Ignoring The Solution To High Energy Prices

On February 28th, BizPacReview posted an article illustrating the Biden administration’s plan to deal with the current high energy prices.

The article reports:

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called for furthering green energy initiatives in the face of foreign oil dependence that could see Americans burdened by $150/barrel prices.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Psaki dismissed calls for President Biden to restart the Keystone XL oil pipeline and instead harkened back to the executive order that canceled the project which stated, the U.S. “must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy.”

“What this actually justifies in President Biden’s view is the fact that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general,” Psaki claimed, “and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others.

In 1948, Winston Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons in which he said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” The actual quote is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana-1905). Regardless of the origin or the wording, the concept is valid. Unfortunately we have an administration in Washington that is ignoring those words.

In September 2014, I posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert from fossil fuel to green energy. I quoted a Daily Caller article detailing the results:

The IER study also notes that Spain’s green agenda was not able to keep its carbon footprint from rising. Between 1994 and 2011, Spain’s carbon dioxide emissions grew 34.5 percent, despite the country’s green push which began in the 1990s.

“While the renewable policies themselves were likely not the cause of the emissions increase, the upward trend does prove that renewable energy policies were insufficient to reduce CO2 emissions over a roughly twenty-year period,” according to IER.

“is anything but the model for American energy policy,” reads the IER study. “The country’s expensive feed-in tariff system, subsidies, and renewable energy quotas have plunged a sizable portion of Spaniards into fuel poverty, raised electricity bills, all while having almost no meaningful impact on curtailing carbon dioxide emissions.”

The article at BizPacReview states:

Contrary to Psaki, Bartiromo pointed out, “The only move for the United States at this point to protect itself is to become energy independent again.”

Bartiromo (Maria Bartiromo) further stated that Biden is partially responsible for the looming energy crisis as he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and all drilling on federal land on his first day in office. Biden continued the assault on domestic energy production last week when the administration delayed decisions on permitting new oil and gas leases, Fox Business reported.

The delay is in direct response to an injunction that prevents these new leases from paying more than $50/ton on their carbon emissions that Biden also demanded on his first day in office. The judge’s temporary injunction allows the rate to remain at the $7/ton that President Trump had instituted following the initial $50+/ton under President Obama.

Biden had also proposed banning all crude oil exports from the United States in December, a consideration which was highly panned amidst an already suffering economy. Republican pushback against such devastating measures was led in part by Rep. August Pfluger (TX) who has once again stepped up to promote American energy security.

The war over Ukraine has further proven that America needs to be not only energy independent, but a major exporter of fossil fuel. That is the only way to remain a world power. If the Biden administration continues its race toward green energy, we can count on being a third-world country by the end of the Biden administration.

Are We Willing To Learn The Lessons Of History

Today The Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece about what can happen when the media refuses to report the obvious. The piece deals with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his health as he was running for his fourth term as President.

The opinion piece notes:

On August 18, 1944, Senator Harry S. Truman met President Franklin D. Roosevelt for lunch at the White House. Truman had just been nominated to be Roosevelt’s running mate that year, and the two men dined on the White House lawn and chatted about the upcoming campaign.

Truman had not seen the president for over a year and was shocked at Roosevelt’s haggard appearance. He noticed that FDR was so ill that he couldn’t even pour cream into his coffee. Despite seeing direct evidence of Roosevelt’s poor health, Truman told reporters afterwards that Roosevelt “Looked fine…He’s as keen as a briar.”

Truman was lying. Roosevelt was a dying man, which was evident to everyone who saw him. But during the 1944 campaign, a conspiracy of silence reigned about his health. Roosevelt had a physical in the summer that showed he had high blood pressure and was suffering from congestive heart failure, but the results were kept from the public.

With the assistance of a compliant media that was overwhelmingly sympathetic to FDR, the issue of Roosevelt’s ability to serve four more years never materialized as a serious campaign issue.

