Fallout for Tucson: The Perfect Storm of the Supreme Court Decision thumbnail

Fallout for Tucson: The Perfect Storm of the Supreme Court Decision

By Craig J. Cantoni

At a minimum, it will lead to boycotts against my home state of Arizona and hometown of Tucson.

You aren’t interested in my opinion of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling or whether I’m pro-life or pro-choice. Likewise, I’m not interested in telling you.

But both of us should be interested in the fact that the decision will add turbulence to the existing perfect storm of a deeply divided polity, high inflation, unsustainable deficits, underfunded entitlements, a looming energy crisis, a broken border policy, skyrocketing drug addictions and deaths, global supply shortages, heightened geopolitical tensions, and an ossified central government that has become too big, bumbling and bureaucratic to do much about any of these problems.

At a minimum, the decision will lead to counterproductive boycotts.

I’m referring to companies being pressured by angry pro-choice employees and customers not to hold conferences or establish headquarters or major facilities in states that enact additional restrictions on abortion. Similar pressure will be put on sports leagues not to hold championship games in those states.

After all, politics now permeates the workplace and the sports field. 

Some rich companies have already decided to pay the travel costs of employees if they want to travel from a restrictive state to a less-restrictive state for an abortion.  It is not known if companies will try to cover this under a tax-deductible employee benefit plan. Should they try, and should the IRS permit the tax deduction, it would mean that pro-life taxpayers would be subsidizing the travel costs.  

If, as expected, my home state of Arizona were to enact a more restrictive abortion law, any resulting boycotts could hurt my hometown of Tucson. That would be ironic and particularly painful.

The pain would come from the fact that Tucson, which has a significant tourism industry, is a poor city with a poverty rate twice the national average. Boycotts would hurt it more than they would hurt wealthier cities.

The irony would come from the fact that Tucson is predominately Democrat and left-liberal, the very same political party/class that undoubtedly would lead a boycott effort. In that sense, the activists would be hurting their own people economically.

Complicating the politics is the fact that Latinos comprise 43% of the Tucson population. Most of them are Catholic and thus opposed to abortion, at least to the extent that they follow Church dogma. They also tend to be poorer than the general population.

It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out politically. Even before the Supreme Court’s decision, the Tucson city council, at the urging of Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, had passed a resolution saying that the city will not make arrests at abortion clinics, even if abortion were to be declared illegal.

Three outcomes are certain: Abortion will be in the local and national news for years to come, will continue to be a fault line in American politics and will add turbulence to the perfect storm.

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Energy Shortages and Inflation The New Norm as Refinery Closures Outpace Construction thumbnail

Energy Shortages and Inflation The New Norm as Refinery Closures Outpace Construction

By Ronald Stein

Editors’ Note: Progressives have played a coy game. As they over-regulate the energy business, denigrate the industry, have their allies in the environmental organization tie the industry up with lawsuits, and deny capital for expansion with their friends in the ESG movement; they grin like the proverbial Cheshire cat when energy costs soar far faster than the general rate of inflation. Grinning through their teeth they blame the industry, blame Putin, and blame us for wanting reasonably priced oil and gas. But you can’t shut down capacity as demand is expanding and expect lower prices. That defies all economic logic. Voters need to remember that this strangulation of energy is all part of the Progressive/Democrat plan to control your lives, make you more dependent on them, and reduce your standard of living. Some might say that is unfair on our part; it is the save the environment. If that were true, why would they permit capacity to be built elsewhere? Why are Chinese emissions better than ours? They aren’t and the earth can’t tell the difference. If anything, US energy corporations are more diligent in protecting the environment than most foreign operators. No, the energy crisis is contrived by Democrats for political control, not to save the earth. Further, it leaves us vulnerable to foreign producers, many of whom are bad actors. For a better economy, a better environment, and for national security, we need to get off the back of our domestic energy industry.

With worldwide refinery closures outpacing new construction, shortages and inflation are likely to be the new norm that inflicts regressive expenses upon those that can least afford it, as control of the worldwide refining industry shifts to Asia and Europe.

As the world has become impassioned with increasing its electricity generation from wind turbines and solar panels from breezes and sunshine, the world is silently slipping into a future of shortages and inflation as society’s demands for all the products and fuels manufactured from crude oil are exceeding the supply available from the dwindling number of refineries.

There were almost 700 oil refineries in the world as of January 2020, but as a result of continuous over regulations, permitting delays, aging equipment,  and the worldwide support of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) to divest in fossil fuels, the right operating model and level of integration will be crucial for survival and sustained profitability of refineries.

In 2019 there were 135 refineries in the U.S.  but five facilities were shuttered during the last two years.

Each refinery location is a business that needs to make business decisions. Consequently, one in five oil refineries is expected to cease operations over the next five years. One in five is 20 percent, or almost 140 refineries expected to be shuttered worldwide, resulting in a 20 percent decline in the products manufactured to meet the ever-increasing demands from society.

There are over 100 new refineries under construction, with most of them in Asia with 88, Europe with 12, and North America with 10. Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new facilities in planning or under construction in Asia. By comparison, Europe is set to see an addition of 12 petroleum refineries, and North America is set to see an addition of 10. The amount of oil fed through refineries in Asia has significantly increased in the past three decades as demand for petroleum products surged in developing countries such as China and India. China is on track to succeed the United States as the country with the greatest oil refinery throughput.

While worldwide demand for the products made with oil derivatives and fuels manufactured at refineries continues to increase, the upcoming closures of manufacturers over the next five years will significantly reduce the supply of those items and place tremendous pressures on continuous shortages and inflation.

Renewables can only generate electricity, and intermittent electricity at best. The undisputable science is that renewables CANNOT manufacture any of the oil derivatives that are the basis of the thousands of products that are the foundation of societies and economies around the world. In fact, renewables cannot exist without crude oil as all the parts of wind turbines and solar panels are made with oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

Here is a reminder of what is manufactured from oil that did not exist before 1900 that is needed to support the growing demands of the world’s economy and for the health and well-being of the world’s eight billion residents:

Fuels for the:

  • 50,000 heavy-weight and long-range merchant ships that are moving products throughout the world.
  • 50,000 heavy-weight and long-range jets are used by commercial airlines, private usage, and the military.
  • The 290 million registered vehicles in the U.S. as of 2021, were comprised of about 56 percent trucks, 40 percent cars, and 4 percent motorcycles.
  • The cruise ships now move twenty-five million passengers around the world.
  • The space program.

Oil derivatives to make thousands of products such as:

  • Tires for the billions of vehicles.
  • Asphalt for the millions of miles of roadways.
  • Medications and medical equipment.
  • Vaccines.
  • Communications systems, including cell phones, computers, iPhones, and iPads.
  • Water filtration systems.
  • Sanitation systems.
  • Fertilizers that come from natural gas help feed billions.
  • Pesticides to control locusts and other pests.
  • Wind turbines and solar panels are all made with products from fossil fuels.

With worldwide refinery closures outpacing new construction, shortages and inflation are likely to be the new norm that inflicts regressive expenses upon those that can least afford it.

*****

This article was published by CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and is reproduced with permission.

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Stock Market Swoon Pulls Rug Out from under Luxury Home Sales thumbnail

Stock Market Swoon Pulls Rug Out from under Luxury Home Sales

By Wolf Richter

The June sell-off did a job on them.

Manhattan luxury real estate vs. stock market downward spiral in June: In the week through June 19, only 12 sales contracts were signed for condos, co-ops, and townhouses with asking prices of $4 million and above, the worst week since the week of December 28, 2020 (with 10 contracts), according to today’s weekly report by Olshan Realty.

The number of contracts was about one-third of the average number of contracts signed in the prior 52 weeks, and down 70% from the same week in June last year (41 sales).

“This anemic performance coincided with the S&P 500 Index dropping 5.8%, its worst week since March 2020. The S&P has fallen 11 of the last 12 weeks,” Olshan’s report said.

There have been other reports on this phenomenon – though not quite as real-time-ish and as brutal: What is pulling the rug out from under luxury real estate isn’t necessarily the spike in mortgage rates – though that can play a role too by massively boosting the carrying costs of luxury real estate – but the plunge in stock prices that is throwing all kinds of previously taken-for-granted equations and feelings of wealth into uncertainty.

