AMERICA NEEDS FOSSIL FUELS

Inflation in the United States was as high as 9.1% in June 2022.  Though it’s much lower now, the resulting price increases were cumulative with high prices remaining high.  Most of the inflation was due to huge deficit-spending, a global oil shortage that arose  from the U.S. no longer producing its share of oil, and disruptions to supply chains for food and goods  due to the lockdowns.  In 2020 the U.S. met all of it’s own oil, gas and energy needs (oil production in 2020 was 13 million barrels per day, in 2021 it went down to 9.6 million BPD).  The poor and people with moderate incomes were hurt the most from the resulting inflation, with many people no longer able to afford to pay for their daily necessities like food, transportation, and housing.

The shame of it all is that it’s 100% the fault of governments: Federal, State and local.  Government is supposed to help its citizens, so how can this be?  This is how….  The Far-Left wing of the Democrat Party has taken over that Party and now dictates its policies.  For example,  it is enabling millions of illegal aliens to enter the U.S. (open borders), made massive deficit spending, mandated Covid lockdowns (which did nothing except destroy jobs, businesses, economies, and children’s education), defunded police (which led to huge increases in crime), allowed over 500 BLM and Antifa riots the summer of 2020 (which also destroyed many businesses, etc.).  Other devastating Far-Left Democrat policies  include Federal lands being removed from permitting leases for oil/gas exploration, much higher costs for existing oil/gas Federal permits, subsidizing alternative fuels, advocating banks not lend money to oil, gas, and coal companies, which have all significantly increased the price of oil which is mostly responsible for the large increases in inflation.

The Presidency and the Senate are currently controlled by the Democrat Party and the House of Representatives is just barely controlled by the Republican Party, so Democrat policies are the only ones likely to be passed into law and implemented by President Biden, and the Democrat Party energy policy is to discourage the use of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and encourage electric vehicles and some forms of alternative energy sources (wind, solar).  In fact, they truly believe that high fossil-fuel prices are a good thing because it makes the very high cost of alternative means of energy production more competitive.  Currently, the generation of most electricity in the U.S. is obtained from burning coal and natural gas, both of which are fossil fuels.

If you believe that climate-change is mostly man-made instead of the result of solar flares and the sun, you might think that this policy of discouraging the use of fossil fuels is good…and one day it may be; however, the United States and the world are not technologically ready for it yet, and this premature transition appears to be on-course for causing a world-wide depression and the widespread poverty and starvation that goes with it.  Why would this happen?  To answer this question, we need to look at what fossil fuels are used for: 1) transportation via vehicles, ships, and planes for food and goods from farms and factories to outlets throughout the world, 2) a major ingredient in fertilizers to grow crops, 3) a major ingredient in synthetic fibers to make fabric, rugs, tires, 4) to burn as fuel for heat and energy, 5) in plastics and floor coverings, etc., etc. (for about 6,000 products).  Consequently, one can readily see that fossil fuels are used for many purposes other than fuel and that they are extremely important to the United States and every country in the world.  Check out Alex Epstein’s, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, if you’d like to learn more about their importance.

CONCLUSION

America is experiencing very high prices by the Biden Administration with its regressive anti-fossil fuel policies. It has asked some of our enemies  (Iran, Venezuela) and friends (Saudi Arabia) to increase their oil production to no avail.  At the same time it has and is, through numerous actions, discouraged the United States from becoming energy-independent again as it was under President Trump.  Will it ever change?  I don’t think so, because its anti-Capitalist, Socialist-Marxist philosophical underpinnings mandate high energy prices to help destroy the fossil-fuel market, which is what the Left uses as a pretext to disguise its real objective, which is to destroy Capitalism in the U.S. and replace it with Socialism.

 

WHAT’S BEHIND THE LEFT’S POLICIES?

Many believe that the policies championed and supported by the political Left are crazy because they make all Americans worse off.  I also find Leftist policies difficult to understand in terms of making people’s lives better, so I thought it useful to attempt to discover why the Left adopts them, especially since the Biden Administration is adhering to them and they are (predictably) adversely affecting most Americans.

1.IMMIGRATION: As promised during his Presidential campaign, Joe Biden has pursued open borders, especially along the U.S.’ southern border.  Most Americans, though very compassionate, do not approve because drugs and many criminals are sneaking across with the help of Mexican cartels.  Biden and the Democrat Party have facilitated this with the pretext of compassion, but the real reason I believe is because they know that at least 3/4 of them will eventually vote Democrat and that the children of illegal immigrants will automatically be U.S. citizens who, of course, can vote (and will probably vote Democrat).

