Beet L. Jooz

(GATEWAY PUNDIT) — CBS News and CNN released instant polls taken immediately after President Trump’s State of the Union address with both polls finding 76 percent of those who watched approved of the speech. The CBS poll 72 percent approved of Trump’s immigration proposals while the CNN poll showed 76 percent approval with 59 percent “very positive.”

Peggy Noonan, a former speech writer for President Reagan and no fan of President Trump, praised his speech tonight, saying, “This has been a deeply adept speech in terms of policy. He cut to the muscle on legal and illegal immigration, on abortion and infanticide, on foreign wars. His vow on socialism will be remembered. Great heroes in the balcony, a real American panoply. 1…And good natured with the white jackets, who I see some on twitter are calling the straight jackets. AOC had a rare bad night, looking not spirited, warm and original as usual but sullen, teenaged and at a loss. 2.”

The post 76% approve of Trump speech, say CBS, CNN appeared first on WND.

1. NASA lost contact with two mini Mars spacecraft and they don't know exactly why  BGR
2. NASA's 'WALL-E' satellite mysteriously goes silent and no-one knows why  Fox News
3. After making history, NASA’s tiny deep-space satellites go silent  The Verge
4. Nasa’s real ‘Wall-E’ mysteriously disappears after Mars fly-by – and sister spacecraft ‘Eve’ is missing too  The Sun
5. The first CubeSats ever to visit Mars have gone silent  Astronomy Magazine
6. View full coverage on Google News

He later announced a plan to try to limit access to abortions

'Trump claiming credit for having more women serving in congress than at any time before is like the earthquake taking credit for the most rebuilding of a community,' says critic

Leather manuscript with gold-encrusted religious motifs may have been stolen in Syria, authorities believe

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control ("Mortality in the United States, 2017"), "Life expectancy for the U.S. population declined to 78.6 years in 2017."

If accurate, a decline in life expectancy is a cause for concern because, since the mid nineteenth century, we've come to expect life expectancy in Europe and the Americas to increase at least slightly each year.

Americans, it seems are falling victim to their own material abundance. Easy access to painkillers and recreational drugs has increased deaths due to drug addiction. And obesity is the cause of a multitude of chronic conditions that are sending many Americans to an early grave.

The American life expectancy trend does not reflect global trends, however.

Worldwide, the evidence continues to point toward rising life expectancy in most of the world, with the biggest gains in the poorest countries.

According to data compiled by the World Bank, life expectancy continues to grow the fastest in Africa. During the ten-year period from 2007 to 2016, the largest gains were realized in Zimbabwe, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Botswana, Malawi, and South Africa. The gains in years ranged from 13 years over the period in Zimbabwe to nearly 10 years in South Africa. Wealthy and mid-level countries saw gains during this period as well, including Switzerland and Mexico, where life expectancy increased 1.1 years and 1.4 years, respectively.

Indeed, the continued gains should surprise no one who keeps up with global trends in health. Globally, access to sanitation and clean water has improved substantially while extreme poverty, malnourishment, and child mortality have all declined. This has especially been the case in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, where some of the worst poverty can be found.

Why the Global-Warming Panic?

Oddly, however, you won't hear much about this in the context of the climate change debate.

For years - as life expectancy numbers have continued to rise - pundits and researchers have repeatedly attempted to claim that climate change has led to - or will soon lead to - declines in overall life and health.

The research has pointed out any number of possible causes of additional mortality, whether they betemperature extremes or natural disasters. Last month, CNN used data from a Lancet report to promote anornate and unconvincing theory that obesity and climate change are intimately related.

Moreover, The New Republic announced in 2015 that climate change "devastates food security, nutrition, and water safety." Yet, the data shows that none of these things have been in any way "devastated" over the past decade. In fact, the indicators are all better now than where they were ten years ago.1

This hasn't stopped researches from trying to connect a myriad of health problems directly to climate change. The New Republic continues:

It [a 2012 report on climate change] linked 400,000 deaths worldwide to climate change each year, projecting deaths to increase to over 600,000 per year by 2030.

But how do they arrive at these numbers? They're achieved by claiming a variety of diseases are indirectly caused by climate change. Given that most mortality is now caused by diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver failure and other chronic conditions, a disease-climate change connection is probably the best hope climate-change researchers have in blaming any significant increases on mortality numbers on climate change.2

But even if they could make a connection here, big numbers such as those used in the New Republic article don't provide a picture of net mortality. That is, it's easy to blame large numbers of deaths on climate change while ignoring the many ways that mortality rates and life expectancy are continually being improved in our industrialized fossil-fuel powered modern society.

