California's War on Cows to Stop Global Warming: I think They Will Achieve Their Goal Because the Dairies will Move

I guess California just doesn't want any business (other than Silicon Valley) to succeed there.

In the nation’s largest milk-producing state, the new law aims to reduce methane emissions from dairies and livestock operations to 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030, McCarthy said. State officials are developing the regulations, which take effect in 2024.

They will probably hit those targets too because I'm sure most of those Dairy farms will simply pick up shop and move to other states. I'm sure Idaho would welcome these cows with open arms. More NIMBY nonsense by the Global Warmists.

Rosie O’Donnell goes After Barron Trump: I thought First Children were Supposed to Be Off Limits

I guess scum-bags like Rosie just can't help themselves.

It’s no secret that Rosie O’Donnell hates Donald Trump, but she insists that she wasn’t trolling the president-elect when she shared a YouTube video speculating that his 10-year-old son has autism. She has since gone public with her own daughter’s recent diagnosis with the developmental disorder and said that she reposted the clip because she found it “educational and informational.”

It is still speculating on something a minor child might have (or not have) just because Rosie is an awful bully. If the Trumps don't think Barron has autism it is their prerogative. Even if he does is it really any of Rosie's or anyone elses business? The incivility is off the charts nowadays.

I Know Americans are Living Close to the Vest but This is Nuts: 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their Savings Accounts!

And you wonder why people voted for their pocketbooks in this last election. These numbers are sobering though.

When it comes to saving money, Americans are falling short . According to a 2016 GOBankingRates survey, 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts — and 34% have no savings at all.

You think that is bad. Millennials have it even worse.

Of "young millennials" — which GOBankingRates defines as those between 18 and 24 years old — 72% have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts and 31% have $0. A sliver (8%) have over $10,000 saved.

"Older millennials" — defined as those between 25 and 34 — aren't doing much better: 67% have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts, 33% have nothing at all, and 15% have over $10,000.

I can't imagine how hard it would be to be living with $0 to $1000 in my bank account from week to week. It would be stressful as all hell. So a tax cut, jobs programs, or talk about free trade stealing ones job hits home much harder knowing these statistics. Basically the only thing Hillary had to offer was a $15 minimum wage and some piddly tax cut that amounted to peanuts to help these 69% slice of America.

Glimmer of Hope Seen in Trump's Climate Plan

It seems that some news sources are stating the Trump administration will not be a "disaster for climate" after all. So he intends to dump the Paris accord which was a joke anyway.

Even ardent supporters acknowledge that the Paris treaty by itself will do little to rein in global warming. The United Nations estimates that if every country were to make every single promised carbon cut between 2016 and 2030 to the fullest extent and there was no cheating, carbon dioxide emissions would still be cut by only one-hundredth of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The Paris treaty's 2016-2030 pledges would reduce temperature rises around 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. If maintained throughout the rest of the century, temperature rises would be cut by 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit.

This terrible plan was to hobble our GDP by $150 billion a year so we can maybe reduce temperature by .31 degrees by the end of the century? That sounds like a huge joke. I have to agree with this point raised in this article for sure.

This would be a big change. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzed almost all aid from the United States and other rich nations and found that about one-third is climate-related aid.
This is immoral when 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition, around 700 million live in extreme poverty and 2.4 billion are without clean drinking water and sanitation. These problems can be tackled effectively today, helping many more people more dramatically than “climate aid” could.

So maybe if they took that climate money and used it for cleaner water and such we could actually prevent people (mostly children) from dying in the poorer parts of the world. However some environmentalists are really against saving lives at all. They are old school Bentham-ites that would like to "reduce the surplus population." In any case a pivot from throwing money at a problem that can only get solved by 0.31 degrees in a 100 years, to actually making lives better for those 2 billion "forgotten people," might be quite a win for the Trump administration and for those poor people as well.

