Author: Papa Giorgio

Red States vs. Blue States (Supply-n-Demand)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I wanted to share two articles to exemplify and introduction to a HERITAGE FOUNDATION article about competition between states. The first is this article found over at HOT AIR, and it shows the damage that distortions to supply and demand for some sort of egalitarian or environmental concern can have on productive endeavors that increase the wealth of the common man. Wealth creation in other words:

If you know anything about New York in the modern era (both the state and the Big Apple), you’re likely aware that it’s not exactly a friendly landscape for the oil and gas industry. The “Keep it in the ground” crowd has a lot of influence with the Democrats who control the government. That[‘s] why, back in 2013, when the new Constitution Pipeline was proposed to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania’s rich shale oil fields to New York, activists were able to block the construction despite it already having been approved by federal regulators. Similarly, when National Grid (the local energy consortium) requested an extension to the Williams Co. Transco pipeline, they were also tied up because of the outcry from environmental activists.

Here comes the surprise that nobody could have possibly seen coming. The city and its surrounding downstate region are still expanding with new construction projects, but their energy suppliers have told them that they will not be able to supply natural gas to any new customers because they’re already at capacity. (NY Post)

Long Islanders were recently hit with bad news. National Grid, which provides natural gas for nearly 600,000 Long Island residents, announced it won’t be able to provide fuel for new customers if the proposed Williams Co. Transco pipeline expansion isn’t approved by May 15.

Earlier this year, energy company Con Ed imposed a similar moratorium on new natural-gas service in parts of Westchester County due to limited capacity on existing pipelines. These crises are completely avoidable…

For too long, politicians like Gov. Andrew Cuomo and their ill-considered energy policies have hampered the development of safe, efficient energy infrastructure, subjecting American consumers to unnecessarily high energy costs and unreliable service.

So you don’t want pipelines, eh? But you say you’d like to build more houses, apartments and office buildings? Well, you’d better figure out how to cook your food and heat your living spaces with solar panels pretty quickly because (to borrow a phrase from GoT) winter is coming. And so is lunchtime…..

The second article deals with on the one hand a Utopian [mis]understanding of alternative energy and it’s own “supply-and-demand” features built into the environmentalist hypothesis (that in the end do not fit reality). I have said for years that the supply of heavy metals and lithium which are the main ingredient to make power cells for cell phones and laptops (small/reasonable), to a whole swath of them in rows in electric cars (unreasonable).

Let me explain why I just said “unreasonable.” These ventures with Tesla and other manufacturers of electric vehicles are not a “supply-and-demand” by the free market. These ventures into wind, solar, and electric vehicles ONLY EXIST because our government has funded their “viability” in a world that if left to stand on their own would go out of business. The technology is old and never really worked, and the only people that buy Teslas, as an example, are the rich, and they are given a form of welfare to do so. (In other words, the rich are getting a form of bailout by environmentalists that say the rich are ruining the environment.)

Here is POWERLINE’S article in part:

“Green” advocates aspire to power the entire U.S. electrical system with wind and solar energy. How are they going to do that, given that wind turbines produce electricity only around 40% of the time, and solar panels produce electricity, in most areas, less than 25% of the time? The truthful answer is that whenever utilities build (or contract with) a wind farm or a solar installation, they also build a natural gas plant to provide electricity during the majority of the time when the “green” resources are idle. This is why wind and solar energy, unlike nuclear power, actually lock us into fossil fuel use for the indefinite future.

Of course, green power advocates don’t admit that they plan on using natural gas forever. They hold out hope that electricity produced by wind and solar facilities will be stored in batteries–giant ones, I assume–so that it can be used when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. No such batteries exist, of course, which is why they are not already in use. And any existing or foreseeable battery technology would rely on vast amounts of lithium, which must be mined.

Currently, the Chinese are “rush[ing] to dominate the global supply of lithium.” We do have lithium deposits in the United States, notably in the Panamint Valley of California. The Los Angeles Times reports: “A war is brewing over lithium mining at the edge of Death Valley.”

Recently, the Australia-based firm Battery Mineral Resources Ltd. asked the federal government for permission to drill four exploratory wells to see if the hot, salty brine beneath the valley floor contains economically viable concentrations of lithium. …

The drilling request has generated strong opposition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Defenders of Wildlife, who say the drilling project would be an initial step toward the creation of a full-scale lithium mining operation.

That is the idea, I suppose.

[….]

Does it matter? There is great demand for lithium used in existing technologies–phones, laptops, electric vehicles, and so on. But the idea that batteries of any foreseeable design will combine with wind turbines and solar panels to satisfy America’s need for electricity is a fantasy. For one thing, batteries of the requisite capacity would be prohibitively expensive. It has been calculated that, using the most advanced battery technology on the market, Tesla’s 100 MW, 129 MWh battery in use in South Australia, it would cost $133 billion to store the electricity needs of my state, Minnesota, for 24 hours. That is more than one-third of the state’s annual GDP…..

