BIG SISTER IS WATCHING YOU: Climate-Change Censorship: Phase Two. Now Gina McCarthy tells Big Tech to stifle debate global-warming policy responses.

A few years ago, Facebook enlisted third-party “fact checkers” to review news stories about climate. That didn’t satisfy Democratic Senators who howled about a “loophole” for opinion pieces. Facebook then began appending fact-checks to op-eds, including by our contributors Bjorn Lomborg and Steven Koonin, that criticized apocalyptic climate models and studies. The goal was to restrict readership.

IT’S NOT JUST THE WAPO AND THE GRAY LADY: How Meltdowns Brought Progressive Groups to a Standstill.

Executive directors across the space said they too have tried to organize their hiring process to filter out the most disruptive potential staff. “I’m now at a point where the first thing I wonder about a job applicant is, ‘How likely is this person to blow up my organization from the inside?’” said one, echoing a refrain heard repeatedly during interviews for this story. (One executive director noted that their group’s high-profile association with a figure considered in social justice spaces to be problematic had gone from a burden to a boon, as the man now serves as an accidental screen, filtering out activists who’d be most likely to focus their energy on internal fights rather than the organization’s mission.)

Another leader said the strife has become so destructive that it feels like an op. “I’m not saying it’s a right-wing plot, because we are incredibly good at doing ourselves in, but — if you tried — you couldn’t conceive of a better right-wing plot to paralyze progressive leaders by catalyzing the existing culture where internal turmoil and microcampaigns are mistaken for strategic advancement of social impact for the millions of people depending on these organizations to stave off the crushing injustices coming our way,” said another longtime organization head. “Progressive leaders cannot do anything but fight inside the orgs, thereby rendering the orgs completely toothless for the external battles in play. … Everyone is scared, and fear creates the inaction that the right wing needs to succeed in cementing a deeply unpopular agenda.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, as entry-level staffers for Sanders repeatedly agitated over internal dynamics, despite having already formed a staff union, the senator issued a directive to his campaign leadership: “Stop hiring activists.” Instead, Sanders implored, according to multiple campaign sources, the campaign should focus on bringing on people interested first and foremost in doing the job they’re hired to do.

The reckoning has coincided with an awakened and belated appreciation for diversity in the upper ranks of progressive organizations. The mid-2010s saw an influx of women into top roles for the first time, many of them white, followed more recently by a slew of Black and brown leaders at most major organizations. One compared the collision of the belated respect for Black leaders and the upswell of turmoil inside institutions with the “hollow prize” thesis. The most common example of the hollow prize is the victory in the 1970s and ’80s of Black mayors across the country, just as cities were being hollowed out and disempowered. Or, for instance, salaries in the medical field collapsed just as women began graduating into the field.

“I just got the keys and y’all are gonna come after me on this shit?” one executive director who said he felt like a version of those ’70s-era mayors told The Intercept. “‘It’s white supremacy culture! It’s urgent!’ No motherfucker, it’s Election Day. We can’t move that day. Just do your job or go somewhere else.”

Found via John Sexton, who writes:

There’s so much more to say about this but for now I’d just recommend reading all of it. Also, I have to give the Intercept credit for publishing this and Ryan Grim especially deserves credit for reporting on something that really is red meat for people like me who’ve been arguing for years that woke culture was a destructive force that was sweeping its way through society. I think this article represents the death of the kind of leftist denialism that was put forward for years by people like Alex Pareene and many others. For a long time they treated conservative claims about woke extremism on campus as either unfounded or exaggerated. Now that it’s eating their own institutions alive I think it’s clear they were wrong and we were right.

Flashback: Is Safetyism Destroying a Generation?

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Nevada lithium mine pits Biden green agenda against radical environmentalists.

CAROL ROTH: Debunked and Explained: No, greedy oil companies are not to blame for gas prices.

U.S. gas prices hit an average of $5 per gallon for the first time last week, according to AAA. Americans are having to spend more of their hard-earned money on energy. But who is really to blame?