2. ECONOMY: Inflation became as high as 9.1% in June of 2022.  Many necessary products (like baby formula) are still not readily available in parts of the U.S.  The economy was technically in a recession.  These phenomena are all the fault of the President and Democrat Party policies, mostly from multi-Trillion-dollar legislative bills that were voted into law or, in the case of baby formula shortages, from incompetence (like shutting down the largest producer [Abbott] on flimsy suspicion without devising a plan to replace it).  Biden’s pretext(s) are numerous, like the Ukraine War, stopping Russian oil purchases, climate change, compassion, President Trump, etc. The real reasons are: 1) the political Far-Left wants it, and 2) incompetence.

3.CLIMATE CHANGE: The Left is anti-fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal).  It has shut down pipelines and oil and gas leases, raised prices for permits, and discouraged  institutions to loan money for oil and gas exploration and drilling. All of these policies have resulted in decreased oil and gas production which in turn resulted in much higher prices for oil, gas and the 6,000 products made from them.  A significant percentage of the current very high inflation is largely due to Biden and the Democrat Party, using the pretext for their policies as  concern about climate change; the most significant threats to the U.S. are actually China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and the concern about climate change is absurd, given these real threats, because America will likely be bombed into the Stone Age with three EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) nuclear bombs exploded far above the atmosphere in the U.S. long before climate change has any effects, which appear to be minor.  The real reason for the Left’s climate change policy is that it serves as a  pretext for trying to destroy capitalism in the U.S. (by banning fossil fuels which are currently necessary to a healthy American economy).

4.GUN CONTROL: The Left’s solution for preventing mass shootings is to ban guns from mentally-healthy  law-abiding citizens, despite the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing this right.  The fact that there’s are currently about 400 million handguns owned by Americans make’s this rationale ridiculous. Also, criminals do not follow the law and have no problem getting guns no matter what the law says. The real reason I believe is that if and when the Left is ready, it will take control of the U.S. and citizens would not have the weapons to fight back.  Sounds crazy?  This “craziness” is the reason the Founding Fathers had for including the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights (to help keep government from becoming a dictatorship…[see the Federalist Papers]).

5. ELECTION FRAUD:  There has been some cheating at elections ever since elections have been held.  The fraudsters have continually improved their tactics to the point now that, with China’s help, they can win any election they want to win.  Recently, the massive onslaught of mail-in ballots, using the pretext of fear of Covid, has enabled Joe Biden to become President of the United States.  The movie, “2,000 Mules” and the book, “Rigged” provides sufficient evidence, though there’s a lot more available, which I have seen and written about in another post on my blog.

6.ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Vehemently supported by the Left, their pretext for pushing expensive electric vehicles is to get off of fossil fuels because they increase carbon emissions in the atmosphere. However, the electricity to charge the batteries in electric vehicles is also generated by the burning of coal and natural gas.  Also, electric vehicles are more vulnerable to EMPs (Electro-Magnetic Pulses) compared to gas and diesel-powered vehicles.  Finally, electric vehicles require about 19 or so “rare-earth” minerals, which are mostly produced in China.  Of course, this means that the U.S. would be dependent on China, our strongest adversary, to get the rare-earth minerals it needs to build cars.  The subsidies to new companies and their kick-backs to the Left for electric vehicles and their batteries I believe is the real reason for pushing those vehicles, not climate change.

7.RACE: The Left has used race almost since its inception in 1828.  It was pro-slavery, then pro-Ku Klux Klan, then pro-Jim Crow laws, then pro-Eugenics (Margaret Sanger and her “Planned Parenthood”); consequently African-Americans voted Republican from Emancipation in 1863 to about 1960 at which time they voted mostly Democrat with as much as 96% in Presidential elections.  The Democrat Party’s very poor performance in helping African-Americans is turning many to vote Republican.  The Democrat Party’s constant emphasis and focus on race has seriously hurt race relations.  The pretext is “concern for people of color.”  The real reason is they have had enormous election success using race and want to continue to use it.  I believe that it is behind most of the racial division in the U.S.

