America Can Loosen Europe’s Russian Energy Noose thumbnail

America Can Loosen Europe’s Russian Energy Noose

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By Larry Bell

Western Europe’s self-inflicted abandonment of its own energy resources resulting in dependence on Russian oil seems to generally follow Lenin’s playbook when he reportedly quipped that “capitalists will sell us the rope by which we hang them.”

The main editorial clarification to add here is that applies most directly to the crony capitalist green energy subsidy lobbies and their climate alarm enablers who build the scaffolds.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts Vladimir Putin in a position to tighten that garrot around Western Europe — Germany in particular — using oil strangulation extortion to discourage their interference.

Germany, a dominant EU economic power, now depends on Russia for over half of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil imports.

Ironically, it isn’t as if the EU doesn’t have petroleum resources of their own … they have plenty. As recently as 15 years ago, their member countries produced more gas than Russia exported.

Also paradoxically, although Europe’s gas reserves are smaller than Russia’s, they may have as much technically recoverable shale gas as the U.S. which their governments won’t allow to be developed.

Plans by multinational energy companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies, to repeat the U.S. shale fracking boom were blocked by continentwide protests.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen blamed Russia for fueling the fracking opposition. “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas,” he noted in 2014.

Over the past decade, European oil and gas production has plunged by half, with Russia most pleased to fill the supply gap.

This is occurring at a time when Germany has sabotaged itself to become even more dependent on Russian gas by already shutting down three nuclear plants in December, with three more to be mothballed this year.

Simultaneously, coal plant shutdowns across Europe have left populations even more dependent on natural gas — including as backup for heavily subsidized intermittent solar and wind. Making matters even worse, a lag in wind production last summer has contributed to soaring gas prices as Europe now enters winter with little reserve storage.

Meanwhile, the global market lacks the capacity to make up for any eventual loss of Russian gas by substituting it with liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from the U.S. or the Middle East.

By killing nuclear and coal, while failing to develop its own technically recoverable massive shale gas resources, Germany, and the broader E.U., have legitimate reasons to worry that Russia will weaponize its energy life support supply leverage to advance its territorial agendas.

They did so before when Gazprom cut off Ukraine’s gas supply for 13 days during a 2009 dispute with painful effects extending to Poland and other European countries.

How and why did this occur?

With converging and compounding consequences, U.N.-promoted climate alarmism over fossil burning energy greenhouse gas emissions inexplicably prompted a plan hatched about 20 years ago by then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to also phase out non-carbon emission nuclear energy over three decades.

It was also under Schröder’s term of office when Germany and Russia agreed to build a Nord Stream trans-Baltic Sea gas pipeline linking the two countries.

Then, following his electoral defeat to Angela Merkel, Schröder went on to chair the supervisory boards of both Nord Stream and the Russian giant state-controlled oil firm Rosneft.

Merkel, who succeeded Schröder in 2005, accelerated the process, with the country’s last nuclear-power plants due to go offline this year — a decade ahead of schedule.

Chancellor Merkel then subsequently teamed up with President Vladimir Putin to counter widespread opposition to Nord Stream 2, a second pipeline which is now completed running alongside the first one. If, and when licensed, it will double the Russian gas provided to Germany … making Berlin even more dependent on Moscow … doing so even after Gazprom had previously suspended pipeline exports to Ukraine.

Recognizing Russia’s opportunity to weaponize Germany’s vulnerable dependency, President Trump sanctioned the Gulf Stream 2 development, a policy that President Biden reversed upon taking office.

The Trump administration had also pressed Germany to build LNG import terminals to diversify its gas supply, as Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania have done.

Whereas Poland and Lithuania now no longer rely on Russian gas because they can import supplies from as far away as Australia, the German LNG terminals became ensnarled in permitting delays, and one company last year decided to turn an LNG project into a “green hydrogen hub,” including an import terminal for ammonia and an electrolysis plant.

Then, most recently following Russia’s Ukraine invasion, both the new German government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Biden White House belatedly put a hold on Nord Stream 2 licensing as well.

Germany and the U.S. also joined with other NATO countries in agreeing to end Russian access to SWIFT global interbank accounts … with the remarkable exception of those incredibly important ones involving Russian oil and gas transactions that will impact them as well.

The Biden administration has been directly complicit in this rolling self-inflicted disaster since Joe’s first day in the Oval Office when he inexplicably cancelled the U.S.- Canadian Keystone XL pipeline and, shortly thereafter, issued a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land including Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Over merely a year, the Biden White House and Democrat-controlled Congress has transformed President Trump’s America from not only being energy independent, but also a leading global exporter.

Consequential skyrocketing U.S. pump prices and plummeting poll numbers attributed in large part to Democrat anti-drilling policies have since incentivized President Biden to pathetically plead with OPEC and Russia to produce more oil.

Throughout 2021, the U.S. imported between 12 million and 26 million barrels of Russian oil monthly. There is now strong bi-partisan Congressional support to terminate such purchases altogether — even Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports such a ban — which is stalemated by far-left progressive elements that transparently control Joe Biden.

Current U.S. domestic and global energy starvation policies are insanely unnecessary and morally unconscionable. They will not benefit either the world’s climate or its inhabitants in any conceivable way.

America has the capacity to end Putin’s stranglehold weaponization of European oil and gas dependence and simultaneously fuel our own needs, economic prosperity, and influence in an increasingly dangerous world.

Let Ukraine be an instructive moment to bring this urgent realization home.

*****

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

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Deadly Incompetence

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By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Incompetence destroys.

Weakness kills.

The disastrous debacle in Afghanistan signaled to Vladimir Putin that  the time to strike is while Joe Biden is in charge.

Just yesterday, Biden blinked and declined Poland’s offer of fighter jets, leaving Ukraine struggling to defend its skies as equipment runs short.

Biden continually tells Putin what America will not do.  Mister President, it is not wise to inform the criminals that the police will not be coming.  Particularly if it is likely they won’t.

How can we expect a President to stand up to Putin if he lacks the courage to even stand up to the Green-Left and unleash America’s energy might?

Look at this clueless tweet from the @POTUS:

Loosening environmental regulations won’t lower prices.

But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles, powered by clean energy, will mean that no one will have to worry about gas prices.

It will mean tyrants like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as a weapon.

— President Biden (@POTUS) March 9, 2022

“Tyrants like Putin” includes Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and the mad Mullahs in Iran.  Yet it is they whom Biden is asking to step up energy production.

Anyone who believes that purchasing gas and oil from tyrants rather than Americans will lower the temperature of the Globe does not understand energy, the climate, or freedom.

Have you seen White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s outrageous press briefings and her latest misinformation video?

Psaki keeps citing unused energy leases as evidence that all is well on the American energy front.  This is nonsense.

We posted a very detailed point by point debunking of Psaki’s energy leases political talking points by Kathleen Sgamma to CFACT.org.  Read it and arm yourself with energy facts.  As Sgamma clearly explains, the 9,000 leases figure is meaningless, “if permits aren’t approved (4,500 outstanding) & with myriad other delays the administration puts in the way of American producers.”

By the way, is Jen Psaki aware that the wind, solar and electric cars the Left so loves, are dependent on rare earths, metals and manufacturing from China and Russia?

The Greens, with China’s and Russia’s active funding and assistance, are blocking American mining as well!

Unleash American energy.  We won’t stop tyrants with daydreams of wind, solar and electric cars.

Pray for Ukraine.

For nature and people too.

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

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Organized Confusion

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By Ken Veit

Sometimes the average person wonders whether what passes for Government is really just organized confusion. Consider the current situation involving Russia, Ukraine, and U.S. energy policy.

The stated positions of the United States are:

  1. Climate change is an existential threat. Fossil fuels must be eliminated, and the energy industry shrunk.
  2. Russia is bad for invading Ukraine and must be sanctioned.
  3. MBS, the leader of Saudi Arabia, is a murderer and our relationship must be cooled.
  4. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and must be kept in check.
  5. Venezuela is controlled by an evil dictator. The US strongly supports regime change.
  6. Inflation is out of control and must be brought down, especially the price of energy.

Whether one agrees or not, those are clear policy positions. How are they being implemented?

With respect to Russia, we are sanctioning more and more, and urging our allies to do the same. China and Iran are ignoring us, and Germany, in its obsession with climate change, has gotten itself into a position of almost total dependence on Russia for energy.

To keep energy prices from spiking more than they already have, Biden is turning to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to pump more in order to offset the losses from sanctioning Russia. China, however, is allowed to keep buying Russian oil, which helps keep Russia afloat economically.

Why the Saudis would want to do Biden any favors is a mystery. Ditto for Venezuela, since their economy is kept afloat by Russian subsidies. Iran would love to pump more oil,  just as soon as Biden lifts the sanctions so they can go back to being the #1 state sponsor of terrorism.

Are there no better solutions? Actually, yes. The U.S. has the capacity to greatly expand oil and gas production and to export it to Europe, thus reducing Europe’s dependence on Russia.

So what is the problem? Answer: Biden. He is 100%+ committed to policy #1, above. He has banned drilling on Federal lands. He is making it virtually impossible to build pipelines outside of Texas. He canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, even though it had been given multiple environmental clearances by the Army Corps of Engineers. Regulations have been piled on regulations, primarily intended to hinder output growth. He has nominated to the Federal Reserve, as the person in charge of regulating banks, a woman who has publicly written that banks should be prevented from making loans to the energy industry.

Incredibly, he has tried to blame the greedy energy industry for charging too much and for refusing to increase output, even as his policies have made keeping output down the only prudent thing for energy executives to do. It is difficult to imagine that he does not realize that oil and gas prices are set by world markets, not by greedy executives.

