The “Flight 93 Election” of four years ago is over. Or is it?

 

“In September 2016, I called that year’s presidential election contest ‘The Flight 93 Election.’ My thesis was simple: a Clinton victory would usher in an era of semi-permanent Democratic-leftist rule.” 

So wrote author Michael Anton, in his new book, The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return.

“But I asserted and still believe that one-party rule of the USA — blue-state politics from coast to coast — could, once established, last a very long time and might end only with the country itself,” he continued.

Blessedly, Anton’s fear was not fulfilled by the American people; Hillary Clinton did not win, and blue state politics coast-to-coast did not become reality. 

And now we are approaching another election, and concerns are raging. Democrats are afraid that if President Donald Trump loses the election he will not allow a peaceful transfer of power.

In 2016, instead of the blue state take-over Anton feared, we got President Trump. But we also got a group of Congressional Democrats that would not allow the next administration to operate without interference. They spent the next dozens of months and tens of millions of dollars hampering Trump’s efforts to straighten out the eight previous years of Democrat failure with fatally flawed investigations.

Much straightening out was accomplished, despite the Democrats’ efforts, however. For example, taxes and needless regulations were reduced, setting off a long-awaited, but long-delayed recovery from the Great Recession of 2008. Unemployment for every group, especially black and Hispanic Americans, reached record, or near-record lows, as jobs and companies returned from overseas where they had been driven by past foolish economic policies.

Today, despite the good things that have occurred since 2017, we have a country more divided than at any time in decades. Much or most of the division comes from the emotional reaction to Trump’s personality, and some resulting from the successes he has achieved, much to the Left’s chagrin. 

The opposition decries the good that has been done, and proposes to “fix” things with higher taxes, lax immigration policies, killing the fossil fuel industry along with the jobs and economic boost that go with it, and a list of other equally foolish, socialistic concepts.

A major issue this time is the United State Supreme Court, the only one of the three co-equal branches of the federal government that was designed to be non-political. This was done quite purposefully to provide objective, politically neutral legal oversight of the political decisions made in the legislative and administrative branches. The Supreme Court was to be a non-political body to apply the Constitution and the laws, the meanings of which do not change over time, unless change is brought about through established legal and constitutional processes.

Through the years, judges have been confirmed to the federal courts who are not neutral interpreters of legal and constitutional language, but apply their personal, social and political ideals in place of applying Constitutional principles based upon their meaning when ratified, and applying the meaning of laws when enacted. They refer to their activism as providing “life” to the Constitution and laws. The meaning of a “living” Constitution changes with the swirling winds of society.

The encroachment of these activist judges and justices destroys the political independence of the courts, turning them into another political body, the members of which were not elected by anyone. That is not smart, and it is not acceptable.

Which brings us to the confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. The Democrats are opposed to her confirmation for one reason: They do not like her because she said, and they believe, that she will not be an activist justice who makes law from the bench, the way Democrats prefer.

Democrats depend upon activists on court benches to create through judicial fiat policies and laws they cannot enact through the legitimate law-making process.

Judges/justices are supposed to apply the law as written, not rule based upon how they might feel about litigants or issues. As Justice George Sutherland, on the Supreme Court from 1922 to 1938, wrote, "If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned." 

We are not electing a Homecoming King next month, or a senior superlative, like Most Popular, Best Looking, Funniest, etc. We are voting for a person to put into effect policies and support laws that move the country forward. This is a person who gets things done, however ill-mannered or offensive he/she may otherwise be.

Donald Trump has filled that role well for four years, and if re-elected he will again; Joe Biden lives in a different universe.

‘Therefore, not only will 2020 be another ‘Flight 93 Election,’ as will every election, until and unless one of two things happens,” Anton continues. “Either the left achieves the final victory it has long sought, and the only national elections that matter are Democratic primaries to determine who goes on to defeat — inevitably — a hopelessly outnumbered and ineffectual ‘opposition.’ Or the Republican Party — or some successor — leads a realignment along nationalist-popular lines that forces the left to moderate and accept the legitimacy of red-state/flyover/’deplorable’ concerns.”

