Saturday, August 6, 2022

Why Is Everyone Talking About the Claremont Institute?

Claremonsters recognize that the time is now to reject the "principled loserdom" of the decadent old guard and command the battle stations.


On Wednesday, Elisabeth Zerofsky of the New York Times Magazine published a lengthy essay titled “How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right.” Zerofsky’s piece was well-researched, honest and measured, but the same cannot necessarily be said for other recent fulminations against the California-based conservative think tank. Less than two weeks ago, the Washington Post published one such sordid entry, disproportionately focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, jamboree at the U.S. Capitol, titled, “The Claremont Institute Triumphed in the Trump Years. Then Came Jan. 6.“

Other examples abound. Last fall, Emma Green of the far-Left Atlanticpublished a moderately fair interview with Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams provocatively titled, “The Conservatives Dreading—and Preparing For—Civil War.” The New Republic reserved much digital ink for Claremont in a long essay last year on “The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want To Take Over the American Right.” And The Bulwark, a fetid swamp of “NeverTrump” histrionics, has published multiple hit pieces that make the Post‘s salvo look downright temperate by comparison.

So familiar has this refrain become that I sarcastically tweeted, following the Post‘s recent excretion: “Ah, it’s time for another rendition of the ‘anti-Claremont hit piece,’ the most overwrought and oversaturated sub-genre in the leftist literary arsenal.” But with blue-blooded newspapers such as the Post and the Times now joining the fray, it seems that long-form essays inveighing against Claremont have reached a fever pitch. 

This raises the obvious question: Why? Why is everyone, from seldom-read “NeverTrump” blogs to the New York Times and the Washington Postthemselves, now talking about the Claremont Institute?

To an extent, perhaps the better question is why is everyone—and the corporate press, specifically—only now talking about Claremont? The think tank, for many decades, has held real sway in America’s right-wing intellectual firmament. It has been around for long enough where many prominent alumni from its fellowship programs have reached the pinnacles of their professions; Claremont’s alumni ranks include national television and radio hosts, a sitting U.S. senator, numerous federal judges and many other notable conservative activists. Its flagship publication, the cerebral Claremont Review of Books, has existed for over two decades.

But Claremont clearly has made gains in stature, clout, and the depth and breadth of its institutional reach over the past half-decade or so. From an intellectual perspective, that is attributable to the fact that many leading Claremonsters have been, and continue to be, defenders of former President Donald Trump and/or proponents of the sort of nationalist and conservative-populist policies that now anchor the “New Right” challenge to the conservative establishment’s regnant right-liberal “Fusionism.” 

“The Flight 93 Election,” the famous September 2016 CRB essay published pseudonymously but now credited to Hillsdale College’s Michael Anton, effectuated a genuine paradigm shift on the Right, ushering in a new era of truculent conservative politics that is less interested in politely quibbling over marginal income tax rates than it is in fighting the culture war with the aim of vigorously defending the American way of life from the destructive domestic forces of civilizational arson. The American Mind, Claremont’s online journal founded in 2018 as an edgier complement to the CRB, has quickly emerged as a leading organ of the young online Right. Many Claremont alumni filled the ranks of the Trump White House, and Claremont has also made inroads with the exceptional governor of my state, Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

I am very far from neutral on the question of the Claremont Institute. I am a proud Claremont alumnus, a regular participant in their alumni programs and a frequent American Mind contributor. I was struck by Chris Rufo’s poignant description of Claremont, in Zerofsky’s Times essay this week, as a “brotherhood.” Rufo is spot-on. And in that “brotherhood” sense—from an intellectual, professional and activist perspective—there is really no other organization on the Right quite like Claremont.

Perhaps most important, though, Claremonsters recognize—to use a phrase that itself has Claremont-world provenance—”what time it is” in America. We understand that the questions that now divide our fellow countrymen are not prosaic ones pertaining to tax rates or regulatory red tape, but the most foundational questions of all. What are men and women? What is justice and injustice? Are America’s founding principles and animating spirit, for that matter, just or unjust? 

