The White House has been speaking with U.S. oil and gas producers in recent days about helping to bring down rising fuel costs, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Energy costs are rising worldwide, in some cases leading to shortages in major economies like China and India. In the United States, the average retail cost of a gallon of gas is at a seven-year high, and winter fuel costs are expected to surge, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Oil-and-gas production remains below the nation’s peak reached in 2019.
The talks with energy companies touched on several issues, including prices, according to a third person familiar with the discussions. The administration has been in discussions with the oil industry over limiting methane emissions in recent months.
“We are closely monitoring the cost of oil and the cost of gas Americans are paying at the pump. And we are using every tool at our disposal to address anti-competitive practices in U.S. and global energy markets to ensure reliable and stable energy markets,” a White House official said.
U.S. crude oil recently hit $80 a barrel for the first time in seven years, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies known as OPEC+ restrict output. The White House has discussed rising prices with top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia in recent weeks.
Under the previous administration, the United States had not only achieved energy independence, but had become a net exporter of oil and gas. Oh, but those mean tweets! So now we’ve got feeble-minded Joe Biden in the White House, begging the Saudis for more oil?
This administration is in complete meltdown/desperation mode.
As you may have noticed, we’ve added counterjihad site Gates of Vienna to our list of blogs, and Jeff Goldstein has picked up the gauntlet again at Protein Wisdom after getting the boot from Twitter.
Silicon Valley delenda est.
Ereshkigal from Fate/Grand Carnival as shown in Newtype magazine.
Michael Brendan Dougherty (left) with Tucker Carlson in 2019.
Let me start by saying that I like Michael Brendan Dougherty, and I’ve always liked him. He is a serious thinker and his paleoconservative leanings are so obvious that it’s a miracle he hasn’t already been purged from National Review, like John Derbyshire, Peter Brimelow, et al. His 2007 article “The Castaway,” about the late, great paleoconservative intellectual Sam Francis, stopped short of a full-on endorsement of Sam’s ideas, but you could see that Dougherty’s interest was tinged with a certain amount of admiration:
The question for Sam Francis was, How might a conservative elite rise up to challenge the managerial elite? Conservatives would have to attach themselves to a broad social base. In his 1982 essay, “Message from MARS: The Social Politics of the New Right,” Francis combined his Burnhamite analysis of elites with Donald Warren’s sociological work on “Middle American Radicals” or MARs.
Dougherty here locates the hard kernel of insight that made Sam nearly unique — a disciple of James Burnham, he saw politics not so much as a “war of ideas” (the Goldwater/Reagan analysis) but as a matter of class interests. How else to explain the phenomenon of rich liberals? They are members of a social class — the “managerial elite,” in Burnham’s phrase — and as a result are hostile to the interests of rival groups, whose resistance to elite governance takes the form of populism. The Republican Party has always attracted its vital support from small business owners, who exemplify in many ways both the “rugged individualism” of frontier America and also what Max Weber called “The Protestant Ethic.” Within their own communities, these people are treated with respect, but in the great centers of cultural and political power (D.C., New York, L.A., etc.), they are viewed with contempt — a lot of provincial bourgeois Babbitts, too unsophisticated to be taken seriously. This is the real conflict in American politics, a conflict deliberately obscured by the national media establishment which, of course, is affiliated with and does the bidding of the elite.
Having distilled in a single paragraph a thumbnail sketch of Sam’s ideas about “Middle American Radicals,” I won’t bother to explain or defend how, during the 1990s, his intellectual trajectory led to him being labeled a “white supremacist.” After the past five years, I think most conservatives have become so accustomed to this label that we shrug it off, but in the mid-1990s, such an accusation still had devastating power, which is how Sam became, as Dougherty calls him, “The Castaway.”
