America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Saturday, October 8, 2022
DESTROYING AMERICA - JOE BIDEN SAYS IF GAS PRICES ARE TOO HIGH, GO BUY AN ELECTRIC CAR! - Hurricane Ian reveals another problem with electric vehicles: They explode after hurricane
FUK BIDEN!
Khanna: We Should Ban Oil Exports Like Biden’s China SPR Sale
Sen. Hagerty: Saudi Arabia Has Taken Oil From Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve at Yesterday’s Prices, Hiked the Price, and Will Sell It Back to Us
Hurricane Ian reveals another problem with electric vehicles: They explode after hurricanes
Joe Biden and all his minions have allowed gas prices to go sky high in a fanatic quest to force Americans into electric vehicles.
One problem: They tend to explode after hurricanes.
That's what Fox News found, citing warnings from local authorities about this latest health hazard from the purveyors of those who vow to make America "go green":
A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian.
EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state's top financial officer and fire marshal.
"There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start," Patronis tweeted Thursday. "That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale."
Which isn't much of an enticement to purchase an electric car. How many gas-powered vehicles put on that kind of a show after a hurricane?
It goes to show more of the unintended consequences on the road to green Utopia -- and why it's impractical to force such changes without ever considering all the things a consumer might consider. Being able to get out of a disaster zone in a hurry is pretty important to a lot of people who buy cars.
What's more, it's not the first surprise unintended consequence of having an electrical vehicle in a mass evacuation event.
Over in California, electric cars have ended up pretty useless things during mass evacuations during wildfires. Electricity is shut down by local authorities to prevent electrical power lines from catching fire, and electrical cars are on their own. What's more, out in the wilderness, where wildfires and wildfire evacuations are common, electrical cars, even fully charged, cannot hold their charges for the distance a fully fueled gasoline-powered vehicle can.
And if an electrical vehicle is a hybrid, it's twice as likely to catch fire in the heat as a gas vehicle, according to this legal site.
During the related heat waves, which often precede wildfires, electric vehicle owners in California have been asked to not charge their cars in order to save the power grid, which pretty well puts paid to rest the idea of "Be Prepared" if you're an electic vehicle owner.
Now we learn they don't do well in hurricanes either, both in evacuation and in the impact of the storm itself.
And here's one more problem as if the ones stated weren't enough: Electric vehicle fires, once started, are very difficult to put out, far more difficult than convention car fires owing to their batteries' tendencies to flare up again and again in flames.
Want to buy one now?
This hasn't daunted the Biden administration from claiming that electric vehicles are superior in such events.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been claiming that electric vehicles are actually useful during power blackouts:
"I was just at the Detroit Auto Show a couple of weeks ago. And one of the things that was very impressive about some of the vehicles that we saw, including the -- for example, the pickup trucks that are on the market, entering onto the market right now, is that their power can actually flow both ways.
"So, in an extreme event, from a neighborhood resiliency perspective, they can actually work basically like a generator, except that you don't have to have diesel ready for them. What they're doing is, they're using the battery capacity to power a home and, in that sense, could be very useful in a scenario like this."
Charge your vehicle, heat your home -- and hope you don't have to evacuate with it, too, right, Pete?
How about non-green energy policies that mean no blackouts at all?
It shows how absurd and poorly planned this scheme to force mass conversions of electrical vehicles is, brimming with unintended consequences.
Instead of this grotesque big government "nudge" to the tyranny of central planning, why not let consumers make their own decisions, based on their actual needs during emergencies and in daily transport usage?
The failure of the Bidenites to recognize this is always going to leave them and their acolytes open to unpleasant surprises.
President Joe Biden has taken every opportunity lately to take credit for the fact that gasoline prices fell for 99 days in a recent stretch. That he did this by releasing millions of gallons of oil from our Strategic Oil Reserve, thereby endangering our future security, and ridiculously — if relentlessly — badgering oil companies for being profitable, was, of course, immaterial.
As long as prices at the pump were going down, it was all duckies and bunnies...and all due to Biden. But now that prices are rising again — by as much as 60 cents a gallon in some areas last week alone — the president will not take the blame.