To reverse positions now would infuriate his woke base. Instead, he goes begging our enemies to help him by taking steps that would go in the wrong direction if you are a climate change warrior. He seems to think it better to let countries that are his enemies reap the revenues and jobs than let American companies earn profits and American workers have high-paying energy jobs. Either way, he comes out looking like a hypocrite, but the election year calculus is such that the Democrats can’t afford to alienate the Progressive wing of their party.

His position is akin to that of Mitch McConnell. The Republicans can’t afford to alienate the Trumpkins, so they act as though they believe that Trump really won the last election. Biden’s preferred solution to the inflation problem is to increase subsidies to the lower rung of the economy, even though the cause of inflation is the excess liquidity resulting from excess Government spending. Is no one in touch with reality?

The media confidently predicts that Putin will lose his gamble in Ukraine. I am not so sure. We have a hard time understanding the ruthless. At the moment he is on his back legs. The Ukrainians are not caving. He did not expect Germany to defy him at all. He obviously saw Biden as a weakling. He expected more support from China than he is getting. He may be a cornered bully, but a ruthless one with few options and a stockpile of nuclear weapons is not to be written off. His domestic political capital is eroding rapidly. If he looks into the abyss and does not like what he sees, he may throw the dice regardless of how outrageous it seems to us. Historically, war has frequently been the only option left to tyrants who are flailing.

In the face of so much uncertainty and confusion, is it any wonder that financial markets are roiling?

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Catastrophe in Progress: The Biden Presidency

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By Mark Wallace

Almost all of America’s past presidents have had blunders occur on their watch.  For Jimmy Carter, it was skyrocketing inflation and the Iran hostage situation.  (Few people recall that when the “students” took over the United States Embassy in Tehran, it was the second seizure, not the first — yet Carter had done nothing to either reinforce the Embassy with Marines or else evacuate everyone).  For Bill Clinton, it was “I didn’t inhale” and Monica Lewinsky (“I did not have sex with that woman”).  Even the great Ronald Reagan, after he had been shot by John Hinckley, Jr., told Nancy “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

 The Biden Administration, however, is in a class by itself.  In the mere space of less than 15 months, it has already outdone all the others by a huge margin.  It’s been one mindless blunder after another, not merely on one front (foreign policy, for example) but on all of them.  Let’s look at the sorry record on this.

Failure to Defend the Border

The Biden Administration has allowed two million illegals to cross our southern border.  Many of them have been surreptitiously flown at no charge to cities and towns across the United States, with planes landing in the middle of the night so the locals won’t know what’s happening.  Your taxes are paying for this.  If an illegal wants to fly a commercial on his or her own dime, he or she can use his arrest warrant as a form of identification.  Truly, you can’t make this stuff up.  The Mexican Drug Cartels are having a field day smuggling illegal drugs across the border along with trafficking human beings.  It wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the Sinaloa Cartel has given Joe Biden its “Most Friendly and Helpful Gringo Award” for 2021-2022.

Afghanistan

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you are going to withdraw both military personnel and civilians from a war-torn area, the civilians should go first.  Quite obviously, the military can stand by to protect the civilians if matters go awry.  If the military is withdrawn first, the civilians are left defenseless.  Yet the Biden Administration, in a mind-boggling display of incompetence, chose to evacuate the military first, with the result that hundreds of Americans are still stranded behind enemy lines.

Compounding this blunder, the Biden Administration left about $70 billion worth of military equipment behind in Afghanistan for the Taliban to use as it sees fit.  When the question is asked who benefited the most from Biden’s first year in office, the answer is clear:  the Taliban. Joe Biden has met all the requisite tests to qualify as the Taliban’s “Man of the Year.”

Bidenflation

Under Biden, consumer price inflation is now the worst in almost half a century.  We are now back to Jimmy Carter’s levels of inflation.  Enough said.

Destruction of the Oil and Gas Industry

When Biden was sworn in, the United States was energy independent and a net exporter of oil and natural gas for the first time in around 70 years.  At the instigation of fanatical Watermelon Greens (green on the outside, red on the inside), Biden set about to destroy America’s energy independence and its oil and gas industry by canceling oil and gas leases and by promulgating oppressive regulations expressly designed to cripple the industry.  Before too long, (1) America was no longer energy independent, and (2) prices at the gasoline pump began rising.  The Greenies, sadists that they are, rubbed their hands in glee as Joe Sixpack found it more and more expensive to fill up his SUV.  Let Joe Sixpack suffer, they argued — he should be riding public transportation anyway.

The Ukraine Invasion

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was no surprise attack.  It was known for months that he was massing troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine.  The dolts running the Biden Administration had a golden opportunity to move Javelins, Stingers, maybe even fighter jets into Ukraine while Russia was standing pat.  If the armament transfer had been robust enough, Putin may have thought twice about trying to invade.  Instead, little or nothing was done until the war began.

The foregoing are largely instances of incompetence and poor planning.  More sinister are the Biden Administration’s efforts to quell free speech and deprive Americans of their First and Second Amendment rights.  An example in point is the targeting of parents of schoolchildren by the U.S. Department of Justice.  If you show up at a school board meeting to protest the mask requirements for your children or the tyrannical vaccine mandates (a clear and especially vicious form of child abuse — let the prosecutions begin after the Republicans re-take Congress and the White House), you may find yourself being investigated.  Additionally, there is the persecution of peaceful January 6 protestors and the issuance of a get-out-of-jail-free card to jackbooted thugs wearing a uniform and a badge who murdered January 6 protestors in cold blood.  Note that this too can be remedied after the voters send the Democrats packing — there is no statute of limitations for murder.

We can go on and on, but you get the point.  Joe Biden has shown by his actions and his Administration’s actions that he is far and away the worst President in our country’s history — and he still has almost another three years to wreak yet more havoc.

But there is hope.  If Republicans retake the House in November 2022, there would be nothing stopping the House from impeaching both Biden and Harris, thereby putting a Republican Speaker of the House in the White House if a two-thirds majority to convict can be assembled in the Senate.  Yeah, it’s a long shot, but if things get even worse between now and 2023 (which seems assured, given the way Biden is running the country), it’s not totally impossible.

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Gas Prices Hit All-Time High As White House Turns To Dictators For Help

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By Thomas Catenacci

The average price of gasoline surged to the highest level ever recorded in the U.S. on Monday as the White House scrambled to negotiate increased global oil production.

The nationwide average price at the pump hit $4.104 per gallon, the highest level in U.S. history, according to energy analytics firm GasBuddy which tracks gasoline costs. The previous record was set in 2008, prior to the Great Recession and housing crisis.

In addition, the price of diesel fuel reached $4.63 per gallon on Monday, and it is set to break its record within two weeks, GasBuddy data showed. The 49.1-cents per gallon spike over the last seven days represented the largest one-week spike since Hurricane Katrina upended domestic supplies in 2005. (RELATED: Stock Market Sinks, Oil Tops $130 As West Considers Russian Energy Sanctions)

“Americans have never seen gasoline prices this high, nor have we seen the pace of increases so fast and furious,” Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, said in a statement. “That combination makes this situation all the more remarkable and intense, with crippling sanctions on Russia curbing their flow of oil, leading to the massive spike in the price of all fuels: gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and more.”

“It’s a dire situation and won’t improve any time soon. The high prices are likely to stick around for not days or weeks, like they did in 2008, but months. GasBuddy now expects the yearly national average to rise to its highest ever recorded,” De Haan said.

Meanwhile, the White House has mulled reversing years of foreign policy and turning to Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for more oil production.

The administration is also under significant pressure from dozens of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to ban Russian oil imports. But President Joe Biden has thus far avoided such a measure, explaining that it would primarily harm American consumers.

“It’s shocking, actually, because we have the ability, in the United States, to completely fulfill all the Russian oil imports that are coming into the United States with domestic production,” Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum told Fox Business on Monday. “North Dakota alone, we’re operating at 400,000 barrels per day below what we were prior to the pandemic. That can easily be turned back on again.”

“The idea that we are talking with authoritarian regimes, Venezuela and Iran, to try to increase production … it’s absolutely absurd,” Burgum said.

*****

This article was published by Daily Caller and is reprinted with permission.

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Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. America’s Energy-Liar-In-Chief

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By Dr. Rich Swier

“It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. It’s simply not true!” – Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

There are lies and then there are damn lies. It appears that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is a damn liar. In fact he is America’s Energy-Liar-In-Chief.

Biden’s strategy is to reach zero-emissions. In order to do this Biden and his administration’s vision is to eliminate all internal combustion engine driven vehicles and aircraft and mandate Americans buy only all electric vehicles (EVs).

From Covid mandates to energy mandates, where will this end, in 2024?

How do we know that Biden is lying? Simple, just listen to Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s Secretary of Transportation and Michael S. Regan, Biden’s Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency:

EPA Administrator Michael Regan: “We’re pressing the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future sooner than most people thought.” pic.twitter.com/YFiSn10JgV

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 8, 2022

Buttigieg says you don’t have to worry about gas prices if you buy an electric vehicle…someone should remind him how out of touch he sounds pic.twitter.com/tiJVkl7wB3

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 7, 2022

Biden’s No U.S. Energy Strategy

Biden doesn’t want to take responsibility for the dramatic rise in gasoline and diesel prices since his election. Why? Because Americans are feeling the pain at the pump. Each and every time people fill up their tanks they know that Biden did that.

So what is Biden’s solution to stop the rise in prices at the pump? Drill baby drill? Nope! It’s zero-emissions!

But wait, Biden has another brilliant solution: reach out to “petrodictatorships” around the world, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. How does being dependent upon petrodictators sound to you?

Even some Democrats are saying enough is enough.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, argued,

The U.S. should “not be trading in one tyrant for another to meet America’s energy needs.”

