What Is Our End Goal in Ukraine?

It would now be prudent to check Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ego

 and rein him in a bit.

by Josh Hammer for American Greatness

Joe Biden recently signed into law a massive $40 billion “emergency” measure allocating additional U.S. aid to Ukraine. That $40 billion sum, which includes $20 billion in direct military assistance, $8 billion in general economic support, $5 billion directed toward food shortages, and $1 billion toward the Ukrainian refugee crisis, comes on top of Congress’ earlier $13.6 billion aid appropriation. 

On Wednesday, the White House announced that due to this additional funding, the United States “will be able to keep providing Ukraine with more of the weapons that they are using so effectively to repel Russian attacks.” Specifically, the military portion of the massive $40 billion figure will fund “new capabilities and advanced weaponry,” including four advanced guided-rocket systems equipped for a 48-mile range.   

Around the same time, Ukrainian President—and newfound liberal internationalist icon—Volodymyr Zelenskyy dug in his heels. Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, famed foreign policy realist and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger suggested that Zelenskyy should countenance minor territorial concessions in order to end Russia’s war of aggression more expeditiously. Specifically, Kissinger suggested a “return to the status quo ante,” translating to de facto Russian control over the Crimean peninsula and Ukraine’s two easternmost subregions, Luhansk and Donetsk (which collectively comprise the Donbass).    

Zelenskyy, whose Ukrainian forebears were deeply complicit in the Nazi massacre at Babi Yar, had the temerity to lecture Kissinger, a Jew whose family fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, about World War II. Zelenskyy invoked former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s infamous “peace for our time” cession of the Sudetenland in the Munich Agreement of September 1938, scolding Kissinger: “It seems that Mr. Kissinger’s calendar is not 2022, but 1938, and he thought he was talking to an audience not in Davos, but in Munich of that time.”   

Zelenskyy has every right to say, and do, what he feels is in his country’s best interests. He should be doing exactly that. But the confluence of this massive U.S. aid package—like so much else in Washington, compiled in rushed fashion and outside the normal appropriations process—and Zelenskyy’s continued defiance raises an obvious question: Is no-questions-asked, no-strings-attached and possibly indefinite funding for Zelenskyy’s effort to repel Russian forces from Crimea and the Donbass in America‘s best interest? (There remains scattered fighting outside those areas, but the fighting is now concentrated there.)   

The answer is no.   

That is not to say anyone should be actively rooting for Russia and its thuggish president, Vladimir Putin. On the contrary, I have maintained since day one of the present contretemps that it would be best for the U.S. national interest if Ukraine remains a truly independent buffer zone and does not suffer the fate of its northerly neighbor Belarus, which is only nominally independent and exists as a Russian satrapy.   

At the same time, other hard realities beckon. One of those realities is the obvious truth that the U.S. national interest—and the world’s interest, for that matter—is best served by the end of any major war, let alone one that includes a nuclear power as a combatant. 

A second reality is that Russia retreated from Kyiv and its surrounding area last month and, contra Zelenskyy’s table-pounding, it is simply not of tremendous importance to the American national interest whether Crimea and the Donbass fall under Ukrainian or Russian territorial jurisdiction. 

A third and related reality, which partially explains that relative lack of American concern, is that Putin, as awful as he is, is not Adolf Hitler.   

Zelenskyy is thus offering a facile analogy: The situation in eastern Ukraine in June 2022 is not comparable to the perilous pre-World War II situation in Europe. Russia in the year 2022 is a hostile actor that routinely allies with American geopolitical foes, such as China and Iran, but it is not a Nazi-style imperialist hegemon seeking to subjugate an entire continent under its totalitarian and genocidal rule. 

Russia has the world’s 11th-largest GDP and is largely dependent on exports from its now-heavily sanctioned oil and natural gas industry; indeed, its economy could contract by as much as 10 percent this year, according to a Bloomberg survey published Tuesday. The fact that Putin largely abandoned his quest to conquer Kyiv last month, instead focusing on coastal enclaves such as Mariupol, is a symptom of the fact Russia is operating with limited economic and political capital.