Biden was at fault for the rapidly rising gas prices shortly after he took office. And he is at fault for high prices now. When Trump was in office, gas prices were historically low, and America was energy independent. Because of his policies.
On his first day in office, Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline, and every day since, he has slandered, harassed, and vilified virtually every sector of the American energy industry. All in chimerical, needless, fruitless, and impossible pursuit of slowing or ending "climate change."
Moreover, his Executive Order 13990 dramatically increased the costs and red tape involved in the exploration, extraction, and refining of so-called fossil fuels...for any company dumb enough to engage in these endeavors.
Energy companies are rightly asking why they would invest tens of billions of dollars in new supplies geared toward the future production of energy here at home when the Biden administration has pledged to phase out all fossil fuels within ten years.
So, here's how the president might defend his actions to someone with the temerity to question them:
"Look, look...look. That's not how it works, Jack! Come on, man! You gotta understand — it ain't rocket séance, um, science. When things go good...that's me! That's me! When they go bad, I don't have any control over it. Period. Understand now? Capisch? I mean, even a dog-faced pony soldier can get it, right? Anyway, where's Jackie? Jackie?"
Having been made a monkey of by the Saudis, whose OPEC+ club cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day after he pleaded with them to raise production, Joe Biden has gone back to Venezuela again, begging the longtime OPEC+ member to pump him some more oil.
As Glenn Reynolds notes in his excellent New York Post op-ed this morning:
Biden hates Republicans so much, he would rather give oil money to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia than Texas
But in fact, Biden shut down drilling, shut down pipelines and, with help from the “environmental and social governance” crowd in the financial industry, shut down capital to the fossil fuel industry.
Having done that, oil prices skyrocketed, and stickers like this started appearing on oil pumps across the country, signalling a political problem for Biden.
In hot water with the voters, Biden tried once to get the Venezuelans, currently under U.S. Treasury Department sanctions for human rights violations and state-sponsored drug trafficking, to pump extra oil for him, with his diplomatic team known as "the three stooges" dangling out the possibility that dropping sanctions several months ago to replace Russian energy imports, but to no avail, given Venezuela's pawn-like alliance with Vladimir Putin's Russia. I wrote about that here.
After that, he released the Strategic Petroleum Reserves and went hat-in-hand to the Saudis, who effectively lead OPEC+, to get them bail him out. Prior to that, he had declared Saudi Arabia "a pariah state," over an extrajudicial killing of a dissident linked to them. Not surprisingly, the Saudis laughed in his face and turned the energy spigots down instead of up.
Now he's going back to the Venezuelans again, a nation that regularly practices extrajudicial killings, a full death-squad regime, this time cutting a questionable deal for prisoner exchanges, which led to the release of the "narco-nephews" -- two drug dealers living in Nicolas Maduro's presidential household by relation to his wife -- in exchange for several Americans held hostage in Nicolas Maduro's torturous prisons on trumped up charges. That's cleared the way for Biden to start talking about dropping sanctions now in an obvious bid to get Venezuela to replace that lost oil.
The White House is looking at relaxing some sanctions on Venezuela so that Chevron can pump more oil there, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the proposal.
The news comes after OPEC+ shrugged off US calls for its crude producers not to cut output, prompting a fierce response from the Biden administration.
If the proposed deal becomes reality, Chevron and other US oil companies would be allowed to operate in Venezuela again, the WSJ reported.
Economist Larry Kudlow, writing for Fox Business, was not impressed:
Meanwhile, once again, the Bidens are running to hug that famous, democracy-loving U.S. ally Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, the leading socialist, communist country in South America — for literally a couple of additional barrels of very dirty oil.
Maduro is supposed to turn Venezuela back into a freedom-loving democracy in return for which Maduro is supposed to agree to free and fair presidential elections. Mind you, that country is essentially being run by the Cuban secret service.
The real, democratically elected national leader is Juan Guaidó, the head of the National Assembly. Are the Bidens talking to him? Venezuela has been kept afloat in recent years by Russia, Cuba and China. Is this what American foreign policy should really be about?
