I have an uncle who, civic-minded man that he is, had a foolproof way to get out of jury duty. What he would do was slip in, somewhere during voir dire, that he believed anyone the police dragged in was probably guilty.

He’d reliably be driving home before lunchtime.

Believing someone to be somehow guilty before any formal legal process has begun — or, indeed, even considered — seems to have worked in the opposite fashion on the House Judiciary Committee.

In announcing he wouldn’t be attending Donald Trump’s inauguration, New York Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler basically implied the then-president elect was the Muscovite Candidate: “He was legally elected, but the Russian weighing-in on the election, the Russian attempt to hack the election and, frankly, the FBI’s weighing-in on the election, I think, makes his election illegitimate, puts an asterisk next to his name,” Nadler said in January 2017.

So Trump was legally elected, but kinda sorta not really. Any theory the media drags in about Trump’s illegitimacy is probably true. So clearly, Nadler had disqualified himself for the position on the House Judiciary Committee that he so covete– oh no, J/K, the Democrats actually made him chairman when they took over the House after the 2018 midterms.

TRENDING: Giuliani: If I Profited from Ukraine, I’d Have To Disclose It to My ‘Hopefully Soon-to-Be Ex-Wife’ Who’d Get Half

And now, a man who banged the impeachment drums like Keith Moon long before a single MSNBC viewer knew who Gordon Sondland was is about to take over the impeachment inquiry from Adam Schiff. So if you think things were bad before, hoo doggy.

“The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week in the swift-moving impeachment investigation into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, the panel announced Tuesday,” The Hill reported.

“Behind Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee will hear from legal scholars as Democrats weigh whether the evidence turned up in their weeks-long impeachment inquiry warrants the drafting of articles aimed at removing the president from office.”

Gee, and I wonder what position they’ll take?

I haven’t been on the edge of my seat this much since I watched “Miracle” and couldn’t stand the suspense over whether the U.S. was going to hold onto that 4-3 lead in that hockey game against the Soviets during the 1980 Winter Olympics. Did you know that movie was based on real events? Wild stuff.

Neither Nadler nor his aides will reveal which constitutional scholars are going to be testifying, but at last check the betting odds that any of them will be members of the Federalist Society remain low.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman has written to the White House and requested that they participate in the hearings, promising “a fair and informative process.”

“I am hopeful that you and your counsel will opt to participate,” he added.

Yeah. The hearing is being called “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.” I wouldn’t be waiting for that RSVP.

RELATED: Schiff Issues Veiled Warning to Republicans Against Mentioning Whistleblower’s Name

“We expect to discuss the constitutional framework through which the House may analyze the evidence gathered in the present inquiry,” Nadler wrote. “We will also discuss whether your alleged actions warrant the House’s exercising its authority to adopt articles of impeachment.”

“The Committee intends this hearing to serve as an opportunity to discuss the historical and constitutional basis of impeachment, as well as the Framers’ intent and understanding of terms like ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’” the letter added.

This is the panel that’s supposed to decide whether or not Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were impeachable. It’s being run on a vulgarized fast track by a guy who thought Trump was “illegitimate” from the start. Yet, if Trump’s doesn’t participate, Nadler says, there’s no room to complain about fairness.

“At base, the president has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process,” Nadler said in a statement.

Participate in our rigged process or don’t complain how the process is rigged. Sounds about right.

If this is the kind of logic we used in other proceedings, my uncle would have made a fine jury foreman.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

As brush fires ravage parts of Australia, an animal native to the nation may be suffering worst of all.

Australian Koala Foundation Chairman Deborah Tabart is estimating that more than 1,000 koalas have been killed in the fires.

What’s worse is that she believes 80 percent of their habitat has been destroyed as a result of the fires wrecking an already compromised ecosystem.

Even when the fires are out, eucalyptus trees, which are the main source of food for the koalas, will not grow back for some time in the devastated areas, leading to starvation for the koalas.

People are doing what they can, from rescuing injured koalas to creating a GoFundMe page to help them in the future.

TRENDING: Top Democrat Adam Smith Reveals That Devin Nunes Is Their Next GOP Target for Investigation

A good Samaritan this kind lady who risked her life to save another👏👏

This woman saved a koala badly burnt in our Australia’s recent bush fires by taking the shirt off her back and wrapping the precious animal in it. 🍂🐨🍂

Awesome lady, thank you! 🙏🏻❤ pic.twitter.com/Sg2Q9sqdhQ

— Angie Karan Ⓥ 🌱🐾 (@angie_karan) November 20, 2019

The Australian Koala Foundation has now labeled the animals “functionally extinct.”