CNN Commentator Confuses Which of the Trump Appointees Allegedly dropped the N-bomb

I guess it is difficult for these liberals to keep them all strait.

Yet Kaiser’s allegation about Bannon’s use of the n-word follows a cold trail. Though the former executive chairman of Breitbart News surely ran a media organization where the alt-right has found a roosting spot, there’s no readily available substantiation of the hateful behavior that Kaiser attributed to Bannon.

It's kind of shocking to see this correction by a MSM source though. Maybe they are trying to tack back to the center due to lower readership.

Trump's Approval Rating Ticks Higher

It seems winning makes one more popular.

Forty-six percent of voters now have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of the president-elect. Twelve percent have a somewhat unfavorable opinion and 34 percent have a very unfavorable opinion of him.

It’s a dramatic uptick since the election. Trump’s favorability has grown 9 points, 37 percent to 46 percent, compared to a Morning Consult poll right before the election -- while his unfavorability has dropped 15 points, from 61 percent to 46 percent.

That is a big turn around in just a few months.

United Airlines Races to the Bottom with "Below Steerage" AKA Basic Economy

Wow these airlines are just trying everything they can to make their passengers suffer. Well I won't ever fly United but that is because I had a terrible experience on them a few years ago.  In any case the cattle car got even even worse.

Here’s a summary of the deprivations that United’s basic economy passengers will experience:

• No overhead bin space for you. Passengers can bring a briefcase or small personal item, but it must fit under the seat in front of them. The bins are going to be saved “for our economy passengers, who value that and who are willing to pay for it,” said United’s chief commercial officer Julia Haywood.
• No upgrades. Passengers cannot upgrade to United’s Economy Plus or first class.
• Board last. Boarding group 5 it is—though perhaps that doesn’t matter if you can’t compete with others for overhead bin space anyhow. United says this will smooth the boarding process. 

500 First Hand Accounts of the Somme Given to British War Museum

Just in time for Battlefield 1 we have the stories of the real men who fought in the "War to End all Wars"

Anthony Richards, head of documents and sound at the museum, says it is "quite amazing" to have come across so much previously unseen material about a battle that ended 100 years ago this week.
What makes these testimonies "incredibly unusual" he says, is that they talk so candidly about killing in hand-to-hand fighting - and often the remorse felt afterwards.
"It's very unusual for people from World War One to talk about the actual act of killing. It's usually skirted around."
It was an "uncomfortable" subject for returning soldiers, he says, and memoirs and letters tended to avoid it.

The first day of the Somme was had the worst losses of any battle in British history with 57,470 British casualties with 19,240 killed. The worst part of the whole ordeal is the Brits and French advanced only 6 miles on a front of 16 miles and it cost 432,000 Brits and 200,000 French casualties of which 146,000 were killed. That is nearly 1.5 Wembly Stadiums full of dead men in just 3 months from July 1st to Nov 18th. Those were very brave men caught in a terrible meat-grinder.

PacketSled CEO Matt Harrigan Who Threatened to Snipe Trump Ousted from Company #TrumpDerangementDisorder

Well at least he told us how he really felt.

If there's ever been a giant list of things you definitely shouldn't do in a civilized society, threatening to murder the democratically elected leader with a sniper rifle is probably right up there at the top. Apparently nobody told Matt Harrigan, CEO — well, former CEO, anyway — of network security firm PacketSled.

It's only been a week and Trump-derangement disorder has come down on us with a vengeance. First we have GrubHub telling all their Trump voters to resign and now PacketSled's CEO wants to murder the President-elect. It's only a matter of time until the next TDD afflicted person says something stupid.

Lefties React to New Balance Supporting Trump by Destroying Shoes. Give them to Charity Instead. You Need to Help Rather than Destroy

Now it seems that New Balance is the target of the lefts hissy-fits.

Following the election last week, the athletic footwear and apparel brand became one of the first international companies to congratulate President-elect Donald Trump, it appears mainly because of what his proposed policies could mean for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Matt LeBretton, the vice president of public affairs at New Balance tweeted, “The Obama admin turned a deaf ear to us & frankly w/ Pres-Elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction.”

