’re A Muslim”

When Nancy Pelosi isn’t making millions in exchange for ambassadorships or trying to dismantle the 2nd amendment from the safety of her ivory tower, the Congresswoman from California enjoys parading minorities around to shill for various causes.

In response to President Trump’s Executive Order on immigration, Pelosi trotskied out Indiana Congressman Andre Carson to give an impassioned speech about diversity. After she introduced Carson as a “Muslim member of congress,”  ol ‘Nancy wanted to make extra sure that his religious credentials were prominently displayed – which Carson promptly parroted. Oh, and he used to be a police officer! 

 On that whole Police Officer thing – as radio host and regular Fox News commentator Kevin Jackson discovered:

Andre Carson (D-IN)…fuels the perception that he is a former cop from a tough Indianapolis neighborhood. As it turns out, Carson was raised by his politician grandmother.  As a “cop,” Carson enforced sales tax collection from local retailers, or what is known as an “excise officer.” Not exactly patrolling the “mean streets” of Indiana. -theBlackSphere

What a tool…

andre_carson_2009_wide-d419c6da96d03edc36019d410d95231f29b4d3de-s900-c85

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Destroying The “Wind & Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” story is based on a long list of misunderstandings and apples to oranges comparisons. Somehow, people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion people can get along with a very short list of energy supplies. This short list will not include fossil fuels. Some would exclude nuclear, as well. Without these energy types, we find ourselves with a short list of types of energy — what BP calls Hydroelectric, Geobiomass (geothermal, wood, wood waste, and other miscellaneous types; also liquid fuels from plants), Wind, and Solar.

Unfortunately, a transition to such a short list of fuels can’t really work. These are a few of the problems we encounter:

[1] Wind and solar are making extremely slow progress in helping the world move away from fossil fuel dependence.

In 2015, fossil fuels accounted for 86% of the world’s energy consumption, and nuclear added another 4%, based on data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Thus, the world’s “preferred fuels” made up only 10% of the total. Wind and solar together accounted for a little less than 2% of world energy consumption.

Figure 1. World energy consumption based on data from BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Figure 1. World energy consumption based on data from BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Our progress in getting away from fossil fuels has not been very fast, either. Going back to 1985, fossil fuels made up 89% of the total, and wind and solar were both insignificant. As indicated above, fossil fuels today comprise 86% of total energy consumption. Thus, in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3% (=89% – 86%). Growth in wind and solar contributed 2% of this 3% reduction. At the rate of a 3% reduction every 30 years (or 1% reduction every ten years), it will take 860 years, or until the year 2877 to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels. And the “improvement” made to date was made with huge subsidies for wind and solar.

Figure 2. World electricity generation by source, based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Figure 2. World electricity generation by source based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

The situation is a little less bad when looking at the electricity portion alone (Figure 2). In this case, wind amounts to 3.5% of electricity generated in 2015, and solar amounts to 1.1%, making a total of 4.6%. Fossil fuels account for “only” 66% of the total, so this portion seems to be the place where changes can be made. But replacing all fossil fuels, or all fossil fuels plus nuclear, with preferred fuels seems impossible.

[2] Grid electricity is probably the least sustainable form of energy we have.

If we are to transition to a renewables-based economy, we will need to transition to an electricity-based economy, since most of today’s renewables use electricity. Such an economy will need to depend on the electric grid.

The US electric grid is often called the “World’s Largest Machine.” The American Society of Civil Engineers gives a grade of D+ to America’s energy system. It says,

America relies on an aging electrical grid and pipeline distribution systems, some of which originated in the 1880s. Investment in power transmission has increased since 2005, but ongoing permitting issues, weather events, and limited maintenance have contributed to an increasing number of failures and power interruptions.

Simply maintaining the electric grid is difficult. One author writes about the challenges of replacing aging steel structures holding up power lines. Another writes about the need to replace transformers, before they fail catastrophically and interrupt services. The technology to maintain and repair the transmission lines demands that fossil fuels remain available. For one thing, helicopters are sometimes needed to install or repair transmission lines. Even if repairs are done by truck, oil products are needed to operate the trucks, and to keep the roads in good repair.

