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The credentialed media want to muzzle Glenn Greenwald They're finding out just how well that works

I have never been a particular fan of Glenn Greenwald. Born in the United States, he now resides in Rio de Janeiro with his “husband,” and has been a mostly left-wing journalist throughout his career. His participation in helping the odious Edward Snowden reveal classified documents was repugnant.

But if there is one thing I definitely do appreciate about Mr Greenwald is his devotion to Freedom of Speech and of the Press.

Journalists Start Demanding Substack Censor its Writers: to Bar Critiques of Journalists

This new political battle does not break down along left v. right lines. This is an information war waged by corporate media to silence any competition or dissent.

by Glenn Greenwald | March 11, 2021

Glenn Greenwald

On Wednesday, I wrote about how corporate journalists, realizing that the public’s increasing contempt for what they do is causing people to turn away in droves, are desperately inventing new tactics to maintain their stranglehold over the dissemination of information and generate captive audiences. That is why it journalists have bizarrely transformed from their traditional role as leading free expression defenders into the the most vocal censorship advocates, using their platforms to demand that tech monopolies ban and silence others.

That same motive of self-preservation is driving them to equate any criticisms of their work with “harassment,” “abuse” and “violence” — so that it is not just culturally stigmatized but a banning offense, perhaps even literally criminal, to critique their journalism on the ground that any criticism of them places them “in danger.” Under this rubric they want to construct, they can malign anyone they want, ruin people’s reputations, and unite to generate hatred against their chosen targets, but nobody can even criticize them.

Any independent platform or venue that empowers other journalists or just ordinary citizens to do reporting or provide commentary outside of their repressive constraints is viewed by them as threats to be censored and destroyed. Every platform that enables any questioning of their pieties or any irreverent critiques of mainstream journalism — social media sites, YouTube, Patreon, Joe Rogan’s Spotify program — has already been systematically targeted by corporate journalists with censorship demands, often successfully.

Back in November, the media critic Stephen Miller warned: “It’s only a matter of time before the media tech hall monitors turn their attention to Substack.” And ever since, in every interview I have given about the success of Substack and every time I have written about journalist-led censorship campaigns, I have echoed that warning that they would soon turn their united guns on this platform. Miller’s prediction was prompted by a Columbia Journalism Review article entitled “The Substackerati” which claimed that Substack was structurally unfair because “most” of “the most successful people on Substack” are “white and male; several are conservative” and “have already been well-served by existing media power structures.”

I will admit to having little contact with Substack. I knew that Patrick Frey, who has blogged for free as Patterico since 2003, and Bari Weiss, who was forced out at left The New York Times by the hatred of the young #woke in the newsroom. Mr Frey is an educated, (mostly) conservative, his hatred for Donald Trump notwithstanding, heterosexual married white male, but Miss Weiss is a mostly liberal lesbian.[1]A couple of commenters I consider to be anti-Semitic on The Other McCain have sought to educate me that she can’t be white, because she’s a Jew.

Thus, I never realized that Substack is a bastion of conservative white males. Mr Greenwald continued to note that most successful Substack writer is a somewhat obscure female History professor at Boston College.

In fact, looking at the list of ‘Substackerati’ Mr Greenwald used, Matt Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Heather Cox Richardson, along with Messrs Greenwald, Frey and Miss Weiss, I find three who are homosexual, and the majority liberal.

Mr Greenwald continues to note what has really bothered the currently credentialed media:

That is precisely why they are so furious. They cannot stand the fact that journalists can break major stories and find an audience while maintaining an independent voice, critically questioning rather than obediently reciting the orthodoxies that bind them and, most of all, without playing their infantile in-group games and submitting to their hive-mind decrees. In fact, the more big stories you break while maintaining your independence from them, the more intense is the contempt they harbor for you: that explains, among other things, their willingness to watch Julian Assange (who has broken more major stories than all of them combined) be imprisoned for publishing documents.