Later in the article you see all sorts of crazy people setting their shoes on fire and other nonsense. Why can't they simply give them to Goodwill, or something like that, so some other people can get some use out of them. Instead they act like children and lash out. If these folks first instinct was to help rather than destroy they might have actually have swung the election.

Yet Another Reason to not Have Facebook: People seem to be Influenced by the False News on there

For reasons like this I am so glad I don't have Facebook at all.

So: 44% of all adults look to Facebook for news; 20% of them say social media posts are capable of changing their views on a political issue; and more of the stories posted on Facebook this cycle, real and fake, came from right-wing outlets.

Taken together, it all suggests Facebook had a much larger role in the election than Mark Zuckerberg would like to admit.

I think Facebook is the swamp that needs to be drained.

Dumb-assed NFL Player Protests Trump by doing the Kaeper-knee but Admits He Didn't Vote

This is exactly why it is hard to get behind some of these players doing the Kaeper-knee.

But that didn’t stop one prominent NFL player from doing just that — protesting the results of Donald Trump becoming the president-elect — despite indicating that he did not vote in the election. According to a report from the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans opted not to vote as well, despite protesting Trump prior to Sunday’s game.

It says later in the article that this moron is registered to vote in Texas. He is now playing in Tampa Bay so why didn't he move his registration there? Winning Florida went a long way toward Trump winning the election. So every little bit counted. If Hillary won Florida then he would not need to take the Kaeper-knee at all (although he probably would have.) Instead he complains but did nothing to change the outcome. Just like the Kaeper-knee culprit himself.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick said he did not vote, and Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel wrote about how it was a bad look for him to take another knee on Election Day. 

In the words of Eldridge Cleaver "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

TCL: The Future of Hardware? Fast Fashion for TV Sets?

Hmm very interesting article on how a company I have never heard of called TCL is at the top or near the top of all of the listings of TVs for sale on Amazon.

“TCL is almost completely vertically integrated,” Larson says. “We’re among the top five panel producers in the world. We make our own plastic. We mold our own cabinets. We make our boards. We even have a factory that makes speaker drivers. The only thing we have to buy, really, is the main processor and the memory that goes along with that.”

According to Larson, owning its supply chain allows TCL to release new sets far faster—and cheaper—than is possible at competing companies that typically have to wait for suppliers to send them samples before they can finish designing their upcoming TVs. 

It is almost fast fashion for TVs. They can pump out a TV that is cheaper and quicker than the big companies they compete with. That means they are nimble and can make changes on the fly if they need to. So if Americans want 4K TVs with a special back-light they can pump one out quite easily and undercut their competitors. I have never owned a TCL product but I might look into it if I need a smaller TV for something.

The DNC kind of Forgot About Hispanics: Not as Diverse as they Claim

I guess this is yet another reason why they lost the election.

“There was only one other Hispanic in the entire third floor,” Manriquez said of his time at the DNC. “And when I did see one I had to speak to them in Spanish so people wouldn’t try to undercut us from doing our job.”
Both Morales and Manriquez left the DNC during the presidential campaign, leaving the committee for weeks without a Spanish speaker on its media staff.
The DNC did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails requesting comment. 

I guess they figured they did not need to work for the Hispanic vote and they didn't seem to get it in the numbers that they needed to win. The Trump campaign had permanent Hispanic staff in 10 states who I assume all knew Spanish while the DNC had zero. Kind of shows you how much the DNC cares about Hispanics.

Are the Anti-Trump Protests Astroturf? There is Evidence it Might Be True

Hmm maybe this is some Soros related shenanigans.

Anti-Trump protestors in Austin today are not as organic as they seem.  Here are the busses they came in.  #fakeprotests #trump2016 #austin pic.twitter.com/VxhP7t6OUI

— erictucker (@erictucker) November 10, 2016

Even "spontaneous" protests and riots seem to be part of a larger plan.

