CEO of Shell says that Europe's energy crisis could last ten years.

 

CEO of Shell, Ben Van Beurden. Fortune/AFP/Getty.

The CEO of Shell says that Europe will face harsh winters for the next ten years as Europe's energy crisis worsens. Fortune. Ben Van Beurden said the energy crisis will likely last for more than one winter and that Europeans will have to get used to energy rationing and attempts at efficiency. Natural gas prices have exploded after Russia responded to sanctions by largely cutting off European access to the fuel. Russia has shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline due to maintenance but many believe that the pipeline will not ever start again. Germany managed to almost reach their gas storage target, which caused a small amount of relief but that was short lasting. Countries in Europe are considering price caps and other possible solutions to the crisis. 

My Comment:

People are starting to state the obvious, the sanctions against Russia have backfired terribly. The CEO of Shell is right, there is no easy solution for this problem and there are no good options. And it's going to have huge repercussions for both the European and global economy. 

The easiest solution would to simply give into Russia by lifting sanctions and ending support to Ukraine. This is the right thing to do so there is essentially no chance of it ever happening. There has been no indication that anyone is even trying to end the war diplomatically and even if the war ends today I doubt any sanctions would be lifted. 

And Russia has little incentive to sell gas to Europe. They have found plenty of other customers for their energy and their economy is doing just fine, though lacking western luxury goods. Russia also knows that if they hold out the governments of Europe will fall, and will likely be replaced with new regimes that will be more open to lifting sanctions on Russia, if for no other reason the new regimes will end up being overthrown in turn. Russia knows that it has the advantage here and will try to press it. 

The other options aren't good. Short term I don't see Europe doing anything but suffering. There is no alternative natural gas source for them right now. They can buy from other countries but the prices will not be affordable. And the infrastructure is just not there to ship and refine this fuel. 

And there aren't any real alternatives to natural gas. The vast majority of homes in Europe are heated with gas and it's not like they can just switch over without a huge investment of money. And other energy sources, most notably nuclear, have been shut down and will take years to start up again. And even hydro power is not going to help given this year's drought and low water levels. 

The solution some countries seem to be taking is price controls, which is almost always a bad idea. Doing so almost always causes shortages which is even worse than high prices. At least when prices are high there is fuel to purchase, that might not be the case if price controls are put into place. 

All of these solutions are long term and won't do much if anything to help in the winter of 2022. That means people are going to have to make some hard choices about how they spend their money. We have already seen some businesses shut down and some people making choices between energy and food. That is going to get much worse over this winter. 

If there is any good news for Americans it's that our energy prices will remain lower than Europe. We have domestic production to help offset the increase of prices and any shortage. And we get most of our energy from other sources that will be more resilient.

The problem is that Europe's economy is going to collapse, not just because of high energy prices but the inevitable disorder that is going to spread from it. That means anyone who trades with Europe is going to have major problems and we do a lot of trade with Europe. Given that this is pretty much entirely the fault of the US government it's what we deserve...  

Is a 2nd American Civil War possible? New poll says 2 in 5 Americans thinks it is possible in the next 10 years

 

The YouGov survey data. 

Two in five Americans believe that a 2nd American Civil War is possible in the next 10 years. New York Post. 14% of survey respondents said a war was "very likely" while 29% said it was "somewhat likely". The rest said it was not very likely, not likely at all or were unsure about the question. Most people also think that the country is becoming more politically divided with 66% agreeing while 63% say that the division is just going to get worse. Republicans are more pessimistic than Democrats and Independents as 72% believe that things will get worse while only 58% of Democrats and Independents feel the same way. 

My Comment:

There is a common idea in politics that you can use four different boxes to change things politically, the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box. It seems very clear that the first three boxes have already been expended or been taken away. As a Republican I feel that I can't really say what I want anymore so that's the soapbox gone. And the 2020 election was such a farce that the ballot box might be out too. And given how the January 6th protesters and Donald Trump himself are being treated we know that the jury box is bad. I don't have to say what the last box implies but even that is under threat, thanks to illegal gun control schemes. 

I have long thought that the left took the absolute wrong message from January 6th. Nothing about how the 2020 election was run was acceptable. It was clear that the government didn't care about the concerns about the election and the outright hostility to even the suggestion that the election was poorly run at best and crooked at worst. So there was a major protest directly against the people that caused the problems in the first place. 

In a sane world the powers that be would have had a moment of self reflection and understand that maybe it's time to change course. That would have been easy enough, let the Supreme Court make a ruling and acknowledge the problems and promise to do better in the future. That's not hard to do and if it had been done it would have absolutely lowered the temperature here in the United States. But the exact opposite happened and now 2 in 5 people thinks a civil war is possible. 

I think that Joe Biden has a lot to do with this. Instead of lowering the temperature he has dramatically increased it. A total lack of competence is part of the problem, who could be happy with Biden after huge inflation, foreign policy mistakes and all the other various failures he has done? I mean for awhile there we had a huge baby formula shortage, the government failed at the most basic thing it's responsible for, feeding children. It's totally unprecedented and it's clear that Biden is the worst President we have had in the modern era, and is in the running for the worst all time. 

It's his policies that have been increasing the temperature though. Many of them seem specifically tailored to punish the people that vote for him. None of them have been dangerous than his insistence on gun control. If there is a red line for the right in this country it is gun rights. Same with his hiring IRS agents, the corruption at the FBI and the assault on the rights of Donald Trump. Most recently, it was the student loan forgiveness which seems specifically designed to anger just about everyone who isn't one of Biden's professional managerial class supporters. 

It's not all on Biden though. The general culture has gone insane and much of it is designed to make people as mad as possible. Some of this is due to social media algorithms that have been proven to be used to make people angry, since angry people spend more time on social media. Plus the news and entertainment media is insanely hostile to more than half the country. It's unprecedented for companies to attack their own customers but in the past few years it has been common. 

Surprisingly, it's not just the right that sees themselves under attack. To be fair, the left just suffered two huge cultural defeats thanks to the Supreme Court. They lost on abortion, which was a huge priority for them, and though the issue has faded it has radicalized some of the left. And they also lost on gun rights, thankfully. 

Do I personally think that a civil war is likely? It's up in the air at this point. I personally wonder if the country will last long enough to actually fall into civil war. After all, war with Russia seems depressingly possible and I think the entire world is falling into a global depression, thanks to our Ukraine policy. 

But I do think that civil war is getting more likely every day. The thing that is holding everyone back appears to be collapsing. The fact of the matter is that people with full bellies, a home and a car aren't likely to want to give that up for the chance of protecting themselves. Some people are willing to fight, but most aren't until they have nothing else to lose. And until very recently most people still had a hell of a lot to lose. As the economy goes into the toilet though, all bets are off. If people figure their kids are going to starve and their doors are going to be kicked in by criminals or government goons then there is a real possibility.

I personally think that this should be avoided if at all possible. People don't seem to understand what an American Civil War will be like the last one. Biden certainly does since he seems to think that not only will the people opposed to him won't have F-15's while at the same time not realizing that we just lost in Afghanistan in spite of our technological advantage. It also baffles me that people will think that the rebels will be exactly like the Confederates, just lined up in some kind of mass formation so that the aircraft and tanks can easily kill them.

I don't think the 2nd American Civil War will be like that at all. The idea that huge armies will clash with each other in open fields seems naïve at best. Assuming the military doesn't end up being destroyed by itself I am guessing they will be mostly a non-factor outside of infantry. I'm picturing our future conflict to be more like The Troubles in Ireland than the 1st American Civil War. Or perhaps like Syria, with dozens of competing factions and practically every other country on earth involved. 

But what everyone seems to ignore is the fact that it's not going to be good for anyone. Though I am not exactly sure how a 2nd American Civil War would play out, I do know that a lot of people would die or be injured. Americans haven't gone through anything like that since the 1st Civil War. People will die from combat, massacres, disease and starvation. All of that should be easy to avoid. 