“We need to blow a hole in the Russian economy. We need to lower gas prices for American consumers. Everything should be on the table. But I don’t support strengthening one dictator to hurt another. And I don’t think you’ll see us do that.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NY) lashed out at the Biden administration for turning to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro stating:

“Nicolás Maduro is a cancer to our hemisphere and we should not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder,” Menendez said in a statement. As such, I would strongly oppose any action that fills the pockets of regime oligarchs with oil profits while Maduro continues to deprive Venezuelans of basic human rights, freedoms, and even food.”

A March 8th, 2022 Patriot Alerts article observed:

Biden came into office with the promise that he would restore America’s standing in the world. Instead, he has single-handedly squandered America’s energy independence, its ability to rein in regional aggressors like Russia, and has unraveled the gains in Russian, Chinese and Middle Eastern diplomacy that were achieved under President Trump.

The Bottom Line

Biden and his administration doesn’t care about skyrocketing gas prices because he wants to drive internal combustion engines out of existence anyway.

It’s part of the Green New Deal plan. The suffering he will cause by going “zero-emissions” is of little consequence to Biden, Regan and Buttigieg. For you see they won’t experience it but we the people already are!

We the people are experiencing it each and every day as we drive by our gas stations and see the prices steadily rising. We see it when we fill up our cars, SUVs, trucks, lawnmowers, etc.

America’s economy and its power comes from oil. By eliminating oil and its derivatives Biden is slowly but surely destroying  our economy, our futures and our nation.

On March 4th,2022 James Howard Kuntsler wrote:

Whoever is behind “Joe Biden” has done all they can to derail American Life, and the feckless leadership of Euroland has also seemed avid to trash its future. There is a welling movement, in America, at least, to resist all that, to sweep these degenerates out of power, and make a concerted course correction in the direction of sanity, rectitude, liberty, and generosity of spirit toward each other. An awful lot of trouble has already been set in motion by the idiots running things. There is a difficult slog ahead. Is your head screwed on? Where will you stand?

We ask you the same question: Where will you stand?

America’s power lies in its ability to provide power to the engines of our current and future economic growth.

Starving America of power, makes America powerless. Starving our citizens of cheap and reliable power is a direct threat to our fiscal and national security.

To be powerful America needs powerful sources of energy. Nuclear, oil (for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels) and natural gas are the best and most accessible means to energy independence.

American Energy independence translates into life, liberty and the pursuit of our collective happiness.

Without cheap and reliable power sources the lights in that city on the hill will most certainly go out – for everyone.

Powerup America.

RELATED TWEET:

“President Biden, stop begging dictators to produce the energy that we need…don’t go to Russia, don’t go to Iran, don’t go to Venezuela when the answer is right beneath our feet. It’s time for President Biden to say yes to American energy..” – @SteveScalise calls on Biden pic.twitter.com/4STcCYpnuM

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) March 8, 2022

RELATED ARTICLES:

Energy industry swipes back at Psaki ‘red herring’ comment on oil and gas leases

Expert: Biden Actions Against American Oil, Gas Energy Production Could Kill as Many as 1 Million Jobs

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Buttigieg and EPA Reveal Biden’s ‘Zero-Emissions’ Agenda Behind Skyrocketing Gas Prices

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By Jihad Watch

This is a real “Let Them Eat Cake” moment for Transportation Department top dog Pete Buttigieg, as most Americans can’t afford electric cars and the infrastructure isn’t there for them in all parts of the country, but Buttigieg here reveals the Biden agenda.

He doesn’t care about skyrocketing gas prices because he wants to drive internal combustion engines out of existence anyway.

It’s part of the Green New Deal plan. The suffering he will cause by doing so is of little moment to Biden and Buttigieg; they won’t experience it. Neither will EPA top dog Michael Regan, who makes the plan clear.

WATCH:

EPA Administrator Michael Regan: “We’re pressing the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future sooner than most people thought.” pic.twitter.com/YFiSn10JgV

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 8, 2022

Buttigieg says you don’t have to worry about gas prices if you buy an electric vehicle…someone should remind him how out of touch he sounds pic.twitter.com/tiJVkl7wB3

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 7, 2022

RELATED ARTICLES:

Fraudulent Biden’s Biggest, Fattest Bald-Faced Lie Yet: : “Simply not true that my admin or policies are holding back domestic energy production.”

MORANO: ‘No ban on Russian energy until U.S. lifts sanctions on U.S. energy’

Negotiator Says Two Countries Will Benefit From Biden’s New Nuke Deal with Iran — Neither of Them Are the U.S.

Gas prices hit average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2008, approach record high

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

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This Invasion Is Brought to You by … Western Environmentalists

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By Dennis Prager

For more than 40 years, the environmentalist movement has been warning that global warming is the result of mankind’s burning of fossil fuels and poses an “existential threat” to human and other biological life.

This is one of the many grandiose lies the Left uses to reshape, if not destroy, Western civilization. Other grandiose lies used to achieve that result include America being systemically racist; that violent crime is the result of racism and poverty; men give birth; sex and gender are “nonbinary”; and that former President Donald Trump was a Russian asset.

It should now be obvious that the “Greens,” the environmentalist movement — not global warming — poses an existential threat to humanity. For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the world faces the possibility of a nuclear war. Russia is explicitly threatening the use of nuclear weapons should the West come to the defense of Ukraine and has put its military on nuclear alert. Given the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin is deranged, the threat is far more real than it was in 1962 when Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union. Putin believes he embodies Russia (just as Hitler believed he embodied Germany). Khrushchev did not believe he embodied Russia.

Were it not for the green movement, Putin would not have been confident that he could get away with invading Ukraine. During Trump’s presidency, and due to his policies, the United States became independent of foreign oil for the first time. Within months of assuming power, the Democratic Party, an extension of the environmentalist movement, forced America to revert to dependence on foreign oil, including Russian oil. Beholden to the environmentalists, candidate Joe Biden made promise after promise to curtail oil and gas production: no new fracking on government land, no drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, and shutting down the Keystone pipeline.

Putin got the message.

So, thanks to environmentalists, not only is America once again dependent on foreign oil, Germany is dependent on Russian oil. Angela Merkel, another in a long line of foolish Germans, even shut down Germany’s nuclear reactors — which the greens in Germany applauded. They applauded it — despite the fact that nuclear energy is the only viable non-carbon energy that can sustain a country — because the environmentalist movement is not nearly as interested in the environment as it is in restructuring society. The environmentalist movement is as interested in protecting the environment as the communist movement was in protecting workers or the defund-the-police movement is in protecting blacks.

The Democrats came into power in 2021. The average closing price of oil in 2020 was $39.68 a barrel; the closing price of oil in 2019 was $56.99 a barrel. As of this writing it is $138.00 a barrel. The extremely high price of energy — a direct result of the environmentalist policies of the Democratic Party and the liberal and Left parties in Europe — is one of the two primary reasons for the ever-increasing rate of inflation. (The other reason is the result of another Democrat policy: the printing of trillions of dollars.)

*****

Continue reading this article at at PJ Media.

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MORANO: ‘No ban on Russian energy until U.S. lifts sanctions on U.S. energy’

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By Marc Morano

Morano:

“How about this? No ban on Russian oil & gas until the U.S. lifts sanctions against U.S. domestic energy.

Any Congressional bill to ban Russian energy should include lifting of all climate-related sanctions on U.S. homegrown energy! It’s time to stop the sanctions — against American domestic energy!”

Former Obama U.S. Treasury official says quiet part out loud:

‘We don’t want lower prices for fossil-fuel buyers, we prefer higher prices’ to achieve ‘climate change goals’

Former Obama U.S. Treasury official Mark Mazur rejects the call for a gas-tax holiday because it,

“undercuts the administration’s climate change goals — where really to care about fossil-fuel consumption, we don’t want lower prices for fossil-fuel buyers, we prefer higher prices.”

Morano on TV: ‘High energy prices are NOT the unintended consequences of the Green New Deal-style policies, they are the INTENDED consequences’

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano: 

“Skyrocketing energy prices  are exactly what the climate and environmental agenda demands and has demanded for the past 50 plus years. From President Obama to President Biden, higher energy costs have been the plan to soften up Americans and the economy to prepare them for accepting less in order to impose the progressive vision on society.

High energy prices and shortages will condition Americans to accept a ‘new normal’ in energy that is entirely due to following the climate agenda.”

By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot – March 8, 2022 12:23 PM

Excerpt via Bloomberg News – Feb 18, 2022

Bloomberg excerpt: “Former U.S. Treasury official Mark Mazur… agreed a gas-tax holiday “undercuts the administration’s climate change goals — where really to care about fossil-fuel consumption, we don’t want lower prices for fossil-fuel buyers, we prefer higher prices.”Sampling of climate activists cheering on higher energy prices: 

‘This is a blessing in disguise’: Climate activists happy! ‘Good riddance Nord Stream 2. Now Europe has a golden opportunity to ‘meet global climate goals to keep our planet livable’

Biden admin admits goal is higher gas prices!? Jen Psaki: ‘The rise in gas prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment & focus on clean energy options’

Jen Psaki says Biden wants to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by using green energy, not by expanding U.S. energy production

Obama called it in 2008! Get ready for electricity prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket’

‘Put them in jail’: Biden demanded fossil fuel execs be locked up in 2019 & Noam Chomsky: Biden on climate is ‘farther to the left than any Dem candidate in memory’ & Net-Zero = ‘Soviet-style central planning’

‘We gotta leave you in the ground’: Biden Energy Sec Granholm appeared in 2018 video singing about end of gasoline, fossil fuels – ‘Gasoline, gasoline, the world’s aflame’

Flashback 2011: Morano on Fox News on Obama’s energy policies: Sec. Chu said he favored gas prices at level of Europeans…Holdren once said the greatest ‘hazard’ in U.S. faced was cheap energy

Flashback 1975: Obama Science Czar John Holdren warned U.S. ‘threatened’ by ‘the hazards of too much energy’– Flashback 1975: Former Obama Science Czar John Holdren Said Real Threat to USA Is Cheap Energy: ‘The U.S. is threatened far more by the hazards of too much energy, too soon, than by the hazards of too little energy, too late.’John Holdren lamented the masses driving to the store to get beer in 1975! Holdren: “In a society that uses its 5,000-pound automobiles for half-mile round trips to the market to fetch a six-pack of beer, consumes the beer in buildings that are overcooled in summer and overheated in winter, and then throws the aluminum cans away at an energy loss equivalent to a third of a gallon of gasoline per six-pack, this ‘primitive existence’ argument strikes me as the most offensive kind of nonsense.”