An analysis by Redfin, released earlier in June, found that sales of luxury homes – priced in the top 5% of the local market – during the three-month period through April across the US plunged by about 18% year over year — a much smaller drop than what is now occurring in Manhattan. But the Redfin report was for data only through April, and stocks have dropped quite a bit further since then.

“There are only two instances in the past decade when there were steeper declines: the three months ending June 30, 2020 (-23.6%) and the three months ending May 31, 2020 (-21.6%),” the Redfin report said……

*****

Continue reading this article at  Wolf Street.

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Want to Understand the Inflation Problem? Look to Harvey Road, Not Pennsylvania Avenue thumbnail

Want to Understand the Inflation Problem? Look to Harvey Road, Not Pennsylvania Avenue

By Peter T. Calcagno and Edward J. Lopez

As news headlines have reported, the US economy today suffers its worst inflation in two generations. Not coincidentally, US public debt is also at its all-time high. As if on cue, opposition pundits are blaming the Biden administration, whose apologists, in turn, blame Russia and corporate greed while touting the success of Washington’s $5 trillion in recent crisis spending. This partisan and ideological bickering misses the central point.

Some economists know better than to treat today’s economic woes as a partisan problem with roots in the 2020 election. Alan Blinder of Princeton University, for example, has for several years complained that politics gets in the way of smart ideas. Professor Blinder’s “lamppost problem” suggests that we would not be here had past policies not fallen victim to the politicization of ideal economics. Moving forward, mainstream economists join Professor Blinder in saying that we now must aggressively neutralize politics, unchain the ideas of intellectual elites, and finally—hallelujah!—let smart policies rule. Never mind that these same economists have admitted fault for getting it wrong, thus vindicating the steady analyses of AIER’s Sound Money Project directed by Will Luther.

Let’s be honest. Even gifted Ivy League economists must have trouble keeping a straight face while recommending that we take politics out of the equation. This is America, after all. Aren’t we the world’s shining exemplar of political inclusion? Sure we are. Yet puzzlingly, there is a long line of thinkers who say that we should replace politics with the judgment of elites. In today’s monetary and fiscal policy, this thought goes back to at least the days of John Maynard Keynes.

On the eve of the early 1980s high inflation rates, mainline economists James Buchanan and Richard Wagner drew attention to the rising debt and inflationary risks of the time. Their 1977 book carried the evocative title, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes. Buchanan and Wagner’s prose minced few words, describing the Keynesian influence as the culprit behind “continuing and increasing budget deficits, a rapidly growing governmental sector, high unemployment, apparently permanent and perhaps increasing inflation, and accompanying disenchantment with the American sociopolitical order.”

Buchanan and Wagner argue that the post-Keynesian era suffers from the “presuppositions of Harvey Road.” Harvey Road is a reference to the Keynes family home in Cambridge. A biographer of Keynes, R. F. Harrod, coined this “presuppositions” expression, and Buchanan and Wagner use it to argue that Keynes’s economic theory operates in a political vacuum where the world of monetary and fiscal policy is carried out by wise men in authority. This intellectual aristocracy could ensure conditions of prosperity, freedom, and even peace. In 2011, after President Obama’s stimulus package, many remarked that “Keynes was back.” In reality, the Keynesian influence never died, and modern macroeconomists and policymakers still suffer from the presuppositions of Harvey Road.

Following Harrod’s description, today’s politicians, Federal Reserve officials, and mainstream macroeconomists still posture as enlightened, wise people, who therefore know from their expert analysis what is the best course of action. These elites are also trusted as benevolent people, therefore, they can be trusted to choose the course of action that is best for society. Finally, they are deemed reasonable people, therefore, they will seek to persuade one another and the general public that their chosen course is the best course. Is it just us, or does this 45-year-old description seem more apropos than ever in 2022?

While the proverbial lampposts might shine more brightly along Pennsylvania Avenue than along Harvey Road, let us not fall victim to casting central blame along the former. America’s fallible and often mistaken ruling elites have fanned the flames of today’s economic dumpster fire. It may be tempting to jump to the conclusion that we should replace the “intellectual aristocracy” with democracy. Again, this is America. But when you look closely at the history behind these problems, as we have done in our recent and ongoing work, it becomes clear that unchained democracy has been part of the problem, and crisis periods have justified all of us in treating the government as a fiscal commons.

Perhaps the central point for today’s inflation problem is that we cannot remove the political dimension, but we can better insulate our fiscal and monetary house from the foul sides of politics. One part of the course forward should be to replace trust in politics and elites with acceptance, followed by restraint. This requires recognition that politicians and ruling elites are neither angels nor wizards, and that voter demand for largesse deserves moral judgment alongside corporate greed. From the standpoint of a healthy economy, it is wrong for big business to rent-seek its way to corporate welfare. It is wrong for households to demand loose money to bubble up home values and retirement plans. It is wrong for politicians to take credit for loose budgets and every economic success while bickering over blame for their failures. And it is wrong for Fed officials to invent new instruments of control that transforms their jobs into old-fashioned central planning. Taking politics out means adopting ex-ante rules that retrain all of us from treating the government like a fiscal commons. Instead of replacing smart elites with unchained democracy, we should turn to “small c” constitutional constraint and republican governance. A bipartisan generation of loose money and loose budgets has created major negative spillover effects, and today’s inflation problem is what we all have to show for it.

Taking Buchanan and Wagner’s Democracy in Deficit seriously means putting the focus on political morality and institutional rules. These rules restrain discretion in monetary policy and limit both the scope and scale of fiscal policy. AIER’s Alex Salter and others are right that we need Milton Friedman back now more than ever. But even more so, we need Buchanan and Wagner to take front and center in the political and economic discussion.

*****

This article was published at AIER, American Institute of Economic Research, and is reproduced with permission.

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Biden and Powell Are in Denial—A Recession Is Indeed “Inevitable” thumbnail

Biden and Powell Are in Denial—A Recession Is Indeed “Inevitable”

By Dan Sanchez

And they are the ones who made it so.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced that it will “raise” interest rates faster than previously planned in order to “fight” worsening inflation.

In a press conference, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell tried to assure investors and the public that the Fed is, “not trying to induce a recession now. Let’s be clear about that.” As the Wall Street Journal reported, Powell “still believes [the Federal Reserve] can cool the economy and bring down inflation while engineering a so-called soft landing in which the economy and labor market continue to grow.”

On Thursday, President Biden was similarly hopeful, telling the Associated Press that a recession is “not inevitable.”

That same day, investors splashed cold water on Biden and Powell’s hopes. After the Fed’s announcement, markets briefly rallied before tumbling yet again.

Yet it’s not just traders who beg to differ with the rosy optimism emanating from the White House and the Fed, but economic reality itself. Biden and Powell are in denial. A soft landing is impossible, a recession is inevitable, and it is their own policies that made it so.

Media reports tend to leave out why the Fed thinks raising interest rates will fight inflation in the first place. First of all, it is grossly misleading to say that the Fed “raises” interest rates or “fights” inflation.

Imagine a bully pins down one of his victims. If the bully eases up, allowing the victim to stand up on his own, you wouldn’t say that the bully “raised” up his victim. Yet that is basically what the Fed is doing with regard to interest rates. The Fed has been holding down interest rates, and now it’s relenting a bit to allow them to rise somewhat.

And imagine an arsonist pumps gasoline on a fire. If the arsonist eases up on the pump, allowing the fire to die down a bit, you wouldn’t say that the arsonist is “fighting” the fire. Yet that is basically what the Fed is doing with inflation. The Fed has been driving up inflation, and now it’s relenting a bit to allow prices to moderate somewhat.

The way the Fed holds down interest rates is by “quantitative easing,” a euphemism for flooding the banking system with newly created dollars. The Fed has been holding interest rates down to near zero by injecting trillions of new dollars into the banks.

More money chasing the same amount of goods will tend to bid up prices. Federal Reserve bureaucrats are at least economically literate enough to be aware of that, so they know their money pumping is fueling the flames of inflation. And the inflation conflagration is getting dangerous enough to back them into a corner. They feel they have no other choice but to ease up on the pump, even if it means allowing interest rates to rise.

Fed policymakers are highly reluctant to do so, because the main reason they have been holding interest rates down has been to “stimulate” the economy, especially in the face of COVID and the lockdowns. Many investors and economists fear that an economy with less monetary stimulus will crash and fall into a recession.

But what almost nobody understands is what crashes and recessions even are and why they happen. And they have no excuse, because that was clarified way back in 1912 by the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises.