Thoughts on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden

There is so much ado over President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

She is a devout Catholic. That seems to send pangs of fear through some Democrats. Well, former President John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. The late Justice Antonin Scalia was a Catholic. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden are also Catholic.

More to the point, Article VI, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution says: "… but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

So, whether she is Catholic or a non-believer is irrelevant to appointment to the Supreme Court, or any federal position.

In nominating her, Trump did what the Constitution provides for the sitting President of the United States. None of the complaints about him making the nomination are mentioned, or even loosely alluded to, in the Constitution. What he did is exactly right, and follows much precedent.

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s dying wish is not part of the Constitutional process, and the American people are getting to have their say on who gets to make the nomination for her seat, as they elected Donald Trump for a full four-year term, which is not yet over.

Opponents are worried that she will overturn Roe v Wade, or the Affordable Care Act. But this concern is misplaced.

As an originalist/textualist, she follows the written intent of the Constitution and the laws, as judges and justices are supposed to do. Barrett will merely rule on the legality/constitutionality of any measures that come before the Court, including those.

Hopefully, in the confirmation hearing just getting underway, the character assassins who eagerly attended the confirmation hearing of the last Trump nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and trashed his character and his honor, and those that provided the “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas years before, will be infected with good conscience, decency and civil respect for Barrett and the Constitutional process being followed.  

* * * * *

So, Kamala Harris ran for the Democrat nomination for president, but was only an also ran, and is now the Democrat nominee for vice president. Before being elected to the U.S. Senate, she was a prosecutor and California attorney general, and prosecuted people in court for violent crimes.

Yet, in the vice presidential debate with current Vice President, Mike Pence, he has been criticized for not treating her appropriately, for — gasp — “mansplaining!” Instead of treating her like a little girl, a delicate flower, Pence spoke to her like an adult.

Not the least of reasons Pence spoke to Harris like she is an adult and not a little girl is her penchant for saying things that were not true. Like the fairytale about President Lincoln foregoing a Court appointment near an election because it was “the right thing to do.”

So, is Harris up to the job? Or not? If she needs to be protected from the kind of opposition a male nominee would — and should — experience, perhaps she’s not ready for the job. Will Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping give her the break a female apparently deserves, should she have to deal with them?

* * * * *

One thing nearly everyone recognizes is that former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has been riddled with oddities. It now appears that Biden has been involved in collusion. You remember collusion? The long, expensive investigation by Congressional Democrats into Trump’s imagined irregularities with Russia that found nothing?

When the Affordable Care Act was before the House of Representatives in 2010, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the completely absurd comment to the American people that “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.” Well, fog or no fog, we don’t pass bills in the U.S. Congress so that the people will be able to know what is hidden inside them. That happens before the votes are taken.

Apparently, Biden has colluded with Pelosi and has made the equally absurd decision to refuse to answer whether or not he will attempt to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with activist judges if he is elected, so that it will be easier to control everything the government does or does not do.

A reporter asked Biden, “Well, sir, don’t the voters deserve to know…?” He replied, “No, they don’t.”

He’s wrong, of course, but he’s also walking a narrow plank: don’t offend the radical Democrat left by saying he won’t pack the Court; don’t offend the others by saying he will.

Some Democrats hint that if they win the election and control the White House and Congress, they will pack the Court, abolish the Electoral College, eliminate the filibuster that protects the Senate from the tyranny of the majority, and perhaps add two more states to the Union to increase the number of Senate Democrats.

These measures will transform the nation into a chaotic mess that is the opposite of the ordered republic that our Founders created. That cannot be allowed to occur.

The amount of money in elections these days is a serious problem

Every election year certain problems present themselves. One minor problem is increased emailing. Many of us have more than one email account, thus the problem is magnified. 