Why is Biden energy sec. smiling!? Skyrocketing energy prices are all part of the ‘Green Fraud’ – Welcome Back, (Jimmy) Carter -2021: ‘Maybe Pipeline Terrorists Are Just Environmentalists’ – 2013: ‘We will dismantle the Pipeline…by any means necessary’Why is Biden energy sec. smiling!? Skyrocketing energy prices are all part of the ‘Green Fraud’ – Welcome Back, (Jimmy) Carter

Squad Rep. Rashida Tlaib SOTU response: You’re darned right we should defund the police — and ban even more domestic oil production

Climate activist Mark Lynas: “In Europe clean energy – renewables and nuclear – is now the patriotic choice, to help the continent weather Putin’s storm. Things are moving rapidly in Asia too as fossil fuels prices soar.”Welcome Back, (Jimmy) Carter: ‘Economy was in the tank, inflation was rampant, gas lines were long’ – ‘At least in 1979 we weren’t locked down, masked up, & socially distanced’

2010: NASA scientist James Hansen endorses book which calls for ‘ridding the world of Industrial Civilization’ – Hansen declares author ‘has it right…the system is the problem’ — Book proposes ‘razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine’

2022: Swiss president warns nation to prepare for electricity shortages lasting weeks or months

Flashback: ‘Era of Constant Electricity at Home is Ending, says UK power chief’ — ‘Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available’

2019: Sweden’s Biggest Cities Face Power Shortage After Fuel-Tax Hike – ‘Tax aimed at phasing out nation’s last remaining coal & gas plants to curb global warming’

John Kerry fears Russia-Ukraine war will distract from climate change– Kerry: A Russian invasion of Ukraine will have a “monumental impact on the ability and willingness of people to do what’s necessary” to curb emissions, and it will be “very tough for the climate agenda, there’s no question about it.”

EU climate chief Frans Timmermans: ‘Putin threatens Ukraine because he wants to divert attention from climate problem’

New York Times reports that ‘the reliability & resilience of the electricity grid’ are ‘top concerns for climate change deniers’

Watch: Morano on Tucker Carlson on Ukraine, Russia & how Biden’s policies aided Russia: ‘The West’s Energy Policy Is the Greatest National Security Threat We Face’

Tucker Carlson Tonight – Fox News Channel – Broadcast February 23, 2022: 

©Marc Morano. All rights reserved.

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America’s Energy Future: Oil, Natural Gas and Nuclear

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By Dr. Rich Swier

America’s energy future is not in solar and wind power. Rather our energy needs are best met by oil, natural gas and nuclear power.

Let’s look at the current numbers to see where Americans get their energy from.

Here is a chart showing how much U.S. energy is produced by coal and coal byproducts.

Energy source Billion kWh Share of total
Coal 899 21.8%
Petroleum (total) 19 0.5%
Petroleum liquids 11 0.3%
Petroleum coke 7 0.2%

Here is a chart on how much of our energy is produced by solar and wind.

NOTE: hydropower is classified as a renewable. 1. Take away hydropower and wind and solar only account for 12.5% share. 2. When the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, solar and wind fail to produce power:

Energy source Billion kWh Share of total
Renewables (total) 792 19.8%
Wind 338 8.4%
Hydropower 291 7.3%
Solar (total) 91 2.3%

 According to U.S. Energy Information Administration 80.9% of our total energy needs are met by oil, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric and nuclear power.

Energy source Billion kWh Share of total
Total – all sources 4,116
Fossil fuels (total) 2,504 60.8%
Natural gas 1,575 38.3%
Coal 899 21.8%
Petroleum (total) 19 0.5%
Petroleum liquids 11 0.3%
Petroleum coke 7 0.2%
Other gases3 11 0.3%
Nuclear 778 18.9%
Renewables (total) 826 20.1%
Wind 380 9.2%
Hydropower 260 6.3%
Solar (total) 115 2.8%
Photovoltaic 112 2.8%
Solar thermal 3 0.1%
Biomass (total) 55 1.3%
Wood 37 0.9%
Landfill gas 10 0.2%
Municipal solid waste (biogenic) 6 0.2%
Other biomass waste 2 0.1%
Geothermal 16 0.4%
Pumped storage hydropower4 -5 -0.1%
Other sources5 12 0.3%

America’s Future is Nuclear

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) there are, as of December 31, 2020, 94 nuclear reactors operating at 56 nuclear power plants in 28 states. Thirty-two of the plants have two reactors, and three plants have three reactors. Nuclear power plants have supplied about 20% of total annual U.S. electricity since 1990.

America has not built any new nuclear power plants since 1990.

The EIA notes:

The United States generates more nuclear power than any other country

In 2019, 31 countries had commercial nuclear power plants, and in 14 of the countries, nuclear energy supplied at least 20% of their total annual electricity generation. The United States had the largest nuclear electricity generation capacity and generated more nuclear electricity than any other country. France, with the second-largest nuclear electricity generation capacity and second-highest nuclear electricity generation, had the largest share—about 70%—of total annual electricity generation from nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy is clean, efficient and reliable. It is also carbon free.

If America, like France, made the wise decision to begin building nuclear power plants to meet 100% of our power we would need to build an additional 500, plus or minus, nuclear power plants.

This national initiative would allow the United States to then use its oil and natural gas resources to fuel our cars, SUVs, trucks, trains, airplanes and other gasoline and diesel driven equipment, such as generators, and become energy independent.

We could also export all of our coal for use by other nations to meet their energy needs.

American consumers will continue to buy new and used vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Thus we as a nation must maintain and expand our ability to produce our own oil via on and off-shore drilling and fracking.

As more consumers go to all electric vehicles (EVs) and the charging stations needed to keep them running, whether in the home or on the road, the strain on our electric grid will increase.

We need more, not less, cheap and reliable power to fuel our economy, our communities and our nation.

Not to provide cheap and reliable power will lead to what we are seeing now, war in Ukraine.

The Bottom Line

America’s power lies in its ability to provide power to the engines of our current and future economic growth.

Starving America of power, makes America powerless. Starving our citizens of cheap and reliable power is a direct threat to our fiscal and national security.

To be powerful America needs powerful sources of energy. Nuclear, oil (for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels) and natural gas are the best and most accessible means to energy independence.

Energy independence translates into life, liberty and the pursuit of our collective happiness.

Without cheap and reliable power sources the lights in that city on the hill will most certainly go out – for everyone.

Powerup America.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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UN doubles down on climate as Putin’s tanks roll

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By Bonner Cohen

With exquisite timing, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has seized the opportunity of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to warn of impending doom – not from Putin’s putting Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert, but from countries failing to reduce their carbon emissions.

“Climate change is killing people,” said Helen Adams of Kings College London, who co-authored the UN’s latest climate report, released four days after Russian tanks backed by missiles and helicopter gunships opened fire on both Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. “Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are being clobbered by climate change.”

“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,” says the UN report designed to advise world leaders, including the likes of Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Ji Ping, develop policies to address the impending climate catastrophe. Delaying cuts in what it assures us are “heat-trapping carbon emissions” and waiting for adapting to a warmer planet the report warns “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable and sustainable future for us all.”

As Putin’s forces unleash mayhem on Ukrainian cities and villages in the here and now, the UN report tells us that today’s children who survive to live in 2100 are going to experience four time more climate extremes than they do now even if temperatures edge up only a few tenths of a degree. Many of these climate impacts, the report says, “are potentially irreversible.”

Or maybe not.

“There is nothing to support the false claim that climate change is causing more, and ever more severe weather events over the course of the past 100 years,” says Wisconsin-based geochemist Bill Balgord, Ph. D. “Detailed analysis by natural disaster experts like Michael Pielke Jr. et al, documents that the occurrence of hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, floods, heatwaves, sea-level rise, and many other adverse events are not increasing in frequency or intensity. What the UN is threatening us with does not stand up to scrutiny.”

John Kerry Weighs In

President Biden’s climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, has his own unique take on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In comments made on BBC Arabic a few hours before Putin’s troop rolled into Ukraine, Kerry said he was concerned about the “massive emissions consequences to the war, but equally important, you’re going to lose people’s focus. You’re going to lose, certainly, big country attention because they will be diverted, and I think it could have a damaging impact … And so, I hope President Putin will help us stay on track with respect to what we need to do about the climate.”

It takes a lot of money to invade a country, and the Biden administration has been bankrolling Russia and China by suppressing fossil-fuel production in the U.S., thereby driving up the global price of oil and natural gas to the benefit of oil and gas exporter Russia and to the benefit of China, which has a tight grip on the materials that go into the solar panels and wind turbines Biden is determined to force-feed the country.

However inane Kerry’s remarks may be, he and his fellow climate alarmists are right to be concerned about their ambitious plans to decarbonize energy sources. European governments are now eager to break free from their dependence on Putin’s Russia for their natural gas are planning to import more liquified natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. Qatar, and Australia, although these countries alone will not be able to make up the shortfall in Russian imports.

As a result, European governments are considering putting the phase-out of coal on hold and instead actually increasing the output of coal-fired power plants to reduce dependency on Russian gas. And for all of the subsidies they have lavished on renewable energy, they know better than to make themselves dependent on wind mills and solar panels. War has a way of concentrating the mind.