That they are angry and upset is irrelevant. It only matters because these resentments and fears that they are losing their monopolistic power over public thought are translating into increasingly concerted and effective censorship campaigns.

The credentialed media heaped scorn on the recently deceased Rush Limbaugh, virtually celebrating in his death due to cancer, because he was the one who began the breaking of the ‘gatekeeping’ function of the media. When the only way for a contrary voice to be heard was if an editor approved, the editors had the power (mostly) to restrict the terms of debate. Mr Limbaugh, by virtue of his tremendous talent — “talent on loan from God,” he used to say — expressed to an audience of as much as thirty million the things that many people already believed, but rarely heard outside of their circle of friends. Then Al Gore invented this internet thingy, and debates started in America Online chatrooms, and then moved to independent blogs. Powerline and Little Green Footballs, working solely from images on low-definition television screens, were able to expose how CBS News used forged documents to try to turn the election of 2004 against the younger President Bush, and were able to get their findings out to millions of people. They went around the gatekeeping function of the credentialed media.

The older editors of major media sources realized, albeit grudgingly, that their power was lost. But as the young #wokes forced out older and wiser heads like James Bennet and Stan Wischnowski, even though they were liberal themselves, the young #woke lost that institutional memory which should have informed them that the gatekeeping function is gone.[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading

And now they think they should somehow get it back. Their success in using #CancelCulture to cow others into silence seems to have emboldened them.

But it’s an effort doomed to failure. As we previously noted, the HuffPost was bought out by BuzzKill BuzzFeed, and now Verizon Media has laid off about 30% of what was supposed to have been HuffPost’s independent newsroom. BuzzFeed has had its own financial problems, cutting salaries a year ago due to COVID-19 and having laid off 15% of its workforce in 2019.

The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the Freedom of the Press, but all that means is that the government cannot control the press, cannot censor it, and cannot punish people for printing things the government do not like. Unfortunately, far too many in the media believe that it confers on them some sort of special status, that it means they are somehow beyond criticism. Mr Greenwald, and a few of the other ‘Substackerati,’ have had the temerity, the unmitigated gall to criticize other reporters, so naturally the credentialed media are striking back. There’s nothing they can do about The First Street Journal and me, and my frequent criticisms of what I sometimes call The Philadelphia Enquirer, because, sadly, 🙁 there’s no one paying me to write and publish what I do.

But Substack? The media know that Mr Greenwald and others are making money due to their Substack affiliation, and they can put pressure on Substack to rein in those horrible, horrible free voices.

The fictitious Police Commissioner of New York City, Frank Reagan of Bluebloods, once said on his show that the freedom of the press is limited to those who actually own a press. In a way, that’s true enough, but with the internet, almost anybody can now own a printing press. Writers on the internet are successful or failures based on their individual merits as writers and self-publicists, and not upon the judgements of newspaper editors.

References

References
↑1 A couple of commenters I consider to be anti-Semitic on The Other McCain have sought to educate me that she can’t be white, because she’s a Jew.
↑2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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After Taking Long Fossil Fueled Flight, John Kerry Urges Top Polluters To Genuflect To Climate Cult

Unsurprisingly, no media members took photos of John Kerry landing his private jet nor disembarking. That would be bad optics, but, how did he get to England? He surely didn’t use a sailing ship, and hyper climate cult outlet the BBC won’t mention it

Climate change: Kerry urges top polluters to cut emissions now

US climate change envoy John Kerry has urged the world’s top 20 polluters which create 81% of emissions between them to reduce CO2 immediately.

He was speaking after meeting Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior UK figures in London to plan two upcoming international climate summits.

He praised the UK for phasing out coal, and for its “ambitious” climate goals.

But he told BBC Newsnight that the UK – along with other major nations – must deliver their proposed emissions cuts.

“China, the US, Russia, India, the EU, Korea, Japan and others all have to be part of this effort,” he said. “Twenty countries. Eighty one percent of the emissions.”

