RUTHFULLY YOURS

Donald Trump’s surprise victory fanned expectations in the energy industry that he would clear the path for new pipelines, end U.S. participation in global climate change pacts and undo environmental regulations to boost American coal mining.

The prospect that the president-elect would roll back years of Obama administration policies buoyed investors in fossil fuels companies Wednesday—while sending shares of top wind and solar power firms tumbling.

The S&P 500 Energy Sector Index was up about 1.5% overall midday to 517.28.

Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources Co., said Mr. Trump’s victory will perk up the country’s stagnant drilling boom by making it easier to build pipelines that unlock areas rich in oil and gas, such as the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

“His message about creating jobs is why he broke the blue wall” and attracted votes from Democrats in some states, Mr. Sheffield said.

Shares in Energy Transfer Equity L.P., the Dallas-based pipeline company building the hotly contested Dakota Access Pipeline, jumped 18% to $16.52 amid hopes that Mr. Trump will give a green light to the project.

The 1,170-mile pipeline linking the North Dakota oil fields and Texas has become mired in protests and extra environmental reviews by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because of its route across the Missouri River and lands considered culturally sensitive to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

An Energy Transfer spokeswoman said Wednesday that the company expects the pipeline to begin moving oil in the first quarter of 2017.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump invited TransCanada Corp., the Calgary-based company that proposed the transcontinental Keystone XL pipeline linking Canada’s oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast, to reapply to build that project, which was rejected by the Obama administration in 2015 after seven years in regulatory limbo.

“TransCanada remains fully committed to building Keystone XL,” said company spokesman Mark Cooper. “We are evaluating ways to engage the new administration on the benefits, the jobs and the tax revenues this project brings to the table.”

After a long night that ended up with a clear Trump victory, I think it’s safe enough to say that, from now on, there are going to be some radical changes in the relationship between the American people and Mainstream Media (MSM).

Here there are the following 15 talking points that should be considered (in a random order):

(1) The MSM has always presented itself as the holder of Truth. Reality has shown that MSM has been engaged for way too long in a war with Truth, and MSM has lost this war.

(2) The MSM has portrayed Hillary Clinton as a person exonerated from criminal responsibility for her numerous acts of corruption and illegal activities over time. Reality has indicated that she has jeopardized national security, and has threatened certain individuals, perceived as dangerous or compromising for her own political convenience.

(3) The MSM has presented Donald Trump as an isolated, exotic character, unrelated to the world’s current major concerns (particularly in Europe, but also in Asia and Africa), such as: Islamic terrorism, massive immigration (particularly from Muslim countries), and the assault against Christianity. Reality has shown that Trump is, indeed, a true American Mr. Brexit.

(4) The MSM has presented populism as a marginal trend in the American society. Reality has proven that the majorities of the electorates of both parties, Republican and Democratic, consist in populist voters, who support anti-Establishment candidates (Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders).

(5) The MSM has followed Hillary Clinton and portrayed – narratively and statistically – more than half of the country’s population as a “basket of deplorables,” in sharp contrast with “the majority of the American people.” Reality has shown that the so-called majority – ideologically and racially – consists in an accumulation of several minority groups.

(6) The MSM has threatened the “deplorables” with many Hollywood darlings moving out the country if the candidate of the “deplorables” were to win. Post-election reality will force those darlings of the Dream Factory City to fulfill their vocal promises (otherwise, they should shut the hell up and just sing or act!).

(7) The MSM has presented as a fait accompli the idea that winning televised presidential debates organized by MSM is a solid predictor of winning the presidency. Reality has illustrated that this has become a myth (especially after episodes of Donna Brazile-type, where party operatives, in cahoots with the same MSM, leak information about people’s debate questions to certain preferred candidate).

(8) The MSM has instilled the idea that political household names – like Kennedy, Clinton or Bush – are invincible per se. Reality has shown that non-politicians, like Trump, can take down in just one electoral race two powerful political-dynastic names (Bush and Clinton), which had ruled the country for 16 years in a row.

The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) is boasting that its voter registration campaign “One Million Voters” across mosques and schools has doubled the number of registered Muslim voters to over a million.