Trump's Short-list for Cabinet: Jamie Dimon Seems to have Taken his Name Out at Treasury

This is a pretty interesting list of people he has lined up. Very different than the academics and policy wonks that Obama had in his Cabinet. These people are mostly business people that will hopefully do the People's business.

Secretary of State

Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House

Bob Corker, chairman, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

John Bolton, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations

Treasury Secretary

Steven Mnuchin, finance chair of Trump’s presidential campaign and one of Trump’s economic advisors

CNBC reports that Trump’s team considered JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon for this role but that he declined.

Defense Secretary

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama

Attorney General

Gov. Chris Christie, New Jersey

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor

Interior Secretary

Forrest Lucas, an oil industry executive, who is the co-founder of Lucas Oil Products

Robert Grady, a venture capitalist and partner at Gryphon Investors

Agriculture Secretary

Bruce Rastetter, an entrepreneur of agriculture and energy and Iowa’s biggest GOP donor

Sid Miller, Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner

Commerce Department Secretary

Sen. David Perdue, served as former chief executive officer at Reebok and Dollar General

Lew Eisenberg, Finance Chair, Republican National Committee

Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor and one of Trump’s economic advisors

Labor Secretary

Victoria Lipnic, a commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Obama administration since 2010

Health and Human Services Secretary

Dr. Ben Carson, a surgeon who ran in the Republican Presidential Primary

Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana

Energy Secretary

Harold Hamm, an American entrepreneur and chief executive officer of Continental Resources

Education Secretary

Dr. Ben Carson, a surgeon who ran in the Republican Presidential Primary

William Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who has served as senior advisor to then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings

Veterans Affairs Secretary

Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veteran Affairs

Homeland Security

David Clarke, Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin

Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican Congressman

Environmental Protection Agency administrator

Myron Ebell, director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is 100% Correct With this Sentiment

I have to agree with the Rock on this.

The most important thing we can do right now is be 100% committed to becoming a better country. Many Americans are heart broken and many Americans are happy. Let's let the emotions of both sides settle and focus on our future. Concentrate on things we can control... work ethic, attitude, faith etc. We all wear a lot of hats in today's crazy life we live and the one I'm most proud of is being a father to two beautiful young daughters. At this time the only thing I can do for them is to continue to try my best to lead by example. I don't know what it's like to be born into wealth, nor I do I know what it's like to be a career politician. I do know what it's like to put in the hard work every day with my own two hands and earn my success from the sweat of my brow. That's all I know and all I'll continue to do. Lead by example. I encourage all of you to do the same. We got this. We're Americans and we forever "Hold the line" - DJ 

That is why the riots suck because it makes us look like yet another nation that does not have a peaceful turnover of power. That is one of our hallmarks and sets us apart from much of the rest of the world. Maybe the Obama quote of "there is no Red America and no Blue America there are only the United States of America" will actually be correct 8 after he said it.

Election Post-Mortem: It was the Elites Talking Down to Regular Americans

I think this election is seriously the revenge of the working-class voter against the technocrats and the elite. The idea that Clinton seemed to have gotten off scott-free from FBI investigation after FBI investigation for doing something that would have gotten any other American years in prison. You add that to the sweetheart deal that Bill Clinton cut with Lynch on the parked airplane and the rules "were for you and not them."

The Great Silent majority wanted a businessman to fix the economy and not the person that was there for the last 30 years. You add to this the level of condensation that the media and the elites in America kept heaping on regular working class people and you have a the recipe for a big upset.

You saw this with the Brexit 100%. Powerful monied interests, Euro-centric technocrats, lifelong bureaucrats in Brussels and British glitterai like JK Rowlings all told regular working class Britons that they were stupid. They didn't like that and the Brexit was passed. The same exact thing happened to regular Americans.