Brits have been burning peat moss and wood to supplement the loss of power from doing away with coal (I’ll note again, I’m not a fan of coal) and having to rely on unreliable solar and wind, particularly when it is cold. UK power costs have skyrocketed over the past 15 years as the nation, or at least the nations leaders, joined the climate cult.

Asked during the interview whether the UK should be planning a controversial new coal mine in Cumbria, he replied: “The marketplace has made a decision that coal is not the future.

In this case the marketplace he refers to is The Government.

On Tuesday, climate diplomacy sees him in Paris and Brussels for talks with European leaders, who have been praised for their recent target to cut emissions 55% on 1990 levels.

Did he take a pure electric vehicle, a bus, or a train to Paris and Brussels? Or hop back in the fossil fueled private jet for quick trips to those two cities?

Leaders are wrestling with gloomy news from China, whose recent five-year plan takes tiny steps to decarbonisation.

But they will be heartened by President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package agreed by the Senate, which will support “green” economic growth.

Wait, I thought the $1.9 trillion was about COVID relief? No?

Yes, climate hypocrisy matters, especially when it’s a major league bigwig telling people they will be forced to comply.

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Good News: Rising Influx Of Migrant Children Being Held In “Jail Like Facilities”, But Not By Biden Admin

Someone at the NY Times has done what Rush always called a random act of journalism, and managed to get an editor to approve publication

From the article

Thousands of migrant children are backed up in United States detention facilities along the border with Mexico, part of a surge of immigration from Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence that could overwhelm President Biden’s attempt to create a more humane approach to those seeking entry into the country.

The number of migrant children in custody along the border has tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250, according to federal immigration agency documents obtained by The New York Times, and many of them are being held in jail-like facilities for longer than the three days allowed by law.

The problem for the administration is both the number of children crossing the border and what to do with them once they are in custody. Under the law, the children are supposed to be moved to shelters run by the Health and Human Services Department, but because of the pandemic the shelters until last week were limiting how many children they could accommodate.

The growing number of unaccompanied children is just one element of an escalating problem at the border. Border agents encountered a migrant at the border about 78,000 times in January — more than double the rate at the same time a year ago and higher than in any January in a decade.

Oh, see, it’s a problem for the Biden admin, whereas when Trump was the president it was racism and he’s a Nazi for holding the kids. In cages. Like Obama. But, now they are “jail-like facilities.”

But his approach — to broadly reopen the nation’s borders to vulnerable children with what he hopes will be a welcoming contrast to Mr. Trump’s erection of legal and physical barriers — is already at risk from the grim realities of migration patterns that have roiled the globe for years. Sensing a change in tone and approach after Mr. Trump’s defeat, migrants are once again fleeing poverty, violence and the devastation left by hurricanes and heading north toward the United States.

You can pretty strikethru everything starting with “fleeing” and write “streaming towards free stuff courtesy of the Democratic Party.” But, see, the Department Of Homeland Security, which runs the “concentration camps” via sub-agencies like Customs and Border Patrol and knows about all the “migrants” caught at the border, isn’t part of the Biden admin (?)

So, is there like some other Executive Branch? Or, is the Legislative Branch in charge? How do reporters not call this mule fritters out? Even if they’re on Biden’s side, this has to go against any shred of professionalism they have and a need to not be treated like complete idiots by Psaki. You’d think.

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The HuffPo is biting the dust

While I have often noted that print newspapers are 18th century technology, the contraction of media outlets isn’t restricted to print.

BuzzFeed Announces Deep Cuts To HuffPost Staff After Acquisition

BuzzFeed acquired HuffPost from Verizon Media in February.

By Sara Boboltz | March 9, 2021 | 12:31 PM EST

BuzzFeed announced layoffs for the HuffPost newsroom on Tuesday, three weeks after acquiring HuffPost from Verizon Media in February.

Hillary Frey, the site’s executive editor, and Louise Roug, the executive editor for international, will be departing in the restructuring effort.

HuffPost Canada will also shutter operations later this month.