It is probably helpful to start with a breakdown of the components of the price of gas.

The cost of crude oil is the biggest cost component of a gallon of gas and can skew the cost. In January, via the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the cost of crude was just over half the cost of gasoline, at 52%. In February it was 61%, and as of March 2022, it was 59% of the total cost of a gallon of “regular” gasoline (diesel varies slightly). Given its overall weighting to cost, changes to crude oil prices have an outsized impact on final gas prices.

The remaining major cost areas include refining, marketing and distribution, and taxes. As of March 2022, refining was about 18% of the total costs, distribution and marketing about 12%, and taxes (federal, state, and local) about 12%, depending on your location.

It is worth noting that gas stations make very little, and they don’t reap windfalls when prices go up. Most gas stations are independently operated, even those that bear a brand associated with a major oil company. It is estimated that a retailer’s markup on a gallon of gas is around 15 cents, and the profit after expenses averages around 2 cents per gallon. Because of this low take, most gas stations supplement their business with selling a variety of other things, from cigarettes to beverages.

Read the whole thing.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: Biden bombs again by misidentifying civil rights leader as ‘Karen Nagasaki.’

But don’t worry though! Karine Jean-Pierre: I can’t even keep up with that ageless dynamo in the Oval Office, or something

…AND SPEAKING OF WEIMAR AMERICA: Why Drag Events for Kids Are Inappropriate—And Actually Work Against the LGBT Community.

Shades of the classic Onion headline from 2001: Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF WEIMAR AMERICA AND THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Nancy Pelosi Appears On RuPaul’s Drag Race: “Drag Is What America Is All About.”

Related: House Republicans Slam Defense Secretary For Focusing On Pride Month, ‘Woke LGBTQ Agenda.’

AN OCCURRENCE AT TOP GUN BRIDGE:  Sonny Bunch reviews Top Gun: Maverick and has an…interesting…theory about the film’s plot. It’s “slightly spoiler-y, so [Bunch places it at the end of his column] after these stills of people from the movie looking stylish next to amazing military hardware.

NEWS YOU CAN USE, IF YOU’RE GOING BACK TO THE FUTURE: 1981-’83 DMC De Lorean Buyer’s Guide.

INSURRECTION! Squad Member Threatens ‘Civil War’ If GOP Takes House.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Says The Economy Is As Vibrant And Healthy As He Is.

DEAR J6 KANGAROO COURT: When You’ve Lost Rachel Maddow…

ROGER SIMON: The Electric Car Is Biden’s ‘Golden Calf.’

President Joe Biden, a man who frequently touts “the science”—but, it’s rather evident, would be unlikely to do better than a “D” on a high school chemistry or physics test—has placed a civilizational-level bet on the electric car.

(Pop Quiz, Joe Biden: What’s the second law of thermodynamics? Biden: Thermodynamics? I love that company! Are we in Philadelphia? Great city!)

It’s almost as if the current occupant of the White House worships the electric car in a fashion bordering on idolatrous. Without the slightest apparent thought, he destroyed U.S. energy independence and is threatening worldwide economic collapse on its behalf.

Indeed, the electric car is Biden’s “Golden Calf.”

He should get down on his knees and pray to a Tesla. With inflation at 8.6 percent, the highest in 40 years, he’s going to need some divine help.

But someone might want to explain to Biden the reality of electric cars, if indeed he’s capable of comprehending it. For that someone, I would nominate Bjorn Lomborg—the Danish author and president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center—who has been perhaps the world’s most esteemed climate journalist for decades.

As recently as February, Lomborg wrote a lengthy article for the Daily Mail with the equally lengthy title, “Are electric cars the new ‘diesel scandal’ waiting to happen? They generate polluting particles just like petrol vehicles, are not even that cost-effective and, as one expert finds, will not save the planet.”