We know what happened as a result of Roosevelt serving as President while his health was failing and he was not at his best.

The piece notes:

In February 1945, a dangerously ill Roosevelt traveled to Yalta to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to discuss the future of post-war Europe. At Yalta, FDR effectively surrendered Poland and most of Eastern Europe to the Soviets. During the conference, Roosevelt lacked the stamina to keep up Stalin, and the agreements they reached reflected the poor state of FDR’s health.

No one knows how different the course of history would have been if America had elected a President who was in good health during these negotiations.

We now face a similar problem as former Vice-President Joe Biden is set to become the Democrat presidential nominee for 2020. The former Vice-President has always been known for questionable remarks, but we are watching him forget where he is and show unusual aggression toward voters who have come to hear him speak. Either one of these things could be an early sign of dementia. It is ironic that Bernie Sanders, after heart surgery, looks more energized than the former Vice-President.

We live in a complex world with complex problems. Many Americans rely on the mainstream media as a news source (I think that’s a mistake, but that is simply my opinion). If America is to continue as a republic, we need well-informed voters–we can’t afford to be lead by propaganda. Electing a President who is not physically or mentally capable of doing the job because the media refused to tell voters the truth would have major consequences. History tells us that. We can’t afford to repeat history.

Will Solving The Immediate Problem Actually Accomplish Anything?

A website called nffonline.com notes:

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ (George Santayana-1905). In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill changed the quote slightly when he said (paraphrased), ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’

Today Venezuela was rocked by violence as opposition leader Juan Guaidó attempted to revive his movement to seize power in Venezuela.

The Associated Press is reporting today:

The violent street battles that erupted in parts of Caracas were the most serious challenge yet to Maduro’s rule. Still, the rebellion, dubbed “Operation Freedom,” seemed to have garnered only limited military support.

In one dramatic incident during a chaotic day, several armored vehicles plowed into a group of anti-government demonstrators trying to storm the capital’s air base, hitting at least two protesters.

Russia has troops in Venezuela as does Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine applies to the Russian involvement; it doesn’t cover the Cuban involvement. So should America get involved, to what degree, and how? Well, let’s look at history. I can’t think of any incidence where we have been involved in an overthrow of a government (no matter how tyrannical) and had a positive outcome. The only positive examples that you might be able to come up with would be Germany, Italy, and Japan (World War II). That was an entire world-wide war–not the overthrow of a country’s government. We have no history of replacing dictatorships with democracies and having everyone live happily ever after.

But for the sake of argument, let’s look at how American involvement that put Juan Guaidó in charge would change things. The generals in Venezuela are involved with the drug cartels that ship drugs into America through Mexico. Until we deal with the drug problem on our southern border, the corruption in the Venezuela military will continue. Can a country exist as a free country with a corrupt military that is working with the drug cartels?

We are back again to seeing the impact of a porous southern border that allows drugs to flow into our country and drug lords make enormous sums of money sending those drugs into our country. Unless we take the market away from the military generals in Venezuela and the drug cartels, any move we make to bring freedom to Venezuela will be in vain.

The Millennial Generation Is Growing Up

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article observing changes in the political affiliation of the millennial generation. Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” The millennial generation is illustrating the truth of that statement. The millennial generation is roughly defined as those people currently between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. As they are aging, some of their political ideas are changing. It should also be noted that the millennial generation is 71 million strong and almost as large as the baby boomer generation.

As the millennial generation grows up, they are getting married, buying homes, and starting families. They are beginning to re-evaluate the liberal ideas they espoused in their younger years and to calculate the cost of some of these lofty visions.

The article reports:

According to the census data, the median age at which women are getting married is now 27.4, and for men it’s 29.5. Given that the age range for millennials is roughly 18 to 38, that’s right in the middle of this generation.

Marriage alone can make a big difference in terms of political views. The IBD/TIPP poll, for example, has consistently found that married women are far more conservative on most issues than single women.

