Displaying posts published in

June 2022

The Costly Contradictions of Biden’s Crusade for Green Energy The assault on fossil fuels distorts or undermines many other domestic and international priorities. By Thomas J. Duesterberg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-crusade-for-green-energy-oil-venezuela-saudi-arabia-solar-panels-cost-emissions-11655038751?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction.

The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of fossil-fuel projects. New automobile mileage standards and increased mandates for ethanol blending in gasoline are part of the program. Pressure to phase out coal-fired electricity production and thwart new mining projects also contribute to the higher prices deemed the best tool to force the transition to a green-energy infrastructure.

To avoid the political brunt of historically high consumer energy prices, the administration apparently is considering allowing more exports of oil by Iran, as it is for Venezuela. It is also tolerating the somewhat inconsistent application of oil and gas embargoes on Russian supplies and increased purchases by China and India.

Despite the urgent global need to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas, encouraging domestic production of these fuels isn’t part of the administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And pressure on domestic production undermines other administration initiatives, such as rebuilding the manufacturing sector, creating jobs, strengthening supply-chain resilience, and weakening dictatorial adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela.

A Permanent Pandemic Means a Huge Medicaid Expansion The need for an official emergency is long past, but the Administration keeps it going to retain 14.4 million more people on the rolls. By Joel Zinberg and Gary D. Alexander

https://www.wsj.com/articles/permanent-pandemic-means-medicaid-expansion-rolls-remove-health-care-public-health-emergency-covid-biden-welfare-government-spending-11655057229?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Covid is now endemic, yet the Biden administration keeps extending the public-health emergency. Its goal is to preserve the expansion of the welfare state through Medicaid, even though large and growing numbers of enrollees are ineligible for the benefit.

Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement that provides health insurance to nearly 1 in 4 Americans, ballooned during the pandemic. Enrollments had declined in 2018 and 2019, but jumped by 15.9 million—about 25%—between February 2020 and February 2022. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the increase was “due, in large part, to the continuous enrollment condition” in Congress’s March 2020 Covid relief package, which encouraged enrollments by temporarily increasing the federal government’s share of total Medicaid costs by 6.2% while prohibiting states that accepted Washington’s help from redetermining Medicaid eligibility and removing ineligible people from the rolls until the emergency ended.

In other words, so long as the emergency persists, so too does the expansion of the welfare state. More than two years later, the Biden administration is intent on making permanent what were meant to be emergency measures.

States routinely redetermine Medicaid recipients’ eligibility. As the program grows, so too do the chances for improper payment. Medicaid’s national improper-payment rate, which includes payments to ineligible beneficiaries, soared under the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. The most recent rate, which incorporates three years of data through the first five months of the pandemic, reached an all-time high of 22%, a cost of $99 billion.

Meet Your Fact-Checkers: AP Report Includes Quote From Radio Host Who Has Been Dead Since 2020 By Robert Spencer

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/06/12/meet-your-fact-checkers-ap-report-includes-quote-from-radio-host-who-has-been-dead-since-2020-n1604928

On Thursday, the Associated Press (AP), one of the most trusted names in news (as another Leftist propaganda outfit claims about itself), published a story about how some Cubans in Miami oppose a Democrat Party effort to buy up Spanish-language radio stations in South Florida. The article said that one Trump supporter insisted that this would not lead to editorial changes, but added that “Martha Flores, who hosts an evening show on Radio Mambi, isn’t sure about that. She attended the news conference but declined to speak.” The article continued: “‘Look at this,’ Flores said, pointing at her eyes watering. I know I would just cry.’” This was touching, but there was just one problem: Martha Flores was not actually at the news conference. She died in 2020. This is AP: the people who claim the ability and authority to tell you what news is accurate and what isn’t.

In response to AP’s massive error, conservative pundit Giancarlo Sopo was savage, tweeting: “I’m so confused by this article. The AP says it interviewed Miami Radio host Martha Flores on Wednesday, but she’s been dead for two years. How the hell did they pull this off? Séance? An ouija board? Did they hire a babalawo to talk to her?” He added a screenshot of a July 19, 2020 article announcing Flores’ death with the caption: “Context: Martha Flores was considered Miami’s ‘Queen of Radio.’ She was a pioneer of Spanish talk radio and died two years ago at the age of 92. It was widely reported at the time.” Sopo concluded: “All I’m going to say is that if you saw Martha at a press conference this week, don’t call your editor. Call these guys…,” and he attached a gif of the main characters from the movie Ghostbusters.