As Mises explained, crashes and recessions are made inevitable by monetary stimulus. Money pumping can only stimulate the economy by overextending it.

The extra money sloshing around the banking system lowers the interest rate by boosting investor demand for resources to use in new and expanded production projects. This means more investment opportunities, higher profits, more jobs, and higher wages: i.e., a “stimulated” economy.

New and expanded production projects would be fine and great if they were matched by new and expanded resources to support them—made available by higher savings. That’s what a natural drop in the interest rate would signify. But the infusion of new money only expands production; it does nothing to reduce present consumption and thus increase savings. So it results in an over-commitment of available resources.

It’s the simple logic of scarcity: we have (1) the same finite stock of resources, (2) more production demands for resources, and (3) the same (if not more) consumption demands for resources.

Eventually, something’s gotta give.

The Fed’s money pumping only “stimulates” the economy by deluding investors into behaving as if there are more available resources in the economy than there actually are. At some point, that delusion must run headlong into economic reality.

Generally, that happens when the Fed finally eases up on pumping money into the banking system. With less new money pumping it up, the effective demand of investors for resources collapses back down to a level compatible with consumer demand and the actual rate of saving. Deluded less by monetary stimulus, market actors start reckoning with economic reality. The interest rate spikes, stock prices collapse, and throughout the economy, production projects that looked like profitable winners are revealed to be unaffordable losers (“malinvestments”).

That is what a crash is.

Entrepreneurs then scale back or liquidate the loser projects, reallocating resources (including human resources) to uses that are more compatible with the now clearer economic reality. That reallocation can only happen through a mass change of partners throughout the economy. This means many painful “break-ups” of impractical economic relationships: lay-offs, contract cancellations, bankruptcies, etc.

That is what a recession is.

Those break-ups are prerequisites to the formation of new, more practical economic relationships: new jobs being filled, new contracts being signed, and new businesses being started.

That is what recovery is. The result is a healthier economy. And the only path from an unhealthy economy to a healthier one is through a recession.

That is why Biden and Powell are wrong. A recession is inevitable. It’s also necessary. It was made inevitable and necessary by their own policies: by Biden (as well as President Trump before him) crippling the economy with lockdowns and other destructive policies, and by Powell “stimulating” the crippled economy into a distorted, overextended, and unsustainable condition.

The only way to heal that condition is to let the economy heal itself through a recession. And the sooner that Biden and Powell let that happen, the better.

*****

This article was published by FEE, Foundation for Economic Education and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Report: Red Tape Feeds Forest Fires Like Arizona’s Pipeline Fire

By Carly Moran

A new report has determined that certain climate protection policies may make wildfires worse.

The Property and Environmental Research Center is concerned that projects reducing wildfire severity are being delayed for years by the National Environmental Policy Act, a means of review and litigation.

The new report from PERC proves the fallacy of NEPA. According to their findings, prescribed burns take 7.2 years to process through “environmental impact assessment projects,” and an even lengthier 9.4 years with “litigated” EIS projects. Similarly, mechanical thinning takes 5.3 years with EIS projects and 6.8 years with litigated EIS projects.

PERC describes itself as “…a research institute dedicated to promoting conservation by exploring how voluntary trade can produce positive environmental outcomes.”

The EIS process on the Environmental Protection Agency website describes obtaining an EIS statement as a multi-step process. First, an agency must publish a Notice of Intent, which “informs the public of the upcoming environmental analysis and describes how the public can become involved in the EIS preparation.” From there, “the federal agency and the public collaborate to define the range of issues and potential alternatives to be addressed in the EIS.” 

The second step is “a draft EIS is published for public review and comment for a minimum of 45 days.” 

If that draft passes public scrutiny, “Publication of the final EIS begins the minimum 30-day ‘wait period,’ in which agencies are generally required to wait 30 days before making a final decision on a proposed action.” 

Finally, “the EIS process ends with the issuance of the Record of Decision.” Occasionally, a supplement draft is required.

Though EIS, which is required through NEPA, intends to make forestry a more democratic act, PERC believes that it is ultimately harming the communities it intends to protect. The policy’s red tape prevents substantive action from taking place within the grounds of time necessary.

“The Forest Service is mired in paperwork while the forests literally burn before our eyes,” said Jonathan Wood, Vice President of Law and Policy at PERC. “Reforms to the environmental review process are critical if America is to tackle the wildfire crisis.”

In Arizona, nearly 30,000 acres have gone up in flames, with smoke from the fires congesting the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. A U.S. Forest Service Project to thin the overgrown forest was barred in 2021 due to the EIS process. This leaves the public questioning if the project could have prevented the Pipeline and Haywire Fires.

PERC stated, “The U.S. Forest Service set a goal to restore an additional 20 million acres over the next 10 years using these [mechanical thinning and controlled burns] techniques, but the report finds that unlikely without changes.”

Nearly two million acres have already burned or are burning in 2022. As dead trees and underbrush pile up, along with historic drought and imminent climate change, quick environmental action will become increasingly necessary.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

The Google Cult’s Sex Abuse and Mandatory Abortions thumbnail

The Google Cult’s Sex Abuse and Mandatory Abortions

By Jihad Watch

“I was fired from my team… because I raised the alarm about a cult within Google.”


When Texas intervened to protect vulnerable children against transgender child mutilation, Google was one of the companies to sign a letter warning that preventing child abuse was “against the values of our companies.”

A recent lawsuit provides a small insight into just what the Big Tech giant’s “values” might be.

Recently a former Google employer filed a lawsuit accusing the company of discrimination.

“I was fired from my team there in February of 2021 because I raised alarm about a cult within Google, a group called the Fellowship of Friends. The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group,” Kevin Lloyd, a former video producer, blogged.

“The cult’s members dominate my former team at Google through favoritism and cronyism, not to mention direct payments back to the cult.”

When Lloyd complained, he was told to keep quiet or lose his job, and then he was finally fired.

Like so many California establishment figures, from Nancy Pelosi to Governor Newsom, the Fellowship of Friends has its own winery. But it also has a deeply troubling history that includes allegations of sex trafficking and forced abortions.

From Jim Jones to Scientology, cults have been a cultural feature of leftist life in California.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, along with Harvey Milk, also accused of preying on underage minors, former Vice President Walter Mondale, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and former Mayor Willie Brown, who gave Kamala Harris her start in politics, were all fans of Jim Jones.

The murderous Marxist cult was able to operate for so long because it was protected by the highest echelons of California Democrats.

Rep. Karen Bass, now running for mayor, was disqualified as Biden’s presidential pick over her support for Scientology and for lying about it.

The Fellowship of Friends is a good deal more obscure, but it fits neatly into the mold of California cults that promise enlightenment through the teachings of a guru. What it actually offers, according to former members, is something much more troubling.

A journalist covering the cult described being told about “sex rituals” in which its leader, Robert Earl Burton, would allegedly “attempt to have sex with 100 followers in a day.”

San Francisco Chronicle story discussed allegations of “Eastern European ex-members who said they received religious visas to come out to California, only to learn when they arrived that sex with Burton was an unwritten part of the deal.”

Burton’s preference was for young men whom he included in his “male harem”.

In a seeming foreshadowing of the transgender movement, the cult leader reportedly believed that he was a “goddess in a man’s body” and allegedly “made it almost necessary for all men & young men to perform sexual favors for him.”

One lawsuit filed by a man who was 17 years old when he joined the leftist cult mentioned the cult leader boasting that “one hundred boys would not be enough.”

Another former cult member describes being pressured to join the cult leader’s “male harem” and then ordered to abort the baby he had conceived with his high school sweetheart.

Still another described hearing that Burton, the cult leader, had “asked married women not to have kids and if they already did to give them away”, while a cult figure was “persuading pregnant women to have an abortion ‘to follow the will of the Teacher”‘.

A former member described her husband being told “that we had missed an opportunity to oppose our Catholic upbringing by not having an abortion.”

Google is denying any connection to the cult and its abuses, but Lloyd describes a troubling atmosphere in the company.

When he brought up the issue with his manager, he was told, “Let’s go off campus.”

Google, like Facebook and other Big Tech companies, is notorious for the cult-like surveillance of employees on its compounds or campuses. Some workers have reported that their personal phones were wiped when they fell afoul of the Big Tech giant. Others worry that the monopoly, which is behind the Android mobile operating system, can spy on them through their devices.

