The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, September 14, 2022 C-3 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 Biden about 1619, not 1776 President Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia, to Independence Hall, the place where the nation's found- ers signed the Declaration of Inde- pendence, to make his case for "The Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation." Indeed, the president, in his re- marks, said we are at an "inflection point" regarding where we stand and the path we'll take for the future. It is one of those rare moments when I agree with our president. We are in a tug of war for our fu- ture. Biden presented himself, and the political factions he represents, as those dedicated to saving and pre- ser ving the nation's founding princi- ples. The threat, per Biden, is "Don- ald Trump and MAGA Republicans," who "represent an extremism that threatens the ver y foundations of our republic." But the woke crowd that Biden represents doesn't see the beginning of American histor y with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. They see the beginning of American histor y with the arrival of slaves to the state of Virginia in 1619. They see America as a place of op- pression that needs to be fixed, not as the first nation in the world to be founded, under God, on the princi- ples of liberty. Our president knows that if he conveyed imager y consistent with the values he really represents, the state of his party in upcoming elec- tions would be even worse than it now is. Biden's performance in Philadel- phia, as most appreciate, was po- litically contrived, because polling shows that former President Donald Trump is a polarizing figure. Demo- crats want to focus attention on him rather than on what they are about and what those who identify with MAGA really want. It's not about any one individual but about the struggle for the high ground. The inflection point is wheth- er America will be secular, socialist and woke or the free nation under God, as conceived by its founders. Our president cannot even accu- rately read our own Declaration of In- dependence, which he described as "an idea unique among nations: that, in America, we're all created equal." But this isn't what it says. It says "all men are created equal" -- not just in America. It is not about politics. It is about a nation under God that em- bodies universal truths. And that the job of government is to preser ve our God-given rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Biden left God out of the equation, and he left the role of government out of the equation, which, per the Declaration, is to secure individual liberty, not to exercise power to de- cide who has what. The MAGAites that bother Biden so are a nationwide movement to recapture exactly those principles that the nation's founders declared in Philadelphia where Biden stood and spoke. It is no accident that Biden de- clares "MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution" but with one swipe of the presidential pen, he just wiped out somewhere between a half-trillion to a trillion dollars in stu- dent loan obligations that are now on the shoulders of American taxpayers. Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley at George Washington Uni- versity writes that the president's constitutional authority to do this is dubious at best. "His administration," writes Turley, "is rushing to get mon- ey out the door in October, a month before the midterm elections." Turley continues, "The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that President Biden has violated the Constitution and overreached in his use of unilateral executive authority. Biden has, arguably, the worst re- cord of court losses in the first two years of any recent presidential ad- ministration." Trump captured the presidency in 2016 as a complete political outsider because a massive part of America was and is concerned about losing their countr y. Half the nation's econ- omy is now being taken by govern- ment at federal, state and local level. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Heritage Viewpoint By Jake Denton Lawmakers must act as President Biden weaponizes big tech against Americans Give Me a Break By John Stossel The left has always hated cars -- or at least the idea that there should be a car in ever y driveway. Now, it is stepping up its assault. In 2035, ever y car purchased in California, with its nearly 40 million people, will have to be an electric ve- hicle. Why? The automobile is argu- ably the most liberating invention in histor y, or at least is in the top five of all time. It allows people to travel anywhere at any time at fast speeds. The increase in mobility from mass auto ownership has been a ma- jor driver of increased incomes and wealth. One of the best ways to help low-income people out of poverty is to get them a car so they can drive to jobs that may be located far outside their neighborhoods. Perhaps it is the ver y indepen- dence and autonomy that cars give individuals that the collectivists on the left hate. Liberals have been tr ying to push Americans into mass transit buses and trains for decades to no avail. Today, less than 5% of all trips are using mass transit. Except for those in major congested cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, ever yone wants their own car. Under the new California law, after 2035, you will have to either buy and drive an electric vehicle, take the bus or lace up your sneakers and walk to work. This may seem detached from any sense of reality, given that there is no place on the planet that is more car-crazy than the Golden State. This is the place