A deal between BuzzFeed, HuffPost and Verizon Media was first made public in November. Verizon Media stated at the time that BuzzFeed and HuffPost would operate as “separate, distinct news organizations” with their own websites and editorial staff while BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti led the combined company.

Translation: Verizon Media lied to them!

The HuffPost Union, organized as part of the Writers Guild of America, East, slammed the restructuring effort in a statement:

Today, we learned that 33 of our colleagues — nearly 30% of our unit — will be laid off. We are devastated and infuriated, particularly after an exhausting year of covering a pandemic and working from home. This is also happening less than a month after HuffPost was acquired by BuzzFeed. We never got a fair shot to prove our worth. These layoffs reiterate the importance of forming a union and advocating for our colleagues. We are glad that we are protected by a collective bargaining agreement and that our colleagues will receive severance. Our union will continue fighting to make HuffPost a more just and equitable workplace, including pushing for clear and accountable commitments to hiring and promoting more people of color and for transparency around pay equity.

It really is just so exhausting working from home! 🙂 It means that you have to make your own coffee in the morning rather than having a $7.25 per hour clerk at 7/Eleven doing it for you.

Now let me be clear here: I don’t like seeing anyone losing his job, but let’s be honest here: the HuffPost was as #woke and biased a ‘publication’ as any around. There was no special reporting there, and nothing you can see on their website front page is not available elsewhere — frequently with better writing — for free. And given the contempt the media have for working class men and women in ‘flyover country,’ it’s difficult not to feel some schadenfreude.

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Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw is really just the fall guy (fall gal?). The real problem is Mayor Jim Kenney

March 8th is the 67th day of the year. As of March 8th last year (which was actually the 68th day, 2020 being a leap year), the City of Brotherly Love had seen 67 homicides, or 0.985 killings per day. It was also the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, just before the lockdowns — you remember, 15 days to flatten the curve? — and the school closures and millions of people being thrown out of work.

But on the 67th day of 2021, 89 souls were sent early to their eternal rewards in Philadelphia’s mean streets, 1.328 per day. Doing a little math here, it should take only eight more days, until March 16th, for Philly to reach 100 homicides.

On the 8th, The Philadelphia Inquirer published an OpEd defense of Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw:

Danielle Outlaw put in an untenable position by Kenney administration

In order to ensure the overall safety of Philadelphia’s citizens and their neighborhoods, emergency management in Philadelphia County should be immediately reassessed.

by Joseph Certaine | March 8, 2021

Amid calls last month for Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw to tender her resignation for mishandling the response to summer protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, it’s important to consider that she is not the only person at fault here.

Commissioner Outlaw, who had only been on the job for a few months when the protests began, was put in an untenable position by this administration. From my view, as a former managing director, the Kenney administration allowed the new police commissioner to handle large-scale protests without some of the best practices and institutional knowledge that previously determined how the city handled crisis situations.

At that paragraph break, the Inquirer included the boldfaced blurb:

» READ MORE: Danielle Outlaw’s failure should push Kenney to ask for her resignation — but she didn’t fail alone | Editorial

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.

Well, of course the editors did that! But, as we noted previously, the editors want to punish the puppet, not the puppet master. The editors love them some Democrats, and endorsed Mayor Jim Kenney for re-election in the 2019 primaries, and if they endorsed a different candidate, Anthony Williams, for the Democratic nomination in 2015, it was still a close choice for them between Messrs Williams and Kenney.

The apparently odd notion that many of Philadelphia’s problems stem from Philadelphia’s poor leadership does not seem to have occurred to them. The apparently even odder notion that many of Philadelphia’s problems stem from Philadelphia’s leaderships leftist policies, well, they couldn’t say that, or they’d get another revolt among the #woke in their newsroom.[1]Apparently the idea of firing the forty employees who called out sick in protest, even though the inquirer could replace them all, within a day, from smaller newspapers across the country, is another … Continue reading

Mr Certaine continued, further down:

Why is it that the Kenney administration was not prepared for the uprising that occurred after George Floyd’s murder? Why aren’t questions being asked about preparedness in general? Why is the Fire Commissioner appointed as County Emergency Management Coordinator?