That’s a bit complicated for Joe, I know. Better for him to continue to worship the Golden Tesla (embarrassing as that might be since Elon Musk has switched to a Republican). But let’s hear from Lomborg himself. I have excerpted for brevity:

“Do you remember Britain’s ‘dash for diesel’? It began more than 20 years ago when the then-chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced a new car tax system favouring vehicles with lower emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. …

“What didn’t emerge until much later—although it was no secret in the motor industry or among government officials—was that diesel cars also emitted greater quantities of other pollutants, nitrogen oxides, and particulates that damage air quality and human health. …

Similarly: Is it ethical to purchase a lithium battery powered EV? “The extraordinary amounts of mining needed to produce electric vehicles are not only environmentally disastrous, they also carry large human costs. The cobalt that is needed for every electric vehicle comes mostly from the Congo and is produced largely by child labor.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Joe Biden Gets Smashed by Resurrected Clip, Karine-Jean Pierre Flails in Response.

Like with gas prices, Biden doesn’t get to talk about how great he is when the stock market is up and then disown his responsibility when things crash, and to be sure, what we are witnessing is a crash the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Recession. Retirements are being destroyed while those who invested in the market more short-term have lost their shirts.

(related Tucker Carlson Is All of Us in Latest Takedown of Biden’s America)

But unlike in past times of economic turbulence, there is nowhere to hide. The combination of rising interest rates, sky-high inflation, and cratering investments means whether you put your money in stocks, real estate, or the bank, you are losing money right now. At least during the Great Recession, inflation stopped short of four percent, meaning those who saved, invested low, and played it smart were rewarded down the line. Currently, everything is on fire, and there’s no escape from Biden’s economy. Worse, there’s no hope in sight of a turnaround.

When asked about the chaos on Monday, Biden’s press secretary, Karine-Jean Pierre, flailed wildly, essentially suggesting that the economy is so amazing that people can handle a little hardship.

More flailing by Pierre here: ‘Um… I don’t have them in front of me’: Karine Jean-Pierre is flummoxed by reporter asking what is the update with Biden’s response to the baby formula shortage and ‘doesn’t have anything new’ to share.

Related: Sasha’s pain at the pumps! Barack Obama’s 21-year-old daughter looks glum as she fills her tank at LA gas station while sporting a very funky multi-colored ensemble — after average national price soared to $5.014 a gallon.

Why would she feel glum when Biden, a retread of her dad’s administration, is simply carrying out dad’s plans for energy prices?

Earlier: Why Aren’t Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?

In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP’s CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats’ agenda and the Paris climate agenda.

There’s even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats’ overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?

Is it a mystery why Democrats aren’t doing a sack dance and celebrating the salvation of planet earth?

There’s the small matter of their political survival, of course. It would be unseemly — like doing a jig at an Irish funeral — to celebrate other people’s pain. And it would cost many Democrats who are secretly jubilant about high gas prices their political careers.

Instead, Democrats are pretending to look for a way to “ease consumers’ pain.”

In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”

And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”

● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

Exit quote: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

● Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm sings the praises of banning gasoline in music video that should’ve been left in the ground.

In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:

If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”

● Biden praises high gas prices as part of ‘incredible transition’ of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.

Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH PIERS MORGAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Piers Morgan Tells Amber Heard ‘It’s Time To Stop Playing The Victim’ After Actress Calls Internet Reaction To Verdict ‘Unfair.’

ROGER KIMBALL: Show Trials—Then and Now.

H. L. Mencken once observed that no one “ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”

That’s a nicely phrased comment.—

But I suspect we are on the verge of seeing it disproved.

Those “great masses” understand what the House Committee is up to.

Moreover, the public well remembers the multiple scenes of carnage from across the country from about the same time in response (ostensibly) to the black man who died while resisting arrest in Minneapolis.

The mob breached the White House security perimeter.

They torched police cars and police stations while pathetic reporters stood in front of the conflagrations and informed the public that what they were watching were “mostly peaceful” protests.

They maimed police officers and caused some $2 billion in damage.

The January 6 protest lasted a few hours.

The only shot was fired, without warning, by Capitol Hill Police officer Michael Byrd.