Jan. 6 Committee Called Out for Altering Evidence and Lying About It By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/06/12/jan-6-committee-called-out-for-altering-evidence-and-lying-about-it-n1605016

The Jan. 6 Committee has a well-established credibility problem. The committee released various text messages that have actually exonerated Donald Trump, but they falsely characterized the messages as incriminating. And when the truth wasn’t incriminating, they doctored text messages to make them look so.

Now Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is calling out the committee for its deceptions, and he promised an investigation during an appearance on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo.

“I want to see all the depositions,” Rep. Jordan said. “I want to see all the documents. And ranking member Rodney Davis has already sent a preservation letter to the committee, saying, preserve all this information, so we can look at it, and the American people can get the full story, not just this one-sided, choreographed presentation we got — excuse me — we got the other night. But when you think about what this committee has done, never in the history of this country, in the history of the House of Representatives, has a minority leader not been able to put on a select committee that [sic] individuals he or she has selected.”

“We also know that this committee has altered evidence and lied to the American people about it, so much so that they had to issue a statement which says ‘we regret the error,’ which is government-speak for, we got caught lying,” Jordan continued.

How Secret Soviet Killings Led to COVID Tyranny By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/how_secret_soviet_killings_led_to_covid_tyranny.html

As the mournful notes of the cello brought the four minutes of The Dying Swan to a close at The Hague on January 24, 1931, the audience was in tears.  Throughout the performance, there had been no dancer — only a moving spotlight emphasizing the absence of Anna Pavlova, the ballerina the world loved.  She had died the day before, of a mysterious lung infection that began almost immediately after her train had left Paris.  She’d told doctors she suspected she’d been poisoned.  Unable to reach a diagnosis, they treated her symptoms but failed to save her.

For Soviet émigrés of the time, the empty stage, the melancholic music, and the spotlight sans performer were poignant symbols of the hundreds of thousands of “liternoye” killings — secret, disguised liquidations staged as natural deaths or suicides — ordered by Joseph Stalin.  His targets were not just rivals in the USSR, but also dissident writers, intellectuals, artists, and performers living abroad.  In fact, from the 1920s to the outbreak of World War II, while Stalin was carrying out purges in the USSR, the émigré community witnessed several mysterious deaths and disappearances.

Stalin worked by the dictum “communism must eliminate what it cannot control.”  “Liternoye” killings were different from the genocides and massacres he oversaw: the liquidation of kulaks, the Holodomor — deaths caused by famine-related decisions in Ukraine — and the purge of nationalities.  Unlike those, “liternoye” killings resulted in deaths from seemingly natural causes.  They would be followed by hasty disposal of bodies and either advantageous glorification (as for  Lenin, a presumed victim of Stalin) or damnatio memoriae (complete erasure from the records and history).  Quite often, hard-to-detect poisons and bioweapons were used for these murders.

Summit of the Americas: Joe Biden turns America into a beggar By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/summit_of_the_americas_joe_biden_turns_america_into_a_beggar.html

Joe Biden couldn’t care less about Latin America, hasn’t visited the place, hasn’t visited even the border to the place, and now has a monster 15,000-strong migrant caravan heading to the U.S. which he will undoubtedly bow to, and let in.

But here he was, host at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, and his lack of preparation pretty well made him, and America, beggars to the hemisphere’s locals.

And sure enough, it was accompanied by the stench of urine, more about later. Please clap.

Start with the earliest controversy — the invitation list. The past practice, and it’s not a good one, but it is the precedent, is to allow socialist hellholes to attend what the 2001 Lima Declaration calls a club for democracies.

As a result, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were not invited. Two of those dumps became dumps based on election fraud. The third is led by a brutal longtime military oligarchy that shot its way to power. Perhaps the election fraud issue is just a little sensitive for Old Joe? The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, prior to the summit, pointed that uncomfortable detail out. If Venezuela and Nicaragua are not democracies owing to election fraud, how is the U.S. is all that different? The hypocrisy was obvious.

Biden Blames Russia for Spiraling Gas Prices.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10908323/Joe-Biden-blames-Russian-invasion-spiraling-gas-prices.html

‘It’s outrageous what this war in Ukraine is costing’: Joe Biden AGAIN blames Russian invasion for spiraling gas prices that smashed $5 barrier for first time in history
President Biden is blaming a war happening more than 4,000 miles away for the rapidly rising cost of gas prices at home
Biden is facing growing political backlash as high prices increase the pain for American families, who are seeing daily records at the gas pump 
The US national average price of hit $5 for a gallon of regular for the first time in history on Saturday as prices are expected to continue going up 
It’s an increase of 19 cents from a week ago and $1.93 from a year ago 
Twenty-one states and D.C. now have an average price higher than $5 per gallon
It comes after inflation hit 8.6 percent in May, another record-high and the most Americans have seen since 1981 
It is the strongest signal yet that inflation has not yet peaked, as consumers tangle with high grocery, travel and energy prices nationwide

The Cherished ‘Right’ to Torture Evidence: Anthony Daniels

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/06/the-cherished-right-to-torture-evidence/

The claim that the American Constitution ever guaranteed a right to abortion is preposterous, and this is so irrespective of whether you think of such a right as a tremendous advance in human liberty or as a sacrilegious licence to kill the unborn.