8.CRIME:  The Left is much more concerned about the rights of criminals rather than the rights of victims,  possibly for the prison vote since more States are allowing prisoners to vote.  The pretext is that over 50% of prisoners are black, though their percent of the population is only 13%, and this “unfairness” can be  corrected by not prosecuting crimes.  While President Biden and the Democrat Party initially supported the “Defund the Police” movement, his vice-president, Kamala Harris (while still just a Senator) actually paid to bail-out rioters in some of the 574 riots held by Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA during the summer of 2020.  Mega-donor and Far-Left billionaire, George Soros, funded the campaigns of many big-city district attorneys that stopped prosecuting most crimes in their cities, which of course led to the huge increases in crime in those cities. Many states have given prisoners the right to vote, which I believe to be the real reason for the Democrat Party’s being soft on crime.

9.THE MILITARY: President Biden has given small increases to the Defense Department budget which were too small to even keep up with inflation. Most Democrat presidents are either neutral or anti-military, which results in a weaker military.  With the military, the Far-Left doesn’t usually hide its disdain except that it doesn’t want a strong America, because it believes we are racist and don’t deserve it.  However, the U.S. needs a strong military to counter China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.  Democrat-appointed military leaders currently focus on teaching CRT (Critical Race Theory), and other non-military issues that are politically-motivated and consequently weaken our forces.

I only listed nine areas above but there are others, such as education in the public schools which the Left is destroying.  The Left used to hide their motives and beliefs, but increasingly they are coming out with their simplistic (and ridiculous) solutions to complex problems.  A good way to see what they are really up to is to watch what they do, not say, because they know the right words to say.  Moreover, Main Stream Media, as well as CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, etc. are all “in-the-tank” with the Left, so they can’t be trusted to just report the news.  Great books that provide evidence on what the Left and most of the Media are up to is Mark Levin’s “American Marxism,” his “Unfreedom of the Press”, and Pete Hegseth’s “Battle for the American Mind.”

IS CLIMATE-CHANGE DUE MOSTLY TO THE SUN OR IS IT MOSTLY MAN-MADE?

On January 27, 2021, President Biden signed three Executive Orders concerning climate change.  The most controversial one stopped the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, thus throwing out of work 11,000 Union direct construction workers as well as up to 100,000 other (indirect) jobs.  Another controversial provision banned new oil and gas leases on Federal lands, including the 19-million-acre ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge), though some of this land has been “unbanned”.  President Biden also directed Federal agencies and the Department of the Defense to make climate change a priority in their operations.

Climate change has been controversial since its onset in the 1970s when global cooling was the main concern by environmentalists. Therefore, we need to take a close look at it.  That’s what this post attempts.

THE ISSUE

Climate change, global cooling, or warming: terms that have been politicized to the extent that one has to question the sources of all data and facts cited to prove or disprove: 1) whether global warming, cooling or climate change even exits, and if it does, 2) is it man-made or caused by something else or a combination of both.  Further, if it does exist and is mostly man-made, 3) how bad is it and, 4) can anything be done to significantly stop it if it’s bad enough to warrant being stopped.  If we can answer each of these concerns, then we’ll know what to do, if anything.   Here’s my analysis:

1) Whether the earth is warming, cooling or staying the same basically depends on the point in time you select to compare this year’s  earth’s temperature to.  For example, a few hundred years ago the earth went through a “Little Ice Age” (1280-1850 AD) so of course today’s temperatures would be  warmer than then.  You may cite the melting Arctic glaciers as other evidence of global warming.  OK, but you need to consider that glaciers wax and wane over time and when Arctic ice is waning, Anarctic ice is waxing.  In other words, climate constantly changes (in the “Medieval Warm Period” from 900-1300 AD and it was a few degrees warmer than today’s temperatures).  Over thousands of years the Earth has cooled and gotten warmer and cooled and gotten warmer, etc.  In fact, the Earth has had 5 major Ice Ages over the past 2 billion years,  5 periods of serious global cooling.

2) In the last few hundred years some data suggests that the earth appears to have warmed and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased, so a case can be made for there being a correlation between the two.  Remember that correlation doesn’t mean causation.  Scientists do know that there is a significant correlation between Sunspots and weather on earth.  However, how much of the recent warming is due to CO2 and how much is due to Sun spots and Solar Flares is suggested by the fact that although atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased, the earth’s temperature has remained almost the same, which suggests that carbon dioxide has little or no effect on the earth’s temperature.  A 2015 book by George Root, Climate Change Reconsidered, state that only climate change from 1950 to the present may be due to increased CO2 levels but contrary to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed under auspices of the UN, the maximum amount of global warming is only plus 0.22 degrees Centigrade per century.