The bullet was fired at point-blank range at Ashli Babbitt,  an unarmed veteran who was trying to calm protesters adjacent to her.

It struck her in the neck and killed her. Byrd was exonerated.

Then there was Roseanne Boyland, also unarmed, who was gassed and beaten while unconscious by the police.

She died, too.

Most of the people who entered the Capitol that day, many of whom were ushered in by smiling Capitol police officers, just wandered around gawking.

So outside the beltway, the public is pretty uninterested in this story, especially when inflation is the worst it’s been in 40 years, consumer confidence is at an 83-year low, energy prices are skyrocketing, as are interest rates, food, and housing, and the stock market, which means most people’s retirement accounts, is imploding.

And leftist violence continues: Have you heard about the 41 pro-life organizations and churches that have been vandalized in the last 40 days?

TRANS BARBARISM:

What is a woman?” This simple question—to which the dictionary definition, still clinging on for dear life, is “adult female human”—has recently been stumping Western politicians. During her recent confirmation hearing for the US Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson struggled to give a definition, demurring that she isn’t, in fact, a biologist. Britain’s Conservative chancellor, Rishi Sunak, likewise struggled painfully to answer it in a recent interview. Everybody in the world knows, however, that you don’t need to be a biologist to define what a woman—or, indeed, a man—is. Everybody, that is, apart from the gender ideologues who today occupy the commanding heights of media, business, academe, and philanthropy. Many of them are interviewed in Matt Walsh’s compelling new documentary, What Is A Woman?

* * * * * * * *

Western societies have taken a wrong turn on transgenderism, and all of us should resolve to reverse course. We all want to do our best by each other, by our children. When people are unhappy, we shouldn’t rush to medicate and operate on them to “affirm” what they say they want. Sometimes institutions, such as medicine and education, and the people who comprise them, go wrong. Those who work in these places need to speak up when they know something isn’t right. Parents’ eagerness to change their children’s sex should be a red flag; doctors keen to be at the “cutting edge” of new technologies of the body are to be questioned, not worshipped. We may disagree on all kinds of issues, but here reality is howling out: You can’t change sex, and the damage being done in pretending otherwise is utterly, damningly horrific.

Read the whole thing.

DOW TUMBLES 876 POINTS AND STOCKS ENTER BEAR MARKET ON WORRIES OF DRASTIC RATE HIKES:

US stocks have plunged into a bear market as Wall Street investors grew increasingly nervous about the prospect of even harsher medicine from the Fed to take the sting out of inflation.

The Dow (INDU) sank 876 points or 2.8%. The Nasdaq was down by 4.7% and has tumbled more than 10% in the past two trading sessions.

The broader S&P 500 fell 3.9%. That index is now more than 20% below its all-time high set in January, putting stocks in a bear-market.

Recession fears mounted after Friday’s miserable Consumer Price Index report showed US inflation was significantly higher than economists had expected last month. That could make the Federal Reserve’s inflation-control efforts more difficult.

After raising rates by a half point in May — an action the Fed hadn’t taken since 2000 — Chair Jerome Powell pledged more of the same until the central bank was satisfied that inflation was under control. At that point, the Fed would resume standard quarter-point hikes, he said.

But after May’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, Wall Street is increasingly calling for tougher action from the Fed to keep prices under control. Jefferies joined Barclays on Monday in predicting that the Federal Reserve would hike rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, an action the Fed hasn’t taken since 1994.

And the hits just keep on coming! Are housing and jobs markets bubbles about to pop?

If so, we can thank the cheap money that usually create asset bubbles — and point again to a Federal Reserve dissenter as a prophet. Fortune warned this morning that housing prices in as many as 40 markets could sharply drop over the next year as stagflation necessarily turns into recession. It won’t create as much damage as the housing-bubble pop did in the 2008 financial crisis, but it will leave the most recent home purchasers without a seat when the music stops:

* * * * * * * *

This might not matter in terms of bubble-popping if flipping and speculative purchases haven’t comprised a good portion of this bubble. If these prices have gone up on the power of actual homesteading, then a drift downward in valuation shouldn’t have too much of an impact on financial institutions. Homeowners can still pay their mortgages, at least as long as they maintain their current income levels in a recession. An “overvalued” market isn’t a catastrophe in itself, except for those who want to sell their home and have lost their positive equity in it.