Functional extinction is a precise term that denotes when a species is no longer a major player in its ecological role and the long-term viability of the species is in doubt, according to Forbes.

Use of the term has prompted some pushback, according to The New York Times.

“What is particularly frustrating about the term ‘functional extinction’ is it indicates a population that is basically past the point of no return, so it means that nothing really can be done,” said Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.

“That might seem like scientists quibbling over terms or trying to argue for nerdy levels of precision, but a strong statement like that should mean something,” she said.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said there is no question that the koala population is in dire straits.

“They’re in a lot of trouble, and they need our care and our help if they’re going to survive,” he said.

RELATED: Firefighters Save Man’s House, Then Leave Note Confessing to ‘Theft’

But even he took issue with Tabart’s depiction of the crisis.

“I think it’s premature to call them functionally extinct,” he said. “That would almost suggest that we give up hope, and I don’t think it’s at that point yet.”

Tabart, however, said her comments on the severity of the koalas’ plight are accurate.

“I have driven to pretty much every part of the country,” she said. “I absolutely know that there’s not one koala population that’s safe. I don’t care what anyone says. I have been there. I’ve seen it. I’ve written about it. I’ve been dedicated to this job for 31 years.”

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

There’s a lot of talk about Chick-fil-A. Most of it is generated by the #fakenews establishment that wants nothing more than to demonize an organization that, historically, has publicly professed its Christian faith that is inseparable from its business practices.

“[We are] based on biblical principles, asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we have. And He has blessed us."

Those were the words of Chick-fil-A’s CEO, Dan Cathy, to the Baptist Press back in 2012 as he confirmed his biblical belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. 

Days later, a disgruntled activist violently took out his disagreement with Chick-fil-A by trying to kill as many people as possible inside of Family Research Council’s (FRC) D.C. headquarters. According to the FBI interrogation, Floyd Lee Corkins chose FRC as a target because “Southern Poverty Law [Center] lists anti-gay groups. I found them online.” So, Corkins stormed inside FRC’s building, armed with a backpack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and 50 rounds of ammunition to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard."

His heinous attack was stopped by FRC’s security guard, Leo Johnson—a hero who was shot while stopping the terrorist attack. In 2012, Corkins was sentenced to prison for 25 years.

In 2017 Chick-fil-A donated money to the same corrupt SPLC that still outrageously lists FRC as a “hate group.”

The Chick-fil-A Foundation’s recent announcement about its future funding again reaffirmed its redirection and capitulation. It just so happens that the same three groups targeted for years by LGBT organizations as anti-LGBT “hate groups” just happened to be the same ones that would no longer be funded: The Salvation Army, Paul Anderson Youth Home and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Chick-fil-A’s press release acknowledges that these groups were “characterized as anti-LGBT groups” but never dispels that. They give excuses, basically, as to why they had funded these three remarkable organizations but would no longer continue to do so.

For those defending Chick-fil-A and pretending we haven’t witnessed their progression of capitulation, the Salvation Army sees it for what it is, stating in a press release: “We’re saddened to learn that a corporate partner has felt it necessary to divert funding to other hunger, education and homelessness organizations.” The Salvation Army does all three on a massive scale. But they don’t espouse an LGBT ideology.

In explaining Chick-fil-A’s funding decisions, Rodney Bullard, VP of Corporate Responsibility and Executive Director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation said: “We don’t want our intent and our work to be encumbered by someone else’s politics or cultural war. If something gets in the way of our mission, that is something that we are mindful of and cognizant of.”

Has their mission drifted way to the Left? Out with organizations that do not espouse a pro-homosexuality ideology and in with those who do, like Covenant House. Don’t let the Catholic association fool you, though. Covenant House, a homeless shelter for youth, takes pride in its promotion of all things LGBTQ. They even marched in the New York “Gay Pride” parade to show their inclusivity cred. Guess the Salvation Army (which admittedly has an issue with partially supporting abortion in cases of rape, incest and “life and health” of the mother) should’ve flown some co-opted rainbow colors to keep their hundreds of thousands in funding. Whoops. Looks like Covenant is the new Salvation. 

Chick-fil-A funds the deeply political YWCA, a radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ organization that repeatedly partners with Planned Parenthood. 

Chick-fil-A also funds the DC-based New Leaders Council that identifies as a “hub of progressive millennial thought leadership” which exists to “support one another along their individual path to a more progressive political and cultural landscape.”