For example, even The Lancet report predicted (in a report released in November of last year) "continued progress in improving life expectancy." The biggest gains are to be found in poorer countries:

So, even in spite of the continued presence of chronic diseases, malaria, auto accidents, and the many ways that human beings meet their ends, the net gain in life expectancy continues to be positive.

Yes, it seems like a very big number when researchers claim "400,000 deaths worldwide" should be blamed on climate change. But that number means little if we're not comparing to gains in life expectancy that are occurring at the same time.

And this is especially relevant since the very factors that are blamed for climate change — such as a the high productivity levels and growing standards of living made possible by an industrialized modern society — are the very things that also improve life expectancy. Greater access to insulated housing, air conditioning, heating, medical care, medical research, refrigeration, and clean water are all enhanced by modern industrial economies.

In other words, for every person supposedly killed by a climate-change-related disease, there is another person saved by modern medical care or modern water treatment systems.

This is why researchers continue to assume that life expectancy will continue to grow. Even if some causes of mortality increase as a result of climate change, these changes will be accompanied by gains in life expectancy for other reasons.

Admittedly, significant changes in food availability perhaps have the highest potential for significantly impacting life expectancy predictions. But even then, it would be necessary to connect food availability to climate change itself. After all, malnutrition issues in Africa are heavily impacted by economic and political problems caused by governments — such as civil wars and dysfunctional economies. Clearly, it would be nonsensical to point to the current situation in Venezuela and claim the current shortages there are significantly due to a climate-change problem. It's not enough to point out there are malnutrition problems. It's also necessary to show the exact extent to which climate change has been a significant driver.

Nor can much of a case be made for claims that climate change causes more deadly natural disasters.

The media has attempted to create the picture that climate-change-related natural disasters are worse than ever, but this case can only be made in terms of dollar amounts. This is because, at least in wealthy parts of the world, people are putting more expensive cars, homes, and other amenities in harm's way. A street full of flood-ruined automobiles is far more expensive today than in the past.

In most of the world, though, the cost of climate-change-related natural disasters is much lower — in terms of human life — than in the past. The evidence points toward sizable declines in deaths due to natural disasters:

This should not be surprising since modern economies and higher standards of living make it easier for populations to take shelter and get out of harm's way. Vehicles and equipment needed for medical triage are more readily available, and there is greater surplus wealth to deal with large temporary relocations of populations.

The Lancet report also notes that natural-disaster related deaths are unlikely to be relevant to life expectancy predictions:

Predicted impacts in other studies on extreme weather-related deaths and heat wave deaths are not large enough to have much impact on global life expectancy.

So, while journalists like to talk about how many people climate change will supposedly kill this year, the fact remains that the net gains in life expectancy continue to be positive. In response to this, of course, advocates for carbon taxes and other climate-related regulations would likely argue that life expectancy would increase even faster where it not for global warming. There are at least two problems with this claim.

• First of all, it neglects the fact that gains in life expectancy in recent decades are primarily a result of our fossil-fuel enabled modern economies. So, those who want to rein in economic activity in the name of climate-improvement would be destroying the very thing that's improved the quality of life for billions already.

• Second, the anti-climate-change research would have to show that carbon taxes and similar policies will both reduce climate-change and increase access to better medical care, housing, and clean water. This has certainly not been done. In fact, as Robert Murphy has noted, we have every reason to believe the costs of implementation of anti-climate change regimes will be very high.

'Bad policy and bad politics'

'They didn’t even give me the bad news'

'Huge optics problem for the Democrat party'

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday pushed back against President Trump's declaration in his State of the Union address that "if there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation."...

Tuesday's State of the Union address drew nearly 50 million viewers, which makes it the most-watched speech President Donald Trump has given since taking office.

Via StormCloudsGathering.com,

The U.S. and its allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther from the truth...

On January 23rd, 2019 Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president, and called on the armed forces to disobey the government. Very few had ever heard of this man — he had never actually run for president. Guaidó is the head of Venezuela’s national assembly; a position very similar to speaker of the house.

Within minutes of this declaration U.S. president Donald Trump took to twitter and recognized Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela; writing off the administration of Nicolas Maduro as “illegitimate”. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed by urging Venezuela’s military to “restore democracy”, affirming that the US would back Mr Guaidó in his attempts to establish a government. They also promised 20 million dollars in “humanitarian” aid. To put this into context, Trump is on record saying he was “Not Going to Rule Out a Military Option“ in Venezuela.

The citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the illegitimate Maduro regime. Today, I have officially recognized the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela. https://t.co/WItWPiG9jK

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019

This is roughly the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi or Mitch Mcconnell declaring themselves president, calling on the military to overthrow Trump, and having China pledge to fund and assist the effort.

Now if you happen to be in the camp that wouldn’t actually mind seeing Donald Trump forcibly removed from office, I would encourage you to imagine replacing Trump’s name with Obama, Bush, Merkel or Macron.

