Tag Archives: political parties

The US Navy under this Commander-in-Chief

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Iran has seized another oil tanker, this on in the Strait of Hormuz, less than a week after the pirates seized another oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Strait.

A dozen small Iranian naval boats swarmed the 360-yard-long Niovi after it left Dubai en route to the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah early Wednesday morning, the navy said. The Iranian boats forced the [Panama-flagged] Niovi to reverse course and head toward Iran’s coast.
The seizure came six days after Iranian forces in the Gulf of Oman used a helicopter and boats to seize the Advantage Sweet, a Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker bound for Texas.

There’s this, too, for background:

The US Navy said Iran has “harassed, attacked, or interfered” with 15 commercial ships over the past two years.

And all along, the Biden-hobbled Navy stood by and carefully watched.

Apparently President Joe Biden (D) does not agree with former President Thomas Jefferson that pirates must be dealt with…firmly.

Debt Limit Extensions

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James Freeman quoted Capital Alpha Partners‘ James Lucier’s prediction concerning reaching the current debt limit and Congress’ response to it:

We think that Congress will pass a temporary extension of the debt limit deadline for 30, 60, or 90 days.

The House already has passed a temporary debt limit extension—of ~365 days.

The sad fact is that all debt limit extensions, of however many years, are merely temporary, and that will continue to be the case until Congress quits spending more money than the Federal government takes in. The most efficient way of achieving that end is to cut spending—not merely reduce its rate of growth.

That efficiency will take We the People getting off our duffs and electing Representatives and Senators—and Presidents—who have the courage to do the cutting.

Child Abuse

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The Oregon House of Representatives, dominated as it is by the Progressive-Democratic Party, has moved to legalize child mutilation and sex abuse. Oregon House Bill 2002 B, passed strictly partisanly (the vote was 36-23),

would allow minors younger than 15 to obtain an abortion without parental consent. Doctors would not be compelled to disclose this information to parents unless receiving express written permission from the child.
The legislation would expand taxpayer money to fund gender reassignment surgery—including sterilization for children as young as 15—without their parent’s consent.

This governmental abuse of parents’ children is another path along the Progressive-Democratic Party’s plan to fundamentally transform America,

We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
—Barack Obama, October 30, 2008
We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.
—Michelle Obama, May 14, 2008

and to fundamentally change things—our economy, certainly, as President Joe Biden (D) only recently asserted but also the relationship between children and their parents and between children and the State.

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.