The media is cheering this development even though USCMO has a history that makes the KKK look downright sunny. USCMO was in the news last year for its statement denying the Muslim genocide of Armenians and arguing that any recognition of the massacre must also recognize “Muslim suffering.”

USCMO’s Secretary General Oussama Jammal had engaged in 9/11 Trutherism at a rally backing a Hamas supporter. He was president of the Bridgeview Mosque which raised money for the head of Islamic Jihad. The Chicago Tribune described this as the result of a “hard line” takeover of the mosque.

The Bridgeview mosque had been interlinked with the Islamic Association for Palestine which had been set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and featured Hamas operatives such as Mousa Abu Marzook. Jammal had received a “Mosque of the Year” award from KindHearts, a terror charity that was shut down for its ties to Hamas.

Jammal had blamed the Jews for the government’s actions, claiming that there was a “Zionist agenda” at work.

The US Council of Muslim Organizations includes American Muslims for Palestine; an anti-Israel hate group headed by the notorious campus bigot Hatem Bazian. AMP is openly supportive of Hamas terror. Its national campus coordinator has said that, “Hamas’ rockets are an oppressed people’s audible cry for help.” At one of its conferences, there was a lecture on how to “navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.” Its Vice President defended Islamic terrorism.

Along with AMP, USCMO’s founding members include CAIR, an unindicted terror co-conspirator in terror finance. It also includes ICNA, whose former secretary general was convicted of Islamic war crimes by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal. Some of the victims of Islamic terror had their eyes gouged out, hearts removed and their breasts cut off by of the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.

For those who follow popular culture, the slide into debasement is palpable. From the f-bomb to pornographic exposure, America has become the land of anything goes. The once provincial, laced up nation, challenged by the liberal view of expression, has lost. Victorian notions of modesty are as outmoded as horse-drawn plows.

A couple of months ago an eleven-year-old tape of Donald Trump was aired in which he employed vulgar and uncouth language about women. It was inexcusable, notwithstanding the debasement in the culture. As one might guess, this matter became the focus of the Clinton campaign for president. First lady Michelle Obama said she was “shaken…to my core” by Trump’s comments and, alas she has a point.

However, if Trump’s lewd remarks are so meaningful, it is worth asking why she and the president have openly promoted rap “artists” who glorify misogyny, sexual objectification of women, date rape and cop killing. Kendrick Lamar was invited to the White House for President Obama’s 55th birthday party, the same Lamar who wrote “Bitch, Don’t Kill Me” and even raps about killing police officers. Another invitee, Rick Ross, glorifies date rape with lyrics, “Put molly all in her champagne | She ain’t even know it | I took her home and I enjoyed that | She ain’t even know it.” Molly, by the way, is slang for the date rape drug, Ecstasy.

Nicki Minaj, who often outdoes even the most vulgar of the rappers, has been invited to the White House with her husband despite lyrics such as “Make sure mama crawls on her knees keep him pleased rub him down be a lady and a freak.” This is the respectable side of Ms. Minaj.

Then there is the King and Queen of Rap, Jay Z and Beyoncé, who have been guests of the Obamas dozens of times. Jay Z in “Drunk in Love” wrote, “Slid the panties right to the side | Ain’t got time to take drawers off” and “We sex again in the morning, your breasteses is my breakfast.” This, by the way is the least profane of the lyrics.

Presidents can fire attorney general. Such was the case of the late Attorney General Gerald Walpin who was fired without time or reason when his investigations showed chicanery by one of Michelle Obama’s friends…..rsk

Most Americans won’t have heard of Luther Strange, though that might be about to change. Next week the Alabaman ascends to the top of what by that point could be one of the most consequential GOP organizations in the country.

That would be the Republican Attorneys General Association, the umbrella group for the states’ conservative prosecutors—and a new force to reckon with in American politics. Attorney general races don’t get much national attention, but these days they should. Under a Hillary Clinton presidency in particular, Republican AGs may prove the most effective check on both an overweening federal government and growing abuses by liberal prosecutors.

“Health care, immigration, climate regulations—the AGs are acting as a last line of defense, but also in an agenda-setting capacity,” Mr. Strange told me at a recent meeting in Washington, D.C. “And we’ll be in an even stronger position to do this after Election Day.”