However, the continuing rapid inflation pace will force the Federal Reserve to step up its monetary tightening by raising its interest rate. They’re already planning a series of 0.5-point increases this year, and last Friday’s 8.6%/1.0% consumer price index (CPI) result will likely spur even more intervention. If tomorrow’s producer price index (PPI) remains in double digits, you can probably bank on an even more aggressive approach to the Fed’s interest rate and money tightening. That will tighten the leash on business investment, and that will have an enormous impact on a jobs market that’s already looking a little shaky, according to Goldman Sachs:

Flashback: Milton Friedman’s Revenge:

Milton Friedman, whose empiricism led him to embrace free market public policy, was the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century. But Biden has a weird habit of treating Friedman as a devilish spirit who must be exorcised from the nation’s capital. For Biden, Friedman represents deregulation, low taxes, and the idea that a corporation’s primary responsibility is not to a group of politicized “stakeholders” but to its shareholders. “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” Biden told Politico last year. “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Biden asked in 2019. The truth is that Friedman, who died in 2006, has held little sway over either Democrats or Republicans for almost two decades. But Biden wants to mark the definitive end of Friedman and the “neoliberal” economics he espoused by unleashing a tsunami of dollars into the global economy and inundating Americans with new entitlements.

The irony is that Biden’s rejection of Friedman’s teachings on money, taxes, and spending may bring about the same circumstances that established Friedman’s preeminence. In a year or two, the American economy and Biden’s political fortunes may look considerably different than when Janet Yellen blurted out the obvious about inflation. Voters won’t like the combination of rising prices and declining assets. Biden’s experts might rediscover that it is difficult to control or stop inflation once it begins. And Milton Friedman will have his revenge.

Exit question: Is Team Biden purposefully grinding down the middle class?

RIP: Philip Baker Hall, Magnolia Star, Dies at 90.

Prolific character actor Philip Baker Hall, star of films like Say Anything… and Magnolia, has died at age 90. Truly a defining performer of his generation, Hall starred in a number of well-known projects over the years, with his roles, no matter the amount of screen time, always leaving an impact on audiences. Hall’s on-screen credits span decades, earning appearances in other notable projects like Secret Honor, Hard Eight, The Truman Show, Argo, and Zodiac. Los Angeles Times journalist Sam Farmer confirmed the news on Twitter, sharing a brief tribute to Hall, noting that the actor passed away peacefully.

“My neighbor, friend, and one of the wisest, most talented and kindest people I’ve ever met, Philip Baker Hall, died peacefully last night,” Farmer shared on Twitter. “He was surrounded by loved ones. The world has an empty space in it.”

Hall also did a brilliant Jack Webb impersonation as the library cop on Seinfeld:

Earlier: Trapped in a Corner: Robert Altman, Richard Nixon and Secret Honor.

Finally unburdening himself of the truth, Hall’s Nixon is confronted with a vision of his Quaker mother again, like Hamlet and his father’s ghost. This time she beckons him with instructions; he makes his way to his desk, points to the revolver and then picks it up, the muzzle touching his temple. At the last minute, though, he tosses the gun down, saying that they won’t make him do it, even though that was the plan.

“F–K ‘EM!!” he shouts, pumping his fist in the air, the moment captured on all four CCTV screens, turning into a loop while in the background a chant of “Four more years!” is brought up in the mix until the screen glitches and goes black. For a few moments, you really need to process just what kind of craziness the film has just laid out for us.

It’s a hell of an ending, and I remember being breathless as I watched it as a college student, at a screening at the Toronto film festival. There have been a lot of Nixons on film – Anthony Hopkins’ underplayed take in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, Dan Hedaya’s twitchy cartoon in Dick, Frank Langella’s sinister Nixon in Frost/Nixon – but Hall’s Nixon, desperate, contrite, spouting a nearly Tourettes-like stream of obscenities, remains my favorite.

