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
Sunday, May 1, 2022
JOE BIDEN - FOLKS, IT'S NOT (ENTIRELY) THAT I'M DESTROYING AMERICAN ENERGY LIKE I DESTROYED AMERCA'S ECONOMY AND AMERICA'S BORDERS WHILE HELPING GAMER LAWYER HUNTER BIDEN DO A FEW SIDE TRICKS FOR THE 'BIG GUY'
Victor Davis Hanson: Democrats are party of the elite now
On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that Democrats are facing poor poll numbers because “the whole zeitgeist of the country has deteriorated over the last year. And I would say it’s been a threat of disorder,” internationally, domestically on crime, and economically on inflation.
Brooks said, “Basically, the whole zeitgeist of the country has deteriorated over the last year. And I would say it’s been a threat of disorder, disorder on many fronts, disorder internationally with Ukraine, disorder at home, crime. Crime in New York is surging by 30% year over year, 30, 40 in some — robbery and burglary up to 40 or 50%. Inflation is a form of economic disorder. And so, people just feel that the world has become less safe on a whole variety of fronts. And, traditionally, Republicans have been the party of order, and Democrats have been the party of fairness and justice. And so, there has been, historically, an attempt to turn to Republicans when you feel unsafe. And so, Democrats have to turn that around. Now, they have turned it around in the past. … And so, it can be done. But it’s a heavy lift, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of persuasion. I’m not sure there’s enough time to do it before the midterms.”
He later added that Biden has “done a fantastic job, especially this week, on Ukraine.”
More U.S. adults believe Republicans are better suited than Democrats to handle key economic issues such as inflation heading into the midterm election, a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released this week found.
“When it comes to dealing with the economy, which party do you think would do a better job: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or both about the same?” the survey asked, presenting the same question for a variety of issues.
Survey after survey shows the economy and inflation as top issues for Americans, and according to this poll, Republicans have an edge in handling the economy, as 42 percent chose the GOP, compared to 26 percent who chose Democrats. Seventeen percent chose neither, and 13 percent said they handle it “about the same.”
When it comes to controlling inflation, another top issue, 41 percent said Republicans are better suited to handle the issue, while 20 percent chose Democrats — a difference of 21 percent.
Republicans also hold the edge on the issue of crime (39 percent to the Democrat Party’s 23 percent), immigration (37 percent to the Democrats’ 34 percent), as well as national security (43 percent to the Democrats’ 24 percent).
The poll was taken April 19-26, 2022, among 1,377 adults and has a +/- 3.4 percent.
The figures are alarming for Democrats, as most Americans have consistently identified the economy as the top issue in determining how they will vote in future elections.
US President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media on April 12, 2022. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
What is more, President Biden’s approval on the economy is completely under water by -20 percent, as 57.4 percent disapprove and 37.4 percent approve, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.
Congressional Democrats, however, are following the commander-in-chief’s lead and refusing to take responsibility for the economic issues that have plagued Biden’s presidency, blaming Russia, the coronavirus, and oil and gas companies for high prices.
“No. I don’t think the public is blaming Democrats,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press conference on Thursday, where she and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to “go after” oil and gas companies, blaming them for the rise in prices.
“I think they’re blaming oil companies. They will blame all of us if we don’t do something about the fossil fuel industry,” the 82-year-old Democrat added.
WATCH:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi / Facebook
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Exclusive—William Perry Pendley: Biden Continues His War on American Energy with Sham Federal Oil and Gas Lease Sales
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (David McNew/Getty Images)
In a city known for its duplicity, cynicism, and toxic partisanship, the Biden administration’s announcement on April 15 about the “resumption” of federal oil and gas leasing was among the most duplicitous, cynical, and toxically partisan announcement ever. It was slipped out the door, not just on a Friday–the day reserved for news an administration wishes dead before the following Monday–but on Good Friday, the holiest Friday in Christendom.
The announcement was the federal government’s response to a federal court order to resume leasing exactly ten months earlier. The federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees 245 million acres of surface and 700 million acres of mineral estate, is required by an Act of Congress, the Mineral Leasing Act, to conduct quarterly sales of oil and gas leases on lands not otherwise off limits to that activity. President Biden ended those sales his first week in office, but on June 14, 2021, a federal district court in Louisiana ruled that “pause” illegal. The Biden administration both appealed and asserted it was taking steps to comply with the judge’s ruling but slow walked the latter. Thus, days ago, the West, home of most BLM lands, entered its sixth quarter without a lease sale.