Besides Kudlow's concerns, the other problem with lifting sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for supposedly more oil imports is that getting Venezuela in shape to export more oil is, at best, a long-term proposition. The Venezuelan oil industry has been a disaster for years, with falling production which began well before any U.S. sanctions were leveled on Maduro.
U.S. energy companies, operating locally, have shown that they can get energy production up and pumping in less than two years.
Maduro's Venezuela, filled as it is with rust buckets, contamination, pollution, lack of maintenance, Cuban surveillance agents giving orders, and untrained, red-shirted political operatives running the operation, would, under the best of free market circumstances, take years to return to their former productive glory. Oil industry experts are very skeptical that Biden is going to get the energy he thinks he's going to get from the socialist tyrant and Putin pawn.
If he even agrees...
It goes to show the lunacy of the Bidenites on energy -- begging incompetent like Maduro and other petrotyrants for oil while refusing to give American companies operating in America the time of day.
Gas prices are more than $3.00 lower in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) Florida than in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) California.
Newsom has for months made a noticeable effort to criticize Florida and DeSantis’s handling of the state, going so far as using the Fourth of July weekend to urge Floridians to flock to the Golden State.
“I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom: Freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate, and the freedom to love,” he pleaded at the time, following up weeks later by mocking “freedom-loving” governors.
Last month, Newsom deemed the Sunshine State governor a “bully,” speaking at a Texas Tribune festival where he further expressed his obsession with disliking the Florida governor.
“I worry about Trump. [I] worry about Trumpism. I worry more about Tucker Carlson. I worry about Ron DeSantis. He’s a bully,” Newsom said before criticizing the state for threatening to fine the Special Olympics over implementing vaccine mandates, which put participation in jeopardy for numerous athletes, even leading some to endanger their own health.
Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida, is filled with cheering athletes, coaches, family, and fans during the opening ceremonies of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games on Sunday, June 5, 2022. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Despite the Democrat’s barrage of attacks and open support of DeSantis challenger Rep. Charlie Crist (D), many of the Sunshine State’s successes speak for themselves. Perhaps most notably, Florida is enjoying gas prices more than $3.00 lower that Newsom’s California.
According to AAA, the average price of gas in California was $6.392 on Friday, October 7, compared to $3.289 in Florida. Florida’s average gas price was also lower than the national average, which sat at $3.891 as of Friday.
This is due, in part, to the state’s gas tax holiday, which went into effect October 1, cutting the price of gas by roughly 25 cents.
“The Florida Motor Fuel Tax Relief Act of 2022 reduces the tax rate on motor fuel by 25.3 cents per gallon. Passed by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, the tax rate reduction begins Saturday, October 1, and extends through Monday, October 31,” the Florida Revenue website reads.
“The tax rate reduction applies to all gasoline products, any product blended with gasoline and any fuel placed in the storage supply tank of a gasoline-powered motor vehicle,” it adds.
On Thursday, DeSantis noted that Florida now has the fifth least expensive gas in the nation:
Meanwhile, the average price of gas hit a record high in Los Angeles, California, this week reaching $6.494 on Wednesday.
“Prices across the state reached $6.420 per gallon, on average, approaching record levels last seen in June, when the statewide average hit $6.438,” Breitbart News reported. That figure is now higher, as the average price of gasoline in Los Angeles stood at $6.459 on Friday.
Gasoline and diesel prices are displayed at a gas station in Millbrae, California, May 17, 2022. (Li Jianguo/Xinhua via Getty Images)
INSIDE TRADER NANCY PELOSI IS DELIGHTED WITH JOE'S SABOTAGE OF AMERICA OIL. SHE'S HEAVILY INVESTED IN TESLA!
President Biden’s latest State Department hire, who once urged Americans to "embrace China," has worked with two prominent Chinese Communist Party front groups to foster ties between Washington and Beijing.
Biden tapped Nina Hachigian to serve as the State Department’s special representative for subnational diplomacy. The newly created position is aimed in part at countering China’s growing diplomatic influence. But Hachigian has worked in recent years with Chinese organizations the Biden administration has said are influence organs for the Chinese Communist Party.
