Tag Archives: political parties

The Biden No-Fracking Plan

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…and his assault on our oil industry and our energy production sector generally.

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden said, in last Thursday’s debate,

I would transition from the oil industry, yes.

Then he repeated his promise.

I will transition. It is a big statement. Because I would stop.

Here’s how he intends to prosecute his assault.

  • ban on drilling leases and development on federal land
  • “robust federal standards” on methane releases from pipelines as well as storage facilities
  • use the Endangered Species Act and National Monuments Act to limit lands open to development
  • all infrastructure projects that require federal approval or receive federal funds would have to undergo a “climate test” including federal agencies projecting costs from carbon emissions attributable to every new pipeline or liquefied natural gas terminal
  • choke demand by requiring, among other things, expensive carbon sequestration technologies on power plants
  • increase subsidies for wind and solar power in parallel with eliminating existing subsidies and credits for oil and natural gas production, reducing demand for the oil and gas

Fracking ban by a thousand cuts. And slashes.

Some Economic Data

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Our recovery from the Wuhan Virus situation is moving apace, both medically and economically. Here are some of the economic data. The breakdown by Progressive-Democrat- vs Republican-run States also is interesting. The Executive Summary is this:

…the labor market for lower-income workers is reviving, though it has become increasingly bifurcated between states that reopened sooner and those that maintained longer lockdowns.

Now those data:

  • continuing jobless claims for the week of October 10 declined by nearly one million to 8.37 million, and by 3.6 million in the last three weeks
  • in August the layoff rate hit the lowest on record
  • [i]n July and August, layoffs were fewer than during the same months last year
  • more new restaurants opened in September than in 2018, 2017 and 2016

That last obviously is from the artificially low level driven by the government’s forced closures from the lockdowns, but it still represents significant recovery.

  • [t]hird-quarter median weekly earnings increased 8.2% year-over-year and 9.2% for the bottom 25% of workers
  • [m]edian weekly earnings rose…11.8% for Hispanics and 9.3% for blacks

That’s a significant narrowing of the income (and so wealth) gap that the Left worries so much about.

  • September consumer spending was up 5.4% year-over-year

The over-year period is before the virus situation. That puts the spending rate back on its original track.

  • Atlanta Federal Reserve estimates the economy grew 35.3% in the third quarter

That’s ahead of the official GDP estimate due out on 29 Oct, but it’s a solid presage.

Now some between-State data. September unemployment rates in States that locked down more tightly and stayed locked down longer:

  • 6% in Nevada, 11% in California, 10.5% in Rhode Island, 10.2% in Illinois, 9.7% in New York

Rates for States that reopened sooner from looser restrictions:

  • 7% in Arizona, 6.4% in Georgia, 5.4% in Wisconsin, 5% in Utah

Labor force participation data for a couple of tightly restricted States:

  • 363,000 workers dropped out of New York’s labor force
  • 229,000 workers left New Jersey’s labor force

On the other hand,

  • Arizona’s labor force grew by 151,000
  • Wisconsin’s labor force grew by 82,000

Looks like recovery to me, albeit still fragile.

Alphabet’s Fact Checking

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign team ran a campaign ad featuring a poor, downtrodden bar owner whose business was in the wind due to the Wuhan Virus (my term, not the ad’s) related lockdowns that shut businesses like his. In the ad, the bar owner blamed the situation on President Donald Trump.

The ad ran on YouTube during some Sunday football games.

There’s a problem, though:

[T]he [bar owner] is actually a wealthy tech investor who made contributions to the former vice president’s campaign. He also supported Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders that kept businesses shuttered longer.

Why blame Alphabet for this? YouTube is wholly owned by Google; Google is wholly owned by Alphabet. Alphabet is the MFWIC of this organization. The ad wouldn’t have run without YouTube‘s carefully considered checking and approval, that checking and approval is completely controlled by YouTube‘s controlling organization, Google, and Google‘s approval process is completely controlled by Google‘s controlling organization, Alphabet.

That’s sort of how the position of Boss works.

Plainly, Alphabet is carefully selective of the facts it chooses to “select.” The blatant censorship on display here is yet another reason to withdraw Alphabet‘s Section 230 exemption and further, to treat it like the publisher—equal time for all views, for instance—that the company insists on being, in deed if not word.

Progressive-Democrat Hypocrisy

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Again.

California’s Progressive-Democrats have been busily rewriting election laws to help their party “ballot harvest.”

In 2016 California [Progressive-]Democrats passed a law allowing anybody, including paid campaign operatives and political parties, to collect and return mail-in ballots. Two years later [Progressive-]Democrats prohibited “disqualifying a ballot solely because the person returning it did not provide on the identification envelope his or her name, relationship to the voter, or signature.”

And

[Progressive-]Democrats boasted that they used ballot harvesting to flip seven House seats in California that year including four in Orange County. Before this year’s March primary, hospitality unions threw a “ballot party” for workers outside of Anaheim hotels.

This election season, Republicans have decided to take them at their law. Even worse, according to the Progressive-Democrats,

[Republicans have] also learned to harvest ballots more efficiently by setting up drop boxes at shooting ranges, churches, gun shops, and GOP offices. The boxes, which are locked and supervised, received permission from the site hosts.

Oh, the Progressive-Democrat hue and cry over being challenged in accordance with their own book, Alinsky style. They’re accusing Republicans of voter suppression. And they’re actually serious in their accusation.

As the WSJ put it near the end of its editorial,

When Democrats harvest ballots, they are increasing voter access. When Republicans do it, it’s cheating. Glad we cleared that up.

Making a Mockery

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) claims that

[O]ur Republican colleagues have made such a mockery of the Supreme Court confirmation process, we are not going to have business as usual here in the Senate….

Here’s what Schumer is doing to illustrate his point:

  • forced a vote on a measure that would ban the Justice Department from arguing against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
  • invoked the rarely-used “two-hour rule,” which governs when committees can meet when the Senate is in session, at one point preventing the Senate Intelligence Committee from meeting
  • move[d] to bring up a vote under the Congressional Review Act and force Action on a resolution to undo the Trump administration’s gutting … of the Community Reinvestment Act
  • Schumer then motioned to adjourn the Senate until after the presidential election
  • appealed that ruling [that his motion to adjourn was out of order] and then motioned to table his own appeal, essentially putting up a motion in opposition of his own effort to close down the Senate

Then Schumer said this:

This is the most rushed…most partisan, least legitimate Supreme Court nomination process in our nation’s history—in our nation’s entire history—and it should not proceed.

Never mind that moving at the speed of business rather than at the glacial pace of politics is not at all rushed, but simply a matter of efficiency, of eschewing dithering or delay for the sake of delay—like the forgoing.

Never mind that, to the extent the present Supreme Court nomination process is partisan, it’s because Schumer is blocking partisanship in the process, refusing to allow Party take any serious part in the Senate’s Constitutionally mandated advise and consent role in confirmation.

No, with deliberately obstructive moves like these, Schumer personally is preventing business as usual in the Senate, including its confirmation business; he personally is making a mockery of the entire Senate. And so are his fellow Progressive-Democrats, who are going along with his nonsense.