3) Is any global warming, cooling, or climate change cause for alarm and action?  Thus far, it’s been relatively minor and any slight increase in the earth’s temperature is probably a good thing…more crops, better weather.  Of course, the adverse effects  from the previous huge California drought, specifically the lack-of-water problem in California’s Central Valley was 100% man-made by former President Obama’s policy of manipulating stored water for the Delta Smelt, a small fish on the Endangered Species List, rather than use it for the cropland and farmers that lived there and for the thousands of migrant farm workers that helped harvest their crops.  Insofar as extreme weather activity is concerned, the past half-century has seen fewer major hurricanes and extreme tornado activity in the United States.

4) Can anything be done about global warming , cooling or climate change if  it gets really bad in the future?  There are various ways to reverse global warming but not global cooling.  My preference is, if there is global warming,  the geoengineering proposals that seem preferable because they affect every country equally and do not harm any country’s economy.  So what should be done now, if anything?  “Watchful waiting” is in order but everyone needs to endeavor to get global warming or climate change out of politics because it should be solely a matter of science.  The Kyoto Protocols were rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997 by 95 to 0.  And well they should have been, because the largest polluters, China and India. were exempted.  Moreover, the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord because the Accord did nothing to help the environment but would have cost America $3 billion/year that would have been redistributed to other countries.

Recall the “Hockey Stick graph” scandal in which a team led by a professor at the University of Virginia created a graph that eliminated data depicting the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period  in an effort to support the global warming hypothesis.  Then the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change actually and unbelievably included the misleading graph it in its Third Assessment Report.  Therefore, I believe it prudent to be very skeptical of any data depicting global warming or cooling.  However, if you’re an ardent believer in man-made climate change, you really should focus you efforts on the countries most responsible: China and India.  The U.S., despite its large economy, has done the most in cleaning up the environment.  In addition, if you really want to help the environment, focus your efforts on combatting ocean pollution.

With help from the Sun, the Earth’s climate changes constantly and gets warmer and then cooler.  People contribute some, but for the most part it appears the Sun is responsible.  From my course in meteorology at Penn State University,  I  learned that “yes, climate changes all of the time…that is the very nature of climate…”  However, large sums spent on projects that attempt doing something about it are not warranted until there is solid evidence and that we can significantly do something (unlike the political and do-nothing Paris Climate Accord).  Currently, claims of global warming are: 1) a ruse to give climate-related contracts to friends who will pay back significant sums (“kickbacks”) to politicians; 2) used as a rallying cry by which politicians attract and hold young, idealistic people to vote for them; and 3) the ruse the Left is using to weaken Capitalism.

The November 2018  fourth national climate change assessment by the U.S. Global Change Research Program paints a dire picture, with even larger errors in the upper tropical troposphere.  In addition, Dr. Michaels says that the only accurate climate model is the Russian model and that model shows very little evidence of upcoming climate change so I checked out what the premier and super-qualified expert on climate change (Patrick J. Michaels, PhD in ecological climatology) had to say.  Dr. Michaels states in a November 26, 2018, post in “Climate Depot” that “the draft fourth national assessment (“NA4″) uses a flawed ensemble of models that dramatically over-forecasts warming of the lower troposphere.”  In other words, climate change is very minor.  Other experts say that some data indicates the world is about to enter into a 25-year period of global cooling due to weak Solar Cycles 24 and 25.  Read Cold Sun and Dark Winter by John L. Casey, and chapter 2 (“A Less Giving Sun”) of the book, Twilight of Abundance by David Archibald if you would like to see the research on this.  A Newsweek magazine article, “The Cooling World,” dated April 28, 1975, first addressed global cooling.

CONCLUSION

To recap, climate and weather are primarily caused by the sun with only a small amount caused by people, so there’s only so much that can be done about it to make any difference.   If anyone says that climate change is “settled science,” you need to know that nothing in science is ever completely settled.  I estimate that about half of all scientists disagree with climate-change being mostly man-made.  Bad weather for a few consecutive years is simply “weather,” whereas bad weather for 15-20 consecutive years is “climate.” Weather changes all of the time.