Why? I can answer that question, but the #woke won’t like it. The Kenney administration was not prepared because Mayor Kenney and his minions are far more concerned about leftist political positions than they are with protecting the city and its people.

The last Republican mayor of Philadelphia left office left office on January 7, 1952. Harry Truman was President at the time, and the last two Mayors, Mr Kenney and Michael Nutter, hadn’t been born yet! The City Council is controlled by Democrats, and the labor unions, and that has been the situation for decades. If the policies of the Democrats, if the policies of the liberals actually worked, Philadelphia ought to be an urban paradise, because the wicked ol’ reich-wing conservatives haven’t had any power to obstruct them.

Philadelphia is a disaster zone, a man-made disaster zone, and that’s not going to change anytime soon, because the voters of the city keep electing people who want to make the disaster even worse. Commissioner Outlaw is a convenient fall guy (fall gal?), but she’s still just a puppet.

References

References
↑1 Apparently the idea of firing the forty employees who called out sick in protest, even though the inquirer could replace them all, within a day, from smaller newspapers across the country, is another apparently odd notion which never occurred to the editors. The idea of telling the Special Snowflakes™ to buck up and do their jobs, or they’d find someone who would, that, too, never seemed to happen.
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NY Times Blames Heat And Humidity On You And Your Burger Fixation

See, before fossil fueled vehicles there was no such thing as heat and humidity at the same time. Surely, there was no issue with this during the Global Climate Optimum, the Roman Warm Period, etc, right?

Global Warming’s Deadly Combination: Heat and Humidity

Here’s one more reason the world should aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal of the international Paris Agreement: It will help keep the tropics from becoming a deadly hothouse.

A study published Monday suggests that sharply cutting emissions of greenhouse gases to stay below that limit, which is equivalent to about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit of warming since 1900, will help the tropics avoid episodes of high heat and high humidity — known as extreme wet-bulb temperature, or TW — that go beyond the limits of human survival.

“An important problem of climate research is what a global warming target means for local extreme weather events,” said Yi Zhang, a graduate student in geosciences at Princeton University and the study’s lead author. “This work addresses such a problem for extreme TW.”

The study is in line with other recent research showing that high heat and humidity are potentially one of the deadliest consequences of global warming.

“We know that climate change is making extreme heat and humidity more common,” said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who was not involved in the study. “And both of those things reduce our ability to live in a given climate.”

I thought it was making extreme cold and snow more common? Have these people actually been to the tropics? They’re already rather hot and humid. And humanity did just fine during previous warm periods which were actually much warmer than this one, and the didn’t have the luxury of air conditioning (which the climate cult wants to do away with for Other People, or at least force Other People to keep their AC at a much warmer level), or refrigerators (which the climate cult want to make way more expensive by changing the refrigerants), nor modern housing.

Work or exercise generates heat, and the body has to dissipate it. If the air temperature is higher than body temperature, the main source of cooling is through evaporation of sweat. But if the humidity reaches a point where sweat cannot evaporate, “essentially the body will gain heat,” said Dr. Kenny, who was not involved in the new study.

That stresses the cardiovascular system. “The strain that the heart is facing becomes progressively greater, especially if there’s successive days of heat exposure,” he said.

Kinda like always. Scientific studies mostly do not “suggest”, the offer proof. But, climate studies from the cult are about prognostication. Nothing more, nothing less, all about governmental power increases.

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Biden Refers To Sec Defense as “the guy that runs that outfit over there”

Is it any wonder that Joe’s handlers really won’t allow him to do a press conference? That he won’t do a state of the union? That every appearance elsewhere is tightly scripted and often features his wife Jill right next to him, which is a strange look for the POTUS. One has to wonder just how bad Joe’s supposed speech on the 1 year anniversary since lockdowns began will go on Thursday night, and if it will actually be 100% pre-recorded. Because things like this

Biden’s Incoherence Just Hit Critical Mass, This Is Scary Awful

As we reported two days ago, Joe Biden completely made no sense when he was trying to explain the Wuhan coronavirus relief bill.