AGAIN, the immutable law of supply-and-demand will come into play in rising prices of “alternative energy” and scarcity of availability… based on egalitarian environmental concerns. N O W, here is the intro to the HERITAGE FOUNDATION article noting the differences between blue-state policies and red-state policies… much of which is based on supply-and-demand regarding energy needs:

The competition among the states is becoming more intense as businesses become more mobile. Toyota and Boeing are two high-profile employers in America that have crossed state borders because of the policy advantages of one state over another. Toyota moved from high-income-tax California to no-income-tax Texas, and Boeing, based in Washington, a forced-union state, opened a new plant in South Carolina, which has a right-to-work (RTW) law. Texas Governor Rick Perry and California Governor Jerry Brown have openly sparred in recent years about which state is more pro-business. Interstate competition allows governors and legislators to learn from each other about which policies create wealth and which policies diminish wealth inside their borders.

In recent years, governors have generally divided into two competing camps, which we call the “red state model” and the “blue state model,” raising the stakes in this interstate competition. The conservative red state model is predicated on low tax rates, right-to-work laws, light regulation, and pro-energy development policies. This policy strategy is now common in most of the Southern states and the more rural and mountain states. Meanwhile, the liberal blue state model is predominantly found in the Northeast, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and, until recently, Michigan and Ohio. The blue states have doubled down on policies that include high levels of government spending, high income tax rates on the rich, generous welfare benefits, forced-union requirements, super-minimum-wage laws, and restrictions on oil and gas drilling.

In no area are the effects of these competing models more evident than in tax policy changes of recent years. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon have raised their income tax rates on “the rich” since 2008.[1] In four of these states, the combined state and local income tax rate exceeds 10 percent, reaching 13.3 percent in California and 12.7 percent in New York.[2] Meanwhile, the “red states” of Arizona, Arkansas,[3] Kansas,[4] Missouri,[5] North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Idaho[6] have cut their tax rates. This has widened the income tax differential between blue states and red states for businesses and upper-income families.

Similarly, red states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and North Dakota have embraced the oil and gas drilling revolution in America. Blue states such as New York, Vermont, Illinois, and California have resisted it. Blue states have raised their minimum wages; red states generally have not.

In this study, which is a summary of our recent book with Rex Sinquefield and Travis Brown, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of States: How Taxes, Energy, and Worker Freedom Will Change the Balance of Power Among States, we examine whether these policy differentials matter and, if so, by how much.

The answer is that the states’ policy choices on taxes, regulation, energy policy, labor laws, educational choice, and so forth have a large and in most cases a statistically significant impact on the prosperity of states over each 10-year time frame examined on a rolling basis from 1970 to 2012. There are always exceptions to the rule, but in most cases the red state model is substantially outperforming the blue state model.

We find in particular that two policies matter most. Right-to-work states substantially outperform non–right-to-work states, and states with no or low income taxes have a much better economic record than high-income-tax states…..

John Solomon Breaks News On Christopher Steele

Published by Papa Giorgio

These are two separate interviews (May 8th and May 9th) with John Solomon regarding some documents and information being made public through the freedom of information act (and other sources). Yes, you have to sit through the screeds of Sean Hannity, but the legal acumen of Gregg Jarrett (part of the May 8th interview) and the investigative reporting of Mr. Solomon, make for a worthy 30-minutes.

RELATED:

  • Steele’s Stunning Pre-FISA Confession: Informant Needed to Air Trump Dirt Before Election (THE HILL)
  • FBI’s Steele Story Falls Apart: False Intel and Media Contacts Were Flagged Before FISA (THE HILL)

Also, Jim Jordan’s recap the other day is worth watching:

The NYTs Rehashed Old News As New News (Trump Taxes)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Rush Limbaugh does a great job in comparing New York Time’s articles from 2016 to this story (2019), as well as the news coverage from those years. He ends the show with the first season of Apprentice, which aired in 2004 — where Donald admits to being dead broke at one point, a billion+ in the hole. It is soo funny what people glom-on-to. I add the opener video to The Apprentice to the beginning, but keep just the audio to Rush’s ending. (“I won, bigly…” This line has always cracked me up! Who says that? Trump does, that’s who.)

See my previous uploads on this here:

Paul Krugman Steps In It (Again)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Another Fail by the Left’s “economist” (see my TAG for all the posts on Krugman via RPT) — via TWITCHY.