Can we still avoid a civil war? Of course we could. I think a big win for the Republicans in November could do a lot to lower the temperature. It would put some restrictions on Biden and people would be happy seeing him impeached. It would also restore some faith in our broken election system if the Republicans perform near or at what their expectations are. Biden's hugely unpopular so it would be unprecedented if the Democrats were to keep both the house and the senate. 

I also think that the coming economic disaster could have the opposite effect. Perhaps Americans would come together if they came under major economic pressure. After all, we didn't go to war in 2008 or back in the 1930's. Perhaps people won't care about the outrage of the day when they can't afford to keep the power on... 

Iraq edges to chaos again as prominent Shiite cleric Muqtata al-Sadr resigns while his supporters storm government buildings.

 

People stand next to a painting of Muqtata al-Sadr. NBC News/AFP.

Iraq is falling into chaos as prominent Shiite cleric Muqtata al-Sadr has resigned from the government, while his supporters storm government buildings. AP. 10 people have died in the fighting between al-Sadr's supporters and government police and militias. Iraq has been stuck in limbo after al-Sadr's party gained the most seats in Iraq's Parliament but not enough to actually form a government. The party has also refused to negotiate with the other major Shiite party, which is backed by Iran. Al-Sadr has been a huge influence in Iraq and is a nationalist who wants both the United States and Iran to stop interfering with Iraq. The disorder caused by al-Sadr's resignation has spread from Baghdad's Green Zone to other Shiite parts of the country, including Basra. It is unclear if al-Sadr's resignation will stick, as he has made the threat before. 

My Comment:

There is a very good chance of Iraq falling into war for a third time if this situation isn't resolved. The two sides here don't seem to be very compatible and raise fundamental questions about who should control Iraq. It's also about if Iraq should be their own sovereign nation or if they should be a puppet of Iran or the United States. 

Muqtata al-Sadr is a fairly complicated person. Al-Sadr was a thorn in the side of the United States during the first phase of the war, where he and his militias were attacking US forces. Al-Sadr is responsible for the deaths of many American soldiers and ordinary Iraqis. It's a testament to his power that he was never taken out. 

On the other hand, I am somewhat sympathetic to his nationalist goals. Since the United States had been invaded the country has been dominated by other countries. Sometimes it was us, and sometimes it was Iran. I don't blame him for not wanting to put up with it. 

Iran's fingers are all over this. They don't like al-Sadr because he is an Iraqi nationalist and he could interfere with their ambitions there. They don't particularly care if Iraq falls into civil war again, indeed, they would be happy with it if their power there increases. 

The US reaction to this has been notable in how silent it has been. This is despite the fact that the fighting is happening right in the Green Zone, putting our diplomats and soldiers at risk. Biden, as usual, is out to lunch, talking about how half the country is fascist while he manages to blunder into yet another foreign policy disaster. 

To be fair though, this is a crisis where we don't have good options. Muqtata al-Sadr hates the United States and is extremely unlikely to work with us. But we also don't want to work with the Iran backed party for what should be obvious reasons. 

I think it says a lot about the state of Iraq that neither side decided to ally with Iraq's Sunni Muslims. I know that the Sunni Muslims discriminated against the Shiites, not only during the reign of Saddam Hussein but under ISIS as well, so it's little wonder why neither side has reached out to them. As for the Sunnis themselves, I see them sitting out of this conflict for obvious reasons. 

Will the situation fall into war? I am not sure. The violence there is already getting pretty bad and heavy weapons have been deployed. There is still a chance for cooler heads to prevail, but given how far apart the two sides are, it seems very unlikely... 

Editor's note

 The next couple of weekends might see me infrequently posting. I am going to have quite a few things going on including two long overtime shifts, two fantasy football drafts and perhaps other things as well. Tonight I was fishing which also ate up some time. With me being busy this weekend and next weekend don't be surprised if you don't see any posts over Friday through Sunday. If I do get posts up expect them to be shorter than they would be normally. After those two weekends are gone things should be going back to normal until my vacation in the middle of next month. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene gets swatted and blames Kiwi Farms, which had nothing to do with it.

 

Screengab from Kiwi Farms administrator Joshua "Null" Moon.

If you aren't aware, controversial congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been "swatted" twice this week and has blamed Kiwi Farms for the attack. Here is an article that details the incident itself, but this post isn't about what happened during the swatting, it's about Kiwi Farms and the people trying to shut the site down. 

First it might be useful to define some terms. Swatting is when people falsely call an emergency in to police in the hope that they overreact and shoot and kill the victim. It's a huge crime and a very modern problem that I don't really know if there is a solution to. 

It's also useful to define what Kiwi Farms is. Kiwi Farms is a site that documents crazy people on the internet. It all started with Christian Weston Chandler, now Christine, and more widely known as Chris-Chan. Chris Chan is a notorious and well document internet personality who is currently in jail for having sex with his own mother. That's the kind of people that Kiwi Farms documents every day. 

Kiwi Farms is also one of the few websites that is still a free speech absolutist. I first heard about them when Joshua "Null" Moon, the administrator of the site, told New Zealand in no uncertain terms that they would not be forced into censoring video of the Christchurch attack. They remain one of the few websites on the internet where you can say pretty much anything even if it isn't politically correct. 

That isn't to say that the site is a free-for-all. There is strong moderation there against illegal content and the crime they are accused of, swatting, is specifically banned. They do allow posting personal information, but other than that the moderation is there. 

Given the focus of the site, Kiwi Farms has a lot of enemies. There are a lot of people on the internet that don't appreciate the fact that they have a thread on the farms and want to see it shut down. But all those efforts have failed until now. 

The problem is that Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to have fallen for a false flag attack against Kiwi Farms and herself hook line and sinker. She apparently didn't even question the claim that the troll was from Kiwi Farms without any evidence whatsoever. It's a huge blow to Greene's credibility that she didn't even question anything about this. 

It seems very obvious that this was a false flag against Kiwi Farms. Here's a few reasons why. First of all, the site is against swatting and understands that doing something like this would be incredibly stupid and risks getting their website shut down. Second, Marjorie Taylor Greene was not someone that was mentioned on the forum all that much. I did a search today and the vast majority of hits for her name on there were from today. She didn't have a thread and just wasn't a person that came up there often. 

Finally, it's extremely obvious that it wasn't from Kiwi Farms. Why? Because Kiwi Farms is many things but it is not a place where a transgender person would post. Whatever you think of the Farms the one thing you can say about them is that they are extremely critical of the transgender community. A person that was upset about Marjorie Taylor Greene because she is anti-trans is going to be a poster on Kiwi Farms, the most notorious anti-trans website on the internet. 

There is no shortage of suspects of who would want to shut down Kiwi Farms. Since the Farms is a anti-trans site, they are a prime suspects. Especially Keffals/Clara Sorrenti/Lucas Roberts. Keffals is a transgender activists and a literal groomer, they have sent hormones to underage children, and has led the campaign to shut down Kiwi Farms. But that's far from the only suspect. There are a lot of people that have threads on the farms that would be willing to commit serious felonies to get the website shut down. To be fair, it's important to note that the attacker might not be a left wing person at all, there are a lot of right wingers that have threads on the Farms, including Ethan Ralph and Nick Fuentes, and they have tried to get the Farms shut down before. 

So why write about this? A couple of reasons, the most notable is that Marjorie Taylor Green is hugely hypocritical. She claims to be in favor of free speech and is against the transgender nonsense overtaking this country but at the same time she is trying to shut down one of the last remaining websites that actually support those ideas. She's either woefully misinformed or doesn't care about anything but her own fame. 