Electricity and, in fact, electricity dispensed by an electric grid, is in some sense the high point in our ability to create an energy product that “does more” than fossil fuels. Grid electricity allows electric machines of all types to work. It allows industrial users to create very high temperatures, and to hold them as needed. It allows computerization of processes. It is not surprising that people who are concerned about energy consumption in the future would want to keep heading in the same direction as we have been heading in the past. Unfortunately, this is the expensive, hard-to-maintain direction. Storms often cause electrical outages. We have a never-ending battle trying to keep the system operating.

[3] Our big need for energy is in the winter, when the sun doesn’t shine as much, and we can’t count on the wind blowing.

Clearly, we use a lot of electricity for air conditioning. It is difficult to imagine that air conditioning will be a major energy use for the long-term, however, if we are headed for an energy bottleneck. There is always the possibility of using fans instead, and living with higher indoor temperatures.

In parts of the world where it gets cold, it seems likely that a large share of future energy use will be to heat homes and businesses in winter. To illustrate the kind of seasonality that can result from the use of fuels for heating, Figure 3 shows a chart of US natural gas consumption by month. US natural gas is used for some (but not all) home heating. Natural gas is also used for electricity and industrial uses.

Figure 3. US natural gas consumption by month, based on US Energy Information Administration.

Figure 3. US natural gas consumption by month, based on US Energy Information Administration.

Clearly, natural gas consumption shows great variability, with peaks in usage during the winter. The challenge is to provide electrical supply that varies in a similar fashion, without using a lot of fossil fuels.

[4] If a family burns coal or natural gas directly for winter heat, but then switches to electric heat that is produced using the same fuel, the cost is likely to be higher. If there is a second change to a higher-cost type of electricity, the cost of heat will be even greater.  

There is a loss of energy when fossil fuels or biomass are burned and transformed into electricity. BP tries to correct for this in its data, by showing the amount of fuel that would need to be burned to produce this amount of electricity, assuming a conversion efficiency of 38%. Thus, the energy amounts shown by BP for nuclear, hydro, wind and solar don’t represent the amount of heat that they could make, if used to heat apartments or to cook food. Instead, they reflect an amount 2.6 times as much (=1/38%), which is the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be burned in order to produce this electricity.

As a result, if a household changes from heat based on burning coal directly, to heat from coal-based electricity, the change tends to be very expensive. The Wall Street Journal reports, Beijing’s Plan for Cleaner Heat Leaves Villagers Cold:

Despite electricity subsidies for residential consumers, villagers interviewed about their state-supplied heaters said their overall costs had risen substantially. Several said it costs around $300 to heat their homes for the winter, compared with about $200 with coal.

The underlying problem is that burning coal in a power plant produces a better, but more expensive, product. If this electricity is used for a process that coal cannot perform directly, such as allowing a new automobile production plant, then this higher cost is easily  absorbed by the economy. But if this higher-cost product simply provides a previously available service (heating) in a more expensive manner, it becomes a difficult cost for the economy to “digest.” It becomes a very expensive fix for China’s smog problem. It should be noted that this change works in the wrong direction from a CO2 perspective, because ultimately, more coal must be burned for heating because of the inefficiency of converting coal to electricity, and then using that electricity for heating.

How about later substituting wind electricity for coal-based electricity? China has a large number of wind turbines in the north of China standing idle.  One problem is the high cost of erecting transmission lines that would transport this electricity to urban centers such as Beijing. Also, if these wind turbines were put in place, existing coal plants would operate fewer hours, causing financial difficulties for these coal generating units. If these companies need subsidies in order to continue paying their ongoing expenses (including payroll and debt repayment), this would create a second additional cost. Electricity prices would need to be higher, to cover these costs as well. A family who had difficulty affording heat with coal-based electricity would have an even greater problem affording wind-based electricity.

Heat for cooking and heat for creating hot water are similar to heat for keeping an apartment warm. It is less expensive (both in energy terms and in cost to the consumer) if coal or natural gas is burned directly to produce the heat, than if electricity is used instead. This again, has to do with the conversion efficiency of turning fossil fuels to electricity.

[5] Low energy prices for the consumer are very important. Unfortunately, many analyses of the benefit of wind or of solar give a misleading impression of their true cost, when added to the electric grid. 

How should the cost of wind and solar be valued? It is simply the cost of installing the wind turbines or solar panels? Or does it include the all of the additional costs that an electricity delivery system must incur, if it is actually to incorporate this intermittent electricity into the electric grid system, and deliver it to customers where it is needed?