As deputy mayor of Los Angeles, Hachigian met with the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a major CCP influence group, to discuss "exchanges and cooperation" between the United States and China. At the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, Hachigian was part of a delegation with officials from the CCP-backed China–U.S. Exchange Foundation that proposed "exchanges of military personnel" between the American military and People’s Liberation Army to strengthen the U.S.-China relationship. She also collaborated at the Center for American Progress with an official from the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government think tank overseen by China’s main intelligence agency.
Hachigian, who contributed $19,400 to Biden’s campaign in 2020, is the latest in a string of State Department appointees who have espoused sympathetic views toward China or worked closely with CCP groups. Tom Donilon, who Biden tapped to advise the State Department on "strategic competition" with China, is an executive at BlackRock, the private equity behemoth that is heavily invested in China. Dominic Ng, a prominent Biden donor picked to advise the State Department on trade in Asia, has criticized U.S. tariffs on China and served in multiple pro-Beijing organizations in the United States. Climate czar John Kerry, who holds a $1 million stake in a Chinese investment group that funds China’s artificial intelligence sector, has downplayed China’s human rights abuses in order to maintain cooperation with Beijing on climate change.
Hachigian has criticized the Chinese government at times over its human rights abuses and aggression toward Taiwan and Tibet. But she has also repeatedly urged American leaders to take a soft approach to China, while downplaying the threat Beijing poses to the West. She called on Americans to "embrace China" in a 2007 opinion piece, in which she acknowledged that "China’s growth will cause some Americans to lose their jobs or get paid less." She opposed a Western boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics over China’s human rights record, calling on American leaders to "resist the attempt to hold the Olympics hostage." That same year she said that China was "a security partner," and "not a threat," in areas such as terrorism, North Korea, Iran, and pandemics.
Intelligence officials have raised national security concerns over the organizations Hachigian worked with as a think tank scholar and city official. CIA director William Burns expressed alarm over the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation’s covert influence activities during a hearing last year. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this summer the CCP uses the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries "to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders" to promote China’s global agenda.
Hachigian met in October 2017 with the president of the organization, Li Xiaolin, to discuss "the exchange and cooperation in areas such as sister city, environmental protection and youth." The director of national intelligence says the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries "exploit[s]" sister city agreements to get American state and city leaders to soften their stances toward China or embrace Beijing-friendly policies. Hachigian’s meeting with Xiaolin was arranged through the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, a nonprofit group that worked with Hunter Biden to advance his Chinese business interests.
Hachigian was part of a Center for American Progress delegation that met in 2013 with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation to discuss diplomatic solutions to the U.S.-China relationship. Hachigian accompanied Center for American Progress founder John Podesta, while the Chinese side was represented by the founder of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, and officials from the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Science and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, which operates under China’s intelligence service.
One participant was Yuan Peng, the head of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, which the CIA says is a "Soviet-style intelligence organ" for the Chinese government whose leaders "share lengthy and shadowy careers in the intelligence service." Hachigian collaborated with Peng for her 2014 book on the United States-China relationship. Peng said in 2007 that "almost all enemies of the United States are China's friends," the Weekly Standardreported.
According to a report of the Center for American Progress dialogue with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, both sides urged closer ties between the two countries’ militaries in order to foster "more understanding and a more mature relationship." The American delegation said the exchanges should involve "low-ranking officers and students" in order to "build trust as they move through their careers in their respective countries."
The delegations also called for more cooperation at the "subnational level" in order to serve as a "ballast" in the U.S.-China relationship, a preview of sorts for the same issues Hachigian will now handle at the State Department.
A State Department spokesperson said the agency has "full confidence" in Hachigian.
"Amb. Hachigian’s background will be integral in engaging local partners and fostering collaboration on many of the Department’s key priorities—including the priorities surrounding our competition with the PRC," the spokesperson said.
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for a ban, with exceptions for exports to our allies on oil exports, to forbid things like the Biden administration selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
Khanna stated, “[H]ere’s one idea, why don’t we put a ban on gasoline — and the export of oil. I mean, that is something the White House is considering. Fox News runs about how we sold oil or gas to China, let’s ban it. Let’s have more domestic supply. That’s something maybe we can come to an agreement on.”