that virtually invented the hot rod. There is a memorable scene in the Steve Martin movie "L.A. Sto- r y" in which a group of Beverly Hills resi- dents can't get a car to take them four blocks away. Someone sug- gests, "Why don't we just walk?" and Mar- tin's character bursts out laughing, saying, "WALK? In L.A.?" California Gov. Gavin Newsome says that banning cars is necessar y to save the planet. About one- third of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. That's true, but real pollution levels (like lead and carbon monoxide) from cars have been reduced by about two-thirds over the last 50 years. That's why the brown L.A. haze that Jimmy Buffett sang about has been largely eliminated. California is the land of nuts, so dealing with the heavy hand of reg- ulators is their own business. But what's scar y is that The Economist predicts that as many as one-third of other blue states may soon follow Newsom's lead. Washington state lawmakers have already announced they are all-in with the California plan. Legislators in Virginia want to adopt the California standards as well, but fortunately, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said no. But because of red state opposition, don't be sur- prised if a federal ban on cars isn't forthcoming in the years ahead. The American auto companies are in on this scheme, too. GM and Ford have both said they will soon stop making gas-powered cars and ever ything will be EVs, which are vehicles that will eventually be powered by batteries made in China and recharged with windmills. The car companies are going all-electric be- cause the government -- i.e., the taxpayer -- is practically paying people to buy EVs. They've also made a multibillion-dol- lar bet that Americans WANT EVs. Ahh. But that is where they are dead wrong. Americans are divided on EVs -- only about 5% of new car sales in re- cent months are electric -- even with all the financial enticements from Uncle Sam. Polls have shown that more than three out of four Americans want to make their own choices on what kind of car they can buy. They don't want politicians like Newsom mak- ing these choices for them. But the state lawmakers are acting like Henr y Ford during the early days of rolling the Model T off the assembly lines: You can have it any color you want, as long as it's black. Even the environmental case for EVs is dubious. Where do the greens plan to bur y the toxic waste from tens of millions of dead batteries ever y year? The irony of this debate about banning cars is that back 100 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Now, they are coming for your car Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt last week exposed the sym- biosis of the deep state and the Sil- icon Valley elites. Schmitt's revela- tion came just days after Americans learned that Facebook coordinated with the FBI to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop stor y a few weeks be- fore the 2020 election. It is now clearer than ever that President Joe Biden's regime is ac- tively using the power of Big Tech's totalitarian policies to silence the dis- senting opinions of ordinar y Ameri- cans. The past few weeks of whis- tleblowers and court discover y have revealed evidence of the Biden ad- ministration's deliberate weaponiza- tion of the power of Big Tech. It start- ed in July 2021, when then-White House press secretar y Jen Psaki disclosed that the Biden administra- tion was working with Facebook to censor "misinformation" related to COVID-19. Thanks to Schmitt, we now know of more than 45 officials at vari- ous agencies and numerous White House staffers who communicate with social media platforms about "misinformation." (These agencies include the Department of Home- land Security, the Centers for Dis- ease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Allergy and In- fectious Diseases, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Election Assistance Com- mission.) Meanwhile, the Justice Depart- ment stonewalls attempts in court to discover communications between Big Tech and White House staff. While Facebook's parent compa- ny, Meta, has insisted repeatedly that it relies on unbiased fact-check- ing partners to curtail misinforma- tion, recent discover y from Schmitt's lawsuit has proved other wise. In newly released emails, Face- book employees take direct orders from government officials on which Facebook accounts to act against. This alarming alliance between the liberal bureaucrats in Washington and Meta has resulted in the silenc- ing of conser vative voices, and there is no sign of this slowing down. Coordination between the White House and Big Tech doesn't stop with Meta. Recently, author and for- mer New York Times reporter Alex Berenson was deplatformed by Twit- ter after White House officials ex- plicitly requested his removal. After release of the whistleblower report that revealed prevalence of corrup- tion inside Twitter, and considering Twitter's long histor y of suppressing dissidents, it is no surprise that Twit- ter management is willing to take or- ders from Washington. These recent stories have provid- ed lawmakers and ordinar y Amer- icans alike with hard evidence that this censorship enterprise is a coor- dinated effort to weaponize Big Tech against the American people. Under the guise of protecting Americans from "misinforma- tion," the Biden administration has launched a war against free speech and traditional values. In this ongo- ing totalitarian crackdown, Biden and his allies in Silicon Valley have weaponized account limitations, suspensions, and deplatforming to silence dissidents and preser ve the dying shreds of the ruling class. Internet