Given that increasingly limited capital and the fact Kyiv is secure for the time being and Ukraine has thus avoided a Belarusian-style fate, the question is whether the U.S. taxpayer should remain on the continual hook for arming Zelenskyy—to the extent the American money will even find its way to him, amidst the corrupt cesspool that is Ukraine’s bureaucracy. 

Instead, the United States ought to be using its unique geopolitical role to urge Zelenskyy to be more pliable at the negotiating table—or at a minimum, conditioning America’s future “emergency” aid upon Zelenskyy doing so. 

The alternative is to risk the American taxpayer being on the indefinite hook for feeding a war machine against a revanchist and nuclear-armed Russia—all to contest breakaway regions where there are myriad ethnic Russians with more loyalty to Moscow than to Kyiv. 

Westerners typically prefer cleanly drawn maps, but there still remain many geographically contested areas: The West Bank, Jammu and Kashmir, Northern Cyprus and the Western Sahara all come to mind. As long as Ukraine remains independent and evades Belarus’ fate, there is no reason to object to the similar contestation of ethnically mixed geographic extremities such as Crimea and the Donbass.   

Zelenskyy, alas, disagrees. As evidenced by his chutzpah in swatting down Kissinger, he has become inebriated with the outpouring of support from liberal internationalists the world over. Accordingly, it would now be prudent to check Zelenskyy’s ego and rein him in a bit.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- June 4

 

Saturdays during summer tend to be boring. So, here's a fun throwback to one of 'you know who's earlier movie roles from 2002: Dragonfly:

Fun fact: She's played a nun twice in her movie career! 

Here's tonight's news:

The Climate Cult and Their Green Lethargy Future

Environmentalists have waged war on fossil fuels, the Industrial Revolution, and capitalism in general. Their “solutions” will make us all poorer, more vulnerable, and less free.

by Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness

When I was in Congress, I once went on a fact-finding trip to Pakistan. At the time, the country was being wracked by a terrorist bombing campaign intended, in large part, to destabilize the government of President Pervez Musharraf. What I found, however, was that President Musharraf was facing another threat to his rule. 

During a brief stay in Islamabad, my hotel room suddenly went dark one evening. It wasn’t terrorism. It was a rolling power blackout. Earlier, I had heard firsthand accounts of the dissatisfaction this caused Pakistanis, including how the rolling blackouts facilitated extremism’s spread and tactics. The blame for the blackout was placed squarely on Musharraf. As I looked out my window across an eerily darkened capital city, given all the challenges facing them, I couldn’t help but pity the Pakistani people for having to endure yet another tribulation: having to live with such a substandard power grid.

Now, the Pakistani people can pity me.  

Per Fox News, the apocalyptic climate cult is bringing their rolling blackouts to Michigan to benight the state whose ingenious, hardworking people and the unparalleled industrial prowess they built and operated had once put the world on wheels and kept the world safe. 

For those paying more than performative attention, the climate cult has openly waged war on fossil fuels, the internal combustion engine, the Industrial Revolution, and capitalism in general. That these discoveries, inventions, and means of production spurred the largest and widest increase in prosperity, life expectancy, and personal comfort and safety matters little to these zealots. 

Somewhere in the dust bin of history, America’s historic mortal enemies like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union must be applauding the apocalyptic Left’s progress in devolving Detroit (the “Motor City” and “Arsenal of Democracy”) into a candle-lit urban farm. After all, destroying America’s manufacturing productivity had long been these heinous regimes’ dream, too: the evisceration of American prosperity and national security. Communist China and barbarous Iran are certainly pleased, too.

Awaiting the climate cult’s dawn of darkness, one is left to ponder a few ramifications of these true deceivers’ drive for green lethargy.

First, it is patently socialistic. As we have seen with the two most recent leftist administrations, high energy prices for fossil fuels are not a bug, but a feature of the plan. Thus, the government injects itself into the marketplace to constrict our nation’s abundance of fossil fuels to subsidize the use of less efficacious renewable energy. 

Employing the hoary political scare tactic “the world will end unless you do what I demand,” the Left’s national transmogrification to green lethargy is being imposed by a political elite in conjunction with the apocalyptic climate cult while the public is merely along for the ride—or rather the walk, given Joe Biden’s gas prices. Though, in all candor, perhaps I missed the Democrats’ campaign ads promising voters rolling blackouts and endless summers of “staycations.”  