OTHER FAILED PREDICTIONS (short list):

Remember when Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman made the call two and a half years ago now that global stock markets would collapse because of newly elected President Trump? The political novice and general societal delinquent would trigger a recession, Krugman wrote in The New York Times. The only thing triggered was Krugman himself and countless others who have been predicting the Apocolypse since November 2016… (FORBES)

…Even if he’s a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature deaths of a large number of Americans. Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists, some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to Hurricane Maria. Some will come from the administration’s continuing efforts to sabotage Obamacare. BUT THE BIGGEST DEATH TOLL IS LIKELY TO COME FROM TRUMP’S AGENDA OF DEREGULATION.

Yes, doomsday is truly upon us. We’re all being led to the slaughter by a tangerine-hued Antichrist. An evil scum-bucket hellbent on putting lead in our tap water and denying us the skyrocketing premiums under Obamacare. This is all our fault for having to audacity to believe in individual rights.

According to lefties like Krugman, a centralized government is the only thing which can save us from ourselves. We must dispense of our individual desires and prostrate ourselves at the altar of the almighty state. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more wimptastic doucheburrito dying to be told what to do… (STEVEN CROWDER)

…Krugman predicted in 1998 that the Internet would have little effect on the economy and commerce, with “no greater impact than the fax machine”. That’s Paul, always out for laughs, endless entertainment.

In 2003, he claimed California’s taxes are “now probably below average”, when California’s taxes were then ranked eighth-highest among 50 states, and headed higher. In 2010, Krugman falsified a quote by Newt Gingrich, deceived his readers about Obamacare by misrepresenting data contained in a report he quoted, and in 2011 praised Veterans Affairs Administration as a triumph of “socialized medicine”. Krugman ignored the glaring truth about U.S. debt in 2014 by calling it “distinctly non-alarming”.

When America’s oil-fracking industry started up, he predicted that the U.S. was going to be “just a bystander” in global energy markets. In 2012, “Wrong-Way” Krugman opined that the soon-to-default economy of Argentina will be “a remarkable success story”. He predicted in 2015, “the Puerto Rico story is one (that will) fall well short of utter disaster”, and said what will save their economy is “the saving grace (of) big government”… (BIZPIC)

Another MSM Story Down in Flames

Published by Papa Giorgio

If there was one thing I have learned over the years of attacks against Bush over eight years, and now Trump… the rule of thumb is to wait about a week (or more) for the truth of the situation to come out. This is a prime example. Many who have a visceral hatred for Trump immediately jump on the band wagon [just like BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome — there is TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome]… and… the below meme is a prime example.

During conversation with a Facebook friend about a meme posted regarding the Dianne Feinstein with Attorney General Bill Barr, I linked the FULL exchange to the exchange. After some talk, the below meme was posted:

Not a day after he posted the above, a writer I check in with daily had this post, entitled: “NBC NEWS MAKES CORRECTION TO TRUMP-PUTIN STORY.” In it she notes:

After incorrectly reporting that President Trump had discussed former White House counsel Don McGhan’s potential testimony in the House with Russian President Vladimir Putin, NBC News was forced to issue a correction:

CORRECTION (May 3,2019, 1:51 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly included one topic that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Presidents Trump and Putin discussed on Friday. They did not discuss the possibility of former White House counsel Don McGahn appearing before Congress. Sanders was answering a question from reporters about whether McGahn would testify before Congress.

HILARIOUS. I bet “unnamed sources” are at the center of this story. You can add this to the TRUMP IS CHUMMY WITH PUTIN conspiracy the Left and NeverTrumpers have:

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the U.S. has a full range of options available to help oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and didn’t rule out “ultimately” using military action on top of diplomatic, political and other pressure points.

“We’re preparing those for him so that when the situation arises, we’re not flat-footed,’’ Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week,” one of three scheduled appearances on Sunday morning political shows.

[….]

Trump on Friday said Russian President Vladimir Putin assured him he isn’t seeking to “get involved” in the crisis, although Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton both said earlier in the week that the Kremlin talked Maduro out of leaving Venezuela after U.S.-backed Guaido attempted to end his regime by calling for a military uprising.

“The president has made clear, we want everyone out, and that includes the Russians,” Pompeo said.

 

Fear of Barr (Strassel)

Published by Papa Giorgio

HUGH HEWITT reads Kimberly Strassel’s column, earlier today:

A little POWRLINE intro please: The Democrats’ hysteria over Attorney General William Barr is directly proportional to their fear of the damage they fear he might do, Kim Strassel explains in her Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch column HERE:

The only thing uglier than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And fear is what’s driving this week’s blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr.

Mr. Barr tolerantly sat through hours of Democratic insults at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His reward for his patience was to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a lawbreaking, dishonest, obstructing hack. Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly accused Mr. Barr of lying to Congress, which, she added, is “considered a crime.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will move to hold Mr. Barr in contempt unless the attorney general acquiesces to the unprecedented demand that he submit to cross-examination by committee staff attorneys. James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lamented that Donald Trump had “eaten” Mr. Barr’s “soul.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands the attorney general resign. California Rep. Eric Swalwell wants him impeached.

