LGB Admin Cancels Massive Oil Lease Sale

Would the sale help gas prices right now? It might, since it would show positive movement in the commodities market. Or, it might not make any difference for a while. Regardless, this shows that the Let’s Go Brandon admin couldn’t care less about the pain at the pump American citizens are experiencing. What’s the highest price you’ve seen? There’s a station out in Knightdale right near I540 and Knightdale Blvd that was at $4.25 yesterday. It was also the first one I saw that hit $4.19 during the last surge. That was as high as it got. Things are getting worse

Biden admin cancels massive oil and gas lease sale amid record-high gas prices

The Biden administration canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease sales pending before the Department of the Interior Wednesday, as Americans face record-high prices at the pump, according to AAA.

The DOI halted the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, along with two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. The move comes as Biden has taken a few actions to combat high gas prices, despite his administration’s generally hostile approach to the oil industry.

A DOI spokesperson cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision “not to move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale, CBS News reported. The spokesperson also said the department canceled the Gulf of Mexico leases – lease 259 and lease 261 – due to “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”

Federal law requires DOI to stick to a five-year leasing plan for auctioning offshore leases. The department had until the end fo the current five-year plan – due to expire on June 30 – to complete the sales. (snip)

Average gas prices in the U.S. have reached new record-highs in recent days, according to AAA’s gas price calculator. The national average cost of a regular gas of gasoline hit $4.374 on Tuesday, a new record, and $4.404 on Wednesday, another record.

Some of the places are not the best for exploration, very remote and hard to get too, but, having the lease auction would signal to the market that new wells will be drilled, which is what those playing the market want to see. Biden doesn’t care. He’s not paying for his travel out of his own pocket. He’s fine with all the gas used to take a helicopter to Andrews AFB, jump on Air Force 1, fly somewhere (with the backup jumbo jet and some fighter jets for protection), then jump in a limo with 17 or so chase vehicles. So he can

More on that here. There’s just pain all around

(Breitbart) President Joe Biden is failing to address the acute shortage of baby formula across the country, which is resulting in panic for mothers, for whom formula is a necessary supplement or substitute for breast milk.

The New York Times reported Tuesday: “A Baby Formula Shortage Leaves Desperate Parents Searching for Food.” A headline once impossible in America.

On Wednesday, incoming press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked who at the White House was “running point” on the baby shortage. She had no idea.

All you Biden voters, you happy now? Don’t complain. This is your fault. And you can bet the ranch that Brandon will head to Camp David or his house in Delaware Friday.

Read: LGB Admin Cancels Massive Oil Lease Sale »

Climate Cult “Scientist Mom” Explains That Facts Aren’t Changing People’s Minds

Interestingly, despite so many saying the Believe in anthropogenic climate change, few of them do a damned thing in their own life to practice what they preach. These same scientist moms, a rather newer group, do not talk about what changes they’re making. Weird, right?

Scientist-moms explore why climate change messaging falls flat

When Melissa Burt, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, made a video about the climate crisis, it included images of her daughter, Mia.

“There’s some light within her that makes me continue to do the climate science work that I do,” Burt says in her voice-over. As she speaks, photos of a toddler — playing in the garden, sledding in fresh snow, frolicking on the beach — appear in frame. “As moms, we care about the environment they grow up in. And for Mia, I want you to know I worked hard for the change, and to make it a better place for you.”

What Burt does not say are phrases such as “net zero,” “1.5 degrees Celsius,” or even “carbon emissions.” Nor does she mention polar bears or ice caps. Climate change isn’t about politics or jargon, the video implies. Climate change is about us: Our neighborhoods, our schools, our kids.

Sooooooo, basically, politics and jargon. Right?

“From a scientist’s perspective, oftentimes we say facts, facts, facts,” Burt told Climate & Capital. “But half the time, people don’t understand what those facts mean.”

And facts alone don’t seem to spark action.

Got that? Facts are meaningless. Really, the climate cult doesn’t actually have much in the way of scientific facts on their side, so, this is not a big surprise.