The article explains the impact of the Trump economy of the millennials:

There’s another factor at play here. And that’s the upturn in the economy under President Trump.

For years, millennials suffered as President Obama’s policies of tax, spend and regulate produced the weakest economic recovery in modern times. Wages stagnated, millions of workers left the workforce entirely, and surveys showed that millennials were staying in their parents’ homes in record numbers.

Many have no doubt noticed the change in the economy since President Trump started dismantling the regulatory state and since Republicans passed the epic tax reform.

The employment-to-population ratio among 24- to 34-year-olds, for example, is finally back to its pre-recession level of 79%, after remaining stuck in the low- to mid-70% range for most of the Obama years.

The Economic Optimism Index among those age 18 to 24 is now at 59.3, according to the IBD/TIPP Poll. It has averaged 57 since Trump took office. (Anything over 50 is optimistic, under 50 is pessimistic.) Among those age 25 to 44, the optimism index is 53.5, which is higher than the overall index.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article–there is a lot of surprising information included in the article.

A Very Interesting Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon I was privileged to attend a meeting between North Carolina Department of Public Instruction State Superintendent, Dr. June Atkinson, Karyn Dickerson, the North Carolina Teacher of the Year, Jen Currin, the North Carolina Virtual Teacher of the Year, and some of the leadership of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association (CCTA). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss concerns about the Common Core standards for education that are coming to North Carolina. The meeting was very cordial, and both sides of the discussion were genuinely interested in providing the best possible education for children and young adults in the North Carolina schools.

There was, however, some very basic disagreement on the value of the Common Core standards and curriculum. One example of inaccurate teaching of history was found in Prentice Hall’s The American Experience, a textbook which has been aligned to the Common Core.

Townhall.com posted a story about this textbook, citing the chapter in the book about World War II:

There is no reading in this chapter ostensibly devoted to World War II that tells why America entered the war. There is no document on Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking or the atrocities committed against the Jews or the bombing of Britain. The book contains no speech of Winston Churchill or F.D.R. even though the reading of high-caliber “informational texts” is the new priority set by the Common Core, and great rhetoric has always been the province of an English class. There is not a single account of a battle or of American losses or of the liberation of Europe.

As the daughter of an Army veteran who landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, I am offended by this. As an American, I am offended by this.

I admire Dr. Atkinson’s desire to bring quality education to the children of North Carolina. I just feel that she has not examined the Common Core curriculum closely enough to realize that the Common Core curriculum will not give her the quality education for the students in North Carolina that she desires.

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There Are Two Viewpoints To Every Story

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted an article about the recent agreement between America and Iran regarding Iran’s nuclear future. The article clearly illustrates that President Obama and Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, have very different ideas on exactly what this agreement means.

The article reports:

Iran’s “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted this morning that “world powers,” including the U.S., had “surrendered” to the “Iranian nation’s will” in confirming a six-month interim nuclear deal that will allow the Iranian regime to continue its advanced centrifuge program and develop a new nuclear facility at Arak. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, implored Americans to “give peace a chance” with the Iran deal.

Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation’s interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation’s will

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 14, 2014

I think I prefer Congress‘ approach–add more sanctions.

The article explains:

Though the Obama administration claims that the interim deal–which includes a secret side deal–will lead Iran to give up any ambitions of becoming a nuclear power, the regime has publicly declared that the agreement reached in Geneva last November is the first step in removing all sanctions, and that it virtually recognizes Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium. All agree that it contradicts a decade of UN Security Council resolutions banning such enrichment.

Obama has threatened to veto new sanctions currently under consideration by Congress as a risk to the nuclear deal, even though the sanctions would not take effect until after the interim deal is over, and are designed to act as a deterrent against Iranian efforts to cheat on the agreement. The sanctions enjoy bipartisan support, though most support comes from Republicans: it enjoys 59 co-sponsors in the Senate, near a veto-proof majority.