Co-host Becky Quick then said, “Congressman, I hear you about wanting to make sure we conserve all of our oil and natural gas here, but if we were to ban natural gas in particular, wouldn’t that really crush our European allies who are really feeling the worst brunt of what Russia is doing to them right now? I mean, it might help us, but it is going to crush our allies who are facing much bigger problems.”
Khanna responded, “That’s a very fair point, and I would have an exception on natural gas for our European allies. But we could still do a lot by having an export ban, generally, on gasoline and other refined products but have an exception on natural gas or some other things for our allies. I mean, that is a fair point. It shouldn’t just be a blanket ban.”
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on efforts to lower high gas prices on June 22, 2022. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - President Joe Biden has been draining the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a rapid clip, and he's not done yet.
On Wednesday, on the way to Florida, Biden's spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre announced that the president "is determined" to make progress in bringing down gasoline prices:
"At the president's direction, the Department of Energy will deliver another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the market next month as part of the historic 180-million-barrel release the President ordered back in March. And the President will continue to direct SPR releases as necessary," she said.
Whoa, say critics, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
"Well, it's called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It's not the political petroleum reserve," Cotton told Fox News's Laura Ingraham Wednesday night.
"And the reason why they're releasing this oil and gas, they recognize -- even though they want gas to be at $5 a gallon -- they recognize this is a unique pain point for most American families and they got to at least appear to be taking action 34 days before the election.
"That's why they're also blaming OPEC and blaming evil oil companies for trying to drive up the price of oil in this country, but that directly translates back to their own failed energy policies."
Cotton told Ingraham, "Just imagine if we had another hurricane like Hurricane Ian," which could lead to further SPR depletion.
Ingraham opined that the Biden administration is "defrauding the American people. That's not their oil to play with," she said. "That's our oil, collectively. And they're playing politics with just that one issue."
Ingraham urged Republicans to investigate what she called a "calculated political move, which is endangering the future of America."
At the end of September, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve had dropped to a 38-year low, with 416,389,000 barrels of oil -- 34.74 percent below the 638,086,000 barrels at the end of January 2021, when Joe Biden became president.
(Source: Energy Information Agency)
(The most the SPR has ever held was 726.6 million barrels on December 27, 2009.)
On November 23, 2021 -- three months before Russia invaded Ukraine -- President Biden announced that he would release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower "elevated gas prices at the pump" and home-heating bills.
Then, on March 31, 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden announced that he was authorizing the release of 1 million barrels of oil a day -- over 180 million barrels -- from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months.
"This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until production ramps up later this year," Biden said at the time. "And it is by far the largest release from our national reserve in our history. It will provide a historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time — a six-month bridge to the fall."
And now that fall has come, Biden is ordering another significant release.
Cotton said the least Republicans can do, if they take control of Congress is to use their spending power "to force the Biden administration to take certain actions whether it's permitting new pipelines or other oil and gas developments, issuing new permits and having new lease sales.
"We did this in the late Obama era, once we won back the Senate and the House in 2015, for instance. We lifted a 40-year-old ban on oil exports going back to the Jimmy Carter era, speaking of Democratic presidents that would intentionally try to hobble American energy.
"These are things, steps we can take to restore America's oil and gas production. That we can encourage more drilling, more production not only for our own energy needs but for those of our allies and partners all around the world.
“Again, the Biden administration, the Democrats, are doing this on purpose. They recognize the political danger of it, though. That's why they are taking such risky steps like this petroleum reserve releases."
According to the U.S. Energy Department:
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil, was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program.
The federally-owned oil stocks are stored in huge underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The sheer size of the SPR (current authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels) makes it a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool in foreign policy.
SPR oil is sold competitively when the President finds, pursuant to the conditions set forth in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), that a sale is required.