You know there have been a lot of protests in France, and the Yellow Vests have demanded that Macron step down… Why don’t we restore democracy in Paris?

If Donald Trump can decide on a whim which leaders are legitimate, and which will be deposed-by-tweet, what kind of precedent does that set? And who’s next? The grand irony here, is that the exact same media outlets who blasted Trump as a “illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud”, are now calling his regime change ambitions in Venezuela “bold”. Not only have they refused to criticize the move, but in fact they’re hailing this as a “potential foreign policy victory” and “a political win at home”.

Let’s get this straight. Trump is an illegitimate president and should be removed from office (because of Russian interference), but you’re perfectly comfortable with that same illegitimate president toppling foreign governments via twitter?

Though support for Guaidó was quickly parroted by Washington’s most dependable allies, and lauded by virtually every western media outlet, the Venezuelan military responded by condemning the coup, and reconfirmed their loyalty to Maduro.

Russia, China and Turkey also issued statements condemning U.S. meddling, and warned against further interference. By January 25th, reports were flowing in that as many as 400 Russian military contractors were already on the ground. (Well that escalated quickly.)

That same day Pompeo announced that Elliott Abrams — the man who oversaw regime change wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, was deeply involved in the Iran Contra scandal, and who was an architect of both the Iraq war and the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela (which culminated in the kidnapping of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez) — would be in charge of the effort to “restore democracy and prosperity to their country”.

So why do you suppose Washington really wants regime change in Venezuela? You’d have to be pretty naive to buy the “democracy and prosperity” drivel.

The Trump administration slams Maduro as authoritarian, while cuddling up to Mohammad Bin Salman, a mass murdering dictator known to dismember reporters he doesn’t like.

They talk about how the Venezuelan economy is in shambles, but by their own admission (and according to the U.N.) U.S. sanctions have played a significant role in creating that situation.

Might the real motive have something to do with the fact that Venezuela is sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and that Western oil companies were kicked out of the country in 2007?

Let’s ask Donald Trump:

“With respect to Libya… I’m interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don’t take the oil no interest. We have to have… Look, if we have wars, we have to win the war. What we do is take over the country and hand the keys to people who don’t like us. I’ll tell you what… Iraq, 100% Iran takes over Iraq after we leave, and what really happens with Iraq is they want the oil fields. And I have it on very good authority that Iran probably won’t even be shooting a bullet because they are getting along better with the Iraqi leaders better than we are. After all of those lives, and after all of the money we spent. And if that’s going to happen we take the oil.”

Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry and used the proceeds to fund his socialist vision for the country. Now you could make the case that this vision was flawed, and horribly mismanaged, however he had strong public support for this mandate; so much support in fact, that when U.S. backed coup plotters kidnapped Hugo Chavez in 2002 crowds took to the streets en mass and he was quickly reinstated.

Which brings us back to Juan Guaidó. There’s not much information available on Mr. Guaidó, but if you look up the man who tapped him to lead the opposition party Voluntad Popular you’ll find Washington’s fingerprints all over the place. Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Voluntad Popular, orchestrated the protests in 2002 that led up to the kidnapping of Hugo Chavez.

It’s no secret that the U.S. has been funding Voluntad Popular for years. In fact you can still find documents on state.gov which admit to routing at least 5 million dollars to “support political competition-building efforts”. Nor is it a secret that U.S. officials met with coup plotters in 2018. But if there were any doubt that Guaidó is Washington’s puppet, Mike Pence’s call the day before the coup assuring U.S. support should lay that to rest.

“But Maduro’s a bad leader!”

Compared to who? Which paragon of good governance will we refer to as the model? Trump? Theresa May? Angel Merkel? Macron? Take your time.

This isn’t democracy, it’s a neo-colonial power grab. Juan Guaidó never ran for the office he claimed, and the fact that he directly colluded with a foreign nation to overthrow the man who was elected president marks him as a traitor.

Juan Guaidó is a puppet. If installed, he will serve the interests who bought his ticket. Venezuela’s oil industry will be privatized, and the profits will be sucked out of the country by western corporations.

What’s happening in Venezuela right now is a replay of the 1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile, where the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, was overthrown, and replaced with the military dictatorship of Pinochet. Pinochet murdered over 3000 political opponents during his rule, and tortured over 30,000, but he was friendly to American business interests so Washington looked the other way.

One could make the case that Maduro is incompetent. One could make the case that his economic theories are trash. (The same can be said for the haircuts in suits calling for his removal.) But the reality of the matter is that unless you happen to be a Venezuelan citizen, how Venezuela is governed is actually none of your business.