The standard answer, probably because it is easiest to compute, is that the cost is simply the cost (or energy cost) of the wind turbines or the solar panels themselves, plus perhaps an inverter. On this basis, wind and solar appear to be quite inexpensive. Many people have come to the conclusion that a transition to wind and solar might be helpful, based on this type of limited analysis.

Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated. Perhaps, the first few wind turbines and solar panels will not disturb the existing electrical grid system very much. But as more and more wind turbines or solar panels are added, there get to be additional costs. These include long distance transmission, electricity storage, and subsidies needed to keep backup electricity-generation in operation. When these costs are included, the actual total installed cost of delivering electricity gets to be far higher than the cost of the solar panels or wind turbines alone would suggest.

Energy researchers talk about the evaluation problem as being a “boundary issue.” What costs really need to be considered, when a decision is made as to whether it makes sense to add wind turbines or solar panels? Several other researchers and I feel that much broader boundaries are needed than are currently being used in most published analyses. We are making plans to write an academic article, explaining that current Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) calculations cannot really be compared to fossil fuel EROEIs, because of boundary issues. Instead, “Point of Use” EROEIs are needed. For wind and solar, Point of Use EROEIs will vary with the particular application, depending on the extent of the changes required to accommodate wind or solar electricity. In general, they are likely to be far lower than currently published wind and solar EROEIs. In fact, for some applications, they may be less than 1:1.

A related topic is return on human labor. Return on human labor is equivalent to how much a typical worker can afford to buy with his wages. In [4], we saw a situation where the cost of heating a home seems to increase, as a transition is made from (a) burning coal for direct use in heating, to (b) using electricity created by burning coal, to (c) using electricity created by wind turbines. This pattern is eroding the buying power of workers. This direction ultimately leads to collapse; it is not the direction that an economy would generally intentionally follow. If wind and solar are truly to be helpful, they need to be inexpensive enough that they allow workers to buy more, rather than less, with their wages.

[6] If we want heat in the winter, and we are trying to use solar and wind, we need to somehow figure out a way to store electricity from summer to winter. Otherwise, we need to operate a double system at high cost.

Energy storage for electricity is often discussed, but this is generally with the idea of storing relatively small amounts of electricity, for relatively short periods, such as a few hours or few days. If our real need is to store electricity from summer to winter, this will not be nearly long enough.

In theory, it would be possible to greatly overbuild the wind and solar system relative to summer electricity needs, and then build a huge amount of batteries in order to store electricity created during the summer for use in the winter. This approach would no doubt be very expensive. There would likely be considerable energy loss in the stored batteries, besides the cost of the batteries themselves. We would also run the risk of exhausting resources needed for solar panels, wind turbines, and/or batteries.

A much more workable approach would be to burn fossil fuels for heat during the winter, because they can easily be stored. Biomass, such as wood, can also be stored until needed. But it is hard to find enough biomass for the whole world to burn for heating homes and for cooking, without cutting down an excessively large share of the world’s trees. This is a major reason why moving away from fossil fuels is likely to be very difficult.

[7] There are a few countries that use an unusually large share of electricity in their energy mixes today. These countries seem to be special cases that would be hard for other countries to emulate.

Data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy indicates that the following countries have the highest proportion of electricity in their energy mixes.

  • Sweden – 72.7%
  • Norway – 69.5%
  • Finland – 59.9%
  • Switzerland – 57.5%

These are all countries that have low population and a significant hydroelectric supply. I would expect that the hydroelectric power is very inexpensive to produce, especially if the dams were built years ago, and are now fully paid for. Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland also have electricity from nuclear providing about a third of each of their electricity supplies. This nuclear electricity was built long ago, and thus is now paid for as well. The geography of countries may also reduce the use of traffic by cars, thus reducing the portion of gasoline in their energy mixes. It would be difficult for other countries to create equivalently inexpensive large supplies of electricity.