platforms' content mod- eration policies for misinformation and other buzzwords are thin veils for the seamless collusion between liberal government and social me- dia. Big Tech isn't depending on "al- gorithms" or "unbiased third-party fact-checkers" to determine which accounts to suppress. Instead, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook work with their handlers in Washington to impose a liberal worldview on Amer- ica and eliminate criticism of Biden and his allies. Misinformation poli- cies were never anything more than an excuse to silence the enemies of the ruling class. The unelected bureaucrats in Washington have conquered Silicon Valley and claimed it as their own. What Donald Trump identified as the deep state has now expanded its reach into ever y facet of our lives. Although the threat of the Chi- nese Communist Party's ideology receives attention, our own civil ser- vants in Washington willfully have accomplished an equally dystopic vision for America. Americans no longer may post their political opin- ions freely without fear of being de- platformed. Now it appears that draining the swamp also will require draining Sil- icon Valley. After Biden's divisive speech Thursday night, which ser ved as a declaration of war against more than 70 million "MAGA Republicans," Americans can be certain that this censorship and aggression toward conser vatives will only grow. The fight for the future of the internet is intertwined with the po- litical battle for our countr y. As the radical left aggressively tries to con- solidate power, the Biden adminis- tration will use the internet against ordinar y Americans to force us into submission. It is critical that lawmakers in Congress and in state legislatures take decisive action to protect their Going hungry Star vation. Poverty. People strug- gling to buy medicine and fuel. Disaster happened after one gov- ernment fell under the influence of the world's environmental extrem- ists. Many "experts" say pure nature is best. United Nations officials now tell politicians that the climate "crisis" demands countries make all sorts of sacrifices, like cutting nitrogen waste. Much of that waste comes from synthetic fertilizer, so activists ap- plauded when Sri Lanka's govern- ment decided to become the first countr y to really take their advice. Sri Lanka banned all synthetic fertil- izers. Oops. Suddenly, the same farms pro- duced much less food. Food prices rose 80%. One result: riots. As my new video shows, thousands swarmed the pres- ident's mansion. Some had a cookout on his lawn. The president resigned and fled the countr y. It turns out that we need chemical fertilizers. Environmental writer Michael Shellenberger says if countries lis- tened to today's green activists, there would be mass star vation. "We could only support 2 to 3 bil- lion people on earth if we just relied on natural fertilizers like manure. ... There's 8 billion people." "Why can't we just make more or- ganic manure?" I ask. "It takes twice as much land to pro- duce all the cows that you need to get the manure," he explains. "Synthetic fertilizers are a friend to saving na- ture because they reduce how much land we need." Now the environmental purists make excuses for Sri Lanka. Mother Jones said it's "ridiculous to single out (the fertilizer ban) as the 'underlying' cause, as Shel- lenberger did." Others say that Sri Lanka just needed time to adjust to organic farming. "You might be able to become poorer over five or 10 years, rather than over six months," replies Shel- lenberger. "But the result will be the same." I push back. "There were oth- er causes of the problems: higher oil prices, COVID, other stuff hap- pened." "But those same problems affect- ed other countries where the econ- omies did not collapse," he replies. "What made the difference in Sri Lanka was its fertilizer ban." We are right to worr y about chem- ical fertilizer. Not only is the nitrous oxide it emits a greenhouse gas, but when nitrogen runs off into water- ways, it can kill fish. "Absolutely. We should be con- cerned," says Shellenberger. "But that's best dealt with through a grad- ual process of farmers getting better at applying the fertilizer." Farmers are already doing that. Fertilizer is expensive, so farmers have an incentive not to waste it. "We know you can significantly reduce pollution while producing the same amount of food," Shellenberger points out. In the Netherlands, "They reduced fertilizer pollution by 70%." But that still wasn't enough for envi- ronmental zealots in the Dutch gov- ernment. They want to force farmers to cut nitrogen emissions by another half, even though they admit that will force 11,000 farms to shut down. "(This green extremism) is out of control," says Shellenberger. "You would think that Sri Lanka would be a wake-up call. But we haven't seen any slowdown." Fortunately, most countries don't yet embrace the zealot's most de- structive ideas, like banning synthet- ic fertilizer or the Green New Deal's demand for 100% renewable energy. But many countries closed nuclear plants. And President Joe Biden killed pipelines, stopped a long-planned sale of offshore oil rights, and im- posed a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands. This is a war on affordable energy. "We're in the worst energy crisis in 50 years," says Shellenberger. "Yet governments are tr ying to make en- ergy more scarce and expensive. It's totally insane. There's no other word for it." The pursuit of a chemical-free world is insane. Modern technologies like synthetic fertilizer make people's lives better. They especially make See BIG TECH on page 4 See HUNGRY on page 4 See 1776 on page 4 See CAR on page 4