These are the kind of heady questions that are less Bush versus Gore than they are Lincoln versus Douglas. These are defining questions of human anthropology and the very basic building blocks of civilization.

Amidst that sober, “Flight 93 Election”-esque societal backdrop, the political stakes quickly become very high. Inspired by the Harry Jaffa-penned Barry Goldwater quip that “moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue,” Claremonsters recognize that the time is now to reject the “principled loserdom” of the decadent old guard and command the battle stations in pursuit of outright victory over our recalcitrant foes in America’s roiling culture wars. In our late-stage republic, there is simply no more time to waste.

Perhaps that, above all, is why Claremont has garnered so much attention of late. The fact that Claremont “knows what time it is,” and has been proven capable of operationalizing that sentiment at the highest levels of the American Right despite its modest institutional size, poses a unique threat to the ruling class and its corrupt regime. The more success Claremont has, then, the more scathing the future hit pieces may become. So be it—such is a small price to pay to salvage the American way of life from the ruling class’ treacherous talons.



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X22, On the Fringe, and more- August 6

 



Main news of the day on this usually quiet Saturday:



I first started watching this show on Netflix with it's 1st Season. Then for a couple of years, I bought the DVD's. Then when my parents finally got a DVR, I started recording the live episodes. :) This has always been my top Hallmark show, and I'm very glad to see it celebrating such an amazing milestone!

Here's tonight's news:

 

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Joe’s Olympia Restaurant: “No Butter. Guns.”

Joe Biden and his lackey Democrats persistently dismiss Americans’ pleas for prosperity and peace.


Watching the wilted, bitter fruits of the Biden Administration’s senile stabs at domestic and foreign policy, an old “Saturday Night Live” skit comes to mind. 

Given his experiences growing up in the Chicago environs, John Belushi created The Olympia Restaurant, which was said to be loosely based upon The Billy Goat Tavern. In the skit, an Eastern European family runs a diner with a very limited menu. No matter what a customer orders, Belushi would brusquely inform them that their only option was a cheeseburger. They served “No fries. Chips.” As for a beverage, they offered “No Coke. Pepsi.”

During the 1960s, the American economy hummed and the Vietnam War raged. Thrust into office in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson and his Democratic congressional majority both escalated the conflict and launched the “Great Society.” Over time, during this “Guns and Butter” epoch of Democratic rule, American lives and treasure were lost in the jungles of Vietnam; while here at home, trillions were spent to “end poverty,” amongst a host of other societal ills. The end result was recession and retreat during a monstrous American hangover called “the  1970s.”

Today, though many of the programs continue, most objective observers view the Great Society’s outcome as anything but great. Nevertheless, as history is largely written by the Left, this “Guns and Butter” era gets an A for effort on the latter (though decidedly not so for the former). 

It is odd, then, that the Biden Administration is intent upon recreating this rotten epoch of Democratic rule. For though inflation continues to ravage Americans’ pocketbooks and attempts to pursue happiness, the Biden Administration and congressional Democrats continue to spend money like sailors on a bender with a stolen credit card. [If any drunken sailor reading this takes umbrage, I don’t blame you.]

First, despite our dire economic straits andr increased wariness, if not outright isolationism, regarding foreign interventions, in May the Biden Administration and its lackey Democratic Congress (with some GOP support) passed a $40 billion military aid package to Ukraine. Recently, the Biden Administration released another “$270 million in military aid to Ukraine, including four more high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), bringing the number sent to 20.”

It remains to be seen when, if ever, the supporters of this military aid package considered the ramifications of so patently expressing their intention and ability to facilitate killing the military personnel of the country holding the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal; or if these supporters calculated the domestic inflationary ramifications of this military aid package. Would it have mattered if they had?

Enter, groveling from stage Left, the senator with the political spine of an amoeba, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who teetered and tottered and caved to his left-wing puppet masters. Manchin agreed to a “scaled back” version of the Democrats’ budget-busting, inflation boosting spending bill.

According to Schumer’s and Manchin’s offices, the bill will raise $739 billion in revenue through IRS tax enforcement, the corporate minimum tax and closing the carried interest loophole. It will spend $433 billion total, they said, on energy and climate change provisions and on the ACA extension.

Yes, only in the swamp would a massive increase in spending and taxes be called “scaled back.” Only in the miasmatic rats’ nest would the climate cult’s boondoggle demands be prioritized over the outcries of the vast majority of hardworking Americans for relief from inflation. And only in that Orwellian cesspool of iniquity would anyone have the unmitigated gall to call this steaming pile of wasteful, harmful, inflationary government spending, “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” 

The likely silver lining of Biden’s and his lackey Democratic Congress’ spendthrift spree was provided by a centrist economist of my acquaintance: “The bill won’t end inflation; but it will end the Democratic majority.” True enough, for the proof will be in the pudding. When the bill that is claimed to end inflation actually accelerates it and plunges the American people deeper into a recession, no lame attempts by the Biden Administration and their complicit media will deflect or deter the American people’s ire at these failed leftist policies.

Biden and his lackey Democrats staffing Joe’s Olympia Restaurant persistently dismiss Americans’ pleas for prosperity and peace and, instead, offer “no butter. Guns.” Time for the voters to close it down for repeated public health violations.



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Telling Kids To Hate Their Biology Might Be What’s Actually Killing Them

Might the increase in ‘gender dysphoria’ among American youth be related to broader societal dysphoria felt by an entire generation of kids?


Whenever anyone expresses concern about pressing gender ideology on American youth, the typical retort is to cite suicide statistics. “Transgender and nonbinary youth have considered suicide at higher rates than other LGBTQ youth,” warns an NPR article from May. “Children and teens who do not identify with their assigned gender can face higher rates of depression, suicide and self harm than other kids,” The New York Times reported in March. 

Because of the vulnerability of “trans youth,” activists claim, resisting pro-trans indoctrination is a direct threat to the welfare of an already victimized and marginalized group. School leaders claim they are justified in hiding the trans identity of students from parents who might harm them. “Affirming trans children’s genders reduces their risk of attempting suicide,” asserted a March article in Vox, and compared “anti-trans legislation” to genocide (yes, really). A political cartoon in The Washington Post earlier this year even accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of being personally responsible for the suicide of trans children. 

Yet what if the opposite is true, that promotion of alternative sexual identities among America’s children is aggravating our national mental health crisis, and increasing the likelihood of self-harm among vulnerable young populations?

Is There Something in the Water?

Sometimes it feels as if over the last decade the world awoke to to find itself transgender. The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in just five years, according to a report from earlier this year. Moreover, the rise in young people identifying as trans has been steadily increasing for the last two decades. Earlier in 2016, The New York Times reported that the number of adults identifying as trans had doubled in five years (see a pattern?). “The sharp increase could be because many more young people now feel more comfortable identifying themselves as transgender … or it could be that more accurate data sources are now available to account for them,” conjectured an article at Education Week. 

There are other plausible theories — such as a 2018 scientific study that suggested trans identification among youth might be socially contagious — but they have been quickly and aggressively maligned as bigoted and “anti-transgender” by pro-trans liberal elites. That fact is telling: rather than pursue unbiased, dispassionate study of data to understand an unprecedented social phenomenon, the pro-trans movement resorts to name-calling and cancellation. And however many “hidden” trans children there were in 2000, it seems a bit presumptuous (and dare I say unscientific) to conclude, with no data, that this sea change is wholly explained by growing acceptance of trans persons in America.

The Broader Youth Mental Health Picture

What’s often ignored in discussions of trans youth and mental health are the broader trends in American society. According to the CDC, in 2019 “more than 1 in 3 high school students had experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness … a 40 percent increase since 2009.”

That same year, approximately 1 in 6 youth had “reported making a suicide plan in the past year,” which was up 44 percent since 2009. Indeed, experts regularly speak of a “mental health crisis” among American children. These numbers predate the pandemic, though its foolhardy management by government and school officials exacerbated this national emergency.

Wouldn’t it at least be plausible that these two trends, moving seemingly in tandem, might be related? Children are increasingly lonely, isolated, and anxious, much of it a result of the digital age, social media use, and pornography addiction. Skyrocketing numbers of broken homes have led to all manner of negative consequences for children, as sociologist Bradford Wilcox’s research has shown. Might the increase in “gender dysphoria” among American youth be related to broader societal dysphoria felt by an entire generation of kids?

Is Promoting Trans Identities the Real Mental Health Crisis?

Although collection and analysis of reliable data on trans youth are limited by constraints imposed by ideologues who do not want to hear inconvenient truths about transgenderism, there is some revealing information. John S. Grabowski in his new book “Unraveling Gender: The Battle Over Sexual Difference” notes that for ­post-­operative transgender people, the rate of psychiatric ­hospitalization is three times higher than for control groups. Rates of mortality and criminal conviction for trans people are substantially higher as well. Suicide attempt rates are almost fivefold, while suicide death rates are a tragic 19 times higher. In other words, even for those who undergo hormone injections and surgery (which supposedly is done to make such persons happier), the mental health problems persist, and even worsen.

Moreover, as Jane Robbins noted in a Federalist article two years ago, citing Swedish child and adolescent psychiatrist Sven Roman: “There is currently no scientific support for gender-corrective treatment to reduce the risk of suicide.” She also quotes psychologists Dr. Michael Bailey and Dr. Ray Blanchard: “[T]he best scientific evidence suggests that gender transition is not necessary to prevent suicide. … There is no persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children’s likelihood of killing themselves.” Furthermore, says Robbins, the suicide risk among children who identify as trans is less than or comparable to that of other at-risk groups of youth. 

In fact, there is evidence suggesting that promoting trans ideology is increasing self-harm in youth populations (see Walt Heyer’s excellent collection of Federalist essays on the harms of transgenderism). A Heritage study recently found that “easing access to cross-sex treatments without parental consent significantly increases suicide rates.” A 2016 report observed that “a large percentage of adolescents referred for gender dysphoria have a substantial co-occurring history of psychosocial and psychological vulnerability.” A 2012 report found that “young people with gender dysphoria often present with a wide range of associated difficulties,” including “bullying, low mood/depression and self-harming.” 

The phrase “self-harming” is revealing. For if the increase in trans identities among American youth is connected to the broader crisis of deteriorating mental health, then it would be better to view the trans craze as another form of self-harm, similar to eating disorders or cutting, though far more dangerous. And, indeed, at least one study has found that cutting is common among trans youth. Worryingly, educators and administrators are encouraging self-harm among children by causing what Abigail Shrier rightly calls “irreversible damage.” If we really want to address the problems associated with transgenderism, it would be better to call it what it is.



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Congressional Staffer Stole 80K in Payroll and Impersonated a Federal Agent


Jim Thompson reporting for RedState 

In 2019, University of Georgia graduate Sterling Devion Carter landed a staff position with Illinois Democrat Rep. Brad Schneider. Other than a short stint as a baseball umpire in Georgia, it was Carter’s first job out of college. Carter was 21 and brand new to Capitol Hill.  Although Carter had gone from youth umpire to freshman staffer, one of Carter’s assigned duties was the important job of overseeing staff payroll. Carter was “the guy” for payroll of all staff positions, including chief of staff.

Apparently, Carter saw a chance for a better job and immediately took it. His new job was as a thief. He started stealing. He didn’t lift money from the petty cash drawer or take coffee packets from the commissary; Carter took money by paying himself more than his salary authorized. A lot more. In less than a year Carter had increased his own pay from his $54,000 to $138,000. And that didn’t even include the $6,000 he paid himself in one month. Carter did it by simply forging the signature of the congressman’s chief of staff.

Carter’s fraud might have gone on for many more months, maybe years but Carter wasn’t just stealing money, he was stealing a “secret identity.” In a story first reported in the Daily Beast, while Carter was stealing money from US taxpayers he was busy impersonating a federal agent.

About 10 days after the 2020 national election, there were demonstrations in Washington DC requiring crowd control. Carter was on the street standing next to his Ford — a car he had bought with his “pay increase” and which he had decked out with fake blue police lights and a pretty good fake federal license plate. He was sporting a holstered Glock 19 and he was wearing a baseball cap and mask to obscure his identity. On his shirt, it read: “Federal Agent.” Two cops noticed Carter and noted his weird way of avoiding everyone in law enforcement. They also noticed that his handgun reload magazines were right next to his gun — an amateur’s spot to place them. They smelled a rat. They called a federal agent who approached Carter and asked for ID. Carter got in his fake police car, turned on his lights, and sped off. The feds gave chase on bikes but gave up because…they were on bikes.

Since the car and plates were fake, real cops had to track Carter down using deductions and police work. They tracked down the fake plate using SignandTagsOnline.com. Then they traced his shirt through the retailer. One of the cops knew who made the type of shirt Carter had on and made the connection. They asked the seller for records and the feds narrowed it down. Carter was the only person who matched both the plates and the shirt.

On New Year’s Day 2021, Secret Service agents raided Carter’s home and found his Glock 19, extra magazines and ammo, and, remarkably, receipts for his fake police car kit.

Carter was later arrested at his parents’ home in Georgia. His employer, Rep Schneider, was informed of Carter’s crimes and arrest. The Congressman’s office didn’t fire him on the spot. Instead, Carter was given the option to resign. Carter resigned. Only after his arrest was Carter’s payroll theft discovered and incredibly that is the only crime Carter will spend time behind bars for. His initial arrest was for impersonating a federal agent and illegal possession of a handgun, but it was his theft of $80,000 (theft of public funds) that got him prison time. The other charges were dropped.




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Even This Left-Wing Report Sounds The Alarm: U.S. Is Way Too Dependent On Communist China For Minerals

‘The U.S., in particular, will likely have to update and amend its mining regulatory regime,’ authors at the liberal Brookings Institute wrote.



A new report from the liberal Brookings Institute out Monday warned that the United States and European supply chains are too dependent on China for modern technologies such as electric vehicles, transmission, and energy storage.

The report, titled “China’s Role in Supplying Critical Minerals for the Global Energy Transition,” is urging Western policymakers to expedite an overhaul of their mining regulatory regime to meet 21st-century demand for clean technology.

“China is the dominant global player in refining strategic minerals,” the authors wrote, with Chinese operations refining 68 percent of the world’s nickel, 40 percent of the world’s copper, 59 percent of lithium, and 73 percent of cobalt. “Most notably, China holds 78 percent of the world’s cell manufacturing capacity for [electric vehicle] batteries, which are then assembled into modules that are used to form a battery pack.”

Beyond Chinese monopolization of electric battery production, demand for which is set to spike as the Biden administration reaches to achieve its goal of half U.S. auto sales being electric by 2030 with generous subsidies, Beijing also maintains a grip on rare earth mining.

The 17 rare earth elements (REE) are not just critical for electric cars and wind turbines, but also for aerospace and defense technologies. President Joe Biden’s aggressive expansion of wind power at the expense of a reliable power grid run by conventional sources, has only deepened American reliance on Chinese exports.

According to the Department of Energy, “demand for rare earth elements for wind power alone could exceed the supply for all uses by 1.6 to 3.5 times over.”

Although China dominates in the refinement of critical minerals and rare earth production, the authors emphasize Beijing lacks the upper hand in mining critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt. Together, Australia and Chile are home to more than 70 percent of the global lithium supply, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone extracts nearly 70 percent of the world’s cobalt.

“While China has a clear downstream competitive advantage, it does not dominate the upstream for critical minerals,” the authors wrote. However, the Chinese are working to change that. “With demand for critical minerals rapidly increasing, Chinese companies are striking new deals for minerals globally to secure raw mineral inputs for refining and battery manufacturing.”

American lawmakers have certainly taken notice of vulnerabilities in supply chains as global turmoil, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to rising tensions with China, has ramped up the pressure to produce more critical minerals within the United States.

In June, the U.S. along with nine allied nations and the European Commission formed the Minerals Security Partnership, which is seen as a form of “metallic NATO,” to insulate stability and security in supply chains among members. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources also held a series of hearings on the nation’s supply of critical minerals this spring, where members of both sides of the aisle expressed a need to develop new American mines.

“From the technologies needed to support military readiness and combat climate change to the cell phones in our pockets or the cars in our driveways, critical minerals are essential to life we lead and the technologies we have come to depend on,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who chairs the committee. “Accelerating their production and establishing secure and dependable supply chains is vital to our energy and national security.”

Lawmakers have proposed reforms to the Mining Act of 1872, though uncertainty over the final outcome has continued to chill investment in the capital-intensive industry. A proposed lithium mine in Nevada, described by Reuters as “the first new U.S. source of the battery metal in decades,” is the sole exception after Panasonic and Toyota came to a deal to purchase from the project.

“The U.S., in particular, will likely have to update and amend its mining regulatory regime,” the authors of the Brookings report wrote, describing it as “outdated.”

Debra Struhsacker, a hardrock mining and environmental policy expert who has testified before Congress five times, agrees. The nation’s current regulatory mining regime, Struhsacker told The Federalist, “is fraught with delays and uncertainly,” with permitting processes, not environmental rules, in desperate need of reform.

“The U.S. has tremendous potential,” Struhsacker said, with rich deposits of lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, and antimony, to name a few, waiting for harvest across the American continent. The nation’s complex permitting system, which has created a lucrative litigation industry to shut down major projects, however, has stifled the ability to develop new mines. “Part of the reason we have so much reliance on foreign minerals is because we’ve made our own lands off-limits to mining,” she said.

While Congress has struggled to put together a bipartisan package to stimulate American mining operations, Struhsacker said, she gives Biden a “D” on his performance addressing the issue.

In April, Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to support mining operations behind lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese, but the administration has continued to shut down major projects from Alaska to Minnesota.

Biden’s Department of the Interior welcomed the new year with the cancellation of mineral leases for a copper and nickel mine in Minnesota. The proposed “Twin Metals” mine in the Superior National Forest, which Struhsacker described as a “world class resource,” would be one of the largest in the nation. In May, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency moved to shut down plans for a trillion-dollar copper project known as “Pebble Mine” in southwest Alaska.

“The Biden administration is currently taking some steps to address these challenges related to political and stakeholder factors, but its efforts are not commensurate with the scale of the challenge,” reads the Brookings report. “Moreover, the administration has been unwilling to advance controversial projects like Pebble and Twin Metals, which are likely needed to significantly increase domestic supply in the short term.”

Struhsacker summed up her assessment of Biden’s approach as “schizophrenic.”

“On the one hand he’s giving policy lip service to the need for these minerals but he hasn’t really given his land management agencies the imperative to get critical mineral projects permitted,” Struhsacker said.

The mixed signals to the industry from the White House’s inconsistency, combined with a slow-moving Congress, is maintaining the status quo of reliance on foreign sources. In the end, that means an era of supply-chain vulnerability and higher emissions from overseas transportation as opposed to domestic mining operations here at home.



