Energy Secretary Says Not Moving Forward With New “Green” Loans

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 3:00 pm

I’m unclear why they are called loans, when the money is rarely repaid. These are handouts, for which Biden was giving them to friendly companies, with little expectation of results, and virtually no oversight

Energy Chief Says US Won’t Move Forward With With Billions in Biden-Era Loans

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said his agency doesn’t plan to move forward with billions of dollars worth of Biden-era loans as the Trump administration reviews the department’s $400 billion-strong green bank.

Wright, speaking during a Bloomberg Television interview Friday, criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration for issuing billions of dollars in loans and grants between the time President Donald Trump was elected and inauguration day.

“We’ve got a lot of reasons to be worried and suspicious about that,” Wright said in response to a question about the department’s loan program. “Some of these loans will go forward, some of it, it’s too late to change course. A lot of them won’t go forward, but that’s a very careful review process that we’ve just put in place and just got a team to execute on.”

The department recently started a review of its Loan Programs Office, which has financed nearly $70 billion in energy projects and made more than $41.2 billion in conditional commitments that haven’t been finalized. The latter include $1.46 billion to biofuel maker Gevo Inc. and $4.4 billion for a high-voltage transmission line project spanning Kansas to Missouri.

In my mind, one of the major things they should be doing is auditing the “loans” and grants. Let’s see how the money was spent. What were the results? Were the projects completed or on their way to completion? How much money went to the projects and how much into people’s pockets? Are the projects sustainable, or, just simply being done on a whim, and will soon collapse generally putting money in people’s pockets)? Does anyone remember Solyndra, and all the other failed projects from Obama’s green slush fund? How about

Interesting

(AIE) “It” was the Ivanpah solar power project in the California Mojave Desert, and it was none of those things. Beginning operations in early 2014 to thunderous applause from all of the usual suspects—left-wing environmentalists, ideologues opposed to fossil fuels and modern economies, crony capitalists, federal bureaucrats, journalists credulous and lazy, and politicians eager to cut ribbons—it was a monstrosity combining huge costs, huge subsidies, huge environmental damage, and justifications hugely spurious. It never achieved its advertised electricity production goals even remotely, even as the excuses flowed like wine, as did the taxpayer bailouts.

And now, despite all the subventions, it is shutting down about 15 years early as a monument to green fantasies financed with Other People’s Money, inflicted upon electricity ratepayers in California denied options to escape the madness engendered by “climate” hysteria supported by no actual evidence.

The performance was so bad that PG&E, not exactly known as a carefully operating entity (lots of wildfires started due to negligence), terminated the contract. So, it’s closing 15 years early. And will soon be rusting in the desert.

Anyhow, now we wait for Democrat friendly judge to demand the Trump DOE spend the money willy nilly.

Read: Energy Secretary Says Not Moving Forward With New “Green” Loans »

Posted in Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

NPR To Sue Trump Over Defunding EO

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 1:48 pm

You’ll never guess why

Nothing says journalistic independence like getting handouts with taxpayer money from the government, eh?

Read: NPR To Sue Trump Over Defunding EO »

Posted in Barking Moonbats | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 1:00 pm

…is an area flooded by too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Gates Of Vienna, with a post on Sweden going boom again.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Consequences: DOJ Sues Colorado And Denver For Interfering With Immigration Enforcement

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 10:30 am

The Trump admin should send all the illegals they’ve picked for deportation and hold them in Denver while awaiting repatriation

Trump administration sues Colorado and Denver for allegedly interfering in immigration enforcement

The Department of Justice sued Colorado and Denver on Friday for allegedly interfering with federal efforts to enforce immigration laws, the latest attempt by the Trump administration to crack down on what some call sanctuary cities and policies.

The lawsuit claims the state and its most populous city, Denver, have passed “sanctuary laws” violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“The United States has well-established, preeminent, and preemptive authority to regulate immigration matters,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Denver. (snip)

Justice Department attorneys argue Colorado’s “sanctuary policies” allowed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to seize control of an apartment complex in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

Local officials have called Trump’s claims that the gang had taken over large swaths of the city exaggerated, but acknowledged the apartment complex was terrorized, including by people linked to Tren de Aragua.

Friday’s lawsuit lists as defendants Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, the state Legislature, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

Well, this should be fun. And more fun is how the AP and other media outlets are suddenly fine with cities and states working against federal immigration enforcement. Remember when they went to bat for the Obama admin shutting down Arizone’s SB1070, the “show me the papers” law?

