Tag Archives: political parties

Not Her Fault—Not Entirely

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President Joe Biden’s (D) Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is being eviscerated for declaring, at a recent noon o’clock press conference, that illegal immigration was down by 90% since implementing President Biden’s immigration policies.

This is, of course, a straight up lie. While illegal immigration rates are down year-on-year, they’re nowhere near 90% down.

This is not Jean-Pierre’s lie, though; it’s Biden’s lie. The woman is only repeating the words she’s instructed to spout by her boss.

Jean-Pierre does, though, lack the personal integrity to resign rather than repeat her boss’ lies. She can, and should, be eviscerated for having so little personal integrity, while at the same time she should be deeply pitied for being so disturbingly lacking in self-respect.

A Better Solution

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Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) is reintroducing his energy project permitting reform bill in the Senate. He also re-cited the need for reform in his remarks introducing the bill.

In the United States, it often takes between five and ten years—sometimes longer—to get critical energy infrastructure projects approved, putting us years behind allies like Canada, Australia, and more recently the EU, who each have policies designed to complete permitting in three years or less[.]

Even though fixing this would help allegedly green energy projects, also, Manchin’s cronies in the Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate have been happy to sacrifice that in favor of letting those interminable delays kill so many domestic cheap hydrocarbon-based energy projects. It’ll be an up-the-cliff battle to get anything like this passed in the Party-dominated Senate.

Among the useful things in Manchin’s bill, though, is this:

The Building American Energy Security Act would establish maximum timelines for permitting reviews including a two-year process for major projects and a one-year process for smaller projects. It would provide legal avenues for project developers to take against the federal government if a permitting review is delayed beyond set timelines and would mandate a single inter-agency environmental review.

That’s good as far as it goes, but here’s a better enforcement mechanism, IMNSHO: the permits should be will-issue, and if no decision is reached by those deadlines, the project should be deemed fully permitted, with no further review and no appeal of the permit. Rejections must be public, specific, and detailed, and they can be appealed directly to Federal courts: the Energy and Interior Departments, EPA, any other government entity can appear only as defendants in an appeal; no appeal of a permit grant should be allowed.

A further criterion and an additional deadline: if any of the rejection criteria are not met, the project should be deemed fully permitted, with no further appeal. The rejecting authority should have gotten it right the first time.

If the initial court does not reach a final decision within six months, the project must be deemed fully permitted. Appeals must be finally resolved within three months of the appeal filing (which itself must occur, fully developed, within one week of the lower court’s ruling, or the opportunity to appeal must be forfeit), or the project must be deemed fully permitted. And: only one appeal of a permit grant must be allowed at each court level; naysayers cannot be allowed to drag things out with serial appeals.

Those last put a premium on the Federal courts moving cases apace, but it puts a bigger premium on the lawyers to prepare and move their cases without delays—and eliminates the deliberate stalls represented by cynical serial appeals.

Our Future with the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Recall the Progressive-Democratic Party’s open assault on democracy when its State-level representatives shut down the Wisconsin and Indiana governments’ ability to do their citizens’ work by deserting their State legislative duties by running out of those two States in order to deny the respective Houses of Representatives the quorum necessary to function—all because those Progressive-Democrats couldn’t get their way honestly through our nation’s—and those States’—democratic processes. Those disruptions lasted for weeks.

Fast forward to a very few weeks ago when three Representatives, members of Tennessee’s Progressive-Democratic Party, led a riot on the floor of Tennessee’s House of Representatives. Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden subsequently lionized those riot leaders with a visit to the Oval Office.

Now we have Progressive-Democrat-supported rioters inside the Montana House of Representatives, shouting down and shutting down that House.

Riot police have descended on Montana’s capitol after left-wing protesters disrupted proceedings in the state House of Representatives in support of transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat, who was censured by the body last week[.]

This is the domestic side of the job Biden said he wants to finish in his reelection announcement last Tuesday. This is the nature of the unity on which Biden campaigned for President the first time around.

Update: I’m reminded by a reader under separate cover–and shame on me for forgetting it–of the Texas Progressive-Democratic Party’s walkout at the end of the immediately prior Texas legislative session in an attempt to deny democracy and democratic procedures to the good citizens of Texas, all because Party members couldn’t get their way honestly.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) had to call a special session over the summer in order to complete the people’s business.

“Finish the Job”

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President Joe Biden (D) announced his decision to run for four more years as President last Tuesday in a three-minute Hollywood-esque video. A video, no press, no citizen, present, and especially, no questions, no spontaneity, nothing extemporaneous or free-flowing.

Just: “Let’s finish the job,” his new slogan.

Here’s one aspect of the job he wants to finish, in the foreign relations environment. American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow specializing in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East, Michael Rubin:

He entered office speaking about human rights…. First, it was tens of thousands of Afghans who put their faith in and service with us but for whom Secretary of State Antony Blinken couldn’t be bothered to expedite visas. Then there were the millions of Afghan women. The cost for Climate Envoy John Kerry’s pursuit of China’s signature of virtue-signaling climate change declarations is turning a blind eye to Uyghur genocide.

And Israeli Maj Gen (res) Gershon Hacohen, former Israel Defense Forces Northern Corps Commander:

All the players in the Middle East recognize the weakness of the American presence in the region. The American strategy, as expressed in the National Security Strategy document of the White House, established a new order of priorities. In the first place, dealing with the competition with China in the Far East and across the Pacific Ocean….
…
The bottom line is that the state of Israel finds itself isolated like it has not been for decades, and this in itself accelerates the processes of joining regional alliances against Israel.

This is Biden’s continued disdain for Israel layered on top of all the failures vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China noted earlier.

Finishing jobs like that in the way that he’s begun them would be damaging to our nation in the extreme.

Permit to Buy

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The Delaware legislature is trying again to infringe on American citizens’ right to keep and bear Arms; the Know Betters of the legislature are renewing their drive to require the State’s citizens—who, for those Progressive-Democrats not keeping up at home, also are American citizens—to get the State’s permission just to buy a firearm.

A proposal filed Wednesday in the state Senate would require prospective handgun owners to complete a state-authorized firearms training course and submit an application that would include fingerprinting and an extensive background check. If approved, Delaware’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security would issue a free 180-day permit.

A permit just to buy. The duration of this…requirement…is laid out in the proposed bill:

A handgun qualified purchaser permit is valid for a period of 180 days from the date of issuance….

I have no conceptual objection to requiring training on the firearm, so long as neither the training itself nor the cost of it, are constructed as barriers to the getting and subsequent keeping and bearing, and so long as any license (not permit to buy) is issued on a will-issue basis.

I do object to fingerprinting the prospective firearm keeper and bearer of his weapon. No government has any business keeping track of which of its citizens have weapons and which of them do not. That’s a need only with regard to criminals, and acquiring a firearm is not, by definition, a criminal act.

But beyond that, these worthies are carefully ignoring the key phrase in our Constitution’s 2nd Amendment [emphasis added]:

…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Plainly, getting Arms, including the purchase of one or more of them, is a necessary precondition to the keeping and bearing of them. Restrictions on buying a firearm—which is what a State-granted permission slip, of any duration, is—is just that infringement. No permit to buy, no matter its construction, is legitimate; such permission slips start out unconstitutional and they are incurably so throughout their existence.

 

The bill on offer can be read here.