2nd, people should be judged for what they have done, not what other people do against them. I don't think for a second that Kiwi Farms is in any way responsible for swatting MTG. There are a lot of reasons to be critical of the website but this is certainly not one of them. I don't like lies and disinformation and this seems like an obvious case of it.  

"Slap in the face." Biden forgives student loan debt for borrowers but gives nothing to people who paid their debt or didn't go to college.

 

Ben Sasse criticized the move. National Review. 

The Biden administration has forgiven $10,000 worth of student loan debt in a move that has infuriated Republican politicians. National Review. The order cancels $10,000 worth of student debt for individuals making under $125,000 and households making under $250,000. Pell grant recipients will get $20,000. Mitch McConnell called it a "slap in the face" to working Americans while Ted Cruz called it "insane and illegal". Ben Sasse called it a regressive action that would hurt working Americans while subsidizing people who don't need help. The cost for the program, not including the money for Pell Grants, will be more than $300 billion. 

My Comment:

I share the anger that these politicians have. I can't think of a worse thing that the Biden administration has done, and the Biden regime has done some absolutely terrible things. It's not something I can even pretend to be objective about because I am so angry about it. 

And I am not the only one. Two people told me at work this morning that they were mad about this two. One of my coworkers, who paid his student loans for a two year school, asked where his check for $10,000 was going to be. A truck driver I spoke with tole me unprompted that he was furious about it, before even saying hello. 

So why are people angry? I can't speak for anyone else but for me personally, it feels like a huge insult. Though I was admittedly extremely lucky to have my college costs mostly paid for by my mother, I still made good financial choices. It would be absurd for me to ask for a handout because I know damn well that I was in a better position than most people. But so many people with student loans apparently don't have a problem with that? It's nuts. 

I know that I am lucky but you know who isn't? The people that paid off their debts. They had to sacrifice to do that and instead of being rewarded for their actions, they are now on the hook for paying for people that didn't make good financial decisions. It's also an insult to our military veterans who, in many cases, put their lives on the line for free college. It dishonors their service by giving people who did nothing to earn it get some of the same benefits. 

The biggest losers in this has to be the people that never even got to go to college. A lot of folks simply could not afford to go to college even with student loans. Those folks are generally hampered in their career prospects because of that, but now they are on the hook for this debt. 

This has to be the most regressive thing that has ever happened in the United States in recent history. It's stealing from the poor to pay of the rich. Sure there are a few people that got screwed by their colleges and probably deserve some help. But it's insane to ask the rest of us to pay for it. Who should? The colleges that convinced them that Mongolian basket weaving was a major that would get them a job. 

The worst thing is that there were other ways to handle this. Currently student loan debt isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy. Changing that would help a lot for borowers that are in a hole they can't get out of but would ensure that the well off (and anyone making more than $50,000 is in this country) would be paying what they owed. 

Americans don't tend to think of things in terms of class and when they do they do in terms of economic class instead of social class. The problem is that there is a huge difference between a oil change technician in the Midwest and a Starbucks Barista on the coasts, even though they make the same amount of money. The college educated are a class of their own and they are among the most successful people in the country outside of the true elites. 

This handout here? It's one of the biggest wealth transfers we have seen that takes money from the lower classes and gives it to the professional managerial class, which are usually the only people that have this kind of debt. And even many members of that class are going to be upset since they paid their debt. It's an absolute insult to everyone else. 

There is also the question of how this will be paid for. From what I have been able to gather, the cost for both normal and Pell Grant loans will cost between $360 and $420 billion. And I haven't seen any plans on how to pay for this. My guess is that they will simply pay for it by printing out new money and that will cause inflation to spike. 

And even if they don't pay for it that way, it's going to be inflationary anyways! Why? Because the people that will no longer have debt because if this will spend more money. Given how giving most Americans $2000 caused a major amount of inflation, giving $10 to $20 thousand to many Americans will do the same things. Even if you somehow agree that this was a good thing to do, it's clear that this is the worst possible time to do this. 

This cost will of course fall down onto the people that can afford it least. The lower income people in this country will largely not get any benefit from this handout but will have to pay for it through inflation and presumably taxes. Like I said before, the entire thing is hugely regressive. 

I think this was a considerable blunder by the Biden regime as it will backfire on them. They are in a bubble and don't understand just how damn angry people are about this. They screwed over the majority in favor of a minority that already has the most advantages in the country. People won't forget that and I am guessing they will punish the Democrats for this in the 2022 and 2024 elections. 

Just days after sending $800 billion in aid to Ukraine, Biden will announce another $3 billion in military aid to the country....

 

An airman helps load 155mm shells destined for Ukraine. AP. 

Just days after sending $800 million in aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden is set to announce another $3 billion in military aid for the country. AP. The aid will be announced tomorrow, which is Ukraine's independence day and the six month anniversary of the war. The amount of aid hasn't been finalized but will be the largest to date. The aid package is designed as a longer term package that will help Ukraine in the long term. The money will include funding for new drone systems for Ukraine. In total, the United States has sent $10.6 billion in military aid, not including this newest delivery. 

My Comment:

I talked about the last major aid package to Ukraine just four days ago. In that post I covered why I think sending this aid to Ukraine is throwing good money after bad. It has been clear for awhile now that Ukraine is not winning this war and all of this money will be wasted. 

That was true four days ago and it's even more true with this aid package. Why? Because the aid is designed to be a longer term package to help secure Ukraine's future. I got news for them though, Ukraine doesn't have a future. Their military is being destroyed and what they need isn't new weapons, it's new bodies to throw into the meat grinder. Barring a huge influx of foreign troops or an unprecedented Russian collapse, there is no way for Ukraine to win the war. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, the west still doesn't seem to understand what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine. They have switched from maneuver warfare (which is the only kind of warfare the west has used for years now) to a World War I artillery duel. The Russians know they have a massive advantage in troops, weapons and supplies and know they can destroy the Ukrainian military. This means there won't be huge changes in the front line and that's fine because that's not what the Russians want. 

All of this should be obvious to anyone with even a passing interest in the military. So why is Biden sending this money when he should know that it is pointless? None of the possible scenarios bode well for the United States. 

The first possibility is that the Pentagon is high on their own supply. They believe Western media reports and Ukrainian propaganda and think that the Ukrainians are somehow winning the war. This would seem impossible as it's hard to imagine our military being that incompetent, but again, this isn't my grandfather's military. Instead of focusing on warfighting, today's military is more concerned about body armor for pregnant women and diversity training to make troops accept transgender troops in the locker rooms.

Another possibility is that the entire thing is just a blank check to the defense industry. They are going to gain way more from these weapon sales than Ukraine ever would. Billions of dollars are going to them and it's only going to get worse. They are going to have to manufacture huge amounts of weapons to replace what has been so foolishly given away. This will make a small group of people very rich, but do nothing to help anyone else. 

But for me personally? I think it's probably blackmail from the Zelenskyy regime. Everyone knows that Biden was knee deep in corruption in Ukraine, indeed, President Trump was impeached when he wanted to investigate it. Zelenskyy knows that he has Biden by the short hairs because at anytime he could release proof of Biden's corruption. I don't know if Biden would even be hurt by that given how useless our media is, but he has to keep up appearances. 

Regardless of the reason, I have to say that this issue infuriates me. We have sent billions of dollars, dollars we can not really afford, to Ukraine and gotten absolutely nothing from our investment other than a massive number of dead Ukrainians and Russians. All we are doing is wasting that money and causing our inflation to get worse as you know damn well that these shipments are being paid for with borrowed money. It's just an utter waste and that money could be spent on so many other things. 

What really gets me is that nobody else seems to notice or care about all this money we are wasting. The left does not care as the left-wing anti-war movement is deader than a doornail. You would think they would be as mad as everyone else that the money that is being spent on Ukraine could have been spent on their pet projects but apparently not. And the right? There are still enough neocons in the GOP that speaking out about this is simply not done. It's such a shame... 