In general, rich countries have higher electricity shares than poorer countries:

  • OECD Total – (Rich countries) – 2015 – 44.5%
  • Non- OECD (Less rich countries) – 2015 – 39.3%

China is an interesting example. Its share of energy use from electricity changed as follows from 1985 to 2015:

  • China – 1985 – 17.5%
  • China – 2015 – 43.6%

In 1985, China seems to have used most of its coal directly, rather than converting it for use as electricity. This was likely not difficult to do, because coal is easy to transport, and it can be used for many heating needs simply by burning it. Later, industrialization allowed for much more use of electricity. This explains the rise in its electricity ratio to 43.6% in 2015, which is almost as high as the rich country ratio of 44.5%. If the electricity ratio rises further, it will likely be because electricity is being put to use in ways where it has less of a cost advantage, or even has a cost disadvantage, such as for heating and cooking.

[8] Hydroelectric power is great for balancing wind and solar, but it is available in limited quantities. It too has intermittency problems, limiting how much it can be counted on. 

If we look at month-to-month hydroelectric generation in the US, we see that it too has intermittency problems. Its high month is May or June, when snow melts and sends hydroelectric output higher. It tends to be low in the fall and winter, so is not very helpful for filling the large gap in needed electricity in the winter.

Figure 4. US hydroelectric power by month, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.

Figure 4. US hydroelectric power by month, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.

It also has a problem with not being very large relative to our energy needs. Figure 5 shows how US hydro, or the combination of hydro plus solar plus wind (hydro+S+W), matches up with current natural gas consumption.

Figure 5. US consumption of natural gas compared to hydroelectric power and to compared to wind plus solar plus hydro (hydro+W+S), based on US Energy Information Administration data.

Figure 5. US consumption of natural gas compared to hydroelectric power and compared to hydro plus wind plus solar (hydro+W+S), based on US Energy Information Administration data.

Of course, the electricity amounts (hydro and hydro+S+W) are “grossed up” amounts, showing how much fossil fuel energy would be required to make those quantities of electricity. If we want to use the electricity for heating homes and offices, or for cooking, then we should compare the heat energy of natural gas with that of hydro and hydro+S+W. In that case, the hydro and hydro+S+W amounts would be lower, amounting to only 38% of the amounts shown.

This example shows how limited our consumption of hydro, solar, and wind is compared to our current consumption of natural gas. If we also want to replace oil and coal, we have an even bigger problem.

[9] If we need to get along without fossil fuels for electricity generation, we would have to depend greatly on hydroelectric power. Hydro tends to have considerable variability from year to year, making it hard to depend on.

Nature varies not just a little, but a lot, from year to year. Hydro looks like a big stable piece of the total in Figures 1 and 2 that might be used for balancing wind and solar’s intermittency, but when a person looks at the year by year data, it is clear that the hydro amounts are quite variable at the country level.

Figure 3. Electricity generated by hydroelectric for six large European countries based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Figure 6. Electricity generated by hydroelectric for six large European countries based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

In fact, hydroelectric power is even variable for larger groupings, such as the six countries in Figure 6 combined, and some larger countries with higher total hydroelectric generation.

Figure 4. Hydroelectricity generated by some larger countries, and by the six European countries in Figure 3 combined.

Figure 7. Hydroelectricity generated by some larger countries, and by the six European countries in Figure 6 combined, based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

What we learn from Figures 6 and 7 is that even if a great deal of long distance transmission is used, hydro will be variable from year to year. In fact, the variability will be greater than shown on these charts, because the quantity of hydro available tends to be highest in the spring, and is often much lower during the rest of the year. (See Figure 4 for US hydro.) So, if a country wants to depend on hydro as its primary source of electricity, that country must set its expectations quite low in terms of what it can really count on.

And, of course, Saudi Arabia and several other Middle Eastern countries don’t have any hydroelectric power at all. Middle Eastern countries tend not to have biomass, either. So if these countries choose to use wind and solar to assist in electrical generation, and want to balance their intermittency with something else, they pretty much need to use something that is locally available, such as natural gas. Other countries with very low amounts of hydro (or none at all) include Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Denmark, Netherlands, and South Africa.

These issues provide further reasons why countries will want to continue using fossil fuels, and perhaps nuclear, if they can.

[10] There has been a misunderstanding regarding the nature of our energy problem. Many people believe that we will “run out” of fossil fuels, or that the price of oil and other fuels will rise very high. In fact, our problem seems to be one of affordability: energy prices don’t rise high enough to cover the rising cost of producing electricity and other energy products. Adding wind and solar tends to make the problem of low commodity prices worse.   

