The Press-Dispatch

March 30, 2022

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B-2 Wednesday, March 30, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Clarence and Ginni Thomas, American patriots Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is once again in the crosshairs of liberals. This has been going on since his confirmation hearings in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush had the temerity to nominate a Black conser- vative to take the Supreme Court seat of Thurgood Marshall. Thomas' confirmation hearings pro- vided a laboratory showing how low liberals are willing to go to try to dis- credit a conservative, even more so one who is Black. Now liberal journalists are having their most recent field day because it happens that Thomas' wife, Ginni, is a conservative like him, is an Ameri- can patriot like him, and is personal- ly invested, like her husband, in safe- guarding our Constitution's integri- ty, written, as its drafters wrote in its preamble, "to secure the blessings of liberty." Clarence Thomas does it as the court's longest-sitting justice and per- haps its most principled and consistent conservative. Ginni Thomas does it as a conservative activist, involved with a number of conservative organizations in Washington. For years, liberals attempted to di- minish Thomas as a lackey of the late justice Antonin Scalia. Now, as Thom- as shines as the court's leading con- servative voice, they want to diminish him as a lackey of his wife. The sparks were fanned, hoping to create a forest fire, about alleged con- flicts of interest in a New Yorker article by liberal muckraker Jane Mayer, who has made a career of hatchet-job jour- nalism aimed at conservatives. Mayer's article leads with her con- cern about politics finding their way into the Supreme Court, as evidenced by "a recent Gallup poll" showing "the Supreme Court has its lowest pub- lic-approval rating in history." That poll, from last September, shows the court's approval rating at 40 % , down from 62 % in 2001. But equally germane, and of course of less interest to Mayer, is Gallup poll- ing from the same date showing Amer- icans' trust in media standing at 36 % , the second lowest on record. Liberal journalists only look for smoking guns when conservatives are the target. Where were all the liberal journal- ists when The New York Post broke the story 17 months ago about emails on Hunter Biden's laptop showing he was doing business deals, profiting on his vice president father's position? He even cut his father a piece of one of the deals. The story went unreported through the presidential election. On- ly now is The New York Times report- ing it as real. How about President Joe Biden's nominee for vice chairman of Super- vision of the Federal Reserve Board, Sarah Bloom Raskin? Her husband, Rep. Jamie Raskin, was hit with a House ethics violation for late report- ing of a $1.5 million stock sale by his wife in a firm where she may have had a conflict of interest. We could, of course, discuss Ameri- ca's favorite power couple, Bill and Hil- lary Clinton, now worth tens of mil- lions despite careers in politics and public service. The point is, there are no bureau- cratic ethics rules that displace what is the real driver of what matters — personal integrity. There is no decision that Clarence Thomas has ever made on the Su- preme Court than cannot be traced di- rectly to his rigorous and principled scholarship and commitment to the U.S. Constitution. Period. Similarly, Ginni Thomas, who sat on the board of my organization CURE for some 15 years, is motivated by one thing — preservation of our nation as a free nation under God. The real bottom line is one liber- als don't want to hear. The way to lim- it questions about ethics in govern- ment is to keep government limited and small. It's exactly what Ameri- ca's founders had in mind and the ex- act opposite direction in which liber- als have taken our nation. We owe thanks to Clarence and Gin- ni Thomas for their relentless struggle to preserve the integrity of our Consti- tution and the principles that keep our nation free, despite being under end- less siege by the liberal media. Renewable Failure The "Greens" promise renewables, solar and wind power, will replace fossil fuels. A fter all, the wind and sun are free, and they don't pollute! Oops. Now countries that embraced re- newables are so desperate for pow- er that they eagerly import coal, the worst polluter of all! Do they apologize? No. Greens never apologize. Germany was a leader in renew- able energy, so confident in solar and wind power that they closed half their nuclear plants. Oops. That leaves Germans so short of power that Germans are now desper- ate to buy fossil fuels from Russia. Even worse, pollution-wise, high pol- lution coal now tops wind as Germa- ny's biggest electricity source. That's really disgusting. Then, even after putting all that soot in the air, Germans pay more than triple what Americans pay for electricity. For my new video, I confront Ger- man-born environmentalist Johanna Neumann of Environment America, a group that lobbies for 100 % renew- able energy. I point out that despite massive subsidies, her beloved renewables still provide just 12 % of our power. She responds, "Saying renewables are not yet powering our utility grid is like critiquing a 2-year-old for not being able to run a marathon." A 2-year-old? I don't want to meet that kid. Renewables have been sub - sidized for 40 years, not two. "How we spend our taxes ought to be a reflection of our values," Neu- mann adds. "Americans ... love re- newable energy." Yes, I suppose we do. We like the idea of it. I put solar panels on my roof. I'd be a sucker not to. Massachu- setts takes money from other state residents to give me a tax break on solar panels. Still, in winter, when the sun is low, or my panels are covered by snow, I get nothing from my solar panels. What kind of energy solution is that? People need energy when it's cloudy, too. They also need it when the wind doesn't blow. "When the sun goes down ... off- shore winds get cranked up," says Neumann. No, they don't! "The wind doesn't always come up when the sun goes down," I point out. "Renewables are clearly better," Neumann replies. She says we'll solve renewable en- ergy's inconsistency by doing things like storing energy in batteries. Well, yes, a battery that holds ener- gy for weeks would make renewables work. But it doesn't exist. "This is just a total fantasy, which is why nobody has done it anywhere, ever! " says Alex Epstein, author of "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels." Fossil fuels are moral, Epstein cor- rectly points out, because human flourishing depends on them. Abundant fossil fuels are especial- ly important for poor people. "Three billion people in the world still use less electricity than a typi- cal American refrigerator. Are we go- ing to allow them to have a modern life? Because that's going to depend on fossil fuels." Even if climate change becomes a serious problem, fossil fuels reduce its harm by making us prosperous enough to afford protection against the climate. "We have a 98 % decline in cli- mate-related disaster deaths over the last 100 years," Epstein points out. A 98 % drop in deaths! This is the amazing untold story of fossil fuels and their benefits. Because oil and natural gas so efficiently provide power, heat homes when it's freez- ing, pump water during droughts, etc., millions thrive, despite prob- lems like climate change. Thanks to fossil fuels, "We have this amazing productive ability," says Epstein. "That's the only reason we experience the planet as livable." Global warming is a threat. Limit- ing fossil fuels now, without a capable alternative, will make it even harder to deal with the effects. Unless someone invents a mira- cle battery or something else that makes sun and wind power practi- cal, we need fossil fuels, desperately. Poor people need them most. For many years now, there has been a spirited debate about wheth- er climate change is science, religion or even perhaps a secret route to so- cialism. That question remains un- answered, but we've now discovered with certainty that climate change is a political albatross around the neck of the Democratic Party. The Left's spiritual devotion to cli- mate change has been speeding the Democrats over a political cliff this fall with likely unprecedented losses this November. The zero fossil fuels suicide pact was always an econom- ic and political loser. More than 70 % of all the energy we produce and con- sume in America derives from oil, gas and coal. President Joe Biden's war on these fuel sources was sure to cause severe shortages and $5 gallon gasoline at the pump. Didn't Demo- crats learn their lesson in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won a landslide elec- tion against Jimmy Carter that surg- ing inflation and gas prices is a sure- fire way to infuriate voters? While Biden keeps saying he is do- ing "everything I can to lower gas prices," he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth — because if your goal is to get people to stop us- ing something, raising its price is a pretty good way to accomplish that. If prices go to $10 or $15 a gallon, you can clear the highways of trucks and cars altogether, and what a wonder- ful world it will be. Democrats were so enamored with their Green New Deal delu- sion that they failed to understand that most people aren't as hyper-ob- sessed with climate change as they are. A new poll sponsored by my group, Committee to Unleash Pros- perity, found that people are much more concerned about inflation and high gas prices than climate change. Moreover, the poll found that respon- dents' average amount they would be willing to pay for the cli- mate change agenda was $55 a year. Sorry, that's the extra cost we are already spending with two fill-ups at the gas station. Then there is the in- creasingly unavoidable reality that the green energy sources they fantasize about are decades away from being technologically feasible to replace old-fashioned oil, gas and coal. Even the Energy Department predicts that even with the trend to- ward renewable energy, by 2035, we will still be heavily reliant on oil, gas and coal for electricity produc- tion, home heating and transporta- tion fuels. Elon Musk, the leading champion of electric cars, reminded Biden in a recent tweet that in the real world rather than in la-la land, we are going to need oil and gas for many years to come. Today 3% of cars on the road are electric, and 95% use gas or die- sel. This brings us to yet another fa- tal flaw of the climate change move- ment. The Biden administration and its radical green allies can't explain why getting our energy from Sau- di Arabia, Iran and Russia makes more sense than Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska. This strategy is especially pin- headed because the war on oil, gas and coal production is a big loser for the environment and increases glob- al greenhouse gas emissions. That is because America has the strictest environmental standards. Shifting oil and gas production to Russia or Iran and shifting coal production to China and India is causing far more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese Pres- ident Xi Jinping is busy trying to take over the world economy, and the last thing he or the rul- ing class in Beijing cares about is climate change. Finally, Democrats should have learned from the green energy ca- tastrophe of Western Eu- rope. A decade ago, the French, Ger- mans, Italians and others in the Eu- ropean Union moved to a renewable energy future. They slashed much of their oil, gas and coal production, shut down nuclear plants (why?) and subsidized the building of wind turbines and solar panels. It nearly bankrupted Germany as energy pric- es soared and factories left Europe for America and Asia. A decade lat- er, France is back to building nucle- ar plants, and Germany is burning more coal than ever before and im- porting natural gas from Russia. Eu- rope recently redefined natural gas and nuclear power as "clean energy." Going green wrecked their econo- mies and submerged these countries deeper into the red. Unfortunately, Americans weren't paying any at- tention to that failed experiment. So now Biden is repeating it. The result is likely to be the same. The Demo- crats' radical climate change agen- da isn't greening the planet, and it is bankrupting our country. Voters know exactly whom to blame. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Re- lentless Growth of Government Is De- vouring Our Economy." Chaos at the London Metals Ex- change has thrust a low-profile com- modity into the limelight. For the first time on record, nickel spiked to more than $100,000 per metric ton on March 8, prompting the LME to halt nickel trading for a week. Until recently, Russian nickel constituted about one-tenth of glob- al supply. But Indonesia boasts the world's largest nickel reserves and is already the largest producer. Now that Russian nickel faces sanctions, Indonesia could be in for a windfall as buyers compete for a scarcer re- source. Unfortunately for Indone- sians, their government has banned nickel exports. Nickel is a key input for stainless steel and for fossil energy alterna- tives like lithium-ion batteries. Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion threw the market off-balance, demand for nickel had climbed sharply. According to Nor- nickel's most recent annual report, global nickel consumption rose from just below 1.3 million metric tons in 2009 to more than 2.4 million metric tons in 2020. Citing $ 30 billion in nickel-pro- cessing investments and commit- ments from Chinese companies, Ms. Huber says the export ban puts Indo- nesia "on track" to develop an inte- grated electric vehicle battery sup- ply chain. Indeed, buoyed by the per- ceived success of its nickel policy, In- donesia now plans to ban the export of gold, copper and bauxite. But the current nickel upheaval shows a flaw in this strategy. Indo- nesia's nickel economy, now linked to a handful of Chinese companies, is walled off from potential custom- ers who would, if not for the ban, be bidding against one another for In- donesian nickel. In essence, the govern- ment has made Indone- sian nickel off-limits to the highest bidder, there- by limiting the resource's potential to enrich Indo- nesians. Only a small subset of all global nickel buyers have been willing to in- vest within Indonesia. The company that has been most willing to put stakes in the ground in Indonesia has been Tsing- shan Holding Group—a firm at the heart of China's Belt and Road over- tures in the region and, incidentally, the primary beneficiary of the LME's trading pause. The relationship with Tsingshan and other firms like it will deliv- er some benefits to the Indonesian economy. But it will also render Indo- nesia geopolitically vulnerable. De- pendence on exclusive Belt and Road links, rather than access to the pano- ply of buyers on an open global mar- ket, will weaken Indonesia's hand as China threatens its territorial sover- eignty at sea. Moreover, the export ban makes shipping ore abroad illegal, but it doesn't eliminate the activity alto- gether. Prohibitions beget smug- gling and, indeed, the Indonesian Coast Guard will increase its an- ti-smuggling patrols amid the price spike to catch vessels seeking the high global rate. The situation is at once a waste of law enforcement re- sources and a detriment to public trust. The theory animating Indonesia is operating according to the theo- ry that its government can produce trade outcomes superior to those produced by free trade and competition. Pro- ponents of this theory frequently cite the ex- amples of South Korea and Taiwan. But as Columbia University econom- ics professor Arvind Panagariya notes in "Free Trade and Pros- perity: How Openness Helps the Developing Countries Grow Richer and Combat Poverty," that theory is shaky at best; the mir- acles of prosperity achieved by South Korea and Taiwan happened despite, not because of, their industrial poli- cies. Indeed, Mr. Panagariya argues, developing countries like Indonesia can best accelerate prosperity by em- bracing free and open trade. With a population of more than 270 million and its position at the heart of the dynamic Southeast Asia re- gion, Indonesia is poised for an eco- nomic miracle of its own—one that could surely eclipse that of South Ko- rea. Trade encumbrances, however, narrow Indonesia's pathways to suc- cess. By ditching the nickel export ban (and the planned export bans on other commodities), Mr. Widodo's government would make both Indo- nesians and the global economy bet- ter off. Jordan McGillis is the Deputy Di- rector of Policy at the Institute for En- ergy Research. Anthony Kim is a Research Fellow and Editor of the Index of Economic Freedom. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore End of the climate change legend Heritage Viewpoint By Anthony Kim and Jordan McGills Indonesia's nickel export ban: Bad for itself and global economy Court

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