Chick-fil-A has given a sizable donation ($50k) to The Pace Center for Girls, yet another pro-abortion organization. The education and advocacy group featured radical pro-abortion feminist Gloria Steinem (the “I Had An Abortion” activist who declared that birthing children is the “fundamental cause of climate change”) as their keynote speaker for their most recent girls’ Summit.

Or, how about Usher’s New Look, R&B star Usher Raymond IV’s liberal non-profit? The group’s Disruptivator Summit is all about progressive community organizing on pivotal social issues, and Chick-fil-A funds it ($38,700 in 2017). 

Chick-fil-A also gives tens of thousands to Chris 180 ($27,500 in 2017, $25k in 2019), a pro-LGBT behavioral health and child welfare service agency. The organization boasts of being awarded the “Leader in Supporting and Serving LGBT Families and Youth from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC).” Nothing promotes human degradation quite like the pro-abortion HRC—the multi-million dollar LGBT powerhouse that recently pushed for the legalization of prostitution in D.C. 

You can always love and serve the broken without affirming the brokenness. 

And then there’s Junior Achievement (JA), which inarguably does some phenomenal work with education and entrepreneurship. They’re the recipients of hundreds of thousands a year from Chick-fil-A. In 2016, though, JA joined a coalition (Georgia Prospers) of pro-LGBT organizations in their “Too Busy to Hate” campaign to politically oppose religious liberty legislation (specifically the First Amendment Defense Act) from passing in Georgia. 

So much for “not being encumbered by someone else’s politics or cultural war.” These groups, and many more funded by Chick-fil-A, are clearly political on the Left. Of course Chick-fil-A funds a lot of great initiatives, but they’re being publicly dishonest about their corporate evolution. And the millions of families who’ve supported them over the years, because of the fast food chain’s principled stand, deserve to know the COWardice that the company has shown in the face of LGBT activism. 

Beware Global Warming!  Not because it will consume our planet in fire but rather because it is a Trojan horse concealing a much more real threat, one that will consume our economy, our democracy and our way of life.

Ever since Michael Mann’s fantasy “hockey stick” temperature graph was thoroughly discredited and since Climategate outed institutional scale phony climate data a decade ago, the existence of actual global warming has been rendered null.  The same is true for the impact of CO2 on climate.  No experiment can confirm its impact, models can’t predict its influence and collateral data (sea level, animal populations etc.) do not confirm a correlation.

The conclusion must be that man-made climate change and the need to eliminate carbon emissions to avoid climate change simply do not exist. None of the narrative is based on objective science.  It is a massive hoax and maybe the biggest con job in history.  All the classic elements of a con job are present; the victim (mostly liberals and other virtue signalers), the play (appeal to environmental issues), the rope (emotional foundation and persuasion – the world is coming to an end), the convincer (the way it will work to your benefit – eliminate carbon and all is well) and so on.  The dangled payoff is saving the world.  As in all con jobs, the con artist gets what he wants and the mark gets nothing.

Like all cons, this one looks good to the rubes.  Who doesn’t want to save the world and breathe clean air?  The basic problem, even if the basic mechanism of eliminating CO2 to stop increasing temperatures were real, is that it would not achieve what its adherents think it would.  Let’s look at some facts.

What if we could reduce CO2 emissions?  The U.S. produces only 15 percent of the carbon emissions in the world.  The rest we have no control over.  That leaves 85 percent of emissions in place after spending trillions of dollars.

Most, if not all, of the big proposals for reduction of Carbon emissions by reducing CO2 are simply impossible, impractical or ineffective.  Eliminating coal fired electrical generating plants in the US is just one example.  The cost of shutting down the US coal industry with the attendant loss of jobs and downstream business would be astronomical. What impact would it have globally? Seventy three percent of India’s electricity is generated from coal fired power plants.  India has no plans to reduce its production and consumption of coal.  Coal India Ltd. will produce 660 million tons of coal next year, increasing to one billion tons by 2022 – 2023. 

In other words, if the U.S. destroyed its economy and eliminated all coal fired electricity production, whatever CO2 reduction that might net would be offset by the increase in coal consumption by India alone.  The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, the largest civil engineering project in the world, will include 700 new coal fired power stations.  When they are all in operation, these plants could consume an incredible 1.8 billion tons of coal a year.  So why are the US and the UK risking catastrophe in their economies when whatever they eliminate will be more than replaced elsewhere?

