Commentary

Regular readers may recall that I suggested here, on September 14, 2022, that those Mexican cartels responsible for producing fentanyl pills for smuggling into America needed to be treated as terrorists.

That is, they should be taken out just as we did Qasem Soleimani and Ayman al Zawahiri.  While they were eliminated with the use of drone-fired Hellfire missiles, I suggested we tap the covert intelligence capability of the CIA to systematically destroy their labs, one by one.  Simply by a mysteriously ignited fire will do.

I’m revisiting this subject because of a piece of legislation – “Declaring War on the Cartels Act” – being introduced by Texas’ Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy Seal. 

He’s proposing to add language to the U.S. Code that targets criminal street gangs in order to target transnational criminal organizations that are involved in smuggling drugs and illegal migrants into the U.S. across the southern border.

The bill would make it punishable by up to 20 years for members of such organizations who are involved in crimes related to drugs, violence, fraud, human smuggling, immigration crimes and sex trafficking.

In addition, it would use existing federal powers to block cartel organizations from using U.S. financial institutions and allow for the seizure of assets.  It would also allow for sanctions on those who aid cartels and to freeze foreign aid to countries who aid or do not prevent cartel activity.

I applaud Crenshaw for his effort even if it clears the new Republican-led House, though passage in the Senate is doubtful.  In Biden’s world, illegal immigration and drug smuggling isn’t happening.

But more importantly, it doesn’t go far enough.  Cartel leaders and the drug labs must be physically targeted just as we target terrorists in the middle east. Declaring war by hitting the cartel’s financial means is fine, but the source of their profits – the labs – must be targeted to put them out of business.

The Biden Administration’s Big Lie on Drilling

Biden & Co. would have you believe that they aren’t holding up oil production. John Kirby was sent to the White House Briefing Room to again blame the oil and gas industry for not utilizing the 9,000 permits issued for drilling on federal lands.

Nothing new there.  They tried to sell us the same bill of goods by spokeswoman Jen Psaki earlier this year.

“There are plenty of opportunities for oil and gas companies to drill here in the United States,” Kirby said in response to Fox’s White House correspondent Peter Doocy’s questioning of Biden’s outsourcing of drilling to Venezuela.

It sounds good, but it’s disinformation, intended to make the oil and gas industry look bad.  There’s more to it than a mere permit, and the Biden energy people know it. 

There’s a handful of regulatory agencies and environmental social governance groups delaying the process before any drilling begins. And the Treasury Department has lending institutions on an ESG short leash to block fossil fuel production projects.

It all comes down to the visceral hate the administration has for America’s premier energy producers, while it pursues its fantasy of transforming the country to renewable sources, like wind and solar.

The Wall Street Journal reports that oil and gas companies are anticipating a friendlier environment in Washington as the House comes under Republican rule next year, while the clean-energy sector is bracing for a slowdown in the Biden administration’s aggressive push away from fossil fuels.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.