But don’t look for the Biden administration to break with climate orthodoxy; it is too tied to wealthy green donors and relishes the power it exercises by citing the climate as justification for telling people how to live their lives.

*****

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

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Ford Foundation’s Big Left Influence: The Climate Hypocrites

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By Ken Braun

The Climate Hypocrites

In January 2019, more than 600 left-leaning policy and climate organizations co-signed a letter to members of Congress under the headline “Legislation to Address the Urgent Threat of Climate Change.” Outlining their proposals demanding “renewable energy” and “100 percent decarbonization,” the letter pointedly singled out nuclear power as being “dirty energy” and said that “any definition of renewable energy must also exclude all combustion-based power generation, nuclear, biomass energy, large scale hydro and waste-to-energy technologies.”

As of 2020, according to the Department of Energy, “large scale hydro” and nuclear power together provided 27.3 percent of U.S. electricity, all of it carbon-free power. Nuclear alone provided 20 percent. Wind, solar and geothermal put together, the only sources of (intermittently) available electricity acceptable to these extremists, provided just 11.1 percent.

And these numbers do not factor in the transportation sector, which is 26 percent of all U.S. energy use and dominated by fossil fuels. Shifting all the cars over to electric vehicles would mean even more demand for the zero-carbon sources doing most of the work to keep the lights on. Right now, the electric cars are running mostly on coal and natural gas.

So, that January 2019 letter to Congress was effectively asking for a U.S. energy policy of achieving 100 percent decarbonization by wiping out 75 percent of our carbon-free alternatives, including the only alternative (nuclear) that can be scaled up with few theoretical limits.

The Ford Foundation has spent millions of dollars this year subsidizing this dangerous and delusional recommendation. Four of its grant recipients are signatories on that letter:

Two other 2021 Ford Foundation grant recipients were not signatories on the letter but have also adopted positions in opposition to nuclear energy:

  • The Environmental Defense Fund ($130,000). EDF has recently supported the premature closure of nuclear power plants in New York and California. The pro-nuclear environmentalist group Environmental Progresshas identified EDF as “one of the most influential anti-nuclear organizations in the United States.” Environmental Progress has also accused EDF of “hypocrisy” because EDF supports wind and solar energy subsidies but opposes far smaller price supports for nuclear power.
  • The Movement Strategy Center ($300,000). A 2015 policy document co-produced by the Movement Strategy Center praised a community in India for opposing the construction of both nuclear power and hydroelectric plants. The document also defined nuclear energy as an example of “false solutions” to carbon reduction.

Together, these seven so-called “environmentalist” anti-nuclear groups received $3.53 million from the Ford Foundation in 2021.

Clearly Partisan Democrats

In addition to the $2 million grant to Blueprint NC, eight additional 2021 Ford Foundation grant recipients have a clear agenda favoring the success of Democratic politicians. In total, the nine organizations received $19.7 million from Ford in 2021.

  • Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation ($10 million). The Babcock Foundation funds numerous state-level partisan advocacy organizations. For example, during the 2020 election cycle it gave more than $2 million to Blueprint NC. In its 2019 tax filing Babcock reported total grants of $15.5 million.
  • New Florida Majority Education Fund ($2 million). The New Florida Majority Education Fund website describes the group as “the non-partisan, nonprofit, educational 501c(3) arm of the New Florida Majority.” New Florida Majority is a partisan 501(c)(4) advocacy group that endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020. The Ford Foundation website also describes the New Florida Majority Education Fund grant as “d/b/a Florida Rising Together.” The main page of the Florida Rising Together website boasts: “We organize multi-racial movements to win elections.”
  • State Voices ($2 million). The State Voices website shows that it is the national network for partisan state-based groups such as Blueprint NC.
  • Repairers of the Breach ($2 million). Repairers is a partisan religious group based in North Carolina led by left-wing pastor William J. Barber II. The Repairers’ blog stridently supports the agenda of President Biden and his Democratic allies. The blog harshly criticizes U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) for failing to sufficiently support Biden, often calling Manchin’s faith and morality into question. A September post stated: “Senator Manchin claims to be a person of faith. But what he’s doing is sinful, immoral.” An October statement declared: “Sen. Manchin continues to not only ignore the teachings of his own faith tradition, he also ignores the voices of the people he was elected to serve.”
  • Workers Defense Project ($675,000). The Workers Defense Project is a Texas-based organization that promotes the agenda of left-leaning labor unions. The group’s leadership council includes representatives from the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Jobs With Justice. The Workers Defense Project shares its senior leader and its leadership council with the Workers Defense Action Fund, a partisan 501(c)(4) advocacy group that boasted of its work electing Democrats during the 2020 election cycle.
  • Take Action Minnesota Education Fund ($400,000). IRS reports filed for 2019 show that the TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund shares a website and executive leadership with TakeAction Minnesota, a partisan 501(c)(4) advocacy group. A “2020 Impact Report” on the common website of the two groups boasts of electing 12 politicians, including supporting left-wing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and “winning seats historically held by Republicans.”
  • A $400,000 grant was given to a recipient labeled in the Ford Foundation grant database as “Progress Michigan/Education.” This likely refers to a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable group that operates publicly as Engage Michigan, but files with the IRS as the Progress Michigan Education Fund. As of the IRS filings for 2019, both this group and Progress Michigan, a partisan 501(c)(4) advocacy group, share the same principal officer and office address. During the 2018 gubernatorial election Progress Michigan ran independent advertisements attacking the Republican general election candidate.
  • A $325,000 grant was given to a recipient labeled in the Ford Foundation grant database as the “Virginia New Majority Education Fund.” This was likely a typo intended as the New Virginia Majority Education Fund. The New Virginia Majority Education Fund shares senior leadership with its partner, New Virginia Majority, a partisan 501(c)4 advocacy group. New Virginia Majority endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020.

*****

This article was published by Capital Research and is reproduced with permission.

Russian Collusion Exposed: Russia Funded Environmental Groups to Oppose Fracking in Europe and U.S. thumbnail

Russian Collusion Exposed: Russia Funded Environmental Groups to Oppose Fracking in Europe and U.S.

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By Marc Morano

From 2018 Congressional Report: 

A Republican staff report by the Senate suggests that Russian funds have been funneled through off-shore corporations and passed on to U.S.- based environmental activist organizations with the intent to effect political change.

[ … ]

In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report stating there is “clear evidence that the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.”

[ … ]

Hillary Clinton in 2014 said: ‘We [the State Department and the U.S.] were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.’

2018: CFACT & Climate Depot’s billboard went up: — ‘Russia funneled Green groups millions of dollars to oppose fracking & cripple American energy. – How’s that for COLLUSION?’

2018 CFACT report: Russian efforts to disrupt U.S. energy markets exposed – By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

2018: CFACT report: Real Russian collusion the MSM ignores– By Paul Driessen

March 2022: Michael Shellenberger: “15 years ago Europe exported more natural gas than Russia does today. Now, Russia exports 3x more gas than Europe produces. Why? Because climate activists, partly funded by Russia, blocked fracking.” 

The Russia “collusion” no one seems to want to remember. Here are excerpts from a 2-18 U.S. Congressional report from the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. It details how Russian

From March 1, 2018 U.S. Congress Report: United States House of Representatives – Committee on Science, Space, and Technology – Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media Majority Report

Excerpt from 2018 Congressional Report: Fracking Threatens the Kremlin’s Agenda

Republicans and Democrats agree the Kremlin is manipulating environmental groups in an attempt to carry out their agenda

The Kremlin has a motive to disrupt U.S. energy markets and influence domestic energy policy, since American energy represents a direct threat to Russian energy interests. Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. energy policy are well documented in the public domain. U.S. presidential candidates, European officials, and the U.S. intelligence community have all publicly noted that Russia and its government corporations are funding a covert anti-fracking campaign to suppress the widespread adoption of fracking in Europe and the U.S., all in an effort to protect the influence of the Russian oil and gas sector.22

The substantial increase in domestic production has resulted in an abundant supply of American energy, which is increasingly making its way into the global marketplace. While this stands to provide substantial economic benefits to the U.S., it simultaneously represents a direct threat to Russian energy interests. First, an abundance of American supply in the global energy marketplace stands to reduce Russian market share and thus revenues generated from oil and gas activities. Second, by providing supply alternatives for European countries dependent on Russian supply and infrastructure, American energy stands to disrupt the Kremlin’s ability to leverage energy consumption for geopolitical influence.

Russia provides roughly 75 percent of the natural gas imported by countries in Central and Eastern Europe while the countries in Southeast Europe “receive almost all of their natural gas from Russia.” 17 “Russia’s Gazprom has acknowledged for the first time a threat to its dominant position in European gas market from an expected influx of liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced in the United States under [the Trump] administration.” 18 Shortly after this acknowledgment, U.S. LNG made its way to Poland 19 and Lithuania. 20 In fact, Poland recently signed a five-year deal with the United States to import liquefied natural gas into the country in an attempt to decrease dependency on Russian energy supplies. 21 …

As the threat of American energy continues to grow, so does the Kremlin’s incentive to influence energy operations in Europe and the United States. Moreover, as they have demonstrated, the Kremlin will use any and all tools at their disposal to preserve Russia’s dominant energy status and to maintain its stranglehold over Eastern and Central Europe. …

Former Secretary of State and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with access to intelligence reports, made a private speech in 2014, according to documents from WikiLeaks, which included statements about the struggles of dealing with Russian-backed environmental groups. According to a media report, Secretary Clinton said the following: “We [the State Department and the U.S.] were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media.

