Dems' Wacky Energy Policies
In a bid to refute contentions that they are indifferent to public suffering at the gas pump, Democrats at both the federal and local levels are taking bold steps to limit how much drivers pay to fuel their vehicles.
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen announced a global price cap on the price Russia will be allowed to charge for its exported petroleum. "Events since the start of the war in Ukraine indicate that our efforts to boycott Russian oil have been thwarted by other countries," Yellen complained. "Instead of being hurt by their aggression against Ukraine Russia has been 'profiteering' by selling its oil to willing buyers at prices higher than we think proper. This is leading to higher prices for consumers. To counter this we are going to put a cap on the prices they can charge."
Yellen's announcement of the imposition of price controls neglected to specify the price that would be allowed. According to the Secretary, "this was intentional. By keeping the legal price secret we increase the uncertainty for Russia. Not knowing the price at which our nuclear deterrent will be deployed will paralyze their initiative and force them to yield to our demands. By forcing them to sell their oil at a loss we can keep the prices at the pump low while simultaneously sapping the income they need to continue the war."
Meanwhile, some cities in California are banning the construction of new gasoline stations. Petaluma Councilwoman D'Lynda Fischer maintains that "by limiting the number of locations at which our citizens can be gouged by high fuel prices we are striking a blow for consumer rights. Sure, in the short term people can simply drive to a station in a nearby town to gas up. But over time, as the number of surviving fueling locations dwindle the effort to obtain gasoline will be become too time-consuming to bear. More people will be forced to switch to electric vehicles or public transit and a greener future will be assured."
Unfortunately, the premise that electric vehicles or public transit are better for the environment may be incorrect. While, electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions, the electricity they need is generated mostly by burning fossil fuels at the power plant. Their rechargeable batteries wear out and have to be replaced. Disposal of dead batteries entails its own set of environmental problems. In theory, public transit would be more environmentally benign if riders were willing to sacrifice more of their time to allow buses and trains to fill more of their empty seats. However, it is the value of time that led to to the long-term decline of public transit and its replacement by self-driven automobiles over the past century.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg lamented this trend, saying, "the personal value placed on saving time by the average person is one of the great inequities of our free society. Most people's time is of little value to the future of the nation. That we have allowed individuals to freely choose to waste other resources in order to save themselves some time is shameful. They need to start conforming to the directives given to them by the government experts who have a far better grasp of the relative values of all of society's assets—including the people themselves."
NOLA Won't Enforce State's Abortion Law
This week, the New Orleans City Council voted 6-0 to ask the city's police and prosecutors not to use municipal resources to enforce the state's abortion ban. Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson hailed the Council's action, saying "our community elected me to bring progressive change. The babies the state law wants to save are unwanted intruders into the lives of the birthing persons who are trying to dispose of them. Using deadly force against these intruders was authorized by the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision. I am going to enforce that decision as long as I am the sheriff."
State Attorney General Jeff Landry pointed out that "the City's action does not relieve those who perform abortions from legal liability for their actions. While the person seeking an abortion may consider the baby gestating inside of her an unwanted intruder, the law does not. These unborn babies are human beings with an unalienable right to life. They have committed no crime that would warrant the death penalty the Council and Sheriff seem determined to inflict."
Hutson called the AG's stance "hypocritical. He's called immigrants who cross our southern border 'unwanted intruders.' Yet, unlike the situation where a pregnant person has quite clearly declared the person inhabiting her womb unwanted, there is no specific person objecting to the specific entry of any of our border-crossers. Are these people not human beings? Do they not have unalienable rights? Shame on Mr. Landry."
Landry says he sees "no hypocrisy. Crossing the border without permission is illegal. Being born is a right protected by Louisiana law. Illegal border-crossers aren't put to death like Sheriff Hutson wants unwanted babies to be. Under the Biden Administration's immigration policies, illegal border-crossers appear to face no penalties. On the contrary, most are given financial assistance and free travel to a destination of their choice inside the United States. State law in Louisiana says that unwanted babies' right to life ought to be protected. After they're born perhaps they can be given financial assistance and free travel to a home where someone will care for them until they are old enough to care for themselves."
Vaccination Raises Risk of Death from Covid
The latest data from Canada's Manitoba Province shows that those vaccinated for covid are more likely to die of the disease than those not vaccinated. Unvaccinated persons constitute 17% of the population, but only 9% of the deaths from covid. Vaccinated but unboosted people were about 50% more likely to be hospitalized or die of Covid than unvaccinated people. People who had received boosters had roughly the same risk of hospitalization or death as the unvaccinated.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said "look, I know a lot of the critics of our push for vaccination will be gloating over the healthier current status of those who shunned taking the jab. Okay, good for them. But the vast majority of the population who did take the jab no longer have the option of relying on the natural immunity acquired by the never-vaccinated portion of the population. The only option for those already injected is to continue to get regular booster shots. It's the only way they can hope to survive future covid infections."