Ultimately, consumers can purchase only what their wages will allow them to purchase. Rising debt can help as well, for a while, but this has limits. As a result, lack of wage growth translates to a lack of growth in commodity prices, even if the cost of producing these commodities is rising. This is the opposite of what most people expect; most people have never considered the possibility that peak energy will come from low prices for all types of energy products, including uranium. Thus, we seem to be facing peak energy demand (represented as low prices), arising from a lack of affordability.

We can see the problem in the example of the Beijing family with a rising cost of heating its apartment. Economists would like to think that rising costs translate to rising wages, but this is not the case. If rising costs are the result of diminishing returns (for example, coal is from deeper, thinner coal seams), the impact is similar to growing inefficiency. The inefficient sector needs more workers and more resources, leaving fewer resources and workers for other more efficient sectors. The result is an economy that tends to contract because of growing inefficiency.

If we want to operate a double system, using wind and solar when it is available, and using fossil fuels at other times, the cost will be very high. The problem arises because the fossil fuel system has many fixed costs. For example, coal mines and natural gas companies need to continue to pay interest on their loans, or they will default. Pipelines need to operate 365 days per year, regardless of whether they are actually full. The question is how to get enough funding for this double system.

One pricing system for electricity that doesn’t work well is the “market pricing system” based on each producer’s marginal costs of production. Wind and solar are subsidized, so they tend to have negative marginal costs of production. It is impossible for any other type of electricity producer to compete in this system. It is well known that this system does not produce enough revenue to maintain the whole system.

Sometimes, additional “capacity payments” are auctioned off, to try to fix the problem of inadequate total wholesale electricity prices. If we believe the World Nuclear Organization, even these charges are not enough. Several US nuclear power plants are scheduled for closing, indirectly because this pricing methodology is making older nuclear power plants unprofitable. Natural gas prices have also been too low for producers in recent years. This electricity pricing methodology is one of the reasons for this problem as well, in my opinion.

A different pricing system that works much better in our current situation is the utility pricing system, or “cost plus” pricing. In this system, prices are determined by regulators, based on a review of all necessary costs, including appropriate profit margins for producers. In the case of a double system, it allows prices to be high enough to cover all the needed costs, including the extra long distance transmission lines, plus all of the high fixed costs of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, operating for fewer hours per year.

Of course, these much higher electricity rates eventually will become unaffordable for the consumer, leading to a cutback in purchases. If enough of these cutbacks in purchases occur, the result will be recession. But at least the electricity system doesn’t fail at an early date because of inadequate profits for its producers.

Conclusion

The possibility of making a transition to an all-renewables system seems virtually impossible, for the reasons I have outlined above. I have outlined many other issues in previous posts:

The topic doesn’t seem to go away, because it is appealing to have a “solution” to what seems to be a predicament with no solution. In a way, wind and solar are like a high-cost placebo. If we give these to the economy, at least people will think we are treating the problem, and maybe our climate problem will get a little better.

Meanwhile, we find more and more real life problems with intermittent renewables. Australia has had a series of blackouts. A several-hour blackout in South Australia was tied partly to the high level of intermittent energy on the grid. The ways of reducing future recurrences appear to be very expensive.

Antonio Turiel has written about the problems that Spain is encountering. Spain added large amounts of wind and solar, but these have not been available during a recent cold spell. It added gas by pipeline from Algeria, but now Algeria has cut back on the amount it is supplying. It has added transmission lines north to France. Now, Turiel is concerned that Spain’s electricity prices will be persistently higher, because he believes that France has not taken sufficient preparations to meet its own electricity needs. If there were little interconnectivity between countries, France’s electricity problems would stay in France, rather than adversely affecting its neighbors. A person begins to wonder: Can transmission lines have an adverse impact on new electricity supply? If a country can hope that “the market” will supply electricity from elsewhere, does that country take adequate steps to provide its own electricity?

In my opinion, the time has come to move away from believing that everything that is called “renewable” is helpful to the system. We now have real information on how expensive wind and solar are, when indirect costs are included. Unfortunately, in the real world, high-cost is ultimately a deal killer, because wages don’t rise at the same time. We need to understand where we really are, not live in a fairy tale world produced by politicians who would like us to believe that the situation is under control.

via http://ift.tt/2kP3N6g Tyler Durden