Dr Anthony Fauci will resign from his post in December but Republicans vow to investigate his role in the Coronavirus pandemic.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fox News/Getty.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has said he will step down in December but Republicans are vowing to investigate him. Fox News. Fauci said he is not retiring but moving on to a new phase of his career. Fauci held his position for 38 years and managed the Corornavirus pandemic and the AIDS pandemic before that. Republicans vowed to investigate him and his conduct during the Coronavirus pandemic, with his role in the origin of the outbreak, suspected to be a lab leak from China, being front and center. Rand Paul, a long term critic of Fauci vowed to question Fauci under oath, but much of the investigation will come from the House, which is expected to easily fall to the Republicans this November. 

My Comment:

Dr. Fauci's behavior during the Coronavirus pandemic is obviously fair game. The role he played in the pandemic was hugely important. He advised both Trump and Biden and is responsible for many of the problems that happened during the pandemic. 

Fauci has a history is mismanaging pandemics as the AIDS pandemic as well. How he kept his job after that debacle is beyond me but he did. And he hasn't done a great job with the Coronavirus and now Monkeypox pandemics either. 

I do think that the early days of the pandemic under Trump were reasonably well managed but that was because Trump actually tried to balance the threat of the virus, the rights of the people and the interests of the economy. When the Biden regime took over all of that went out the window. 

Keep in mind that Fauci was critical in proposing and putting into the highly unpopular and probably illegal vaccine mandates in place. And this was after the main threat of the virus had passed. By the time that I got my vaccine doses in March of 2021 the virus was still scary. But by that summer the virus had largely burned itself out and the risks of the vaccine were now no longer worth it but that's when Fauci was pushing for the mandates the most. It made zero sense and if I hadn't been in one of the early groups to get the vaccine I wouldn't have gotten at that point. 

Fauci is also responsible for the mixed messaging during the start of the pandemic. First masks did nothing than everyone had to wear them. First nobody was going to get sick and that we should all go out and hug Asian people and then we couldn't even hug our dying relatives. This burned a lot of trust and is a good reason to question everything Fauci did. 

But the biggest investigation has to be into the origins of the Coronavirus. I personally believe, and there is a lot of evidence to back up, the theory that the virus was a leak from the research lab in Wuhan. Fauci was knee deep in the "gain of function" research that was going on there and was being paid for by NIAID. His role there needs to be investigated and I personally think he should be prosecuted for it. 

Keep in mind this kind of research was banned in the United States because of the obvious risk of lab leaks. It was never a good idea to make viruses easier to spread to humans and whatever scientific value we gained from that research was obviously wiped out by the millions of deaths and injuries due to the pandemic and its side effects. That kind of thing cannot happen again and if Fauci is punished that would go a long way in preventing it from doing so... 

Why are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis supporters fighting?

 

Donald Trump. White House Photo.

It's a slow news day so I thought I would report on the social media nonsense I have been seeing between supporters of President Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I have seen quite a bit of tension between the two groups and it is not something I like seeing. 

For the record, I would support either man for President in 2024. I like both of them and I honestly don't think I will be put into a position where I support one over the other. If you put a gun to my head, I would choose Trump because he got screwed out of his 2nd term and he deserves to win. But if Trump is unwilling or unable to run in 2024, I would obviously support DeSantis. 

But a lot of people online, including a few people I follow, seem to want to make people make that choice now, before the 2022 midterms and way before the 2024 race. Right now we don't know if either man is running for sure so I am not sure why there is any conflict at all. Why get worked up about something that might not even happening?

So what is the conflict? Trump supporters have been saying that Ron DeSantis is part of some conspiracy against the President. Why? Because he allowed the Mar-A-Lago raid to happen and didn't speak out hard enough against it. That's just silly. Short of arresting the FBI on sight there isn't much DeSantis could have done to prevent the raid. And he did speak out against it. The criticism there is week. 

The other problem that Trump supporters seem to have with DeSantis is that he is weaker on the economy than Donald Trump is. I think that this is a fair point, there aren't too many people in politics that say America First when it comes to the economy. DeSantis may talk the talk here but he might not be walking the walk. 

The problem is assuming that just because DeSantis isn't as strong on the economy as Trump that we shouldn't support him. That seem crazy to me because the economy isn't everything. DeSantis has been at the front lines of the culture war to the point where many of our wins in that sector are because of him. I don't know how people can dismiss things like child grooming and coronavirus restrictions. DeSantis has been stalwart on those issues and for that reason alone he deserves support. 

The funny thing is that the conflict between Trump and DeSantis appears to be in the heads of these folks and the media. I have seen zero evidence that the two men are at each other's throats and the whole thing seems to be a media invention. Indeed, I think if Trump does run DeSantis is probably the front runner for being his VP candidate. It's all stupid... 

Mexico's drug war is not going well...

 

A Mexican soldier patrolling near a church where two priests were murdered by the Cartels. LA Times/AP.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Amlo) has responded to increased violence in the country by deploying the troops. LA Times. As a candidate Amlo vowed to take the soldiers of the street, blaming them for the massive amount of violence in the drug war. But now, 200,000 troops from the Army and Navy are deployed in Mexico, the most since the Mexican Drug War began 16 years ago. Amlo also decided that his newly created National Guard would be under military command and not civilian control, like he vowed. Critics say that putting troops on the street increase violence while questioning Amlo's motives for doing so, saying it has more to do with him staying in power than anything else. Mexico's Drug War is responsible for the majority of the 35,000 homicides in the country and since Amlo has taken office 30,000 more people have gone missing. 

My Comment:

I have been remiss in not covering Mexico's Drug War recently, despite the fact that there was a huge flare up of random violence recently. This violence was different than most cartel violence because instead of being directed at government forces or rival cartels it targeted random businesses and civilians. The Cartels are rioting like they were part of a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, its that bad down there. 

Why are they doing it? Because some leadership of the Cartels were arrested. The Cartels have responded with violence and innocent people are getting killed or having their lives destroyed for little reason. 

With that being said, I do think that Amlo is right to deploy the troops. The LA Times articles mentioned police but the cops in Mexico are famously corrupt and while the Army and Navy are about the only institutions that aren't. If they had to rely on the cops to do something about the cartels nothing would ever come from it. 

However, I don't think that he is using them in the right way. Instead of using the full military might of Mexico to kill and arrest the cartels he is using them as a buffer force to try and keep the cartels from killing each other. That seems counterproductive for what should be obvious reasons. 

I honestly don't know of any other way to deal with the Cartels. These aren't the American mafia, they are hardened criminals with military weapons and power. They are essentially private armies engaged in a major conflict with each other and a low level insurgency against the government. You can't deal with that with police, even assuming that Mexico had reliable police. They obviously don't so the military was always the way to go.

The article was surprisingly critical of Amlo. Amlo is, of course, a huge leftist and I remember all the glowing articles about how he was great back when he got elected. Now the LA Times is darkly hinting that he will take over the country illegally when his term ends in 2024 and blames him for much of the violence. To be fair, he does share quite a bit of the blame for the violence, after all he is President, but still, it's surprising that a left wing rag like the LA Times has turned so thoroughly on Amlo. 

Mexico's absurd level of violence never gets much coverage in the United States, even though it is dramatically more likely to impact us compared to Russia and Ukraine or whatever the outrage of the day is. American citizens routinely get killed in the violence and we do have to worry about our politicians going corrupt because of the Cartels as well. But there is almost no political push to do something about the Mexican Drug War at all. If you hear about Mexico at all it's about immigration through and from there, but that's about it. You would think a war where 30,000 people die a year right across the border would be a huge issue but the media and both parties routinely ignore it. It's just insane to me that it is like that. 