Meanwhile, Peak TDS

It’s a straight video, nor article, but, has this little blurb

US President Donald Trump is pressuring the Mexican government to crack down on Mexican cartels, blaming them for fomenting America’s drugs crisis. He’s threatened tariffs and even military strikes. Mexico has sent hundreds of troops to the state of Sinaloa, where a war rages between two factions of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, putting civilians at risk. CNN’s Isobel Yeung visits the region – speaking to a member of the Sinaloa cartel, meeting families impacted by the violence and seeing the work soldiers are doing to destroy drug production in the rural countryside.

CNN has seriously made the infighting between a violent, deadly, destructive cartel about Trump.

Read: Consequences: DOJ Sues Colorado And Denver For Interfering With Immigration Enforcement »

Posted in Democrats, Donald Trump, Illegal Immigration | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Climahysteric Groups Say They Will Publish Work Of ‘Climate” Scientists Fired By Trump

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 7:00 am

Well, see now, they can do it on their own, rather than on the taxpayer dime

After Trump dismisses hundreds of scientists working on climate report, two groups say they’ll publish their work

climate doom yearly

Wait, I don’t have global heating on here?

After the Trump administration dismissed nearly 400 scientists who compile the nation’s major quadrennial report on the impacts of climate change in the U.S., two scientific groups announced a plan to publish a special collection focused on the subject to ensure the scientists’ work can be accessed.

The American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest association of earth and space scientists, and the American Meteorological Society, the professional society for atmospheric and related sciences and services, announced they would be inviting climate scientists and researchers to submit their work for what they said would be a “first of its kind” collection.

The groups say their collection isn’t meant to replace the National Climate Assessment, but would complement it, since the dismissal of hundreds of scientists suggests that the next National Climate Assessment may not be as extensive as the previous ones. The Trump administration is legally obligated to produce the assessment, but the White House told CBS News that it’s evaluating the scope of the assessment that it will publish. (snip)

The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society told CBS News in an email that their new effort will be a “collection of scientific papers from across multiple journals that address a particular topic,” and the focus on the collection will be climate change in the United States.

Well, have at it. Of course, it won’t have the backing of the federal government, the stature, the force, which is what they really want. They want their names on it with the government saying “you lower level governments need to do X, whether your citizens want it or not.”

Read: Climahysteric Groups Say They Will Publish Work Of ‘Climate” Scientists Fired By Trump »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

Crazy Judge Orders Trump Admin To Start Paying For Legal Help For Illegal Children

By William Teach May 3, 2025 – 6:45 am

Of course, these children have to be found first, since the Biden admin shipped them all over and didn’t keep track of them

Congress considers ending legal help for migrant children after judge orders restart

Just before a judge ordered it to do so, the Trump administration agreed to resume paying for attorneys for migrant children who come to the United States alone.

But groups that have been struggling to keep such unaccompanied children from being deported said the legal help is still in jeopardy under a Republican proposal put forward in a House committee Wednesday.

“I have been doing this work for a very long time, and what I read in this bill took by breath away,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense. “This bill not only makes it impossible for children to access protection in the United States, but it would make the government responsible for putting children in even more compromised and dangerous conditions.”

The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the House Judiciary Committee, which considered the measure, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin, in California’s Northern District, issued a preliminary injunction late Tuesday ordering the administration to resume the money for the legal assistance, which it had stopped in March.

Pretty nice scam: Democrats open the border, entice parents to send their kids on long, dangerous journeys to America, then left wing groups get tons of taxpayer money to represent the kids, in an attempt to make sure they do not get deported and that their parents are then brought to the US. Was this money appropriated specifically by Congress? Or, was it just open money given to federal agencies who then gave it to these private companies with zero oversight?

But how long the funding will last could depend on what Congress does in the budget legislation currently being written. The measure considered by the House committee would omit money for attorneys for unaccompanied children, which Congress has paid for since 2009, according to immigration and anti-trafficking groups that reviewed the legislation, attorneys with the groups said.

But, I’m not seeing any line items specifically for this. Regardless

The measure also proposed a number of fees that would charge unaccompanied children and their parents or guardians whom they could end up with in the United States. They included $5,000 for arriving at the border between legal ports of entry, as well as sponsorship fees of up to $8,500.

Why should the US taxpayers foot the bill? If lawyers want to represent them let it come from donations from the open borders groups. Or pro-bono. But, really, at this point, the number of arrivals at the border is extremely low, so, there aren’t many unacompanied kids showing up, because the parents have been told “border’s closed, don’t come.)