We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.”24 …

In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report that contained “clear evidence that the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.” 25 The report found that the Russian-sponsored news agency RT (formerly Russian Today) “r[an] anti-fracking programing, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health,” which “is likely reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and the U.S. natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to [Russian energy companies’] profitability,” such as state- controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom.26 …

A Republican staff report by the Senate suggests that Russian funds have been funneled through off-shore corporations and passed on to U.S.- based environmental activist organizations with the intent to effect political change. 27 …

More recently Senator Ben Cardin released a voluminous report on Russian manipulation of the media over decades. Specific to oil and gas, the Cardin report cited a “study by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies [which] reports that the Russian government has invested $95 million in NGOs that seek to persuade EU governments to end shale gas exploration,” which illustrates how American energy directly clashes with the Russian energy agenda.28 Senator Cardin’s work reiterates that “according to NATO officials, Russian intelligence agencies also reportedly provide covert support to European environmental groups to campaign against fracking for natural gas, thereby keeping the EU more dependent on Russian supplies.”29

Additionally, as further evidence of Russian attempts to spread propaganda in the United States, U.S. Department of Justice officials have demanded that the U.S. based affiliate of RT register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).30 FARA requires that agents representing the interests of foreign governments in any political or quasi-political capacity disclose public communications aimed at influencing American political debate or public policy.31 Through local programs all over the world, RT and other news agencies operate as a government-funded arm of Russia in its attempts to destabilize and disrupt democratic institutions and the free market. Under FARA, the American people have the right to evaluate the “statements and activities of [persons acting as foreign agents] in light of their function as foreign agents.”32

To that end, the Kremlin is attempting to make, as Senator Cardin’s report states, “useful idiots” of unwitting environmental groups and activists in furtherance of its energy influence operations.33

End Excerpts

2018: CFACT & Climate Depot’s billboard went up: — ‘Russia funneled Green groups millions of dollars to oppose fracking & cripple American energy. – How’s that for COLLUSION?’

2018 CFACT report: Russian efforts to disrupt U.S. energy markets exposed – By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. – In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report stating there is “clear evidence that the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.”

2018: CFACT report: Real Russian collusion the MSM ignores– By Paul Driessen

Driessen Excerpt: The US Senate “Billionaires’ Club” and Environmental Policy Alliance “From Russia with Love” reports, articles by investigative journalists like Ron Arnold and Lachlan Markay (here and here), studies by the US National Intelligence Director and Iowa State University, and a March 2018 report by the US House Science Committee reveal money laundering by Putin cronies and ongoing propaganda efforts by Russian media groups to undermine American drilling, fracking, pipeline and agricultural programs. … Hefty portions of Klein funds come from Russia: Rosneft, the Russian-government-owned oil and gas giant that is one of Wakefield’s largest clients; Spectrum Partners, a Moscow-based energy investment firm with major assets in Russian oil and gas; the IPOC Group, an international growth fund owned by Russian minister of telecommunications and Putin friend Leonid Reiman; and other Russian companies. (Other Sea Change donors include the Gates Foundation, eBay’s Omidyar Network Fund, David Rockefeller’s personal foundation, the Walmart Foundation and the extended Simons family.)

The Science Committee Report explains how the Russian government funnel money through surrogates to US environmentalist organizations to fund attacks on the fossil fuels industry. It also reveals how Russian operatives create and spread propaganda on US social media platforms, to manipulate American opinions about pipelines, fossil fuels, fracking and climate change.

Standing up to Putin means ditching Net-Zero (& Green New Deal) – ‘The West can’t win a geopolitical conflict…with an economy powered intermittently by wind & solar’–

Rupert Darwall: In late 2019, Boris Johnson banned commercial fracking. Earlier this month, the British government ordered that concrete be poured into the country’s two exploratory shale wells and for them to be abandoned. The move was blasted by Cuadrilla Resources CEO Francis Egan, who pointed out that the Bowland shale formation could supply 50 years of current U.K. gas demand. … Germany’s and the EU’s net-zero policies will deepen their dependence on Putin’s goodwill as they increase their exposure to unreliable wind and solar, phase out coal, and – in the case of Germany and Belgium – prematurely close their nuclear power stations. Strategically, that’s a win for Putin.

© Climate Depot. All rights reserved.

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Defeat Tyrants With Energy Independence

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By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

They said it couldn’t be done.  Then we did it.

Energy independence!

Then Biden yanked away what generations had worked for in the blink of an eye.

Put that together with Biden’s provocative weakness in Afghanistan and now Ukrainians are paying the price in blood.  Will Taiwan be next?  Then who?

I addressed these issues and more in a talk I gave in Virginia.

“Efforts to go net zero have diminished the ability of nations to provide sufficient energy to meet demand,” I explained, “and this gives tyrants like Vladimir Putin an opportunity to provide that energy in the form of natural gas and rake in millions to fund his war machine.”

If you watched President Biden’s State of the Union Address you received no sign that Biden will wake up and value American energy independence above catering to his left-wing base.

Marc Morano took Biden to task on Fox and Friends explaining.  “Russian oil imports are at an 11 year high. We’re importing 600,000 barrels a day from Russia. And Russia’s federal budget is 40% based upon oil and gas revenue.”

Environmentalist Michael Shellenberger was very clear.  We shared his tweet with CFACT’s Facebook friends.   “Russia produces 3X more gas than Europe produces.  Why?  Because climate activists, partly funded by Russia, blocked fracking.”

People think Europe depends on Russia for energy because it lacks its own, but 15 years ago Europe exported more natural gas than Russia does today. Now, Russia exports 3x more gas than Europe produces. Why? Because climate activists, partly funded by Russia, blocked fracking. pic.twitter.com/m9ifRLs0ku

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) March 3, 2022

It’s not just hydrocarbons.  Wind and solar, as inefficient and intermittent as they may be, are WHOLLY DEPENDENT on rare earth elements and manufacturing from China and metals from Russia!

This is no accident.   China and Russia played the useful idiot Left like a drum, stifled domestic mining, drilling and manufacturing and got us hooked on supplies from the worst nations on Earth.

Anyone who thinks importing resources from China and Russia instead of producing them at home, and that by doing this it will somehow lower the temperature of the globe, is too clueless to lead.

Energy independence now!  We must settle for nothing less.

COLUMN BY

Craig Rucker

Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president.

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

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The War in Ukraine Shows a Dark Side of Environmentalism

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

Europe’s dependence on natural gas mutes its objections to Russia’s invasion.

“Save the planet!” Ah, what a wonderful phrase. To quote an adorable little Swedish girl, “how dare you” even think otherwise? Well, pace Greta, dare we must. Garry Kasparov recently hit the nail on its head, when he tweeted, “You can’t save the planet if you don’t save people on it.”

Is Kasparov a stooge of evil oil corporations? No. He is a chess grandmaster, who over the years has issued warnings about Russia’s expansionism. And he clearly sees what environmentalists don’t: when you become overzealous in trying to save the planet, you forget about people living in nations invaded by tyrants of resource-rich countries.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the war in Ukraine is proving it.

-Expose and act against Putin’s lackeys in the free world. If Schröder and his ilk continue to work for Putin, bring charges. Ask the owners & advertisers of networks platforming Putin propagandists like Carlson why they allow it. 4/5

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 24, 2022

Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is multicausal. But surely, he must have known all too well that Germany— and the European Union at large— would be hesitant about succoring Ukraine. Germany’s leadership may pay lip service to the defense of an invaded country, but when push comes to shove, military aid has been very limited. The motive for this apathy comes down to two words: natural gas.

Germany’s Green Party is a political force to be reckoned with, and their influence has been felt in the country’s decision to cut down on nuclear power. This trend has expanded to other nations in the developed world, not only regarding to nuclear power, but fossil fuels as well. Giving in to environmentalist pressure, US President Joe Biden has cancelled the Yellowstone pipeline, as he has claimed that “climate change is the biggest threat facing America.” As alternatives, renewable sources are proposed by environmentalists. But so far, they have been an utter failure; there simply is no comparison between a solar panel (useless on cloudy days) and a nuclear plant.

Developed countries may try to shut down sources of energy all they want, but their populations will not change their consumption habits any time soon. So how do their governments meet the energy demand? By getting it from nations who are not willing to cut down on energy production. In so doing, politicians from developed countries play feel-good politics and applaud Greta when she delivers her (scripted) speeches, while still making sure that their constituents have gas for their cars and homes are heated in the winter.

They of course fail to notice that their woke virtue-signaling act empowers tyrants like Putin. Does the Russian strongman care about the environment? Of course not. In fact, if he has to severely repress environmentalists, he will. And with his gas provision to Europe, Putin has now become unrestrained in his imperial designs, as he knows very well that his European clients will not interfere in his military adventures.

Soon after the invasion of Ukraine began, Russian forces seized control of the Chernobyl plant. Environmentalists are now worried, because they do not trust the Russians to adequately control the radiation emanating from there. But this is an outcome of environmentalists’ own doing. Nuclear power per se is not the danger. The danger is corrupt governments that develop (or seize) nuclear plants, and in their lack of transparency, do not enforce adequate safety protocols. These corrupt governments have been strengthened by environmentalists’ naivetéall along.

So, will we save the planet? Of course we will. But we must do so intelligently. Climate change is not a myth. But measures to cool down global warming must be taken with a proper cost/benefit analysis. For the time being, renewables’ cost is too high, and their benefits are too low. The war in Ukraine is now showing that there is an additional political cost that few people considered in the first place. Environmentalism has a dark side, and we should learn the lesson.

COLUMN BY

Gabriel Andrade

Gabriel Andrade is assistant professor of medicine at Ajman University, in the United Arab Emirates. He received a PhD from University of Zulia (Venezuela), in 2008. He worked as Titular Professor at University… More by Gabriel Andrade

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

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Acid Fish Latest Greenpanicking Scare

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Acid rain – remember that one? Alar – remember that one?  The earth is cooling – remember that one?  No reason you should.  They were all nonsense.  More recent green scares also turned to be nonsense, or less there than meets the eye – polar bear extinction, sea level rise, and disappearing coral reefs.  These scares keep happening because the climate change-industrial complex and other radical environmental Leftists think it’s perfectly fine to lie to you and scare you to death if it allows them to remake the world in their image and gets them to where they want to go.  They themselves will be the first to tell you they are liars – strategic liars – as I mentioned yesterday.  And you can add explicit admissions by Al Gore and Tim Wirth to the same effect, to the strategic lying I pointed out yesterday.