Mexico's drug war could end a few ways, with the most likely one being one Cartel destroying all of the others and cornering the market. That's probably what is going to happen but the Cartels are too evenly matched at this point and the Mexican government is trying to prevent as much conflict with the Cartels as possible. The other possibility is that the Cartels get destroyed by the government, but that doesn't seem too likely. My guess is that the war will continue to drag on for years and years with about this level of violence until one of the cartels takes over or people simply don't put up with it anymore and take down the Cartels. Neither outcome seems likely in the short term future though... 

Another day, another $800 million for weapons to Ukraine...

 

Pallets of weapons destined to Ukraine. Politico/AP/US Air Force.

The Pentagon has authorized another huge shipment of weapons to Ukraine, worth $775 million. Politico. Included in the weapons package is 15 ScanEagle surveillance drones. Another new weapon is the mine resistant MaxxPro MRAPs which would help dealing with Russian minefields. Other weapons include TOW missiles, 16 howitzers and rounds for both the howitzers and handheld Carl Gustav launchers. The weapons are supposed to be used for a supposed Ukrainian offensive in the south. 

My Comment:

Western media coverage of the Ukraine war is garbage, plain and simple. Outside of the list of weapons actually sent to Ukraine, the Politico report was useless propaganda that has little relation to reality. A big clue for that is the fact that they are talking about a supposed offensive that is to take place in the southern part of Ukraine. 

That offensive is not likely to happen any time soon, if at all. Why? Because the Ukrainian military has been spent. They have taken thousands of casualties and much of their equipment has been destroyed. They simply don't have the troops to launch a major offensive and even if they did morale is so low that troops would probably refuse to attack. 

What gets me is that no western source seems to understand or care what the Russians are doing here. This isn't a western style conflict where the only thing that matters to the Russians is taking territory. If that had been the case they would have never abandoned their offensive near Kiev. Instead they are doing everything they can to utterly destroy the Ukrainian military through massed artillery and I have seen no indication that it isn't working. 

But the western media isn't covering it and if you buy their line of thought you would be forgiven in thinking that Russia was losing the war. But if you actually understand Russian objectives that is clearly not the case. Though the war has been far from perfect for the Russians they are fighting it the way that they want to and it's very clear that the Ukrainians can do little other than try and keep ahold of what they have. 

Will these new weapons do much to help Ukraine? Probably not. We are long past the stage of massive maneuver warfare with massed tank offensives, instead the war has settled into a World War I style artillery duel, a duel that the Ukrainians are totally outclassed in. Carl Gustav rounds and TOW missiles can do very little against artillery. Drones can do a little but not when the Russians have a huge advantage in artillery. If you use drones to spot a Russian artillery position and manage to take it out is it really worth it if counter battery fire destroys one of your howitzers and/or your gun crew? Russia can absorb those kinds of losses, Ukraine cannot. 

As far as I am concerned this would be throwing good money after bad but I'm also on record on saying that our involvement with the Ukraine war was a huge mistake. We have nothing to gain there and a whole hell of a lot to lose. Forget about the seemingly unlimited amount of weapons and aid we are sending there, we are going to see huge repercussions from sanctions. Already Europe is having to cut industrial production and that problem is only going to get worse as time goes by. 

I don't think anything could save Ukraine now other than some kind of miracle collapse of the Russian military, a coup against Putin or direct intervention of NATO forces. The first two simply aren't going to happen and the third would be such a major mistake that I can't believe that even Joe Biden would make it. After all, that would be World War III and it would be incredibly easy for that situation to spiral into a nuclear war. 

What gets me is that there isn't any pushback against these endless amounts of money being spent. You would think there would be bipartisan outrage about spending billions of dollars on Ukraine when there are so many other things that this money could be spent on. I am sure everyone reading this can think of plenty of things, but the folks in Washington don't seem to be able to. It's all just such a waste. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announces the arrest of 20 people for voter fraud in the 2020 election.

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Office of the Governor of Florida. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announces the arrest of 20 people who illegally voted in the 2020 election. CBS News. The arrests came from the Office of Election Crimes and Security, a newly created office that was created to investigate voter fraud. The people arrested were all convicted felons found guilty of murder or rape. Most Florida felons can get their voting rights restored but those convicted of rape or murder cannot. They face five years in prison and a $5000 fine. DeSantis also said that the state would be investigating illegal aliens and other foreign nationals that may have voted in 2020 as well. Unlike many other states, Florida's 2020 election ran very smoothly. 

My Comment:

I get the feeling that this kind of voter fraud happens all the time but isn't ever discovered because nobody asked the questions until now. Probably because if they did they would be finding prohibited felons voting all the time. In a close race it could obviously change the outcome of the election and given how close elections are these days it's a major concern. 

The voting rights of felons differs between states. Most states are like Florida where most voting rights are restored after the time is served. Some states do not allow felons to vote at all while others even allow felons to vote from prison! That's states rights for you, but it's only really a problem if people are voting against the law. 

You can argue the merits of giving felons their voting rights back or not. I wouldn't be totally opposed to it to certain non-violent criminals. There is something to be said about not punishing people forever if they have genuinely decided to reform. But the fact is that in most states these people are not allowed to vote when they are under supervision and there is no real process in place to keep these people from voting. I don't ever remember being asked if I was a felon when I registered to vote. 

It's unclear how bad of a problem this is because in most states nobody is asking these kinds of questions. Voter fraud is rarely found because voter fraud is not really investigated in any meaningful way. If all 50 states had a unit like the one they have in Florida we would have a much better idea how bad this problem really is. My gut says that felons illegally voting alone probably wouldn't matter in all but the most close races but we seem to have an awful lot of those lately. 

It's DeSantis' announcement that he is going after foreign nationals and criminal aliens voting that could be the gamebreaker. Many of those people are suspected to vote but in most states there is little to stop them from doing so. Given how many of them have stolen identities it would be quite a bit harder to detect than the felons as all you need to find felons is compare the voter roles to the criminal conviction records. 

But if you can detect when these people are voting illegally and prevent them from doing so you will almost certainly change the results of elections. If we had efforts in place to prevent illegal aliens and foreign nationals in place in 2020, I am confident that Donald Trump would be in office right now and Joe Biden would be nothing but a bad memory. 

I do have to say that I wonder if the Democrats will eventually care about the issue of illegals voting given their eroding support among Hispanics. It's obviously not fair to compare the voting preferences of legal Hispanic citizens and Hispanic criminal aliens, but given how many Hispanics don't seem to be on board with wokeness it might be something they could eventually worry about. 

Keep in mind that this happened in Florida. Unlike many states, Florida usually has their elections in good shape. They actually learned their lessons from the 2000 election and reformed their processes effectively. Most states aren't anywhere near as good as Florida so I am guessing they have much worse problems. 

This story also plays against the media lie that voter fraud simply doesn't happen and that you shouldn't ask any questions about it at all. Even in the CBS story they downplayed it and tried to cite the biased courts rejecting challenges, which isn't evidence of anything. 

I have always thought there has been widespread voter fraud in US elections and for obvious reasons. Unlike most countries there are entire states where you don't even have to show an ID to register to vote. Europeans are often baffled by our election processes when they hear about the total lack of election security most states have. I just voted in my primary election last week and even though I had to sign and show my ID I don't think it would be hard at all to vote illegally. 

I also admit that there is probably a lot of voter fraud on both sides. I know a few Republicans get arrested every cycle (and those news stories are always viral in the news) and I'm not entirely convinced that Stacy Abrams, for example, didn't win in 2018. I think it is more widespread on the Democrats side, due to their advantage in machine politics, organization and the fact that they control the cities. But it's an issue that happens on both sides and it's pretty inexplicable that the Democrats don't seem to think that it could ever be used against them. 