Everyone should do whatever they can to keep our environment clean.  As far as I can determine, there is no climate emergency and no existential threat from our climate.  The existential threats to the U.S. are from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran; all of the hoopla is partisan political B.S. (see Swedish professor and world-renowned environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg’s 2021 book, “False Alarm [how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet”]).

 

WHY DO HALF OF AMERICAN VOTERS STILL VOTE DEMOCRAT?

With the Democrat Party moving very far left to the extent that it can now be accurately called the socialist party, why are half of voters still Democrats?  That’s what we’ll examine here.

The Democrat Party’s history goes way back to Andrew Jackson.  President Jackson was a populist and championed the working class, though he did force the Seminole Indians in Florida to move to Oklahoma, far from their Tribal lands, with many dying along the way, thus the name, “Trail of Tears.”  After its Confederacy lost the Civil War,  the Democrat Party supported the Klu Klux Klan and then the “Jim Crow” laws that kept African-Americans subjugated.

Aside from its checkered past, the Party successfully fought to have itself branded as being a champion for the poor, minorities, and the working class.  If this were ever true in the past, it’s certainly no longer true today.  Today’s Democrat Party is not your father’s Democrat Party.  Therefore, I ask the question, “why do about half of Americans still vote Democrat?”  Here’s why…

-President John F. Kennedy was the most prominent Democrat in the past and many voters still think of the Democrat Party as being the Party of JFK (though it has moved far to the left from where JFK stood on issues).

-The mainstream media (New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) are propagandists for the Democrat Party.  Over 90% of their reporting on President Trump was negative and much of it was actually fabricated, reporting on the insignificant “palace intrigue” rather than on Trump’s substantive accomplishments with the economy, jobs, minority employment, etc.  Stories that made liberals look bad were usually not reported.

-Most of Hollywood is a major propagandist for the Democrat Party, using its fame with the public to sway voters.

-Most Universities and colleges are propagandists for the Democrat Party.  Professors deliberately mis-state  the Conservative side of issues and also attribute nefarious motives to Republicans and Conservatives.

-Silicon Valley uses its vast power to suppress conservative ideas on the Internet but airs liberal and far-left ideas.

-Most Republican politicians, with the exception of former President Trump, governor Ron DeSantis, and a few others, generally do not fight back against the constant onslaught of criticism and phony allegations from their Democrat opponents and the mainstream Media.  Therefore, voters hear mostly just one side criticizing the other and never even hear both sides of issues.

-There is a significant amount of voter fraud, as documented by various credible sources such as the Pew Research Center.  Almost all of the fraud is for Democrat political candidates and explains why Democrat National Committee policy is against any form of photo ID being required to vote, using the pretext that it’s voter suppression.  Voter ID makes voter fraud much more difficult.

-Many voters do not closely follow national issues.  They repeat what they hear on the Left’s propaganda mainstream media (MSM) machine, but they don’t know both sides of the issues.  Therefore, followers of MSM are usually Democrats, thus the war by the Left against Fox News, which is not part of the MSM.  Even simply hearing the conservative or Republican side would change the minds of many voters.

-Most Democrat issues are phony issues, created to persuade voters to vote Democrat.  These include the non-existent “War on Women”, the Left’s attempt to take protective guns away from law-abiding citizens through its “War on Guns”,  blaming climate change mostly on people rather than mostly on the sun and solar flares, calling everyone a racist who does not agree with their position on issues, the Left’s war on the police, the military, and ICE, etc., etc., etc.

CONCLUSION

I’ve been following politics since the 1960 TV debates between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.  Back then, both political parties were relatively honest in advocating their views.  It’s much different today.  Other than being against every policy that the Republican Party supports, what policies do President Biden and the Democrat Party stand for?   From his Presidential Executive Orders and Actions, Biden is for abolishing ICE, not finishing constructing the border wall, giving all illegal aliens amnesty, a weak military, free college, Obamacare, and Sanctuary cities among other things.  The Democrat Party-controlled Congress has passed a $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief package that contains only 9% covid relief, proposed a $2.2 trillion infrastructure package with less than 25% of it to be spent on infrastructure, and is has proposed a voting “reform” bill that is so corrupt it would ensure that there could never be another Republican president.  It does this be removing all safeguards to election integrity. Good-bye to the Republic, hello to George Orwell’s “1984.”  God help us!