Now comes the latest adventure in greenpanicking – acid fish.  The greenies are warning acidification of the oceans will decimate fish populations because acidification makes fish less inclined to evade predators. It’s all hogwash. A review of 91 studies found the higher the quality of the study, the lower the effect acidification has on fish.  The most alarming results the greenies trumpet came from low-quality studies with small sample sizes that are completely unreliable. Overall, the review found, “ocean acidification has a negligible direct impact on fish behavior.”  This is exactly what I was telling you yesterday about hundreds of scientists criticizing the climate change crowd for lack of scientific integrity.  Here it is again.

Unscrupulous liars – these are you heroes.  The computer models they use to predict climate change are so bad they can’t even reproduce temperature changes in the 20th century.  So why would you believe anybody who claims their computer model can tell you what the temperature will be a hundred years from now?  You’re a fool if you do.

They also withhold important information from you.  They like to talk about how they’re saving the planet, but they never talk about what their policies would really do, as I mentioned yesterday.  They never talk about the bad stuff.   The regulations Biden wants would “keep 11 million more people in poverty come 2030 than otherwise would be.” And if “the Glasgow climate conference … leads to the adoption of much stronger climate measures, policy makers will raise that total to 80 million additional people in poverty by 2030.”  They WANT you to use less energy.  They WANT you to be poor, and they’ll ride any horse that will get them there. Could it be any clearer?

Speaking of withholding information, New York is doing its best to cover up the true cost of its climate legislation which mandates “Net Zero” emissions by 2050.  The legislation requires public officials to make the total costs and benefits public, but they haven’t done it.  As the U.K. found out recently, the costs are so high, any benefits are completely overwhelmed and green policies are doing real damage, far more than any damage arising from supposed climate change.  But the greenies don’t care.

They go right on telling you to eat bugs and cuddle with your pets to stay warm in the freezing winter and there isn’t enough heat.  Too bad if the elevators stop working in your building and you’re elderly.  Too bad if your electric bill goes up 30 percent like in Europe and you can’t afford other necessities because of green policies.  When are you going to get it through your thick skull the greenies don’t care about people and might actually be trying to hurt them.  The greenies certainly don’t care about YOU.  They only care about their fake religion of climate change.  Like John Kerry just said: Russia started a war and Ukrainians are dying?  So what, as long as it doesn’t stop the fight against climate change.  Talk about a one-track mind.  What a heartless narrow-minded moron.

The wheels are falling off the phony climate change narrative, but the Biden administration is holding on for dear life.  It just held a roundtable on how to fight climate change deniers like me.  Participants discussed their opponents’ arguments for delaying climate action and dreamed up ways to counter them.  Pravda is gearing up to tell you how to think.  According to the delusional fools in the White House, climate denialism only exists because “special interests” have been “sowing doubts” and speaking heresy.

Special interests?  OK, let’s talk about special interests.  Green groups like the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Climate Action Network have received millions of dollars ultimately traced back to Russia to undermine fossil fuels and push green energy.  Ca-ching, ca-ching!  Russia is obviously trying to shut down U.S. energy to promote dependence on Russian oil & gas.

Some heroes you got there. They lie, they cheat, they fear-monger, and they cuddle up with the Russians to stay fed. Their financial patron thinks nothing of invading other countries, and THEY think nothing of tormenting and even killing the rest of us. If you’re a climate change true believer, you’ve got some agonizing reappraisal to do.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Doomsday Climate Studies Turn Out To Be Overblown Nonsense

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U.N.’s New Climate Change Report Underwhelms

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is out with another report, this one declaring:

“Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”

There are several reasons not to take the new report at face value.

First, the IPCC does not have a good track record when it comes to credibility.  A group of 900 scientists, engineers, and scholars examined a recent IPCC report and found it failed to meet objective standards of scientific integrity.  Moreover, an author of earlier IPCC reports was quoted as saying,

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts….”

Scary scenarios, huh?  There’s no shortage of those in the new IPCC report – plagues, mental health problems, species going extinct, oh no!  Also, more frequent and intense extreme weather events are a product of human-induced climate change, the report declares (at p. 7-8).

There are plenty of people who dispute that climate change – human-induced, if there is such a thing – causes extreme weather.  Hurricanes are no more frequent than they were a hundred years ago, as of 2013.  Data from the IPCC and NOAA – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – also show tornadoes, droughts, and floods have not increased, either.  The new IPCC report also refers to sea level rise but, there as well, the U.N.’s record is not good.  In 1989, a senior U.N. environmental official claimed, “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Well, that didn’t happen and the data still do not support doomsday predictions of sea level rise from climate change.  The same goes for the supposed imminent demise of coral reefs, to which the report also refers.  A recent study supposedly documenting that demise itself said coral reefs rebounded in 2019.  Too bad they can’t think they’re way out of a paper bag.

So the second reason not to take the new IPCC report at face value is that it’s full of stuff that is disputed or just wrong.  The third reason is the hidden agenda.  You can’t quite tell what the report is talking about in its recommendations to policymakers.  It’s full of phrases like “key systems transitions”, “low regrets options”, and “inclusive governance”, whatever that means.   It all centers on something the report calls “Climate Resilient Development”.   They won’t spell out what they really mean, but they do use the language of the Left – “equity”, “climate justice” – so we can guess.  Actually, we don’t have to guess.  One of the authors told the BBC addressing climate change has to do with making changes in education, healthcare, poverty, and inequality.    Beats me how changing what goes on in the classroom or transferring money from one wallet to another keeps the planet from burning up, but I can tell you what the IPCC global warming crowd really wants:  Every American will have to cut their energy use by 90 percent.  Energy use will have to fall by half, the world over.  The climate crackpots also want to limit your travel, only let you have 16 gallons of gas a year, cut your food consumption by almost a third, and allow you to buy only 9 pounds of clothing annually.   Ready for that?  No wonder this crowd has to hide what it’s really talking about under layers of generalized gobbledygook and Leftist platitudes.  ‘We must rise to higher and higher platitudes, together,’ as Chicago’s famous Mayor Daley used to say.

So much for the IPCC’s new report. Tomorrow, I’ll go through some recent news stories and show you that, despite the ever-more shrill pronouncements life on the planet as we know it will soon cease to exist, the wheels are actually falling off the entire phony climate change narrative, no matter how big the paychecks at the U.N. get.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Leftists Want To Control Your Money So They Can Control You

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By Kyle Sammin

Editors’ Note: We ourselves have suggested that governments would not permit the full operation of cryptocurrencies because it challenges their entrenched power to manipulate money. This manipulation in the past was limited to inflation of the currency, redistribution of wealth, and supposed countercyclical measures to modulate the business cycle. Then that power morphed in several directions.  The widespread use of sanctions began with South Africa and has been extended in the foreign policy realm to many other nations with which we may disagree. Then it spread into the “war on terror” and the funding of terrorist groups. The final stage is to label political opponents as “domestic terrorists” and expand surveillance, harassment, and prosecution of political opponents. We are now seeing that operate in Canada. This use of monetary power has now gone so far as to restrict credit and clearing operations to disapproved industries such as firearms and petroleum. Only those industries favored by the state have full and unfettered use of the capital markets and the government-regulated banking system. To some extent, this use of capital manipulation is now advocated even in the private sector by the ESG movement and large money managers like Black Rock, largely to force policies along the lines of their environmental agenda. Adding to the problem is that large tech companies that operate various transfer platforms, align themselves with the state or a particular political party. Private market actors should know better because these tools could well be turned against them. These developments pose a grave threat to liberty. It is a violation of privacy, a violation of property rights, and the use of monetary pressure is a violation of the rules of political conduct. Once these precedents are accepted, economic warfare against political opponents will become common and will lead to only one political view triumphal and unassailable because one faction restricts the resources of their opponents while directing the wealth of the state to their own ends. We can’t think of a more sinister way for political power to be abused. It completely short circuits the ability of one faction to balance another, an integral part of the American system of governance. We have not thought that Bitcoin was the answer, but we certainly can appreciate the need for some solution.

All of the convenience of moving money around effortlessly comes at the cost of losing control over it.

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the suspension of Canadians’ rights last week in his invocation of the Emergencies Act to stop the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa and elsewhere. Among the restrictions announced are greater controls over the online crowdfunding sites that help to fund the protesters and attempts to control the flow of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

According to news reports, “credit card processors and fund-raising services will be required to report any blockade-related campaigns to Canada’s anti-money laundering agency.” Canadian banks quickly fell in line with the decrees, with Toronto-Dominion Bank freezing two personal bank accounts containing C$1.4 million ($1.1 million) they said were intended to support the truckers.

It bears a striking resemblance to the Biden administration’s recent efforts to intensely monitor what goes in and out of Americans’ bank accounts. The president’s expected announcement this week of an executive order to explore greater regulation of cryptocurrency is likewise an attempt to stick the state’s nose ever deeper into the average citizen’s business.

You Don’t Control Your Money Like You Used To

We’ve grown used to the idea that the government has a monopoly on money. Coining money is one of those powers of the state that most people never consider, like building roads or controlling national borders. Our money has dead presidents on it — it’s plainly a government operation. Where else would money come from, right?

But before the rise of electronic money transfers — the electronic bill-pay, direct deposit, and credit and debit card purchases we make every day now — whether the dollar bill in your wallet was issued by a bank (as in the early days of the republic) or by the Federal Reserve (as they are now) did not much matter. It was yours. No one knew what you spent it on unless you chose to tell them.