Potential Energy Coalition, the nonprofit, marketing agency behind Science Moms, paid for around 1 billion online ad impressions targeting a wide variety of platforms, target audiences and geographies, closely tracking which sorts of people responded to which sorts of messaging.

“We’ve tested a lot of messages and ads to different groups of people. And we’ve found that the suburban mom was the most persuadable on lifting support or strong government action on climate change,” said Anne-Marie Kline, managing director of campaigns for research at Potential Energy.

Strong government, eh? Weird how this isn’t about politics. Now, let’s slap some strong government on the lives of the people who are for it, move it from theory to practice, see how well they enjoy it.

Read: Climate Cult “Scientist Mom” Explains That Facts Aren’t Changing People’s Minds »

Hot-Take: The US Becomes Unstable By Letting The States Have Their Constitutional Rights

From the fevered mind of Real Conservative (sic) David French and other loony tunes who either have zero idea how this whole American setup works, or intentionally blow it off (why? Dominant centralized government)

The actual piece isn’t long, it’s more about a 47 minute podcast (no thanks!)

LEAKED DRAFT opinion suggests that the Supreme Court is preparing to overturn Roe v Wade. But the verdict will not end fights over abortion in America. Both pro-choice and anti-abortion movements are furiously preparing for what comes next. What will the post-Roe era look like? And if the justices do overturn a 50-year-old precedent and hand decisions on abortion back to the states, what might the Supreme Court do next?

The Economist’s Steven Mazie explains what the leak reveals about the inner workings of America’s highest court. Our correspondent Stevie Hertz visits Illinois and Missouri to find out what the end of Roe will mean in practice. She speaks to Dr Colleen McNicholas, regional chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood, Michele Landeau, head of the Missouri Abortion Fund and anti-abortion lawyer and state representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman. And David French, a conservative Christian writer and author of “Divided We Fall”, considers whether the reasoning that could overturn Roe might be applied to other constitutional liberties in America. John Prideaux hosts with Mian Ridge and Jon Fasman. Runtime: 47 min

The Constitution, with the Bill Of Rights, establishes the powers and duties of the federal government. And limits. The Bill Of Rights establishes the Rights of the Citizens, and the boundaries of the federal government, and specifically leaves everything else to the States and The Citizens. Again, there are several reasons to this. One is that the Framers did not want an all powerful central government. Which leads to the second, in that most of the 13 colonies were the size, at least by area, of the Old World European nations. Or bigger. Each one had it’s own wants and needs. The original Articles Of Confederation had a pretty weak federal government, and they needed something a wee bit stronger to band the colonies together as a new nation. One monetary system. An army and navy run by Los Federales. Things along those lines. Anything beyond, well, the states and the people would deal with it.

Abortion is not a fundamental liberty. If anything, the feds are taking too much liberty and eroding it, with states trying to pull it back. The idea was that if you don’t like the way a state is acting, you could move to another state, rather than leave the country. We really shouldn’t be talking and writing and such about the actions of the federal government, but, instead, what our state and local governments are doing.

BTW, overturning one of the worst Supreme Court rulings of all time will not lead to ending anything else. That’s just a scaremongering talking point.

Read: Hot-Take: The US Becomes Unstable By Letting The States Have Their Constitutional Rights »

HotCold Take: Seas To Rise One Foot By 2050

Observations be damned, the climate cult has a scaremongering narrative to propagate

The sea will rise 12 inches by 2050. Here’s what we can do to get ready | CivicCon

Rob Young doesn’t know why climate change and sea level rise are such political hot buttons.

Part of the problem, he suspects, is that there are a lot of people who profit by keeping our country divided. But, he said, another part of the problem is scientists like himself haven’t done a good job explaining to people how and why these issues will affect their livelihoods and communities.

Or, bare with me, it could be that the science is super-shoddy and the policy proposals all seem to be about giving government more of our hard earned money along with government taking more of our freedom and life choices away.

By the way, it was nice of Young to take a long, fossil fueled trip from North Carolina to Pensacola, Florida, for the conference

Communities will be affected by sea level rise depending on where they are, with their elevation playing a major role, but he said the global average is expected to be about 12 to 14 inches of rise by 2050.