It should have been a career-making performance for Philip Baker Hall, and ultimately it was – but only after word of mouth slowly built in the years following the film’s subdued release into film festivals and art houses. Paul Thomas Anderson, a young director and Altman acolyte who says Secret Honor is one of his favorite movies of all time, cast Hall in many of his films, beginning with Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

Robert Altman would ultimately make his triumphant return to Hollywood, beginning with Vincent & Theo in 1990. But it would be The Player in 1992 that made him, well, a player; there’s nothing Hollywood loves more than a movie that portrays it as a moral charnel house, especially when it’s a hit. He was a hot property for the critics again, making a big-budget film featuring major stars – Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter, Kansas City, Dr. T & the Women, Gosford Park – nearly every year until his death in 2006.

Pour yourself a Nixonian-sized glass of Chivas Regal and read the whole thing.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Administration To Provide Grief Counselors At All Gas Pumps.

GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING: Flashback: Biden Admin Said Gas in 2022 Would Average $2.88.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration — under the Department of Energy led by Secretary Jennifer Granholm — releases “short-term energy outlook” reports each month to provide information on liquid fuels and forecast their future trends. Their report issued December 7, 2021 — archived here — notes that the forecast “remains subject to heightened levels of uncertainty related to the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic” but proceeded to estimate that “U.S. GDP will grow by 5.5% in 2021 and by 4.4% in 2022.”

And here’s what the Biden administration predicted for gasoline in 2022, just six months ago:

U.S. regular gasoline retail prices averaged $3.39 per gallon (gal) in November, a 10 cents/gal increase from October and $1.29/gal higher than in November 2020. The November monthly average was the highest since September 2014. We forecast that retail gasoline prices will average $3.13/gal in December before falling to $3.01/gal in January and $2.88/gal on average in 2022.

Why would Granholm want gas prices that low? Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm sings the praises of banning gasoline in music video that should’ve been left in the ground.

Earlier: Why Aren’t Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?

In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP’s CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats’ agenda and the Paris climate agenda.

There’s even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats’ overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?

Is it a mystery why Democrats aren’t doing a sack dance and celebrating the salvation of planet earth?

There’s the small matter of their political survival, of course. It would be unseemly — like doing a jig at an Irish funeral — to celebrate other people’s pain. And it would cost many Democrats who are secretly jubilant about high gas prices their political careers.

Instead, Democrats are pretending to look for a way to “ease consumers’ pain.”

In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”

And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”

● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

Exit quote: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:

If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”

● Biden praises high gas prices as part of ‘incredible transition’ of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.

Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned

SKYNET HAS BECOME SELF-AWARE: Google Engineer On Leave After He Claims AI Program Has Gone Sentient.

A Google engineer is speaking out since the company placed him on administrative leave after he told his bosses an artificial intelligence program he was working with is now sentient.

Blake Lemoine reached his conclusion after conversing since last fall with LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, what he calls part of a “hive mind.” He was supposed to test if his conversation partner used discriminatory language or hate speech.

As he and LaMDA messaged each other recently about religion, the AI talked about “personhood” and “rights,” he told The Washington Post.

What could go wrong?

HOW RONALD REAGAN RESCUED BILL CLINTON’S PRESIDENCY:

When Hillary Clinton ran for the presidency in 2016, she vowed to put her husband in charge of the economy because Democrats and most Americans knew it was flourishing when he was in the White House. This columnist acknowledged the point in The Washington Times. But voters, I cautioned, “need to be constantly reminded” that the prosperity materialized because Bill Clinton capitulated to Republicans who had politically pressured him into accepting policies that drove Ronald Reagan’s successful presidency.