They are scared that the world is moving against them and Hillary and Obama are doing and would do nothing to help them. Imagine a working-class guy in his 50s that is trying to take care of a family. His job gets outsourced to Mexico or Vietnam and Hillary wants him to take class coding Android apps as the only way forward for him. She didn't offer tax cuts, ways to punish that company for leaving the US, or any legitimate way for him to make ends meet for his family. This guy bitterly clung to his guns and religion and went right into the basket of deplorables. He lived in the fly-over states so the Democrat party (that he would normally support) forgot about him. It is weird to see a billionaire as the working-mans friend but the Roosevelt's are case-in-point where a very rich guy helped the poor quite a bit.

Well Nate Silver Has some Egg on His Face: Polling has Met Its Waterloo #TrumpCutMyTaxes

Well I guess it is time to totally ignore polling going forward.

That remains our outlook today in our final forecast of the year. Clinton is a 71 percent favorite to win the election according to our polls-only model and a 72 percent favorite according to our polls-plus model. (The models are essentially the same at this point, so they show about the same forecast.) This reflects a meaningful improvement for Clinton in the past 48 hours as the news cycle has taken a final half-twist in her favor. Her chances have increased from about 65 percent.

Whatever methodology he used to come up with these numbers is flawed because that is a wide miss. I think the polling method in general needs a total overhaul because they are 0 for 3 in the last few big events. Polls had Romney winning in 2012, Brexit, and now Trump winning the election. I'm not sure what the fix is but it cannot go on in its current form because it leads to a 70 to 30 call for the candidate that lost handily.

Election Post-Mortem: It Was the Economy Stupid

Well the elites had it wrong again. It seems many Americans voted pocket-book over every other concern.

The state of the economy played a heavy role. Eight years beyond the Great Recession, 62 percent of voters rated the economy’s condition negatively – rising to 85 percent of Trump voters. Twenty-seven percent said their family’s financial situation has worsened in the last four years – rising to 44 percent of Trump voters. And 34 percent said they expect life for the next generation of Americans to be worse than it is now – rising, again, to 45 percent of Trump voters.

I think many Trump supporters thought Hillary was just more of the same stagnation and the Dems did not ask the question "are you better off now than 8 years ago." Trump supporters said "Hell No!"

I have to say one thing to Trump. Now deliver. I was promised tax cuts and GDP growth and an end to regulation and stagnation. No 3AM tweeting. No going after whomever for saying whatever. Pick the best men and women for the jobs and run this country like a good CEO. If we have 4% GDP growth and I'm paying 15% Cap Gain taxes he will have succeeded in putting America back on track.

This More Moderate Glenn Beck would do Well on Fox

I would watch his show for sure if we get this guy at the helm.

“I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama.” But, he said, “Obama made me a better man.” He regrets calling the president a racist and counts himself a Black Lives Matter supporter. “There are things unique to the African American experience that I cannot relate to,” he said. “I had to listen to them.” ...
“So much of what I used to believe was either always a sham or has been made into a sham. There’s nothing deep.”

I think the discourse on cable news needs the voice of a person who has made this kind of transformation. He is a pretty smart guy and votes his principals so that is why he was anti-Trump. I would much rather watch his show then Trump Propaganda Minister Hannity.

How Drugs are Prices is Crazy. I think Congress needs to Check this out

Why do Pharmacy Benefit Managers take so much of the money in this transaction?

Lately, though, some people have come to wonder if PBMs serve much of a purpose at all, other than skimming off profits for themselves. That's because the PBM have an enviable position in the middle of all this. It can pay the pharmacy $110 for Pretendar but bill the insurance company for $140. It keeps $30 for itself. This is called spread pricing. But those two prices are protected by confidential contracts. So neither the pharmacy nor the insurance company knows what the other received.

So we have this middle man added in here that is taking a $30 vig off the top here by sending a bill to the insurance company? Plus the insurance company and the pharmacy don't even know what the correct price of the prescription is? Why isn't this regulated better?