Either way, I'm not confident in our elections nationally. If I lived in Florida I would feel somewhat better but I don't and I really have no idea if my votes are wiped out by people voting illegally. That's a real problem because much of the country feels that way and if you can't trust elections then, well, nothing good comes from it. 

As for Ron DeSantis, I'm not sure what to think about him. I know that he is ambitious and I like almost all of his policies. But he isn't Donald Trump and I'm afraid that the left will try and use DeSantis as a tool to bring him down. At this moment I would be very pleased with either Trump or DeSantis as our next President but I do fear that the two will end up fighting eventually, which would be very damaging to the Republican Party. 

European power crisis gets worse with industry starting to feel the pinch.

 

A power station in Germany. Wikipedia user Arnoldius 

The European power crisis is getting worse with industries in Europe starting to feel the pinch. Bloomberg. German electricity prices has gone up 500% compared to last year, mostly due to sanctions on Russian energy. High energy industries, such as glass and metal producers, have had to cut production. For example, the Budel Zinc Smelter, the biggest in Europe, will halt production in the Netherlands next month. France, with its well developed nuclear power system, is usually the backbone of European power. But even they have had to import energy due to the crisis. To add onto the crisis many of Europe's rivers are at lower levels due to a massive drought, affecting hydropower in many countries and affecting coal deliveries. 

My Comment:

Europe is on the verge of collapse here. With energy prices skyrocketing eventually something is going to break and when it does it's going to break hard. Europe has a small window to reverse course as they could still lift Russian sanctions and get the gas pipelines flowing again, but I can't see that happening. Joe Biden is not only willing to defend Ukraine to the last Ukrainian he's willing to do so to every European as well. And I don't see any of these countries having enough of a backbone to tell Biden off. 

What is even worse for Europe is the low levels in their rivers complicates everything. The major drought there will hurt not only power generation and transportation, it will probably affect their crops and could cause food prices to spike as well. It's a perfect storm that could bring Europe to their knees. 

Keep in mind that we are still in summer, when electricity prices are low and most people aren't heating their homes. Europe only has a couple more months of that and pretty soon people will be turning on furnaces to heat their homes. And they will be using natural gas to do that. That will increase demands further and cause everything to spike. 

Already industry is starting to suffer in Europe. They will not be able to keep operating if fuel and energy prices continue to explode. Eventually the people in charge will realize that to continue operating will cost them more money than shutting down. The huge zinc smelter in the Netherlands is the first but far from the last major factor to shut down. 

This will have a ripple effect on the rest of the economy as it will put people out of work and those people will no longer be able to afford good and services. Obviously then companies that provide those goods and services will go out of business as well and pretty soon you are looking at a great European depression. 

America is insulated from much of this. We have vast supplies of energy and though we have to import some we aren't reliant on foreign imports for most of it. We might have to tighten our belt a bit because if the European economic collapse but we will still have a functioning country. Well as functioning as it can be with our current leadership. 

But Europe? People are going to die because of this. I especially fear for the elderly who might not be able to heat their homes this winter and may not be able to take advantage of other options. But there is a real chance of civil war or general unrest breaking out and that could cause massive problems for everyone. 

What is most frustrating is how pointless all of this is. Russia is going to win in Ukraine and even if they weren't these energy sanctions are doing more harm than good from the perspective of the sanctioners. Russia is not having any of the economic problems Europe is having right now because they are making money hand over fist due to high energy prices. It's totally pointless and it's like Europe is committing suicide for no reason.  

Liz Cheney loses her primary race against Harriet Hageman as voters punish her for her participation in the January 6th hearing.

 

Liz Cheney (left) and Harriet Hageman. Business Insider/Getty.

Liz Cheney has lost her Wyoming primary race against Harriet Hageman as voters punish her for her participation in the January 6th hearings. Business Insider. Though the final results have not been calculated yet, many major news organizations are calling the race for Hageman. Hageman was endorsed by Donald Trump after Cheney voted to impeach Trump for the January 6th incident. Cheney became persona non grata in the Republican Party after that, but she managed to raise a huge amount of money from out of state donors and Democrats. Democrats in Wyoming were encouraged to cross party lines and vote for Cheney but they had nowhere near the numbers to push Cheney over the line. 

My Comment:

Huh, it turns out that totally betraying your party and your constituents has consequences. Who would have ever thought that? Cheney's loss was pretty obvious and not a surprise at all. Wyoming was done with her the second she voted to impeach President Trump and participated in the January 6th show trial. 

I do think that it is important to note that even people that didn't like President Trump were sick of Cheney as well. There is something to be said for a politician that actually visits the state she is supposed to be representing. Cheney became utterly obsessed with Trump to the point where she didn't ever talk about something else. Instead of helping her people she only focused on hurting Trump. Regardless of what you feel about Trump, that's not what a member of the house is supposed to do.

I can't understate how damaging that was for Cheney. The people from Wyoming didn't want Cheney to focus on Trump. They wanted her to attempt to fix all the issues the country is having, like inflation, high gas prices and crime. And they didn't want someone who made nice with Democrats, they wanted someone that would spend more time fighting them than fighting her own party. 

As for Hageman, I know very little about her. The race wasn't about her, it was about Cheney and what she did. The Republicans could have ran just about anyone, outside of another anti-Trump "Republican" and they would have taken down Cheney. I am sure that Harriet Hageman has her own pros and cons, but the race wasn't about her. It was all about Cheney.

And I got the feeling that Cheney always wanted the race to be about her and Trump. She saw this as a referendum on Trump and she got her answer. But like I said before, even people that didn't like Trump were sick of Cheney. Keep in mind too, that Cheney won her seat easily back in the day, but now it wasn't even close. 

I do have to question her strategy here as well. She might have gotten more support if she had loudly rejected the Democrats that were helping her. When the most obvious flaw you have is that you are a Republican in name only, it's not a good idea to pony up to Democrats and take millions of dollars from them. If she hadn't done that she probably wouldn't have won, but she would have at least had some credibility left. 

I also don't think wheeling her father, Dick Cheney, was a great idea either. The Neocon wing of the Republican Party is dead and most of us now agree that Cheney wasn't a great Vice President. Indeed, most people now consider the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to have been a mistake and the party as a whole has swapped positions with the Democrats in terms of which party is anti-war. Reminding people that Cheney is not just anti-Trump, but a neocon as well, was not a good move. 

Of course, Cheney might be laughing her way to the bank here. There is a large demand for RINO's who can go onto cable news and agree with every liberal thing that the hosts say and badmouth Trump. Indeed, I have heard that she might end up being one of the hosts on The View, which would be lucrative for her. 

But her political career? It's dead as a doornail. I know that the media is pushing her as a 2024 Presidential Candidate but that's about as likely as me winning the GOP nod. The nomination is Donald Trump's if he wants it and if he doesn't than it's going to be Ron DeSantis. There is absolutely no desire for Cheney in the Republican party and she has no chance of even being a spoiler candidate in 2024. 

The Republican voters have punished the GOP members of the house that voted for impeachment. Of the 10 that voted to impeach only two are left with any chance of winning in 2022. It's not clear that either of them will win either since David Valdao and Dan Newhouse are in competitive districts that could fall to the Democrats. The rest have either decided to retire or, like Liz Cheney, have been kicked out of their seats during the primaries. If that's not proof that the Republican Party is now Donald Trump's I don't know what would be. 

US forces came under attack in Syria from drones.

 

The al-Tanf military base in Syria. The Hill/AP.

US forces came under drone attack in Syria's al-Tanf military base. The Hill. The al-Tanf military base is positioned on the border with Iraq and Jordan and is used to train and deploy anti-ISIS fighters. Two drones, armed with explosives, attacked the base. One was destroyed by the base defenses while the other managed to hit the base but caused no damage or casualties. No group has taken credit for the attack, but many militants operate near al-Tanf, which lies on a major supply line for Iran and their associated militias. Iran likely provided the drones used in the attack. 