Lloyd’s manager told him that he was “horrified” by the cult’s foothold in Google, but that “complaining could lead not only to the loss of his job” and that the department’s cult figure was a “powerful guy”.

The former Google employee “heard of new members regularly being added” and “saw how existing members excelled, further boosting the status of the Fellowship of Friends within our department. Conversely, it seemed the Fellowship members who were on the outs with the group were made to leave.”

Google had become a cult.

“Why are you telling me this?” HR people told Lloyd. “Don’t tell me this.”

“Google knows about this problem,” Lloyd concluded. “Managers know full well that a destructive cult, a group credibly alleged to be involved in the sexual abuse of possibly hundreds of followers, including children, has significant influence over an important team within the company. Yet they turn a blind eye.”

Google covertly removed its old motto, “Don’t be evil”, from its corporate code of conduct. If the allegations are true, its corporate conduct shows why that’s no longer on the books.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Burton formed his cult “while living in a Volkswagen bus in Berkeley” by “convincing a circle of followers that he possessed the powers of a superior being.”

Followers were told that only Burton and those who served him are actually “immortal conscious beings” while the rest of us are the “walking dead” who needed to cut ties with their families.

It’s not hard to see why this mindset would take root inside Silicon Valley Big Tech companies where technocratic arrogance and megalomaniacal delusions of grandeur have convinced some that they represent a cultural master race destined to dominate the economy and the planet.

Much like Burton, Big Tech companies seek out young men, thoroughly exploit them, taking over their waking lives, and then drop them when they get too old. During this heady period, Googlers are immersed in cult-like attitudes, frantic shows of cultural virtue signaling, and outbursts of hate against outsiders, especially Republicans and conservatives.

At the Fellowship of Friends, cult members were banned from saying, “I”, instead being forced to say, “It wants a cup of coffee.”

This dehumanization is what Big Tech companies are inflicting on America and on the world.

In its letter denouncing Texas for protecting children from abuse by men who, like Burton, believe that there is a “goddess” in their bodies, Google claimed that Texas violated its “values”.

These are Google’s values.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

RELATED TWEET:

If corporations are paying $4,000+ to their female employees to kill their baby, they should pay them the same to celebrate life when their employees become mothers.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 25, 2022

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Strong Families Are Worth Defending

By Thomas C. Patterson

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a landmark report in which he contended that the rising number of black families headed by unmarried mothers would reduce the prospects for Blacks to rise out of poverty, in spite of that era’s landmark civil rights legislation.

Moynihan was furiously denounced for his efforts. But he was proven right and he would be even more correct making the same observations today.

It’s been a tough half-century for families. Although Moynihan focused his concerns on Blacks, family breakdown correlates as much with income level as it does with race.

Because there are more low-income Blacks, more black children are raised by single mothers, but the overall percentage of births to unmarried women has gone from 5% in 1960 to 40% today. In 1970, 84% of US children spent their entire childhood with both biological parents. Today, about half do.

Partly because of the withering criticisms directed at Moynihan, the chattering classes have mostly avoided the issue of family deterioration, at least until recently. But the consequences have been enormous.

Harvard economist Raj Chetty analyzed the causes of income disparity and concluded that “the strongest and most robust predictor is the fraction of children with single parents.“

In fact, there is scant evidence that race or racial discrimination causes the multiple economic and societal problems associated with family breakdown. Government spending doesn’t seem to have any effect, nor even does education explain the income gap. It is family status itself.

So what caused families, long our core civic institution and the means for passing on our values, to falter? There’s no easy answer, of course, but scholars note a sea change in our views of almost everything that began about the middle of the last century.

Especially in developed countries, people became more anti-authoritarian and more critical of traditional rules and roles. Views about sex outside of marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and single parenthood significantly changed.

It wasn’t all bad. Many of the changes extended civil rights and created a more fair society. But some of the “progress” has been tough on the kids.

For example, it’s not judgmental, just descriptive, to note that the increase in cohabitation has resulted in more unstable family structures.

Even with children, cohabiting couples break up faster and more often than married couples. Unmarried fathers are even less likely than divorced dads to form lasting bonds with their children. What may appear to be simply a matter of documentation can have a profound impact on the well-being of children.

Changing mores regarding sex before marriage has resulted in millions of young women bearing children for which they have made no financial or other preparations.

It’s not judging, it is the essence of caring for each of us to do a better job of informing these potential mothers of the catastrophic lifelong consequences of their casual decisions, both on themselves and the new life they are bringing into the world. We should also do a better job of making unwed fathers, many of whom openly boast about the children they are not raising, accountable for the consequences of their actions.

As Ronald Reagan might say, the government is not the solution to this problem. It is the problem. There’s no question that the Great Society welfare rules, requiring recipients to be unmarried and unemployed to qualify for benefits, led to countless women making the sensible decision to “marry the government“ rather than the uneducated, undependable father.

The government has also mortally harmed families by taking over many of their traditional functions, especially care of the young and the aged. Families traditionally stayed together to assure that those unable to provide for themselves would be sustained.

Today, it is assumed that the elderly are entitled to be cared for by the government. Some adults are known to simply walk away from their families because they don’t see the need.

We need sound strong families for all Americans, not only the wealthy and privileged. It would help if the government did less harm. But we need to do a better job of protecting and prioritizing our families, respecting the outsized role they play in making our country strong and our lives worthwhile.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

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Democrats’ Disastrous, Capricious Energy Policy

By David Harsanyi

Democrats have spent decades warning that the United States must stop using the most efficient and affordable energy sources or it will be consumed by heat waves, fireballs, and cataclysmic weather events.

Every flood, every hurricane—every natural event, really—is now blamed on climate change. We have burdened our children with an irrational dread over their future. Then again, many in The Cult of Malthus won’t even have children.

So, why, if we’re on the precipice of this apocalypse if saving the planet trumps every other concern, is President Joe Biden begging everyone to drill? On the days Democrats aren’t blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for rising gas prices (a cost the president not long ago argued was worth paying for “freedom”), they’re blaming oil companies for profiteering.

As the national average hit $5.01 last Wednesday (nearly $2 higher than a year earlier), Biden sent letters to refining companies threatening to once again abuse his executive powers if they do not immediately alleviate high prices—a political appeal to the imaginary “greedflation.”

Biden, who promised a 100% “clean-energy economy” with “net-zero emissions” in a couple of decades, now demands energy companies, already at utilization rates above 90%, invest tens of billions more in new drilling infrastructure, when everyone knows that tomorrow when prices recede, Democrats are going to go right back to passing laws and regulations that undercut their business.

Today, Democrats demand CEOs spend more; tomorrow, they will promise to “hold oil executives accountable” and drag them in front of congressional committees where they will be scolded by economically illiterate windbags.

That future is baked into today’s price. Because Democrats’ energy policy is a schizophrenic mess, oscillating from puerile to pernicious. You can’t spend decades working to undercut production and campaign on the promise of destroying industry and then demand it turn on a dime when it’s politically convenient.

Democrats will argue that this is a unique emergency as prices have spiked to historic highs. Guess what? Energy prices will always be at historic highs when you create shortages, which is exactly what progressives have been advocating we do for years.

Virtually every left-wing energy proposal in the past two decades, if not longer, has been designed to create false scarcity, either through fabricated marketplaces and stringent regulations or by putting caps on production. This is what they wanted.  

“No more drilling on federal lands,” Biden promised during the 2020 presidential campaign. “No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, No. 1.”

Not No. 2. No. 1.

“No more—no new fracking,” the president also said.

Blue states across the country have either banned fracking or are in the process of banning fracking projects.

And, on the first day of his presidency, Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement—an accord he is now working hard to break—revoking permits for Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile pipeline that was going to carry approximately 800,000 barrels of oil a day into the United States (also baked into the price).

Biden signed a slew of executive orders prioritizing climate change over energy production, halting oil and natural gas leases on all public lands. When a court blocked him, the Biden administration appealed the decision, even as indications of an energy spike were clear.

Rather than threatening price controls, the president should just rescind all his executive orders.

Of course, until some new technology is devised, implementing any policy that resembles the Green New Deal—the plan Biden says is the “framework” for his own efforts on “environmental justice”—would hold approximately the same economic consequences as having coronavirus economic shutdowns for 30 years straight. That’s merely if we followed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendations on carbon emissions.