There seems to be a basic difference of opinion as to what the agreement says. President Obama sounds like Neville Chamberlain and Congress sounds like Winston Churchill. I hope Winston Churchill wins.

 

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Our Special Relationship With Great Britain Takes Another Hit

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail reported that the Obama Administration will not send an official representative to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.

The article reports:

The Queen’s decision to attend Lady Thatcher‘s funeral has effectively elevated it to a state occasion unprecedented for a political figure in Britain since the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.

Other world leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper, Mario Monti of Italy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, are attending the service in person.

The decision not to attend was made before the bombing in Boston yesterday. It had been assumed that although the President would not attend, he would send a representative. He has chosen not to do that. Some high ranking members of previous American administrations will be attending–two Reagan era secretaries of state: James Baker and George Shultz, former US vice president Dick Cheney and ex-secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Margaret Thatcher was a pivotal figure of the Twentieth Century. It is simply bad form for the President not to send a representative. This is another misstep in our relationship with Great Britain.

Friday Night At The Movies

Tonight my husband and I went to see 2016: Obama’s America at the Regal Theater in Swansea (MA). This is a movie that the liberal press has not loved. Variety’s Joe Leydon dubbed it a “a cavalcade of conspiracy theories, psycho-politico conjectures and incendiary labeling.” He must not have seen the same movie I saw.

The theater was relatively full–it was a 6:40 showing. My husband and I had a chance to talk to a few of the people who were there. I don’t know what their political affiliations were–this is Massachusetts–sometimes it’s better not to ask–but the feeling I got was one of concern for America and worry about the direction the country is currently heading.

The information in the movie was not new–anyone who has paid attention to anything other than the mainstream media during the past three and a half years knew the basics of the movie. What was different about the movie was the organization of the information we have about President Obama and the insights of the writer, who is from a country that was for many years a British colony.

As Americans, we sometimes forget what it is like to grow up in other countries. President Obama spent some of his younger years in Indonesia, where his stepfather’s leaning toward democracy created problems in his parents’ marriage. Through President Obama’s mother, the President developed an image of his biological father that was not necessarily accurate. There were a number of influences described in the movie that explained President Obama’s policy positions on various issues. In the movie, the President is described as an anti-colonialist. This explains, among other things, his attitude toward the bust of Winston Churchill (see rightwinggranny.com), and his support of Argentina in the debate over ownership of the Falkland Islands.

The movie was not anti-Obama. It was a compilation of biographical facts that should have come out four years ago. There was nothing startling in the movie. It was pointed out that four more years of an Obama Administration would probably change this nation fundamentally, but the audience was given the option of deciding how it would feel about those changes.

I would strongly recommend seeing this movie. It is a basic summary of the biography of President Obama. The information in the movie should be a part of every voter’s decision process before deciding on their Presidential vote in November.

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Lies And Unnecessary Lies

Somehow missed by most of the major media (surprise), there was a discussion this week started by the White House about the bust of Winston Churchill that President Obama gave back to the British when he took office.

The White House Blog posted the following ‘Fact Check’:

Now, normally we wouldn’t address a rumor that’s so patently false, but just this morning the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer repeated this ridiculous claim in his column.  He said President Obama “started his Presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.”

This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.

Well, it turns out that their fact check is false. In 2009, The Telegraph reported:

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush’s tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

So what’s going on? Jake Tapper at ABC News reports:

Like a plot twist in a sitcom, IT TURNS OUT THERE ARE TWO CHURCHILL BUSTS!!!!!

The one in the White House residence was a gift to the White House from the British Embassy during the Johnson administration.

The other one was loaned to President George W. Bush by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

I realize that this is not earth-shaking, but why would the White House bother to lie about something so insignificant? Do these people have any confidence in the ability of the American voter to sort through truth and lies?

I truly question the wisdom of anyone who argues with Charles Krauthammer.

 

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