My Comment:

This will be a short post largely because I wanted to point out that we still have troops in Syria. Syria has pretty much entirely disappeared from the headlines even though our troops come under attack there every so often. 

One does wonder what the point of keeping the al-Tanf base is anymore. The base was started to fight ISIS but ISIS is largely irrelevant these days and the vas majority of their fighters have been destroyed or captured. Clearly it's not about ISIS anymore, even though I guess it is possible that the terror group could come back at some point. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

My guess is that the base has little to do with ISIS at this point and is there instead to counter Iran and their allies. The article pointed out that al-Tanf is on the supply lines for Iran's militia and those militias are being used to attack Israel. They probably use the base as reconnaissance point to pass on that information to Israel. 

That probably explains why the base was attacked, though. The Iranian militants don't want to be spied on and that's why they launched the attack. Fortunately it failed pretty miserably. It is somewhat disturbing that one of the drones was able to get through the defenses, but in the end this was a pretty minor encounter. 

The FBI issues unhinged warning about a dirty bomb attack in response to the FBI raid on Donald Trump.

 

Police speak to a woman outside of Mar-A-Lago. Fox News/Reuters.

The FBI has issued a warning about a dirty bomb attack and other violent threats against the FBI in response to their raid on Donald Trump's home at Mar-A-Lago. Fox News. The raid against Trump has proven to be extremely controversial. The bulletin released by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security claims that there has been an increase of threats since the raid, specifically citing a threat to place a dirty bomb in front of the FBI headquarters. They also note that calls for civil war and armed rebellion has increased dramatically. The bulletin also claims that there have been threats against the agents and the judge that executed the raid. There has been one incident of violence, but that violence happened on the 11th and involved an incompetent attack on an FBI field office where nobody died but the attacker. 

My Comment:

What a joke. I don't believe for a second that there is anyone trying to blow up FBI headquarters with a dirty bomb. That's not credible and the only way that could happen is if the FBI tries to do it themselves. Dirty bomb attacks are not something that an unorganized lone wolf could pull off and even a well funded and professional group would have an extreme difficulty pulling it off without the plot being revealed and disrupted. 

I don't doubt that there has been death threats against the FBI for this. The truth of the matter is that people get death threats if they do anything even remotely controversial. Given that the raid on Mar-A-Lago is the most controversial thing the FBI has done with only the Ruby Ridge and Waco massacres being in the same ballpark, it would not surprise me that people are threatening the FBI.

That isn't to say that I agree with threatening the FBI. I don't, not so much because I like the FBI, but because it's counterproductive. Not only does it accomplish any kind of reform at the FBI, it can get you a quick trip to prison. Plus they will use these threats justify continued terrible treatment of US citizens. 

So is there a threat from violence and terrorism? Yes, of course. But I think most of it remains from both the left and from Islamic terrorism. After all, we are only two years removed from the worst outbreak of political violence this country has had in years. I am of course referring to the George Floyd riots. Unlike the people on the right, hardly any of those people got properly punished. It just goes to show how biased the FBI is. They will stop out even the mildest protest from the right but they will let the left get away with burning down entire cities. 

This kind of bias is the entire problem in the first place. The FBI has shown themselves to be incredibly biased and is targeting people based on their political beliefs and not anything they actually have done. What is really bad for the FBI is that they have never been popular on the left. But now they have pissed away the last supporters they had on the right. Disdain for the "feds" was mostly outside of the Overton Window for people on the right, mostly found on the fringe. But now it's a fairly centrist and popular position.

Violence is possible of course and that is always the case. There have always been unhinged people, like presumably the guy that wasted his life attacking the FBI on the 11th. And I do think that an important line has been crossed. The right understands now that the FBI specifically and the federal government in general are not their friends.  

There are a few things that make violence, or even civil war, likely. The first is that people still have it pretty good in the United States. Even though things have gotten really bad since Biden got elected, people are still mostly able to feed their families. People still have something to lose.

Another reason is that people still think that elections could potentially fix this. This belief in elections may be rather misguided considering the absolute debacle that has been the elections since 2020. Even if you don't believe that there was widespread voter fraud, and there was, you can't argue that the elections were well run and had quick, trustworthy results. Plus, we already elected Donald Trump once and he wasn't able to get rid of the rot. A 2nd term might help things, along with a blowout in the 2022 midterms but then again it might now. Still, even then people still believe in elections and as long as that is an option I think we will probably avoid widespread violence. 

So if widespread violence is unlikely, why did the FBI send out such a stark warning? Because they know they did something unforgivable and are at real risk of being disbanded or reformed. Their only hope is to portray their critics as dangerous. 

CDC eases Coronavirus guidelines.

 

A man gets tested for the Coronavirus. ABC News/AP.

The CDC has eased Coronavirus guidelines for unvaccinated people. ABC News. In the past the CDC recommended unvaccinated people to quarantine after an exposure. Now they recommend unvaccinated people to do exactly what they recommend for vaccinated people, wearing a mask for 10 days and getting tested after five. The CDC also now recommends that infected people test twice in 48 hours after symptoms end to end their isolation. The so called "test to stay" school policy is no longer needed because they no longer need to isolate after being exposed to the virus. This means that children will not have to stay home from school after being exposed to the virus. Most notably, the CDC no longer requires people to test while asymptomatic while finally getting rid of the six feet distance for most people. 

My Comment:

It's probably not too wise of me to cover this story as my recent posts on the Coronavirus have not done well in terms of views and income. That being said, I do think it's fairly hilarious that the CDC has updated their guidelines.

Why? Because I don't know anyone who follows these guidelines. I know I sure don't. I haven't isolated once after being exposed to the virus. Largely because if I had I would have lost weeks or even months of works. I've been exposed dozens of times now and as far as I know I have never gotten the virus. Plus I just don't care anymore. About the most I did in the later stages of the virus outbreak was put of visits with my elderly parents after an exposure. 

The real important one is that the CDC is no longer recommending the test to stay policy, which, from what I understand, has been a disaster. I'm not a parent myself but I know plenty of people who are and they have complained to me that they weren't able to send their kids to school even though they weren't sick. Given the low risk of the virus to children in general, it never made sense to keep kids out of school. 

Most of the other stuff is inside baseball stuff that was only relevant if your work or school enforcement. I don't think anyone was following these guidelines in their personal lives, other than the people that worship the CDC. 

Getting rid of the six feet rule is somewhat baffling but the rule itself was at the same time. It was never really based on any science, they just realized that the virus spread through the air and then picked a random number out of a hat. Given that our society is generally one that likes close contact in the first place, the rule was probably unnecessary in the first place, though I have noticed that people aren't crowding as much when in line at the gas station. 

What gets me about the CDC is that everything has pretty much gone back to normal and they are still acting like this pandemic is still a big deal. The current forms of the virus are essentially a cold or flu virus with the vast majority of people not getting severely ill. Sure, a few people are dying, but people die from the flu all the time too, so I don't understand why they are still even trying. 

Iranian military official charged with attempting to murder former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

 

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton. CBS News/AFP/Getty.

An Iranian military official has been charged with attempting to murder former National Security Advisor John Bolton. CBS News.  Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was charged with attempting to arrange the murder which was in retaliation for Bolton's role in the killing of Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani. Poursafi allegedly offered $300,000 to people in the United States to commit the murder. Iran denied the existence of the plot and dismissed the charges. Poursafi was in contact with an informant who claimed that Poursafi wanted to have Bolton run down with a car while he was walking in a park or attacking him in a parking garage. Poursafi remains at large in Iran. 