After having profiled Sam Francis in 2007, Dougherty revisited the theme after Trump’s shocking 2016 upset of Hillary Clinton, hailing Sam as the prophet of Trump’s populist war against “globalism.” Let me clue you in here: Whether or not Donald Trump ever heard of Sam Francis, I can guarantee you that Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller is familiar with Francis’s work, just as Miller is familiar with other notorious Thought Criminals, including Brimelow, Charles Murray, Steve Sailer and Jared Taylor. Given the crisis conditions of the conservative movement circa 2006-2015, any intelligent person (and Miller is frighteningly intelligent) would have been looking around for some inspiration outside the narrow limits of Conservatism, Inc. Everyone can now see, looking back, that the time for a populist uprising on the Right was long overdue, and Trump just happened to be the figure around whom this uprising rallied.
Nearly everything Kimball says about the ongoing resistance to Trump is true. It was meretricious, hysterical, and dangerous. Even before Trump won the election, I predicted the unprecedented subterfuge that would probably be aimed at him if he won the presidency. We saw the deep state as it really is: an ongoing class warfare against the democratic peoples and their representatives whose disruptions provide accountability. . . . Some of us have spent the better part of the past two decades or longer arguing that conservatives should be more open to a populist and working-class core of voters, the losers of globalization. We have been arguing for putting “the forgotten man” at the heart of conservatism’s concerns. We’ve argued for reexamining the effect of our trade relationships on the American people themselves. We denounced the democracy project in the Middle East and Afghanistan as a waste of blood and treasure. We argued for getting control of our immigration system, and for immigration limits and moratoriums in order to make America cohere again. It was thankless work. And if we had known it was all to set the stage for opportunists and recent converts to make their riches and fly their freak flags, perhaps we wouldn’t have done it.
You can read the whole thing. I don’t know who else Dougherty means to include as “some of us,” nor does he specify the targets of his criticism of “opportunists and recent converts.” Because he is not stepping on my toes (I was smeared as a “white supremacist” before it was cool), I could have just ignored this as another circular firing squad exercise on the Right, but I thought I’d address the subject directly because it matters.
The subject amounts to a simple question: “What’s wrong with Trump?”
Dougherty focuses on Trump’s apparent belief that all Vice President Mike Pence had to do was to reject the certified Electoral College votes of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and — abracadabra! — Trump would stay in the White House. Of course, that’s not how it works, and even if you believe that the election was stolen (a belief shared by tens of millions of Americans), the problem was that, within the constitutional framework, there was no simple remedy.
This gets very close to being an answer to the question of what’s wrong with Trump: He doesn’t read books. He doesn’t read much of anything, really. He couldn’t even be bothered to read intelligence briefings as president, so that White House aides resorted to creating Powerpoint slideshows to try to at least get him to absorb the basic points. Trump seems to get his ideas about politics and policy from watching Fox News, which is why he was always tweeting out reactions to whatever it was they were talking about on Hannity or Fox and Friends.
Watching TV is no substitute for reading, because TV can never convey ideas faster than human speech (i.e., about 150 words per minute), whereas a collegiate-level reader can absorb the written word much faster. This blog post is about 1,600 words. It would take 10-12 minutes to read it aloud, but you’ll probably reach the end much quicker. Also, the written word has a permanence that the spoken word does not. To absorb complex ideas, and to commit them to memory, the written word is superior. So Trump’s habitual aversion to reading . . . Well, that’s a real problem, and one which explains a lot of his other problems.
All that said, democracy means that our leaders are chosen collectively, and the GOP primary voters in 2016 chose Trump. So those of us who did not want Hillary to become president had no other choice but to accept the circumstances thrust upon us, and make the best of them. I believe that none of Trump’s rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination could have beaten Hillary. I think Trump was uniquely able to attract support from voters who would not have voted for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, et al. And I think he threw the Democrats off their game. In my first American Spectator column about his campaign (“How Trump Has Changed the Game,” Sept. 14, 2015), I compared Trump to the great scrambling NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton:
Watching Republican establishment types trying to stop Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is like watching a highlight film of Fran Tarkenton’s NFL career. Tarkenton’s legendary ability as a scrambling quarterback was every football coach’s worst nightmare. Never mind what play Tarkenton called in the huddle, or what scheme the defense deployed against him. Once he started scrambling, the playbook ceased to matter. He’d run all over the backfield, eluding the defensive linemen who tried to tackle him, until he found a receiver open downfield. Tarkenton’s improvisational style was unique and unpredictable, and he led the Minnesota Vikings to three Super Bowls by defying the norms of what an NFL quarterback should be.
