Tag Archives: politics

Oil Buyback

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden now plans to buy 2.7 million barrels of oil to put back into our oil strategic reserve.

Couple things about that.

We had 630 million barrels of oil in our strategic reserve before Biden took office and started selling it to the People’s Republic of China while claiming he was doing it to slow the gasoline price inflation his spending was causing. As recently as 24 November last, our reserve was down to 351 million barrels. According to my second grade arithmetic, that means Biden had reduced our reserve by 279 million barrels in just those two years and 10 months. My third grade arithmetic tells me that those 27 million barrels he’s buying for the reserve is just 1% of what he’s taken out of it. Which makes buying that oil an insulting effort to distract us with his pretense of refilling our reserve after his dangerous reduction.

The other thing is that he’s buying that oil at $79/barrel, which means he’s spending $213.3 million to buy that 1%. To replace all 279 million barrels, he’ll have to pay more than $22 billion at those $79 per. When the prior administration (the Trump administration for those following along at home) refilled the reserve after the Obama admin draw-down, Trump’s buyers paid $30-$55 per barrel. Call it, for this back of the envelope estimate, an average of $42.5 per barrel. At that price, Biden could replace the oil he removed for a total cost of $11.8 billion dollars. Bidenomics is going to cost us ordinary American taxpayers more than $10 billion at today’s actual price. That is, if Biden follows through on refilling our strategic oil reserve.

Update: third grade arithmetic tells me that those 27 million barrels should have been third grade arithmetic tells me that those 2.7 million barrels. Fershlugginer keyboard….

Federal Intimidation

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The Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden now is trying to cow school districts into pushing Progressive-Democratic Party gender identity and sexual orientation ideology by threatening to withhold Federal funding from the districts’ free and reduced-price school lunch programs.

This is Party using children as hostage in its push for that destructive claptrap. Those programs often provide the only healthy meal those children get in a school day, and denying those children is a blatant attempt to intimidate those districts into compliance with Party ideology. Party’s ransom demand is the surrender of those children to Party diktat.

Aside from that deep immorality, the move also is illegal. South Dakota v Dole made clear that the Federal government cannot use threats of withholding funding in order to coerce compliance with Federal diktats regarding intra-State, or local, behaviors. Dole was a case in which the Federal government withheld a percentage of Federal highway funding from South Dakota over its refusal to comply with a then-recently enacted alcohol drinking age limit, and South Dakota objected to the withholding. The ruling held that the Feds could, indeed, withhold a percentage of Federal funding, but it could not do withhold a high enough fraction to be coercive. Withholding all of the school lunch funding is plainly coercive, and it’s intended to be so.

It Needs Disrupting

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It seems that the US Navy’s USS Gabrielle Giffords, a littoral combat ship, sailed too close to Second Thomas Shoal to suit the People’s Republic of China, and the PLA’s Southern Theater objected.

The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations, fully demonstrating that the US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea[.]

This is plainly untrue; no PRC sovereignty was violated since the shoal is owned by the Republic of the Philippines. Nevertheless, the PRC continued its provocations and tacit threats by having its naval force “mobilize” and track the Giffords.

In response to this latest PRC attempt at intimidation, the US Navy—and Australia, India, and Japan, the other members of the Quad—should send groups of combat ships (not just onesies and twosies) into the same area, conduct combat and surveillance aircraft flyovers, and engage in tracking PLAN shipping in the area.

The situation in the South China Sea badly wants disruption and the situation restored to its condition prior to the PRC’s invasion of the Sea and its occupation of all those islands owned by the other nations rimming the Sea.

Take Appropriate Action

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In response to Iran’s proxy Houthis’ attacks on US Navy combat ships and on commercial freight shipping in the Red Sea, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, said that

The United States is going to take “appropriate action[.]”

Sure we will. Biden will have the Navy go drop a bomb, or two, on or toss a couple of missiles at a couple of unimportant Houthi buildings in the Yemeni desert, just like he did in the Syrian desert in pseudo-response to Iran’s Syria proxies’ dozens of attacks on US facilities there.

And the timing of this “appropriate action?” Sullivan, again saying the words Biden gave him to say:

We are going to take appropriate action in consultation with others, and we will do so at a time and place of our choosing.

Biden’s America is incapable of acting on its own, but only with the permission of others. Beyond that, his timing is nothing more than an empty “Whenever, man.”

I’ve Written It Before

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House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) says there’ll be no special treatment of Hunter Biden; if he ignores the Committee’s subpoena, Comer will take him to court to force his appearance.

“We’re going to treat this investigation like every congressional investigation in recent memory has been treated: you come in for a deposition, then you do the public hearing. All of our depositions are transparent. We released the transcripts. … He is the key witness to all of the Biden crimes. So the subpoena called for him to show up in this office on December 13 for a deposition. I expect to see Hunter Biden in this office for a deposition.”
Asked if he was prepared to go to court if the first son does not show up, Comer answered. “Absolutely.”

And I’ll write it again. Comer shouldn’t waste time on going to court to enforce the Committee subpoena of Son Biden. The Father Biden/Garland DoJ won’t push the matter at all. Instead, per Jurney v MacCracken, Comer should put the matter before the House for a contempt vote first thing in the morning of the 14th, and then the House Sergeant at Arms, by noon on the 14th, should be sent to arrest Biden and haul him before the Committee for a closed-door deposition on the 15th.

There’s no need for any more stalling by either Biden.