Joe Biden Had A Deal

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden had a deal with Venezuela’s MFWIC, Nicolás Maduro: if Maduro would allow Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, to run in a free, unfettered election for the Venezuelan office of President, Biden would lift the oil and gas sanctions former President Donald Trump (R) had imposed over the Maduro government’s continued and rank misbehaviors.

And so it came to pass that Biden lifted those sanctions.

However.

On Thursday Venezuela’s president of the national assembly said Ms Machado won’t be allowed to run. The next day Mr Maduro’s hand-picked Supreme Court echoed that declaration, upholding the ban, with charges that she had engaged in conspiracies against the regime. The only “conspiracy” is that she opposes the regime.

Who benefits from the deal that lifted the oil sanctions? Not the US. Venezuela’s government men and women do. The People’s Republic of China does.

Either Joe Biden is incapable of matching wits with a thuggish dictator’s machinations, or he knew this would be the outcome, and he agreed the deal anyway. Either way, Joe Biden is unfit for a second term.

Even a Progressive-Democrat…

…is starting to figure it out.

A Chicago Democrat running for the Illinois House is calling out Mayor Brandon Johnson for allowing migrants to “invade” the Windy City.

Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones did a walk-along with Smith, who showed Jones

two shuttered buildings now sheltering migrants—an academy for young women and a health center that once serviced patients struggling financially. Smith said both were closed due to lack of funds.
“You tell us that there’s no funding or the lack of funding. But then you bring migrants in and make them shelters. That’s not the American way,” Smith said.
“They have the funding. And every now and then they say, ‘Hey, we found more millions, we found more money.'”

That dishonesty and that favoring illegal aliens over American citizens and legally resident aliens in Chicago is all too typical of the Progressive-Democratic Party.

Smith is in the Illinois Progressive-Democratic Party primary for the Illinois House against incumbent Kimberly du Buclet. Unfortunately, Smith has no serious influence within Party; from Party’s perspective, he’s a rogue and not to be listened to. It’ll be instructive to see the level of support from Party rank and file that he gets over the course of his primary campaign.

The PRC Doesn’t Want to Lead the World?

That’s the claim of Michael Singh, Washington Institute for Near East Policy‘s Glazer Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East Director, in his Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

I disagree, beginning with his subheadline:

China doesn’t aspire to lead the world, much less to establish peace, but only to undermine the US.

Only that last is accurate. The PRC most assuredly does intend to “lead the world,” and to do so by overriding and replacing us. Xi has said as much regarding replacing us in other venues.

Singh added this near the end of his piece:

A China that aimed to replace the US-led international order with one of its own devising might see….

No, those “opportunities” are irrelevant by being too soon and too far away to be moves by the PRC just yet. The PRC is focused on the South China Sea and its coming invasion of the Republic of China. Succeed there, as it’s already doing in the Sea, thereby driving the US out of the Western Pacific and taking control of the sea lines of commerce on which Japan and Korea depend for their very independence, and on which we so heavily depend, with 40% of our international economic activity coming through those lanes to our West Coast, and our nation loses credibility globally.

At that point, it’ll be time to move in on the ME and Africa, and then a meek Europe.

With each success, the PRC will be able to further isolate us and to exert increasing pressure on our foreign policy, potentiating our retreat from the world.

Amorality of the Progressive-Democratic Party

Senior advisors of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s reelection effort are worried.

Some of President Biden’s senior aides are becoming increasingly worried that his support for Israel’s war in Gaza risks damaging his re-election prospects amid cratering support from young voters.

Make no mistake about it: those senior aides are far more typical of the Progressive-Democratic Party than are others who support Biden’s nominal support for Israel.

Party putting its power ahead of pushing for what’s right regarding terrorism. That’s what’s campaigning for government positions at all levels of government in our nation.

More Reasons to Disband

Now the Biden administration is actively seeking to undermine our friends and allies on top of destroying our energy industry.

The White House on Friday announced a temporary pause on pending decisions of exports of liquefied natural gas to non-free trade countries, until the Energy Department can factor climate change into its reviews of the projects.

Two changes (for starters) are badly needed, and these changes badly need significant majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican in the White House (which puts a premium on the elections this fall).

One of those changes is enactment of a statute giving the relevant approval authority(s) 10 calendar days in which to approve an export application or to provide a detailed explanation for denial, which explanation must have only concrete, measurable reasons, be devoid of generalities, and be publicly available NLT the 11th day. Absent such a decision, the application must be deemed approved.

The other change is the disbandment of the Department of Energy with all Department personnel returned to the private sector, not reassigned elsewhere in the Federal government. The only functions remotely worth retaining are ARPA-Energy and Science and Innovation, which should be folded into ARPA with circumscribed funding authorities.

Another change, in furtherance of the concept of the second change, is the disbandment of the Environmental Protection Agency, with its personnel also returned to the private sector, rather than reassigned within the Federal government. This agency—the managers in charge of it, along with its employees, have for too long conflated environmental protection with climate “protection,” with its cockamamy decisions exemplified by its ruling that plant food in our atmosphere—CO2—is a pollutant.