Read: Crazy Judge Orders Trump Admin To Start Paying For Legal Help For Illegal Children »

Posted in Illegal Immigration, Liberal World | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

DOJ Sues Several Democrat States Of Climate Scam Policies

By William Teach May 2, 2025 – 4:48 pm

I’m not sure how I feel about this: if it is not a power expressly delegated to the federal government than it is reserved for the States and the People, and, if they want to do stupid cult stuff, that’s on them. But, is this something that would be part of the duties of Los Federales? Let’s take a look

Justice Department sues Hawaii, Michigan, Vermont and New York over state climate actions

The U.S. Justice Department filed lawsuits against four states this week, claiming their climate actions conflict with federal authority and President Donald Trump’s energy dominance agenda.

The DOJ on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan over their plans for legal action against fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change. On Thursday, the DOJ sued New York and Vermont, challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.

“These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement, noting the office hopes to stop “these illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.”

The DOJ lawsuits, which legal experts called unprecedented, mark the latest of the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental work and raises concern over states’ abilities to retain the power to take climate action without federal opposition.

The DOJ’s four filings said the state efforts undermine the federal government while “increasing energy costs and disrupting the national energy market.” It said the states’ plans and policies are unconstitutional, violate the federal foreign affairs power and are preempted by the Clean Air Act — a federal law authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions.

Now, since fossil fuels mostly come into those states from other states/nations, that would be part of Article I section 8 “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” If those states want to do deal with companies that take fossil fuels from the ground in the state and sell it in the state without the product ever leavign the state, than, sure, lawsuits. If they want to deal with product come from outside the state? The power of Los Federales.

The DOJ argued the act “creates a program for regulating air pollution in the United States and ‘displaces’ the ability of States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders.”

OK, that gives me a hearty laugh, because the Trump DOJ just used the Democrats own words against them, in that the climate cult Dems have stated that the law gives sole power to the federal government.

“This lawsuit is at best frivolous and arguably sanctionable,” Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement Thursday. Nessel noted that Michigan hasn’t yet filed its lawsuit, but confirmed her intent to, and said the White House and the oil industry “will not succeed in any attempt to preemptively bar our access to make our claims in the courts.” A spokesperson for Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office deferred to Nessel when asked for comment.

I have a solution: ban the sale of all fossil fuels in your states. That is your power. Which would mean that all you Elites, like Nessel, Whitmer, and the others from the affected states, would have to stop taking all those fossil fueled flight and SUV trips. Whitmer’s husband wouldn’t be able to use his fossil fueled boat. Real shame, eh?

Read: DOJ Sues Several Democrat States Of Climate Scam Policies »

Posted in Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach May 2, 2025 – 1:00 pm

…is a sea that is rising dozens of feet a year because Other People won’t ride the train, you might just be a Warmis

The blog of the day is Legal Insurrection, with a post on eco-terrorism by Palestinians in Israel.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Heartache: Trump Signs EO To End Government Funding Of PBS And NPR

By William Teach May 2, 2025 – 10:30 am

Oh, yeah, this is causing category 5 moonbattery

President Trump orders Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for NPR and PBS

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for America’s two biggest public broadcasters, which have faced a series of attacks from the White House and Republican lawmakers accusing them of biased reporting.

The order instructs the CPB’s board to terminate direct funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to the “maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.” It also orders the board to take steps to “minimize or eliminate” indirect funding to NPR and PBS.

The executive order also directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate NPR and PBS for possible employment discrimination, and it instructs the heads of all other federal agencies to “identify and terminate” any direct or indirect funding of the media organizations, as allowed by the law.

The order follows previous attacks on the public broadcasters by the Trump administration and prominent Republicans.

Each year, the CPB disperses $535 million in taxpayer funds to public radio and TV stations nationwide, stations provide free and universal access to educational shows, emergency alerts and a wide array of news and cultural content.

Republicans have been attacking both stations long before Trump won back in 2016, as they are a government funded propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and ever Progressive idea there is. Here are two Americans commenting about NPR at Quora

I listen to NPR all the time because it’s a great source of current event news (pretty much the only one on my drive to work) and has no ads. To me though, the liberal bias is pretty obvious. If you don’t see it, it’s because they are simply confirming your own biases. One thing that comes to mind immediately is that every 3rd story is about transgender or other identity politics issue. I’m not saying all these stories are completely one sided, but the selection of topics itself is skewed. They can’t even review TV shows, or new seasons, without talking about the fraction of minority, gay, transgender characters. These are not things that non-liberals care or think much about. A hugely disproportionate number of stories also end up blaming whatever problem they are talking about on climate change. I see it coming and roll my eyes every time. Science Friday seems to circle around to “what to do about climate deniers” every few months.