“That may not sound like a lot, but that’s how much sea level rise we had over the last century,” Young said. “That’s happening in the next 30 years.”

Actually, sea rise during the 20th Century was 8 inches, which is the average sea rise per century over the last 8,000 years. Meaning that a Holocene warm period should have much more sea rise, as it will be much lower during the cool periods. That’s the way averages work. So, this is a bunch of scaremongering mule fritters, not science.

Since the conference is in Pensacola

2.59mm equals .1019 inches. So, around 10.2 inches every 100 years. 5 inches every 50 years. Meaning 3 inches by 2050. That’s observation. That’s recorded fact. Perhaps we will get more than average by 2050, because we should get more than average during a warm period. But, if we do not get 12 inches by 2050, who is held responsible? Will the media for broadcasting this? How about Young? Who pays the price for this doomsaying?

Read: HotCold Take: Seas To Rise One Foot By 2050 »

If All You See…

…is an area flooding from ‘climate change’ induced sea rise, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on the FBI knowing that all the collusion claims were fake.

Read: If All You See… »

After Helping Push Putin To Invade Ukraine, Brandon Is Now Worried Putin Has No Way Out Of Ukraine

Biden’s weakness and appeasement helped enable Putin to invade Ukraine, something that didn’t happen while Trump was president. Putin saw the same weakness and appeasement while Joe was VP under Obama, taking Crimea. Joe and his EU comrades have slapped on sanction after sanction, with no real effect, and now

Biden says he is worried Putin does not have a way out of Ukraine war

Joe Biden Ice Cream AfghanistanU.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he is worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have a way out of the Ukraine war, and Biden said he was trying to figure out what to do about that.

Biden, speaking at a political fundraiser in a Washington suburb, said Putin had mistakenly believed the invasion of Ukraine would break up NATO and break up the European Union.

Really? Anyone want to check this complete load of mule fritters?

Instead, the United States and many European countries have rallied to Ukraine’s side.

Russia’s assault on Kyiv was beaten back in March by strong Ukrainian resistance. Russia, which calls the invasion “a special military operation,” poured more troops into Ukraine for a huge offensive last month in the eastern part of the country but its gains have been slow.

Biden said Putin is a very calculating man and the problem he worries about now is that the Russian leader “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”

Well, that sounds comforting. The guy cannot figure out the way out of anything minor, much less how to get Putin out of Ukraine. Without starting WWIII. He did a bang-up job with Afghanistan, eh? He’s done great on inflation, now we have baby food and formula shortages, autos are still a mess, you name it, it’s not going well.

Read: After Helping Push Putin To Invade Ukraine, Brandon Is Now Worried Putin Has No Way Out Of Ukraine »

Bummer: Pelosi’s House Targeted By Pro-Abortion Advocates

Nancy was probably ecstatic when the baby killing advocates targeted Supreme Court justices. Not so much now

Nancy Pelosi’s house targeted by pro-choice protesters demanding she investigate Supreme Court justices

Pro-abortion activists that have been protesting at churches and the homes of Supreme Court justices over the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade have a new target on the agenda: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The left-wing group Ruth Sent Us announced Tuesday that protesters from multiple pro-abortion groups are descending on Pelosi’s San Francisco home Tuesday evening to demand that she “investigate the corrupt justices” and “save abortion.”

“We will be marching to the front door of [Pelosi’s] Pac Heights mansion to demand: #SaveAbortionNancy #DefendRoe!,” Ruth Sent Us tweeted.

The group accused Pelosi of “careless and cowardly” leadership in the face of the Republican Party’s “scorched earth strategy.”

Well, this would be pretty interesting if Nancy was actually at home

(Newsweek) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rehashed her mantra of the U.S. needing a “strong Republican party,” not a “cult” while criticizing her Senate GOP colleagues’ record on climate change.

Speaking at the opening session of the Aspen Ideas Climate Conference in Miami, Pelosi said she hoped to make climate a “bipartisan issue.”

“You don’t want me to get too political here, do you?” Pelosi asked the audience.

“I mean, the fossil fuel industry, they weigh in so significantly,” she continued. “I mean, how could it be that nobody in the Senate cares about climate?

So, she took a fossil fueled flight from D.C. to Miami, followed by a fossil fueled vehicle, probably a big limo? No word if she left Tuesday or stayed in Miami, but, if she did leave, it was probably back to D.C., not the hellhole of San Francisco, so, the protesters probably annoyed her neighbors and servants who clean her house.

And she yammered something about the GOP supporting abortion

(Recount) Pelosi wanted the party to go back to its roots and back to the time when it cared for women’s rights and also the environment among other great things. She wondered how no one in the senate cared about the climate and the impact of fossil fuels on it. She claimed that though some members care about it they back out when it is time to vote.

She actually said “cared about a woman’s right to choose.” I don’t remember the GOP ever supporting abortion on demand. Further, if she’s not willing to practice what she preaches on ‘climate change’, why would anyone else?

Anyhow, after mixing the message a bit, the group is losing their you know what over Brett Kavanaugh and wants him investigated. If the group had any brains, they’d protest at Pelosi’s D.C. area home

Read: Bummer: Pelosi’s House Targeted By Pro-Abortion Advocates »

EVs Aren’t The Solution To ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

Well, this is a quick change from the hardcore members of the Cult of Climastrology

Wheeler: Electric cars are not the solution to climate change

Electric vehicles are all the craze these days, representing a conscious shift in the consumer away from the dirty, polluting, archaic past of gas-driven cars. However, this transition is more lateral than progressive. Electric cars are the automobile industry trying to maintain its dominance by selling an environmentally friendly product. The problem is not what drives on our roads, but the roads themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, relative to traditional combustion engine vehicles, electric cars are almost objectively better –– especially so in Eugene, as 80% of our electricity comes from renewable sources. We’ve all heard the statistics that electric cars in the short term contribute to carbon emissions, which is true. Production of batteries for EVs requires rare Earth metals like cobalt and lithium that are environmentally devastating and dangerous to mine. Not to mention they only last for 10-20 years. Also, barring the Pacific Northwest, the vast majority of EVs will be charged with electricity still being generated by non-renewable means.

Marc Schlossberg, a professor in the school of Planning, Public Policy and Management, is not against EVs but does not buy their marketing as an environmental savior.

“Even if we have EVs, the land consumption, the disruption of urban space is still problematic,” Schlossberg said. “Replacing one form of car dependency with another does not address the economic and ecological issues that are critical for our survival.”

Well, that’s a bummer. It also shows that this is really not about climate, but, politics.

Schlossberg is right. EVs are maginalty better, but their adoption is just an obfuscation from the root causes of our warming world. The way our society is physically built, our infrastructure, is incompatible with combating climate change. Our cities are low density spawls of wide roads and single-unit housing. These unwalkable communities coerce the population into car dependency and discriminate against those who cannot operate or own a car.

Notice a pattern? Climate cultists do not like giving people the freedom to live where they want, to have freedom of movement. The “discriminate against those who cannot operate and own a car” is new one.

The new electric Ford F-150 has a battery capacity of 98 kWh, whereas the average electric bike has a capacity of 300 Wh, meaning that one electric truck battery is equivalent to approximately 325 electric bikes. Coupled with the fact that 60% of all vehicles trips are less than 6 miles, and the average occupancy of a car being only 1.5 people displays how inefficient car dependency is. Electric bikes could transport hundreds more people for a fraction of the resources and infrastructure.

Plus, add the bill for the charging infrastructure for electric cars to the list of decaying highways and bridges that are required for car dependency. Instead of, y’know, the charging infrastructure for ebikes — which is a wall outlet that already exists just about everywhere.

Oh, cool, force Everyone Else to use an ebike! Not exactly convenient when going to the grocery store.

We don’t need individual electric vehicles that operate in a tunnel beneath the city. The solutions already exist and just need more investment: trains and buses that come frequently enough that you don’t need to check a schedule and cities built for the biker and pedestrian. We can not leave our future up to the whims of CEOs operating on behalf of profit margins. Elon Musk didn’t buy the title of“founder” for the already existing Tesla company because he cares about the environment, but because he doesn’t want to be around “a bunch of random strangers.”