This, then, brings us to the final piece of the global warming con – what role do the Green New Deal and related decarbonization programs play?

The components of the GND are staggering in magnitude, cost and audacity.  They include such “modest” proposals as shutting down the entire coal, oil and natural gas industry, requiring all housing and buildings to be rebuilt and reinsulated, eliminating all gasoline cars and trucks, forcing populations to relocate to urban areas, controlling population by selective abortion and it just goes on.

The reality of many variants of the Green New Deal and all the other absolutely preposterous proposals is that they are not even intended to address environmental issues.  Note how often you see the word “justice” associated with certain proposals.  Social justice, environmental justice, economic justice and racial justice to name a few.  These are code words that lead one back to One World Government socialist theology and redistributive economics.  The idea, in a nutshell, is to transfer enormous sums of money and other resources from first world countries in the West to third world and developing nations.  Rest assured that a significant portion will find its way into the pockets of the charlatans promoting this con through choking the energy needs of the industrialized nations and transferring that wealth to developing nations.  This is done by socialist redistribution in the name of the nebulous concept of sustainable development. 

It was, and is, necessary to create the “existential crisis” of global warming in order to scare the multitudes into following the socialist elites blindly down the path of economic destruction to global governance.

Only in the recent round of hysteria have the concepts of Marxist redistribution been introduced and the whole concept of environmental concern been taken over by a political agenda.

If one is to examine the GND closely, it speaks of five goals and three of them are solely focused on some type of social or economic “justice” rather than an environmental outcome.  The two environmental goals use language quoted from UN literature.  Much of the current virulently Marxist bent of the GND is related directly to the 1992 UN Earth Summit from which came the infamous Agenda 21 that pledged “to change the way people live, eat, learn and communicate, all in the name of saving the earth from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming.”  So, tying all of what we have said together let’s see what we have.

• There is no demonstrable or provable pattern of net temperature change over a millennium so it cannot be said that we’re confronted by catastrophic global warming or cooling. 
• While CO2 may have some impact on global temperature, its exact influence is not known and cannot be accurately modeled.  In any case, CO2 is not the sole or dominant driver of global temperature so that controlling CO2, if it could be done, would have little predictable impact on temperature.
• No accurate predictive model of global temperature exists because the system is too complex and too many variables are either unknown or their influences and relationships are not understood.
• If spending untold trillions of dollars on reducing CO2 in this country actually did reduce CO2 output, that reduction would be offset many times over by increases from developing nations such as China and India that have every intention of dramatically increasing their CO2 output.
• Reliable engineering calculations show very convincingly that the chance of replacing carbon energy sources with renewable energy is exactly zero. 
• The current global warming narrative has been hijacked by Marxist One World Order extremists to press their revolution to destroy industrialized nations and to redistribute wealth to developing nations and create a world government.

Within the above context, we can see much more clearly that powerful Marxist forces forces are using the construct of a manufactured climate crisis, populist environmental language, and public fear to prosecute their political agenda which is to destroy the Western world and create a One World Order, nirvana to a Marxist, where a group of elites run the world.  That’s the con.

Graphic credit:Pixabay

Dave Ball is the author of conservative political commentary, a guest on political talk shows, an elected official and a county party official.

Beware Global Warming!  Not because it will consume our planet in fire but rather because it is a Trojan horse concealing a much more real threat, one that will consume our economy, our democracy and our way of life.

Ever since Michael Mann’s fantasy “hockey stick” temperature graph was thoroughly discredited and since Climategate outed institutional scale phony climate data a decade ago, the existence of actual global warming has been rendered null.  The same is true for the impact of CO2 on climate.  No experiment can confirm its impact, models can’t predict its influence and collateral data (sea level, animal populations etc.) do not confirm a correlation.

The conclusion must be that man-made climate change and the need to eliminate carbon emissions to avoid climate change simply do not exist. None of the narrative is based on objective science.  It is a massive hoax and maybe the biggest con job in history.  All the classic elements of a con job are present; the victim (mostly liberals and other virtue signalers), the play (appeal to environmental issues), the rope (emotional foundation and persuasion – the world is coming to an end), the convincer (the way it will work to your benefit – eliminate carbon and all is well) and so on.  The dangled payoff is saving the world.  As in all con jobs, the con artist gets what he wants and the mark gets nothing.

Like all cons, this one looks good to the rubes.  Who doesn’t want to save the world and breathe clean air?  The basic problem, even if the basic mechanism of eliminating CO2 to stop increasing temperatures were real, is that it would not achieve what its adherents think it would.  Let’s look at some facts.

What if we could reduce CO2 emissions?  The U.S. produces only 15 percent of the carbon emissions in the world.  The rest we have no control over.  That leaves 85 percent of emissions in place after spending trillions of dollars.

Most, if not all, of the big proposals for reduction of Carbon emissions by reducing CO2 are simply impossible, impractical or ineffective.  Eliminating coal fired electrical generating plants in the US is just one example.  The cost of shutting down the US coal industry with the attendant loss of jobs and downstream business would be astronomical. What impact would it have globally? Seventy three percent of India’s electricity is generated from coal fired power plants.  India has no plans to reduce its production and consumption of coal.  Coal India Ltd. will produce 660 million tons of coal next year, increasing to one billion tons by 2022 – 2023. 

In other words, if the U.S. destroyed its economy and eliminated all coal fired electricity production, whatever CO2 reduction that might net would be offset by the increase in coal consumption by India alone.  The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, the largest civil engineering project in the world, will include 700 new coal fired power stations.  When they are all in operation, these plants could consume an incredible 1.8 billion tons of coal a year.  So why are the US and the UK risking catastrophe in their economies when whatever they eliminate will be more than replaced elsewhere?

This, then, brings us to the final piece of the global warming con – what role do the Green New Deal and related decarbonization programs play?

The components of the GND are staggering in magnitude, cost and audacity.  They include such “modest” proposals as shutting down the entire coal, oil and natural gas industry, requiring all housing and buildings to be rebuilt and reinsulated, eliminating all gasoline cars and trucks, forcing populations to relocate to urban areas, controlling population by selective abortion and it just goes on.

The reality of many variants of the Green New Deal and all the other absolutely preposterous proposals is that they are not even intended to address environmental issues.  Note how often you see the word “justice” associated with certain proposals.  Social justice, environmental justice, economic justice and racial justice to name a few.  These are code words that lead one back to One World Government socialist theology and redistributive economics.  The idea, in a nutshell, is to transfer enormous sums of money and other resources from first world countries in the West to third world and developing nations.  Rest assured that a significant portion will find its way into the pockets of the charlatans promoting this con through choking the energy needs of the industrialized nations and transferring that wealth to developing nations.  This is done by socialist redistribution in the name of the nebulous concept of sustainable development. 

It was, and is, necessary to create the “existential crisis” of global warming in order to scare the multitudes into following the socialist elites blindly down the path of economic destruction to global governance.

Only in the recent round of hysteria have the concepts of Marxist redistribution been introduced and the whole concept of environmental concern been taken over by a political agenda.

If one is to examine the GND closely, it speaks of five goals and three of them are solely focused on some type of social or economic “justice” rather than an environmental outcome.  The two environmental goals use language quoted from UN literature.  Much of the current virulently Marxist bent of the GND is related directly to the 1992 UN Earth Summit from which came the infamous Agenda 21 that pledged “to change the way people live, eat, learn and communicate, all in the name of saving the earth from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming.”  So, tying all of what we have said together let’s see what we have.

• There is no demonstrable or provable pattern of net temperature change over a millennium so it cannot be said that we’re confronted by catastrophic global warming or cooling. 
• While CO2 may have some impact on global temperature, its exact influence is not known and cannot be accurately modeled.  In any case, CO2 is not the sole or dominant driver of global temperature so that controlling CO2, if it could be done, would have little predictable impact on temperature.
• No accurate predictive model of global temperature exists because the system is too complex and too many variables are either unknown or their influences and relationships are not understood.
• If spending untold trillions of dollars on reducing CO2 in this country actually did reduce CO2 output, that reduction would be offset many times over by increases from developing nations such as China and India that have every intention of dramatically increasing their CO2 output.
• Reliable engineering calculations show very convincingly that the chance of replacing carbon energy sources with renewable energy is exactly zero. 
• The current global warming narrative has been hijacked by Marxist One World Order extremists to press their revolution to destroy industrialized nations and to redistribute wealth to developing nations and create a world government.

Within the above context, we can see much more clearly that powerful Marxist forces forces are using the construct of a manufactured climate crisis, populist environmental language, and public fear to prosecute their political agenda which is to destroy the Western world and create a One World Order, nirvana to a Marxist, where a group of elites run the world.  That’s the con.

Graphic credit:Pixabay

Dave Ball is the author of conservative political commentary, a guest on political talk shows, an elected official and a county party official.