It was really bad and it explains why they’re afraid to have him deliver an address to Congress or do any kind of a real solo press conference, because at this point they have to be afraid this is all going to fall apart if he does anything live and this all becomes too obvious to the American people.

But there’s only so long that they can hold this off. And it’s getting worse, as video today revealed. Biden was holding an event to announce the nomination of two female generals to be promoted to combatant commanders. You could even see he was reading a teleprompter. But it didn’t help, he lost it in the middle.

Let’s note that Sec Defense Lloyd Austin and China Joe took their masks off in violation of Joe’s executive order on wearing masks on federal property. You don’t get to take it off just because you’re speaking.

This is just scary awful. He literally forgets the name of his Secretary of Defense, forgets the position, as well as the name of the Pentagon, calling him “the guy that runs that outfit over there.”

“I want to thank the — former general. I keep calling him General — the guy who runs that outfit over there. I want to make sure we thank the Secretary.” Yikes.

Meanwhile you see Kamala Harris standing behind him in the wings – literally – looking like a minder, wondering whether she’s going to have to help him away. Why is she or his wife always having to be there to spell him if he needs it? Biden takes no questions and forgets his mask as well.

Trump made plenty of verbal gaffes, as did Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, etc. These aren’t verbal gaffes, like Joe saying all 7/11s are run by Indians. These are not foot in mouth disease, which Joe is renowned for. This is something much, much worse, a man in serious mental decline.

At this point, it’s no longer a question. Whatever is going on with him medically, whatever you call it, it’s a complete train wreck. He looks in terrible condition and he looks worse every day. It’s horrible what Democrats have done here. They’ve put this guy in, all to hold onto power without giving a darn about how much that might endanger us all or even how it might hurt him. He’s having trouble just reading the teleprompter, let alone making any impromptu comments or responding independently or intelligently to questions. Shame on all the people involved in this and no, don’t even try to claim this is just a “stutter.” This is just despicable. We are all in big trouble now because of what Democrats did here. God help us all.

Remember how Democrats used to claim that Dick Cheney was the puppetmaster during the Bush 43 terms, that he was the one running things? Who’s actually running the White House? Those bets of Kamala replacing Joe at some point are shortening the time frame. I’d be surprised if the guy can last through the summer.

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NY Times Wonders If The Burger Is Nearing Extinction

See, I blame you quite often for your choice to cause the Earth to eat a tasty burger instead of having lettuce (raised organically without GMO’s, of course), beans, and water, or a plant based burger, which is pretty much the same thing, right? Along comes Frank Bruni, who wastes his opinion column with this

Is the Burger Nearing Extinction?
Meat has more competition — and less justification — than ever before.

I liked my patties thin and then I liked them thick. There was the Cheddar period, followed by the Roquefort interregnum. Sesame-seed buns gave way to English muffins as ketchup traded places with special sauce or even, God help me, guacamole, which really was overkill.

But no matter its cradle or condiment, the hamburger was with me for the long haul — I was sure of that.

Until now.

A few days ago I tripped across news that McDonald’s was testing a vegetable-based patty, coming soon to a griddle near you. The McPlant burger, they’re calling it — a McOxymoron if ever I’ve heard one. And McDonald’s is late to the game. Burger King has been selling a meatless Impossible Whopper since 2019. Dunkin’ has been serving a Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich for nearly as long. (snip through other nasty meatless options)

This is the future: not a meatless one — not anytime soon — but one with less meat. I’m now sure of that. It’s the inevitable consequence of alarm over climate change, to which livestock farming contributes significantly. (Gates’s meatless musings were in the context of his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”)

When does the NY Times ban burgers at their giant building which has a massive carbon footprint?

