Making sure that you’re on the right road to get where you want to go is obviously important when you’re headed somewhere. While this is common sense for a good driver, it is rarely so for central planners. As the presidential election nears, discussion of the “Green New Deal” is resurfacing. The Biden administration’s push to “electrify everything” by mandating the production of electric vehicles (EVs) and subsidizing wind and solar power is a wrong turn from the road to a cleaner future. What will result from the government’s aggressive transition mandate? Very little global impact on emissions. Existing battery technology, renewable energy sources, and electrical infrastructure are insufficient to facilitate a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. And, those “solutions” are not “green.” Digging massive holes and covering more land with turbines and solar panels in order to save the earth is counterintuitive. When viewed objectively and holistically, a move to EVs and the use of current-generation renewable energy sources will not accomplish the goal of reducing worldwide carbon output. An astronomical amount of money will be spent to shift output to other parts of the globe, and in the process will reduce consumer choice, punish the automotive industry, and make America highly dependent on an increasingly hostile nation, China.  Consider some of the deleterious factors in the race to replace internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with EVs. Energy in Short Supply Supply-side problems include the dirty business of mining and refining battery components, sourcing components from China, upgrading our aging electrical infrastructure (which will require enormous amounts of materials), and our current energy-generation capacity which is already strained without the addition of millions of EVs, AI data centers, and other electrical appliances. In addition, as EVs are much heavier than similar ICE vehicles, they significantly reduce the life of tires, roads, bridges and parking garages that were not designed for such loads. States are already considering a per-mile tax for EVs to compensate for this increased wear and tear and concomitant loss of revenue from selling gas. The Costs and Environmental Degradation Consumer-side concerns include the much higher costs of purchasing, insuring, and repairing EVs, dearth of charging stations and resulting range anxiety and long waiting lines, poor performance of EVs in cold weather, inability of traditional mechanics to repair them, limited life of EV batteries (which is less than the average age of ICE vehicles on the road today), prohibitively high cost of replacing degraded batteries, extreme difficulty of extinguishing fires that can occur with EV accidents, and the fact that putting millions of drivers in vehicles with much greater power and acceleration is likely to increase such accidents. Environmental concerns include the negative impact of the aforementioned mining, deforestation needed for new manufacturing plants and energy “farms,” the need to produce (and, more critically, dispose of) millions of toxic EV batteries, solar panels and turbine blades, none of which can be recycled. This is a looming ecological disaster. Wind and solar energy are intermittent sources that require fossil-fuel backup. According to the U. S. Energy Information Administration, their “full capacity” output is roughly half that of natural gas. Large swaths of land and lots of fossil fuels are needed to produce, transport, and maintain wind and solar farms. Nearly all solar panels come from China, which is opening new mines and coal-fired plants to meet demand. Moreover, use of these panels adds to global warming by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere. Wind and solar are not up to the task of supplying our exponentially growing energy needs. And neither source is environmentally friendly in terms of production, operation or disposal. Social Problems of ‘Green’ Energy Social concerns include questionable practices used in the acquisition of materials needed for batteries, such as child labor and unsafe mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, plus the national security risk of becoming energy reliant on China (while simultaneously pouring billions of dollars into Chinese Communist Party coffers). Electrical grids are already so strained that The Washington Post reported, “[v]ast swaths of the United States are at risk of running out of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean technology factories proliferate.” Our energy demand will increasingly outstrip supply. Not surprisingly, the cost of electricity is already climbing and will continue to do so.  Energy Consumers vs. The Planners In the courses that I teach at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, I define marketing as “finding out what people want and giving it to them.” This is a market-oriented and consumer-focused process. Government, on the other hand, illustrates the diametric approach: “figuring out what we want and forcing it on you.” The mandate to produce only EVs removes freedom of choice for customers to purchase what they want and harshly punishes automakers. If most customers wanted EVs, no mandate would be needed. In reality, EV sales are slowing, and automotive manufacturers are reporting huge financial losses and growing unsold inventories. Car & Driver recently reported that Ford’s EV division lost $130,000 for every EV it sold in the first quarter of this year. Ford is on track to lose $5 billion by year’s end. This is not an isolated case; most major car companies are scaling back EV production due to weak demand. If a customer purchases an EV because he or she likes the styling or performance, that is fine. But buying an EV to “save the planet” is a non sequitur. Even if ICEs were eliminated in the United States, there would be little if any global reduction in carbon emissions. According to the Energy Institute, China’s emissions grew more than twice as much as U. S. emissions decreased in 2023. What will result from the government’s aggressive transition mandate? Very little global impact on emissions, a staggering bill for taxpayers, loss of freedom of choice for consumers, significant harm to the automotive