Fauci urged that "we not look at this as purely bad news. Providing continued injections for the 80% of the population who must have boosters to continue any hope of living longer will generate an enormous economic impact. This will support millions of jobs from vaccine manufacture, to transport of the finished product, to employment of the medical personnel needed to give the injections. The growth potential of this economic sector will become exponential as the time between required boosters gets shorter and shorter. Those who wisely bought Pfizer stock will join the richest of the monied-elite who sit atop the human pyramid."
In related news, Health Canada recently approved vaccinating children aged 6-months to five years of age with the covid vaccine. Meanwhile, Mick Haddock, a manufacturer of coffins in Toronto, says "for the first time in over 30 years, we are receiving bulk orders for smaller-sized caskets."
AOC Complains About Harassment
This week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) complained that a man "said some disgusting things to me while I was walking near the Capitol." The accused offender, political satirist Alex Stein, called it "'a tit-for-tat' exchange. She's said a lot of disgusting things both inside and outside the Capitol. For one, just last week she was justifying the mob that chased Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Prior to that she had no objections to the mob that has been illegally camped outside his home nor the gunman who waited near the mob for his chance to murder the Justice."
"The two situations are not comparable," AOC argued. "I am the vanguard of the proletarian revolution that is bringing progressive reform to this country. I deserve respect. Kavanaugh is an illegitimate usurper of a woman's right to terminate her unwanted child. He is the kind of person that my colleague Rep. Maxine Waters said should be confronted and harassed whenever they are out in public. Enemies of the people like him have no right to privacy or freedom. If he had any conscience he would confess his crimes and beg to be executed, just like the counterrevolutionaries did in Russia during the 1930s."
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied to AOC's support, pointing out that "the mob that chased Kavanaugh out of the restaurant was unable to get their hands on him and calmly refrained from burning down the building after the Justice got away. By the standards used during the George Floyd demonstrations, where some buildings were set afire and people assaulted, the Kavanaugh incident would have to be classified as 'totally peaceful.' As such, it was an assembly protected under the First Amendment of our Constitution. In contrast, Stein's disrespect for a member of Congress is hate speech that is not constitutionally protected."
Victims' Advocates Unit Disbanded
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has decided to disband the Parole Unit of his office. This unit, also known as the Lifer Unit, helped keep victims of crime and their family members in the loop for information regarding the potential release of the convicted perpetrators. Gascón previously barred prosecutors from attending parole hearings.
Gascón called these steps "part of the healing process. The victims of crime have already suffered enough. Why trigger their anguish by reminding them that the perps who hurt them might be getting out of prison. As far as they know, these convicts were sentenced to life in prison. We shouldn't cast this valuable illusion away by inviting victims to carry a grudge to parole board hearings."
"More importantly, I believe everyone deserves a second chance," the DA professed. "Prison changes people. Isolated from the societal pressures that provoked some vicious act of rape, assault, or murder, a long-term convict can become a changed man. The prison authorities who oversee that process ought to be allowed to assess the inmate's fitness for release without the emotional interference of people recalling the way he was when his crime was committed. Forgive and forget is my motto."
Citizens of Los Angeles don't seem to share their District Attorney's motto. Their dissatisfaction with the job he is doing led them to collect 700,000 signatures calling for his ouster from office. Perhaps the surge in crime since he took office is too memorable to be forgotten and too egregious to be forgiven.
Pope Disses Dems' Abortion Stance
Following his praise for the US Supreme Court's reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision, Pope Francis pivoted to castigate President Biden for his "incoherent" position on the issue.
"Clearly, abortion terminates a human life," the Pope said. "Such a crime can never be a 'woman's right' as advocates of this medical murder claim. Yet, we see self-proclaimed Catholics like President Biden and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi working to make this crime legal in America. They need to confer with their parish priests to confess their error and seek forgiveness."
The Pope's remarks triggered Biden to declare "I'm the f***ing President of the United States. I have the authority to launch a nuclear attack that would end hundreds of millions of lives. No one has the right to tell me what to do about anything—not even the Pope, much less some piddling parish priest whose name I can't remember."
A less volatile Pelosi more tactfully asserted that she would "continue to quietly attend church and take communion as I have been. The priest isn't thinking about politics when he gives me the Eucharist. Chances that he is aware of what I'm doing in Congress—like codifying Roe v. Wade in statute this week—are small. And once I've taken communion I'm absolved for any transgression I may have technically committed while on the job."
In related news, the 80th General Convention of the Episcopal Church made its stance on abortion coherent by "denouncing the work of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, also known as Pregnancy Resource Centers, that help women choose life for their unborn babies" by assisting them to find adoptive parents for these children. The Convention also apologized for "our past support for the pro-life activities of these centers."