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Republican Insiders Swoop in to Save Liz Cheney With a Crazy Idea


Bonchie reporting for RedState 

By all available information, Rep. Liz Cheney is about to lose her primary in Wyoming. Cheney, who has spearheaded the January 6th committee and has made her entire Washington persona about Donald Trump for the last several years, is down double digits against Harriet Hageman with the election set for August, 16th.

That has led to desperation, with former Vice President Dick Cheney being called in to do a last-minute ad campaign. It was almost surreal to see Democrats who used to accuse him of being a war criminal now celebrate his “honesty” as he proclaims Donald Trump the greatest threat the nation has ever seen. No, that’s not hyperbole. He actually said that, ignoring the Civil War and a myriad of presidents who have ranged the gambit from interning people to murdering them.

Yet, the move only underscored Cheney’s problems. When everything centers around Trump, is it any wonder that Republican voters would look elsewhere for someone that cares about their actual problems? Predictably, though, the Wyoming representative isn’t admitting her own missteps. Instead, she’s employing a team of Republican insiders to execute an unworkable ploy to pull out an unlikely victory.

What’s happening: Two seemingly unrelated political groups recently popped up to try to beat back Hageman’s challenge.

The idea of getting Democrats to cross over and vote for Cheney isn’t new. I critiqued it way back in June after her campaign started sending out mailers pushing the plan. As I said then, the numbers don’t add up. There are simply not enough Democrats in the state, even if they all voted in the GOP primary, to save her. The only way that changes is if Cheney sees a surge among Republicans that get her within striking distance first, and there’s no evidence that’s going to happen.

According to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website, there are 193,000 registered Republicans in the state. In contrast, there are 44,000 registered Democrats. You do the math on that, but it’s not good for Cheney. It’s also a pipe dream that she’d even pull every Democrat voter to her side. There are plenty of voters on the left who still think the Cheneys are evil incarnate, going back to the Bush years.

In other words, these GOP groups are wasting their money, which is wholly typical. They know and Cheney knows that her goose is cooked and that there is no path. But political campaigns are nothing if they aren’t blatant grifts. The money keeps flowing out until the last vote is counted.

Once Cheney officially loses, her belligerence will only get worse. She will drag this January 6th thing out until she can’t anymore, which will be the moment she leaves office. After that, it’s cable news hits and fundraising for her coming failed presidential campaign. As I said, it’s all a scam. She knows she has no shot in 2024, but there are going to be a lot of donors, including Democrats, who will want to see her go up against Trump. Certainly, if nothing else, it’ll be entertaining.




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Good News, Gasoline Prices Drop – Bad News, Demand for Gasoline Plummets to Pandemic Era Levels


The good news is that gasoline prices have dropped in the past several weeks to an average of $4.13/gal.  However, the bad news is that most of the drop in price is related to gasoline demand dropping to the same level as July 2020 during the pandemic lockdown phase.

Obviously, $4.13/gal is still a very high price for gasoline, and that is leading to fewer people purchasing gasoline.

(Via Fox) – […] New data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that gas demand dropped from 9.25 million barrels per day to 8.54 million per day last week. That’s 1.24 million barrels per day lower than last year and “in line with demand at the end of July 2020,” when there were widespread virus-related restrictions and fewer people were hitting the road, according to AAA. 

The latest demand figures bolster a recent AAA survey that revealed 64% of drivers had changed their driving habits or lifestyle since March to offset the high prices at the pump. (read more)

If you think about the position of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC or OPEC+), it makes sense for them to recognize the intentions of the western leaders to shrink the western industrial economies and respond accordingly.

OPEC knows North American and European leaders are intentionally reducing economic activity in an effort to lower the economy to match the lower level of energy production. This is the “managing the transition phase” of the Build Back Better agenda, the intentional shrinking of the economy through energy and monetary policy.

Knowing that, it makes sense that OPEC would not produce additional oil into a globally shrinking economic system.  Producing more oil would be against their own economic interests.



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