There’s a growing realization among Democrats that their plans for a $3.5 trillion spending package to reshape the nation’s social safety net and to tackle climate change will have to be slimmed down because of anxious centrists worried about the 2022 midterms.
In the early days of any administration, there is a tendency for new presidents to blame their predecessors for problems they claim to have inherited — and there is a window during which the public is willing to accept such arguments. But for President Biden, the window on blaming Donald Trump has now closed. As Americans process the tragic news of double-digit deaths of U.S. service members in twin terrorist attacks in the midst of a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, it will be hard for Biden to dodge responsibility.
In the course of hectoring the United States for its “bungled and embarrassing withdraw from Afghanistan” on Thursday, China’s state-run Global Times admitted Beijing has a rapacious interest in Afghanistan’s vast rare-earths mineral resources and snarled it was none of America’s business if China makes deals with the Taliban to get what it wants.
In a notable break with progressives, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in an interview that the coal industry “will be saved, has to be saved, because the country can’t survive without it.”
In 2019, still settling into his new home in the state’s creepy, gothic governor’s mansion, Gavin Newsom told an Axios interviewer, “California is what America is going to look like.” Then, perhaps reflecting on his Hollywood benefactors, he added for emphasis, “California is America’s coming attraction.”
America’s oil and gas industry employs over 11 million people and is worth more than $1.6 trillion, making the energy transition more difficult than it may seem.
All sources of energy have limits that can't be exceeded. The maximum rate at which the sun's photons can be converted to electrons is about 33%. Our best solar technology is at 26% efficiency. For wind, the maximum capture is 60%. Our best machines are at 45%.
