RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/joe-biden-and-the-circular-firing-squad/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second

The word is definitely out that the president’s stock is going to zero — and it’s time to get out while you still can.

The giant sucking sound you’re hearing is the panicked divestment of elected Democratic politicians, progressive activists, and the mainstream media from the Biden administration. The word is definitely out that the president’s stock is going to zero — and it’s time to get out while you still can.

Two weeks ago, in a foreboding sign for the White House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — with a finger to the political winds blowing on Instagram — announced that she wasn’t ready to support Biden in 2024. Then came California governor Gavin Newsom, asking “Where’s my party?” as Republicans and conservatives continue to score political wins. Newsom’s question sparked 2024 speculation for him, and then he stoked the flames even higher by buying ad time in Florida, demonstrating that he could identify and take on the real Republican threat, who is sitting behind a desk in Tallahassee: DeSantis.

After the Fourth of July weekend, we are now getting the hilarious reports — usually ones that a lame-duck president faces late in his second term. The first six sentences of Edward-Isaac Dovere’s dispatch for CNN sum it up:

Debra Messing was fed up. The former “Will & Grace” star was among dozens of celebrity Democratic supporters and activists who joined a call with White House aides last Monday to discuss the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/07/05/sec_climate_disclosure_rule_a_duck_that_quacks_840873.html

In his recent memoir, former attorney general William Barr recounts how the Trump administration lost its attempt to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. After losing in the Supreme Court, Barr briefed President Trump on what had gone wrong. “If people were straightforward from the beginning, it could have gotten done,” Barr explained. “The trouble is the administration was too cute by half, and [Chief Justice John] Roberts threw the penalty flag.” The Supreme Court had thrown out the citizenship question because the Commerce department’s declared rationale for it was pretextual—that is to say, it was not the real reason that the Trump administration wanted a citizenship question in the census.

Much comment on the controversial climate disclosure rule proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has centered on whether the SEC has the necessary legal authority. By the end of the comment period on June 17, the SEC had received more than 3,400 letters, significantly more than usual. Linked to legal arguments on whether the SEC has an adequate statutory—or, indeed, constitutional—basis for its climate proposal is the question of pretextuality: Is the SEC being genuine in the stated justification for its sweeping climate disclosure rules? Should the SEC harbor doubts about its legal standing to compel climate disclosures—notably, greenhouse gas emissions data—from listed companies, it increases the likelihood that it will advance a public justification for the proposed rules that differs from its real one so that it better fits within its statutory authority.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/05/how-much-fossil-fuel-is-left/

Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither, and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse could engulf the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies, and in 2020 fossil fuels continued to provide more than 80 percent of all energy consumed worldwide.

This basic fact, that maintaining a reliable supply of affordable fossil fuel is a nonnegotiable condition for the survival of civilization, currently eludes far too many American politicians, including Joe Biden. Observes energy expert and two-time candidate for governor of California Michael Shellenberger: “One month ago, the Biden administration killed a one-million-acre oil and gas lease sale in Alaska, and seven days ago killed new on-shore oil and gas leases in the continental U.S. In fact, at this very moment, the Biden administration is considering a total ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling.”

Another basic fact, easily confirmed by consulting the 2021 edition of the BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, is that if every person living on Earth were to consume half as much energy per year as the average American currently consumes, global energy production would need to nearly double. Instead of producing 547 exajoules (the mega unit of energy currently favored by economists) per year, energy producers worldwide would need to come up with just over 1,000 exajoules. How exactly will “renewables,” currently delivering 32 exajoules per year, or six percent of global energy, expand by a factor of 30 to deliver 1,000 exajoules?