Last year, with inflation already looming, Biden preached that it was a “moral imperative” to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 100% by 2050. That’s a policy that will have us fondly reminiscing about $5 a gallon.

Energy policy can’t be capriciously implemented and then abandoned every time the Democrats’ poll numbers flail. This is just a little taste of the Green New Deal. There is no sentient being that could accept the notion that Democrats are the party that is in favor of abundant fossil fuels.

Hopefully, the price—even in small measure—for Democrats’ green policies is so politically severe that they will moderate. Because we all have unattainable dreams.

*****

This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Companies Jumping on the LGBTQ+ Bandwagon: TARGET thumbnail

Companies Jumping on the LGBTQ+ Bandwagon: TARGET

By 2ndvote .com

Target (1.72) and other retailers are jumping on the LGBTQ+ bandwagon with both feet.  Please do not even try to tell us that it takes courage to support the movement that is grooming children for pedophilia.  Caving to the politically correct stance may be the least courageous thing you can do.  Sure, you will be applauded by the media and the pro-ESG investment crowd as well.  But if you want to take a courageous stand, stand up and oppose these destructive initiatives publicly. Now.

Here’s the latest Pride month promotion from Target.  They have a t-shirt with the message “Trans Rights are Human Rights,” displayed on a child-sized mannequin in store and on a toddler on their website.  They are TARGETING our children with their over-sexualized propaganda.

Do you remember the days when the gay rights movement told our government to “stay out of our bedrooms”.  They shouted flamboyantly that the person with whom they sleep is purely a private, personal matter and should not be the subject of legal, political or public discourse.  “All we want is equality”.  Remember those days? If only we could revert to an equal approach for all and the elimination of this LGBTQ+ stridency from political and economic interactions instead of having the LGBTQ+ agenda rammed down our throats at every turn. But equality was never their agenda.

Similarly, we can recall the days when people were annoyed that the top 1% ran everything and told us what to do.  Of course, they were referring to the rich in their anti-capitalist sentiment.  But, strangely enough, that perspective isn’t too far off today.  We have deviant behavior, in which less than 1 percent of the people actually engage, being pushed as acceptable and mainstream.  This new one percent are running the show at Target, at many other retailers and across most of our publicly traded companies.

If you want to support companies that are at least neutral on these radical social topics, you really need to check their 2ndVote score frequently. We help you shop at, invest in and support organizations that just want to provide a good service or product and generate fair returns for their shareholders without these other distractions.  In the digressive left’s business world, its hard to keep up with the landscape. From supposedly trans-gender babies to ESG initiatives for business, the battle is complex. Find out who is voluntarily wasting resources on these initiatives instead of providing the best possible products and services so that shareholders get the best possible returns on their investment. And since 2016, we have continued to push #AnythingButTarget .

AUTHOR

2ndVote Contributor

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Company Contrast: Waffle House

By 2ndvote .com

Each week 2ndVote takes a look at popular companies that either score well or score poorly  and then try to provide alternatives that either better align with the 2ndVote values or should be avoided to the best of your ability. This series is called The Company Contrast, and the company we will be focusing on this week is Waffle House (4.14).

Breakfast is known as the most important meal of the day. One of the more popular dining options for the morning meal has become Waffle House. Having nearly 2,000 locations in 25 states, and with many along major interstate and US highways, it is a popular choice for travelers.

For patriotic, freedom loving Americans, fear not because Waffle House is currently 2nd Vote’s highest scoring restaurant. The company has contributed to  multiple pro-life and anti-human trafficking organizations, as well as demonstrating support for our basic freedoms and a civil-safe society by donating to several Christian ministries and law enforcement.

On the other hand, however, another popular diner chain is Denny’s (1.52). With one of the lowest scores for a restaurant company, Denny’s has demonstrated a strong support for anti-American values. They have partnered with the National Urban League, which supports sanctuary cities, Common Core education, gun control measures, and opposes religious freedom legislation.

So when you’re craving that bacon and eggs special, go for the All-Star at Waffle House and skip the Grand Slam at Denny’s. Your conscience and stomach will thank you.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Google Search is Bad. On Purpose.

By Jihad Watch

Charlie Warzel of Galaxy Brain has an Atlantic essay on Google that’s far short of Galaxy Brain. It recapitulates the now famous thread on why searching Reddit is better than searching Google, and offers random speculation on what’s wrong with Google Search and whether it might not be “leaving us behind”.

It’s packed with so many Google apologetics, I certainly hope that Google paid for it, e.g.

Google search might be worse now because, like much of the internet, it has matured and has been ruthlessly commercialized. In an attempt to avoid regulation and be corporate-friendly, parts of it might be less wild. But some of what feels dead or dying about Google might be our own nostalgia for a smaller, less mature internet. Sullivan, the Search liaison, understands this longing for the past, but told me that what feels like a Google change is also the search engine responding to the evolution of the web…

Haynes agrees that ads’ presence on Search is worse than ever and the company’s decision to prioritize its own products and features over organic results is frustrating. But she argues that Google’s flagship product has actually gotten better and much more complex over time. That complexity, she suggests, might be why searching feels different right now.

Nah.

The problem with Google Search can be easily summarized as a lack of competition. Aside from Bing and satellite search sites like DuckDuckGo that use Bing’s search index, there’s nothing.

Google so thoroughly dominates search that there’s no competition. And so no incentive for it do anything except monetize search up to its eyeballs.

Alphabet doesn’t need good searches. Its searches are so bad because it stopped having any interest in having you find things a while back. What it wants you to do is…

  1. Click on its services
  2. Click on its ads
  3. Search in predictable ways so that it can sell ads

Helping you find things is not on the list because Google does not make money if you spend 2 seconds clicking on the first search result and find what you’re looking for.

Google makes more money when you can’t find things than when you do. It makes more money when it serves you bad results. It makes more money when it ignores what you searched for and instead serves up the results that make it money.

This is the definition of why monopolies are terrible. But Google has a monopoly on internet search for reasons I’ve gone into before. And so internet search is terrible and as Google, like most big companies, gets hungrier, they’re going to get worse.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Big Hedge Fund Citadel Moving From Chicago to Miami Following Democrat Crime Spike

By The Geller Report

Just last month Boeing announced that they are leaving Chicago as well. The radical mayor of Chicago refuses to take any action to keep her citizens safe. As such, we could be seeing the beginning of a corporate exodus from the iconic Windy City.

Ken Griffin Moving Citadel From Chicago to Miami Following Crime Complaints

By WSJ, June 23, 2022

Billionaire Ken Griffin is relocating his big hedge-fund firm Citadel from Chicago to Miami, the third major employer to announce  from Illinois in the past two months.

In a letter to employees Thursday, Mr. Griffin said he had personally moved to Florida—a state that doesn’t collect personal income tax—and that , Citadel Securities, would also transfer. He wrote that he views Florida as a better corporate environment and though he didn’t specifically cite crime as a factor, company officials said it was a consideration……

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

RELATED ARTICLES:

Richest Man in Illinois Moves Business From Chicago to Miami Amid Crime Concerns

Get Woke, Go Broke: Netflix Massacre – 300 Employees Axed in Largest Layoff Since Subscriber Downturn

Biden State Department taps pro-China BlackRock executive to run China shop

Merrick Garland’s Department Of Justice Is A Threat To The Republic

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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OPEN LETTER TO KROGER: Stop Pulling Patriotic Items From Your Shelves!

By Beverly Newman

Dear Kroger,

Do you have any idea how offensive it is for our once-favorite grocery chain to pull patriotic items from its shelves? Do you have any idea where we shall buy our groceries, floral items, paper products, and other such products because your grocery chain has favored those who denounce America over those who embrace this country that embraced our legal immigrant parents fleeing from Nazi atrocities?

Our family fled the remnants of Europe after seven years as Jewish slaves, easy targets of the Nazis who disarmed the populace in order to enslave them and extinguish their lives. We Americans are proud to have ended World War II, which we did not commence but had to intervene in, at grave costs of American lives and limbs and minds.

Removing patriotic products from Kroger’s customers is a bitter reminder of the ugly past that forced “America the Beautiful” to die to defeat National Socialism; for it is today’s socialists who actively disrespect America’s history, Constitution, and traditions, seeking to impose their dictates upon the American People by pressuring corporations to appease their socialist demands.

In short, we love the country that loves us and the corporations that respect this nation.