industry, rolling blackouts, and increased American energy dependence and security concerns. Electricity might well be the future of energy, but we are not ready to make a huge leap yet. So, what would put us on the “right road?” The Right Road As for vehicles, increasing miles per gallon (MPG) should be a priority. I recently rented an ICE sedan that got 40+ MPG, roughly twice the average for ICEs. Using existing technology, auto manufacturers could improve mileage and greatly reduce carbon emissions. Hybrid cars (which use gas and smaller batteries than EVs) are another step in the right direction. Toyota and BMW are also exploring the use of hydrogen fuel cells to power vehicles. If the trillions of dollars that the government has committed to pushing EVs, wind, and solar were redirected to these and other alternatives, a better market-driven solution might be found. In terms of generating electricity, nuclear power (the most reliable, true zero-emissions source) should be increased. The Nuclear Energy Institute reports that a solar farm requires 75 times more (a wind farm requires 360 times more) land than a nuclear plant of equivalent output. The Washington Post reports that “America is running out of power” and that “Northern Virginia [alone] needs the equivalent of several large nuclear plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction” to avoid running out of power. As for environmental waste, nuclear plants create a small fraction of the volume generated by wind and solar farms. Yet, while hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested annually in renewable energy, nuclear is receiving little attention or funding. In summary, we are not going in the right direction to meet our burgeoning energy needs. Moving forward, we would be wise to consider the wisdom of the oft-heard announcement that emanated from older GPS units when a wrong turn was made: “Rerouting.”  Scott K. Powell, former assistant dean at Grove City College, is professor of marketing at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. READ MORE: Democrats’ Approach to Green Energy Is Completely Contradictory Biden’s Green Energy Policies Help China, Not America   The post A Wrong Turn on the Road to ‘Green’ Energy appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Former California state senator Gloria Romero has defected to the Republican Party, telling reporters, “In this Capitol behind me, I served as both Senate Democratic Caucus chair and the Senate majority leader. But today I say goodbye. Adios! I’ve had enough.” The move follows Romero’s memo to her party in 2021. There are no academic or legal arguments against school choice, only political arguments. “I’ll just be blunt,” Romero wrote. “I’ll call it the abject stupidity of the Party elites who have embraced the vilest expressions of woke-ism and an abdication to the promise of education as the key to the American Dream that still matters to so many, particularly Latinos and African Americans, and the commitment to ensuring the public safety for all.” Despite the rhetoric, Romero’s recent defection is more about education than politics. In 2022, Romero joined Ric Grenell of Fix California to endorse the Education Savings Accounts Act of 2022. “As a proud Democrat who has dedicated my life to fighting against an entrenched education bureaucracy so that all California children can have all the opportunities afforded to our ruling class,” Romero proclaimed, “I proudly join with Ric and Fix California to give parents control over their children’s destiny.” The measure failed to qualify for the ballot, not the state’s first setback for school choice. The 1993 Proposition 174 required the state to provide a voucher for every school-age child equal to at least 50 percent of government per-pupil funding for K-12 schools. The vouchers could be redeemed at independent schools and the measure limited regulation of schools accepting vouchers. California’s teacher unions charged that the measure would lead to “witch schools,” Ku Klux Klan schools and such, and take away funding from government schools. Republican governor Pete Wilson opposed the measure, which failed to pass by a 70-30 margin. Students remained the captives of a bloated education establishment, and the problem was not limited to California. Not Just California’s Schools Schools in Washington D.C. are among the most dysfunctional and dangerous in the nation. Politicians such as Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama sent their children to elite private schools such as Sidwell Friends, but for inner city parents the only alternative is the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, run by Congress. Federal education bureaucrats and teacher unions oppose the program but Obama’s incoming education secretary Arne Duncan did them one better. The Harvard sociology grad rescinded scholarships already awarded to 216 families for the upcoming school year. Like the southern segregationists of old, Duncan stood in the schoolhouse door blocking both escape from dysfunctional government schools and entry to the independent schools the parents wanted. As the Washington Post lamented, “nine out of 10 students who were shut out of the scholarship program this year are assigned to attend failing public schools.” The vast majority of the students are black, so if their parents thought Duncan’s actions were racist it would be hard to blame them. The federal Department of Education Duncan headed dates only to 1978 and was Jimmy Carter’s payoff to teacher unions for endorsing his run for president. The top-heavy department did nothing to improve the quality of education, an outcome confirmed by the 1983 A Nation at Risk report. The failure marked by that report continues, now abetted by the woke junk thinking that Gloria Romero decries. The brave reformer may boast new allies, but she won’t get any help from the federal education department, which Democrats love, and which Republican presidents Reagan, Bush, and Donald Trump failed to eliminate. Government Monopoly on Schools In government monopoly education, taxpayer dollars must trickle down through multiple layers of bureaucratic sediment before they reach the classroom.  The system remains a collective farm of mediocrity and failure. There are no academic or legal arguments against school choice, only political arguments and the powerful teacher unions and politicians who wield them. There is little hope for reform until parents gain the freedom to choose the schools their children attend, government or independent, as a matter of basic civil rights. Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley: Should the People With All the Power Have All the Guns? California Makes Theft a Crime Again The post California Democrat Defects Over School Choice appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