My Comment:

I'm more than a little skeptical of this report. Though Iran has the motive, means and opportunity to order an assassination against John Bolton, the source for this is the FBI, and they have almost zero credibility these days. We are talking about a law enforcement agency that raided a former president for no legitimate reason just a couple of days ago. 

The other problem with this is that I would have thought that Iran had enough sleeper agents in the United States that they could simply activate one of them to attack Bolton. I know that under President Trump, most Iranians were prevented from entering the country but I am sure that before then many Iranian immigrants were agents of Iran or Hezbollah. 

But it is always possible they wanted a deniable asset or most of their sleeper cells got exposed and arrested. In that case this scenario could be plausible that someone like Poursafi would try and organize a hit. If that was what happened it is not surprising that the scheme fell apart. 

Most attempts to hire a hitman in the United States fail, largely because people aren't really willing to kill people for money given the high chances of getting caught. And the vast majority of 'hitmen" are police or federal agents. 

Indeed, the dollar amount quoted seems insultingly low. I would figure a legit hitman would go for at least seven figures given the huge amount of danger the hitman would have to go through. I can't imagine trying to deal with all the risk for only $300,000. The fact that the hitman was willing to agree with that should have been a huge red flag for Poursafi. 

I do have to say that doing this would probably cause a huge amount of blowback for Iran. I know that John Bolton is not popular among the left or right these days, but he's still a major former official and killing him would probably be an act of war. I can't imagine going to war over John Bolton (though I doubt he would mind, he would love that) and I think that any conflict would be limited. Then again, this is the Joe Biden White House we are talking about, the are famous for doing the wrong thing at all time. 

What does surprise me is that Bolton was the target, not President Donald Trump himself. I hate to think about it but if Iran really wanted to screw over the United States I can't think of a better way. I doubt anyone would believe that it was anyone other than the Biden White House if Trump somehow ended up being attacked, or, god forbid, killed. Given how high tensions are right now it would be a move that the Iranians could take with little risk to themselves. Let's hope the Secret Service is up for the job of protecting him... 

Ukraine halts oil deliveries to central Europe due to sanctions on Russia.

 

The receiver station of the Druzhba pipeline between Hungary and Russia. Reuters. 

Ukraine has halted oil deliveries to central Europe, citing sanctions on Russia as the reason. Reuters. The sanctions prevented Ukraine for accepting Russian transit fees, forcing them to cut off the oil. The flow on the southern Druzhba pipeline serves Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, all of which are almost totally dependent on Russian oil and are unable to easily import oil from overseas. The northern Druzhba pipeline, that supplies Germany and Poland, has remained unaffected. Oil prices jumped on the news before stabilizing later in the day.  

My Comment:

This is terrible news for central Europe and yet another own goal by the EU. None of this has any reason to be happening and it's all on Europe for imposing these sanctions in the first place. And these central European countries are going to pay a terrible price. 

These countries also have very little in the way of options to find other sources of oil. All three countries are landlocked and will have to work through other countries to get their oil. Slovakia is the worst off since they get their oil from Hungary which is affected by this oil shutdown. 

Many news articles are blaming this on Russia but I don't think that's fair. I also don't really think that that Ukraine is to blame either. This is all on Europe since they are the ones that put sanctions into place. Ukraine and Russia seem to have no problem in allowing Russian oil to go to Europe. Only Europe itself has a problem with that. 

The other problem is that this will almost certainly help Putin and Russia. He might sell less oil to central Europe but remember, it's only one section of one pipeline that is being cut off. These countries being cut off from Russian oil will force them to supply from other sources, which will increase demand on those sources which will lead to higher oil prices. Since high oil prices have basically funded the Ukraine war for Russia, it's not a loss for them. 

Who will be damaged for this is central Europe. Remember, high oil prices affect basically everything that has to be transported, so that means inflation is going to increase in these countries. It may even lead to shortages which can easily shut down economic activity. This is going to put extreme pressure on these countries to lift these sanctions. 

And at this point, why wouldn't they? They aren't doing anything to harm Russia, indeed, they are helping them. It is going to massively hurt these countries and raise oil prices across the board. To keep them is just stupid but that seems to be the running them with western leadership these days... 

Unforgivable. The FBI raids Donald Trump's residence in Mar-A-Lago.

 

Donald Trump waves to supporters in New York after the raid. Fox News.

The FBI has raided Donald Trump's residence in Mar-A-Lago. Fox News. The raid pertains to an investigation on documents that Trump took with him after his term ended. Some of those documents were supposedly classified, though as President, Trump would be the final authority of what is classified or not. Sources say that the raid broke into a safe that Trump had installed at Mar-A-Lago but nothing was found. The FBI took many boxes without going through them. Trump was in New York when the raid happened. The raid is beyond unprecedented and raises huge issues as no former President has been investigated like this. Even more concerning is the fact that Donald Trump is almost certainly running in 2024 against Joe Biden. 

President Trump released a statement about the event:

 

pic.twitter.com/1SqRDsVKLL

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 8, 2022

My Comment:

This is a crossing the Rubicon moment for the Joe Biden White House. It's the moment where it's no longer possible to argue that the Biden regime is in any way legitimate whatsoever. Sending armed men to raid you most likely political opponent reeks of the third world and is not something that a legitimate government does. 

It doesn't remotely matter if Trump did anything wrong or not. I think it's pretty obvious he didn't, as President he had a right to that classified material and could obviously choose to bring it with him. The legal argument is iron clad and would be easily be overturned in court. But regardless, like so many things involving the federal government, the process is the punishment. 

The entire goal here is to discredit Trump's 2024 run and once again make it look like he did something wrong. It's the same tired playbook they have been running since he took the oath of office, and even before. What is amazing to me is that it hasn't worked once but they keep trying the same thing. They knew that they are in extreme trouble for the midterms and they know that nobody is paying attention to their January 6th kangaroo court joke. So this is what they came up with. 

The problem here is that people know that this is politically motivated and understand that if you upset the powers that be that you can be targeted like this as well. I also don't think it's a coincidence that the newest legislation released by congress will also hire a huge number of IRS agents that will almost certainly be used against anyone that protests this regime. 

I also have no doubt that there is anything even remotely salacious it will leak. The FBI has already proven themselves to be corrupt and everything in Washington DC leaks like a sieve. It won't matter at all that it would be illegal to do so.

Politically, this appears to be one of the biggest own goals in history. This is going to absolutely infuriate the right to the point that it could result in violence. I've already heard that there are going to be protests against the FBI and that's just the start. Needless to say that even Trump's opponents are going to be furious about this because they know that they could be next to face a politically motivated joke of an investigation like this. And the voters? The voters will crawl through broken glass just vote for people that will put a stop to this. 

What gets me about this is that this is exactly what the media was saying Trump would do to his political opponents. And given the fact that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Big Guy himself, Joe Biden, are hilariously corrupt, Trump would have been more than justified in doing so. But he realized that doing so would be an own goal and the only thing he did was a token investigation into Joe Biden's Ukraine corruption and he was impeached for it. 

Speaking of impeachment, Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Chris Ray will likely be impeached for this. Targeting your political opponents is not something that is going to be tolerated. I don't know that Republicans will have the votes to remove any of them after the 2022 midterms but even then, it's going to happen. 

Another reason this is an act of utter insanity is that if it somehow works and prevents Donald Trump from running it means that the 2024 candidate will almost certainly be Ron DeSantis, which is an own goal. Though I support Trump in 2024, I have to admit that DeSantis would be a major threat to the Democrats as not only is he a pit fighter, he has the advantage of not having been slandered for the past six years... 

Finally, I think there is a small chance of this being the thing that finally launches the 2nd American Civil War. At this point, what do Republicans have to lose? We already know that our elections aren't secure and we now know that the federal government will mess with us regardless. At what point do people start to think "we have nothing else to lose, might as well?" That's not what I want but if the Biden regime keeps acting like this it might be what happens...