And, how are you going to achieve this? Legislation forcing people? Good luck with that.

Read: EVs Aren’t The Solution To ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

If All You See…

…is a clear blue sky heating up the earth from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Greatness, with a post on DeSantis signing a bill designating “Victims of Communism” day.

Read: If All You See… »

Authoritarians Seem Upset Over All The COVID Lawsuits

They really do not like the notion of the People fighting for their freedom

‘It’s a tsunami’: Legal challenges threatening public health policy
Court battles over Covid-19 safety measures and recent court rulings will impact the government’s ability to keep Americans safe, experts warn.

Mounting legal challenges to pandemic public health rules — and judges’ increasing willingness to overrule medical experts — threaten to erode the influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government health authorities.

In the last year, four court rulings against the CDC, including one from the Supreme Court, have forced the agency to stop or change its pandemic mitigation orders. Most recently, a Florida district judge ordered a national injunction ending the agency’s mask mandate on public transport.

“Litigation invites litigation invites litigation,” said Wendy Parmet, faculty co-director at the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University. It’s a cycle that “creates enormous uncertainty about what CDC could do going forward should the pandemic worsen again, or should another pandemic or even a more regional outbreak arise.”

The high-profile challenges to the CDC sit atop thousands more lawsuits against state and local health authorities that have been filed during the pandemic, experts say, seeking to end localized social distancing and mask orders, vaccine mandates and business closures.

The vast majority of these lawsuits are aimed at state, local, and federal Executive branches, as they were the ones implementing all sorts of restrictions on their own without legislation from the duly elected legislative branch. Or using barely related or un-related legislation passed long ago to take on new powers.

The constant threat of being dragged into court is having a chilling effect on local health officials that may last well beyond the Covid-19 crisis, leading health commissioners or board of health members to think twice about enacting public safety measures.

“It’s a tsunami,” says James Hodge, a law professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. “Anything that limits you as an American from doing something you don’t want to do … It all got a challenge.”

The flood of legal challenges is part of a profound antagonism many in the U.S. have felt toward public health officials since the early days of the pandemic, when the rapid spread of Covid-19 put government authority and America’s fierce defense of individual freedoms on a collision course.

Well, gee, who would have thought that Americans would be averse to having the government put restrictions on their lives, especially when we see the politicians and elites not doing the same? When the rules seem arbitrary and capricious? When they make no sense and really do not help in stopping COVID? When they seem to want to keep them just for the sake of keeping them, while excluding themselves?

Political meddling in the CDC’s Covid-19 response and the agency’s own unforced errors in testing and communication stiffened many Americans’ resistance to the government’s involvement in their personal health, even as nearly one million Americans have died. In addition to lawsuits, bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the nation to limit public health authorities’ power, and scores of public health officials have left their jobs in frustration.

Well, let them leave. They are not rulers. They aren’t dictators. We have laws, and we have a federal Constitution, alone with state constitutions. What they, and all the politicians using mandates (mostly Democrats, with a smattering of Republicans), are upset is that they will have a tough time slapping more restrictions on the lives of ordinary citizens.

In Washington state, Secretary of Health Umair Shah says this litigious atmosphere, and particularly a decision like the Florida injunction against the CDC’s travel mask mandate, “has ramifications for public health policy across the nation.”

He says it’s part of a broader landscape of “anger and vehemence” against public health officials and public health policies that is making it harder for them to do their jobs.

People get rather angry when the government implements mandates that negatively affect their lives and businesses. Their earnings. Especially when the mandates do not work. How well did masking work? We knew the masking was foolish from the beginning. We knew it wouldn’t work. Yet, there were all the mandates, which the politicians and elites blew off themselves. There would be little reason for all the lawsuits if government didn’t overreach. Sure, in the first couple of months it is understandable with most freaking, citizens and politicians. We had a pretty good idea within a few months of what needed to be done, but, the Powers That Be wanted their power.

Read: Authoritarians Seem Upset Over All The COVID Lawsuits »

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