Clinton’s first two years in office, [William Galston, deputy assistant to Bill Clinton for domestic policy] fails to tell his readers, ended in an electoral disaster for the Democrats. Determined to go on a high-tax, big-spend binge after winning the Oval Office in 1992, Clinton narrowly won a major income tax increase in the Democratic-controlled Congress. But congressional Republicans blocked his other important initiatives, including a big-spending “stimulus” program, a major energy tax, and Hillary Clinton’s national health care plan.

When 1994 rolled around and with Newt Gingrich leading the Republican off-year election charge from the House with his Reaganized “Contract With America” proposal, the GOP swept both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

The consequence: Bill Clinton executed a policy somersault worthy of the Flying Wallendas. He quickly abandoned many of his first-term proposals, including his wife’s health care plan, informing us that “the era of big government is over.” He now favored balanced budgets and apologized for having “raised [taxes] too much.” With the Republicans calling the shots, he enacted significant tax breaks for business and the middle class, including a 30% cut in the capital gains tax for individuals.

And don’t get ’90s era Clinton started on illegal immigration:

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Sunday News Shows Spent Zero Minutes Covering Attempted Murder of Brett Kavanaugh.

“Attempted murder,” which is what the suspect was charged with, is making premeditated plans to kill someone, among other definitions. That this person told on himself—he called the cops and said he wanted to kill Kavanaugh and himself—doesn’t make it any less premeditated and law enforcement charged him appropriately.

More importantly, if this exact same scenario had happened but the suspect wasn’t a left-leaning guy upset about potentially overturning Roe v. Wade, but a MAGA guy who wanted to kill left-leaning, Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan…

Does anyone doubt there would have been wall to wall constant coverage? MSNBC and CNN analysis on how Trump voters are domestic terrorists?

“Attempted murder,” which is what the suspect was charged with, is making premeditated plans to kill someone, among other definitions. That this person told on himself—he called the cops and said he wanted to kill Kavanaugh and himself—doesn’t make it any less premeditated and law enforcement charged him appropriately.

More importantly, if this exact same scenario had happened but the suspect wasn’t a left-leaning guy upset about potentially overturning Roe v. Wade, but a MAGA guy who wanted to kill left-leaning, Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan…

Does anyone doubt there would have been wall to wall constant coverage? MSNBC and CNN analysis on how Trump voters are domestic terrorists?

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and the airbrushing of Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin makes perfect sense.

Evergreen:

Earlier:

● Bill Maher: The Times buried the Kavanaugh assassination story because he’s a conservative.

● Reagan historian: Releasing Hinckley signals it’s OK to target conservatives.

● Bill Ayers Smiles: ‘MAGA is the most extreme political organization in American history:’ Biden warns of Republicans’ ‘ultra MAGA agenda’ and suggests they’ll ban LGBT children from classrooms if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

● Nancy Pelosi tells 2020 Dems, “You have to be ready to take a punch. And therefore you have to be ready to throw a punch—for the children.”

● Sen. Rand Paul had part of his lung removed this weekend because of damage from 2017 attack.

● Actor Jeff Daniels to CBS’s Stephen Colbert: ‘We Need Someone That Can Punch Trump in the Face.’

● Ilhan Omar Retweet Suggests Rand Paul Deserved to Be Assaulted.

● Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) to 2020 Dems: Don’t Run Away from Trump — ‘Punch Him in the Face.’

● Parents cheer as kids bash an ICE agent piñata and throw balls at the painted image of President Trump.

● Joe Biden: I Want to ‘Beat the Hell Out of’ President Trump.

● Patti LuPone defends violent attack on Rand Paul.

● CNN Host Palled Around with, Promoted ICE Firebomber’s Antifa Group.

● Leftist Thug Caught on Video Assaulting Conservative Berkeley Student While Fellow Students Laugh.

● Journalist Andy Ngo Beaten Up at Portland Antifa Rally.

● John Dickerson, the host of Face the Nation and the “political director” for CBS, wrote an article for Slate in 2013 charmingly titled “Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.”

● Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.

IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING: Investors Must Seriously Consider The Collapse Of Europe As “Whatever It Takes” Doesn’t Work At 8% Inflation.