Second, the climate cult’s narrative includes the notion that the earth belongs to everyone. This ostensibly benign sentiment is designed to buttress the climate cult’s demands to coercively impose its green lethargy agenda by undermining the very concept of private property. If the earth belongs to everyone, so must all real property and, ultimately, the means of production, as these also impact the earth. 

By the same reasoning, all personal rights and private actions can be controlled, curtailed, coerced, and canceled by the “collective”—i.e., government. As the sage among us are gratefully aware, private property rights and personal rights are the mutually reinforcing, twin pillars of liberty. The climate cultists know this, too. 

Third, if a rogue nation wanted to decimate the national security of the United States—and plenty of rogue nations do—they would strive to distract us from developing the new weapon systems needed to defend our nation. What better way than to divert our innovators and resources into an insane transitioning of our existing weaponry into a green lethargy future? 

Already, as Brandon Weichert and others have warned, our nation lags behind Communist China in next-generation hypersonic weaponry. One should think long and hard about allowing our national security priorities to be determined by the climate cultists who brought you rolling blackouts. “We can’t advance, Sarge! Our tank’s becalmed!” 

Finally, the apocalyptic climate cultists aren’t fond of humanity. They have perverted the historic understanding of humanity as stewards of the earth and, instead, view humanity as the scourge of the earth. No longer is conservation policy based upon the proper way to interact with nature; human use is now subordinate or excluded from the equation. In sum, nature is an end unto itself. As for humans, the climate cult views them as despoilers; and, in their Malthusian view, there exist too many people, anyway.

The apocalyptic climate cult knows the American people would never accept socialism on its face. But put some green perfume on that economic pig while scaring people witless? They’ll literally be slippin’ into darkness. Better to funk the climate cult and their green lethargy future.

Debunking Biden’s Tired Gun Rhetoric And Lies

Again. And Again. And Again.

by David Harsanyi for The Federalist

I'm not going to lie, it’s tedious constantly pointing out the same dishonest contentions of the anti-gun left. The nation would probably take Joe Biden’s gun demagoguery more seriously if the president and his staff occasionally cooked up some new material. Because last night’s plea for more gun control was a rehashing of the same archaic policy ideas, bad analogies, and lies that Democrats tend to drop after every shooting.

The Second Amendment Isn’t ‘Absolute’

The president, as he almost always does, began with this strawman. The Second Amendment, Biden claimed, “like all other rights, is not absolute.” (All? Fans of the 13th Amendment might find this a bit surprising.) There are, of course, already tens of thousands of laws governing individual gun ownership in the United States. More laws and regulations exist restricting the Second Amendment than any other right in the Constitution, and it’s not particularly close. “Voting rights” advocates treat photo ID laws as if they were tantamount to fascism. Well, practicing your right to self-defense is contingent on an FBI background check.

Indeed, the notion that gun ownership is “absolute” would not mesh with the experiences of those living in a blue city like Baltimore, (58.27 homicides per 100,000), Washington D.C. (23.52), or Chicago (18.26), where, despite the Heller and McDonald decisions further codifying the individual right to own firearms, legally purchasing a handgun remains unconstitutionally challenging.

Banning Assault Weapons

Biden quoted Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in Heller, saying, “It was Justice Scalia who wrote, and I quote: ‘Like most rights, the right Second Amendment — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited.’ Not unlimited. It never has been.” (Thankfully, he spared us his historically illiterate diatribes on cannons, “deer in Kevlar,” and “yelling fire in a crowded theater.”)

Democrats habitually isolate this line from Heller, a decision they simultaneously contend catastrophically concocted an individual right to firearm ownership. But Scalia’s line, read in context of the decision’s finding that the Second Amendment protects a right to possess a firearm unconnected from militia service, only upholds the legality of states limiting “dangerous and unusual weapons,” not weapons “in common use” by “law-abiding citizens.” The AR-15, and similar rifles, easily meet the latter criteria. It is not only the most popular rifle in the nation, it is one of the types of firearms least used in criminality. Which is why Democrats try to convince the public that AR-15s are “weapons of war,” and thus exceptionally “dangerous and unusual.” This is simply wrong. AR-15s are less a weapon of war than a 9mm handgun (which, earlier this week, the president suggested should be banned, as well).