These attacks aren’t about special counsel Robert Mueller, his report or even the surreal debate over Mr. Barr’s first letter describing the report. The attorney general delivered the transparency Democrats demanded: He quickly released a lightly redacted report, which portrayed the president in a negative light. What do Democrats have to object to?

Some of this is frustration. Democrats foolishly invested two years of political capital in the idea that Mr. Mueller would prove President Trump had colluded with Russia, and Mr. Mueller left them empty-handed. Some of it is personal. Democrats resent that Mr. Barr won’t cower or apologize for doing his job. Some is bitterness that Mr. Barr is performing like a real attorney general, making the call against obstruction-of-justice charges rather than sitting back and letting Democrats have their fun with Mr. Mueller’s obstruction innuendo.

But most of it is likely fear. Mr. Barr made real news in that Senate hearing, and while the press didn’t notice, Democrats did. The attorney general said he’d already assigned people at the Justice Department to assist his investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. He said his review would be far-reaching—that he was obtaining details from congressional investigations, from the ongoing probe by the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and even from Mr. Mueller’s work. Mr. Barr said the investigation wouldn’t focus only on the fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against Trump team members but would go back months earlier.

He also said he’d focus on the infamous “dossier” concocted by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and British former spy Christopher Steele, on which the FBI relied so heavily in its probe. Mr. Barr acknowledged his concern that the dossier itself could be Russian disinformation, a possibility he described as not “entirely speculative.” He also revealed that the department has “multiple criminal leak investigations under way” into the disclosure of classified details about the Trump-Russia investigation.

Do not underestimate how many powerful people in Washington have something to lose from Mr. Barr’s probe. Among them: Former and current leaders of the law-enforcement and intelligence communities. The Democratic Party pooh-bahs who paid a foreign national (Mr. Steele) to collect information from Russians and deliver it to the FBI. The government officials who misused their positions to target a presidential campaign. The leakers. The media. More than reputations are at risk. Revelations could lead to lawsuits, formal disciplinary actions, lost jobs, even criminal prosecution.

The attacks on Mr. Barr are first and foremost an effort to force him out, to prevent this information from coming to light until Democrats can retake the White House in 2020. As a fallback, the coordinated campaign works as a pre-emptive smear, diminishing the credibility of his ultimate findings by priming the public to view him as a partisan.

That’s why Mr. Barr isn’t alone in getting slimed. Natasha Bertrand at Politico last month penned a hit piece on the respected Mr. Horowitz. It’s clear the inspector general is asking the right questions. The Politico article acknowledges he’s homing in on Mr. Steele’s “credibility” and the dossier’s “veracity”—then goes on to provide a defense of Mr. Steele and his dossier, while quoting unnamed sources who deride the “quality” of the Horowitz probe, and (hilariously) claim the long-tenured inspector general is not “well-versed” in core Justice Department functions.

“We have to stop using the criminal-justice process as a political weapon,” Mr. Barr said Wednesday. The line didn’t get much notice, but that worthy goal increasingly looks to be a reason Mr. Barr accepted this unpleasant job. Stopping this abuse requires understanding how it started. The liberal establishment, including journalists friendly with it, doesn’t want that to happen, and so has made it a mission to destroy Mr. Barr. The attorney general seems to know what he’s up against, and remains undeterred. That’s the sort of steely will necessary to right the ship at the Justice Department and the FBI.

You Want Real Collusion? Here Ya Go:

Published by Papa Giorgio

I hope the peeps are following the latest by:

Here is the segments from Hannity w/John Solomon and itthe lead up:

 

The Washington Post Steps In It Again #FakeNewsHeadline

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder dismantles the Washington Post’s VERY misleading headline, “Mueller Complained To Barr About His Summary Of Russia Probe.” You have to read to the 13th paragraph to read this:

  • “…nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading…”

(DAILY WIRE | PJ-MEDIA)

Talk about FAKENEWS HEADLINES!

I added some video of Ted Cruz, as well as James Evans Jr. (JJ from the CBS television series Good Times) — WHY YOU ASK — because when “the Sage” acted out Bill Barr calling Mueller, it reminded me of this. I add Stewie Griffin from Family Guy for good measure in my “video ‘added emphasis’.”

Who Are the Racists?

Published by Papa Giorgio

To call someone a racist is a serious charge. A racist is someone who believes that one person is superior (or inferior) to another person simply based on their skin color. It’s a belief that is both foolish and stupid. But conservatives are accused by progressives of being racist on an almost daily basis. Is it a fair accusation? Or, is it just political posturing? And, if it is political posturing, what does it say about the people making the charge? Derryck Green of Project 21 has some provocative answers.