Of course it does. When I was younger, my college friends and I called it National Pinko Radio. And we loved it!

As someone who has listened to NPR for decades, I can assure you that NPR indeed has a liberal bias. NPR’s biases show up in their reporting, in their interview subjects, and most of all in their story selection. Given their largely liberal audience and overwhelmingly liberal reporting and editorial staff, it would be amazing if they didn’t have a liberal bias.

I remember NPR being far left all the way back in my college days in the 80s. Let me reverse this: if NPR was akin to Breitbart or The Blaze, would Democrats be trying to pull government funding? Of course they would. Would they be saying that the government should not be funding propaganda with taxpayer appropriations? Of course they would. And PBS has gone pure Woke, as well. Having drag queens on programing for children, gays and lesbians for Sesame Street (there shouldn’t be any sexuality of any type on children’s shows), raaaaacism, reparations, every Progressive agenda.

It was a mistake creating this back in 1970, it’s not what the government should be doing, having broadcasts with government propaganda. If liberals want to give their own money to the two, have at it.

Congress specifically set up the corporation as a private entity “to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control,” according to a law passed in 1967. The legislation expressly forbids the government from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting.”

Except, anything created by Congress and funded via taxpayer money appropriated by the federal government should, in fact, be under the purview of the federal government. That’s their freaking job. Obviously, liberals will sue and a left wing judge will tell Trump to fund them, regardless of what the law says.

Read: Heartache: Trump Signs EO To End Government Funding Of PBS And NPR »

Posted in Donald Trump, Government | 18 Comments | Trackback URL

Trump Admin Ends Biden Era Lawsuit Against Ranching Family

By William Teach May 2, 2025 – 7:00 am

The Biden admin decided they would be the lords of the people. The Trump admin wants to protect The People from the government. This opinion piece is written by Brooke L. Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture

Brooke Rollins: USDA Ends a Biden Administration Injustice

Fifth-generation ranchers Charles and Heather Maude make their living raising cattle and hogs on the wide plains of western South Dakota. Since 1907, Charles’s family has been on the land where they now farm thousands of acres.

Twenty-five acres of their property run alongside the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, administered by the U.S. Forest Service—unfortunately for the Maudes, with a poorly demarcated boundary between the national grasslands and their property.

The Maudes never worried much about it: In an informal agreement, the Forest Service allowed their cattle to graze, and they assumed in good faith that a process was under way to survey the land and establish clear boundaries.

Their good faith wasn’t matched by the federal government’s. Last year, the Biden administration’s Forest Service surveyed the boundary—without informing the Maudes of the outcomes or even the process—and then shortly thereafter accused them of “theft of government property.” For reasons unknown, the pitiless federal bureaucracy bent itself toward the destruction of a hardworking and upstanding family. That’s the bad news.

Well, of course they did. Government bureaucrats already like to throw their weight around: during the Biden admin they felt even more empowered, and thought no one would stop them

The good news is that while the Maudes had no immediate recourse for this roughshod treatment under the Biden administration, the Trump administration sees its role as representing rather than ruling Americans.

As agriculture secretary, I have a responsibility to enact the president’s will in policy and practice. And as an American entrusted with the stewardship of governance, I have a responsibility to defend my fellow Americans’ liberties.

Funny how Democrats say Trump is the Fascist, yet, it was Biden (and most Democrats) who actually tried to act as a ruling class, in direct opposition to the meaning of the Constitution

That’s why I am stepping in and ordering an end to the legal pursuit of the Maudes by the Forest Service and any other branch of USDA. The federal government has dropped all civil and criminal charges against the Maude family. I am also ordering that all USDA pursuits of other Americans in similar situations be immediately halted. Meanwhile, we are investigating how and why this wrongful persecution of an American ranching family ever occurred.

Bureaucratic unaccountability has been a byword in American politics, from lives ruined in the name of public health and lost wars to needless prosecutions and beyond.

Rollins has her work cut out, and I hope she succeeds. I also hope that the Maudes will be reimbursed for all the money they have wasted in fighting the feds.

Read: Trump Admin Ends Biden Era Lawsuit Against Ranching Family »

Posted in Current Affairs, Government | 3 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove