See No…, Hear No….

Differing opinions, that is, along with actual facts. Apparently, Progressive-Democratic Party politicians are so weak of character that their Party leader, President Joe Biden, feels constrained to protect their tender eyes and ears.

The White House is prohibiting senior administration officials from traveling for international energy engagements that promote carbon-intensive fuels, including oil, natural gas and coal, Fox News Digital has learned.

The bar came from Biden’s National Security Council because, you know, differences are anathema to Biden’s concept of security. Which isn’t far wrong, given Biden’s assessment of the fragility of the players in his Cabinet.

Biden’s Lack of Concern

There is a growing number of Progressive-Democratic Party politicians—governors and mayors—who are starting to decry their Party’s President, Joe Biden’s, lack of performance with our southern border. It’s an open question whether they’re actually beginning to recognize the problem or, in this election season, only posturing for public consumption and their own reelection chances. In either event, they’re still shifting all blame to the Feds:

Governor JB Pritzker (D) joined a growing number of Democrats who have criticized Biden’s border policies when he sent a letter to the president on Monday with a list of demands outlining how the federal government’s response to the border crisis is inadequate.

He, and others of Party, are continuing, though, to avert their faces from their own contribution to our border problem: their status as enthusiastic, openly inviting, sanctuary States and cities.

One thing, though, stood out for me in that article, which otherwise was centered on State and city Leftist politician…outcry.

Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) had a call with White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, senior adviser Tom Perez, and officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

Notice that. Biden couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone himself, or even to join the call. He sent his underlings to talk.

This is the degree of concern Biden has for what’s going on at our southern border (and increasingly our northern border) and the impact that’s having on our cities and towns—even those in Party-run cities and towns, and States. Pritzker, Johnson, Adams, Hochul, et al., can rightfully be called out for putting their spyglasses to their blind eyes. Biden, though, simply doesn’t give a rat’s patootie.

Progressive-Democrats’ Assault on American Energy and Americans’ Health

In addition to Progressive-Democratic President Joe Biden’s and his Cabinet cronies’ direct assault on our ability to produce our own energy (among the latest attacks is this), Biden and his syndicate are attacking our energy use through attacking us ordinary Americans in our homes.

Here’s a partial list of devices we use to make our lives comfortable, even merely livable, in what used to be our castles—our homes:

  • Gas stoves
  • Ovens
  • Clothes washers
  • Refrigerators
  • Refrigerator freezers
  • Freezers
  • Air conditioners
  • Dishwashers
  • Pool pumps
  • Battery chargers
  • Ceiling fans
  • Dehumidifiers
  • Microwave ovens
  • Portable electric spas
  • Air compressors

Biden’s regulations are intended to price these things out of reach of our middle- and lower-income groups of citizens. Things, mind you, like food preparation and storage tools, hygiene devices, devices for heating and cooling our shelters.

This is the utter contempt Party has for us American citizens.

Another Nation-State Kidnaps

The lede says it.

A senior executive at US risk advisory firm Kroll has been barred from leaving mainland China for the past two months, heightening concerns about the risks foreign companies face when doing business in the country.

Then this:

Michael Chan, a Hong Kong-based managing director at the company who specializes in corporate restructuring, traveled to the mainland in July and subsequently informed his employer that he cannot leave….

However, this:

Neither Chan nor Kroll is the target of the investigation….

They’re not targets, but Chan can’t leave, anyway. That’s kidnapping. That he’s free to move about the cabin country in no way means he’s not a prisoner. He’s just locked up in a gilded cage. And like most cages, his contact with the outside world is a tenuous, sometime thing, given the PRC’s communications fire wall.

In the end, the optimal way to mitigate these kidnappings by the PRC is for American businesses to stop doing business inside the PRC, especially given the Biden administration’s reserve price for getting our citizens back. It’s come to this, quite aside from the national security question of our businesses being economically and resource dependent on an enemy nation.

Federal Government Shutdowns

I’ve written a few times (the latest here) about the results of Federal government shutdowns. Progressive-Democratic Party politicians always and everywhere are in full-throated panic-mongering about the disaster that is a shutdown. Far too many Republican Party politicians timidly accept the Leftist Party’s claims and seek to do anything, even on bended knee, to avoid a shutdown.

I have a challenge for them, and for all you out there in reader land.

Here are two graphs, the first from Macrotrends showing our GDP growth rate from year to year from 1961 through 2022, and the second from stastica showing GDP levels over the more focused period of 1990-2022.

My challenge is this: find, in either graph, the Federal government shutdowns of 2013, 2018, and 2018-2019.

As an aside, as I write this late Saturday, the House passed a 45-day, keep the government open, funding bill; the Senate then passed the House bill and forwarded the thing to President Joe Biden (D). The bill omitted any spending cuts, steep or otherwise, and dropped any aid for Ukraine.

This, in light of the above, represents a surrender to the Progressive-Democrats forced by the allegedly Republican Chaos Caucus led by Zoo Master Matt Gaetz (R, FL), who have offered nothing beyond “No” to any bill on offer, including the prior Republican-led House stop-gap bill that included significant cuts to spending—which would have given time to work out the remaining appropriations bills with even deeper and broader spending cuts. Gaetz might as well have joined Progressive-Democrat Congressman Jamaal Bowman in deliberately pulling a Congressional office fire alarm in an attempt to stall any House action at all.