Moreover, Heller found prohibition on an entire class of “arms” Americans “overwhelmingly choose” to be unconstitutional. So, the notion that Scalia would support outlawing semi-automatic rifles — whose mechanisms are virtually the same as most firearms — is risible. In fact, I’m not sure that existing “assault weapons” bans wouldn’t be (rightfully) stuck down if they were challenged before the Supreme Court.

Biden also made the debatably claim that in the decade the “assault weapon” ban was in force, mass shootings went down. “But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004, and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled,” Biden said. “Those are the facts.” You won’t be surprised to learn that they’re not.

Unmentioned by Biden is the fact that after the “assault weapon ban” sunset in 2004, gun crimes kept precipitously dropping. In the 15 years immediately following the sunsetting, overall homicides fell 10 out of 15 years. Twenty-one years after gun violence peaked in 1993, and a decade after the assault weapon ban ended, homicides by firearms hit the lowest point since 1976. By that time, the AR-15 had become the most popular rifle in the country. (A 1999 Justice Department study also found that the ban failed “to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims.”)

And, though Republicans may have let the law expire in 2004, as John McCormack has pointed out, Harry Reid didn’t bring an assault weapon ban to the floor of the Senate until 2013, after the Newtown massacre. At the time, Democrats controlled the Senate, and 16 of their senators voted against the bill, including Michael Bennet, Joe Manchin, and Jon Tester. Do the Democrats even have 50 votes for a ban?

Raising Age to Purchase an AR-15 from 18 to 21

This is less about mendaciousness than it is about contemporary liberalism being a giant game of Calvinball. Numerous high-profile Democrats support the idea of allowing 16-year-olds to participate in the most vital, sacred, indispensable rite of democracy: voting. Then again, when it comes to government-mandated health care insurance, they believe that Americans should be treated like children until they’re 26-year-olds. But they also seem perfectly fine with 18-year-olds joining the Armed Forces — but not with the same men and women buying a drink or practicing the right to self-defense.

In the real world, maturity differs from person to person, from place to place. The average age of the mass shooter, after all, is 33. But if we’re going to come up with an arbitrary year that marks the beginning of adulthood, it should remain consistent. If you’re ready to vote you’re ready to practice all your rights. Of course, the notion that the founders would have been shocked by an 18-year-old carrying a firearm — a claim I get a lot — is also nonsense. The “teenager” is a 20th-century invention. In the 19th century, you were a child and then you were an adult. And adulthood began early.

(Biden’s contention that firearms “are the number one killer of children in the United States of America … more than car accidents, more than cancer,” is, as Brad Polumbo notes, also quite misleading.)

Gun Manufacturers’ Immunity from Liability

Gun manufacturers, says the president, “are the only industry in this country that has that kind of immunity.” This is a perniciously stupid lie. Gun manufacturers do not hold any special protections. If a firearm malfunctions due to shoddy design or subpar production, or if gun maker misleads consumers, they, like every other manufacturer in the nation, can be sued. If guns work correctly but are used in illegal acts, they, like every other industry, can’t. In the same way, an SUV maker isn’t liable when a killer intentionally plows into a crowd of people killing six people, and neither is a manufacturer when someone uses a baseball bat and a knife to murder three of his coworkers.

Biden went on to say, “Imagine. Imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued, where we’d be today. The gun industry’s special protections are outrageous. It must end.” It’s revealing that Biden, who claims to respect “the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners,” compares cigarettes to a constitutionally protected right. One of these two products could be banned tomorrow if politicians so desired. The other — I’m sorry, Joe — can’t.

Joe Biden's Gun Control Speech Was Washington in a Nutshell

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

The other night, Joe Biden put on his angry eyes and addressed the nation about gun control. In a meandering speech full of misleading statements and obfuscations, the president focused on banning “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines instead of even entertaining common-sense solutions that could directly protect schools.

Biden, an old man who should have been retired long ago, perfectly encapsulated the outdated, ineffective thinking that so often flows from within the innards of Washington, DC.

Shouting “enough” is apparently what passes for sentient thought inside the beltway, where emotion is king, but “doing something” is not actually a solution to anything. It takes about three seconds to reload a magazine. The idea that a mass shooter with evil in their heart is going to refrain from committing a heinous act because they are now limited to buying 10-round magazines is asinine. It’s an emotional, vapid idea that sounds good for the press but does nothing to limit the damage that can be caused by a determined individual.

Further, magazines are pieces of plastic with a spring in them. With today’s technology, altering magazines for higher capacity (or guns to accept higher-capacity magazines that already exist) is something the government will never have the ability to prevent. Why focus on something so meaningless? The answer is that Democrats care more about the appearance of doing something than actually doing something.

It’s not 1994 anymore. Biden doesn’t seem to realize that, though, which isn’t surprising given his mental state. His prescriptions are outdated and ineffective, crafted in a world that hasn’t existed in decades. There is more to governing than proposing the same tired ideas over and over.

Then there’s Biden’s plugging of “red flag” laws.

Again, it’s like I’m taking crazy pills, except I know I’m not. New York, the state in which one of the two mass shootings the president is citing took place, has one of the strictest, broadest red flag laws in the country. It did not stop the shooter. Why? Because red flag laws, as much as they make people feel good, are akin to trying to stop an army of ants with a magnifying glass on a cloudy day. Yes, they may have some efficacy in regards to suicides if a family member speaks up, but when it comes to a shooter with no criminal history, they are highly ineffective. Never mind the due process concerns of violating a person’s rights just because another person made a report.

Meanwhile, discussions of locking the doors of schools or providing more security get mocked. In short, Biden’s speech was Washington in a nutshell. It was rampant emotionalism wrapped in faux empathy being used to push policies that won’t work to prevent mass shootings. I’d say we are smarter than this as a nation, but I’m not sure we are.

Europe Drops Airline Mask Mandate as Joe Biden Files Appeal to Reinstitute Air Travel Mask Mandate in U.S.A

The issue within the DOJ filing an appeal to force U.S. airlines to reinstate the masks for air travel has nothing to do with public safety or benefits of mask wearing on airlines. The core issue is raw government power. 

At the same time as the European Union has lifted all mask wearing restrictions for airline travel, Joe Biden is filing an appeal with the eleventh circuit court of appeals (Tampa, Florida) to overturn a judge’s ruling that lifted the mask mandate for airlines.  The extreme leftists within the Biden administration want to retain the power over people as an essential element within their larger agenda.

Freedom and self-determination are antithetical to the Build Back Better agenda, which necessarily includes the power of the federal government to make unilateral decisions that impact the lives of the people beneath it.  The airline mask mandate is just one small visual demonstration of the power of government over the people.

The need for raw power and forced edicts is why Biden cannot allow his fiats to be ignored.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge’s ruling that vacated the federal mask mandate for public transportation.

A filing was made Tuesday, hours before the deadline and more than a month after the DOJ said it had filed a notice of appeal following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying it was requesting the challenge.

Several airlines and other sources of public transportation dropped their masking rules after U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Florida, vacated the federal mask mandate in April. The mandate, instituted as a means to stop the spread of COVID-19, had been set to expire May 3 after it was extended by the Biden administration.

[…] The appeal seeks to reverse the ruling from a lawsuit filed by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal organization that specializes in healthcare cases. In its lawsuit, the fund argued that the CDC overstepped its authority by enacting the mask mandate “without any public comment, or serious scientific justification.” (read more)

The people behind the Biden administration are operating on an agenda that is entirely hidden by the willful compliance of a corporate media apparatus.  Almost everything associated with the Biden agenda to fundamentally transform the U.S, requires everyone to pretend the agenda is something else.

What they are doing is extremely dangerous.  However, it is the national pretending that is really killing us.

The facemasks are just one small sub-set of an example.

Ukraine anger as Macron says 'Don't humiliate Russia'

 

Ukraine's foreign minister has hit out at French President Emanuel Macron after he said it was vital that Russia was not humiliated over its invasion.

Mr Macron said it was crucial President Vladimir Putin had a way out of what he called a "fundamental error".

But Dmytro Kuleba said allies should "better focus on how to put Russia in its place" as it "humiliates itself".

Mr Macron has repeatedly spoken to Mr Putin by phone in an effort to broker a ceasefire and negotiations.

The French attempts to maintain a dialogue with the Kremlin leader contrast with the US and UK positions.

Foreign minister Kuleba said in a tweet that "calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it".

Kyiv says Russia must not get territorial concessions from Ukraine, as the Russian invasion has been condemned internationally as brutal aggression.

Earlier, Mr Macron told French regional media that Russia's leader had "isolated himself".  

"I think, and I told him, that he made a historic and fundamental error for his people, for himself and for history," he said.

"Isolating oneself is one thing, but being able to get out of it is a difficult path," he added.

Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi has aligned himself with Mr Macron, suggesting Europe wants "some credible negotiations".

Fierce fighting in Severodonetsk

The eastern city of Severodonetsk remains the epicentre of fighting in Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces fiercely resisting Russian tanks, infantry and intense artillery barrages.

Capturing the city would deliver the Luhansk region to Russian forces and their local separatist allies, who also control much of neighbouring Donetsk region.  

The region's Ukrainian governor Serhiy Haidai said his forces had reclaimed about a fifth of Severodonetsk and could hold on.

"As soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run," he said.

The US plans to give Kyiv's forces precision rocket systems, so that they can hit Russian positions from a longer range. The UK will also send them a number of large multiple-rocket batteries.

Facing Severodonetsk across the Siverskyi Donets river lies Lysychansk. Both cities are strategically important for Russia: Severodonetsk has the giant Azot chemical plant, which produces nitrogen-based fertilisers, and Lysychansk has Ukraine's second biggest oil refinery.

The fighting has now left most of Severodonetsk in ruins, but thousands of civilians are still sheltering in basements there.

Governor Haidai said Russian forces were blowing up bridges on the river to prevent Ukraine bringing in military reinforcements and delivering aid to civilians. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61691816 

Under Joe Biden, We’ve Set 18 Records For High Gas Prices In Just 19 Days

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

Gas prices reached a national average of $4.76 per gallon Friday in another five-cent leap to cap off a week of soaring pressure at the pump in a post-holiday surge with new records set daily.

Prices for regular unleaded were $4.62 on Tuesday, according to AAA travel agency’s gas tracker, rising rapidly beyond the traditional Memorial Day peak. Prices for diesel also eclipsed their prior record set in May, averaging $5.58 per gallon Friday.

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place,” President Joe Biden said in Japan last week. “When it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.”

Beyond sticker shock when filling up, Americans are paying for higher fuel costs by way of higher prices for goods and groceries that are now more expensive to produce and ship. According to the latest data from the Department of Labor, overall prices are up 8.3 percent from last year, the fastest pace in 40 years. Energy is up more than 30 percent. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase predict Americans could face an average $6.20 per gallon by August. Residents in California already surpassed the average $6.20 per gallon to fill up this week.

Despite the added stress on American consumers, who hold the lowest confidence in the nation’s economy since 2009, as Gallup revealed Tuesday, President Biden has only escalated his administration’s war on domestic energy production with new restrictions. Last month, CBS News reported the Interior Department canceled oil and gas projects from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico. Biden’s resumption of oil and gas leases on federal land announced in April to comply with a court order also comes with a new cascade of taxes and regulations, including a 50 percent spike in royalty fees from what’s extracted.

In a feeble attempt to keep gas prices down ahead of the fall midterms, the president harnessed the nation’s emergency oil reserves with an “unprecedented” release of 1 million barrels of oil per day for 180 days. The rollout of the release, which began May 15, coincided with daily records in gas prices for more than a week. Past releases under this administration have also made no difference in controlling gas prices now up nearly 100 percent from the final month that President Donald Trump was in office.

According to the Department of Energy, Americans use about 20 million barrels of oil per day.

Don't Bother Me With Your 'Common Sense' Gun-Grabbing Ideas, I'm Not Playing the Game

streiff reporting for RedState 

Over the last two weeks, the United States has had three high-profile mass shootings, Buffalo, NY; Uvalde, TX; and Tulsa, OK. So naturally, the gun-grabbers are on the attack, and most Republican politicians are running like scalded dogs from any defense of the Second Amendment and the God-given right of free men and free women to own and carry the means to preserve their lives and the lives of others.

There are reports that a bipartisan group of ten senators is working to come up with a gun-control package that will get 60 votes in the Senate. The Democrat contribution to the group is Chris Murphy (CT), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Joe Manchin (WV) Martin Heinrich (NM). Our Vichy Republicans are Pat Toomey (PA), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Bill Cassidy (LA). John Cornyn (TX) is leading the GOP effort…that should make you feel really comfortable.

Last night, an obviously addled Joe Biden became a caricature of the old-man-shouting-at-the-clouds as he burbled “Enough” and demanded that we “do something.” See my colleague Bonchie’s post on the speech at Joe Biden’s Gun Control Speech Was Washington in a Nutshell.

There are two powerful impulses at work here. The first I would attribute to the modernist heresy and the anti-Christian belief in the perfectability of man and the perfectability of society by using government to eradicate all evils.

Evil is mistaken for mental illness because the SmartSet™ could never bring themselves to believe Evil exists. It does exist. Evil is real. It is not a mere philosophical concept. Evil will find a way of acting out. The denial of the existence of Evil leads to a belief that with enough systems, we can prevent the wrong people from acquiring firearms and using them to commit crimes. We can’t.

The ideas being circulated are as old and tired as the members of the group discussing them: a ban on assault weapons, a limit on magazine capacity, waiting periods, age limits, and Red Flag laws. Based on comments by the Dotard-in-Chief, it seems that outlawing 9mm and .223-caliber ammunition could be on the table. We can’t, you know, have sh** in the hands of mere citizens that could “blow your lungs out.”  Mass shootings occur in all jurisdictions, even those like New York, that virtually ban modern sporting rifles. These laws don’t work where they are in place, so there is no reason to assume they will work if we impose them on still more people.

The second impulse is political cowardice.

M. Stanton Evans, journalist and former president of the American Conservative Union, said, “We have two parties here, and only two. One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party. … I’m very proud to be a member of the stupid party. … Occasionally, the two parties get together to do something that’s both evil and stupid. That’s called bipartisanship.”

The heady combination of evil and stupid is what is being brewed on Capitol Hill. No one actually believes that anyone on the Democrat side of this issue is negotiating in good faith. Their objective is to abolish the right of Americans to own and use firearms. There might be any number of noble motivations lurking behind the scenes, but the common ground they are searching for makes firearms ownership more difficult for those who can’t afford private security guards.

Given the prevalence of “scary black rifles” in the country and the extraordinary rarity of their use in committing crimes, it is difficult to conclude that modern sporting rifles or high-capacity magazines constitute a threat to anything other than the ability of the government to control its citizens. It shouldn’t be hard to stand up and pronounce this truth, but for our so-called leaders, it is. Making this gutlessness more absurd is that, according to a post by my colleague Sister Toldjah, see Democrats Hit Two Massive Roadblocks on the Path to Gun Control Legislation. A majority of Americans believe we have enough restrictions on firearms and their ownership.

Notably, things that could make schools safer, like hardening points of ingress and training teachers or parent volunteers to be proficient in firearms and armed, are not on the table. That, I’m convinced, is no accident.

I’m not interested in discussing any of these “common sense solutions” because, in my view, they are either a greater evil than the Evil they purport to prevent, or they are meaningless acts of virtue signaling. In particular, the “Red Flag laws” place your liberty and property in the hands of the nutbags at the American Psychiatric Association, who literally decide what mental illness is. And, by extension, that makes you vulnerable to anyone who doesn’t like you or your politics. If you don’t want a modern sporting rifle and 30-round magazine, don’t buy them. If you want to know why I need them, I need them because f*** you.

I will not engage in the process of negotiating away my rights and the rights of my children because you don’t like guns and are afraid. I don’t need your approval. I will not play this stupid game.