His words are a nod to the extraordinary transformation Republican AGs have undergone in the era of Barack Obama. Not many years ago, those AGs had little to do with each other and were focused on policing occasional state crime. But the combination of the president’s growing federal overreach, and a new generation of activist, conservative law dogs, has inspired a powerful and cohesive new AG movement.

Members include the likes of Florida AG Pam Bondi, who helped oversee a coalition of states that sued the federal government over the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Or Oklahoma’s Scott Pruitt, who has plowed the way in lawsuits against federal overreach in health care, water regulations and endangered species listings. Or Michigan’s Bill Schuette, whose state successfully challenged the feds on its costly rules on power-plant emissions. Or Texas AG Ken Paxton, whose legal efforts put a hold on President Obama’s immigration plan.

Republicans currently hold 27 AG seats, and they are likely to emerge from Tuesday with more. In Missouri, a young dynamo, the 36-year-old Josh Hawley, looks poised to beat Democrat Teresa Hensley. Mr. Hawley, a law professor and Becket Fund for Religious Liberty alumnus, has run on a promise to defend working Missouri families against “Washington bureaucrats.”

In North Carolina, state Sen. Buck Newton is in a tight race against Democrat Josh Stein, in a contest that may hinge on the upticket re-election fortunes of Donald Trump and Gov. Pat McCrory. Republicans are also feeling more confident they’ll hold on to West Virginia, where rebel AG Patrick Morrisey (the first GOP AG in the state since 1933) is defending against liberal activist Doug Reynolds. And in Indiana, Republicans expect to hold a seat with the election of Curtis Hill, who’d become the Hoosier state’s first African-American AG. If it’s a good night, RAGA could end up 29-strong, a record.

They’ll need that strength, particularly under a Clinton presidency. With Republicans near certain to hold the House, and potentially the Senate, Mrs. Clinton will undoubtedly build on Mr. Obama’s extralegal habit of ruling via executive order or regulation. The GOP AGs will be the primary way for conservatives to challenge those edicts, in court. Under a Trump presidency, they will be an invaluable tool in dismantling some of the Obama federal behemoth. CONTINUE AT SITE

The current election—regardless of its outcome—reveals something tragic in the way modern conservatism sits in American life. As an ideology—and certainly as a political identity—conservatism is less popular than the very principles and values it stands for. There is a presumption in the culture that heartlessness and bigotry are somehow endemic to conservatism, that the rigors of freedom and capitalism literally require exploitation and inequality—this despite the fact that so many liberal policies since the 1960s have only worsened the inequalities they sought to overcome.

In the broader American culture—the mainstream media, the world of the arts and entertainment, the high-tech world, and the entire enterprise of public and private education—conservatism suffers a decided ill repute. Why?

The answer begins in a certain fact of American life. As the late writer William Styron once put it, slavery was “the great transforming circumstance of American history.” Slavery, and also the diminishment of women and all minorities, was especially tragic because America was otherwise the most enlightened nation in the world. Here, in this instance of profound hypocrisy, began the idea of America as a victimizing nation. And then came the inevitable corollary: the nation’s moral indebtedness to its former victims: blacks especially but all other put-upon peoples as well.

This indebtedness became a cultural imperative, what Styron might call a “transforming circumstance.” Today America must honor this indebtedness or lose much of its moral authority and legitimacy as a democracy. America must show itself redeemed of its oppressive past.

How to do this? In a word: deference. Since the 1960s, when America finally became fully accountable for its past, deference toward all groups with any claim to past or present victimization became mandatory. The Great Society and the War on Poverty were some of the first truly deferential policies. Since then deference has become an almost universal marker of simple human decency that asserts one’s innocence of the American past. Deference is, above all else, an apology.

One thing this means is that deference toward victimization has evolved into a means to power. As deference acknowledges America’s indebtedness, it seems to redeem the nation and to validate its exceptional status in the world. This brings real power—the kind of power that puts people into office and that gives a special shine to commercial ventures it attaches to.

The father of embattled Hillary Clinton campaign honcho Huma Abedin once told a Saudi Arabian newspaper that Muslims have the right to “take up arms” in jihad and that “every self-respecting Muslim is an Islamic fundamentalist.”