The decision in Roe v Wade reminds me of the Queen of Hearts’ jurisprudence: Sentence first—verdict afterwards. The meaning of the American Constitution was tortured by the judges—by means of the most patent, one might almost say shameless, rationalisations—to a predetermined and bogus conclusion. I should perhaps here add that neither the right-to-life nor the right-to-choose arguments convince me on this matter.

Of course, I am no expert on the American Constitution. I once put it to such an expert that the right to bear arms did not include, nor was it intended to permit, taking a Kalashnikov or howitzer down to the local supermarket. If it had meant that, there would have been no preliminary clause about a well-regulated militia, but the amendment would simply have stated that the right to bear arms could not be abrogated. The expert, however, told me that I was mistaken, that when one properly understood eighteenth-century usage, it was clear that it did mean that people could not only own firearms, but take them anywhere they liked, as children take their soft toys everywhere they go.

It is a human trait to harbour a cherished opinion and then torture evidence and employ rhetorical legerdemain in its support as if it were a conclusion. Hands up all those who have never done this! There is even a certain pleasure in doing it, akin to what Francis Bacon calls “a natural but corrupt love of the lie itself”, for it assures us of our own dialectical ability, on which we then congratulate ourselves. There are few things more delightful in discussion than to get an opponent to accept a false argument.

World Peace and Political Survival by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18608/world-peace-political-survival

Failed White House policies — on Afghanistan, open borders, and now the issues of energy independence and pork-barrel budgets — have caused surging rates of inflation.

With mid-term elections months away and dismal poll numbers, the White House and many Democrats have resorted to unpopular distraction campaigns, including an assault on the Second Amendment.

Meanwhile, 18 Democrat Members of Congress have addressed a serious, realistic strategy for world peace and political survival. Their concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear buildup include:

“If Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, has proven anything,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) stated in a joint press release, “it’s that they can’t be trusted… Iran’s paramilitary arm, has… killed hundreds of Americans, and attacked our bases and allies in the region. Strengthened with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, Iran would be an enormous danger to Americans at home and abroad, and to our allies. Additionally, it’s been reported that… Russia will be de facto judge of compliance, and in a position to return enriched uranium to Iran – without any oversight. Are we seriously going to let war criminal, Vladimir Putin, be the guarantor of the deal? We must address the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. ”

“Iran must never be allowed to become a nuclear threat to the world,” added Rep. Elaine Luria (VA-2) “Not today. Not ten years from now. Not ever.”

In the Realm of the King of Lies Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/06/in-the-realm-of-the-king-of-lies/

“Snow is a thing of the past. ‘Drowning’ Pacific Islands. More widespread and intense droughts, floods, famines, bushfires, cyclones. Millions of climate refugees. Like so much of the state-sponsored COVID hysteria, not a word of it is true or ever likely to be, And yet that is what we are expected to swallow day after day after day.”

Did you know that the Australian government is still running TV ads spruiking vaccinations against COVID? I didn’t until recently. Presumably, it’s to do with the limited number of programs I watch. I must have inadvertently diversified my viewing. In the space of a few days, I’ve seen repeats of two nauseous ads. One, encouraging very healthy-looking people to “boost [their] happiness”, or so we’re told. The other, encouraging vaccinations, “which have been rigorously tested,” for children from five to eleven years; “to protect them, other kids, their families and everyone else”.

Leaving aside the fact that normal people have moved on, I was struck by the continuing implicit lie. The lie is that healthy people and children are at any material risk from COVID. They are not, and never have been from the very start. Giving novel medicine to those at no risk from a disease, particularly children, seems to me to be shockingly neglectful of doing no harm.

The only people at material risk from the virus are those who are obese in addition to having other underlying illnesses. And where is the proof that the vaccines have helped them? I haven’t seen it. How many obese people with co-morbidities have been saved by the vaccines? Maybe none. We know the vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission. Just maybe they’re totally ineffective in saving lives. Not true? OK, show us the studies.

You might query my take on things. You might say ‘how could governments, drug companies, the medical profession, get away with such outrageous lying?’ Well, then, you haven’t been paying attention. We now live within a house of lies.