President Biden spoke today about his energy plan.

• * "Use it or lose it" approach to oil drilling permits
• * Releasing 1,000,000 barrels of U.S. oil reserves a day for the next six months
• * Energy Plan in Senate
• * Battery production

The Independent - Biden calls for ‘use it or lose it’ policy for oil leases on federal land

Reuters - Biden spurs record emergency oil release in 'moment of peril' for world

Political Wire - Biden to Invoke Cold-War Powers to Boost Batteries

Biden already approved more oil drilling permits than Trump did in his first year for all that it has mattered.

Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart
U.S. Crude Oil Production - Historical Chart
U.S. Crude Oil Exports - Historical Chart
Oil Price Charts
How Gas Prices Compare Around The World [Infographic] (March 11, 2022)
Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

Vox - America can’t solve its gas price problem (or its Russia problem) with drilling

In California they are giving more relief.



NPR: "NEW: U.S. employers added 431,000 jobs in March, the Labor Dept. reported — a healthy clip despite the economic shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The jobless rate fell to 3.6% from 3.8%."

Numbers for January and February revised up as well unsurprisingly, that's been the case during the recovery.

Biden signs US Postal Service reform bill into law - CNNPolitics

Yahoo! News - Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court

CNBC - Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to serve as a justice

• * The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to serve on the top U.S. court.
• * The 53-47 final vote tally showed bipartisan support for Jackson, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to elevate the 51-year-old federal judge to a lifetime appointment [94% of Senate Republicans voted against].
• * Jackson is President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee. She will replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, who was confirmed to the bench in 1994.

NBC News - Congress votes to strip Russia's trade status, ban its oil
Lawmakers in both chambers passed legislation Thursday that would suspend normal trade relations between Washington and Moscow and ban Russian oil imports. Votes on the two bills were unanimous in the Senate, with all 100 senators supporting the measures. There was minimal opposition in the House. Both bills now head to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature.

Biden signs US Postal Service reform bill into law - CNNPolitics





ABC News - Tearful Ketanji Brown Jackson celebrates with Biden at White House: 'We've made it'

Daily Kos - Joe Manchin has finally worn out his welcome with fellow Democrats (liberal blog)

Two big stories hit the wires today, and reading between the lines in them, it seems like everybody is fed up with Sen. Joe Manchin’s back-stabbing of fellow Democrats, and they’re increasingly willing to talk about it. Obliquely and cautiously, of course, but nonetheless on the record. It seems that fellow Democrats are now willing to talk about just how untrustworthy he is.

Politico - The new White House rule: Do not talk about Joe Manchin

Rolling Stone - How Joe Manchin Knifed the Democrats -- and Bailed on Saving Democracy

CNN - Biden announces new [ghost] gun regulation and names ATF nominee

USA Today - Genocide meaning: Biden calls Russia attack against Ukraine 'genocide'

Business Insider - Zelenskyy thanks Biden for saying Russia is committing 'genocide' in Ukraine: 'True words of a true leader'

NBC News - Biden to grant clemency to 78 people, including pardon for former Secret Service agent
In addition to three pardons, Biden is expected to commute the sentences of 75 nonviolent drug offenders. They will be his first clemency grants since he took office.

NBC News - Biden says Roe v. Wade should become law, urges Congress to act after leaked Supreme Court abortion decision



They'll have to reform the filibuster to make it law if not get rid of it, which also either means lowering the threshold to below 60 votes or a carve out or most/all of it going away (which also enables a lot of the rest of the people's agenda being on the table to be able to be passed). Senators Manchin and Sinema (and the rest of the Republicans) have stood in the way.

The bad news (there's more) is that this will have to a federal vote and presidential signature for every social protection policy for now on if the Court strikes down Roe v Wade and annihilates privacy and identity rights. It's a pretzel logic that can't hold up if to say there's no constitutional privacy protection for women but there is for gay people and a lot more like contraception.

Republicans are pursuing a national ban on reproductive rights:

The Washington Post - The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban

Can't wait for the Democrats to fail on this issue too. Here's what's going to happen: they will talk a big game about how Roe v Wade needs to become law and how you just need to elect more Democrats and then they will put in barely the minimum effort necessary to make that kind of law a reality. Unless they get rid of the filibuster over this you know they're not serious on this issue. They will not get rid of the legislative filibuster no matter what and everyone else's rights can get sacrificed for it in their minds. Spineless, feckless cowards.

Here's a special "fuck you" to all those dumb fuckers (particularly in the swing states) who voted for Jill Stein in 2016 or refrained to vote for Clinton, because their pure unstained souls could not bear to support anything other than the perfect immediate progress.

Your vote or lack thereof, is indeed equal to a Trump vote today, and all the suffering of so many around the world, all the blood that has been shed, and will be in the future because of that election's result, is on your hands too.

A lot of them realized they fucked up whether they admit it or not. I'm somewhat grateful for that for 2020 (without third party voters and non-voters from 2016 voting for Biden in 2020 he would have lost as seen below), but it doesn't end the story.

National Results 2020 President exit polls:

Biden's coalition 51% (2020)
.95 * 40 = 38 (2016 Clinton voters)
.07 * 43 = 3 (2016 Trump voters)
.60 * 5 = 3 (2016 third party/other voters)
.58 * 11 = 6 (2016 non-voters)

Trump's coalition 47% (2020)
.92 * 43 = 40 (2016 Trump voters)
.04 * 40 = 2 (2016 Clinton voters)
.25 * 5 = 1 (2016 third party/other voters)
.39 * 11 = 4 (2016 non-voters)

There's some on the left who are looking to marry the perfect spouse (doesn't exist) or an infallible messiah figure (not happening) to woo them and pat them on the head and rub their bellies while the world is on fire and it's the height of privilege to walk away from when you don't get your own way. Politics is the art of the possible, 'my ideal way or no way' is folly and doesn't work.

The bad news is where are they in 2022 or 2024?

The cons understand that they're voting for a movement and they're voting for their fellow voters which is why they follow a raging dumpster human of historical proportions named Donald Trump now until he can't do it anymore and will back the next Trump when the time comes. McConnell stole a Supreme Court from Obama, eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, and installed two more.

Master Virgo wrote: ↑

May 4th, 2022, 1:57 pm

Here's a special "fuck you" to all those dumb fuckers (particularly in the swing states) who voted for Jill Stein in 2016 or refrained to vote for Clinton, because their pure unstained souls could not bear to support anything other than the perfect immediate progress.

Your vote or lack thereof, is indeed equal to a Trump vote today, and all the suffering of so many around the world, all the blood that has been shed, and will be in the future because of that election's result, is on your hands too.

Totally agree, though I might add that Clinton's VP pick at the time was not pro-choice and Pelosi is currently working hard to push for the incumbent Henry Cuellar in Texas who is anti-choice and under FBI investigation because she would prefer that ghoul to genuinely progressive Democrats. That's the leadership of the Democratic Party today. If they can't be bothered to fight for abortion rights of women then they deserve to get called out for it from now until the end of time because it shows that they don't care about women at all. You think people don't have receipts of this kind of stuff?