That was not all. Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, initiated adoption of draconian regulations making energy production more costly and warred against the ability of oil and gas operators to obtain financing. Energy prices began climbing. In response, Biden went hat-in-hand to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela asking that they, not we in the West, increase their production. Twice, Biden tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nonetheless, energy prices kept rising and Americans blamed Biden.
Thus, came Good Friday’s announcement, which reversed a Biden campaign promise to end oil and gas leasing on federal lands. Progressives outraged by Biden’s decision either have not read the fine print or are in on the mischief, for Biden eliminated 80 percent of the land available for leasing and increased the cost of operating those leases by 50 percent. Without saying so, Biden is achieving what radical environmentalists demand when they insist that we “leave” fossil fuels “in the ground.”
We have been here before during the Carter administration, when radical environmentalists—who Robert Zubrin called Merchants of Despair and who Reagan called Luddites— ran the U.S. government’s energy policy. Federal agencies chose what lands were available for energy exploration, instead of those who will invest hundreds of millions even billions of dollars to find new sources of oil and gas selecting the lands most likely to contain new sources of oil and gas. Federal agencies also limited available tracts to increase the price paid the government for their use and sought to maximize bonus bids and royalties. The federal government failure to find new energy rather than short-term federal revenues exacerbated the catastrophic 1979 Oil Crisis, which revealed Carter as helpless.
President Jimmy Carter raises his fist as he makes a point during an address on inflation in Washington on November 13, 1978. Carter made the address as his administration called for an increase in world oil prices. (AP Photo)
Because Reagan sought energy independence, he opened the entire Outer Continental Shelf to exploration via “area-wide leasing” during which all but the most environmentally sensitive tracts were available to permit operators, not career bureaucrats, to select the most perspective tracts. Reagan did the same onshore, opening lands that had been locked up for years and even decades.
That Biden seeks to return to Carter’s scarce and high-priced energy policies is clear from his spokesperson on the issue, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who indicts not just Reagan but also Congress itself. “For too long,” she said in a statement, “the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands.”
This is nonsense. Congress set the terms under which federal lands are leased and energy discovered, developed, and delivered to the consumer, which means in accordance with the strictest environmental laws in the world to protect “the natural environment [and] our air and water.” Wyoming, for example, has benefitted mightily from oil and gas development for decades, and those of us from Wyoming remain proud of its pristine beauty and can still brag that “Wyoming is what the West was.” As to the “wants” of “local communities,” ask the people of Douglas in Wyoming’s Converse County who hope for hundreds and even thousands of new “oil patch” jobs what they want. Had Haaland held a lease sale, she would know that governors have the ability request removal of tracts they consider sensitive— requests that we readily granted in the Trump administration.
President Joe Biden listens to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speak at the White House on October 8, 2021. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Secretary Haaland, the first Native American to serve as secretary, presumes to speak for “the needs of Tribal Nations,” but when she attacks oil and gas development, she does not represent the Utes of Colorado and Utah, the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, the Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming, or even individual Navajos living on allotted lands in New Mexico. Nor, when she advances scarcity and high energy prices does she show concern for many Native Americans who, in the worst inflation in 40 years, must choose between food and fuel.
On behalf of the Biden administration, Haaland plans “to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans’ resources for the benefit of all current and future generations.” That is not her decision. Indeed, despite her attempts to change the law while in Congress representing Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Congress has spoken. Moreover, because of the rarity of energy deposits, “the highest and best use of Americans’ resources” is development, in compliance with federal environmental laws and multiple use principles, of the vast stores of oil and gas beneath the surface.
How much, we in the West wonder, must Biden hate us that he would prefer to obtain oil and gas supplies from our enemies abroad than from westerners who can produce not just energy in abundance but also high paying American jobs that can revived rural economies through energy royalties, taxes, and other revenues? He must loathe us because he placed our lands off limits and priced them out of reach.
William Perry Pendley, a Wyoming attorney, served in senior positions in the Reagan and Trump administrations and for three decades represented pro bono clients including at the Supreme Court of the United States.
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