There are lots of campaign emails, most seeking political support, some selling campaign materials. The ones asking for contributions pose a different type of problem.

We are often asked to contribute to candidates from all over the country, not just in our state of residence. Some of these candidates may be known to us and liked, and we may want to support them. Others may be unknown, but we disapprove of their opponents and would like to support them.

But why should anyone — literally any person in the country — be able to contribute to any political candidates that they want to? We can only vote for candidates running for offices representing our state and localities and the presidency, so why can we give money to any candidate that asks for it?

There may be some sensible reasons for being able to contribute to candidates for whom you can’t vote, but not many. Perhaps a relative is running for office, or you have some connection to the area in which the candidate is running, like a business connection or owning property there.

And then there is the situation of political action committees (PACs). From Ballotpedia.com: “Political action committees (PACs) are political committees established and administered by corporations, labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations. The general definition is a group that spends money on elections, but is not run by a party or individual candidate. However, PACs can donate money to parties or candidates they support.

“There are two types of political action committees, separate segregated funds and nonconnected PACs. Separate segregated funds are either established or administered by corporations, labor unions, member organizations, or trade associations. They can only raise funds from individuals associated with the connected groups. Conversely, nonconnected PACs are not connected to any of those groups and may solicit funds from the public. Nonconnected PACs are financially independent and pay for themselves via the contributions they raise. Separate segregated funds are funded by the organization they are associated with. 

“In addition, PACs can be broken down into multi-candidate and non-multi-candidate categories.”

And then there is the super PAC, which Ballotpedia also defines: “A super PAC is a political committee that can solicit and spend unlimited sums of money. A super PAC cannot contribute directly to a politician or political party, but it can spend independently to campaign for or against political figures. These committees are also called independent expenditure-only committees. A super PAC is not legally considered a political action committee (PAC) and as such is regulated under separate rules.” 

PACs and super PACs dredge millions or billions of dollars in contributions from people across the country during an election, and pour those dollars into contributions for and against candidates, political and legislative agendas of their choosing. The additional political contributions and political ads they fund makes running for high profile political offices far more expensive than it needs to be, and ought to be.

According to the reference site thoughtco.com, “In a typical election cycle, political action committees raise more than $2 billion and spend nearly $500 million. There are more than 6,000 political action committees, according to the Federal Election Commission.” At least some of the remaining $1.5 billion goes to staff and expenses. PACs are quite the business.

The Campaign Finance Institute reports that the cost of winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 was $2,092,822, and a U.S. Senate seat cost $14,863,228. 

The projected cost of all Congressional Races and the Presidential Race for 2020 is $10,838,227,655, according to OpenSecrets.org. That total is divided almost equally between all Congressional Races and the Presidential Race at more than $5 billion each.

By comparison, the 2000 election cycle totaled $3,082,340 for both Congressional Races and the Presidential Race. In six Presidential Election Cycles over twenty years, the total costs have more than tripled.

Opinions vary on whether PACs are good or bad. They receive praise for providing a way for people to combine their money and make their voices heard, but also a way for some to make larger donations, which can create the question of exactly who those elected actually work for.

Another evaluation says that these large contributions come from unknown sources, which were described as “forces of darkness” and “forces of light.”

Proponents of super PACs say they provide additional aspects of freedom of speech, whereas opponents list negative advertising as a major factor produced by super PACs.

It seems that the simpler and more straight forward the election system is, the better, and the easier to manage. You can only vote for candidates in your state and localities, for federal offices representing your state, and for the President and Vice President. Therefore, contributions should have those same limitations.

That would put the decision making where it belongs: in the hands of eligible voters. As things stand now, much control is in the hands of large organizations with specific interests that are not always good for all.

America’s energy picture is very good, and getting even bette

In 2019, for the first time since 1957, America’s energy production exceeded its energy consumption, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports. And energy exports exceeded imports for the first time since 1952.

Fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and petroleum — accounted for 93 percent of U.S. energy production in 1966, and despite the arrival of new fuels for energy production, fossil fuels still accounted for 80 percent of our energy production last year.

Over the last decade coal has been replaced as the leading fuel for energy production, due to both natural and unnatural causes, by natural gas, which has seen a dramatic increase over that same period. Hydraulic fracturing — fracking — has spawned great increases in both oil and natural gas production, making natural gas more affordable, thus favored for electricity production.

Renewable sources — primarily wind and solar — have seen production increases over the last two decades, but are currently responsible for only about 12 percent of electricity production.

The U.S. has maintained the title of number one producer of natural gas since surpassing Russia in 2011, and it became the number two producer of oil, surpassing Saudi Arabia, in the last couple of years. Further, the U.S. now exports more oil than most OPEC countries, and exports liquified natural gas to 38 countries.

One definition of energy independence is when a country produces more energy than it consumes. By this definition, the U.S. is energy independent. However, things are frequently less simple than they seem. Even though the U.S. exports excess energy, it still imports energy, and is therefore is not purely energy independent. Some experts contend that it is important that we continue to do business with other producers, and buying from them as well as selling to them is smart, they say.

There are currently 3 million workers in good-paying U.S. jobs in the natural gas and oil workforce, many of whom work in skilled trades and science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API). Among those jobs are construction workers, operating engineers, pipefitters, plumbers and boilermakers, as well as data analysts and computer scientists. Another 5.86 million jobs are in the supply chain for the oil and gas industry.

The API further notes that average annual pay in the industry is near $100,000, and that is almost $50,000 higher than the national average. And, there is the projection of 1.9 million additional jobs by 2035. API also reported that “the energy industry is poised to provide stable livelihoods to an expanding workforce – one increasingly comprised of veterans, women and minorities.”

Globally, NS Energy ranks oil as the most utilized fuel at 39 percent of all fuels; followed by coal at 28 percent; natural gas at 22 percent; hydroelectricity at 6 percent; nuclear at 4.4 percent; geothermal, biomass and waste at 0.4 percent; and solar at 0.03 percent.

Clearly, there is a world-wide need for the fuels America produces, and combined with the country’s needs, the energy sector is a provider of a lot of good-paying jobs. 

Enter, stage left, Joe Biden, Democrat nominee for President of the United States. In the Democrat primary debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said: "I'm talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can. I'm talking about telling the fossil fuel industry that they are going to stop destroying this planet — no ifs, buts and maybes about it." To which opponent and former Vice President Joe Biden said, “So am I.”

Not long after agreeing with Sanders, his campaign issued a retraction. And more recently, Biden told union workers, "I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again. I am not banning fracking.”

He told his Democrat comrades one thing, and wooed his union voters with an opposite message. Which one should we believe? Maybe Biden himself isn’t sure.

A Biden-Harris administration — or a Harris-Biden administration, whichever it is — can only do great harm to the burgeoning oil, gas, and coal industry that has such a bright future providing needed fuels to the world, and jobs to the U.S.

Biden has pledged to the climate change faction that fossil fuel use in the country will end by 2035. Bye-bye 5 to 10 million industry jobs. Including fracking. That should make the folks in fracking states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas very unhappy.

But replacing fossil fuels with renewables is not as easy as we are led to believe. Those technologies are not currently up to the job, and producing solar panels and wind turbines is a huge, and not environmentally friendly, challenge.

Producing elemental silicon pure enough for solar PV cells requires an enormous amount of electricity, and turning raw silicon into finished wafers pure enough for solar cells involves several toxic and corrosive materials. 

Windmills kill thousands of flying creatures annually, and require enormous amounts of concrete. Both solar and wind utilize large amounts of land dedicated to the production of electricity. And worn out enormous turbine blades are not recyclable, meaning they will forever clog up landfills.

Biden and others supporting renewable energy as an easy and non-problematic solution to supposed climate change are deceiving the public.