Monday's March of the Absurdities: Granholm Lets The Saudi Cat Out Of The Bag
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm let the cat out of the bag during an interview on CNN Sunday, telling host Dana Bash this:
Here’s an excerpt from that story:
Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm said she thinks President Biden will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman to talk gas prices when he visits Saudi Arabia next month.
'I think he will meet with the Saudi crown prince,' Granholm told CNN's State of the Union, after President Biden said days ago that he would not meet with the crown prince.
Granholm says a meeting will take place, but her insistence is only the latest in a line of mixed messaging on the trip.
Why is Granholm’s admission of the obvious important? Because her boss, Old Joe Biden, has repeatedly claimed he was not going to Saudi Arabia to beg Mohammed bin Salman to produce more oil. We’ve all known it was an obvious lie, but the administration had stuck with it for at least two weeks now until Sunday.
Just last Friday, Biden falsely claimed to be traveling to Saudi Arabia simply to attend an international conference the Kingdom was hosting. His spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre reinforced that by reading from her notebook that, while Biden and bin Salman surely would run across one another during the conference, the Sock Puppet had no plans to raise the subject of oil while there.
“I'm not going to meet with MBS. I'm going to an international meeting and he's going to be part of it,” Biden told reporters Friday at the White House before he left to spend the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
The White House has noted that Salman's team, which includes his son and heir MBS, will simply be a part of that meeting. MBS will also be a part of the GCC plus 3 summit, which Saudi chairs.
But the kingdom said that MBS and Biden would be meeting unilaterally.
Oh.
Now, we’ve all known without any doubt at all that Old Joe’s claim was a load of fresh, smelly horse manure, but it had been the official administration line until Granholm off-loaded the truth bomb on Sunday. Of course, Biden will be meeting with bin Salman, and of course Biden will beg the Crown Prince to produce more oil in an effort to bring down gas prices in advance of the November elections. There is literally no other reason for Old Joe to be traveling to Saudi Arabia.
Let’s move on…
I suppose this would qualify as the big news from Sunday:
Here’s an excerpt from that story:
Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who smashed women's records this year, will be banned from competing against biological women in international events after the world swimming's governing body announced on Sunday that it is barring transgender athletes who went through male puberty.
FINA, the international sports federation for swimming, announced on Sunday that it is changing its policies so that transgender women can only compete in the organization's women's races if they have completed their transition by the age of 12.
They will then have to prove to the federation that they have continuously suppressed their testosterone levels since that time.
Ok, so, note that this only applies to international competitions. Also note that it still leaves the door open to biological males competing in girls’ events under certain circumstances, although it would ban Lia Thomas from doing so.
In the U.S., it will now be up to the NCAA and other governing bodies to determine if they will conform their standards to the international rules. I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath waiting for that to happen.
Meanwhile, in Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago…
Mind you, this is just a typical Saturday night in the Windy City, and nobody in the media or the Democrat party (I know, I’m being redundant) cares. That’s the truth.
And in France…
This story is absolutely amazing, folks. Here’s an excerpt:
PARIS — Plumes of steam towered above two reactors recently at the Chinon nuclear power plant in the heart of France’s verdant Loire Valley. But the skies above a third reactor there were unusually clear — its operations frozen after the worrisome discovery of cracks in the cooling system.
The partial shutdown isn’t unique: Around half of France’s atomic fleet, the largest in Europe, has been taken offline as a storm of unexpected problems swirls around the nation’s state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF.
As the European Union moves to cut ties to Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France has been betting on its nuclear plants to weather a looming energy crunch. Nuclear power provides about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a bigger share than any other country in the world.
But the industry has tumbled into an unprecedented power crisis as EDF confronts troubles ranging from the mysterious emergence of stress corrosion inside nuclear plants to a hotter climate that is making it harder to cool the aging reactors.
The outages at EDF, Europe’s biggest electricity exporter, have sent France’s nuclear power output tumbling to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, pushing French electric bills to record highs just as the war in Ukraine is stoking broader inflation. Instead of pumping vast amounts of electricity to Britain, Italy and other European countries pivoting from Russian oil, France faces the unsettling prospect of initiating rolling blackouts this winter and having to import power.
EDF, already 43 billion euros (about $45 billion) in debt, is also exposed to a recent deal involving the Russian state-backed nuclear power operator, Rosatom, that may heap fresh financial pain on the French company. The troubles have ballooned so quickly that President Emmanuel Macron’s government has hinted that EDF may need to be nationalized.
The New York Times also reported over the weekend that Russia’s oil income has now risen to new record levels since its invasion of Ukraine, since EU countries have no ability to get themselves off of Russian dependency for their energy needs. And, to add insult to injury, Germany’s government announced it was reactivating high-polluting, previously de-commissioned coal power plants in order to conserve natural gas for the coming winter.
The world is in the midst of its worst energy crisis in several generations, and about 90% of it can be blamed on stupid energy policies on the European continent during this century. That’s the truth and we shouldn’t be shy about saying it.
That is all.
I remember in the 70’s the popular bumper sticker in Nigeria was “let the bastards freeze to death in the dark”. Seems we’re arriving at that goal with expediency thanks to ignorant liberal ideology!
Duh. We all know why FJB is going to to SA. We all know it's to beg the Saudis for oil. Trump had us CRANKING out our own oil and products. It took FJB a year to destroy America. Sad.