Commentary
It has been a few days since I offered my commentary on the political scene, and I have again tapped my stack of stuff for topics that have not been appropriately covered by the mainstream media.
Biden and the UAW
President Biden was back on the road again touting union auto workers in Belvidere, Illinois the site of a Stellantis plant, and again quoting his Dad, who said, “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity.”
“With this UAW contract, you’ll be treated fairly,” he said. You’ll get a fair share of what you produce.”
While he spoke of higher wages, greater retirement security and more paid leave, in the new auto contract, he couldn’t help but take a bow. “Folks, since I took office, our nation has invested billions to super-charge advanced manufacturing here at home, including electric vehicles.”
To applause, he said, “The future of the automobile industry will be made in America by American union workers,” but those in the audience know they will be fewer in number producing electric cars.
Gone will be the good-paying jobs building engines, transmissions and exhaust systems. Ford CEO James Farley bluntly asserted recently that EVs will require 40 per cent less labor to produce than combustion-drive cars.
Biden went so far as to say that returning former President Trump “would spell the end of the American automobile industry,” when in fact, Trump would merely put the brakes on Biden’s all-electric goal and allow free enterprise and customer choice to determine the future of EVs.
No doubt, he would also reign in the unelected bureaucrats in the EPA, who control the Café standards on miles-per-gallon.
A Boost for Fossil Fuel
While President Biden has established an overly ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gasses to the 2005 level by 2030, and to produce 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, other leaders who signed on the Paris Accords, are now ramping up production of oil, gas and coal.
“The top 20 energy-producing nations intend to extract double the amount of fossil fuels by 2030,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Clean Energy Costly
It has gotten risky for those companies interested in investing in clean energy projects due to rising financing costs and prices for equipment.
As I have previously noted, developers of wind and solar are finding it difficult to secure financing, while others have walked away from contracts, like offshore wind projects, despite facing millions of dollars in termination fees.
Just recently, a European company cancelled plans to build blades for offshore wind turbines in coastal Virginia. The company – Siemens Gamesa – had proposed a $200 million factory at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth would have created 300 jobs while the state aspired to generate clean energy.
Trump’s Return
Phil Boas, a columnist with the Arizona Republic who leans conservative on the paper that leans left, wrote an opinion piece, “The GOP has 2 Great Leaders: Neither is Trump, Who Will Win?”
He features Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis as the two leading the pack after his winnowing down the field of candidates. Humorously, he wrote Vivek Ramaswamy, “could have been a contender, but he has dynamited the room so many times that he managed to blow himself up in the process.”
“Can Haley or DeSantis win early primary states to turn the momentum?” he writes, having noted Trump’s polls, “It looks unlikely. But this isn’t over.” What happens when a guilty verdict (among the four indictments) comes down?” he asks.
“Trump is proving a difficult addiction,” Boas writes, stating that Trump is “firmly in control of the nomination,” however, he believes Trump is “on his way to losing another general election.” Adding that “nothing motivates Democrat voters like Donald Trump.”
Other Views
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, in its opinion piece, “Will Trump Be Indicted Into Office,” point out that opponents thought that prosecuting (and persecuting) him would bring him down, but “instead it is powering his candidacy, as he runs as a political martyr. It is helping him in the campaign for the GOP nomination, and it could yet get him back in the White House.”
On the other hand, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly A. Strassel believes “Ms. Haley solidified her position as front runner to take on Trump in New Hampshire and South Carolina and is nipping at Mr. DeSantis’ heels in Iowa.
The View from ‘The View’
It was beat up Trump Day again on ABC’s “The View,” with Hillary Clinton back as chief flame-thrower, comparing Trump to Hitler, and claiming that the former president winning in 2024 would lead to “almost unimaginable wreckage for America.”
Of course, nobody on the panel questioned her position. If only there was a conservative on the panel who could have responded, ‘like the unimaginable wreckage we are now experiencing under Biden-Harris?’
In a best estimate, The View is watched by about 500,000 women between the ages of 18 and 54. I assume they also make up the 29 percent who believe the country is on the right track.
May God continue to bless the United States of America