Biden Aims to 'Reduce OPEC's Control Over Energy Prices' by 'Accelerating Clean Energy Transition'
Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman at the 45th Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee and the 33rd OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting in Vienna, Austria, on October 5, 2022. (Photo by VLADIMIR SIMICEK/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - The Biden administration on Wednesday expressed disappointment in the OPEC+ decision to cut its oil production quota by 2 million barrels a day, a move that would raise the cost of filling your tank and heating your home, if it happens as announced.
But looking on the bright side, the administration said OPEC's intention to reduce oil supply is reminder of why we need to accelerate the transition to clean energy -- a long-cherished goal of leftists.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese issued the following statement in reaction to the OPEC+ announcement:
"The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices.
"The President’s work here at home, and with allies around the world, has helped to bring down U.S. gas prices: since the beginning of the summer, gas prices are down $1.20 – and the most common price at gas stations today is $3.29/gallon.
"At the President’s direction, the Department of Energy will deliver another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the market next month, continuing the historic releases the President ordered in March. The President will continue to direct SPR releases as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security, and he is directing the Secretary of Energy to explore any additional responsible actions to continue increasing domestic production in the immediate term.
"The President is also calling on U.S. energy companies to keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices — so that American consumers are paying less at the pump.
"In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.
"Finally, today’s announcement is a reminder of why it is so critical that the United States reduce its reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. is now poised to make the most significant investment ever in accelerating the clean energy transition while increasing energy security, by increasing our reliance on American-made and American-produced clean energy and energy technologies."
'OPEC is laughing'
While some Democrats fumed at Saudi Arabia, a number of Republicans reacted to the OPEC+ announcement by criticizing Biden's reliance on foreign sources of oil when we have plenty here at home:
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted: "Wouldn’t need to rely on OPEC if Joe Biden opened up American oil and drilled domestically. Just saying."
"Let’s be clear about what happened," Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) tweeted: 1. Biden destroyed America's oil/gas industry and made us dependent on OPEC again. 2. Biden begged OPEC to produce more oil. 3. OPEC is doing the opposite—cutting output by 2 million barrels a day. Total failure. OPEC is laughing at him."
The U.S. Oil and Gas Association tweeted: "OPEC says no, SPR options all but gone...The WH has one option left and it is the one option they should have never turned away from in the first place - the US based oil and gas industry. Life comes at you pretty fast...."
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said: "U.S. gas prices are about to spike again because the Biden administration has supported a two-year assault on American energy production and subjected us to the mercy of OPEC. Unleash American energy to lower the price at the pump."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted: "The solution to Biden's energy crisis is right here in the Lone Star State. It's time for the federal government to get out of the way & let Texas restore U.S. energy independence."
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) tweeted: "If Democrats hadn't destroyed American energy independence, OPEC planning to cut their oil production wouldn't be such a major issue for us.
Over on the left side of the political aisle, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted: "OPEC's decision to cutback on production is a blatant attempt to increase gas prices at the pump that cannot stand. We must end OPEC's illegal price-fixing cartel, eliminate military assistance to Saudi Arabia, and move aggressively to renewable energy."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) tweeted: "Saudis siding with Russia--a deeply offensive blunder. Unconscionable at this moment in world history. There must be consequences."
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chairman of the House energy committee, tweeted: "This is nothing but greed. We must break our dependence on a market controlled and manipulated by foreign dictators and adversaries with solutions like my Buy Low and Sell High Act."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted: "I'm re-introducing my OPEC Accountability Act. We must hold OPEC and its allies accountable for colluding to hike energy prices on working families, while accelerating our clean energy future to free ourselves from its profiteering grip once and for all." (Markey says he will reintroduce his OPEC Accountability Act.)
And Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told the Washington Post: "President Biden should make it clear that we will stop supplying the Saudis with weapons and air parts if they fleece the American people and strengthen [Russian President Vladimir] Putin by making drastic production cuts. The president needs to make it clear we will cut off their supply. We could ground their air force in a day. They need us far more than we need them."
But one leftist publication, The Palmer Report, tweeted: "OPEC has *not* cut oil production. It’s vowing to cut oil production. That is not the same thing at all. OPEC is likely trying to get something from us in return for not cutting production. Stop assuming the loss just so you can whine about it."