That meant greater privacy, both from your neighbors and from your government. But it also entailed risk. Cash could be stolen, lost, or destroyed, and there was no way to get it back. And it was cumbersome, especially as inflation ate away at the value of a dollar. Could you bring cash for a downpayment on a house? Sure. It still happens. But hauling a suitcase full of cash invites the scrutiny of thieves and the state — even when it’s completely legal.

The convenience of electronic money has been clear for decades now, but the dark side is showing itself this year like never before. All of the convenience of moving money around effortlessly comes at the cost of losing control over it.

How Goverment Uses Control of Your Money to Control You

These digital transfers feel, to most of us, like magic. A volley of ones and zeros flies through the cybernetic ether and — poof! — your electric bill is paid. But in truth, the data is routed through banks, and there are fewer of them all the time. Those remaining, many-times-merged financial giants that handle our affairs are, for all their clout and power, susceptible to government pressure. We have seen it already when the Obama administration leaned on banks to refuse to deal with people involved in marijuana or the sex trade, even where those businesses were legal at the local level. No federal law gave them this power: the threat was enough. And where people keep money in cash, the government often finds a way to take it without even bothering to charge the owners with a crime.

Trudeau’s emergency measures take advantage of these pressure points and lean on banks to choke off the complete flow of money to and from those he deems enemies of the state. No charges, no trial, just shutting it down. Now Trudeau’s government wants to make these “temporary” measures permanent. The slippery slope is usually not so steep, but these are strange times.

Governments have always used the word “emergency” to do what they want and to trample the liberties of the dissenting minority. Control over our money makes that easier than ever. Even the more self-sufficient among us engage in trade and unless you choose to live like a hermit, money is a part of that.

How Crypto Challenges the Government Monopoly on Money

Governments understand that alternatives to state-issued money, like cryptocurrency, are a threat to that hegemony. Trudeau and Biden demonstrate that in their recent efforts to control Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But the beauty of these new systems is that they are made, purposely, to be beyond the control of any person or government.

When Bitcoin launched more than a decade ago, most of us (myself included) barely understood what it was or how it worked. Fake money for dark web mischief, I figured, an eventual failure at best, a scam at worst. Yet here we are in 2022, where government-issued money is eroded by inflation and controlled by statist decrees. They leave peaceful opponents with a choice between the old (gold) or the new (crypto). And crypto is a heck of a lot easier to carry around.

In deciding an earlier banking law question in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall said that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Two centuries on, we could apply a modern twist: the power to regulate involves the power to control.

Cryptocurrency was just a passing fad until government overreach made it a necessity. Decades of deficit spending have inflated the currency and decades of creeping statism have given the government massive power over how money is used. The government’s monopoly on money has failed and, like it or not, cryptocurrency is at least part of the answer.

*****

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

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American Solar Factory to Close After Joe Biden Guts U.S. Tariffs on China

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By The Geller Report

Biden continues to reward our mortal enemies while punishing the American people. #stolenelection

As one commenter pointedly exclaimed, “….in Jan. 2021 when the fraud Democrat regime shut down the Keystone pipeline, gutted US energy production, and put thousand of people out of work. John “F-n” Kerry swaggered to a microphone, sneered, and told the fired workers “You have better options now!”

They then told all the destitute energy workers that they should get jobs at the “Solar Panel Technician Factory” or some such nonsense. Well, Lefties – where are all those “Solar Panel Technician Jobs” now?

Alabama Solar Factory to Close After Joe Biden Guts U.S. Tariffs on China

By: John  Binder, Breitbart, February 23, 2022:

Huntsville, Alabama, solar panel factory will close after President Joe Biden exempted foreign-made bifacial solar panels from United States tariffs earlier this month.

LG Electronics, a South Korea-based company, announced that it will be closing its Huntsville solar panel manufacturing operation, resulting in the layoffs of about 160 American employees and another 60 Americans who are employed as contract workers.

Executives said they hope to retain as many employees as they can by transitioning them into the company’s other business and manufacturing sectors at its Huntsville campus. Laid-off employees will receive severance packages.

The announcement comes just weeks after Biden decided to exempt foreign-made bifacial solar panels — the overwhelming majority of which come from China — from Section 201 tariffs on solar imports to the United States that were first imposed by former President Trump in January 2018 at a 30 percent rate.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) had warned that Biden’s gutting U.S. tariffs on China-made bifacial solar panels would have a devastating impact on America’s solar manufacturing sector.

“China sympathizers may believe that gutting the 201 solar tariffs would not affect the U.S. solar manufacturing industry as long as Congress supports domestic producers. This is flat-out wrong,” CPA Chairman Zach Mottl said in a statement:

Without trade remedies to level the playing field for U.S. solar manufacturers that are competing against heavily subsidized Chinese companies, it won’t matter if Congress passes a domestic tax credit for American producers. [Emphasis added]

Shortly after Trump imposed the U.S. tariffs on solar imports, LG Electronics announced that they would expand their Huntsville campus to include manufacturing solar panels — a boon for the city’s local economy as every one factory job supports an additional 7.4 jobs.

In November, as Breitbart News reported, Biden’s Commerce Department sided with Chinese solar manufacturers who produce their products in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam by denying a request from American solar manufacturers to investigate U.S. tariff evasion.

Biden had been lobbied by 12 Senate Democrats who sent a letter asking the administration not to impose any tariffs on the products made in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam by the Chinese solar manufacturers.

From 2001 to 2018, U.S. free trade with China has cost Alabama at least 50,700 jobs or about 2.5 percent of the state’s employment. A previous study found that permanent 25 percent tariffs on China-made products imported to the U.S. market would create a million American jobs in five years.

RELATED ARTICLES:

NY Climate Commies Protest Gov. Hochul: Ban Gas, Make NY Electric!

John Kerry: Ukraine conflict cannot be a distraction from climate change action

Dazed and deluded: as Putin launches invasion of Ukraine, Russian society reels

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

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VIDEO: The West’s Energy Policy Is the Greatest National Security Threat We Face

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By Marc Morano

Watch my interview with Tucker Carlson on Ukraine, Russia and how Biden’s policies aided Russia: ‘The West’s Energy Policy Is the Greatest National Security Threat We Face’

EXCERPT:

Tucker Carlson: “So we wanted to walk you some of the likely consequences of what they are now doing in Eastern Europe and Marc Morano seemed like a good man to start with. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. So, without even getting into whether or not Ukraine is a democracy – I’m embarrassed to even – I mean, who cares. But I want to know what the effect on the United States and on the purchasing power of the average person, is likely to be from what they’re doing right now over there.

MORANO: “We are already seeing – the first part of it is in California, $6 a gallon. Gas is already up a dollar. Estimates are seven, $8 a gallon possible with recession if Putin, who we’ve given all of this power to by literally shutting down U.S. domestic energy.

Just a little history lesson here. In 2020, the United States was back to 1952 with energy, not just independence, but energy dominance. We were the world’s largest oil and gas producer. More energy exports and imports, more energy production than consumption and we hadn’t done that since Harry Truman was president. Joe Biden came in at he said the first thing he wanted to do was jail fossil fuel executives. Biden’s energy secretary had done a video singing about no more gasoline, The is world aflame due to global warming.

Biden – by the way – Biden – I’m sorry, Obama’s energy secretary (Chu) said he wanted European-style gas prices. So what happened as he started shutting down the Keystone pipeline, banning drilling on federal lands and Anwar, and defunding energy projects through banks through environmental social governance (ESG). All sorts of things.

So a war on fossil fuels happens. We are now in a much, much weaker position one year into this administration to where now Vladimir Putin is the direct beneficiary of all this. And you can’t keep Europe out of this. Europe is many years ahead of their version of a disastrous Green New Deal. One professor in Europe actually said it’s typical Marxist garbage — what they’ve engaged in. Europe began shutting down their energy, so the whole world has been empowering basically three places. The Middle East for the OPEC, China, and now of course Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

So the people that are screaming the loudest that we need to go in and save democracy in Ukraine have destroyed our energy independence and dominance and made us so much more vulnerable to whatever Vladimir Putin may or may not want to do.”

Tucker Carlson: If you’re making energy more important for your own people, you are these we hate your own people. I think it’s that simple. In one sentence just if you could answer this question, is the Chinese government, which clearly has no respect for human rights or even its own people, are they making energy more expensive for Chinese?

Morano: No, there are estimates they build about a coal plant a week, they are about 50% of the world’s coal production. They laugh at all of these restrictions, but they were supplying most of our solar panels.

Tucker Carlson: Exactly!

Morano: But here’s the thing. They are not going to learn. Academia has been calling these energy restrictions for decades. This energy policy, what have they done? “the Washington Post” a few months ago actually said that we – if Jimmy Carter had won a second term there would be no climate crisis. They lamented that Ronald Reagan won. To the academia and media elites, Jimmy Carter’s first term was a model, and that’s what they want to do and that’s what we’re facing here.

John Kerry wants to have an urgent climate summit. He announced on Monday. In the midst of all of this, he believes the climate is the greatest threat. Their energy policy is the greatest national security threat we face.

Tucker Carlson: Perfect. Marc, great to see you. Thank you.

Morano: Appreciate it.

©Marc Morano. All rights reserved.

RELATED TWEET:

Watch CFACT’s Marc Morano @ClimateDepot on Tucker Carlson from last night slam net zero energy policies: “the people that are screaming the loudest that we need to go in…Ukraine have destroyed our energy independence, made us so much more vulnerable”https://t.co/ajPzkpuV3Q

— CFACT (@CFACT) February 24, 2022

RELATED ARTICLE: Is Biden’s energy policy trying to ‘make Russia Great Again?’ Watch: Morano on Fox & Friends on Biden’s energy policy & reflects on working for Rush Limbaugh

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