Sincerely,

Beverly Newman

Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor

Please send your email to the following:

rodney.mcmullen@kroger.com

corpvps@kroger.com

©Beverly Newman. All rights reserved.

Get Woke, Go Broke: Netflix Massacre – 300 Employees Axed in Largest Layoff Since Subscriber Downturn thumbnail

Get Woke, Go Broke: Netflix Massacre – 300 Employees Axed in Largest Layoff Since Subscriber Downturn

By The Geller Report

I generally do not applaud such news but these woke companies have so disabused their customers, this is well deserved. They can shove their relentless poisonous propaganda back down the hole they crawled out of.

Jedimaster Trump tweeted to P Smith

So not Cuties…

I am shocked that the population is not 80% African American, 45% Gay, Transgender, and 100% in support of Grooming Children…

No wonder Netflix swung from 700 a share to 170…

Maybe they should try catering to the actual population Demographics and Sensibilities

Netflix Massacre: 300 Employees Axed in Largest Layoff Since Subscriber Downturn

By: David Ng, Breitbart, 23 Jun 2022:

The bloodletting at Netflix continued on Thursday as the far-left-wing streamer axed an additional 300 employees worldwide, or about 3 percent of its workforce — the company’s largest layoff since its subscriber downturn in the first quarter.

Netflix handed out pink slips to 216 staffers in the U.S. and Canada, with the remainder of the cuts coming from other regions throughout the world. according to an official statement sent to multiple news outlets.

In May, the streamer laid off 150 employees, or 2 percent of its workforce, as part of its ongoing efforts to cut spending amid a catastrophic subscriber forecast for the months ahead. Netflix said it could lose up to 2 million subscribers in the coming months after unexpectedly losing 200,000 customers in the first quarter of the year.

Reed Hastings, chief executive officer of Netflix Inc., speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, June 27, 2016.

Those layoffs were preceded by smaller staffing cuts in Netflix’s animation department and in-house fan site, Tudum.

Netflix leaders described Thursday’s layoffs as ” very hard for everyone – creating a lot of anxiety and uncertainty.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

Only in #BidensAmerica is the U.S. Navy more focused on woke, made-up pronouns than ensuring our forces are equipped and ready to defend America.

This is an embarrassment – our enemies are laughing. https://t.co/Goqm2IfWIC

— Brian Babin (@RepBrianBabin) June 22, 2022

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Why Cutting the Gas Tax is a Bad Idea

By Neland Nobel

Biden says he will request a three-month reduction in the Federal gas tax and urges states to follow as well. At one time Barak Obama called this idea a gimmick. Obama was right.

Certainly, one can understand why. The increase in fuel costs is hurting everyone, including those at the bottom of the income scale the Democrats say they are concerned about.The public is howling, with about most people polled blaming Biden and the Democrats. Most do not feel it is the fault of the greedy oil companies or Putin. These energy companies that just more than a year ago provided us fuel at half the cost did not just discover profits. They pursued profits when energy was cheaper, as they should.

And, if you have been paying attention, energy costs started to rise after the election and were well on their way higher before Putin invaded Ukraine. No, high energy costs are clearly the consequence of Democrat policies that began years ago but culminated with the election of Biden. As the sticker says, he really did do that!

High fuel costs are altering, if not canceling, vacation plans. They are increasing the price of food and everything that is shipped by rail, air, ship, or truck.

Democrats are looking to “do something” to ease the pain because of the fall congressional elections. But the consequences will be found for years in higher home heating oil prices, higher food prices, higher electricity prices, and reduced industrial production. Economic growth relies on the access to competitively priced energy, where energy sources are determined by engineers and the market, not environmental departments at universities and politicians.

When the world moved from wood to coal, from coal to oil, from horses to cars, from kerosene to electricity, it was entrepreneurs operating with the voluntary forces or profit and loss that made the determination. At the turn of the century, we had electric cars, steam-powered cars, and the internal combustion engine, all competing with one another. We had Westinghouse and Tesla competing again Edison. Let that process work today.

What we have now is a top-down, centrally planned forced conversion to different energy systems based on biased research about CO2 and its role in temperature changes. It is what Biden calls a “transition.”

Republicans should not accommodate Biden for the following reasons:

As a tactical matter, do not provide your opponent help when he is hurting himself. They don’t deserve the assistance and it is politically stupid to help them.

We should replay as often as possible all the campaign promises where Democrats pledged to put the oil and gas industry out of business. We should further explain that this has been a long-standing goal of Democrats going back at least 20 years with Al Gore and his inconvenient blunders.

We should explain to the public how the  ESG movement starves energy corporations of capital and reduces supply. Ideas have consequences. The explanation of why these ideas are bad has more weight when people feel the consequences of bad political and scientific decisions. There is nothing quite like pain and fear to focus one’s attention.

This blowback from high prices needs to be unleashed not just on the politicians but the university departments, the environmental industrial complex, and environmental organizations. This has been their multi-year project and we now see the consequences.

More importantly, reducing a tax does not produce one bit of additional energy. Rather, it gives the Democrats the appearance that they care, while they impoverish us all in their Green New Deal fantasy. 

No, let the reality of what they are doing sink in. Many of the people who voted for Biden need to see reality by experiencing the consequences of destroying an industry before better alternatives are created. It is time for tough love. Democrats are reducing our standard of living deliberately to force their ideas on “climate change.” The collateral economic damage is felt by all, but especially by many who voted for Biden.

That pain is a positive thing because it will create political change.

It is the same with the release of oil from the strategic oil reserve. Such action produces no energy and further, uses what is supposed to be a “strategic reserve” intended for when the country is involved in war or confrontation with a hostile energy producer like Iran or Russia. That is a misuse of the purpose of that reserve. It is not a political piggy bank to be drawn on when Democrats are in trouble.

We could have gotten almost an equivalent amount of oil from Canada simply by completing pipelines that were already well on the way to completion.

Releasing oil from the strategic oil reserve, and cutting the gas tax, are all calculated steps to distract us all from the real problem:  the US has immense energy reserves and Democrats stand in the way of them being utilized. It is painful for us all, but we must let that reality be driven home.

There are additional problems as well. This revenue goes to the highway trust fund and is needed for vital infrastructure improvement. We should not let that trust fund be raided by politicians seeking relief from their own policies.

That money will have to be made up somewhere. Thus, the loss in revenue has to come from somewhere, higher taxes elsewhere, or increases in the deficit that adds upward pressures on inflation and interest rates.

Finally, the amount of 18 cents for gasoline, and 24 cents for diesel, is hardly enough to provide relief and it will be only temporary relief at best. We have seen the price of gas go up that much in a day or two.

I drive a mid-sized pickup that averages about 18 miles per gallon, for city and highway.  I drive about 10,000 miles a year. So, let’s do the math. At 18 miles per gallon, that is about 555 gallons per year.  Saving 18 cents per gallon would save me about $100 for a year.  The three months proposed would equal about $25 of total savings.  C’mon man.  I am not worried about the $25, I am worried about Biden’s energy policy costing me more for gas, electricity, and propane, for the rest of my life and for my children and grandchildren.

In summary, it is a political gesture with no meaningful benefit other than to help Biden.  He doesn’t deserve it.

If we really want to have a sane energy policy that keeps prices low for consumers,  the Democrats need to lose.  We should see that they do.

TAKE ACTION

The highly choreographed January 6 Select Committee that is being performed on primetime TV over the next several weeks can only be described as political and partisan trash. It is not about truth or acting in the interests of American citizens. It is about the 2024 election – clear as day.

Please click here to inform our elected leaders how you feel about the partisan travesty unfolding in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A World Turned Upside Down thumbnail

A World Turned Upside Down

By Ken Veit

When Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the band played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down”. We could use some of that music today.

As I quietly celebrate a new national holiday called “Juneteenth”. I am grateful for the opportunity to have another chance to feel guilty about something. Another reminder that we are all racists never does any harm, does it? A holiday is a great time to feel bad, or at least sad. I always feel terrible at Thanksgiving about what we have done to turkeys.

The prices of Bitcoins and all the rest of the crypto-nonsense are hurtling down the drain, yet the business media pretends these are just stocks seeking to “find a bottom”. How about zero? Nevertheless, some “expert” just trotted out a poll showing that 70% believe that Bitcoins are “trustworthy”. What does that even mean? People can be trustworthy; fantasies, not so much.