Nature’s Fynd, which has attracted almost $160 million in funding, belongs to the third track: fermentation-derived proteins made from microorganisms, like fungi, that can be coaxed in a meaty, cheesy, creamy or milky direction. This track is arguably the most exciting — in terms of affordability, versatility, environmental gentleness and untapped possibility. There are microbes out there just waiting to feed us.

This opinion piece is actually looking more like an advertisement for Nature’s Fynd, because it spends a lot of time on the company.

Last month, Nature’s Fynd unveiled a direct-order breakfast combo of faux-sausage patties and a mock cream cheese for $14.99 and quickly sold out. It’s restocking and expects to have those products plus others — maybe the yogurt, maybe meatballs — on store shelves later this year. If all goes well, it will expand from there. A burger can’t be too far off.

Wait, what? $14.99? I can get a Big Breakfast (no pancakes) with a chocolate milk at McDonald’s or head to Bonjangle’s for a steak biscuit with egg, fries, and sweet tea, both under $5 before tax. This “eco-friendly” stuff looks expensive.

But given the long love affair that many humans, including this one, have had with animal meat, is there really a chance that these substitutes can make all that much headway in the near future? Thomas Jonas, the chief executive of Nature’s Fynd, said that a conspicuous change in America’s beverage-scape suggests so.

“Ten or 15 years ago, if you were looking at soy milk or almond milk, you were looking at something that was considered to be for health stores and tree-huggers and hippies, right?” he said. Now, both take up considerable space in every supermarket I visit, and there’s nary a coffee shop without one or the other. Nobody, Jonas argued, would have predicted that.

Both soy and almond, especially the latter, use immense amounts of water to produce their product. They’re fads. And, per the tenets of the Cult of Climastrology, bad for climate change. These people are all nuts. They’re aren’t eating or drinking this stuff because they like it but because their cult tells them to.

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Gun Grabbers Set To Vote On Two Gun Control Bills This Week

On the surface these two bills don’t look incredibly burdensome, and, if it wasn’t for knowing what the gun grabbers want to actually do they might have some GOP support. We know that these pieces of legislation are just steps, and might actually have some poison pills

U.S. House set to vote on bills to expand gun background checks

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Wednesday on a pair of bills to expand background checks before gun purchases, two years after a similar House effort failed to make it through the Senate.

The House Rules Committee on Monday will take up the two bills that Democrats, who control the chamber, say are aimed at closing loopholes in the background check system.

One of the bills under consideration would make it illegal for anyone who is not a licensed firearms importer, manufacturer or dealer to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed person without a background check. The bill has exemptions, including gifts from relatives and transfers for hunting, target shooting and self-defense. A version was introduced in the Senate last week.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill, which would extend background checks to gun shows and other sales, would close “dangerous loopholes in the existing background check system to help keep all of our communities safe.”

The other bill extends the initial background check review period to 10 days from three. Under existing law, the sale of guns can proceed if a background check is not completed within three days.

For the first bill, it requires a background check for almost every single transfer, but, at this time there are no requirements to register a firearm, so, how would Los Federales even know? If I sell my gun to my friend, the feds would have no idea unless that friend went on a rampage, then I’d just say they must have stolen it. And, heck, this is already the law in North Carolina.

Raising the review period makes it that much harder for people to get a firearm in a timely manner. Even with the 3 day period it can still take up to two weeks to receive a pistol purchase permit here in Wake County, and that was when we had a Republican sheriff. Make it 10 days and it could take a month.

The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) opposes both bills, arguing the three-day requirement “ensures that the FBI carries out its background check duties in an expedient and responsible manner.”

The NRA-ILA argues the other bill makes it a crime “to simply hand a firearm to another person” and suggests exceptions “are overly complicated and create many traps for unwary gun owners.”

One big question would be “what will Democrats try to stuff into either of these bills? Could be pork, could be unrelated wish list garbage, could be something like requiring registration or ammo taxes.” Regardless, even if passed as written, these are just small steps to the Dems gun grabbing. And the gun grabbers are demanding that Joe Manchin help nuke the filibuster to make this happen. If you have to do that, it tells you all you need to know how partisan this is.