What Tarkenton did to NFL defenses, Donald Trump is doing to the Republican Party. The bombastic billionaire routinely says things that, for any other candidate, would be campaign-destroying gaffes. With his larger-than-life celebrity persona, however, Trump keeps winning. . . .
That was four months before National Review blazoned “Against Trump” on its cover and, having lashed themselves to the mast, they went down with the #NeverTrump ship. This was their choice, and not mine, and therefore I am not responsible for the consequences. It’s like the Capitol riot — nobody in the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers came to me and asked, “Hey, Stacy, do you think it’s a good idea to have a riot?” Certainly, I would have advised against it, but no one sought my advice. Similarly, nobody at National Review asked me if it was a good idea for them to declare war on the GOP primary voters who wanted Trump.
Wisdom is what we ought to gain from our mistakes, but you’re never going to become wise if you refuse to recognize your mistakes. It may be that both Trump and his #NeverTrump adversaries suffer equally from this problem. Unless and until National Review publishes a cover story with the headline, “We Blew It,” their credibility is damaged.
Let Michael Brendan Dougherty make of this what he will. I still like him, but wish he’d follow his populist inclinations far enough to get himself purged from National Review — a fine tradition to uphold!
Supporters of former President Trump and Americans dissatisfied with Joe Biden have turned the chant “Let’s Go Brandon!” into a massive social media viral trend that has shown up at sporting events, airports, memes, all the way to the former president’s Saturday rally in Iowa.
It started as a profane anti-Biden chant at college football games but went to a new level last Saturday when NBC reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Brandon Brown after he captured his first race victory at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway.
During the interview, Trump supporters and Biden critics took a page out of the book of other sports fans across the country by chanting “F*** Joe Biden” which could clearly be heard by NBC’s cameras.
Stavast, in an apparent attempt to steer the interview away from politics, reported that the crowd was really chanting, “Let’s Go Brandon!”
At that moment, the new viral sensation was born.
Not to be pedantic, but the F-word is not “profane,” it’s obscene.
Only Pat Herrity stood firm. The rest of the Fairfax County Board of Brandons and Karens voted to assume the position, and request that the box be stuffed next month for the gubernatorial election. And if anyone is equipped, it’s Greasy Terry:
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is asking Gov. Ralph Northam to waive the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots cast by mail in this fall’s election.
The board voted 9-1 for the proposal by Chair Jeffrey McKay to send a letter to Northam, with Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, the board’s only Republican, casting the only vote against the motion.
McKay said that waiving the witness signature requirement – as was done during the 2020 election – is necessary due to the continued threat of COVID-19. He said several Fairfax residents had shared concerns with him about obtaining witness signatures – arguing they could be exposed to COVID-19 in the process.
No one believes you, Demsheviks. With every day, with ever liberty that you brutally devour like it was some fat-dripping slice of baked flatbread smothered in toppings, your butt just gets bigger. The good nature of Americans has been stressed the last twenty months by the “two weeks to flatten the curve”. However, a line as been crossed when parental input into what is taught in schools is casually rejected:
In [his] last debate with Youngkin, however, McAuliffe opined that parents shouldn’t be telling schools what to teach their children. This statement may have shifted the race in Youngkin’s favor, and I no longer assume McAuliffe will win.
Last night two smart, politically knowledgeable Virginia residents told me they believe Youngkin will win. I’m on the fence, but find it interesting that McAuliffe is now complaining that Joe Biden is dragging him down. He’s probably right, but it occurs to me that candidates who think they will win don’t start blaming their party’s president for their woes.