Given how things turned out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine you’d think people would get the hint. When it comes to spreading democracy, you suck. U.S. regime change operations have left nothing but chaos, death and destruction in their wake. If you want to make the world a better place, maybe, just maybe, you should start at home.

With so many other Democrats moving forward while he’s hung back, it’s been looking for a while as if former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is taking himself out of contention for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Or out-ish, anyway.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he agrees with President Trump's call to end Democrat-led investigations into the administration on Wednesday."Look we will never give up our oversight role, but...

(JERUSALEM POST) — Dutch police arrested five soccer supporters for allegedly singing an increasingly popular chant about burning Jews at a match .

The incident, which reflects both growing resolve to punish chanters and the proliferation of antisemitic sports chants, took place near the De Kuip Stadium in Rotterdam on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27.

“My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews ’cause Jews burn the best,” the suspects chanted, according to the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, a Dutch watchdog on antisemitism known as CIDI. It called the chant a “recurring problem” in a statement.

The post Sports fans arrested for chanting 'Jews burn best' appeared first on WND.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded Wednesday to President Donald Trump’s call for legislation to ban late-term abortion by saying it’s a “sad thing.” “It’s really quite a sad thing when you know that we’ll be talking about something that applies to the health and life — health and ability to have other children […]

What counts as a 'social issue'?

Just as Ralph Northam was starting to recede from the news cycle… this happened.

In the span of a few minutes, news broke that Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) wore blackface in college (which he admitted to), and that Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) privately said “fuck that bitch” about the woman accusing him of sexual assault (which his office is denying).

Thus sending Politics Twitter into a shocked frenzy:

have we tried unplugging Virginia and then plugging it back in again?

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) February 6, 2019

Props to Virginia for somehow making Terry McAuliffe, a guy who left his wife in the delivery room to attend a political fundraiser, look like a wholesome model for public service.

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) February 6, 2019

Exclusive footage of the Virginia Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/3jsM284gxy

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 6, 2019

Quick Update on the Virginia situation:
– VA Governor: admitted blackface problem
– VA Lt Gov: accusation of sexual assault
– VA AG: admitted blackface
problem
– Shawna: Googling, again, Virginia governor line of succession

— Shawna Thomas (@Shawna) February 6, 2019

Line of succession in VA, for those keeping track at home:

Governor admits wearing blackface
Lt. Governor accused of sexual assault
Attorney General admits wearing blackface

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) February 6, 2019

VA pols admitting blackface pic.twitter.com/tWyJoqXml1

— Steadman (@AsteadWesley) February 6, 2019

I cut my teeth covering what I thought was the craziest political state, Florida

Virginia now holds the crown

Two blackface scandals involving the VA gov & attorney general nearly defy belief, except for the fact that this was the Confederacy's capitalhttps://t.co/82WlY1lA2l

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) February 6, 2019

VA AG Mark Herring, 2nd in line for governorship, apologizes for wearing blackface when he was 19. Gov & Lt Gov under fire. Can anybody run this commonwealth?

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) February 6, 2019

Virginia LG Justin Fairfax tweeted a statement about his sexual assault allegation LITERALLY THE SAME MINUTE Herring tweeted his about blackface: 11:38 a.m. pic.twitter.com/P4uyApXZxH

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) February 6, 2019

Herring said on Saturday that it was "no longer possible" for Northam to serve as governor after his blackface admission.

*stares directly into camera*https://t.co/WGvbdPFBb2

— Alexi McCammond (@alexi) February 6, 2019

congratulations to virginia on its new job as florida

— Peter Finocchiaro (@PLFino) February 6, 2019

“We are pleased to announce that Milkshake Duck has been named governor of Virginia.”

::ten minutes later::

“Welp."

— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) February 6, 2019

We go live to the Virginia Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/3iEBGGf8iy

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) February 6, 2019

"we didn't start the fire" but for virginia politicians besieged by scandal

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) February 6, 2019

Virginia politics right now pic.twitter.com/VPMuHt7vpT

— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) February 6, 2019

What’s the Matter With Virginia? I mean, really.
How tough was it to keep black shoe polish off your face or stay out of klan robes as a young man in that state in the 1980s? https://t.co/AyO1BbBbE8

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 6, 2019

Just spit-balling here.. but this seems unlikely to end well….. https://t.co/eOfM8ueX7P

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) February 6, 2019

This story is https://t.co/TnfojnNxEW

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 6, 2019

President Donald Trump‘s son, Donald Trump Jr., also weighed in:

OMG! What’s wrong with the Virginia Democratic Party? First the governor, then the Lt Gov’s problems now the third in line, the states Attorney General, another Democrat has a “blackface” problem!

It’s almost like Democrats are totally full of crap! Disgusting!

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 6, 2019

[image via screengrab]