Commentary

If you were among the curious souls who watched President Biden’s State of the Union address, you understand my inability to provide my readers with a comprehensive review in my last post.  He threw everything into it except the kitchen sink.

I’ll limit my post comments to two topics that caused me to go to the transcript of the address.  Biden wanted you to know about Intel’s decision to build a massive mega-site of eight factories for the manufacture of computer chips on 1,000 acres just east of Columbus, Ohio

He talked about the sophisticated manufacturing that will take place there in what he termed one of the biggest manufacturing investments in American history. 

He even introduced Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who sat in the balcony, saying that Gelsinger was ready to increase the firm’s investment from $20 billion to $100 billion.

Impressive. Right?  We all know how the chip shortage has held up auto manufacturing and other products. But then he dropped the bomb … “all they’re waiting for is for you to pass this bill. Send it to my desk.  I’ll sign it.”

It was a let down for the average American, who isn’t aware that there’s a $52 billion CHIPS for America Act to permit a series of federal investments in support of U.S. chip manufacturers, awaiting Senate approval.  And there’s additional federal legislation currently being considered that would create a new tax credit for investment in chip manufacturing centers.

Incidentally, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is building a $12 billion campus to produce chips on an 1,100-acre piece of land west of Phoenix, Arizona.

While Biden continues to seek the support of business, and speaks of the private sector jobs created not only at Intel, but at GM and Ford, where they have bowed to his electric car goal, he couldn’t help but again criticize 55 Fortune 500 corporations that “have paid zero dollars in federal income tax.” 

Pelosi Takes the Cake Again

With Vice President Harris and Speaker Pelosi on camera behind the president, you just knew the setting was made for humor of some sort.  We all recall how Pelosi tore up her copy of President Trump’s address.  She didn’t let us down.

Near the end of his address, while Biden spoke of the toxic burn pits of Iraq and Afghanistan suspected of affecting our soldiers, Pelosi leaped to her feet, rubbing the knuckles of her fisted hands together while appearing to be grinding her teeth and rolling her tongue over her teeth as she leaned forward grimacing.  A reporter for the UK Daily Mail said, “What the hell is she doing?”

Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee

Setting aside President Biden’s ill-advised decision to nominate only a black female to vie for a position on the high court, and his poor timing amid the crisis in Ukraine, it appears Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will face tough questioning from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

While I don’t expect them to be from the gutter as was the case when Judge Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate, it appears that Judge Jackson has invited questions of her ethics even before her hearing begins.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the committee, is seeking details about Jackson’s hiring of public relations operatives Robert Raben and T.J. Ducklo, Democrat loyalists, according to Kevin Daley of the Washington Free Beacon. The move was seen as an effort to ward off attacks on Jackson and served to connect reporters with allies of the judge.

Daley, quoting the leftist Politico, also noted that one of Jackson’s ex-law clerks edited Wikipedia entries for Jackson’s two main rivals early in the selection process in an effort to paint them as more moderate than Jackson, who is seen as a progressive stalwart.

She’ll also face questions for her decision, as a member of a Harvard University governing board, to recuse herself from a lawsuit accusing the university of bias against Asian admissions, which the Supreme Court will hear this fall.

Jackson’s trial court experience and service as a commissioner on the Sentencing Commission, a panel that provides guidance on criminal penalties will also be explored, I’m sure.

                                            From the Durham Investigation

RODNEY JOFFE, who was identified as the tech guru who assisted the Clinton campaign in the attempt to find derogatory information on candidate and President Trump from Trump Tower and White House computers, pleaded the Fifth to avoid cooperating with Special Counsel John Durham.  Hmmmm.

Barr Not Kind to Trump in Book

Trump supporters are not happy to hear that William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, has authored a book, “One Damn Thing After Another,” scheduled for release March 8, 2022.  I would not have thought Barr would be one to write a tell-all book.

While he writes of telling the former president, “I sacrificed a lot personally to come to help you when I thought you were being wronged, but that the Justice Department had not been able to verify any of his legal team’s assertions about mass fraud. 

“The election was not stolen,” Barr writes. “Trump lost it.”

Meanwhile, a number of irregularities were discovered in several states and a I understand a group of never-say-die stalwarts are preparing to take on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the Supreme Court.  It was in Pennsylvania that voting rules were illegally changed.

That Zero-Emissions Dream

While our nation’s achieving energy independence was a proud moment during the Trump administration, in an act of personal vengeance on this first day in office, President Biden foolishly committed the U.S. to zero-emissions by 2050

It certainly makes sense that in sunny Arizona, Arizona Public Service, with its Solar Communities program, seeks to add more renewable sources across the state. 

But recognizing that the success of meeting their goal will require massive battery storage and miles of transmission lines, APS now touts its “innovative battery storage.”   They want you to think everything is under control, going as planned.  Don’t believe it.

Now, more than ever … may God continue to bless the United States of America.