There is no way that any rational, well-informed, patriotic voter would ever cast a ballot for the godless Commies that the Demsheviks have degenerated into. The willingness of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to sacrifice election security to allow stuffing the ballot box seems a tacit recognition of this reality.
Virginia conservatives broke my heart when they were too lame to support Ken Cuccinelli eight years ago. The more GOPe Ed Gillespie had no joy in 2017. So, despite the fact that Glenn Youngkin is running a smart campaign against a buffoonish candidate with President Potted Plant for a backdrop, it’s best to focus on getting everyone voting and keep the hopes in check.
As usual, the senile fool in the Oval Office tried to have it both ways, issuing proclamations celebrating both Columbus Day (yay) and Indigenous Peoples Day (F*** Joe Biden) and inevitably annoying just about everybody.
Silicon Valley delenda est.
Makes you think.
Meanwhile at Instapundit, the Blogfather links to and quotes from Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s epic biography of Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, which sadly is not available on Kindle – but you should really get the dead tree edition anyway, because the maps are a lot easier to read that way. To satisfy the people who are always yapping about that loser short-timer Leif Ericsson, I also recommend Morison’s The European Discovery Of America: The Northern Voyages 500-1600 A.D., which is a delightful book that includes not only accounts of the aforementioned Norseman’s voyages but also Henry Hudson, Amerigo Vespucci, and dozens of others. But wait! There’s more! As if that wasn’t enough, Morison also includes chapters on apocryphal/mythical voyages by St. Brendan and Prince Madoc of Wales, the Kensington Runestone, and imaginary islands of the Atlantic that appeared on many maps during the Age of Exploration and in some cases persisted into the 20th century.
In addition to his discovery of IndiaNew Spain, Columbus and his Spanish employers also gave rise to one of the wilder and most memorable episodes of history, to say nothing of dozens of movies and novels – the infamous Pirates of the Caribbean, which people have come to associate more with Johnny Depp’s rum-addled Captain jack Sparrow than, say, Sabatini’s Captain Blood, so memorably portrayed on film by Errol Flynn. But list now – what if I were to advert to you that there existed a book that told all the wild tales of buccaneering rolled into one with music by Korngold, villains more villainous than anything Sabatini or Farnol could have dreamed of, bodacious babes (some of them in quite fetching leopard-skin tracksuits) and insane acts of bravery all turned up to 11? Who, you ask, could possibly have the chops to carry off something so incredibly larger than life? None other than the creator of Harry Flashman himself, George Macdonald Fraser! The Pyrates is a ripping yarn, full of sly digs at English society (17th and 20th century), Hollywood, trade unions, and the whole genre of pirate tales & movies as well. If this book can’t cheer you up, consult a physician to see if you are already dead.
It’s been a long time since I read Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, so I downloaded Dauntless and Fearless this weekend and got stuck in. En route to a peace conference in Syndic space, an Alliance fleet finds a survival pod holding an officer thought dead for a century – Commander John Geary, whose sacrifice in an early battle led to his being posthumously promoted to Captain and turned into a legend – “Black Jack Geary”. While Geary slept, the war has eroded the Alliance fleet and its members – tactics and skills have been forgotten, ships built cheaply and quickly out of desperation, morals abandoned – and he finds himself very much out of place and very disturbed that everyone seems to regard him as a legendary savior. It’s not Geary’s fate to be allowed to adapt in his own good time, though – before departing for the peace conference, the fleet’s admiral puts Geary in charge in case something goes awry. Needless to say, it does – the conference was a trap, and the Admiral is shot down in cold blood, as the Syndics expect a decapitating strike will paralyze the Alliance fleet. Not with “Black Jack” in charge, though. The series recounts Geary’s journey back to Alliance space with his fleet, evading superior numbers of Syndic warships while wreaking havoc in their rear areas and bringing his subordinates and education in tactics and strategy to match their unquestionable (if occasionally excessive) courage. High-quality space opera with solid characters. Highly recommended.
The good nature of Americans has been stressed the last twenty months by the “two weeks to flatten the curve”. However, a line as been crossed when parental input into what is taught in schools is casually rejected:
