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After the week that the Biden administration has had, you would think that they might consider their current positions.
The price of a Fourth of July barbecue, which they so proudly proclaimed was down 16 cents last year, is now up over $10. Baby formula is still being shipped in from Europe and the end of the shortage is likely a long way off. Inflation is hurting the average American, despite what Joe Biden claims about the inflation rate in the United States being lower than in the rest of the world.
So, perhaps Team Biden would like to give themselves a little bit of a win? What about trying to reduce the price of gas at the pump, or at least LOOK like they care about reducing the price at the pump? After all, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, told Joe Biden to his face at the G7 summit that there’s no point in trying to press Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for more oil because they are at capacity.
“I had a call with MBZ,” Macron told Biden, referring to the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. “He told me two things. One, I’m at a maximum, maximum [production capacity] — what he claims… Second, according to MBZ, the Saudis can increase a little bit, by 150 [thousands barrels per day] or a little bit more, but they don’t have huge capacities at least before six months’ time.”
Jake Sullivan, who tries cutting Macron off in that clip, looks like the French president has just peed in his breakfast cereal. (To be fair, Sullivan looks like that most of the time.) That was clearly NOT the news that Team Biden wanted to hear, much less news that they wanted picked up by a hot mic and a curious cameraman.
The ball is very much in Biden’s court when it comes to oil production and the price of gasoline. After all, you can’t try and claim the credit when the price drops by two cents, and then dodge the blame when the price hits record levels. So, what is the plan for Team Biden?
The plan is to let the current rules for lease sales for offshore drilling, which were instituted under the Obama administration… lapse while they try to figure out how to placate the rabid environmentalists on their left. Because what is the most important thing of all? Convincing the left that they are working on climate change!
In a statement issued Friday, the administration said it is still working on a plan, and that when issued it could include as many as 11 specific lease sales for offshore oil and gas drilling or as few as zero.”
An Interior Department official said equal consideration is being given to scenarios with zero sales, some sales or all 11 sales.”
The statement and department’s proposal for the program’s future was issued one day after a previous five-year offshore drilling plan expired. That plan had been finalized by the Obama administration.”
Again, this administration cannot make plans. They only react. The pain is the point, because what they believe in is “transformational change” away from fossil fuels. Their eye HAS to remain on the goal.
CNN: "What do you say to those families that say, 'listen, we can't afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years?’"
BIDEN ADVISOR BRIAN DEESE: "This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm." pic.twitter.com/LWilWSo72S
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 1, 2022
Your suffering is secondary to their goal of a “liberal world order.” But of course, the fact that the administration is dithering about their multiple options, with one finger in the wind to check their political viability, has no one – left, right, or center – happy.
“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities.”
A White House spokesman declined to respond directly. Interior Department officials said they didn’t have a preferred option, and that the ultimate decision—following a public comment period—could be one that called for no new leases.”
Some oil advocates, meanwhile, said the plan didn’t go far enough to ensure future supplies of domestic oil to counter rising energy prices globally.”
“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), a swing vote for Mr. Biden’s agenda in the 50-50 Senate, said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”
Industry lobbyists applauded the proposal to expand leasing but noted that many potential roadblocks lie ahead.”
It’s clear what the Biden administration WANTS – they want to stop all drilling and leasing. They want the pain and suffering, because they BELIEVE in their end goal of pushing every single one of us on to “green” energy options. But they know that they are legally obligated to figure out some kind of leasing sales plan, and they also know that as the gas prices rise, the poll numbers drop.
A Harvard CAPS–Harris Poll survey shared exclusively with The Hill found that 71 percent of respondents polled do not think Biden should run for a second term, compared to 29 percent who say he should run.”
Among the contingent of respondents who believe the president should not run, 45 percent said Biden should not make another bid because he is a bad president, while about one-third of respondents said he is too old and about one-quarter said because it is time for a change.”
With poll numbers like that, what does Team Biden have to lose by making us all suffer? If they know that they are going down, then they are planning on making sure we all feel the pain in the process.
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– Your suffering is secondary to their goal of a “liberal world order.” —
What if that’s not the case? What if our suffering is an intended consequence? Why do so few commentators pause to consider that possibility? Remember what Orwell said:
’The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.’ O’Brien paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: ’How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
Winston thought. ’By making him suffer,’ he said.
’Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.’
The love of power itself is the primary motivation of the great majority of politicians. Good people dislike to think so, but he evidence is overwhelming.
Because they BELIEVE in their end goal of pushing every single one of us on to “green” energy options.
Or do they – or their patrons in the investment community – believe that if they force us to live with only green energy, that a new version of the 1990’s dot-com bubble will puff up and provide opportunities for “churning” … that will produce higher gains in the short-term than continued support for mature, proven energy technologies?
[…] $5 a gallon, and you’re really hoping that the Saudis might give you some more. Even after French President Macron told Grandpa Joe in a the most diplomatic way to “forget it” because the Saudis were at capacity, Team […]
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