"Maybe OPEC will end up cutting production, maybe it won't," The Palmer Report continued. "Biden certainly has some cards to play. We don't yet know what will happen. If you're ranting about how awful it is that OPEC has cut production (when it hasn't even done so), then *you* are the problem here -- because you're telling every would-be activist around you that all hope is lost, the midterms aren't winnable, and they shouldn't bother putting in the work to try to win. *You* are the saboteur here. Not OPEC, not MBS, not the GOP, just *you* and your toxic defeatist ranting."
HOW MUCH AMERICA OIL HAS JOE HANDED RED CHINA AND HOW MUCH DID HUNTER MAKE OFF THE GIG FOR THE 'BIG GUY'???
Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) speaks during a Senate Appropriations committee in Washington, DC, April 27, 2022. (Photo by MICHAEL A. MCCOY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said Thursday that he’s not surprised at OPEC’s decision to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, but he’s surprised at the White House’s reaction.
“I'm not surprised at the decision, but what I am surprised at is the reaction of the White House. They say that they're disappointed, that this is short-sighted. They should look in the mirror. The disappointed and short-sighted energy policies originated right here in Washington, and their response to this I’m afraid is going to be to sell down more of the SPR,” he told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”
“What is supposed to be the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, what they're calling it now I think is the Strategic Political Reserve, because their eyes are on the November elections. They’re trying to get gas prices down, and that’s what this is all about. They're out pleading with Iran, with Venezuela,” the congressman said.
“They’d rather deal with international killers than work with American drillers right here at home. The answer is so obvious. It’s right here. Joe Biden needs to take his throat off the oil and gas industry's throat,” he said.
Hagerty said that Biden has “actually sold more oil than we could process here.”
“Who’s taken it? China’s taken it. Guess what? Saudi Arabia has taken oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve under the Biden administration. They’re taking that oil at yesterday’s prices, and now they’re hiking the price of oil, and they’re going to turn around and sell it back to us. I think the Biden administration has yet again been played,” the congressman said.
He said that the Biden administration wants to see $15 a gallon gas in the United States to force Americans “into some sort of green new energy fantasy.”
On the spike in crime in major U.S. cities, Hagerty said that it goes back to what happened during the presidential campaign.
I think you go back to what the Biden administration ran on when they were running for office back in 2020. Defund the police has manifested itself in this behavior. The other thing to look at is what happened at our southern border. The day that Joe Biden came in, he dropped all enforcement at the border.
What these criminal elements are able to see is anybody can walk into the United States of America. Nobody cares. There are no consequences for that crime. Why should there be any consequence for crimes in our city? It's happening all across America, particularly in our cities. It’s even happening in Tennessee.
That’s prompted Marsha Blackburn and I - my senior senator from Tennessee to put forward legislation to deal with this right now. We need to turn around and get our law and order reinstated here in our cities in America.
We need to properly fund the police and prosecutors and need to stop this whole notion of no consequence bail, no cash bail, and get back to the notion that America is going to fulfill its basic promise to the public. That’s to keep us safe. That's what our act will do and we need to get back focused on this.
We also sent a letter to Joe Biden encouraging to do the same thing - fund police right now, not IRS agents to come snoop on Americans. Let’s bring law and order back to our cities and to our streets.
The congressman said that he’s optimistic that there will be a change in the House and Senate in November.
We've got to turn this ship around. We've got to re-prioritize America, again, deliver on our basic promises. If you look at what's happening in law and order, the act that Marsha Blackburn and I put forward will do things like compress the time it takes to process rape kits.
There was a terrible rape and murder that happened in Memphis, that the perpetrator had actually been picked up on a rape the year before. The rape kit had not been processed. Had it been processed in time, that murderer would have been off the streets. We’ve got to come back and properly fund and properly restore law and order here in America.
Hagerty said that he hopes to be in position to put his bill with Blackburn to a vote “if we win control of the United States Senate, and we’re poised to do it.”
Again, we’re not waiting. We sent a letter to President Biden outlining what he should do, but again, we had every Democrat in the United States Senate vote against deporting those illegal aliens that are here and have committed felonies.