Another report shows the price of jet fuel up 128% in the last year. Airlines are about to jack up prices again. Yet everyone seems ready to fly somewhere, even though incomes are lagging further and further behind inflation. My guess is that credit card defaults will soon be spiking.

The airlines have canceled tens of thousands of flights this weekend, citing staffing problems. The Administration’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttijug, is threatening to fine the airlines if they don’t hire more people. Maybe they should train some of those homeless people to fly. Many of them already take self-activated trips every day. Pistol Pete neglected to mention that the main reason for the cancellations was the short-staffing of the Government’s own air traffic controllers. All those kids playing video games should make ideal air traffic controllers.

The Secretary has been touting the excellence of AMTRAK. Yet, when he had a flight between DC and NYC canceled, he drove instead. I wonder why?

Based on the latest statistics, it appears we will have a new record: over 2 million illegals coming to the U.S. this year. Now the Administration is planning to bus them further from the border, giving large cities an opportunity to host more people who committed a crime getting here and no one knows how many more beforehand. Their major contribution seems to be that they keep our supply of fentanyl growing.

A decision on overturning Roe v Wade is due any day now. It seems clear that the case was wrongly decided on legal grounds many years ago. Each State will now get to decide what they want. A lot of misery is coming, but as long as the lawyers have won, we should all be happy. Who better to make moral decisions than lawyers? Politicians?

The price of a barrel of oil has come down from the stratosphere. Don’t celebrate just yet. The price of gasoline has little to do with Russia and the war. Years of reducing investment in exploration for new sources have guaranteed a supply deficiency for years to come. Even the Saudis don’t have an inexhaustible supply. We do, but we don’t want to continue to depend on our own supply. Some think it better to be dependent on foreign supply. The Germans believed it a good idea to depend on Russian gas and now look at the mess they are in.

The President says the fault is the greedy oil companies. Having never actually been in business himself, he apparently does not know that companies make investment decisions based on expected profitability. Who in his right mind would make a decision to invest when the President of the U.S. is determined to put you out of business and continually issues Executive Orders aimed at facilitating your demise? In fact, Biden is so determined to kill the U.S. oil industry that he goes begging to our enemies to please pump more oil in order to keep the price down. The only logical conclusion is that he sees the destruction of hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the U.S. as an unavoidable consequence of making us the leader in the attempt to halt climate change.

His own spending binge caused the current bout of inflation, the worst since Jimmy Carter’s feckless presidency. Spending has to be financed, and since we could not find the money elsewhere, it fell to the Treasury and the Fed to just print the money. Flooding the country with too much money is what causes inflation, not greedy oil companies.

Biden’s answer is to combat climate change and inflation by stimulating the development of electric vehicles, and wind and solar power. As always, the question is how all this change will be financed and how major practical problems will be solved. He promises to put charging stations every 50 miles along the nation’s highways, apparently unaware that there are long stretches in the West that have no way to bring electric power to run the charging stations. And let’s not forget that his Transportation Secretary wants to tear down parts of the Interstate Highway System because they bulldozed black neighborhoods when they were constructed in the 1950s.

We are told that inflation will soon subside, even though it keeps increasing. It will be interesting to see what the Social Security benefits increase will be for 2023. One thing is sure. The number will be manipulated downward using technical esoterica in justification. It won’t be the first time, nor the last. The Social Security System simply can’t raise benefits by 8% without the Fed having to print more money.

I laugh when various experts come on TV to debate the “possibility” of a recession. Open your eyes, guys! We are already in one. All the talk of “soft landings” is pure balderdash. Inflation will moderate eventually but forget quickly. I frequently eat lunch with a friend at Otro Café, a local restaurant that serves the best tacos in Phoenix. Like many men, we always have the same thing. For a long time, the price of our lunch for two was $35. This past week it was $48. Same meal, same tax, same % tip. That is a 37% increase. I could quote similar increases in other restaurants, One restaurant’s takeout price was $48 during COVID, $60 now. Same meal. This can’t continue. Demand destruction is just around the corner.

Suppose that prices just stay high. If the public won’t support higher prices, and they just stay the same, isn’t that a lower rate of inflation? Yes. If only…!  In reality, wages have fallen quite a bit in relation to inflation. Workers need to catch up, and the sudden interest in unionization in places like Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks suggests that workers feel the need for unions to make them whole again. Of course, increasing wages means pressure to increase prices in order to keep the business going. And so, inflation does not just go away.

In the long sweep of history, there are two facts that we need to keep in mind as we lurch from one insanity to another.

We have been fortunate to have lived our lives in a relatively small number of years when the climate of planet Earth has been exceptionally favorable to life, agriculture, and to prosperity. Continuance is not an inevitability. But neither is our ability to materially change geophysical realities. Climate change is real, but it is not man’s fault, nor can we do as much to change what we don’t like as we would like to think. Exaggeration of facts is not the way to sound responses.

Empires have frequently risen and fallen. Ours is not necessarily immortal. With enough arrogance and stupidity, we could actually hasten the fall of the most productive and free world power the world has ever known. There is always “another side” in a debate. When the major objective of politics is the annihilation of opposition, the final outcome may well be the annihilation of all. Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to recognize that at this time.

TAKE ACTION

The highly choreographed January 6 Select Committee that is being performed on primetime TV over the next several weeks can only be described as political and partisan trash. It is not about truth or acting in the interests of American citizens. It is about the 2024 election – clear as day.

Please click here to inform our elected leaders how you feel about the partisan travesty unfolding in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams His Attacks And ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter thumbnail

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams His Attacks And ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

By The Geller Report

The Democrat USG is out of control – destroying our economy, our freedoms, our every way of life.

In the wake of Democrat-induced hyper inflation amid massive government spending, the Biden regime has gone on the attack against ……. business.

In this case, Chevron has responded, which is mighty brave. Speaking truth to power makes you an an enemy of the Biden regime — a suicidal act.

The irony is Chevron and other oil companies have been trying to appease the radical greens for years by running away from defending their core oil business and promoting biomass and other green fantasies. https://t.co/3Vgq9YVXrn

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 22, 2022

Biden last week blamed oil companies for contributing to high prices — arguing they aren’t refining enough oil after previously claiming they aren’t drilling enough on existing federal leases and slamming companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron for reaping massive profits as global prices rise.

Wirth pushed back on Biden’s portrayal of the companies as responsible for soaring gas prices, which last week hit an all-time average of more than $5 per gallon.

Chevron’s CEO pointed out to @adsteel that the U.S. hasn’t constructed a new refinery since the 1970’s and he doesn’t believe a new facility will ever be constructed. https://t.co/u2iHzxg6td

— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) June 21, 2022

Biden mocks ‘sensitive’ Chevron CEO Michael Wirth in spat over gas price claims https://t.co/wUJdy9l5bB pic.twitter.com/wwXvAfdoBf

— New York Post (@nypost) June 21, 2022

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

By: Jack Phillips, June 21, 2022

The CEO of Chevron sent an open letter to President Joe Biden after Biden sent a letter suggesting that oil companies could face consequences and accusing them of not doing enough to increase refining capacity.

Mike Wirth, in the letter, called on the White House to end its hostilities toward the oil industry, saying there needs to be a change in its approach and policies before gas prices can drop.

“Addressing this situation requires thoughtful action and a willingness to work together, not political rhetoric,” Wirth said, adding, “Your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry.”

More than a week ago, Biden attacked oil companies and claimed they’re making record profits before urging them to increase oil production to alleviate record-high gas prices. Targeting ExxonMobil specifically, Biden accused them of making “more money than God” and not drilling enough during comments he made in May.

Soaring Gas Prices

In recent months, Biden has taken criticism as regular gas prices have eclipsed the $5 per gallon mark. AAA data shows that prices fell for several days before rising again this week to $4.96 per gallon.

Since Biden took office, gas prices have been steadily increasing as the president issued a number of energy-related executive orders, including suspending new oil drilling leases and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.

“The U.S. energy sector needs cooperation and support from your Administration for our country to return to a path toward greater energy security, economic prosperity, and environmental protection,” Wirth said in the letter, adding that Chevron has increased production in recent years.

Oil companies “need clarity and consistency on policy matters ranging from leases and permits on federal lands, to the ability to permit and build critical infrastructure, to the proper role of regulation that considers both costs and benefits,” Wirth added.