Syed Zain Abedin, a Saudi-sponsored Islamist scholar, revealed in a lengthy interview with a Saudi correspondent that he agreed with jihadists that “Islam permits the use of forceful means,” and that carrying out martyrdom operations may be necessary in the cause of Allah.

“There are occasions when Islam calls for the ultimate sacrifice,” he said, as long as it is done in “the cause” of Allah and not for selfish reasons such as individual suicide.

Abedin also said Muslims have a “relentless obligation” to convert non-Muslims in the West to Islam, though he counseled Muslims living in non-Muslim majority countries to be patient in going about Islamizing their hosts. As the minority, they do not have the numbers for “conquest” and have to be aware of “certain strategic necessities, certain political imperatives.”

He pointed out that even after Western political systems are “subdued,” it may take hundreds of years before citizens formerly living under those secular systems fully accept Islam.

“The immediate goals and targets for Muslims to pursue when they are the majority in any society are distinct from the goals and targets they should pursue when they are living as a minority in any society,” Abedin explained in the 1991 interview with the Saudi Gazette, a leading daily newspaper published in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

He advised winning over the “kuffar, the deniers,” with “little acts of kindness.” Whatever the tactics, he added, “There can be no let-up” in converting them to the “Islamic way.”

“Muslims have to continue to formulate their attitudes and behavior on the assumption that kufr is not a fixed, but a volatile and transcient category. Today’s nay-sayers may well be tomorrow’s yes-sayers,” Abedin said. “This happened daily in Makkah (Mecca), the historical Makkah. Why would it be different in today’s Makkah, in today’s situation where Muslims are a persecuted and despised minority?”

If you are a convicted killer in the state of New York, you are entitled to take college courses both while in prison and when you are released. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University, offers full scholarships to those criminals who have served their time and wish to enroll. The student who is profiled in this Sunday’s Times is a 41 year old former drug dealer whose explanation for murdering another drug dealer when he was 23 is that his girlfriend had broken up with him, he had served some time at Rikers Island and he was feeling “hopeless and angry.” (Life Beyond Bars: One Man’s Journey From Prison to College, NYT 11/6/16) By contrast with this magnanimous govt largesse, if you are the law-abiding child of a living fireman or policeman, NY state has no educational stipend for you at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – odd, considering that law enforcement is as heavily involved in that field as law – breakers. If you are the victim of a crime, NY State does have an Office of Victim Services (OVS) but they don’t provide any assistance for your higher education. Instead, you can get lots of information related to victims’ rights in judicial proceedings, victim impact statements and restitution for your injuries. The website doesn’t mention helping to educate you while you are feeling “hopeless and angry” after your traumatic attack.

Presumably, the experts have figured out that the way to lower the enormous cost of incarceration, is to lower the rate of recidivism so that investing in educating prisoners is a way to save the state money. Mr Echeverria, the profiled ex-con in the Times has taken five years to achieve the status of sophomore, not exactly a productive financial investment by the state, to say the least. One wonders why the opportunities for prisoners do not focus on shorter term goals that might be more realistic than an eventual degree from John Jay, assuming that were possible. Culinary arts, appliance repair, construction related trades, medical and geriatric assistants – these are some of the fields that come to mind. Considering the enormously inflated costs of college education, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to help the families of public servants whose credentials might insure greater success and whose parents’ ongoing service to the state is immeasurably more deserving of scholarship aid? Why take that portion of the population whose dispositions, drug use and probable ADD along with other learning disabilities, render them least likely to excel in college, even under optimum circumstances.

If our next president is the candidate inclined to follow in Obama’s footsteps, we can expect a continuation of his Second Chance Pell Pilot Program which will award grants to 12,000 inmates to take courses at 67 selected colleges. Judging from the abysmal statistics attendant to public school achievement in large cities, this will be yet another government program with seemingly good intentions killed by blind assumptions about its students – in other words, a program that will afford as little bang for the buck as the swollen budgets of Depts of Education throughout urban America. In New York City public schools, a scant 36% of the students are proficient in Math and 38% in English – the cost of achieving this failure is almost $20,000 per pupil. We can only hope that a new administration shows greater ability to do some simple math.