While the Biden-Harris administration just approved $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt, a legacy of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement from 1979, Egypt continues to broadcast hatred against the Jewish state. Rather than finding ways to support Egypt-Israel peace and the Abraham Accords more broadly, Egyptian political figures and state-run media carry water for Hamas in defaming Israel, supporting jihad and genocide against the Jewish state, and opposing normalization with Israel.  State-Run Media Spews Hate Egypt’s media continues to defame Israel. In the government-sponsored Al-Ahram, Egyptian journalist Sa’id Shalash criticized the “slaughter” of Gazans by the “the barbaric Zionist-American-Western aggression,” and claimed that the reason that ISIS or similar organizations did not fight back against Israel is because those groups are created by the U.S. and Israel. “Israel’s continued existence will be a constant threat, so either the Arabs survive or Israel does — there is no other option.” Egyptian journalist Muhammad Hassan Al-Banna from the government-run daily Akhbar Al-Yawm similarly wrote that “[v]iolence and terrorism are an American-Israeli product,” and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “bloodshed that kills women, children, and elders, destroys homes over people’s heads, banishes over two million Palestinians from their lands to the desert and kills them with starvation and American weapons, ammunition, and bombs.” Praise for Terrorism Egypt’s media also continues to glorify terrorism. Dr. Ibrahim Al-Baha, a columnist for the Egyptian state daily Al-Ahram, wrote warmly of “the heroic Palestinian warrior, who is not afraid of death and fights with determination, thinking only of victory or martyrdom,” while calling the Israeli soldier a “coward” and the Israeli army the “laughingstock of the entire world.” On state-run Al Qahera News TV,  Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League Hossam Zaki stated that the Arab League no longer considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization. And such praise for terrorism naturally leads into praise for Palestinian statehood and the subsequent genocide of the Jews. Journalist Atef Zaidan of the state-run daily Akhbar Al-Yawm stated that the Al-Aqsa Flood [i.e., the October 7 attack on Israel] will be the most important and influential juncture in the history of the Palestinian struggle.… [for] it has turned the dream of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital into something much more attainable than it was in the past…As for the Zionist occupation state, its fate is to disintegrate and cease to exist.  Egyptian media also continues to oppose normalization of relations with Israel. Egyptian author and former MP Youssef Al-Qa’id stated on the Egyptian TV show Ten TV  that, In my view, any dealings with Israelis constitute treason … I disdain any cultural or ideological heritage coming from the [Israeli] entity.… They [i.e., Israelis] are the enemies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and we should raise our children on this. I believe that the Israeli enemy comes before any other enemy and confronting it should be the primary mission of this generation our generation. This will only be completed with the annihilation of the state of Israel. Farouk Gouida, a columnist for the state-run Al-Ahram daily, similarly opposed normalization with Israel, and that “Israel’s continued existence will be a constant threat, so either the Arabs survive or Israel does — there is no other option.” On state-run CBC TV, host Qaswaa Al-Khalali said: “We should teach all the future generations, all our children, to hate Israel, to hate the Zionist entity, to hate the occupying authority, to hate this enemy, to hate these gangs who turned themselves into a state, into an entity.” Calls to End Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty And Egyptian public figures and media also explicitly call for the ending of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Tarek El Khouly, the Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview on BBC Arabic, called the Egypt-Israel peace treaty “a strategic choice, as part of its political maneuver to regain Egyptian lands at the time,” and that “[a] downgrading of the level of diplomatic relations is plausible.”  Given the evidence, it is more than reasonable to question Egypt’s commitment to peace in the Middle East. At the very least, the Biden-Harris administration must lean hard on Egypt — including with the threat of withholding aid — to reduce or eliminate Egypt’s hateful rhetoric towards Israel. READ MORE from Steve Postal: UK Parliament Gets Its Own Pro-Palestinian Squad The Palestinian Authority Is Jihadist Too The post Despite $1.3 Billion in US Aid Egypt Endorses Hamas appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

BREAKING: Donald Trump *was* the intended target of the shots fired at Trump International Golf Club according to CNN. Agents opened fire on a man who was at the Trump International Golf Course after they saw what appeared to be a gun according to the NYP. "Officials believe… pic.twitter.com/06JKTXeMO6 — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 15, […]

from Bannons War Room: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Cristina Laila, The Gateway Pundit: Another ‘coincidental’ Secret Service failure that led to the attempted assassination of President Trump. New details about the so-called security breakdown that led to an assassination attempt against President Trump during his Butler, Pennsylvania in July have been leaked to the Washington Post. According to WaPo, Secret Service agents […]