“Most importantly, we need an honest dialogue on how to best balance energy, economic, and environmental objectives–one that recognizes our industry is a vital sector of the U.S. economy and is essential to our national security,” he said. “We can only meet these challenges by working together.”

When asked about the letter, Biden didn’t appear to try and tone down the tensions.

“I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly. We need more refining capacity. This idea that they don’t have more oil to bring up and refine is simply not true,” he told reporters.

Last week, ExxonMobil responded to Biden’s letter and said it had invested $118 billion in new oil and gas supplies compared to a net income of $55 billion.

“We kept investing even during the pandemic, when we lost more than $20 billion and had to borrow more than $30 billion to maintain investment to increase capacity to be ready for post-pandemic demand,” the company stated.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is slated to meet with oil industry executives on Thursday to discuss ways to reduce energy prices.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

3 Things Biden Has Done That Increased Gas Prices thumbnail

3 Things Biden Has Done That Increased Gas Prices

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

President Biden isn’t entirely to blame, but his anti-market policies have contributed to the problem.


Average gas prices recently passed $5 per gallon nationwide, setting a new record. This is bad news for workers’ budgets, and since it’s happening under President Joe Biden’s watch, it’s bad news for the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects.

The White House has tried to deflect blame for the insane surge in gas prices onto Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And, to be fair, gas prices are definitely not completely within any president’s control. They absolutely are influenced by global factors, and the disruption in the global energy market caused by Putin’s invasion certainly has contributed to higher prices.

But Biden isn’t off the hook. Gas prices started rising long before the invasion, and the president still has direct responsibility for how his policies have contributed to this problem.

Here are three specific things Biden has done that have led to increased gas prices.

Since taking office, Biden has taken too many steps to count to limit domestic production. These include halting federal permits for oil and gas drilling and leasing shortly after taking office and blocking drilling in a major oil-rich Alaskan region.

To be clear, these decisions will mostly affect future production. But that does still significantly affect gas prices because companies factor in their expectations about the future into the decisions they make today.

“Some say that new leases … would have taken time and would not yet be online, but even so, there is evidence that expectations of increased future supply has a beneficial impact on current prices and expectations of future supply drying up has a negative impact on current prices,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman said.

“At a day-to-day level, I am hearing from drillers that they are having a very hard time getting all the approvals they need from [the Environmental Protection Agency] and other agencies in order to produce on existing wells, and of course, new federal leasing has come to a halt,” Lieberman added.

It’s just basic economics that when the government throttles future supply in an industry, that will lead to higher prices both now and in the future. Biden was warned by many critics at the time that this would happen, but he proceeded anyway.

Speaking of basic economics, it’s well established that when businesses’ costs rise, that puts upward pressure on the prices they charge consumers. The oil and gas industry is no exception.

And unfortunately, the Biden administration has both proposed and implemented a wide array of regulations on the energy sector, inflicting billions in direct financial costs and incalculable indirect compliance costs — plus further harming expectations for the future.

“The regulatory chokehold imposed by the Biden administration on oil production in place of a Green New Deal has drastically raised gasoline prices, thereby hurting lower-income people the most,” said conservative economist Vance Ginn, who served in the Trump administration.

“This is yet another example of the high cost of big-government environmentalism when the better approach is to remove government barriers so that free markets can better let people adapt to changes in the environment at a much lower cost,” Ginn concluded.

Rhetoric matters. While words don’t literally do anything to change gas prices, the signals coming from policymakers absolutely do affect the long-term investment decisions businesses make.

And even as a presidential candidate, Biden sent very negative messages about what his leadership would mean for the gas industry.

In just one example, as Americans for Tax Reform pointed out, Biden said during a campaign stop: “We are going to get rid of fossil fuels. … We’re going to phase out fossil fuels.” Then, upon taking office, the president followed these words with actions such as canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking leases, restricting imports, and pursuing regulations.

In general, Biden’s open hostility toward the oil and gas industry has almost certainly curbed investment into production that otherwise would’ve occurred.

“Such extinction rhetoric, coming from the now-president, has an unprecedented chilling effect on investment,” Lieberman said. To put it simply, less investment means less supply — which means higher prices.

It’s absolutely true that our high gas prices aren’t entirely Biden’s fault. But the president is not the helpless bystander his defenders would have you believe.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. 

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why High Gas Prices Are a Signal of (More) Inflation to Come

These Widespread Shortages Can’t Be Explained by Supply Constraints Alone thumbnail

These Widespread Shortages Can’t Be Explained by Supply Constraints Alone

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Poorer markets can still clear. So why won’t they?


All sorts of shortages are now popping up in our economy. At the head of the list is undoubtedly infant formula, but there are literally dozens of other items in short supply. There are so many of them that I feel constrained to mention them in alphabetical order, lest I inadvertently miss one or engage in double counting.

Here they are, as best I can list them: aluminum, avocado, bicycles, blood collection tubes, blood for transfusions, canned vegetables, cat food, chlorine, Christmas trees, coal, coins, commercial air tickets, computer chips, cream cheese, dye used in CT scans, eggs, fuel oil, garage doors, gasoline, girl scout cookies, hand sanitizer, home covid tests, infant formula, juice boxes, liquor, lithium, lumber, maple syrup, meat, motorcycles, natural gas, paper towels, pet food, potatoes, semiconductors, soap, soda, sunflower oil, toilet paper, tomato paste and wine. Peanut butter has not yet been mentioned in this regard but will soon, undoubtedly, be added prominently to this list.

I’m not kidding: each and every one of these items has been mentioned in this regard in the major media. What is going on here? Has the economy gone crazy, or what? According to several headlines, that is just about what is occurring. Here are a few of them: “The world is still short of everything; get used to it.” “America is running out of everything.” “Product shortages and soaring prices reveal fragility of U.S. supply chain.”

If the shortage list is long, the presumed causes of this economic malfunction are almost as large. For peanut butter, it will be a recall due to contamination; a salmonella outbreak. But this is an input into many other products, such as fudge, chocolates and peanut butter sandwiches, which will also soon be hard to find. For many items on the list the antecedent is the Coronavirus, which has led to supply chain problems. Paying workers to stay home and earn as much or more than their salaries, a few months ago, also contributed. Blame was also laid at a harsh winter. Imports from abroad have been subject to sudden border closures. Ships stuck at harbors on the west coast have been vulnerable to shortages of truck drivers and regulations. Computer chips have been susceptible to supply inelasticity; new offerings as a result of higher prices take a great amount of time to become forthcoming. Consumers have been castigated for hoarding. Staffing problems have been held responsible for commercial air travel disruptions. Drought, the bird flu and the Ukraine war have been held culpable.

But we have had all of these things before, war, pestilence, disease, bad weather, ill health, government regulations, before. However, massive shortages, not of everything under the sun, but almost pretty close, have never before disrupted the economy to anything like the degree we are presently experiencing (apart from the two world wars, of course).

Where is the much-vaunted free enterprise system in all of this? Nowhere, that is where. Has it succumbed to so-called “market failure?” Not a bit of it. Rather, the difficulty is that public policy has made capitalism operate with one arm tied behind its back, and it has not been able to function when hemmed in by a plethora of restrictions, limitations and regulations.

Basic introductory Economics 101 teaches us that a shortage occurs when demand for an item exceeds its supply. What invariably occurs then? Why, prices rise. When this takes place, businesses are incentivized to produce more, buyers to purchase less. Voila, the shortage ends. Why doesn’t this occur under the Biden Administration? Why do we have so many shortages?

One possibility not at all in the public eye is that business firms are afraid to raise prices lest they be charged with price gouging. And why in turn might this be the case? The Bidenites are not exactly friends of the free enterprise system. Yes, to be sure, prices have indeed been rising. But are they increasing fast enough so as to quell shortages? Evidently not. Why not? This is possibly due to fear of being accused of gouging, and being subject to antitrust attentions. Wages, too, are on the incline. But likely not sufficiently so as to overcome the supply inelasticity difficulty. Why not? Firms may well be leery of so doing, in case they have to be decreased later on, and will be accused of exploiting, or victimizing laborers, or some such.

Prices and wages are typically somewhat sticky; that is, they are not instantaneously and fully flexible. But an anti-business philosophy of the sort now prevailing in Washington D.C. makes them even less able to perform the tasks for which we need them, than would otherwise be the case.

AUTHOR

Walter Block

Walter Edward Block is an American economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist who holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the J. A. Butt School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.