So the priorities of the Democrat Party are so detached from the American public, it's crazy, and as the American public realize this situation, they’re going to continue more and more to side with the Republicans on this. That’s why I think we’re going to see a landslide in November.
J.D. Vance Vows to End China Buying U.S. Farmland in New Ad: ‘America Should Belong to Americans, Not Our Enemies’
Republican J.D. Vance, running against Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) for Ohio’s open United States Senate seat, dropped a new ad on Thursday in which he vows to help end Chinese acquisition of American farmland.
“Why are food and groceries getting so expensive? One reason is that we let Communist China buy up American farmland — threatening our food supply and our national security,” Vance says in the ad.
“Tim Ryan and Joe Biden make this worse,” he continues.
Ryan, this year, voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act without raising concerns about farming provisions that do nothing to protect American farmland from continuing incursions from China. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) proposed an amendment to ban China from buying American farmland but the measure was blocked by Senate Democrats.
Analysis from 2019 shows that about half a million acres of farmland in Ohio are owned by foreign investors — primarily from China, Germany, and the Netherlands.
“Ohio gave a poor kid like me a fighting chance,” Vance says. “But it won’t work for the next generation unless we protect what’s ours … I’ll stop Communist China from buying our farms. America should belong to Americans, not our enemies.”
In 2021, Chinese investors were allowed to buy $6.1 billion worth of homes and land across the U.S. Most recently, a Chinese firm bought 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota that sits just 20 minutes from a U.S. Air Force Base.
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figure reveals that Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. farmland skyrocketed from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020. Foreign investors now hold interest in more than 37 million acres of U.S. farmland — a region larger than the state of Iowa.
Vance’s ad comes as a growing GOP consensus forms around foreign investors and American billionaires buying up farmland as well as commercial and residential real estate across the U.S.
In an interview with Breitbart News, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) blasted billionaire Bill Gates’s becoming the largest private owner of American farmland, now owning nearly 250,000 acres across 19 states — including nearly 9,000 acres in Ohio.
Likewise, in August, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) introduced legislation that would ban China from buying up American farmland. A month prior, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called on Republicans and Democrats to ban China from buying American farmland along with U.S. real estate.
“I think the problem is these companies have ties to the [Chinese Communist Party], and it’s not always apparent on the face of whatever a company is doing — but I think it’s a huge problem,” DeSantis said at the time.
Republican Blake Masters, running to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview from July that a Republican majority in Congress must ban Chinese acquisition of American property.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him a
jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Khanna: We Should Ban Oil Exports Like Biden’s China SPR Sale
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for a ban, with exceptions for exports to our allies on oil exports, to forbid things like the Biden administration selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
Khanna stated, “[H]ere’s one idea, why don’t we put a ban on gasoline — and the export of oil. I mean, that is something the White House is considering. Fox News runs about how we sold oil or gas to China, let’s ban it. Let’s have more domestic supply. That’s something maybe we can come to an agreement on.”
Co-host Becky Quick then said, “Congressman, I hear you about wanting to make sure we conserve all of our oil and natural gas here, but if we were to ban natural gas in particular, wouldn’t that really crush our European allies who are really feeling the worst brunt of what Russia is doing to them right now? I mean, it might help us, but it is going to crush our allies who are facing much bigger problems.”
Khanna responded, “That’s a very fair point, and I would have an exception on natural gas for our European allies. But we could still do a lot by having an export ban, generally, on gasoline and other refined products but have an exception on natural gas or some other things for our allies. I mean, that is a fair point. It shouldn’t just be a blanket ban.”
President Joe Biden on Wednesday was caught on a hot mic while visiting Fort Myers Beach, Florida, telling a local mayor that “no one fucks with a Biden.”
“Keep the faith,” Biden said as he approached Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy after speaking to reporters. “And by the way, you’re raised the same way I was. No one fucks with a Biden.”
“Yeah, you’re goddamn right,” the mayor chuckled.
“You can’t argue with your brothers outside the house,” Biden continued, unaware that his comments were being caught on camera.
The president spoke to the mayor during his visit to Fort Myers, Florida to view the storm damage from Hurricane Ian.
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